Harry Patch, 1898-2009

July 31, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under History, In Memoriam | Leave a Comment 

Two weeks ago I noted the passing of 113-year-old Henry Allingham, who, besides being the oldest man on Earth, was also the last founding member of the Royal Air Force and one of the last five veterans of "the war to end all wars" still living. At that time I mentioned that the four WWI vets who survived him were John Babcock, who was still in training with the Canadian Army in Britain by Armistice Day and never saw combat;  Frank Buckles, the last American vet who was a teenage ambulance driver on the Western Front in 1918; Claude Choules, who served in the British Navy and later moved to Australia, where he served in WWII; and Harry Patch, the last person to have witnessed up-close the horrors of trench warfare (as he did during the Third Battle of Ypres in which over a half-million men died in a few months in 1917).

Last Saturday, Harry Patch died at the age of 111. Like Allingham, he never spoke of the war until he became a centenarian and realized that he wanted to remind those living in the new millennium of the sacrifices made by his comrades so long ago.  The Associated Press issued an obituary which had its more graphic paragraphs cut by a number of newspapers, but which gives, when read in full, a good idea of why he said, time and again, that "those who led us to war should have been handed the guns and told to go and settle their differences among themselves."

Arachnophobia At The Watergate

July 31, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Humor, Nixon in the News, Watergate | Leave a Comment 

"Get back, you eight-legged freaks" – actor David Arquette’s ad-lib that inspired the title of the 2002 film Eight Legged Freaks, which was called Arach Attack in production

There was also the 1990 film Arachnophobia with Jeff Daniels. But both of these Hollywood epics somewhat pale in comparison with what transpiredthis week at the ever-newsworthy Watergate complex in Washington.

The management of the Watergate East, the oldest part of the building which houses co-ops (many of whose residents are on the elderly side), periodically sends a newsletter to those who live there.  The current issue, according to Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger of the Washington Post’s Reliable Source column, was rather on the alarmist side:

Nearly half of it, according to the reporters,

was devoted to a cautionary tale about public restrooms. In lurid detail, the building’s management described the tragic deaths of "three women in North Florida" — far from the Watergate, but knock on wood anyway — who took ill after visiting the same restaurant … where toxicologists later found "a small spider … the Two-Striped Telamonia (Telamonia Dimidiata)." Also, a Jacksonville lawyer died with "a puncture wound on his right buttock" after getting off a plane from Indonesia — and officials found spiders’ nests in the toilets of four planes!

"So please," Watergate management warned its residents, "before you use a public toilet, lift the seat to check for these creatures. It can save your life!" (Watergate toilets themselves were not implicated — but still!)

A scary tale indeed – poisonous Asian spiders imported into Florida (a state where many noxious species from abroad have made their home) and obviously ready to hitch rides on vehicles moving up I-95, perhaps to wreak havoc on the Washington tourist industry right around the Labor Day weekend.  It was definitely one of those situations where one pictures our President ripping off his jacket and shirt to display that big letter "O" so familiar from T-shirts hawked during Inauguration Week, and getting on the hotline to Spiderman (who’d naturally know how to handle a situation like this – indeed, might be able to cajole the creatures with an arachnoid version of beer diplomacy).

However, things weren’t quite as bad as the Watergate East management was reporting. Roberts and Argetsinger continue:

The story is completely bogus. It’s a well-traveled urban legend — the kind of tantalizing falsehood that circulates in e-mails forwarded from your mom — that has long since been debunked. Just Google "telamonia" and you’ll see.

The Watergate was not psyched to discuss this. "This was only for residents," said a woman in the management office who declined to give her name. "We realized that it was an Internet hoax, so we have sent another letter telling them that."

The telamonia is a real-life critter. But "it’s a jumping spider, found mostly in Burma or Himalayan regions," [Rick Vetter, a University of California-Riverside entomologist] said, "and no jumping spiders are known to be dangerous."

And so it is that the lavatories of America are not threatened by murderous critters that somehow got past Samuel L. Jackson (or whoever is now in charge of keeping such things off of planes). It’s true that our own brown recluse spider is a rather dangerous thing – I recently had to crush one that was stubbornly trying to invade my father’s house in Indiana – but it’s not known for its affinity for toilet seats. Spidey can go back to weathering the blasts of J. Jonah Jameson, in that happy land where daily newspapers are still thriving.

Pynchon In Nixonland

July 31, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Book Review, Culture, Nixon Administration, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Thomas Pynchon, the mystery man of modern American letters (though not exactly all that mysterious – his voice is, after all, a familiar one to regular viewers of reruns of The Simpsons), has a new novel out in about a week. Its title is Inherent Vice, and it’s his venture into detective fiction, in which, according to the early reviews, he brings his customary blend of hazy paranoia, eccentric characters, and goofiness alternating with high seriousness to the hard-boiled tradition of Hammett, Chandler and Ross Macdonald (who, of course, had some of their qualities in their own work).

Pynchon often writes in an historical setting. Much of V., his first book, takes place in pre-WWI Europe. Gravity’s Rainbow, his most acclaimed novel, sets its action in a hallucinatory Europe of WWII. Mason & Dixon features the adventures of the two famed Englishmen in the 1760s as they the line bearing their name, and Against The Day, his thousand-page 2006 opus, describes a plot occuring between the 1880s and 1919.  Inherent Vice is set in a past now much more distant than the Second World War was in 1973 when Gravity’s Rainbow appeared – the Los Angeles of 1970.  Yes, Pynchon, who reportedly lived in the LA suburb of Manhattan Beach in that time, is now giving his diverse readership a tale of the days of bell-bottoms and waterbeds. As Christopher Taylor reports in his review in tomorrow’s Guardian:

Although Doc [Sportello, the private-eye protagonist of Inherent Vice] himself is vague about what year it is, the novel is also located quite firmly during the run-up to Charles Manson’s trial, which started in June 1970. The murders committed by Manson’s followers are a well-worn symbol for the end of the 60s, and we’re encouraged to see Doc as a kind of anti-Manson, Manson’s non-evil double. Nixon and Reagan are much discussed too, making the book serve as a loose prequel to Vineland [Pynchon's 1990 novel set in Northern California] in which burned-out hippies and fascist cops get to grips with Reagan’s America. Yet the book’s most effective crushing-of-the-60s-dream scenes are more equivocal about who or what did the crushing than the plot’s top-down conspiracy suggests. Watching people in a record shop listening to rock’n'roll on headphones "in solitude, confinement and mutual silence", or passing through a town where old TV shows are endlessly reviewable, Doc gets glimpses of "how the Psychedelic Sixties, this little parenthesis of light, might close after all", with technology dispersing communality as much as aiding it.

This is not the first time the 37th President has shown up in Pynchon’s fiction. In 1972, the writer selected a quote from Joni Mitchell’s song "The Circle Game" to use as the epigraph to the final section of Gravity’s Rainbow (at that stage still titled Mindless Pleasures). Reportedly, his publisher could not secure permission to use the quote (which appeared in the advance galleys of the book), so at the last minute Pynchon inserted instead the single word "What?" and attributed it to RN (who also appears in the last pages of that book under the name Richard M. Zhlubb). 

No word yet on whether Spiro Agnew shows up in the new novel.

Correction: The Joni Mitchell song Pynchon quoted in the original text of Gravity’s Rainbow  was "Cactus Tree" from her first album rather than "The Circle Game," and the lines he used for an epigraph were:

She has brought them to her senses,
They have laughed inside her laughter;
Now, she rallies her defenses
For she fears that no one will ask her
For eternity
And she’s so busy being free

After The “Beer Summit”

July 31, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, News media, Nixon in the News, Obama administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon | 3 Comments 

It is now a little over twenty-four hours since the eminent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge (Mass.) Police Department sat down at a white lawn table on the South Lawn of the White House, joined by President Obama (with Vice President Biden acting as wingman, to broadly use a term of military and slacker lingo), in an effort to settle the differences that arose two weeks ago.

As most of the world knows – or at least that part of the world with access to cable and satellite TV – the incident that brought this meeting about occured on July 16 when Sgt. Crowley, answering a 911 report of a possible burglary, went to a house in Cambridge and found Prof. Gates in its foyer – quite naturally, since it was his own house. Gates, who had just struggled with a jammed front door (which was misinterpreted by a passerby who was the one who phoned 911), was in an irritated mood, and his conversation with the officer, when the latter asked for his identification, escalated to his arrest on a charge of disorderly conduct.

At first the incident was one for the inside pages of newspapers around the country and it took two days for all three network evening newscasts to run stories on it. But after extensive blogging and Twittering raised Prof. Gates’s arrest to the level of a national controversy, a reporter asked the President about it last week, at the very end of a press conference intended to focus exclusively on the health-care initiatives now in Congress. Since Obama is a onetime president of the Harvard Law Review who later taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for an even dozen years, it would have seemed logical for him to reply that, given his friendship with Gates (and his even closer friendship with Gates’s legal advisor Charles Ogletree, his onetime professor at Harvard Law), it would be inappropriate for him to comment for the moment. Instead, he offered the opinion that "the Cambridge police" (ie, Sgt Crowley) had acted "stupidly" in bringing Gates downtown.

This provoked a firestorm of criticism from law-enforcement professionals around the country, not to mention regular citizens. Starting on July 23, when Obama made his remarks, the Pew Research Center began conducting a poll to determine the president’s current levels of popularity and support. It found that the whites polled, especially those from a blue-collar background, strongly disapproved of Obama’s statement on the Gates case, by a two-to-one margin. Indeed, the overall percent of those polled who approved of Obama’s performance dropped from 53 percent among those polled on July 23 and 24 to 46 percent on July 25, the day that Obama walked into White House Press Secretary Robert Gates’s briefing to say that his words could have been better "calibrated."

Shortly after Obama’s effort to clarify his remarks, the White House announced that he had invited Prof. Gates and Sgt. Crowley to come down to the White House and have a friendly beer – the post-Y2K version of smoking the peace pipe, presumably. Reporters clamored to know just what potent potables, as Alex Trebek would put it, were going to be on tap. At first the White House announced that Obama would have a Budweiser, then changed that to a Bud Light – a Chief Executive has to beware of those extra calories, y’know. It was also reported that Sgt. Crowley would order a Blue Moon.

As for Prof. Gates, at first it was suggested that he might have a beverage other than beer – after all, these tweedy academic types are hard to tear away from their sherry and white wine. But then it was learned that he, too, would order a beer – a Red Stripe.

These choices provoked a new controversy. Budweiser is now owned by the Belgian conglomerate that brews Stella Artois. Blue Moon is a Belgian-style beer made in Colorado by the Coors company, nowadays owned by the Canadian firm Molson. And Red Stripe, the quintessential Jamaican beer, is now the property of a British company. Not an American owned-and-operated brew in the bunch. So, at the last minute, Prof. Gates one-upped his companions by ordering Sam Adams instead – a rather fitting choice, since that beverage is named for the "firebrand of the Revolution" who was also a Boston native.(Vice President Biden, perhaps rather prudently, requested a non-alcoholic brew.)

After the beers were duly sipped, Sgt. Crowley informed the reporters that he and Gates had "agreed to disagree" (or, as the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank put it, were no longer "at lagerheads") and the situation seemed to have settled down, as the media moved on to the latest phenomenon of the Obama era, the "cash for clunkers" program.

But it’s hard not to look at that longshot of professor, policeman, President, and Veep sitting at that little white table and think that the Republic has come a long way from Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, and James Farmer meeting JFK and LBJ at the White House. In those days the issue of race in America was as serious as it still is now, but nobody cared much about what was in the glasses of those men (and one woman, Dr. Dorothy Height, the only one still with us) when they met.

But this time, the President’s attempt to "cool down" a situation that was a hot one, to the degree it was hot, mainly because of Gates’s response to a policeman’s polite questioning, was slightly ham-handed from start to finish. Many columnists with a conservative reputation have weighed in, but it’s worth noting that the Wall Street Journal’s Thomas Frank, as liberal a punditas there is in the Fourth Estate, hit the nail on the head:

Conservatives won this round in the culture wars, not merely because most of the facts broke their way, but because their grievance is one that a certain species of liberal never seems to grasp. Whether the issue is abortion, evolution or recycling, these liberal patricians are forever astonished to discover that the professions and institutions and attitudes that they revere are seen by others as arrogance and affectation.

The “elitism” narrative routinely blind-sides them, takes them by surprise again and again. There they are, feeling good about their solidarity with the coffee-growers of Guatemala, and then they find themselves on the receiving end of criticism from, say, the plumbers of Ohio.

The Gates incident was a trap that could not have been better crafted to ensnare President Barack Obama, who is himself a loyal son of academia’s most prestigious reaches, and to whom it was immediately obvious, even without benefit of the facts, that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly” in the situation.

Mr. Obama’s way of backing out of his gaffe was just as telling: He invited Mr. Gates and the policeman who arrested him to the White House for a beer, the beverage so often a gauge of a politician’s blue-collar bona fides. One symbolic gesture, hopefully, can exorcise another.

But one has to wonder if it’s as simple as that. As NewsMax.com noted this week, the Pew poll showed Obama with a lower approval number than Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon or George W. Bush had at this point in their presidencies – and Nixon was presiding over a country deeply divided and polarized, while Bush was a half-year past a bitterly disputed election. None of these three rode into office on the wave of adultation that Obama enjoyed. He’ll have to move rather more carefully, and choose his words with greater forethought, if he wants to avoid getting mired in more controversies like the Gates one.

Laughing Matters

July 31, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Comedy, Humor | Leave a Comment 

So here I am, having just judged the Daily Show as having jumped the shark by substituting predictable polemic for snarky satire, posting yet another Daily Show clip for your comedy delectation.

So what’s up with that?  Was I hasty?  Did I jump…the gun? Or was I even —just possibly—possibly maybe— wrong?

In a word: No.

But, that said, here’s last night’s clever Moment of Zen:

Support Your Local Sharia

July 31, 2009 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, Cold War, Europe, Immigration, Islam, Islam and the West, Religion, Terrorism, War on Terror | 2 Comments 

It is pretty clear at this point that barring some kind of last minute reality check the Fairfax County (Virginia) Board of Supervisors will approve the Islamic Saudi Academy’s application for a special exemption this Monday, August 3rd.   This will enable the Saudi-funded madrasa to expand and plant even deeper roots in America’s backyard, teaching in the anti-democratic traditions of wahhabism.

It will happen despite the fact that neighboring home owners associations are opposed, the land use and legal issues argue against the school and would have been a death knell to any other application, and the academy in question has on many occasions failed to honor previous county agreements, not to mention state law.  

Oh, and the wise ones on the panel defiantly refuse to factor in the fact that the Saudi curriculum taught at ISA is filled with hateful things that most Americans would find repugnant – even dangerous.   We’re not talking about mere religious ideas.  What has been taught there in the past should have caused the powers that be to shut the place down years ago.

Interestingly, just a few days ago one of the academy’s past students – in fact, a former valedictorian and a young man voted “most likely to be martyred” (really) named Ahmed Omar Abu Ali – was resentenced to life in prison for plotting with al-Qaeda and trying to kill President George W. Bush.  As the cool song says: “I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.”  He graduated in 1999, bounced around for a bit and wound up in Saudi Arabia in 2002.

In his written confession, Abu Ali said: “It was decided that I would go [to the United States] and live a normal life [overtly] to keep attention away from me, marry a Christian woman, and at the same time I would prepare as best I could for operations.”  If all this seems decidedly inconsistent for someone who practices a religion of virtue and peace, bear in mind that there is an Islamic doctrine called taqiyya.  What it basically means is that deceit is a legitimate weapon when dealing with infidels (read: “We the People”).

Grasping the fact that our determined enemies will at times use monumental deceit to further their cause is imperative right now.   The members of the Fairfax County panel seem oblivious to this. More than a quarter of a century ago the board of supervisors denied a similar application by a Christian school, citing traffic concerns.   Of course, the traffic is much better now.  Right.

“I cannot put the safety of the American citizenry at risk,” said U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, when he handed down Abu Ali’s sentence.  Good call, your honor.  Now, would you ever consider becoming a county supervisor? 

Christopher Caldwell, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, has written a book called, Reflections On The Revolution In Europe.  In it he notes: “In the middle of the 20th century, there were virtually no Muslims in Western Europe.  At the turn of the 21st century, there were between 15 and 17 million.”  Now in many major European cities the most common baby names Mohamed, Ayoub, Hamza, etc.

He suggests that these Muslims have not assimilated, but rather have formed “a parallel society.”  And they are bringing anti-Semitism back big time.

“Imagine that the West,” Caldwell writes, “at the height of the Cold War, had received a mass inflow of immigrants from Communist countries who were ambivalent about which side they supported.  Something similar is taking place now.”

And it’s not just happening over there.

The expansion of the Islamic Saudi Academy may not seem to be that big of a deal to some and certainly the members of the board of supervisors see no threat in allowing them to get a better foothold.   But such things are, in fact, part of a pattern of denial and outright stupidity on the part of people who should be intelligent enough to know better. 

Convinced, though, of the liberal notion of “enlightened tolerance,” such political leaders are playing a dangerous game of mindless appeasement.   There is a growing subculture in this country, a network of nefarious groups sharing a common theo-political vision for taking over everything.  Operating under the aegis of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and so many others, they all say one thing, while doing another.  

Ignore what they say; watch what they do.

Their unmistakable goal is the dominance of Sharia-law in this country – the world for that matter.   In other words, they envision a political overthrow and remaking of everything we know, love, and hold dear as Americans.  And they are using the Bill of Rights and opportunities created by a systemic decrease in vigilance to gain ground toward their objective. 

I believe in the Christian faith.  I therefore do not believe in the tenets of Islam.  Nor am I into Buddhist doctrine.   I do, though, believe in religious liberty and free speech.  But what we are seeing is a case where religious liberty and free speech have become weapons in the hands of would-be terrorists and tyrants.  

I will defend with all my heart the right of any Muslim to pray and live according to the precepts of that faith.  I will also do all in my power to bear witness about Christianity in the free marketplace of ideas.  But if anyone, in the name of religion, or under its cloak, seeks the overthrow of the very system that grants us those freedoms, that’s where the line is drawn. 

Free speech ends with the cry of fire in a crowded theater.   Religious freedom ends when there is deception en route to coercion that would ultimately lead to an end of liberty for all.   And no municipality or government entity should deliberately ignore the toxicity of certain ideas that would undermine the Constitution.
 
What if the Ku Klux Klan wanted to put a school in Fairfax County?  How about if Kim Jong-il decided to put a nice North Korean institution in our backyard – fully funded?   I imagine such enterprises would not even get a hearing.   Why then the Saudis?  The wahhabism taught at the Islamic Saudi Academy should be every bit as objectionable to freedom-loving Americans as what some other enemy might espouse.  

But some might ask: What about “moderate” Muslims?   Well, as Bruce Bawer points out in his book, Surrender: Appeasing Islam – Sacrificing Freedom, “that while there are such things has moderate and liberal Christianity, there is no such thing as a moderate or liberal Islam.  Yes, there are millions of good-hearted individuals who identify themselves as Muslims and who have no enmity in their hearts for their non-Muslim neighbors and coworkers.  Some of these Muslims are religiously observant, some are not; but their moderation is not an attribute of the brand of Islam to which they officially subscribed but is, rather, a measure of their own individual character.” 

In other words, their moderation comes not from a particular interpretation or variant, but rather “they have chosen to put a certain distance between their own religious thought and practice and the strict tenets of institutional Islam.”

Those of us in Fairfax who oppose the expansion of the Islamic Saudi Academy will likely have to concede defeat this Monday. But in doing so we will long remember – at least until the next county election – where the supervisors stood on the issue.   Stay tuned.

It appears that many liberal-minded types want us to be more like Europe and their views may be ascendant these days, but those who see European-socialistic-democracy as a model for our future should pay attention to how it is being threatened by an enemy within. 

As Mr. Caldwell says in his new book about what is happening there, “When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture (Europe’s) meets a culture that is anchored, confident, and strengthened by common doctrines (Islam’s) it is generally the former than changes to suit the latter.”

Featured Articles — July 31, 2009

July 31, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Obamacare in Retreat By Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post
Yesterday, Barack Obama was God. Today, he’s fallen from grace, the magic gone, his health care reform dead. If you believed the first idiocy — and half the mainstream media did — you’ll believe the second. Don’t believe either.

The Waxman-Pelosi Follies By Kimberley Strassel, The Wall Street Journal
If anyone might have the right to revel in a bit of health-care schadenfreude, it’s John Dingell. Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman ought to feel lucky he’s foregone the pleasure.

Obama’s Amateurism and Incompetence By Thomas Sowell, RealClearPolitics
After many a disappointment with someone, and especially after a disaster, we may be able to look back at numerous clues that should have warned us that the person we trusted did not deserve our trust.

Sotomayor, Gates And Race By Stuart Taylor, National Journal
Sotomayor and Gates share a habit of drawing dubious lessons about race from their own experiences.

The Weight of China By Christopher Badeaux, The New Ledger
Antonin Scalia has this great observation which is far too often ignored because he rubs 60% of lawyers and 18% of the population at large the wrong way. Paraphrased, it goes something like this: We are very close to unique among nations for how we view our Constitution.

Tribal leaders hold the key to a peaceful solution in Helmand By Con Coughlin, Daily Telegraph
In the end, the war in Afghanistan will not be won by force of arms, but by the willingness of the warring factions to negotiate a political settlement. This essential truth might come as little comfort to the British soldiers who have spent the past month engaged in yet another desperate battle with the Taliban as part of "Operation Panther’s Claw".

America’s New Archivist

July 30, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under History, Obama administration, Presidential libraries | 3 Comments 

David S. Ferriero has been nominated by President Obama to be the 10th Archivist of the United States.  He is seen above in the Main Reading Room at the 5th Avenue and 42nd Street branch of the New York Public Library.  (Photo by Joyce Dopkeen for The New York Times.)

The President has nominated David S. Ferriero to be the Archivist of the United States.  The position was created in 1934 when Congress established the National Archives as an independent federal agency.    The thirteen presidential libraries will be part of his portfolio.  Mr. Ferriero will replace Allen Weinstein, who held the position from 2005 and resigned for reasons of health in December. During the interim, Deputy Archivist Adrienne Thomas served as Acting Archivist.

Mr. Ferriero comes to NARA from the New York Public Library where, since 2004, he has been Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research Libraries.  Previously he was the University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs at Duke University.  Thirty-one years earlier he began as a shelver in the Humanities Library at MIT; when he left there for Duke, he was the Associate Director for Public Services and Acting Co-Director of MIT’s Libraries.

Mr. Ferriero is a 1972 graduate of Northeastern University. When he was appointed to the NYPL position in ‘04, he sat down with Northeastern’s Alumni magazine:

Last September, David Ferriero was named the Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of the Research Libraries at the New York Public Library. David is responsible for the operations and overall management of the Research Libraries, including public service, cataloging, conservation, automation, and collection development. The Research Libraries annually serve 1.7 million people onsite and comprise four centers with combined collections containing 43 million items. David came to the NYPL from Duke University, where he is credited with bringing its libraries into the electronic age. Prior to joining Duke, David had a 31-year career with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries, which began as an NU co-op position.

Favorite memory:
A big easy chair beside one of the windows in Dodge Library. That was my favorite place to study.

Favorite courses:
I particularly enjoyed Shakespeare with Joe Westland and English Literature with Jane Nelson. I learned a lot from both of these courses, including the fundamentals of research. The professors were phenomenal.

Major influence:
If it hadn’t been for Nancy Caruso, an advisor in NU’s Co-op Department, my life would have been very different. During my sophomore year, Nancy sent me to an interview at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries. That was the start of my 31-year career at MIT. It was Nancy who first made the connection between my education major and working in libraries.

How NU prepared him for the future:
Northeastern provided an outstanding liberal arts education, which has served as the foundation for my career. It was through the co-op program that I was first introduced to libraries. Co-op is important in that it gives you the opportunity to develop competencies that you simply can’t get in the classroom.

The most interesting aspect of his job:
Research libraries today are focusing on how technology can transform the way we acquire, disseminate and create information. The New York Public Library is currently working with Google to determine if we can digitize our library. I am excited to be involved in that experiment.

The most challenging aspect of his job:
The New York Public Library is a huge organization with 89 libraries, 53 million items in the collection, and 3,000 people on staff. Working on such an enormous scale can be a challenge at times.

What motivates him and why:
The feeling that I can make a difference in organizations that are ready for a change, such as Duke University and the New York Public Library. I enjoy leading that change.

Greatest accomplishment:
The expansion and renovation of the libraries at Duke University.

Sen. Kerry Wants A Nixon To China Redux

July 30, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under China, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Senator John Kerry (D-MA) — writing at The Huffington Post — wants to strengthen Sino-American relations on climate change and to "change the world" again just as RN did 37 years ago:

When Richard Nixon first visited China back in 1972, his journey seemed far longer than the seven thousand miles that actually separate Washington from Beijing. He was bridging the gap between two worlds separated for a generation.

President Nixon understood that such a moment demanded a dramatic signal to drive home a new diplomatic reality. To do that, he chose a simple gesture, but one laden with meaning. Zhou Enlai, China’s premier, had nursed a grudge ever since Secretary of State John Foster Dulles refused to shake his hand back in 1954. And so, when Nixon walked out onto the tarmac in Beijing, he took several steps toward Zhou with his hand obviously, unmistakably outstretched. The message was clear — and powerful — and it marked a watershed in US China relations.

Annals Of The Obama Administration

July 30, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Annals of the Obama Administration | Leave a Comment 

The President announced today  this year’s recipients of America’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  He said: “These outstanding men and women represent an incredible diversity of backgrounds.  Their tremendous accomplishments span fields from science to sports, from fine arts to foreign affairs.  Yet they share one overarching trait: Each has been an agent of change.  Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way.”

2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom

* Nancy Goodman Brinker is the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s leading breast cancer grassroots organization.

* Pedro José Greer, Jr. is the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and Florida International University School of Medicine. He is also the founder of Camillus Health Concern, an agency that provides medical care to over 10,000 homeless and low-income patients each year in Miami.

* Stephen Hawking is an internationally-recognized theoretical physicist, and is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.

* Jack Kemp was a U.S. Congressman, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Republican Nominee for Vice President in 1996. He died in May 2009

* Sen. Edward Kennedy is one of the longest-serving and greatest Senators of all time. He has worked tirelessly for health care reform over the last five decades.

* Billie Jean King is known for winning the famous “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match, and championing gender equality issues not only in sports, but in all aspects of life.

* Rev. Joseph Lowery has been a leader of the civil rights movement since the 2950s, and co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. Martin Luther King.

* Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow is the last living Plains Indian war chief, and author of works on Native American history and culture who has served as an inspiration to young Native Americans across the country.

* Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected official from a major city in the United States. He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, and encouraged LGBT citizens to live their lives openly.

* Sandra Day O’Connor was a Supreme Court Justice from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. She was the first woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court, and has received numerous awards for her outstanding achievements.

* Sidney Poitier is an actor known for breaking racial barriers. He is the first African American to be nominated and win a Best Actor Academy Award.

* Chita Rivera is an actress, singer and dancer, who has broken barriers and inspired a generation of women. In 2002, she was the first Hispanic to receive the Kennedy Center Honor.

* Mary Robinson was the first female President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Since 2002, she has been the President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative.

* Janet Davison Rowley, M.D., is the Blum Riese Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology and Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. She discovered the first consistent chromosome translocation in a human cancer.

* Desmond Tutu is widely regarded as “South Africa’s moral conscience,” and was a leading anti-apartheid activist in South Africa.

* Muhammad Yunus is a global leader in anti-poverty efforts, and pioneered the use of “micro-loans” to provide credit to poor individuals

Laughing Matters

July 30, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Comedy, Humor, International Affairs, News media | Leave a Comment 

As last night’s clunkily polemical opening segment demonstrated, the Daily Show has, indeed, jumped the shark.

But John Oliver’s piece was based on a very clever premise:

And the interview with John Bolton was text book TV:

Adopting The Nixon-Goes-To-China Model

July 30, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Donald Macintyre, a writer for  Australia’s Independent, thinks Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should make a prudent gamble in the Middle East:

Yet, despite all this, diplomats are still convinced that the US President is determined to see progress. They are struck by the adminstration’s pointed emphasis that a peace deal is an American interest as well as an Israeli and Palestinian one. There is still hope of some form of a temporary but relatively far-reaching freeze at least on West Bank settlements. There is talk of Obama producing a "peace plan" in September. Hopes of making such a plan lift off then are based partly on the notion that it is easier, on the Nixon-recognises-Red China model, for the political right to make peace and partly on the gamble – and it certainly is a gamble – that Netanyhau will eventually be driven less by ideology than a desire to have a place in history and not to fall out irretrievably again with the Americans.

Nixon And Beer Diplomacy

July 30, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon, White House | 2 Comments 

Though they never actually had a beer together, but Alex Koppelman over at Salon Magazine lists the Nixon-Elvis Oval Office encounter as among the top casual White House meetings:

On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley got his wish and had a meeting with President Richard Nixon at the White House.  He wanted Nixon to make him a "Federal Agent-at-Large" in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. According to notes taken by a Nixon aide during the meeting, Presley repeatedly told Nixon of his support for the president, and showed Nixon his wide array of law enforcement memorabilia, including numerous police badges from around the country. He even mentioned to Nixon that he thought the Beatles promoted an anti-American spirit.

Have Spirit

July 30, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

President Nixon on July 24, 1970 with LDS (Church of Latter Day Saints) President Joseph Fielding Smith:

(Hat Tip: Andrew Orszulak)

Obama Is The New Nixon

July 30, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

At The New Republic, Michael Crowley writes that President Obama resembles RN more than any recent President because of his active agenda and passionate interest in foreign affairs:

Whether he is shaping the White House’s message on Iran, or personally cajoling Asian leaders to crack down on North Korea, or brokering power deals among NATO allies, Obama has, in effect, been his own national security advisor and secretary of state. Unlike Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, who had world events thrust upon them, Obama seems to be more in the mold of Richard Nixon or George H.W. Bush–a president involved in foreign policy because of, not in spite of, his priorities and personal interest. "He’s very engaged, very hands-on," says his longtime foreign policy adviser, Mark Lippert, now chief of staff at the National Security Council (NSC)….

To this administration, process is not simply the poor cousin of strategy. Process is what allows harmony and progress amid multiple challenges and viewpoints. Senior Obama aides call it "regular order"–a system that gives the president a diversity of views with minimal infighting and back-channel maneuvering, little leaking to the press, and no public airing of dirty laundry. "Regular order is your friend," says Denis McDonough, director of strategic communications for the NSC. "The system only works if you have adult behavior."

Thus far, the system has confounded skeptics who predicted melees among big-name advisers and conservatives who warned that Obama lacked the experience to govern in such dangerous times. "The level of harmony is just striking," says James Goldgeier, a national security aide in the Clinton White House and a political scientist at George Washington University. There are signs, however, that the administration’s approach to foreign policy, however well-intentioned and well-executed, is vulnerable to unexpected challenges–the very kind that are likely to multiply the longer the president is in office.

Featured Articles — July 30, 2009

July 30, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

New Poll Finds Growing Unease on Health Plan By Adam Nagourney & Megan Thee-Brenan, The New York Times
President Obama’s ability to shape the debate on health care appears to be eroding as opponents aggressively portray his overhaul plan as a government takeover that could limit Americans’ ability to choose their doctors and course of treatment, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Support Slips for Health Plan By Laura Meckler, The Wall Street Journal
Support for President Barack Obama’s health-care effort has declined over the past five weeks, particularly among those who already have insurance, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found, amid prolonged debate over costs and quality of care.

Obama’s Great Health Scare By Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal
On the campaign trail last year, Barack Obama promised to end the “politics of fear and cynicism.” Yet he is now trying to sell his health-care proposals on fear.

Let’s End the Score-Settling By E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post
The problem with "teachable moments" is that the term sets up one group of people as teachers while another group is consigned to the role of pupils. In a democracy, that’s troublesome.

Our Angry Aristocracy By Victor Davis Hanson, RealClearPolitics
Scolding Americans for our various sins is proving popular among an elite group of self-appointed moralists. Take well-meaning environmentalists who warn us that our plush lifestyles heat up and pollute the planet.

Nixon Assistant: Obama Should Have Given The Gates Affair More Thought

July 29, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Civil rights, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Earlier today, Robert J. Brown an African-American, activist, and former police officer who served as President Nixon’s special assistant for civil rights answered questions about President Obama’s handling of the controversy surrounding the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and the issue of racial profiling at The Washington Post:

Potomac, Md.: Do you think President Obama should have weighed in on this issue?

Robert J. Brown: I think that it would’ve been better if he had given it a little more thought and gotten a little bit more advice and counsel; however, I think the way he has handled it so far has been brilliant. I also feel that there’s a great sincerity about President Obama in this field because he has been confronted by the same kinds of inequities that most black people have been faced with. So naturally he would have the kind of sensitivity that no other president has ever had.

_______________________

Atlanta, Ga.: Should there be a national set of procedures for police conduct and procedures

Robert J. Brown: Most police departments have rules and regulations and codes of conduct already. The problem is that many of them don’t have the kind of sophistication, the training, etc., and that’s a problem. I recall many years ago when we were having huge racial problems in the country there was established a huge community relations department in the Justice Department in Washington. The first director of that department was Gov. Leroy Collins of Florida. I think some variation is probably needed now as much as it was then but in a much more sophisticated way.

Back then you had a lot of demonstrations in the street and much violence but today it’s more subtle but it’s still there and we’re still grappling with it. It has not gone away and there need to be some major ways to deal with it.

Teachable Moment: Don’t Forget Your Keys

July 29, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Humor | Leave a Comment 

On last night’s Daily Show Jon Stewart considered the consequences of Henry Louis-Gate:

And discussed them with “Senior Black Correspondent” (and veteran TV producer, writer, and Peabody winner) Larry Wilmore:

7.29.67

July 29, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, History, Richard Nixon | 2 Comments 

Today is the forty-second anniversary of a vitally important but mostly unheralded milestone on RN’s road to the presidency in 1968: his Lakeside Speech at the Bohemian Grove.  He later wrote: "If I were to choose the speech that gave me the most pleasure and satisfaction in my political career, it would be my Lakeside  Speech at the Bohemian Grove in July 1967."

Today, the Bohemian Grove hardly needs an introduction.  The Wikipedia description is basic and barebones:

Bohemian Grove is a 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) campground located at 20601 Bohemian Avenue, in Monte Rio, California, belonging to a private San Francisco-based men’s art club known as the Bohemian Grove.  In mid-July each year, Bohemian Grove hosts a three-week encampment of some of the most powerful men in the world.

It has now become, in many predictable circles, a cliche for capitalist privilege and plutocratic indulgence; in other, and no less predictable circles, for flat out new world order conspiracy.  In 1967 it was still a largely unknown holiday retreat —combining a modicum of roughing it with silver flatware and a bottomless supply of alcoholic stimulation for those who wanted it—  for rich and powerful men.

It was at the Bohemian Grove that RN first met General Eisenhower — in the summer of 1950 — when they were both guests of former POTUS Herbert Hoover at Hoover’s "Cave Man Camp." Hoover’s annual Lakeside Speech had been a highlight for many years.

As RN wrote in RN: "The setting is possibly the most dramatic and beautiful I have ever seen.  A natural amphitheatre has been built up around a platform on the shore of a small lake. Redwoods tower above the scene, and the weather in July is usually warm and clear."

Et in Bohemia ego: RN attends breakfast at the Bohemian Grove’s Owls Nest Camp, on Sunday, 23 July 1967.  He made the Lakeside Speech on the following Saturday afternoon.  Seated at the far left is Preston Hotchkis (a civic and business leader who had played an important part in California water issues); next to him is Governor Ronald Reagan; the standing speaker in front of the redwood is Harvey Hancock (an aviation executive and journalist whose association with RN went back to his 1950 Senate campaign); next to him is RN; and next to RN is Glenn Seaborg, the 1951 Nobel laureate in Chemistry.  The man in the lower left with his back to the camera is Ed Pauley (a California oilman, Democratic fundraiser, and confidante of Harry Truman).

Herbert Hoover had died in 1964; in 1967, RN was invited to deliver the year’s last Lakeside Speech in his honor.

Although the audience would only number several hundred and the speech would be off-the-record and receive no publicity, RN knew that this was an event that could either launch his White House campaign or relegate him to remain one among the ranks of contenders.  Another Lakeside speaker that week would be one of his main rivals for the nomination: the newly-elected California Governor Ronald Reagan, who was already famous for his extraordinary communications abilities and who would be enjoying a home court advantage.

The memory of RN’s 1960 defeat and the 1962 "last press conference" —which had taken place four hundred miles down the coast— had been blunted by his stalwart support for Goldwater in 1964 and his yeoman service for congressional candidates in 1966.  But it didn’t require much stirring-up by George Romney or Nelson Rockefeller or Ronald Reagan to surface the idea that RN, while eminently qualified, just wasn’t electable.

The Lakeside Speech could provide an opportunity to dispel that canard and unveil to a highly concentrated audience of movers and shakers and bankrollers —dare one say it— a new Nixon who could clearly win the White House.

RN, typically, hunkered down and prepared to do battle.  He cleared his schedule for the week in advance; he rented a motel room and lived on Kentucky Friend Chicken dinners delivered each evening by a volunteer aide.  Many yellow pads —in the manufacture of which no redwoods were harmed— were used.  And, by the time all the writing and revising were finished, the hour-long text had been committed to memory.

The speech, which was delivered without any notes, took the form of a tour d’horizon.  RN’s delivery turned it into a tour de force.  The brilliance of his thinking was manifest; his range of knowledge and acquaintance were impressive; and the clarity of his expression and the confidence of his delivery were compelling.  He received a cheering standing ovation from what might have been expected, even in the best case scenario, only to have been a blase crowd.  (The knowledge that Ronald Reagan’s Lakeside remarks earlier in the week had been considered underwhelming —slick but superficial was the consensus— can only have added to RN’s satisfaction with the outcome.)

RN began casually with some pleasantries:

My fellow Bohemians and our guests:  In my years of making speeches, I have never appeared on an occasion where more of the audience was behind me!

After four months of travel to four continents, I can’t tell you how good it is to be back at Bohemia.  It is dangerous to be dogmatic about any issue in the world today.  But of this one thing I am sure — it’s much more pleasant to get stoned in Bohemia than in Caracas.

He said that it had been President Hoover’s custom to put some of the major issues of the day in perspective, and he proposed to follow in that tradition.

Rather than do what might have been expected by recyclying his current speeches into a discussion of current events, he adopted a tone that was both statesmanlike and visionary:

I do not intend to dwell on current issues like Vietnam and the Mid-East which are the subject of such constant attention in the daily press.  Rather, I suggest we do what we Americans seldom have the time and patience to do.  Let us take the long view.  Let us evaluate the great forces at work in the world and see what America’s role should be if we are to realize our destiny of preserving peace and freedom in the world in this last third of the twentieth century.

One striking impression stands out after months of travel to major countries:  We live in a new world.  Never in human history have more changes taken place in the world in one generation.

It is a world of new leaders.  True, De Gaulle, Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek are still with us; but Churchill, Adenauer, Stalin, Khrushchev, Nehru, Sukarno — the other giants of the post-war period have all left the world stage.

It is a world of new people.  One-half of the people now living in the world were born since World War II.  This presents at once a problem and an opportunity for peace.  Because, as one Asian Prime Minister puts it, the new generation has neither the old fears nor the old guilts of the old generation.

It is a world of new ideas.  Communism, Marxism, Socialism, anti-colonialism, — the great ideas which stirred men to revolution after World War II have lost their pulling power.  As the Shah of Iran says — “the new generation is not imprisoned by any ism.”  The young people in all countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain are groping for a new cause – a new religion.  If any idea “turns them on” it is a new sense of pragmatism — “what will work.”

Without saying so by dropping a collection of names, RN made it clear that he was the person to whom many foreign leaders had confided their thoughts and concerns.  He made his listeners his intimates with skillful asides like "Krieger of Argentina, probably the ablest of Latin America’s economic ministers, puts the case this way…"

A contemporary reader of the Lakeside Speech will receive a concise education regarding the state of the world, and the state of play, in 1967.

At the end, he turned his eyes homeward and addressed the unrest that was roiling America.  On 23 July —the same day RN arrived in Bohemia— the 12th Street riot had broken out in Detroit.  Over the next five days, forty-three people died; several thousand were arrested; and twenty-five hundred stores were looted or burned.

There is only one area where there is any question — that is whether America has the national character and moral stamina to see us through this long and difficult struggle.

In this context, the tragic events in Detroit take on new meaning.  This was more than just another Negro riot.  The looters were white as well as black.  We are reaping the whirlwind for a decade of growing disrespect for law, decency and principle in America.

Without sanctimonious moralizing, let’s look at some hard facts.  Our judges have gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces in this country.  Our opinion-makers have gone too far in promoting the doctrine that when a law is broken – blame society, not the criminal.  Our teachers, preachers and politicians have gone too far in advocating the idea that each individual should determine what laws are good and what laws are bad and that he then should obey the law he likes and disobey the law he dislikes.

In the aftermath of these tragic events everyone will have a solution.  Some will say we need more laws.  Others will say we need more law enforcement.  Others will say we need more money for cities, housing, education and welfare.  Each of these approaches deserves consideration and some should be adopted.

But in the final analysis there could be no progress without respect for law.  There will be no respect for law in a nation whose people lack character.  We need a national crusade to build American character in home, church and school.  Above all, we need examples of character from our great men.

This brought him full circle to Herbert Hoover, and his final words were moving and heartfelt:

We in Bohemia were privileged to know such a man.

I could describe Herbert Hoover as a great statesman.  I could describe him as a great businessman.  I could describe him as a great humanitarian.  But, above all, he will be remembered as a man of great character.

No leader in his history was more viciously vilified.  Deserbed [sic] by his friends, maligned by his enemies, he triumphed over adversity.  In the twilight of his life he stood tall above his detractors.  His triumph was a triumph of character.  We can be thankful that we was one of those rare men who lived to hear the overwhelmingly favorable verdict of history on his career.

Two thousand years ago when these great trees were saplings — the poet Sophocles wrote, “one must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.”

Herbert Hoover’s life was eloquent proof of those words.

Here is the complete text of RN’s Lakeside Speech,  transcribed following the delivery, for the office’s record from RN’s yellow pad notes, by Rose Mary Woods.

Off-the-Record

Not for Publication

Lakeside Talk
Richard Nixon
Bohemian Grove

Saturday, July 29, 1967

My fellow Bohemians and our guests:  In my years of making speeches, I have never appeared on an occasion where more of the audience was behind me!

After four months of travel to four continents, I can’t tell you how good it is to be back at Bohemia.  It is dangerous to be dogmatic about any issue in the world today.  But of this one thing I am sure — it’s much more pleasant to get stoned in Bohemia than in Caracas.

It was Mr. Hoover’s custom on this occasion to put into perspective some of the great issues of the day.  In that tradition, I would like to discuss American foreign policy.

I do not intend to dwell on current issues like Vietnam and the Mid-East which are the subject of such constant attention in the daily press.  Rather, I suggest we do what we Americans seldom have the time and patience to do.  Let us take the long view.  Let us evaluate the great forces at work in the world and see what America’s role should be if we are to realize our destiny of preserving peace and freedom in the world in this last third of the twentieth century.

One striking impression stands out after months of travel to major countries:  We live in a new world.  Never in human history have more changes taken place in the world in one generation.

It is a world of new leaders.  True, De Gaulle, Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek are still with us; but Churchill, Adenauer, Stalin, Khrushchev, Nehru, Sukarno — the other giants of the post-war period have all left the world stage.

It is a world of new people.  One-half of the people now living in the world were born since World War II.  This presents at once a problem and an opportunity for peace.  Because, as one Asian Prime Minister puts it, the new generation has neither the old fears nor the old guilts of the old generation.

It is a world of new ideas.  Communism, Marxism, Socialism, anti-0colonialism, — the great ideas which stirred men to revolution after World War II have lost their pulling power.  As the Shah of Iran says — “the new generation is not imprisoned by any ism.”  The young people in all countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain are groping for a new cause – a new religion.  If any idea “turns them on” it is a new sense of pragmatism — “what will work.”

Because we live in a new world, many of the old institutions are obsolete and inadequate.  The UN, NATO, foreign aid, USIA were set up to deal with the world of twenty years ago.  A quick trip around the world will show how different the problems are today.

Twenty years ago Western Europe was weak economically and dependent on the United States.  It was united by a common fear of the threat of Communist aggression.  Today Western Europe is strong economically and economic independence has inevitably led to more political independence.  The winds of detente have blown so strongly from East to West that except for Germany most Europeans no longer fear the threat from the East.  The consequences of this change are enormous as far as NATO is concerned.  As Harold MacMillan puts it, “Alliances are kept together by fear, no by love.”  Even without De Gaulle, the European Alliance would be in deep trouble.

Let us look at the Communist world.  Twenty years ago the Soviet Union dominated a monolithic Communist empire.  Today, the Soviet Union and Communist China are in a bitter struggle for leadership of the Communist world.  Eastern Europe turns West, though we must recognize that the differences in Eastern Europe still cause less trouble to the Soviet Union than the differences in Western Europe cause to the United States.  The Soviet economic system is turning away from the enforced equality of Marxism to the incentives of capitalism.

Let us look at Latin America:

Twenty years ago Castro was a nobody.  Cuba and all the other Latin republics were considered to be solidly, permanently, and docilely on the side of the United States.  Today Castro has the strongest military force in the Western hemisphere next to the United States and he is exporting revolution all over the continent.  But even if Castro did not exist, Latin America would have to be considered a major trouble spot.  Despite the Alliance for Progress, Latin America is barely holding its own in the race between production and population.,  As it continues to fall further behind the rest of the world, it becomes a tinder box for revolution.

Let us turn to Africa:

Just ten years ago Ethiopia and Liberia were the only independent countries in Black Africa.  Today there are thirty independent countries in Black Africa.  Fifteen of these countries have populations less than the State of Maryland, and each has a vote in the UN Assembly equal to that of the United States.  There were twelve coups in Black Africa in the last year.  No one of the thirty countries has a representative government by our standards and the prospects that any will have such a government in a generation or even a half-century are remote.

Ironically, non-Communist Asia, except for Vietnam, is the area which has experienced the most hopeful change.  Japan has recovered from the devastation of World War II to the point that its [sic] one one [sic] hundred million people produce as much as Communist China’s seven hundred million.  Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand are all dramatic economic success stories.

There are grey areas:

As General Romulo might put it, the Philippines suffer from too much American-style democracy.  Indonesia is recovering from too much Sukarno.  India suffers from too many people and a host of other problems too numerous to enumerate.  But over-all, it can be said without fear of contradiction that the prospects for progress in non-Communist Asia area better than those in Communist Asia.

Let us look at the balance of power in the world:

Twenty years ago the United States had a monopoly on the atomic bomb and our military superiority was unquestioned.  Even five years ago our advantage was still decisive.  Today the Soviet Union may be ahead of us in megaton capacity and will have missile parity with the United States by 1970.  Communist China within five years will have a significant deliverable nuclear capability.

Finally, let us look at American prestige:

Twenty years ago, after our great World War II victory, we were respected throughout the world.  Today, hardly a day goes by when our flag is not spit upon, a library burned, an embassy stoned some place in the world.  In fact, you don’t have to leave the United States to find examples.

This is a gloomy picture; but there is a much brighter side as well.

Communism is losing the ideological battle with freedom in Asia, Africa, Latin America as well as in Europe.  In Africa, the Communist appeal was against colonialism.  Now that the colonialists are gone, they must base their case on being for Communism.  But African tribalism and rebellious individualism are simply incompatible with the rigid discipline a Communist system imposes.

In Latin America, the utter failure of Communism in Cuba has drastically weakened the appeal of the Communist ideology in the rest of Latin America.

In Asia, the remarkable success of private enterprise-oriented economies in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand, as contrasted to the failure of Communism in China and the failure of socialism in Burma and Indonesia, makes it possible to state unequivocally that the only way for the Communists to win in Vietnam, or anywhere else in Asia, is by force and terror; they will never win by persuasion.

All over the world, whether from East Germany to West, from Communist China to free China, from Communist Cuba to the free American republics, the traffic is all one way — from Communism to freedom.

Let us reappraise U.S. policy in the light of the new world in which we live.

In Western Europe we must recognize that clearly apart from De Gaulle’s actions the new economic independence of European countries and the lack of fear of Soviet aggression have contributed to a situation where it is not possible to keep the old alliance together on its former basis.

Yet, whatever changes may have occurred as far as the Soviet threat is concerned, one factor has not changed: A major political and economic home for the most powerful people in Europe — the Germans.  If the alliance is allowed to continue to disintegrate, Germany, denied the right to develop nuclear weapons, will be left defenseless in the heart of Europe and the Soviet Union, holding the pawn of East Germany, will have a tempting diplomatic target.

The highest priority American foreign policy objective must be to set up a new alliance, multilateral, if possible, bilateral, if necessary, which will keep Germany solidly on the Western side.

Let us look at the third world – Africa, Asia, Latin America.  We reach one inescapable conclusion – foreign aid needs a complete overhaul.

More money alone is not the answer.  Latin America is a case in point.  Nine billion dollars has been spent on the Alliance for Progress in the last six years with these results: The growth rate in Latin America was less than in the previous five years.  The growth rate in Latin America was less than that of non-Communist Asia and of Communist Eastern Europe.  Latin America will become a permanent international depressed area unless revolutionary changes are made in its economic, educational and governmental institutions.

Krieger of Argentina, probably the ablest of Latin America’s economic ministers, puts the case this way: “You Americans should be more blunt in attaching conditions to your aid programs.  Of course, the recipients aren’t going to like it.  But the United States does us n o favor when you aid an unsound  economic and social institution.  All you do is perpetuate a system that should be changed.”

In that spirit, let us use our aid programs to work toward such objectives as the following:

The Latin American educational system is the most obsolete and inadequate in the world in terms of preparing students for contributions to a modern industrial state.  It must be modernized and brought into the twentieth century.

In Latin America, Africa, as well as in countries like India, there should be more emphasis on agriculture, less on Indus rationalization.

In every area of the world private, rather than government enterprise, should be encouraged, not because we are trying to impose our ideas but because one works and the other doesn’t.

The United States should use its aid programs to reward our friends and discourage our enemies.  Before the recent Mid-East crisis, the fact that the U.S. had continued its aid programs to countries like the U.A.R., Algeria and Guinea when their leaders never missed a chance to condemn the United States in world forums had the effect of discouraging our friends, confusing the neutrals and bringing contempt from our enemies.

I would like to illustrate my last point with an example.  Four of the most dramatic economic success stories are Thailand, Iran, Taiwan and Mexico.

Thailand has a limited monarchy.

Iran has a strong monarchy.

Taiwan has a strong President with an oligarchy.

Mexico has one-party government.

None of these countries has a representative democracy by Western standards.  But it happens that in each case their system has worked for them.

It is time for us to recognize that much as we like our own political system, American style democracy is not necessarily the best form of government for people in Asia, Africa and Latin America with entirely different backgrounds.

Let us turn now to the most fundamental question – why continue foreign aid to all?  We must recognize that frustration over Vietnam, disillusionment with our European allies who, despite our immense post-World War Ii aid to them, more often than not refused to cooperate with us in our foreign policy objectives, and the shocking mismanagement and waste in many of the aid programs have all combined to create a new spirit of isolationism in the United States which is becoming stronger in both political parties.

But, let us take a longer view.  With the advance of transportation and communications so vividly described by other Lakeside speakers, the world by the end of this century will be a great city.  As the world becomes smaller, the differences between rich and poor will appear much larger.   The three billion people living in the less advanced areas of the world will not tolerate permanent second class economic status.  For example, t that time the people of the United Sates will have a per capita income ten times as large as that of our closest friends and neighbors in Latin America.  The time to defuse this potentially explosive situation is now.

Let us turn now to subject A, the Soviet Union.

This Spring a great debate raged in the chanceries of Europe and among foreign policy experts in the United States as to how much Soviet policy had changed under its new leaders.  Some Soviet experts on both sides of the Atlantic saw the new Soviet leaders turning 180 degrees from past policies and seeking permanent peace with the United States and Europe as well as using their influence to end the war in Vietnam.

The record of the Soviets in the Middle East war has caused a sober reassessment of this point of view.  At a time that they were talking peace and détente in Europe, the Soviet leaders were spending 4 billion dollars arming Nasser and his colleagues.  They encouraged the Arab leaders in their aggressive actions.   They blocked diplomatic moves to avoid the war.  They supported a cease-fire only when it became necessary for them to do so to save their Arab clients from further losses.

Then came the Glassboro conference.  Kosygin was a gentleman.  He did not bang his shoe on the table at the United Nations.  Many hoped that the Soviet leaders had learned their lessons and the spirit of Hollybush swept over the land.  But it soon became apparent that, while the music was different, the words were the same.

More revealing have been the actions of the Soviet leaders since Glassboro.  Kosygin stopped to see Castro on his way back to Moscow.  The Soviet Union is sending millions of dollars in arms to build the shattered Arab armies.  The Soviet Union is still providing 100 per cent of the oil and 85 per cent of all sophisticated military equipment for the armies of North Vietnam.  The Soviet line against West Germany has perceptively hardened.  The Soviet continues to build both offensive and defensive missiles.

This does not mean that the Soviet leaders have not changed.  But what we must recognize is that the change is one of the head and not of the heart – of necessity, not choice.’

As we enter this last third of the twentieth century the hopes of the world rest with America.  Whether peace and freedom survive in the world depends on American leadership.

Never has a nation had more advantages to lead.  Our economic superiority is enormous; our military superiority can be whatever we choose to make it.  Most important, it happens that we are on the right side — the side of freedom and peace and progress against the forces of totalitarianism, reaction and war.

There is only one area where there is any question — that is whether America has the national character and moral stamina to see us through this long and difficult struggle.

In this context, the tragic events in Detroit take on new meaning.  This was more than just another Negro riot.  The looters were white as well as black.  We are reaping the whirlwind for a decade of growing disrespect for law, decency and principle in America.

Without sanctimonious moralizing, let’s look at some hard facts.  Our judges have gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces in this country.  Our opinion-makers have gone too far in promoting the doctrine that when a law is broken – blame society, not the criminal.  Our teachers, preachers and politicians have gone too far in advocating the idea that each individual should determine what laws are good and what laws are bad and that he then should obey the law he likes and disobey the law he dislikes.

In the aftermath of these tragic events everyone will have a solution.  Some will say we need more laws.  Others will say we need more law enforcement.  Others will say we need more money for cities, housing, education and welfare.  Each of these approaches deserves consideration and some should be adopted.

But in the final analysis there could be no progress without respect for law.  There will be no respect for law in a nation whose people lack character.  We need a national crusade to build American character in home, church and school.  Above all, we need examples of character from our great men.

We in Bohemia were privileged to know such a man.

I could describe Herbert Hoover as a great statesman.  I could describe him as a great businessman.  I could describe him as a great humanitarian.  But, above all, he will be remembered as a man of great character.

No leader in his history was more viciously vilified.  Deserbed [sic] by his friends, maligned by his enemies, he triumphed over adversity.  In the twilight of his life he stood tall above his detractors.  His triumph was a triumph of character.  We can be thankful that we was one of those rare men who lived to hear the overwhelmingly favorable verdict of history on his career.

Two thousand years ago when these great trees were saplings — the poet Sophocles wrote, “one must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.”

Herbert Hoovers’ [sic] life was eloquent proof of those words.

And as we near the evening of another Bohemian Encampment, we, too, can look back and say, “How splendid the day has been.”

Featured Articles — July 29, 2009

July 29, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Obama’s stimulus killers By Nina Easton, Fortune
Barack Obama promised universal health care and a mass conversion to green energy when he launched his presidential campaign. On that frigid February day in 2007, the economy was growing at a 2.8% clip.

Why I Oppose National Health Care By Megan McArdle, Atlantic
I know, most of you have already figured out why I oppose national health care. In a nutshell, I hate the poor and want them to die so that all my rich friends can use their bodies as mulch for their diamond ranches.  But y’all keep asking, so here goes the longer explanation.

Sarah Grabs the Grievance Grab Bag From Hillary By Maureen Down, The New York Times
The woman who was prematurely counted in is out. And the woman who was prematurely counted out is in.

How We’ll Win in Afghanistan By Bing West, The Wall Street Journal
More coalition soldiers have died in July than in any previous month in the nine-year war in Afghanistan. Last week, the soldier who slept on the cot next to me was killed. A rocket-propelled grenade fired from a snow-capped mountain in remote Nuristan Province killed Staff Sgt. Eric Lindstrom, a father of twin baby girls and the best squad leader in the platoon.

OAS is Part of the Problem in Latin America By Alvaro Vargas Llosa, RealClearPolitics
Honduras, where an ally of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez triggered a military response after violating the law in his attempt to stay in power, reminds us that today’s threat to liberal democracy in Latin America comes from authoritarian populists who abuse the legitimacy of the ballot box. It also suggests that the Organization of American States (OAS), the hemispheric body supposed to uphold the rule of law, is part of the problem.

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