Wits, not bombs: North Korea, U.S.S. Pueblo, continued

February 16, 2009

Is it time?  Is there any chance we could bring the Pueblo home?

Regular readers here probably know of my admiration for the resistance put up against North Korea (NPRK) by the captive crew of the U.S.S. Pueblo during their 11 months’ imprisonment in 1968.

In a recent comment to a post I did back in 2006, a reader named Bob Liskey offered an interesting, and rational way by which NPRK could demonstrate lasting good faith in negotiations with the U.S., especially over the state of their energy generation and nuclear weapons production:

We made every effort to avoid the catastrophe of a second Korean War and the use of nuclear weapons such a war. Much better and saner than a RAMBO approach.

At this point in time, I would like to see the OBAMA administration suggest to NK that if they really want to improve and normalize relations with the USA then they ought to return the USS PUEBLO as a clear intent to improve and normalize relations. I would like to see the USS PUEBLO returned to the USA and docked at SAN DIEGO as a memorial to the crew and DUAYNE HODGES and those who undertake secret and dangerous missions on behalf of the USA.

Mr. Liskey offered several other chunks of history of the incidents in 1968 you may want to read, including just how close we were to the brink of using nuclear weapons to retaliate against NPRK, an issue that is not much discussed elsewhere, I think.  Interesting reading.

What’s Bill Richardson doing this week?  Since he’s not on track to be Secretary of Commerce, maybe we could borrow him to establish a pillar of world peace in North Korea, instead?

Mr. President?  Sec. Clinton?  Do you ever drop down into the Bathtub?  What about Bob Liskey’s suggestion?

3 Comments | 1968, Heroes, History, Korea, Nuclear Nonproliferation, Nuclear power, Nuclear weapons, Peace, President Obama, USS Pueblo, Vietnam, War | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Somebody get that on tape: August 4, 1964, and the Dallas Symphony

September 22, 2008

The piece just premiered — I hope some lucky recording company has the good sense to take the tapes of the Dallas Symphony’s performances this past week, and release them quick.

“August 4, 1964,” is an oratorio covering a remarkable and fantastic coincidence in the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.  On that day, the bodies of three civil rights workers who had been missing for nearly seven weeks, were found in shallow graves near Philadelphia, Mississippi — they were the victims of violence aimed at stopping blacks from voting.  The incident was a chief spur to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

And also on that day, the U.S.S. Maddox reported it had been attacked by gunboats of the North Vietnamese Navy, in the Gulf of Tonkin.  The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson the authority to expand and escalate the war in Vietnam, which he did.

The Dallas Symphony commissioned the work, from composer Steven Stucky and librettist Gene Scheer, in commemoration of President Johnson’s 100th birth anniversary — he would have been 100 on August 27.

The music is outstanding, especially for a modern piece.  The Dallas Symphony was at its flashiest and most sober best, under the baton of new conductor Jaap van Zweden.  It was a spectacular performance.  According to the New York Times:

Mr. van Zweden, hailed in his debut as music director a week before, scored another triumph here. And the orchestra’s assured and gritty performance was rivaled by that of the large Dallas Symphony Chorus, both corporately and individually, in shifting solo snippets charting the course of the fateful day.

The strong cast, mildly amplified, was robustly led by the Johnson of Robert Orth, last heard as another president in John Adams’s “Nixon in China” in Denver in June. Laquita Mitchell and Kelley O’Conner, wearing period hats, were touching as Mrs. Chaney and Mrs. Goodman. Understandably, the taxing role of a high-strung McNamara took a small toll on the tenor of Vale Rideout in his late aria.

The entire thing deserves more commentary, perhaps soon.  There is stellar history in the choral piece.  And there is this:  Consider that Lyndon Johnson, the best legislator and second most-effective executive we ever had as president, got hit with these two crises the same day.  On the one hand the nation got the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, executive orders and government support to end segregation and the evils it created.  On the other hand, we got stuck with the disaster of the Vietnam War.

How would the nation fared had a lesser person been in the White House on that day?

4 Comments | Art, Civil Rights, Desegregation, Government, History, Lyndon B. Johnson, Music, Politics, Vietnam, Voting Rights Act | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Need your help: Call Bush, tell him to let veterans vote

August 14, 2008

The thing with the flag? That was sorta funny. It was meant as humor.

This isn’t funny: The Bush administration is actively working to stop injured and ill veterans in Veterans Administration facilities from registering to vote.

These actions are most likely violations of the Voting Rights Act (under Section 2, or Section 11 – not my area of expertise, alas), but don’t expect Bush’s Justice Department to prosecute. These actions violate the VA’s own rules on helping veterans to vote. More pragmatically, there isn’t time for a big fight before the election. Veterans will be stopped from voting unless there is action now.

There is an easier, simpler solution — though we’re late. Bush should just rescind the order, encourage all veterans to vote, and help voter registration drives and attempts to get absentee ballots injured and ill veterans in VA facilities.

Susan Byseiwicz is Connecticut’s Secretary of State, the person charged with making sure the state’s voting system works. Among other things, she tries to get people to register to vote:

WHAT is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking? On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.

I have witnessed the enforcement of this policy. On June 30, I visited the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Conn., to distribute information on the state’s new voting machines and to register veterans to vote. I was not allowed inside the hospital.

Outside on the sidewalk, I met Martin O’Nieal, a 92-year-old man who lost a leg while fighting the Nazis in the mountains of Northern Italy during the harsh winter of 1944. Mr. O’Nieal has been a resident of the hospital since 2007. He wanted to vote last year, but he told me that there was no information about how to register to vote at the hospital and the nurses could not answer his questions about how or where to cast a ballot.

Just a minor glitch, an information vacuum waiting to be filled? Go back and reread the last sentence in her second paragraph: “I was not allowed inside the hospital,” to register veterans to vote, she said.

Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, and I wrote to [Veterans Affairs] Secretary [James B.] Peake in July to request that elections officials be let inside the department’s facilities to conduct voter education and registration. Our request was denied.

The department offers two reasons to justify its decision. First, it claims that voter registration drives are disruptive to the care of its patients. This is nonsense. Veterans can fill out a voter registration card in about 90 seconds.

Second, the department claims that its employees cannot help patients register to vote because the Hatch Act forbids federal workers from engaging in partisan political activities. But this interpretation of the Hatch Act is erroneous. Registering people to vote is not partisan activity.

If the department does not want to burden its staff, there are several national organizations with a long history of nonpartisan advocacy for veterans and their right to vote that are eager to help, as are elected officials like me.

The department has placed an illegitimate obstacle in the way of election officials across the country and, more important, in the way of veterans who want to vote.

Read the rest of her plea, which was carried in the New York Times last Monday, August 11.

And then take action. Bills have already been filed in Congress to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to allow veterans in its hospitals to register and vote. Frankly, time is running out. Many of these veterans will have to vote absentee — they need to be registered and have about a month to get the ballots and mail them back. There are 82 days to the election. Time is short.

So: Call George Bush and tell him to let veterans in hospitals register, and vote. George’s phone number for comments is 202-456-1111; if for any reason that does not work for you, try the general switchboard at 202-456-1414. Tell Bush I said to say “Howdy.”

The White House won’t put you through to George, but they will tally your opinion. If they give you a hard time, ask them: Why is George Bush afraid of the votes of wounded and ill veterans?

Ready to do more to support our veterans? Call the Secretary of Veterans Affairs: [::grumble:: Just try to find a general phone number for VA. Still looking. It appears the Secretary of Veterans Affairs doesn’t give a damn about veterans — they can’t call him, you can’t call him either. Still looking.]

Or you may write Sec. Peake at his office:

The Honorable James B. Peake
Secretary
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20420

I do not recommend on-line messages, since they clog a bureaucracy that should be helping veterans, but VA does not make it easy to contact them. If you wish to write an electronic message to the VA, try here.

“The federal government should be doing everything it can to support our nation’s veterans who have served us so courageously. There can be no justification for any barrier that impedes the ability of veterans to participate in democracy’s most fundamental act, the vote,” Sec. of State Byseiwicz said.

Absolutely.

This is no small group. Veterans in hospitals are numerous enough to swing elections in many districts, and nationally. They fought for our nation, and they deserve to have their voices heard, and their votes registered.

In her request, [California Secretary of State Debra] Bowen cited a 1994 executive order by President Bill Clinton requiring federal agencies to undertake the responsibility of registration when asked to do so by state election officials. A spokeswoman for Ms. Bowen said she was considering litigation.

More than 100,000 people reside for a month or longer at the V.A. campuses nationally, a number that has grown in recent years as more soldiers return wounded from the war.

In California, the federal Department of Veterans Affairs runs eight major medical centers and 11 nursing homes that provide care for more than 200,000 veterans.

What would George Washington do?

More resources:

Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches From the Culture Wars.

2 Comments | Citizenship, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Government, History, Patriotism, Politics, veterans, Vietnam, Voting Rights Act, World War I, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

No one believes it. Is it so?

August 9, 2008

One of the great mysteries of history is how an entire nation of people can follow a leader into tragedy — a stupid war, economic morass, cultural suicide, genocide, or other tragedy — without appearing to notice they were going against their national values, against reason, against morality.

I wonder if part of the answer can be found by studying the way our brains perceive things, in particular, the way our brains force us to see things that are not so.

Some things are just so unbelievable, our brains tell us we’re seeing something different, something more believable. Here are two examples, the Charlie Chaplin mask illusion, and the Einstein mask illusion.

Chaplin — you know it’s concave, but the nose sticks out every time:

Einstein — is Big Brother really watching you? What do your eyes say?

Here’s a nasty little kicker: Even when most people know that it’s an illusion, they can’t perceive the illusion-in-action; as Paul Simon wrote, “Still a man sees what he wants to see and he disregards the rest.” See Stephen Fry’s discussion about the illusion from BBC2:

Historical applications

  • CIA chief William Colby was involved in Operation Phoenix during the Vietnam War. When investigations revealed that the operation involved torture, many people refused to believe the U.S. would be involved in torture (good!). And even after he admitted to Congressional committees that he had personally authorized the torture, people had difficulty believing it. David Wise wrote an article about Operation Phoenix for the New York Times Magazine, July 1, 1973: “Not one of Colby’s friends or neighbors, or even his critics on the Hill, would, in their wildest imagination, conceive of Bill Colby attaching electric wires to a man’s genitals and personally turning the crank. “Not Bill Colby… He’s a Princeton man.'”
  • “[T]he Russians are finished. They have nothing left to throw against us,” a confident Adolf Hitler told Gen. Franz Halder in July 1941. Russia mired down the German army, making the phrase “the Eastern Front” a dreaded death sentence in German commands. In the end, it was the Soviet Army that first got to Berlin, and captured Hitler’s command bunker where der Führer had committed suicide a short time before. Adding to the historic irony, twice over: First, Stalin refused to believe his intelligence service reports that the Nazis were massing on the border of Russia, just two years after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which pledged neither nation would invade the other. Second, Hitler’s generals had studied Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812, working to avoid all the mistakes Napoleon made. So sure were the Nazis of their superiority to Napoleon in every way, they invaded Russia on the anniversary of Napoleon’s invasion, June 22, 1941. Great shades of Santayana’s Ghost!
  • Bush administration historians will wonder why Bush was able to do what he did, in the Iraq war and other situations foreign and domestic, with even members of his own party who saw him close up believing he’d do something different. See this story by Ron Susskind, “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George Bush,” New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004.
  • The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, based on an incident in the Gulf of Tonkin near Vietnam.  (See also documents from the National Security Agency archives.)
  • Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Richard Feynman discussed at length how scientists know their experimental results are accurate, and how to keep science honest. He pointed out that most of the time, errors creep in at the start, and some people just refuse to believe they exist. It is easiest to fool ourselves, Feynman said — and so a good scientist understands that, and protects against self-deception. If only other disciplines could adopt that philosophy, strategy and tactics!

Faith can get us through troubled times, but often gets us into troubled times in the first place.

Do you have other examples of self-delusion by illusionary means?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Vous Pensez.

Leave a Comment » | Brain learning, History, Politics, psychology, Reason, Santayana's ghost, Scams, Science, Science and faith, Vietnam, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame lesson plans

July 16, 2008

Just found this source, courtesy of Woodlands High School’s James Rowland:  Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Summer Teacher Institute lesson plans.

Seriously.  Consider these:

  • Lesson 2: Langston Hughes and the Blues
  • Lesson 4: The Vietnam War: A Popular Music Approach
  • Lesson 9: Woody Guthrie and The Grapes of Wrath
  • Lesson 27: I Went to the Crossroads: The Faust Theme in Music, Film and Literature
  • Lesson 30: Trouble for the United States in the Middle East: The Reagan-Bush Years

2 Comments | History, History and art, History audio sources, Lesson plans, Museums, Music, Vietnam | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

1968: Tet Offensive, Eddie Adams’ Pulitzer

February 1, 2008

In that momentous, often terrible year of 1968, February 1 found the offensive in full swing by the National Liberation Front forces (NFL, or Viet Cong) across South Vietnam. The “General Uprising” kicked off on January 30, the beginning of Tet, the Vietnamese new year celebration (Tet is based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar, shifting from year to year; in 2008 the first day of Tet is February 7). News was just beginning to hit the U.S., in the days before videotape from the field and easy satellite uplinks.

On February 1, 1968, Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams accompanied a South Vietnamese police team trying to clear part of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) of Viet Cong; Adams put his camera up to aim as police chief General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan put a gun to the head of a man suspected of being part of the NFL, Nguyễn Văn Lém. Adams clicked the shutter coincidentally as the police chief fired the gun, killing the suspect.

The haunting photo won Adams the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography. It is an icon of 20th century war and the inhumanity of war (see Sherman’s comments, “war is hell”). Both for copyright and sensitivity reasons, I only link to a copy of the photo.  WARNING, POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE MATERIAL:  See the photo at the bottom of this column.

The photo ruined the life of Gen. Nguyễn. Adams wrote in Time Magazine:

The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.

What the photograph didn’t say was, ‘What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American people?’

Adams continued to photograph Southeast Asia. Before his death in 2004, he said he wished he would be remembered for photographs of Vietnamese boat people being pushed out to sea by the Thai Navy, rather than being offered refuge by the Thais. Adams’ photographs of the boat people caught the ire of people around the world and led President Jimmy Carter to grant asylum to the refugees.

Resources:

Eddie Adams' Pulitzer Prize-winning photo from the 1968 Tet Offensive

Via Wikipedia and BBC. Wikipedia caption: Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes Viet Cong Captain Nguyen Van Lem: February 1, 1968. This Associated Press photograph, “General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon,” won a 1969 Pulitzer prize for its photographer Eddie Adams. Film also exists of this event, but owing to the more graphic nature of the film, the photograph is more widely known.

 

3 Comments | 1968, History, History images, Vietnam, War | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas teachers: 9th Legacies Dallas History Conference, January 26

January 20, 2008

You’re not registered yet?

Students learn history best when it affects them directly, or when they can see the stuff close up. The Legacies Dallas History Conferences focus on history in and around Dallas, Texas. This is prime material for Texas and Dallas history, economics and government classes.

The 9th Annual Legacies Dallas History Conference is set for next Saturday, January 26, in the half-day from 8:30 a.m. to 1:10 p.m: “Dallas Goes to War: Life on the Homefront.” $40 for nine presentations — or $100 brings an invitation to schmooze with the presenters on Friday night, before the conference. The conference will be at the Hall of State at Fair Park. The conference was assembled by Dr. Michael V. Hazel.

If you’re teaching at a high school or middle school in the Dallas area, print this off for every social studies and English teacher at your school, and pass it out to them Tuesday (or Monday if you’re open then).

Nancy Harkness Love and Betty Huyler Gillies, first women to fly B-17, during WWII

Many of the conference presentations roll down that alley of a topic most Texas students need more of, the events around World War II. One session dives into Vietnam, one goes back to the Civil War, and World War I is remembered.

Bob Reitz, the public historian who curates the amazing Jack Harbin Museum of Scout History at Dallas’s Camp Wisdom, alerted me to the conference with a plug to his colleague’s presentation. Anita Mills-Barry will present her paper, “Homefront Scouting During World War II: Participation by Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in the Civilian Effort in Dallas County.”

A copy of the web invitation to the conference below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Capturing history, History, Museums, Texas, Texas history, Vietnam, War, World War I, World War II | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Stanton Sharp history teaching symposium at SMU, February 9

January 8, 2008

Tired of odd speakers trying to tell you about how boys learn differently from girls because of the size of the Crockus in their brain?

How about serious material to beef up your teaching: Vietnam, the Russian Revolution, Mexicans in U.S. history, Native Americans in the 20th century, use of the internet in history classes — three sessions, each with three classes to choose from.

Poster for session on Russian Revolution, Stanton Sharp Symposium at SMU, 2008

The history department at Southern Methodist University in Dallas offers solid education in serious history issues for teachers in colleges and secondary schools. The Stanton Sharp Teaching Symposium on Saturday, February 9 offers great material in nine different areas. Several of these topics seem to be pulled from the Texas Education Agency’s list of subjects that students need to do better on, for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).

Invitation below the fold. The $15 fee includes lunch; you may earn up to 7 hours of Continuing Education Units (CEU) credits.

(I plan to be there, and if you’re really interested in the Crockus and its scholars, I happen to have a photo of the elusive Crosley Shelvador on my cell phone — he appeared to have used one of those spray-on tanning solutions, but is otherwise real, as the photos show.)

Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | 1914-1918, Africa, America's founding, Ancient history, Cold War, Communism, History, Joseph Stalin, Lesson plans, Lessons of Vietnam, Richard M. Nixon, Russian Revolution, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, Vietnam, World history | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Petraeus vs. Westmoreland

September 22, 2007

Santayana’s ghost sends links: The Horse’s Mouth via The Good Democrat.

Who are these guys? What did they say?

Gen. William Westmoreland, circa 1967

Gen. David Petraeus, 2007

Left, Gen. William Westmoreland, testifying before Congress, circa 1967; right, Gen. David Petraeus, testifying to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, September 11, 2007

1 Comment | History, Iraq, Santayana's ghost, Vietnam, War, War on Terrorism | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: Lessons of Vietnam, according to David Petraeus

September 12, 2007

I lift this completely from Chris Bray’s post at Cliopatria:

Wise Words

“The Vietnam experience left the military leadership feeling that they should advise against involvement in counterinsurgencies unless specific, perhaps unlikely, circumstances obtain — i.e. domestic public support, the promise of a quick campaign, and freedom to employ whatever force is necessary to achieve rapid victory. In light of such criteria, committing U.S. units to counterinsurgencies appears to be a very problematic proposition, difficult to conclude before domestic support erodes and costly enough to threaten the well-being of all America’s military forces (and hence the country’s national security), not just those involved in the actual counterinsurgency.”

David Howell Petraeus, The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A study of military influence and the use of force in the post-Vietnam era. PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 1987. Page 305.

Dr. Petraeus is better known as Gen. Petraeus these days. Your assignment: Compare and contrast his statement from his dissertation with his testimony to Congress over the past two days. (Note the link above takes you to his actual dissertaion, in .pdf form.)

1 Comment | Accuracy, Iraq, Lessons of Vietnam, Santayana's ghost, Vietnam | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

August 7, 1964: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

August 7, 2007

August 7 is the 43rd anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the resolution which authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to move troops into South Vietnam to defend U.S. interests.

The resolution passed Congress after what appeared to be attacks on two U.S. Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin.  At the time, and now, evidence is weak that such attacks took place.

Santayana’s ghost looks on in wonder.

Leave a Comment » | History, Lyndon B. Johnson, Presidents, U.S. Constitution, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, Vietnam, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

WSJ on oral histories: A hoax in the family line

August 6, 2007

Jay Gould told everybody he knew about his work recording the memories from the working people of Manhattan, real history. In 1942 he told The New Yorker of his work, and the phrase “oral history” leapt out of the story.

It was a great idea. But Gould made up everything about his work. At his death, friends discovered he left no oral histories behind.

It’s still a good idea, though, and it makes for good student project. Barry Weiss wrote a quick history of oral history for the Wall Street Journal last week. You can pull it off of JSTOR and use it as an introduction to the projects you assign to students.

You’ve never heard of him, but Robert Rush may be a modern-day Herodotus. Mr. Rush, who jokes that “he got his B.A. from the back of a Humvee,” is an oral historian with the U.S. Army. A retired command sergeant major who spent 30 years on active duty before getting his doctorate in history, Mr. Rush believes that recorded testimonies “can flesh out details that aren’t present in the paper histories.” In 2006, he was stationed in Iraq, where he spent seven months interviewing everyone from “engineers to bricklayers to military officers,” all with his handheld Olympus.

A century ago, historians might have laughed at Mr. Rush’s desire to spend time talking to construction workers. Today, the populist impulse is everywhere in the study of history.

Veteran interviews need to be done quickly for any veterans left from World War I, and for the few remaining veterans from World War II and Korea. There is a crying need for interviews of the women who performed the “Rosie the Riveter” work building airplanes, tanks, bombs, and other manufactured items, especially interviews of those women who worked in heavy industries and then went home to raise families when the men returned from foreign fronts. Rush got the soldiers while they were in Iraq — many of them are home now, and provide a source of oral history.

Veterans of Gulf War I, and Vietnam, have stories that need to be told and recorded. There is much to be done.

These stories would be perfect for podcasts, by the way.

Today, digital technology has allowed for every fisherman and every member of Parliament to immortalize their stories. With folks from all walks of life now making autobiographical podcasts, historians in the future will be presented with the issue of how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Storycorps, an ambitious national oral- history project whose results can occasionally be heard on NPR, does some of this sorting, providing a more structured opportunity for such recordings than YouTube. In soundbooths across the country, Americans can come in and record their stories for 40 minutes, which then get archived in the Library of Congress. David Isay, the founder of Storycorps, describes the act of listening to the voice as “an adrenaline shot to the heart.” The physical experience of hearing another’s words can bring an understanding that reading those words on a page simply cannot.

If you go to the Library of Congress Web site you can listen to Lloyd Brown, the last U.S. Navy veteran of World War I, who died earlier this year. On the 71-minute recording, which he made at age 103, Mr. Brown offers a confession for posterity. “I lied about my age; I told them I was 18,” he recalls in a Southern drawl. At 16, he couldn’t wait two years to join the Navy. “It was a matter of patriotism.” So says the voice from history.

Weiss’s story, in the on-line version, briefly linked to this blog last week, bringing in at least two readers. Alas for the blog, but good for readers, the links at the bottom of the page change. Follow what’s there, see what you find.

2 Comments | Capturing history, Historic documents, History, History audio sources, Korea, Vietnam, World War I, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

June 5, 1968: The day Bobby died

June 6, 2007

Jim Booth at Scholars and Rogues wrote about what the death of Bobby Kennedy meant to a 16-year old kid out to save the world from darkest North Carolina.

This is just the 39th anniversary of RFK’s death. Next year, 2008, will be the 40th, and will again feature an election in which the war-crippled lame duck president must be succeeded, and the early fields in both parties do not excite the incumbent party’s masses much.

But 1968 was a uniquely terrible year — we hope it was unique. One serious question is just how depressing will it be to hear the “40-years out” stories on the Pueblo crisis, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death, the riots, RFK’s death, the convention riots, the money-and-morale-and-morality sapping war (Vietnam, not Iraq — we hope), etc., etc.

And so Mr. Booth’s close is a potent challenge: To rededicate ourselves to the hopes we felt in the first half of 1968, to see the implementation of those hopes now, two generations later — despite the cynicism that wells up whenever we see anyone touted as a great hope of needed change in the country’s direction, or whenever great hopes are dashed to pieces, as they have been in Iraq.

And every June 5th I stop for a few moments and remember how I believed in what America could be once – try to get some of that belief back – and, to use an old Boomer chestnut, “keep on keeping on.”

And I ask Bobby to forgive me – and my generation – for failing to pick up his torch….

1 Comment | 1968, Campaigns, History, Lessons of Vietnam, Politics, Presidents, Radio, Vietnam, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Olio/Olla podrida/Mulligan stew/Stone soup

March 26, 2007

Here are some of the posts I’ve been thinking about over the past couple of days:

Iraq and Vietnam:  Writings by Hudson has been reading about LBJ and Vietnam.  Santayana’s ghost appreciates the exercise.

Camels in the Outback, camels in the dogfood:  Would you believe a million camels are feral in the Australian Outback?  And now, with a drought, it’s a problem.  The Coffee House alerts us.

What if everybody in your organization came to you for help? The Drawing Room tells us why you’d be wise to work for such a thing.

U.S. soldiers protest the war:  No, not the current war — African American soldiers protest the Filipino conflict.  Forgotten soldiers, forgotten war — you’d do well to reacquaint yourself with this chapter of U.S. history at Vox ex Machina.

Leaks about the incident that got us into the war:  No, not yet the Iraq war (see how you jump to conclusions?).  POTUS reflects on LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and the leaks and lack of intelligence that may have gotten us into a quagmire.

Earthquakes in Tornado Alley:  Tennessee Guy points to an article that wonders about the New Madrid Fault, and whether it is tensing up for “the Big One” to shake West Tennessee (and the rest of the Midwest), or it is going to sleep for a millennium.

Science and racism:  A collection of Darwin’s writings that touch on race and slavery, for your bookmark file.

Cool school libraries:  We’re not talking about air conditioning.

1 Comment | Charles Darwin, Civil Rights, Dissent, Education, Elections, Evolution, History, History blogs, Leadership, Lessons of Vietnam, Patriotism, Politics, Presidents, Public libraries, Santayana's ghost, Theodore Roosevelt, Vietnam, War, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Penetration however slight”: More on a good and noble hoax – the U.S.S. Pueblo

March 9, 2007

1968 brought one chunk of bad news after another to Americans. The year seemed to be one long, increasingly bad disaster. In several ways it was the mark of the times between the feel-good, post-war Eisenhower administration and the feel-good-despite-the-Cold-War Reagan administration. 1968 was depressing.

What was so bad? Vietnam manifested itself as a quagmire. Just when Washington politicians predicted an end in sight, Vietcong militia launched a nationwide attack in South Vietnam on the Vietnamese New Year holiday, Tet, at the end of January. Civil rights gains stalled, and civil rights leaders came out in opposition to the Vietnam war. President Johnson fared poorly in the New Hampshire primary election, and eventually dropped out of the race for the presidency (claiming he needed to devote time to making peace in Vietnam). Labor troubles roiled throughout the U.S., including a nasty strike by garbage collectors in Memphis. It didn’t help to settle the strike that the sanitation workers were almost 100% African American, the leadership of Memphis was almost 100% white, and race relations in the city were not so good as they might have been – the strike attracted the efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Martin Luther King, Jr. – who was assassinated there in early April. In response, riots broke out in 150 American cities.

More below the fold, including the key confession to “penetration.” Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | 1968, Dissent, Elections, Free speech, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Heroes, History, Hoaxes, Space exploration, Vietnam | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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