40 Years On — Apollo XIII

April 11, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Science | 1 Comment 

The Kennedy Space Center is remembering the fortieth anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 13 mission:

The 40th anniversary of Apollo 13 is being celebrated on Sunday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida,

At the time of the oxygen-tank explosion two days into the mission, Lovell, Haise and fellow astronaut Jack Swigert were not initially aware of the seriousness of their situation.

“Well, when the explosion occurred and we sort of found out and assessed on our own that we weren’t going to land on the moon, the first thoughts were one of disappointment,” said Lovell. “We didn’t realize the significance or the danger.”

But soon Lovell realized that so much of the spacecraft was virtually useless and he spoke to mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Texas those now-famous words: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

“The two fuel cells, or the three fuel cells, failed,” Lovell said. “The two oxygen tanks failed. We lost communication. We lost the use of our computer for a while. And consequently we had never really practiced for that.”

For five days, the crew of Apollo 13 and mission specialists on the ground dealt with crisis upon crisis, rationing food and water, dealing with a loss of cabin heat and even using the Lunar Module as a so-called “life boat” during the return trip to Earth.

“We always were able to solve a crisis as it came up some way, jury-rigging, or doing something to keep our spacecraft going, and finally for a safe landing,” Lovell said.

The Apollo 13 crisis — later made into a motion picture starring Tom Hanks — captivated the nation.

Large crowds gathered at New York’s Grand Central Station to watch the astronauts’ successful splashdown in the Pacific and the hero’s welcome for Lovell, Swigert and Haise aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima recovery ship.

In the end, Lovell never landed on the moon during his 11-year career as a NASA astronaut.

On April 17, 2010, RN welcomed the astronauts home, and offered praise for their “courage,” “ingenuity,” and “bravery:”

RN with Apollo 13 astronauts John Swigert, Jim Lovell, and Fred Haise during post-mission ceremonies at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

FOR MUCH of mankind the reaches of space had never seemed so infinitely remote as they did when Apollo 13 was crippled nearly a quarter of a million miles from earth, headed toward the moon.

With Astronauts Lovell, Haise, and Swigert safely back on earth, a surpassing human drama that gripped the world for 3 1/2 days at last has a happy ending. Their safe return is a tribute to their own courage and also to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of those on the ground who helped transform potential tragedy into a heart stopping rescue.

From the beginning, man’s ventures into space have been accompanied by danger. Apollo 13 reminds us how real those dangers are. It reminds us of the special qualities of the men who dare to brave the perils of space. It testifies, also, to the extraordinary concert of skills, in space and on the ground, that goes into a moon mission.
To the astronauts, a relieved Nation says “Welcome home.”

To them and to those on the ground who did so magnificent a job of guiding Apollo 13 safely back from the edge of eternity, a grateful Nation says “Well done.

New Book On Media Myths

April 11, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, News media, Presidents, Richard Nixon, TV News Personalities, U.S. History, Watergate | 1 Comment 

W. Joseph Campbell is a professor at American University School of Communications. Before he entered academia he spent 20 years as a journalist, often traveling and working abroad (in the days when major American newspapers and magazines could afford to send a fair number of reporters overseas).

He has a new book coming out in July, Getting It Wrong, published by the University of California Press. It focuses on ten major myths about the Fourth Estate that have arisen in the last century or so. The Washington Post website’s “Political Bookworm” discusses three of these: that the Spanish-American War was mainly the creation of William Randolph Hearst; that Edward R. Murrow, when he criticized Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy on his TV show See It Now, was the first major journalist to criticize McCarthy’s tactics (when several reporters and columnists were already doing so regularly); and that the thirty-seventh President was removed from office entirely through the efforts of Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman and the late Jason Robards Jr:

Katharine Graham, The Post’s publisher during the Watergate period, said in 1997: “Sometimes people accuse us of bringing down a president, which of course we didn’t do. The processes that caused [Nixon's] resignation were constitutional.” She was right, but the complexities of Watergate are not readily recalled these days. What does stand out is a media-centric interpretation that the dogged reporting of Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought Nixon down.

He Will Be Missed

April 10, 2010 by Jimmy Byron | Filed Under In Memoriam, International Affairs | Leave a Comment 

An official portrait of President Kaczyński. Kaczyński was killed in a plane crash Saturday morning in route to Russia.

Jimmy Byron is a 16-year-old high school student and a Nixon Foundation intern.

Early this morning, the world was shaken with the news that Polish President Lech Kaczyński and his wife Maria were killed when their plane crashed while attempting to land amid thick fog in Western Russia. Ninety-seven people were killed in the crash, including several very high ranking Polish government officials. The President and First Lady were traveling to Russia to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the massacre of Polish military personnel by the Soviet Secret Police in the Katyn Forest.

The sadness and mourning surrounding Kaczyński’s death is rather personal for me. In July 2007, I met President Kaczyński at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. Kaczyński traveled from meetings with President Bush in Washington, D.C. out to California to present the Order of the White Eagle, the highest Polish distinction, posthumously to President Reagan. Mrs. Reagan was on hand to accept the award, and George Shultz, former Labor Secretary and later Treasury Secretary to President Nixon and Secretary of State to President Reagan, delivered remarks. From my experience with President Kaczyński that day, I remember him as a calm leader with a sense of humor, deeply committed to his beliefs.

Kaczyński’s service to his country was a very prominent part of his life. In the 1970s, he joined several anti-Communist, pro-democracy organizations, including the Workers Defence Committee and the Independent Trade Union movement. He was active in both throughout the decade.

President Nixon became the first U.S. President to visit Poland in 1972 as a part of his and Mrs. Nixon’s tour of Europe and parts of Asia. There he spoke of a new birth of freedom around the globe, saying, “I can assure you that the major purpose of my visit here, and to the other countries that I have visited over the years that I have served in my present office, is to build a new structure of peace in the world. Poland has suffered too much from war and Poland, along with other peoples in the world, wants peace, and that is our goal: to achieve a world of peace for all nations. I am confident that [our discussions] will contribute to our common goal of friendship between the American people and the Polish people and of peace for all the world. Niech zyje Polska (Long live Poland).”

In the 1980s, Poland would become a symbol of Communist oppression as the Solidarity movement increased in popularity. Kaczyński joined Solidarity and was imprisoned for a short time as an “anti-socialist element” of the country. He later became an active advisor of Lech Wałęsa and went on to serve in a variety of government positions before being elected as President in 2005.

Kaczyński was the embodiment of RN’s dream of increasing “friendship between the American people and the Polish people and of peace for all the world.” He was most definitely a friend of the United States. As more details of the plane crash became apparent, President Obama released a statement reading in part: “Today’s loss is devastating to Poland, to the United States, and to the world.  President Kaczyński was a distinguished statesman who played a key role in the Solidarity movement, and he was widely admired in the United States as a leader dedicated to advancing freedom and human dignity… We join all the people of Poland in mourning their passing. Today, there are heavy hearts across America.  The United States cherishes its deep and abiding bonds with the people of Poland.  Those bonds are represented in the strength of our alliance, the friendships among our people, and the extraordinary contributions of Polish-Americans who have helped to shape our nation.”

By all accounts, President Kaczyński was a true patriot, and an ardent believer in the cause of freedom. He and his First Lady will be missed by millions around the world. Our hearts go out to their daughter, Marta, and their two grandchildren.


President and Mrs. Kaczyński pose with former First Lady Nancy Reagan, former Nixon Administration Labor Secretary and Treasury Secretary and Reagan Administration Secretary of State George Shultz, and Mrs. Shultz, July 17, 2007.

Anatoly F. Dobrynin, RIP

April 9, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Cold War, Cuba, International Affairs, National Security, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Russia, UN | Leave a Comment 

Yesterday, the death of Anatoly Fyodorovich Dobrynin, the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the United States from 1962 to 1986, was announced in Moscow. He was 90.

Few diplomats served as long in Washington as Dobrynin. (One who served longer was Ernest Jaakson, who was the representative of the Estonian government-in-exile in Washington, then of the revived nation of Estonia, from 1965 until 1993, and who replaced Dobrynin as dean of the capital’s diplomatic corps in 1986, rather to the latter’s irritation.) During those three-plus decades, he served five Soviet leaders (Khruschchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev) during six Administrations (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan).

The two most significant achievements of Dobrynin’s tenure in Washington came in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and ten years later, when he played a central role on the Soviet side in negotiating the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. The Cuban crisis came six months after his arrival in DC, following a period serving as United Nations Undersecretary-General under Dag Hammarskjold. During the months before President Kennedy learned of Soviet missiles on Cuban territory, Dobrynin managed to establish contacts with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy that proved to be the basis of the back-channel negotiations that ultimately defused what, to date, has been the most dangerous military situation the world has faced since 1945. None of Dobrynin’s predecessors as Soviet Ambassador had shown anything approaching his diplomatic poise and skill; had he not been on the scene, events might have taken a tragic turn.

A decade later, Dobrynin, negotiating with National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger, helped to assemble the ABM treaty, which, for nearly forty years, has been the cornerstone on which the disarmament agreements between the US and USSR (and later Russia) have been built. He also considerably facilitated the process which led to the SALT I agreement of 1972, and helped further the meetings between Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev which resulted in full-scale detente between the superpowers.

It should be emphasized that Dobrynin, despite his willingness to steep himself in American culture and his genial persona, was always a loyal representative of the Soviet regime and its ideology. When faced with the human-rights stance of President Carter, he gave no ground, and, in the years before Mikhail Gorbachev gained power, took many a hard-line position where Soviet actions abroad were concerned, especially in Afghanistan and Nicaragua. In his 1995 autobiography, In Confidence, he made it clear that he was unhappy to see the Soviet Union disintegrate. But it should be remembered that as a diplomat, he was committed to dialogue over confrontation, wherever and whenever he thought it possible, and that commitment helped the process which ultimately decreased and finally ended the dangerous tensions of the Cold War.

The Russian site RT.com offers these tributes from Dr. Kissinger, who so many times faced the Ambassador across a negotiating table, and Donald Kendall, a close friend of President Nixon’s:

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger remembers Dobrynin when, during the Cold War, he was working in Washington DC, heading the Russian Embassy there. “First he was my professional partner,” says Kissinger, “and then gradually, he became my friend.” Even though, he says, the Soviet politics of those times which the ambassador was standing by, often went against the US policies, “he was always trying to achieve peace, to reduce tensions and to stand by a more peaceful life on the planet,” says the former US Secretary of State. “I think of him with respect and warm-hearted feelings,” concludes Kissinger.

“I hope Dobrynin will get the memorial that he deserves,” said Donald Kendall, former head of the PepsiCo in an interview to ITAR-TASS news agency. He suggested that both Russia and the United States should put a monument to Dobrynin, as a sign of honor and respect for his achievements.

Kendall is convinced that Dobrynin’s “fantastic diplomatic skills” have several times “saved the relationships” between Moscow and Washington. “I have stressed this many times, that if in those times there would have been a different ambassador in Washington, then there could have been a real war between the two countries.”

Justice Stevens Retires

April 9, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Presidents, Senate, Supreme Court, White House | 1 Comment 

Less than an hour ago word came from Washington that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who was selected by President Ford as William O. Douglas’s replacement in 1975, has announced that he will retire when the Court’s spring term concludes at the end of June. In recent interviews, Stevens, who turns 90 on April 20, has emphasized that he has no interest in trying to break Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr’s record as the oldest person to sit on the Court, or Douglas’s as its longest-serving Justice. But his announcement is still somewhat surprising.

The Justice’s decision to retire presents another challenge to the Obama White House, of finding a nominee who can be confirmed by a majority of the Senate with no more debate and controversy than that which surrounded the comparatively smooth progress of Justice Sonia Sotomayor through the nomination process. As the Washington Post notes today, the candidate who seems most favored by the President at the moment is his Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, previously the dean of Harvard Law School. Ms. Kagan was confirmed for the Federal post by a Senate vote of 61-31 in March 2009, which might seem to augur well for her appointment to the Court. But quite a lot has changed in thirteen months, and the process may well be a tougher one for such a selection now.

The Economics Of Peter And Paul

April 9, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Annals of the Obama Administration, Barack Obama, Economic issues, Europe, Healthcare, Political Philosophy, economy | 4 Comments 

Maybe they’re on to something across the pond. It was announced the other day that the next national election in Great Britain will take place on May 6, and the stakes will be high. A 30-day campaign—can you imagine that?

Of course, the reality over there, as here at home, is that political posturing is a 24/7 proposition—relentless and unmerciful. But just the idea that an actual election can be set for a single month cycle is (pardon the pun) a foreign concept to us. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his leftist Labor party have been gaining ground on David Cameron’s Conservatives, closing what was once a 20-point gap to single digits—lately around 7 per cent—so the timing seemed right.

And while America is being dragged kicking and screaming to the statist left, our increasingly distant cousins could possibly be on the verge of an ironic power-shift. One that has been described “as potentially the most pivotal since the one in 1979 that brought the conservative Margaret Thatcher to power and recast the fundamentals of British politics and society.”

In other words, the culture that gave us Lloyd George, Churchill, and Lady Thatcher, could soon witness “the fundamental transformation” of their nation. Some are calling the campaign of the Tories a “back to the future” effort. Indeed.

Of course, conservatives in the United Kingdom are nowhere near clones of their nomenclature counterparts in the United States. Tories there would barely qualify as “moderate” Republicans here. But the trend is unmistakable and it is not being sufficiently noticed in our neck of the political woods.

Emerging as the hot button issue in the British election is a Labor-backed planned 1% increase in the National Insurance Tax. The Tories oppose this and have countered with an “efficiency saving” program that would address the chronic financial hemorrhage situation in the National Health Service. The NHS, by the way, remains an object of envy to many in our government. Go figure.

Most Americans—especially the nearly half who will pay no income tax this year—haven’t a clue as to how a single payer system works in places like Great Britain. Over and above already oppressive income tax rates, workers must pay a National Insurance Tax, with exemptions only for those who earn, say around 105 pounds per week, then it increases immediately to 11% of income up to 770 pounds per week. Over that, it costs an additional 1% of each worker’s income. So under the new Labor proposal most British workers would be paying a minimum of 12% of their income to fund their single payer system—in addition to already high income taxes.

Even a cursory examination reveals that this is a tax burden that falls squarely on the middle class—something the Brits have been more honest about than some in the current administration in Washington. Of course, the “official” position of the powers that be here is that a single-payer system is not on the table. But for anyone willing to think this political chess match through a few moves ahead, it is clear that there is gleeful hope in many quarters that the recent “reforms” will so stress our current system as to bring it and the country to its knees, paving the way for our own European-style set up.

What Americans need to note is that for a government to operate here as it does in other places will eventually require a great sacrifice on the part of the middle class. We are being sold a bill of good these days, one that some Americans seem all-too-willing to accept. The big lie du jour is that we can have all the purported “benefits” of socialism without the burdens.

Tax cuts for low and middle income families were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year. As a result, nearly half the country will benefit from everything the government does without paying a dime for it! And it is not just the poorest of the poor. There will be people who made $50,000 or more in 2009 paying no income taxes. In fact, 47% of workers in America will pay nothing.

And this is, in many ways, a cancer eating away at our national character. We are almost at the place of critical mass where those who derive a benefit from the government outnumber those who pay the bills. And as the old saying goes: “If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul!”

The irony is that this house of cards will ultimately collapse. Americans who think it’s all a pretty cool deal today—the idea of getting a free ride paid for by someone else—need to look closely at places like Great Britain. Yes, they have exemptions for some in their tax system, but you have to earn less than 6,000 pounds to qualify (roughly 12K in U.S. dollars, give or take). Everybody else pays. In fact, that family making the equivalent of 50K in U.S. dollars over there will pay heavy income taxes plus an 11% National Health Insurance tax for all that “free” stuff.

The other day, the New York Times wrote about the “growing power of the state in British life” noting that “more than half of all those in employment have government jobs, and just over half of the economy is accounted for by government activity.” Is this really what we want for America?

The truth of the matter is that the programs being touted today as to be paid for by the very rich will soon start costing all of us. In fact, it will be a rude awakening one day—if current trends persist—when a worker making an income that had long kept him below a tax-paying threshold sees a big chunk of change taken out of his paycheck.

Yes, they plan to soak the rich right now. But one day, they’ll come for everyone else needing dollars to feed the big entitlement machine. Saul Alinsky, in “Rules For Radicals” talked about the struggle between the “haves” and the “have nots.” And this became the basis for the kind of political energy that brought Barack Obama to the White House. People were trying to get their perceived “fair share.” Social Justice is now all the rage—let’s reshuffle the deck and give everyone a New Deal.

But the problem is that eventually the “have nots” will get all they can extort from the “haves.” Then the “pay nots”—those who have grown accustomed to someone else paying the tab—will have to become “pays.”

The other day, I was listening to BBC America on satellite radio and I heard a round table discussion bemoaning the fact that America has so much more entrepreneurial activity per capita than the U.K. These bright bulbs pondered the reasons and never seemed to have an “A-Ha!” moment. They talked about how maybe if the government gave more “grants” to those who wanted to start businesses.

Clueless.

Years ago, I heard a quote, I don’t remember where—or from whom—to the effect that if you want to see what the U.S. will be like in 40 years, look at the UK now.

Come to think of it, I heard that said just about 40 years ago.

How RN’s Historic Trip Benefits Both The U.S. And China

April 8, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under China, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Paul Chen, a student from the University of Virginia, writes in the student paper, The Cavalier Daily:

President Richard Nixon once remarked “If there is anything I want to do before I die, it is to go to China.” Thirty years ago, President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger fulfilled this vision by visiting the Middle Kingdom. Today, China has become an integral factor in many facets of American life. Some Americans see China as a potential threat to America’s power. But a closer relationship between China and the United States historically enhanced the economy of the United States, exposed China to democratic values and will continue to promote America’s national interests.

In 1979, the U.S. entered a painful stagflation — high inflation coupled with a high unemployment rate. The outcry against the Vietnam War and Watergate Scandal further shook Americans’ confidence in the nation’s political leadership. But the U.S. economy quickly rebounded. From the early 1980s to the 2000s, the U.S. created the largest economic expansion in recent history as the DOW increased from 1,000 to more than 14,000 points. The rise of China played a crucial role in this recovery.

In 1979, Deng Xiaoping led China out of Soviet style communism and boldly initiated a policy of global integration and economic reform. Since then, China’s GDP grew by 8,200 percent. As a result, 300 million people were lifted of poverty.

Continue reading.

TNI: PRK Unstable

April 7, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Nixon Center, North Korea, The National Interest | 1 Comment 

Douglas Bandow — a Senior fellow at the Cato Institute — writes in the Nixon Center’s National Interest that “we are no longer sure” that the possibility of a peninsular war is low:

The Republic of Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, has attempted to dampen speculation by announcing his intention to “look into the case in a calm manner.” But the possibility that Pyongyang committed a flagrant and bloody act of war has sent tremors through the ROK. Seoul could ill afford not to react strongly, both to protect its international reputation and prevent a domestic political upheaval.

All economic aid to and investment in the North would end. Diplomatic talks would be halted. Prospects for reconvening the Six-Party Talks would disappear.

Moreover, Seoul might feel the need to respond with force. Even if justified, such action would risk a retaliatory spiral. Where it would end no one could say. No one wants to play out that scenario to its ugly conclusion.

The Yellow Sea incident reemphasizes the fact that North Korean irresponsibility could lead to war. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen after President Lee ended the ROK’s “Sunshine Policy”—which essentially provided bountiful subsidies irrespective of Pyongyang’s behavior.

Nevertheless, the threat of war seemingly remained low. Thankfully, the prospect of conflict had dramatically diminished over the last couple of decades. After intermittently engaging in bloody terrorist and military provocations, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea seemed to have largely abandoned direct attacks on South Korea and the United States.

Now we are no longer sure.

Even if the DPRK was not involved in the sinking, only prudence, not principle, prevents the North from engaging in armed instances of brinkmanship. And with Pyongyang in the midst of a leadership transition of undetermined length, where the factions are unclear, different family members could reach for power, and the military might become the final arbiter, the possibility of violence occurring in the North and spilling outward seems real.

Such an outcome would be in no one’s interest, including that of China. So far the People’s Republic of China has taken a largely hands-off attitude towards the North. Beijing has pushed the DPRK to negotiate and backed limited United Nations sanctions. But the PRC has refused to support a potentially economy-wrecking embargo or end its own food and energy subsidies to North Korea.

There are several reasons for China’s stance. At base, Beijing is happier with the status quo than with risking North Korea’s economic stability or the two nations’ political relationship. Washington doesn’t like that judgment. However, changing the PRC’s policy requires convincing Beijing to assess its interest differently. The Yellow Sea incident could help.

Apparently North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is planning to visit China. Speculation is rife about the reason: to request more food aid, promote investment in the North, respond to Beijing’s insistence that the DPRK rejoin the Six-Party Talks or something else?

Continue Reading.

Clifford Hardin, R.I.P.

April 6, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under In Memoriam | Leave a Comment 

Secretary Hardin right with RN and agronomist Norman Borlaug. Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for the creation of a disease resistant wheat that helped increase the food supply of developing countries.

The AP reports:

Former U.S. agriculture secretary and University of Nebraska chancellor Clifford Hardin has died.

The university confirmed Hardin passed away Sunday. He was 94.

Hardin became chancellor in 1954 and then president when the University of Nebraska system was established in 1968. He left Nebraska in 1969 to serve as agriculture secretary under President Richard Nixon, a position he held until 1971.

The New York Times takes an in-depth look at how Secretary Hardin brought Nebraska to the top of college football:

Mr. Hardin attended Purdue on a 4-H scholarship, earning undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. degrees there. He taught at Purdue, the University of Wisconsin and Michigan State College (now Michigan State University). In 1954, at age 39, he became chancellor at Nebraska, where he helped quadruple enrollment and persuaded the state’s Legislature to raise professors’ salaries.

In 1962, Mr. Hardin set the stage for Nebraska to become a major collegiate football power when he hired Bob Devaney as coach. Mr. Devaney had been an assistant coach at Michigan State and had known Mr. Hardin there. The Cornhuskers under Mr. Devaney won two national championships, then three more under Tom Osborne, his successor.

In an interview with The New York Times in 1983, Mr. Hardin explained his effort for national football prominence this way: “The people came through the Depression. They came through the drought years. I felt the state needed something to rally around. If we could pull this off, it could be the difference. I think in retrospect, it probably helped us get more money to build the university.”

Revealed: RN’s First Pentagon Nuclear Briefing

April 5, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs | 4 Comments 

David Hoffman of Foreign Policy Magazine writes of the unearthed details from the National Security Archive:

Just one week into his presidency, on Jan. 27, 1969, Richard M. Nixon got an eye-opening briefing at the Pentagon on the nation’s secret nuclear war plans — the Single Integrated Operational Plan, as it was known then. “It didn’t fill him with enthusiasm,” Henry Kissinger, the national security advisor, said later. The briefers walked Nixon through the absolutely excruciating decision a president would face upon receiving an alert of impending attack: whether to launch nuclear missiles.

The slides used to brief Nixon that day have been partially declassified and released by the National Security Archive, and they suggest how complex the whole decision process would be. In the event of nuclear war, Nixon was told, he would have three functional tasks: Alpha, for strikes on the most urgent military targets; Bravo, for secondary military targets; and Charlie, for industrial and urban targets. If the president ordered an attack of Alpha and Bravo, urban areas would be spared. But beyond these were dozens of decisions, attack options, targets, and variations. There were committed forces and coordinated forces, hard-core forces and theater forces. Nixon was shown the “decisions handbook” or black book, with tabs, which was open in front of him.

At the end of the briefing, Nixon was shown a slide marked “Conclusion.” He was reassured the war plan was flexible and responsive. “Procedures for execution are straight-forward and in themselves neither new or unusually complicated,” Nixon was told. “It is in the decision-making process, the evaluation and selection of the many attack responses available, wherein the problem becomes complex.”

Then the briefer warned:

“In a crisis mounted over a period of time, it should be possible to eliminate early some of the alternatives, such as whether or not to attack particular countries. In a long, drawn out crisis, with highly intensified force readiness on one or both sides, it may be even possible to eliminate from further consideration some of the attack options. But in a sudden emergency, with little or no warning, all of these considerations must be entertained and discussed with the president [pause] and perhaps in no more than a very few minutes.”

Jerald F. terHorst and Eugene Allen, RIP

April 2, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, In Memoriam, News media, Nixon Administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, White House | Leave a Comment 

Wednesday marked the passing of two men who, in their respective ways, were part of memorable moments in White House history. In Takoma Park, Maryland, Eugene Allen died at age 90. He joined the White House pantry staff in the last months of the Truman presidency, and rose through the ranks for the next 34 years, retiring in 1986 after five years as the White House maitre d’.

Allen traveled with President Nixon on the historic visit to Romania in 1969, the first time a President had visited the Communist world in peacetime, and shortly before his retirement he, along with his wife, had the honor of attending a state dinner for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl as Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s guests. After two decades of quiet retirement, Allen gained national prominence in November 2008 when he was the subject of a fascinating and moving article in the Washington Post by Wil Haygood.

And, in North Carolina, Jerald F. terHorst died at age 87. He was the head of the Detroit News’ Washington bureau in the 1960s and early 1970s, and in that capacity was a member of the media delegation accompanying President Nixon to China in 1972. But he came to national notice just after Nixon’s resignation, when he was President Ford’s first major appointee as press secretary.

Thirty days later, he became the only major figure in the Ford Administration to leave office over the 38th President’s decision to grant a pardon to his predecessor. Several years later, terHorst co-authored The Flying White House: The Story of Air Force One with longtime AF1 pilot Ralph J. Albertazzie, which contains a lengthy opening chapter describing RN’s flight on the plane from the White House to San Clemente on August 9, 1974. It’s a fascinating account of that trip and the rest of the book is just as worthwhile.

Jennings’ Heroes

April 2, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Book Review, Vietnam | 16 Comments 

In Regnery’s most recent Politically Incorrect Guide, author and Marine Corps Veteran Phillip Jennings thinks highly of RN’s handling of the Vietnam War:

If Mr. Jennings has a hero, other than the American and South Vietnamese soldiers who fought the battles, it is Richard Nixon. Unlike LBJ, Nixon was unafraid to employ American air power against the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos, against North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia, and finally—with the “Christmas Bombings” of 1972—against Hanoi and Haiphong in an effort to force the North Vietnamese to the peace-conference table. Mr. Jennings, as a pilot, may have an excessive faith in the efficacy of air power, but there is no doubt that the battered North Vietnamese did wind up signing the Paris Peace Accord in 1973 (only to immediately violate the terms). The rest is sad denouement and catastrophe: Watergate, a weakened presidency, a rebellious Democratic Congress, a cutoff of promised military support to our South Vietnamese ally, a massive North Vietnamese invasion of the south, and collapse.

Read an excerpt of the book here.

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