Featured Articles — July 21, 2009

July 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Mr. Cronkite — what a man By Dan Rather, USA Today
‘Walter loved his work and remained consciously, intensely and personally committed to widening the public’s connection to, and understanding of, the important stories of his time.’

Celebrity Culture vs. The Right Stuff By Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal
It’s a safe bet that 100 years from now most half-way educated people will know about Neil Armstrong. It’s also a safe bet that in a century the name Michael Jackson will be familiar only to five or six cultural anthropologists and, possibly, a medical historian. So what does it say about the United States in 2009 that the late moon-walker is a household name but the living one is not?

Liberal Suicide March By David Brooks, The New York Times
It was interesting to watch the Republican Party lose touch with America. You had a party led by conservative Southerners who neither understood nor sympathized with moderates or representatives from swing districts.

Health Reform Can Pay for Itself By Timothy Noah, Slate
President Obama. Click image to expand.Barack ObamaAlarmism is setting in about the health reform bill. “Alliances In Health Debate Splinter,” says the Washington Post. “House healthcare plan to add to deficit: analysts,” says Reuters, echoing earlier stories about Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf’s congressional testimony last week that health reform would be a budget-buster.

Endless Summer By Howard Fineman, Newsweek
In his bid to push health-care reform through Congress, Obama is counting on a wave of political good will. But is he at risk of wiping out?

Nixon, Cronkite, Apollo 11, And “The Sea Of Tranquility”

July 20, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Apollo XI XLth, News media, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

In July 1989, on the 20th anniversary of the moon landing, former Nixon speechwriter and then New York Times columnist William Safire wrote that he helped work in the lines for RN’s phone call to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (the phone call was posted here by Frank Gannon earlier today). According to Safire, the theme was inspired by the words of the late legendary newsman Walter Cronkite:

That night, watching the moon landing at home, poking my 5-year-old son awake every few minutes so he could tell his children he saw the great event, I heard Walter Cronkite say the landing site would be near the Sea of Tranquillity. It struck me that the President could use that phrase, and I called the White House duty officer to pass on to Mr. Nixon the tranquillity theme.

Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed, pranced about on the moon, made history, and took a call from the President that began with that thought. I felt the thrill peculiar to White House speechwriters: in this case, my message had gone a quarter-million miles. Unfortunately, my son had drifted off.

(Hat Tip: Tom Van Oosterom)

McGovern-Cronkite ‘72?

July 20, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Apollo XI XLth, Democratic Party, In Memoriam, News media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon in the News, Presidents, Republican Party, Richard Nixon, TV News, TV News Personalities, U.S. History, Watergate | Leave a Comment 

A few minutes ago the fortieth anniversary arrived of the moment when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface. For most American TV viewers that awe-inspiring night, the voice commenting on the images that were seen over the next several hours belonged to Walter Cronkite of CBS, who died on Friday. His wholehearted enthusiasm for the space program and its accomplishments was deep and lasted throughout his life; in his 1996 autobiography A Reporter’s Life he cites the Apollo missions and the opening to China as among the accomplishments during the presidency of Richard Nixon that he admired the most.

However, Cronkite did not like what he described as the participation of RN and Vice President Spiro Agnew in “a conspiracy to destroy the press’s credibility.” On the air, as anchorman for the CBS Evening News, he did not offer an opinion directly on Agnew’s 1970 speeches criticizing television coverage of the Nixon White House or criticisms leveled by other figures in the Administration; this was left to Eric Severeid.

But in private, Cronkite, a thoroughgoing liberal, found much to dislike about the Nixon policies. And in some parts of New York City and within the Beltway, his attitudes were known.

Last year, as Barack Obama looked over his vice-presidential possibilities, former Senator George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, published an op-ed in the New York Times reminiscing about the hours after he was chosen by his party’s convention in Miami Beach, as the delegates waited for the other half of the ticket to be selected.

McGovern says that he had already been turned down by former Vice-President Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Edmund Muskie, whom he had defeated in the sometimes bitterly contested primaries. After receiving the nomination, his next choice was Sen. Ted Kennedy, who declined, but suggested Sen. Thomas Eagleton of Missouri instead.

McGovern then moved on to Sargent Shriver, but learned that the former Peace Corps director was in the Soviet Union and could not be reached before 4 pm, when the choice had to be announced. He then asked Sen. Walter Mondale of Minnesota (who would become Jimmy Carter’s running-mate four years later), but Mondale declined, also recommending Eagleton as the nominee.

McGovern’s next choice was Sen. Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, who answered that although he would be honored to be the first Jewish nominee on a major-party ticket, he was about to get married and could not juggle a honeymoon with a national campaign. (This brings to mind the 2004 race, in which some of the supporters of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, still a bachelor in those days, were actively seeking a spouse for him in the event that he got out of the single digits in the polls.)

McGovern writes that he then telephoned Mayor Kevin White of Boston, who accepted at once, but was then vetoed by John Kenneth Galbraith (a member of the convention’s Massachusetts delegation), who claimed there would be a walkout if White was selected.

It was at this point that Frank Mankiewicz, the senior member of the McGovern inner circle, remarked: “Walter Cronkite was just named the most trusted man in America. What about him?”

The idea was tossed back and forth between those in the room, who, besides McGovern and Mankiewicz, included campaign manager Gary Hart and pollster Pat Caddell. Nowadays, when Tom Brokaw is routinely mentioned as possible Presidential timber should he ever care to emerge from retirement, and Rush Limbaugh, every four years, has to remind his legions of Dittoheads that he is disinclined to move from Florida to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue “because I can’t afford the pay cut,” it’s hard to recall a time when newspaper publishers like Frank Knox and William Randolph Hearst were the only figures in the media who received serious consideration for the White House (or, as in the case of Warren G. Harding, were actually elected).

But in 1972, it was less usual to imagine TV personalities in electoral office at a high level. True, Ronald Reagan, after years on G.E. Theater and Death Valley Days, was the sitting Governor of California, but at the time McGovern was making his choice no liberal thought that Reagan could ever reach the Oval Office. So the nominee and his associates set aside the choice of Cronkite for the vice-presidency as unrealistic.

But, says McGovern: “I later learned from Walter that he would have accepted. I wish I had chosen him.” Instead, after being turned down by Sen. Gaylord Nelson, he chose Eagleton, who later was forced to quit the ticket, then Shriver.

The idea of Cronkite being on the 1972 Democratic ticket is still an intriguing one for connoisseurs of alternate history. All through McGovern’s progress to the nomination, it was clear that despite being a South Dakotan he was having trouble appealing to middle-American voters – as Nixon staffers Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman would say, he didn’t “play in Peoria.” Could Cronkite, who’d spent his childhood in Missouri (and his adolescence and young manhood in Texas, which would have been of no small consequence were he on the ticket), have been able to reach those voters?

There’s also the matter of Watergate. In September and October of 1972, McGovern often would discuss the articles appearing in the Washington Post about the break-in and its background, but the reaction from the electorate was tepid and indifferent. That October, Cronkite devoted over half of a CBS Evening News broadcast to Watergate, but that presentation had little impact. Had Uncle Walter been able to cast aside an impartial tone and appear in commercials speaking of Watergate in the way he spoke, in 1968, of what he saw as the failure of the Vietnam War, what would have been the impact of his words?

It seems unlikely that McGovern could have prevailed even with such a revered figure on the ticket – RN’s popularity was high in the summer and fall of ‘72 not just because of his trips to China and the Soviet Union, but because the economy was (temporarily) thriving. But undoubtedly the Democratic ticket would have carried more states than just Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Cronkite’s presence could have secured the Northeast, California and the Northwest, and the states that were part of what was just beginning to be called the Rust Belt.

Here, it should be mentioned that the McGovern camp’s contemplation of Cronkite was not the first time that he’d been mooted as a political prospect. In 1967, Sen. Robert Kennedy reportedly asked Cronkite if he’d be interested in challenging the other New York senator, Republican Jacob Javits. And in the spring of 1980, Rep. John Anderson, as he dropped out of the GOP presidential primaries and prepared to launch an independent bid, let it be known that he would like Cronkite as his running-mate, since it was already known that the newscaster, under the policy then in effect at CBS, would soon have to retire. But Cronkite, according to an article appearing in Time, dismissed the notion:

“Oh, yes, I’ve daydreamed about [running for office],” Cronkite says. “As I’ve daydreamed about sailing around the world—or rather, not as much, because I have thought of sailing around the world.”

His thinking goes like this: “Obviously anybody in any profession has a perfect right to get into politics. But one shouldn’t as a journalist serve two masters. There’s a basic conflict of interest—it’s a bad idea. I’ve been approached by both sides. Some are sincere, but others are flatly cynical, wanting to take advantage of a name that requires no buildup, no posters. Popularity on TV might have great appeal, but I don’t have any policy on how to run the country.”

So it’s clear that when Cronkite later told McGovern that he would have accepted a spot on the Democratic ticket in 1972, he was speaking with the benefit of hindsight, after the major part of his career in the media was finished, and that it isn’t that easy to assume that he would have made the jump, not long after the halfway point of his tenure telling us the way it was. Still, the two names on a tin button seem to linger in the mind’s eye.

Now And Then

July 20, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Apollo XI XLth | Leave a Comment 

President Obama welcomed the Apollo XI crew to the White House today to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing

On 5 November 1969, RN welcomed the Apollo XI crew on the South Lawn at the conclusion of their international goodwill tour that brought them to twenty-four countries in forty-five days.  RN said:

We have noted from the press the magnificent receptions they have received all over the world, in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, and in Europe. We know that the crowd gathered here on the White House lawn is not as large as some you have seen, but the hearts of the American people are here, and through us, we are trying to indicate to you our appreciation, not only for what you did in your travel to the moon, but also what you did for the cause of peace and better understanding through your travel on this earth.

We have invited our astronauts and their wives to come to the White House, spend the afternoon and the evening, a quiet dinner, and spend the night. We think that after all they have done publicly, it is time that they had an evening by themselves and why not in “everybody’s house,” the White House of the United States of America.

Moonstruck

July 20, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Apollo XI XLth | Leave a Comment 

Today’s Telegraph supplies some information about Apollo 11:

* As the Eagle landing module was descending towards the Moon’s surface, Armstrong and Aldrin realised they had overshot the intended landing spot by miles and were heading for an area strewn with boulders. In manoeuvring to avoid hitting the rocks, they came to within a minute of running out of fuel for the descent and having to abort the mission.

* After the Eagle landed, Aldrin, a Presbyterian, recited from the Bible and took wine and a small wafer from a home communion kit given to him by his pastor.

* Neil Armstrong may have been the first man to walk on the Moon, but Buzz Aldrin was the first man to urinate there. While millions watched on live television, Aldrin relieved himself a tube fitted inside his space suit.

* The astronauts had trouble planting the American flag in the Moon’s hard surface, worried it would fall over on live television. As they blasted off, Aldrin later recalled, the Stars and Stripes flag was knocked over in the blast from Eagle’s ascent engines.

* The mineral, armalcolite, discovered during the first Moon landing and later found at various locations on Earth, was named after the three Apollo 11 astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

* When the astronauts took off their helmets after their moonwalk, they noticed a strong smell, which Armstrong described as “wet ashes in a fireplace” and Aldrin as “spent gunpowder”. It was the smell of moondust brought in on their boots.

* After returning to the landing module, Aldrin accidentally broke the switch used to activate the ascent engines. After initial concern they managed to activate the switch using a ball-point pen.

* An estimated 600 million people watched the Apollo 11 landing live on television, a world record until 750 million people watched the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. (Source: Guinness World Records)

* After returning to Earth the astronauts were put in quarantine for three weeks for fear they may have brought back unknown pathogens from the Moon.

* The Apollo space programme cost was given as $25.4 billion, around $150 billion (£93bn) in today’s money.

* One of President Nixon’s speechwriters had prepared an address entitled: “In Event of Moon Disaster”. It began: “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay to rest in peace.” If the launch from the Moon had failed, Houston was to close down communications and leave Armstrong and Aldrin to their death.

How It Happened

July 20, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Science | Leave a Comment 

The UK Times has a very detailed account of how we came to land on the moon.

“We Came In Peace For All Man Kind”

July 20, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon, Science | Leave a Comment 

Politico has a story up featuring the historical moment when RN watched the first lunar landing. It also includes an interesting tidbit of RN’s support for the space program:

On this day in 1969, President Richard Nixon joined upward of 500 million people around the world to watch two American astronauts leave their lunar landing module to become the first humans to walk on the moon.

Shortly after they planted an American flag on the lunar surface, the two astronauts spoke to Nixon, who congratulated them on their mission. His White House phone was patched into them through the NASA control center in Houston. That evening, Nixon wrote in his diary, “The president held an interplanetary conversation with Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on the moon.”

Both the Soviet Union and China, America’s two ideological rivals in a decadelong space race, blacked out the live televised scenes of the initial moonwalk.

In April 1961, the Soviet Union had scored both a technological and political triumph when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in his Vostok I space capsule. A triumphant Nikita Khrushchev told members of the Communist Party hierarchy that “Gagarin flew into space but didn’t see any God there.”

Later that year, President John F. Kennedy forecast that the United States would be first in putting a man on the moon. “To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead,” he said.

To achieve this goal, President Lyndon Johnson pressured Congress to authorize large sums for space exploration. The generous support continued under Nixon, who initially also approved a new space shuttle program. With the end of the Cold War, shuttle flights to the international space station became a cooperative project as Americans and Russians joined forces to launch missions and exchange space exploration technology.

RN recounted this moment in his memoirs:

HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH
FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY, 1969 A.D.
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND

On Sunday night, July 20, Apollo VIII astronaut Frank Borman, Bob Haldeman, and I stood around the TV set in the private office and watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon. Then I went into the Oval Office next door where TV cameras had been set up for my split-screen phone call to the moon.

Armstrong’s voice came through loud and clear. I said, “Because of what you have done the heavens have become a part of man’s world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to earth.”

7.20.69

July 20, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon, Science, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Featured Articles — July 20, 2009

July 20, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Banks, battles, and the psychology of overconfidence. By Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker
In 1996, an investor named Henry de Kwiatkowski sued Bear Stearns for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. De Kwiatkowski had made—and then lost—hundreds of millions of dollars by betting on the direction of the dollar, and he blamed his bankers for his reversals.

‘A trillion here, a trillion there‘ By Bobby Jindal, Politico
Things in Louisiana are looking up. We are announcing major economic development wins and private capital investment and reducing government spending in order to live within our means. We just completed a grueling legislative session where we all had to work together, Democrats and Republicans, to find a way to do more with less.

Obama’s Hole Cards By E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post
It was not the soaring rhetoric that is Barack Obama’s signature, but he recently offered the sound bite that may define his presidency: “Don’t bet against us.” There are reasons to believe that his confident words — they were about health care reform, but have broader application — were not the bombast of a bluffer exaggerating the strength of his hand. They reflect the high cards that Obama holds and has only now started to play.

Nancy Pelosi: Make millionaires pay for health care By Mike Allen, Politico
Trying to sell a historic health bill to a balky caucus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told POLITICO in an interview that she wants to soften a proposed surcharge on the wealthy so that it applies only to families that make $1 million or more.

Race in 2028 By Ross Douthat, The New York Times
During last week’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Republican senators kept bringing the conversation back to 2001 — the year when Sonia Sotomayor delivered the most famous version of her line about how a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences” might outshine a white male judge.

For Democrats, an Issue That Goes to the Roots By John Harwood, The New York Times
To understand the Democratic Party and its reflexes on health care, look no further than Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut. As a senator’s son and a former national Democratic chairman, Mr. Dodd carries the party’s impulses in his DNA.

The Squandered Stimulus By Robert Samuelson, Newsweek
It’s not surprising that the much-ballyhooed “economic stimulus” hasn’t done much stimulating. President Obama and his aides argue that it’s too early to expect startling results. They have a point.

What Happened to Palestine’s Suicide Bombers? By Christopher Hitchens, The Australian
It is sometimes important to write about the things that are not happening and the dogs that are not barking. To do so, of course, can provide an easy hostage to fortune, which is why a lot of columnists prefer not to risk it. For all I know, some leering fanatic is preparing to make me look silly even as I write. But I ask anyway: whatever happened to the suicide bombers of Jerusalem?

Rudd’s China Challenge By Michael Danby, The Wall Street Journal
China’s arrest of Stern Hu, an Australian citizen who works in China as an executive of iron ore exporter Rio Tinto, has created a difficult situation for Australia and its Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Mr. Hu has not been formally charged, but the Chinese media has accused him of espionage, bribery and stealing state secrets.

Alexander Lebedev: Rich Advice By Peter Savodnik, Time
Alexander Lebedev is telling the story of how he met his girlfriend, Elena Perminova, who is 22 and heavily pregnant. We are sitting in the dining room of Lebedev’s house in the ultra-exclusive enclave of Rublyovka, just west of Moscow, early this year.

Miller: RN “Changed Our Strategic Map Forever”

July 19, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Nixon in the News | 2 Comments 

Writing at Foxnews.com, Judith Miller appreciates RN’s peacemaking legacy:

It took me years to appreciate some of this tragic president’s foreign policy achievements — most overshadowed by Vietnam and of course, by Watergate. Nixon’s opening to China, (which Mao had eagerly sought), implemented by Henry Kissinger, split the Communist bloc, pressured the Soviet Union, and changed our strategic map forever. And although he had not written the treaty, Nixon quickly sent back to the Senate an arms control accord that it had initially spurned “the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” under which over 100 nations pledged not to build nuclear weapons and Washington and Moscow vowed to move towards ridding themselves of their own atomic arsenals. This time, the Senate approved its ratification.

Then came a second equally dramatic initiative: Nixon, searching for a dramatic gesture amid growing opposition to Vietnam, unilaterally renounced germ weapons. Under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention that he pioneered three years later, over 100 nations banned the possession of deadly biological weapons except for research into such defense measures as vaccines, detectors, and protective gear.  It was the world’s first treaty to ban an entire class of weapons.

Dinner of the Century Revisited

July 19, 2009 by David Emig | Filed Under Nixon Library, Nixon Library events, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon, Yorba Linda | 3 Comments 

Author’s Note:  Nineteen years ago tonight marks the anniversary of the dinner honoring the Library’s dedication.  The following article appeared in the Checkers newsletter in the August 1990 issue.

As a bit of background, Checkers was a newsletter started by Chris Crain, a prolific collector of Richard Nixon political memorabilia.  Checkers was published four times a year between 1975 to 1994.

I was Assistant Editor of the newsletter from 1986 to 1991.  In those days, we complied the newsletter should I say, manually.  There was a deadline to submit articles.  The illustrations were photocopied and placed on the page.  Chris would then type around the illustrations.  What we could have done with modern technology of desktop publishing…

I will always be grateful to Chris Crain for giving me my first opportunity to write about Richard Nixon.

So here are my thoughts after the dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel.  I would be most interested to hear from anyone else who was there that night.

There are no second tables here; only first tables   You are all our friends—RN

The evening festivities took place in Los Angeles with a ‘celebration gala’ at the Century Plaza Hotel.  The black tie dinner honoring President and Mrs. Nixon and their family followed the morning’s dedication of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda.

When our party arrived at the hotel, our cab was greeted by protesters.  We weren’t sure exactly what they were protesting, but the following day’s newspaper said it appeared to be about 30 different causes.

The formal reception began at 7:00pm in California Lounge.  Inside was a virtual treasure trove for autograph seekers.  Several former Nixon administration officials and other celebrities were making the rounds outside the banquet room.  Notables such as Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, George Romney, H.R. Haldeman, William Simon, Richard Allen, Pat Buchanan, Ken Khachigian and Herb Klein.  Celebrities included Foster Brooks, George Allen, Tom Landry and Cesar Romero.  There were some people that fit both categories, like Benjamin Stein.  Stein, a former speechwriter for the Nixon administration, presently appears on “The Wonder Years,” a top-rated television series.

About 8:00pm, people began entering the Los Angeles Ballroom for dinner.  A program greeted each place at the table.  Featured in each program was a 5” x 7” color photograph of the entire Nixon family.  The photograph had been taken on the occasion of the Nixons’ 50^th Wedding Anniversary at their home in Saddle River, New Jersey.  This photograph made the program a very special one indeed.

Seated at our table were the Crains, Eldon Almquist, Bob Fuhr, Harry Jeffery, Jim Carskadon, Jack and Darlene Cook and myself.  Seated at the other NPIC table, on the other side of the ballroom, were Les and Susan Spreen, Phil and Jean Baldwin, Lu Paletta, Lloyd and Mabel Johnson and Donna and Bill Hickman.

After a welcome by Bruce Herschenson, the Master of Ceremonies, and the invocation by Billy Graham, the appetizer, salad and entrée were served.  According to the wishes of Mrs. Nixon, the dinner featured a low sodium meal.  While dinner was being served, the All-American Boys Chorus sang to the guests.  It was at this point that the most personally event almost occurred.

The area where the Boys Chorus was singing was directly across from the head table.  Between dinner and dessert, former President Nixon appeared on the stage, briefly leading the chorus in song.  It quickly became apparent that RN might attempt to greet each table.  Maybe I would get to meet him.

Many thoughts crossed my mind.  What would I say?  Perhaps tell him what his legacy meant to younger Americans like myself.  Maybe just a “how about those Mets?”  There probably wouldn’t be enough time.  I would have a few moments at the very most.

My inner excitement grew as the former President approached.  A crowd of people, with RN in the middle, moved toward our table.  It was a different feeling seeing the former President in this setting.  Slightly larger than life, but also one of us.  A bodyguard walked ahead, clearing the way.  People were getting up and greeting RN.  This, unfortunately, made passage a little difficult.  I had no desire to push my way into the crowd.  RN looked taller than I thought he would be.  As he passed by our table he shook Chris’ hand.  He then reached over and shook Candy Crain’s hand.  By the time I extended my hand the group had moved on.  I guess that’s what one would call a near brush with history.

After dessert the program continued.  Norman Vincent Peale recounted his visit to Vietnam, as well as personal memories of the Nixon family.  Bob Hope provided some comic entertainment.  Hope quipped that the library dedication was an opportunity to see Mount Rushmore live.  He also noticed that Yorba Linda was the only place in which Nixon T-shirts were outselling the Simpsons.  Hope’s remarks were followed by two toasts to the Nixons.  Maurice Stans gave a toast to Pat Nixon and Ambassador Walter Annenberg gave a toast to President Nixon.  President Nixon was then introduced by William Simon.

At the beginning of his remarks, President Nixon recognized all of the people who had spoken on his behalf.  He remembered that he probably knew Les Brown the longest.  Brown and his band had played at Duke Law School while RN attended there in the 1930s.  RN recalled Mrs. Billy Graham’s show of support during the time of his brush with death in a Long Beach hospital in 1975.  He thanked Norman Vincent Peale for the support given his family over the years.  He recognized Bob Hope’s contribution to the USO and his frequent visits to American servicemen overseas.  In total, RN expressed his deep appreciation for friends who stuck by in the darkest of times.  While RNs evening remarks carried the theme of his dedication speech, the tone was much more personal.  In a highlight to the evening, Mrs. Nixon said a few words after the program.

Finally, it was over.  It had been a most memorable day.  All of the planning and anticipation were reality.  It truly was the event of a lifetime!

7.19.69

July 19, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Nixon in the News, Science, Technology, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

19 July 1969: One day out.

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

July 19, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Soundtrack Of Our Lives | 1 Comment 

The Soundtracker is trekking in New Mexico this week, combining a holiday with a seminar on Democracy in America.  Soundtrack will return next Sunday.

In the meantime, here’s a song de Tocqueville might have heard near the end of his life —while he was working on The Old Regime and the French Revolution—  that would have reminded him of his time in America two decades earlier.

Stephen Foster wrote “Hard Times Come Again No More” in 1854.   Its plaintive melody and plangent lyrics are no less moving —and no less relevant— today.

It has been well and widely covered (especially by Mavis Staples on the excellent Foster tribute album Beautiful Dreamer).  Here’s a more traditional rendition from the BBC’s 1999 series Transatlantic Sessions, featuring Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Kate’s son Rufus Wainwright, Emmylou Harris, Irish folk-pop superstar Mary Clark, and Scottish folk icons Rod Paterson and Karen Matheson.

Featured Articles — July 19, 2009

July 19, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Politicized Capitalism By Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard
President Obama is ushering in an era of politicized capitalism. Since he took office, corporate heads and business executives more and more look to Washington as the wellspring of financial success. And politicians and government officials have much to offer them: grants, loans, loan guarantees, subsidies, contracts, tax credits, regulatory and legal advantages of one kind or another over competitors, even guaranteed profits. Tempting stuff, for sure, and businesses are increasingly unable to resist. This is not a healthy trend.

Republicans show signs of life By Gloria Borger, CNN
In the past decade, it’s become a given that Supreme Court nominees are expected to tell you — not to mention the senators actually voting on confirmation — absolutely nothing about how they will rule on the Supreme Court.

Joe Biden’s Terrible Truths By James Lileks, New York Post
It takes years of yoga to learn the posture necessary for speaking clearly with all your feet in your mouth. But for some the skill comes naturally, which brings us to Joe Biden.

Record Deficits Could Sink Obama’s Presidency By Victor Davis Hanson, RealClearPolitics
Over the last two decades it became an article of popular faith that budget deficits did not matter that much. Conservatives began to talk of annual red-ink in vague terms of percentages of the gross domestic product rather than in real billions of dollars – as in “Don’t worry about the 2004 shortfall of $605 billion; it’s still only 5.3 percent of GDP.”

Obama’s Foreign Policy Report Card By David Ignatius, San Diego Union Tribune
Six months on, how is Barack Obama doing in foreign policy? Some leading experts give the new president high marks for improving America’s battered image abroad, but they warn that the hard work is still ahead.

The Shuffle President By Matt Bai, New York Times Magazine
Like romantic comedies and superhero blockbusters, the modern presidency has evolved into a reliable form of dramatic narrative. A candidate comes into office brandishing a broad theme — a vow to clean up government, perhaps, or to fearlessly prune it back — and then lays out one or two big proposals to make it real.

Teacher, Can We Leave Now? No. By Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times
I confess, I find it hard to come to Afghanistan and not ask: Why are we here? Who cares about the Taliban? Al Qaeda is gone. And if its leaders come back, well, that’s why God created cruise missiles.

Investigate the CIA? By Debra Saunders, Philadelphia Inquirer
Last weekend, the New York Times reported that after 9/11, the CIA developed a “secret counterterrorism program” to train hit squads to kill top al-Qaida leaders. It seemed like good news to me. After all, why bankroll an intelligence agency if you can’t use it to kill an enemy against whom America has declared war?

Walter Cronkite, 1916-2009 Watching the anchorman in a news family. By John Dickerson, Slate
We were putting the kids to bed when word came that Walter Cronkite died. Immediately I went from being a father—shushing and threatening—to being a kid again. We watched Cronkite before dinner, in the library. I sat cross-legged on the rug. Mom sat on the sofa, and across the room sat Dad in the chair in which he’d fall asleep later that night. I had patches on my jeans and grass stains. I was wearing a Washington Redskins jersey. Everyone was in place, and no one was divorced.

The Honduran ‘coup’ a setback for Hugo Chávez. By Christopher Caldwell, The Weekly Standard
The streets of Honduras’s capital have been filled with two groups of marchers and protesters in the weeks since June 28. That was the day that president José Manuel “Mel” Zelaya Rosales was removed from power by an order of the supreme court, arrested by the army, and sent into exile in Costa Rica.

In Orbit

July 18, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Nixon in the News, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Science, U.S. History | 2 Comments 

The death of Walter Cronkite and the vivid memories it evokes of his coverage of the Gemini and Apollo missions of the 1960s and early 1970s, serves as a reminder that Monday will mark the fortieth anniversary of the arrival of the Apollo 11 lunar module on the moon and of the moment that Neil Armstrong’s foot touched its powdery surface and he uttered the words, “One small step…”

Armstrong has always kept a low profile in the succeeding decades and he doesn’t plan to change it now. On Sunday night he will talk for 15 minutes at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, but the institition’s spokesperson was quick to inform the media that no interviews or pictures would be permitted. By contrast, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, always the most visible member of the three-man crew, has been vigorously pressing the argument that NASA’s ongoing plans to establish a permanent presence on the moon in the next decade represent a dead end. In an op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post and other newspapers on Thursday, he maintains that America should set its eye instead on Mars.

Aldrin will be at the Smithsonian tomorrow, too, as will Apollo 11’s command module pilot, Michael Collins. (A report from the AP states that all three will also meet at the White House with President Obama on Monday, as they once met President Nixon in the Pacific moments after splashing down to Earth.)

Collins is the author of the 1974 book Carrying The Fire, one of the most thoughtful and profound of American autobiographies, for which Charles Lindbergh wrote the foreword. In the decade after Apollo 11, he was the director of the National Air and Space Museum, but in the last twenty years has been less visible. But a statement he issued this month through NASA, as quoted in the AP article above, makes it clear that the concerns about the future of the planet that he expressed in the 1970s are still on his mind today.

The Guardian has just published an article about Collins which describes the terrible responsibility which was uniquely his during the Apollo 11 mission. Although the lunar module had repeatedly been tested and allowances made for its performance in the weightless atmosphere and lighter gravity of the moon, no one at NASA, or anywhere else, could be completely sure that the trip to the moon’s surface would conclude successfully.

Neil Armstrong, coolly assessing the situation before liftoff, thought that the chances were about 50-50 that the lunar module would not be able to escape the moon’s gravitational pull and that he and Aldrin would either crash back to the surface or, perhaps, would be stranded in an orbit far below the capacity of the command module to help, until their oxygen ran out. There were eighteen separate rescue plans devised, but there was no guarantee that any of them would work if needed.

Collins agreed with Armstrong’s view of the risks. As the world listened to Armstrong and Aldrin announce that “the Eagle has landed” and then watched them walk from their module, Collins remained in orbit, well aware that if worst came to worst, he would return to Earth alone, always to be, in his words, “a marked man.” Later, Charles Lindbergh, who spent thirty hours alone over the Atlantic, would observe that Collins, for a similar duration, had experienced the most profound isolation a human being had ever known until then.

At the White House, there were similar worries. Frank Borman, the commander of the Apollo 8 mission which was the first to orbit the moon, advised the White House that the President should be prepared to speak to the nation if Apollo 11 ended in tragedy. Nixon speechwriter William Safire therefore was assigned to draft a speech for this contingency that read, in part:

“Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.”

(Over the last few weeks the text of this address-that-never-was has been mentioned in some websites and news reports as if it were recently unearthed, but in fact it’s been part of the historical record since Safire discussed and quoted from it in his 1975 book Before The Fall.)

I was 11 when Apollo 11 reached the moon and can well remember those grainy black-and-white images which amazed and stirred my whole family in the middle of the night. It was truly a time of wonder. And of thankfulness when Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were safely back on Earth.

Henry Allingham, 1896-2009

July 18, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under History, In Memoriam | Leave a Comment 

The passing of Walter Cronkite yesterday at the age of 92 was followed by many comments, online, in print, and on the airwaves, that it marked the end of an era. This morning, news came of the death of a man who survived Cronkite by a few hours, yet was old enough to be the newscaster’s father – 113-year-old Henry Allingham, the last founding member of the Royal Air Force, witness to the Battle of Jutland in 1916, and, until he joined his fallen comrades from over nine decades ago, one of just five veterans of World War I still with us. When the last of them goes, a period in human history can truly be said to have reached its conclusion. (The four others yet living are Harry Patch of Britain; 108-year-old Frank Buckles, the last American veteran; Claude Choules of Australia, the last sailor from the war; and Canada’s John Babcock, who served prior to Armistice Day but did not see combat.)

Until Allingham reached the age of 105, he was disinclined to talk about his experiences. But in 2001 Denis Goodwin of the World War I Veterans Association located him and persuaded the centenarian that the story he had to tell was one that people should hear. And so, for the last eight years of his life, Allingham spoke before many audiences of students and the public, describing the heroism and horror he had seen, and exhorting his listeners not to forget the sacrifice of his fellow servicemen. Often he would speak of the scenes he witnessed at the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917, in which 560,000 men perished in less than four months:

“They would just stand there in 2ft of water in mud-filled trenches, waiting to go forward. They knew what was coming. It was pathetic to see those men like that. I don’t think they have ever got the admiration and respect they deserved.”

In fact I’ve often wondered at the way in which World War I has faded from the American consciousness. In 1986 when I was living in Lexington, Kentucky, I used to drive past a charming subdivision named Belleau Wood. This was, of course, the name of the bloody battle fought by the U.S. Marine Corps in France in 1918. But no one seemed to take notice of that. At that point, the battle was 68 years in the past. Tarawa and Bastogne are now almost as distant but I don’t think there are too many developers who would feel comfortable naming neighborhoods after them.

The Case Of The Amiable Applicant

July 18, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Entertainment, News media, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon in the News, Senate, Supreme Court | 1 Comment 

This week marked the more or less official beginning of the Al Franken Slightly-Less-Than-Three-Fifths-of-a-Decade (Saturday Night Live fans, at least those of 1979-era vintage, will recognize the reference) and it started in a suitably bizarre way.

At the Senate hearings to consider the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the junior Senator from Minnesota bided his time, then sprang a surprise question. Judge Sotomayor had earlier said that she was in part inspired to become a prosecutor by watching the Perry Mason TV series.

It might have been a good time for Sen. Franken to ask how it was that seeing William Talman (in his role as District Attorney Hamilton Burger) losing the prosecution’s case week after week, season after season, could inspire her to follow in his footsteps.

Instead, Franken asked Judge Sotomayor to name the one case that Perry Mason lost on the show. She couldn’t do it. Another senator asked the former Stuart Smalley if he knew the name of the episode. Franken said he didn’t know.

This exchange, naturally, sent reporters to consulting the Wikipedia entry for the series and the several sites devoted to the show. There, they learned that Franken’s question was more confusing that it at first appeared.

There are three episodes in which Perry Mason loses a case. (At this point, TNN readers in Orange County can skip a few paragraphs, since I presume nearly all of them have seen these shows at least a thousand times apiece on KDOC during the last 27 years.)

“The Case Of The Witless Witness,” from 1963, which opens with Mason (played, of course, by the late Raymond Burr) losing an appeal (after his client, evidently, is convicted at trial). However, the plot of the episode does not focus on Mason’s defeat; rather, it sets up a situation where the judge who rules against Mason in appellate court is accused of murder and Perry gallantly takes his case and prevails in the courtroom.

During the show’s first season, “The Case Of The Terrified Typist” featured Mason losing a case, and discovering, on further examination, that his client is indeed guilty. However, it turns out that the name the client is using has been stolen from someone else, in a style somewhat anticipating today’s wave of identity thefts; that, and some other circumstances, enable the attorney to obtain a mistrial ruling, and at the show’s conclusion the implication is that the dishonest defendant will be tried again, with some other lawyer handling him.

The third episode, from 1963, seems to be the one that Judge Sotomayor had in mind, from what she said to Franken, but could not name. This is “The Case Of The Deadly Verdict.” In it, Mason’s defendant is convicted and it looks like Burger finally has the chance to find out what the thrill of victory is all about. But Perry, with Della and Paul’s help, looks into the matter further and finds out that his client has been withholding some facts from him. This leads him to discover the identity of the real murderer.

And at this point we come upon a conundrum truly worthy of the late Erle Stanley Gardner: why Al Franken would not be able to remember the title of “Deadly Verdict” when the actor playing the villain in it was his own second cousin, Stephen Franken. (Yes, the same Stephen Franken who attained pop-culture immortality as Chatsworth Osborne, the quintessential rich kid from Dobie Gillis – not to mention his role as Levinson the waiter in the 1968 film The Party, in which he displays prodigies of timing and comic skill that are to Al’s efforts what the arias of Kirsten Flagstad are to those of Florence Foster Jenkins.)

But I’ll leave it to wiser minds to puzzle that out. Right now it’s time to explain the title of this post. The Washington Post’s article about Franken’s exchange with the judge moved one of its readers to send a letter which the paper published today.

The letter’s writer, Beth Kravetz, said the colloquy of lawmaker and lawgiver put her in mind of a time in the early 1980s when she visited the offices of the National Association of Truck Stop Operators to talk to that organization’s president, former Nixon White House press secretary Ron Ziegler, about a job.

“With little in the way of general niceties” (as Ms. Kravetz tells it), Ziegler asked her to name the nine members of the Supreme Court. “I was surprised by the question,” Ms. Kravetz informs us, “and answered that I could more easily name the Seven Dwarfs, which I proceeded to do. The interview ended shortly thereafter.”

Now, it is most likely true that most Americans, at any given time since Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs was released in 1937, could more easily name Dopey, Doc and the rest of the gang than the nine justices. But I wonder if even the enormous investigative and logical capacities of Perry Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake would be up to explaining why Ms. Kravetz was surprised that Ron Ziegler was asking her to identify the members of the Court when she, a 1974 graduate of Georgetown University’s law school who presumably had studied cases bearing the names of most of the justices, was applying to work as general counsel of his organization.

I have the feeling that we will be seeing even greater wonders as the Franken era continues.

7.18.69

July 18, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Nixon in the News, Science, Technology, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

TNN Weekly Weekend Reward

July 18, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Weekly Weekend Reward | Leave a Comment 

This weekend’s Reward is Patty Griffin’s “Heavenly Day.”  It’s from her superb Grammy-nominated 2007 album Children Running Through.

Featured Articles — July 18, 2009

July 18, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Walter Cronkite: And that’s the way it was By Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times
For many who grew up in the 1960s and ’70s, Walter Cronkite was the voice of unfolding history. On the “CBS Evening News” and on the spot, his eloquent mediation of the great events of an age almost pathologically overflowing with them was essential to the way those events were understood. Even when he was temporarily at a loss for words — his tears at the death of John F. Kennedy, his inarticulate glee at the moon landing (“Whew, boy!”) — he somehow spoke for the nation he spoke to.

Democrats Grow Wary as Health Bill Advances By Robert Pear and David Herszenzohrn, The New York Times
Three of the five Congressional committees working on legislation to reinvent the nation’s health care system delivered bills this week along the lines proposed by President Obama. But instead of celebrating their success, many Democrats were apprehensive, nervous and defensive.

The Sotomayor Puzzle By Stuart Taylor Jr., The National Journal
As one who had hoped for a moderately liberal, intellectually honest nominee and feared the possibility of an unprincipled left-liberal ideologue steeped in identity politics, I am having trouble figuring out Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Under the Influence: Looking Long-Term By Andrew Bast, World Politics Review
Measuring American influence from week to week seems enough of a challenge, as a glance at recent global developments illustrates. The electoral upheaval in Iran, for instance, will almost certainly give the U.S. the upper hand in any upcoming nuclear negotiations. Unless, of course, it doesn’t. Likewise, China’s distancing itself from North Korea will strengthen the U.S.’s position at the U.N. Security Council. Or it might not. The difficulty in knowing for sure arises from the fact that gauging even the nearest term outcomes means making sense of many moving parts.

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