Tom Shachtman Writes About Barack Obama (Sr.)

May 11, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, News media, Presidents, U.S. History | 6 Comments 

There has been considerable discussion in TNN about The Forty Years’ War, Len Colodny and Tom Shachtman’s book about foreign policy in the Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush eras. But it was not the only book Tom Shachtman published last year. St. Martin’s Press also published his Airlift To America, which tells the story of how Kenyan labor and independence leader, Tom Mboya, arranged with the help of American friends to sent many young East Africans to study in the United States between 1959 and 1963.

Most of the students came over on aircraft chartered by the African American Students Foundation, a group organized by Mboya and William X. Scheinman, with the help of both white and black sponsors, including Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Jackie Robinson. Although the late Barack Obama Sr., father of the forty-fourth President, did not travel to Hawaii on one of these flights (he came to Honolulu on a commercial flight, financed by two American teachers he’d met in Kenya), his stay in the Aloha State, where he met and married Stanley Dunham and fathered the future President, was made possible in large degree by scholarships from the AASF (at the recommendation of his mentor Mboya).

David Remnick’s recent bestselling biography of President Obama, The Bridge, has stirred up interest in this program again, and Shactman has a short article at the New York Times’s website discussing it. (See also this letter to the Times Book Review by Cora Weiss, who was executive director of the AASF.)

Oil Spills And Federal Leadership

May 8, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Environmental issues, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Walter Hickel’s death comes at a time when the nation is focused on the causes and consequences of offshore oil spills.  As the newly-minted Secretary of the Interior —literally newly-minted, having only been confirmed six days earlier— Wally Hickel had to deal with one of the worst such disasters.

On the afternoon of 29 January 1969, a Union Oil platform six miles off the Santa Barbara coast suffered a blowout.  Over the next eleven days, workers struggled to cap the rupture while hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil spread into an 800 square mile slick that killed wildlife and tarred beaches along 35 miles of pristine coast.

The Hickel Senate confirmation hearings at been bitterly controversial; they set new levels of political acrimony that, finally, even embarrassed some of the interlocutors.  When the vote was finally taken after RN’s inauguration —making Hickel the last confirmed Cabinet member— the new President called and suggested that the new Secretary relax for a weekend at Camp David.

In a wide-ranging and fascinating conversation in 2003 with Charles Wilkinson and Patricia Limerick —co-founders of the Center of the American West— Wally Hickel recalled those events:

So I was confirmed and the president called and said, “Wally, go to Camp David. You’ve been through a terrible thing.” So I went up to Camp David, I left my chief of staff in Washington. I was up there one day and he called me. He said, “Mr. Secretary, they’ve had a terrible oil spill down in Santa Barbara.” He said, “It’s really bad.” And I said, “Well, get me a plane, let’s get out there.” And I hadn’t even been in my office yet. I got down there and we flew out to California and the Coast Guard met me and God, the people. It was rough.

They flew me out to see that. There’s pictures of that. I saw this tremendous flood of oil. And the people were saying, who was in office, and they were saying, “Take that Union Oil thing. Do this. Do that.” I was at the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara that night. It was 1:30 in the morning. Fred Hartley was there, Union Oil. I didn’t know what authority he had. It didn’t make any difference. I said, “Fred, I’m going to shut you down.” And he said, “Mr. Secretary, you don’t have the authority to shut me down.” That stopped me for about a second and a half. I walked over and looked him right in the eye and said, “Fred, I just gave myself the authority.”

I walked out of there. I got on the phone and called the attorney general’s office and got the answering service. It was very early in the morning there in Washington, about 5:30 or so. I said, “You find me a way that I can shut them down, I just did that.”

I got on a plane and went back to Washington and got back there about ten o’clock the next morning. The Attorney General called me and said, “Mr. Secretary, we think we have something that will really please you. We found a regulation that was put in in 1834 that says that the Secretary of Interior is responsible that our natural resources not be wasted.” I held on that and won the case.

The problem with that was I got the regulations sent to me the first day down there in their office and the previous administration had given them [Union Oil] the right to drill offshore, and I didn’t mind that. But the regulations they used were the same as on land. So in reality, Union Oil didn’t break any regulations.

So I go back out to Santa Barbara and it was really wild. We had a meeting in a convention hall; there were two to three hundred people. They were saying, “Get Union Oil. Do this.” I said, “Wait a minute. They didn’t break any laws. We didn’t have the right regulations.” And they calmed down. I said, “That is not Union’s oil. It belongs to us. It’s the commons.”

I closed them down and we had hearings later. But those hearings were tough. I had no animosity. I sat there. God must have caused that spill in Santa Barbara because it brought the commons in to me.

Alaska was the commons. I had had that battle since 1951 when I took it to Washington. It started the environmentalist thinking. It started that thinking and it became a busy two years. But that was part of the hearing. Long story, but I don’t know how to make it shorter.

Walter J. Hickel   1919-2010

May 8, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Environmental issues, In Memoriam, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

“The conservationists cheered me when we fought against pollution or when we preserved park lands; they attacked me when we advanced the Alaska Pipeline and the North America energy grid. My friends and associates in business were equally perplexed. I was not their guy. I was not anyone’s guy.”

Camelot And Sacred Cow–Tipping

May 7, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Entertainment, History, Media, Presidents, Richard Nixon, TV, U.S. History, UK Politics | 2 Comments 

Whatever his obvious faults and flaws, it is somewhat understandable that Richard Nixon would ruminate about how Jack Kennedy got away with a lot during his assassination-shortened presidency. And there is no doubt that the 37th President of the United States saw all of the “Camelot” hype as mythology born of cynical public relations. While Nixon was being criticized for conducting a purported “Imperial” presidency by the likes of Arthur Schlessinger (a pro-Kennedy historian), he no-doubt resented the cult of personality that survived his old rival’s violent death.

RN would be 97 today—JFK would be 93 in a couple of weeks. It’s hard to envision the forever-young Kennedy as an old man, though we saw Nixon live into his 80s. They were friends at first, with Nixon the early-on transcendent figure. Then came the rivalry marked by increased and enduring bitterness. But it was always more complicated than that.

Americans too young to remember either man have been taught the party line that Kennedy was a great man and Nixon was a bad man. JFK was the hero of the Cuban Missile Crisis—Nixon was the villain of Watergate. JFK had charisma; Nixon had no charm—and so it goes.

The truth is actually quite different.

The History Channel is moving forward with production of an eight-part mini-series scheduled to air next year called, The Kennedys. Greg Kinnear (Little Miss Sunshine) will play JFK and Katie Holmes will play Jacqueline. The producer is a man named Joel Surnow, who is the creator of the highly successful and soon to expire series, 24.

Surnow is also reputed to have politically conservative tendencies (Gasp! Horrors!). Reportedly, the upcoming dramatic portrayal of the years of the New Frontier will include material about some of Kennedy’s flaws—and the guardians of his image are mobilized to “stop the smears.”

I say it’s about time that popular culture is exposed to the truth about the man behind the Camelot myth—before fact is fossilized.

The John F. Kennedy who will be portrayed in the new series will, reportedly, be a real life character—warts and all. And some of those warts had the potential to morph into cancer. In fact, there is a credible case to be made that had Kennedy lived beyond that fateful fall day in 1963, and managed to be reelected in 1964, he may not have survived a second term, legally and politically. That’s right. As Hugh Sidey suggested before his death in 2005—the same Hugh Sidey, who as an editor at Time Magazine during the Kennedy years, was also a Camelot insider—JFK’s various and sundry moral, ethical, and judgmental, pecadillos might very well have led to his actual impeachment.

Was the Kennedy administration a Watergate waiting to happen?

Possibly this new mini-series will popularize information that has long lain dormant in histories that are hardly read anymore. All the pieces of the puzzle are long established matters in the public domain—hiding in plain sight, but obscured by the powerful rays of cultish brilliance. But finally, those pieces are being assembled in a way that may accurately characterize a man who was likely guilty of actions much worse than what brought Mr. Nixon down in 1974.

From the improper use of the FBI in matters of surveillance and investigation in matters not at all related to national security, to misuse of the Secret Service, to his affair with a mistress of a major crime boss with its attendant compromises, Mr. Kennedy played by his own rules against the backdrop of the last gasp of an age of media mercy. He lived on the edge, from his monumental sexual addiction, to his experimentation with illicit drugs, to his dependence on substances that, while not illegal, seemed grayish—John F. Kennedy’s time was running out. People were always covering for him (some of the same ones still are). But was it only a matter of time before someone broke rank?

If Watergate taught us anything, it was that it is hard to keep a lid on a big story—even in the White House.

The story of Jack’s faults is, though, more than the tale of a bad boy—he may very well have compromised national security. Mr. Kennedy’s fascination in 1963 with an unfolding scandal in Great Britain likely had to do with the fact that he was beginning to worry about his own bailiwick. British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan’s government was then being rocked by a sex scandal involving one John Profumo, the Minister for War, and a notorious woman named Christine Keeler who had at least two boyfriends: Profumo and a Soviet naval attaché named Yevgeny Ivanov. And there were other women.

Why would this discomfit JFK? Well, because he had been flying rather close to the same kind of flame at the time. In fact, among the “other women” involved in the British scandal were two trollops, Suzy Chang and Maria Novotny. Both had been involved “romantically” with Kennedy. So it was quite possible that the scandal that eventually led to MacMillan’s government being voted out in 1964 might have by that time tarnished the name of the President of the United States.

Interestingly, while John F. Kennedy visited the United Kingdom and broke bread with MacMillan one Saturday in the summer of 1963, a story was beginning to break stateside. It appeared briefly in the New York Journal-American (Hearst paper) and spoke cryptically of “a man who holds ‘very high’ elective office” who was involved with some of the women being mentioned in the Profumo matter.

The story was pulled after one edition following pressure from U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

But beyond this, there was actually another “bimbo” problem plaguing JFK, and this one had to do with a German girl by the name of Ellen Rometsch. Said to strongly favor actress Elizabeth Taylor, she was a 27-year old prostitute who regularly “serviced” Mr. Kennedy in 1963.

Rometsch was from East Germany and had been a member of the Communist Party and many thought she was, in fact, a spy. She was paid by JFK for sex and participated in what could only be described as orgies in the White House pool. The party girl visited Kennedy at least ten times that spring and summer. When confronted by J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, about the fact that Rometsch was likely a spy, Bobby Kennedy worked feverishly to have her deported—and she was soon en route to her homeland behind the Iron Curtain.

The story went away, but not all that far away. Less than a month before Kennedy’s fateful trip to Dallas, one Iowa newspaper broke a story: “U.S. Expels Girl Linked to Officials.” In the article was the tidbit that this woman had been involved with “some prominent New Frontiersmen from the executive branch of the government.” But those were the days before White House reporters went for the jugular asking tough questions.

Why is any of this important now? It matters simply because there tends to be a measure of selective amnesia when it comes to iconic figures. If a myth better serves current political purposes this trumps truth.

Had John F. Kennedy lived and had his shortcomings been investigated and written about with Woodward-Bernstein-like passion, he may not have been reelected in 1964. And if he did manage to win that race, and investigators did their jobs, JFK might very well have been impeached or brought to the place of resignation.

Then again, that may be fantasy, because it was unlikely that Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post in those days, and inbred Kennedy crony, would have allowed any such story to go forward. At any rate, it all went away that sad November day and we are left with a legend that does history, not to mention the American people, a disservice.

Stephen Kronish is the screenwriter for upcoming mini-series, The Kennedys, and he insists that they are “not out to destroy the sacred cow.” But as Gene Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency, recently wrote:

In an age when Americans periodically swoon for imperial presidents, a little sacred cow-tipping would be a public service.

Kent State, 40 Years Later

May 4, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Music, News media, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of one of the Nixon era’s most tragic events, when four students were killed by Ohio National Guard gunfire at the campus of Kent State University during an antiwar demonstration. The shootings were followed by a nationwide student strike, and thousands of students descending on Washington to protest. (It was at that time that President Nixon made his famous early-morning visit to the Lincoln Memorial, which I’ll write about in a few days.)

The deaths of the students were preceded by the burning of a building used by Kent State’s ROTC chapter. One member of the chapter was William Schroeder, one of the students who died. Another was David Rust, who at the time was planning a military career and took a job maintaining the chapter’s rifles. The events of May 4 changed his mind and made him decide to go into journalism. He’s been a cameraman with CNN for nearly thirty years, and at the channel’s website he writes about the events of that day:

As I watched the four days unfold, I was struck by the images I saw in person and the stories on the national news.

I heard news reports of “thousands” of student protesters, but I had only seen a few hundred in the protests before May 4. Many were like me, just watching what was going on.

It amazed me that the events unfolding at this small university could affect people’s opinion of their country and their government.

I was also impressed by the dramatic photos that captured the events, including one shot by John Filo, a Kent photojournalism student.

It showed a 14-year-old girl kneeling beside the body of Jeffrey Miller, one of the dead students. The photo earned a Pulitzer Prize for Filo. It also had a huge impact on the American public.

The power of the media coverage of the Kent State protests opened a whole new world for me.

For the first time I began to think about journalism. Six week later, when school reopened, I began to take my education more seriously. My grades dramatically improved, and I started focusing on a profession. I returned home to California and started taking writing and photography classes at Pasadena City College. The more I learned, the more obsessed I became with the news business.

With the help of friends working for televisions stations in Los Angeles, I learned to operate a television news camera.

Two years later, I heard about Ted Turner’s new experiment in 24-hour news, and I started working for CNN’s bureau in Los Angeles.

It all started with an unexpected lesson learned from a tragedy 40 years ago.

And at Time.com there’s an article about “Ohio,” Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s song, recorded later in May 1970.

A Historian’s Responsibility

May 4, 2010 by David Emig | Filed Under History, News media, Politics, Presidential libraries, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 4 Comments 

Recently the New Yorker came out with allegations that Stephen Ambrose (famed WWII and Nixon Biographer) exaggerated his contact with Dwight Eisenhower, General of the Army and 34^th President of the United States.  {See: Raymer, Richard, “Channeling Ike,” The New Yorker, April 26, 2010.}

The late Dr. Ambrose {1936-2002} was the author of some 25 books during his 40 year career.  He was one of the most popular World War II historians, the writer of Band of Brothers (2001), and the technical adviser to “Saving Private Ryan” Steven Spielberg’s D-Day blockbuster.  Ambrose’s three volume biography of Richard Nixon: {The Education of the Politician [1913-1962](pub.1983), “The Triumph of the Politician [1962-1974](pub.1987)”, “Ruin and Recovery [1974-1990](pub.1991)”} stand out as almost required reading for Nixon scholars.

Towards the end of his prolific career, Ambrose was accused of by his critics, and excused for being a virtual “history factory.”  A Stephen Ambrose Inc. who employed his children as research assistants.  {See: Plotz, David, “The Plagiarist: Why Stephen Ambrose is a Vampire”, Slate Magazine, January 11, 2002.}

The current controversy centers on the beginnings of Ambrose’s association with Ike in 1964.  Ambrose’s account, last stated in To America (2002), was that Eisenhower sought out Ambrose after reading his first book, Halleck: Chief of Staff (1962).  The recently retired Eisenhower was especially interested in Lincoln’s Chief of Staff’s story because Eisenhower was interested in writing a book about George Marshall, the Chief of Staff during the Second World War.  Eisenhower wanted Ambrose to work with him on his papers and finally his biography because he figured that Ambrose would be fair.  {See To America pp. 153-154}

Seven years later a different version of events emerged.  Last year, the deputy director of the Eisenhower Library, Tim Rives was looking for documents and the like for his exhibit on Ambrose’s writing on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the Eisenhower’s biography.  Rives discovered letters in the archives of Stephen Ambrose soliciting contact with Eisenhower.  It was Ambrose who sent the Halleck book along to give Ike “the opportunity to see some of my writing.”  Another letter was more forward.  “It therefore seems to me that the time has come to begin the scholarly biographies of the leaders of World War II, I would like to begin a full scale, scholarly account of your military career.”  The New Yorker article strongly states that Eisenhower never approached Ambrose, but the editor of the Eisenhower papers, Alfred Chandler, took Ambrose to see Eisenhower at Gettysburg.

This isn’t the most serious charge in the article. Although having boasted about hundreds of hours of interviews with Eisenhower, a recent search of the historical record might suggest otherwise.  Rives states that records of Eisenhower’s schedule for the years of 1964-1967 show that Ambrose met with Eisenhower three times, for a total of five hours.  These records show that Eisenhower was somewhere else or in other meetings, during some of the times Ambrose has listed as having an interview with him.

However, to read Ambrose’s writing through his biographies and in his account of his relationship with Eisenhower in Ambrose’s last book, it is difficult to discount Ambrose’s familiarity with his subject.  Eisenhower did write the foreword to Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point, (1966).  “To America” also describes discussions about more mundane things, such as Ike’s recommendations of restaurants in the area.  {p. 161.}   The New Yorker also brings up the point of just how much of Eisenhower’s career in the military and as President could be discussed in five hours.  Perhaps the author relied more on his knowledge of Eisenhower’s papers, and interviews with other principals than his five hours with Eisenhower.  The record only shows a difference in accounts, without displaying the motivation behind it.  Ambrose, like most biographers, never detailed what historical documentation he valued over others.

It is interesting to note that while Dr. Ambrose has dates for the interviews in the book in question Supreme Commander (1970); in subsequent books on Eisenhower such as the two volume biography and the consolidated Eisenhower: Soldier and President (1991), Ambrose only mentions “Interview with DDE” and doesn’t specify a date.  Maybe it is merely a mistake of a young historian who quietly learned his lesson.  We truly cannot know for sure, since the professor isn’t here to tell us.

Stephen Ambrose was no stranger to controversy about his scholarship.  In the recent piece in the History News Network, entitled “How the Ambrose Story Developed,” the articles cites seven Ambrose books that are in possible question for plagiarism.  According to an article in Forbes Magazine, this habit dates back to his Ph.D dissertation, Upton and the Army (1964). {See: Lewis, Mark, “Ambrose Problems Date Back To Ph.D. Thesis,” Forbes Magazine, May 10, 2002.}  Must we factor in these tendencies in our assessment of his historical analysis?

A few famous historians have been called on insufficient citation.  Most notably Doris Kearns Goodman, who had the remaining copies of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987) destroyed, made corrections to future editions, and owned up to the mistakes.  (See: Goodman, Doris Kearns, “How I Caused That Story,” Time Magazine, January 27, 2002.)

What is plagiarism?  According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, (as quoted in Wikipedia) it is the “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”  My definition is simple.  It is the lifting of another person’s words, then representing them as your own.  When you describe a event in someone’s life that has been described by different authors…then one reaches a grey area of interpretation. How can there not be similarities?  This is illustrated when comparing Ambrose’s account of RNs hospital experience in 1975 in “Ruin and Recovery,” with a similar account 16 years earlier in Robert Sam Anson’s book, “Exile.”  {See Lewis, Mark, “More Controversy For Stephen Ambrose,” Forbes Magazine, January 9, 2002.}  While the examples in the article might be a case of insufficient citation, they do not reach the level of plagiarism.

However, making up dates for interviews is a different plateau of error.  While corrected quietly in future works; the sin of creating interviews in “The Supreme Commander” give the reader a false impression that he was writing with Eisenhower’s perspective. As mentioned earlier, for this latest controversy, Dr. Ambrose isn’t here to offer a defense, reason or excuse.

This whole Ambrose controversy should serve as a cautionary tale for all of us.  It is a reminder to tighten one’s craft.  Plagiarism, insufficient citation, and other errors can be taken care of in the cases of established historians like Goodwin, and Ambrose.  After all, the great publishing houses can repair the damage by correction.  While the established historians would be assessed by the totality of their work; these errors would be fatal to the career of the beginning historian and his or her first book.

Great care and attention must be put towards citation.  In my other vocation in the legal profession, proper citation is a given.  There are legal consequences for failure.  During the plagiarism charges regarding The Wild Blue (2001), Dr. Ambrose wrote on his website, “I tell stories.  I don’t discuss my documents.  I discuss the story.  It almost gets to the point where, how much is the reader going to take?  I am not writing a Ph.D dissertation.”  (Quoted from Kirkpatrick, David, “As Historian’s Fame Grows, So Does Attention to Sources,” New York Times, January 11, 2002.)

Fair enough.  While histories and biographies shouldn’t turn into dissertations; we as biographers and historians do write for two audiences.  One is the casual reader of history – who is looking for a good, interesting read without the distraction of footnotes within the text.  Current biographers such as Edmund Morris, Richard Reeves, and David McCullough use source notes at the back of the book rather than footnotes.

The other audience is fellow historians and students of history.  Accurately quoted and cited source materials; whether it is from a secondary source, or an interview, or letter is essential.  Doris Kearns Goodwin put it best when she said: “The writing of history is a rich process of building on the work of the past with the hope that others will build on what you have done. Through footnotes you point the way to future historians.”  (See: “How I Caused That Story.”)  After all, no writer of history or biography wants to jump in the abyss…

For the modern historian without Professor Ambrose’s reputation; the making up of interviews of their main subject would be an unpardonable offence.  With modern technology, there is no excuse for not accurately accounting for all interviews with your subject.  They must be treated and cited like any other document or secondary source material, with the date and place of interview listed.  This includes the extra step of transcribing of all interviews, a process that is invaluable for documentation.

The historical jury is still out on how Professor Ambrose’s scholarship will finally be judged.  In the end, after the author is long gone….the work must defend him.  As our work as historians and biographers must defend us.

Whenever I visit the Nixon Library, I always stop by President and Mrs. Nixon’s gravesite to pay my respects.  Once there, I sense an overwhelming responsibility.  The voice that tells me…  “Get It Right.”

Goodbye To All That

May 3, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Art, History, Supreme Court, Terrorism, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

The Supreme Court announced this morning that visitors will no longer access the building by ascending the 44 marble steps steps and passing under the words “Equal Justice Under Law” to enter the great central hall through the massive bronze doors depicting the history of the development of justice and law in the western world from ancient Greece to 19th Century America.

A Court press release stated: “The new entrance, which will serve as the primary means for public entry, was designed in light of findings and recommendations from two independent security studies conducted in 2001 and 2009.  The entrance provides a secure, reinforced area to screen for weapons, explosives, and chemical and biological hazards.”

Justice Breyer issued a Statement —in which Justice Ginsburg concurred— regretting the surrender of symbolism to security.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

MONDAY, May 3, 2010

Present: Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kennedy, Justice Thomas, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Sotomayor.

Statement Concerning the Supreme Court’s Front Entrance Memorandum of Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins.

I write with regret to note the closing of the Court’s front entrance. The Supreme Court building is currently undergoing extensive construction, and the Court has decided that, after this construction is completed, visitors to the Court—including the parties whose cases we decide, the attorneys who argue those cases, and the members of the public who come to listen and to observe their government in action— will have to enter through a side door. While I recognize the reasons for this change, on balance I do not believe they justify it. I think the change is unfortunate, and I write in the hope that the public will one day in the future be able to enter the Court’s Great Hall after passing under the famous words “Equal Justice Under Law.”

Cass Gilbert faced a difficult problem when he was commissioned to design the Court’s present home. The Court was to be built on a small, irregularly-shaped plot of land adjacent to both the Capitol and the Library of Congress, two powerful and prominent architectural competitors. How was Gilbert to create a distinctive, yet fitting, home for the Court in these circumstances?

Gilbert’s solution was to design an entrance that, in the words of architect and lawyer Paul Byard, “the processional progress toward justice reenacted daily in [the Court’s] premises.” Starting at the Court’s western plaza, Gilbert’s plan leads visitors along a carefully choreographed, climbing path that ultimately ends at the courtroom itself.  The Court’s forty-four marble steps, the James Earle Fraser sculptures Contemplation of Justice and Authority of Law, the Western portico with its eight pairs of columns standing high above the removed wings of the building, the Great Hall—each of these elements does its part to encourage contemplation of the Court’s central purpose, the administration of justice to all who seek it.

But the significance of the Court’s front entrance extends beyond its design and function. Writers and artists regularly use the steps to represent the ideal that anyone in this country may obtain meaningful justice through application to this Court. And the steps appear in countless photographs commemorating famous arguments or other moments of historical importance. In short, time has proven the success of Gilbert’s vision: To many members of the public, this Court’s main entrance and front steps are not only a means to, but also a metaphor for, access to the Court itself.

This is why, even though visitors will remain able to leave via the front entrance, I find dispiriting the Court’s decision to refuse to permit the public to enter. I certainly recognize the concerns identified in the two security studies that led to this recent decision (which reaffirmed a decision made several years ago). But potential security threats will exist regardless of which entrance we use. And, in making this decision, it is important not to undervalue the symbolic and historic importance of allowing visitors to enter the Court after walking up Gilbert’s famed front steps.

To my knowledge, and I have spoken to numerous jurists and architects worldwide, no other Supreme Court in the world—including those, such as Israel’s, that face security concerns equal to or greater than ours—has closed its main entrance to the public. And the main entrances to numerous other prominent public buildings in America remain open. I thus remain hopeful that, sometime in the future, technological advances, a Congressional appropriation, or the dissipation of the current security risks will enable us to restore the Supreme Court’s main entrance as a symbol of dignified openness and meaningful access to equal justice under law.

In one of the panels of the Supreme Court’s bronze doors, Chief Justice John Marshall and Associate Justice Joseph Story discuss the 1803 Marbury v. Madison opinion in front of the Capitol.

What Would Buckley Think About The Tea Party?

May 1, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, U.S. History | 2 Comments 

Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation, author of the standard biography of Barry Goldwater (and of a new book about William F. Buckley Jr.) argues that Buckley would have endorsed it:

Some of you may be saying, “But wait, wasn’t Bill Buckley an elitist, the ultimate patrician, the man with a New York City maisonette and a limousine and driver? Wouldn’t he dismiss the tea party people as a bunch of ignorant emotional backwoods yahoos?”

Well, according to a New York Times/CBS survey, supporters of the tea party are wealthier and better educated than the general public. More than 90 percent of them think the country is heading in the wrong direction. An overwhelming majority say that President Obama does not share the values most Americans live by and does not understand their problems.

Bill Buckley would be very comfortable with such yahoos. After all, it was he who said in a debate at Harvard University: “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than the Harvard faculty.”

PJB – C-SPAN – 5.2.10 – NOON EST

May 1, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Ideas, Media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Politics, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

Pat Buchanan will be the guest tomorrow on C-SPAN’s monthly three hour interview and call in show In Depth.

Back in the day: PJB in his EOB office.  RN recruited the youngster —his first hire for his new presidential campaign— in 1967 from the editorial page of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.  He served on the White House staff until 1975.

Dorothy Height    1912 – 2010

April 29, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Civil rights, In Memoriam, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

The Most Enduring Legacy Of Nazi Hate

April 23, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East, Presidents, U.S. History, UK Politics, War on Terror | 6 Comments 

On February 1, 1944, two unlikely allies in the United States Senate—Robert Wagner (D-New York) and Robert Taft (R-Ohio)—introduced a resolution that caused shockwaves around the globe. Their initiative advocated American support for “free and unlimited entry of Jews into Palestine for the creation of a Jewish commonwealth.” This was a bold move and one that put the Roosevelt administration on the spot.

Nearly five years earlier, the British government had released a White Paper on the issue of Palestine—one that largely abandoned the Jewish people in that region. Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and during the period of the British Mandate they had been largely supportive of Jewish migration to Palestine and the idea of a Jewish state there. In essence, the White Paper changed all of that. It advocated severe limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine—this at a time when European anti-Semitism was reaching critical mass.

The gang in Berlin was pleased.

Interestingly, at the time of that 1939 White Paper, two men who would later strongly support the creation of the modern state of Israel saw things differently. Winston Churchill spoke to the House of Commons on May 22, 1939 “as one intimately and responsibly concerned in the earlier states of our Palestine policy,” and insisted that he would not “stand by and see the solemn engagements into which Britain has entered before the world set aside.”
And here at home, Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri—who had no clue at the time that he’d be a major player on the world stage in a few years–also issued a forthright condemnation that was inserted into the Congressional Record:

Mr. President, the British Government has used its diplomatic umbrella again,(this being an unmistakable dig at Neville Chamberlain) …this time on Palestine. It has made a scrap of paper out of Lord Balfour’s promise to the Jews. It has just added another to the long list of surrenders to the Axis powers.

But instead of embracing the ideas put forth by Taft and Wagner in 1944, the White House, State Department, and other powerful entities in the government pulled out all the stops to make sure that the idea of proposing a homeland in Palestine for Jews went away. They did this even though they knew very well about the ongoing mass extermination of European Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

The standard answer to the obvious question as to why the Holocaust evoked little official response from our government until near the end of the war has been to cite “isolationism,” or “economic Depression,” or “xenophobia” in our nation. Presumably, the idea of doing anything overtly “pro-Jewish” was politically untenable—so goes the argument.

But a closer look reveals something else going on at the time—and ever since.

The most lasting legacy of the toxins that created an epochal global conflict is the fact that elements of Nazism in many ways survive to this day in Islamism. The short-sightedness of FDR’s cronies was corrected in part by his successor, a man of courage who chose to recognize the new State of Israel eleven minutes after its birth in May of 1948. But the question remains: Why did FDR and company not get on the bandwagon, even while millions of Jews were being slaughtered?

Sadly, the real reason has a lot to do with U.S. surrender to Nazi propaganda—its power and content.

Largely overlooked or dismissed in the years since is the fact that the Nazi propaganda machine, the distortion factory that shaped attitudes in Germany throughout the duration of the infamous Third Reich, had its most lasting impact far away from the boroughs and beer halls of Deutschland. In fact, Hitler’s nightmarish vision of ridding Europe of Jews was only the beginning of what he wanted to do—he wanted to extend The Final Solution to Palestine.

And he had been preparing the hearts and minds of the Muslim world for many years.

Jeffrey Herf, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, has written an eye-opening book about the effectiveness of Nazi ideas in the Middle East during the Second World War called, “Nazi Propaganda For The Arab World.” In it, he describes the Nazi campaign for the minds and hearts of the Arab world in great detail—particularly the Axis radio programs that ran in Arabic around the clock from late 1939 until March of 1945.

These broadcasts spewed venomous anti-Semitism and pushed every demagogic button imaginable. They were also highly effective. In fact, long after the last vestige of Nazi rhetoric faded from consciousness in Europe, the poisonous seeds planted back then are still bearing deadly fruit.
The mind-set that gave way to the Third Reich is very much alive and well in the Muslim world of the Middle East.

When those two senatorial strange-bedfellows offered their visionary resolution in 1944 about a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the “Axis Broadcasts in Arabic” were way ahead of the story. Mr. Herf has accessed a significant cache of transcripts and leaflets produced by the Nazis during the war—materials that have not been adequately examined—until now.

So back in 1944, any hopes a couple of well-intentioned voices in Washington might have had to garner widespread national support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine were dashed by forces largely influenced by the hate-speak of Nazi propagandists. Berlin, broadcasting in Arabic, referred to Taft and Wagner as “criminal American senators,” while announcing, “a great tragedy is about to be unfolded, a great massacre, another turbulent war is about to start in the Arab countries.”

And in phraseology that sounds eerily familiar to what we still regularly hear from Islamists, the Nazis described the stakes as kill or be killed:

Arabs and Moslems, sons of the East, this menace threatens your very lives, endangers your beliefs and aims at your wealth. No trace of you will remain. Your doom is sealed. It were better if the earth opened and engulfed everybody; it were better if the skies fell upon us, bringing havoc and destruction; all this, rather than the sun of Islam should set and the Koran perish…Stir up wars and revolutions, stand fast against the aggressors, let your hearts, afire with faith, burst asunder! Advance your armies and drive out the menace.

Bear in mind that this is a Nazi broadcast to the Arab/Muslims in Palestine. Of course, the relationship between Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem, is well known and documented (see my article: “Hitler’s Favorite Jihadist”), but the broadcasts from Berlin to Palestine are just now beginning to be examined. And what is being found is further evidence that to refer to Islamists as Nazi or Fascist-like is no smear—or stretch.

The rhetoric broadcast to the Middle East 70 years ago is still being noised about—and even more pervasively and effectively. Back then, the attitudes it reinforced, complete with distortion, hate, and prejudice, caused U.S. officials, from FDR on down, to “go wobbly”—as Margaret Thatcher would say.

It is sadly clear that the most lasting impact of the Nazi propaganda machine is that murderous ideas espoused back then are alive and well in our day and age and still being used to threaten and kill Jews—while nouveau wobblers turn away.

RN’s Environmental Record

April 22, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Domestic issues, Environmental issues, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

In the Winter 1996 issue of the Presidential Studies Quarterly, Russell Train, the distinguished environmentalist and Chairman Emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund, wrote a long and thoughtful summary of “The Environmental Record of the Nixon Administration.”

In 1968, Mr. Train, an attorney with a long record of public service and environmental pioneering, was asked by President-Elect Nixon to serve as Chairman of a Task Force on the Environment.  During the early years of the Nixon administration, Mr. Train was Undersecretary of the Interior (1969-70) and Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (1970-73).

In September 1973, RN appointed him second administrator of the new Environmental Protection Agency (replacing William Ruckelshaus).  He served in that capacity under RN and Gerald Ford until January 1977, when he joined the World Wildlife Fund — first as President of WWF-US and then as the organization’s Chairman, until 1994.

Among his many worldwide honors are the US Medal of Freedom for his work in the field of conservation (1991) and the Heinz Awards Chairman’s Medal (2006).

Mr. Train opened his article with a general survey:

In his State of the Union Address of January 22, 1970, President Nixon declared: “The great question of the seventies is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, our land and our water? …. Clean air, clean water, open spaces — these should once again be the birthright of every American. If we act now they can be.” Expansive rhetoric to be sure, but the rhetoric was matched by a remarkable record of achievement.

Environmental protection represented without doubt in my mind the single most significant area of domestic policy accomplishment of the Nixon administration. The extraordinary number of legislative, administrative, and institutional initiatives dealing with environmental matters far exceed those in any other area of domestic policy. Moreover, the initiatives in this one field were remarkable not only for their sheer quantity but also for their scope and innovativeness.

The Nixon environmental program dealt with both domestic and international policy, institutional reform, pollution control, tax policy, wildlife protection, land use policy, parks and open space (particularly urban open space), historic preservation, and many other facets of the environmental equation. It was truly a comprehensive effort that stretched from 1969 through 1973, probably peaking in 1972, and later giving way to energy concerns that arose from the several Arab oil embargoes. In large part, the results of the Nixon initiatives remain in place today and form the foundation for the country’s ongoing environmental programs.

While environmental initiatives by President Nixon on the international front tended to be obscured by other more dramatic foreign policy accomplishments, during his administration the United States provided the principal leadership for both bilateral and multilateral international efforts in the field of environmental cooperation.

He concluded by noting that:

Whatever the president’s personal predilections in the area, the Nixon administration not only recognized and responded to the ground swell of public concern over the environment, but it was out front on the issue, the essence of political leadership. Indeed, in some aspects of its environmental initiatives, such as land use policy, the administration was well ahead of its time. In the international arena, the United States under the Nixon administration cajoled and prodded the nations of the world to cooperate in addressing critical environmental It has been a hard act to follow.

The entire article may be obtained here.

A Establishment Clause For All

April 18, 2010 by David Emig | Filed Under Barack Obama, Ethics, Faith, Holidays, Islam, Politics, Religion, Supreme Court, U.S. History, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” 

Amendment One, United States Constitution.  The quoted passage is the Establishment Clause.  The intent of the Framers is to provide the American people the right to practice their own religious beliefs – but also the right of citizens to be free from religion if they so choose.  This is the foundation of one of the cornerstone of our democracy.  It was explained in a letter to the Danbery Baptist Association in 1802.  President Thomas Jefferson writes: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”  In 1812, John Adams wrote, “Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.”  Over a half a century later, Ulysses S. Grant stated, “Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”

The recent federal district decision in Freedom from Religion, et al. vs. Obama, et al. is an important one.  It is the reminder that the government should represent all Americans regardless of religious belief or non-belief, and that the Constitution protects everyone’s rights.  Clearly, the National Day of Prayer promotes the Judeo-Christian practices and beliefs.  It is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, and runs counter to the concept of the separation of church and state supported by Thomas Jefferson.  Over the last half century, the American legal system has endeavored to be neutral regarding endorsement of religion.  Decisions such as Freedom from Religion, are in keeping with these legal precedents established by the Court.

The National Day of Prayer was established in 1952.  Billy Graham, the most respected and popular evangelicals of his era inspired the legislation.  During a six-week evangelical crusade in Washington DC, Rev. Graham spoke about how America had “dropped our pilot, the Lord Jesus Christ, and are sailing blindly on without divine chart or compass, hoping somehow to find our desired haven.  We have certain leaders who are rank materialists, they do not recognize God nor care for Him; they spend their time in one round of parties after another.  The Capital City of our Nation can have a great spiritual awakening, thousands coming to Jesus Christ, but certain leaders have not lifted on eyebrow, nor raised a finger, nor show the slightest bit of concern….  Ladies and gentlemen, I warn you, if this state of affairs continues, the end of course is national shipwreck and ruin.”

In response to this dire religious threat, both houses of Congress introduced legislation to proclaim a National Day of Prayer.  Representative Percy Priest in introducing the legislation said that the country “had been challenged yesterday by the suggestion made on the east steps of the Capitol by Billy Graham that the Congress call the President for the proclamation of a prayer.”  The Senator introducing the bill in the Senate, Absalom Robertson (who was the father to Rev. Pat Robertson) stated that the measure was “against the corrosive forces of communism which seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in an Almighty God on which it is based.”

In 1988, Congress revisited the National Day of Prayer proclamation to specify a specific day.  This is so the faithful could better organize events.  This also placed the National Day of Prayer on another plateau, along such days as Mother’s Day, or Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday.  Senator Strom Thurmond thought having a day set for the National Day of Prayer would help because, “a date that changes each year, it is difficult for religious groups to give advance notice to the many citizens who would like to make plans for their church and community. Maximum participation in the public knowledge of this event could be achieved, if, in addition to its being proclaimed annually, it were established as a specific, annual, calendar day.”  {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, p. 9.}  Codification of a day in federal law would then assist the legislative intent by the government sponsored opportunity of better organization and a larger turn out.

The legislative intent of the National Day of Prayer was underscored by Sen. Jesse Helms who said, “America must return to the spiritual source of her greatness and reclaim her religious heritage. Our prayer should be that—like the Old Testament nation of Israel—Americans would once again ‘humble themselves, and pray, and seek God’s face, and turn from [our] wicked ways’ so that God in heaven will hear and forgive our sins and heal our land.” {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, p. 9.}  Obviously, the legislative effect that the Congress was seeking was the promotion of the Judeo-Christian faith exclusively. 

There were no calls to include other faiths in the legislation, or the actual implementation.  Indeed the ruling in Freedom of Religion documents several incidents of those Christians to wish to claim the National Day of Prayer as their own.   Examples like a coordinator in Bakersfield stating that “”[t]he National Day of Prayer is actually all about the Lord.  So we’re representing the Christian community.” See “The Bakersfield Californian” May 1, 2008.  Or local groups complaining in Tennessee that the National Day of Prayer “mak[es] members of minority religions feel that unless they adhere to Christianity they are unpatriotic.” See “Memphis Commercial Appeal”, May 1, 2008.  Or in Illinois, organizers of a event being criticized after saying that the event is “only about Jesus and Jesus the Savior alone”; although they had “no problems having [members of other religions] participate, though not in speaking roles.” See “Springfield State-Journal Register,” April 30, 2006. Or finally an example in Utah, where a Mormon reader “didn’t think [she] was allowed to participate” because she “pray[s} to the wrong God.” See “Deseret Morning News,” October 20, 2009. {See Freedom of Religion v. Obama, pp. 57-59 for entire list.} 

Justice Blackmum (RN appointee) might have shed some additional light on this when he wrote in a concurring opinion: “The mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free government, even if no one is forced to participate. When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs.”  Lee vs. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, at 606, (1992).  Justice O’Connor in County of Allegheny v. ACLU Greater Pittsburgh Chapter (1989) writes, “government cannot endorse the religious practices and beliefs of some citizens without sending a clear message to nonadherents that they are outsiders or less than full members of the political community.”  492 U.S. 573, at 627.  {Quoted from Freedom of Religion, p. 20.}.

For those who believe that the National Day of Prayer is merely a proclaimation without force need to heed the words of Justice Kennedy.  “[T]he lesson that in the hands of government what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce.”  {Lee vs. Weisman at 591-592.}  This of course begs the question…what would a less tolerate government do with a National Day of Prayer?

This ruling by Judge Crabb is only the beginning of the process, that will ultimately take the case to the halls of the United States Supreme Court. The ruling in Freedom from Religion v. Obama he should not be seen as Judeo-Christian religion being relegated to “stepchild” status — (though atheists seem to be orphans in this society.)  It shouldn’t be misinterpreted as “the arrogant absurdity of a court.”  It isn’t code to ban religion.  The ruling is enforcement of the governmental ban against favoring one religion and faith over another.  It is against government sanction or encouragement that must be the responsibility of private churches and your private point of view.  This ruling is evidence that the United States Constitution protects all of our rights, believers and non-believers alike; from the potential theocratic tyranny of a government.  As the front of the Supreme Court building states…

“Equal Justice Under Law.”

A National Day Of Humiliation

April 18, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Faith, History, Presidents, Religion, U.S. History | 4 Comments 

Of course, it will be appealed and wind its way through a process of judicial, if not national debate before all is said and done, but the mind fairly boggles at the arrogant absurdity of a court in this land ruling the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. Back when George W. Bush occupied the Oval Office, the radical anti-theist group (read: atheists on steroids), “Freedom From Religion,” filed a lawsuit and the toxic seed planted then has now borne poisonous fruit. Stay tuned.

I know it’s fashionable these days to bash-Bush, blaming the man and his administration for all the ills our current leaders find to be overwhelming and resistant to their heady scheme-dreams, but our 43rd President is a man of passionate faith. Sometimes he’s accused of wearing his faith on his sleeve, but personally I find that to be preferable to politicians who always seem to have something up their sleeves.

I had the privilege the other day of receiving a nice note from Mr. Bush. He had received a copy of my new book, a Texas story from the 1920s called, “Apparent Danger—The Pastor of America’s First Megachurch and the Texas Murder Trial of the Decade in the 1920s.” In the note, along with kind words about the book, he said something that I find quite timely in light of the news about the ruling by Judge Barbara Crabb in U.S. District Court (a Jimmy Carter appointee, by the way)—something about prayer: “During our time in the White House, Laura and I were inspired by the strength of the American people and sustained by your prayers and encouragement.”

Certainly, I understand that he was talking about personal prayers, not necessarily public ones, and that there is nothing in the current court ruling banning private prayer. Duh. I get that. But there is nuance, code, and an unmistakable trend. Our current president and his sometimes profane pals seem to be very uncomfortable with any form of pious-speak, and downright out of place in any role requiring lip-service to faith.

Religion—well, let’s be fair, anything related to Christian or Jewish religion—is increasingly being relegated to stepchild status. In the case of Islam, exceptions are made all the time, of course.

I would appeal to President Barack Hussein Obama today, to reach back beyond his Muslim, Marxist, and Liberation Theology (which is to real Christianity as anthrax is to sugar) roots and try to connect with his “inner-Lincoln.” It is clear to all of us that he very much loves to tap into Lincoln-like moments and trappings. From his announcement to run for president in Springfield, Illinois, to his train ride from Philadelphia en route to his inauguration following the route Lincoln took in 1861, to using Lincoln’s Bible while taking the oath of office, he has deliberately cultivated this clever image.

The year 1863 was a critical one for an America then immersed in nation-rending conflict. It was a year that began with his famous Emancipation Proclamation. Later that year, President Lincoln would travel to Pennsylvania and deliver immortal words at a place called Gettysburg. But almost forgotten among our 16th President’s writings, speeches, and proclamations, is something else he said that same year. As the Civil War raged, Mr. Lincoln proclaimed a National Day of Prayer—only he didn’t quite call it that. It was actually called, are you ready for this? “A Day of National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer.” Now, that would make any liberal “living-constitution” judge’s head spin all the way around today, don’t you think?

Among the things the President said in his 1863 Proclamation were these words:

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

These days it is fashionable and politically expedient for our President to travel the globe confessing our purported geo-political sins to would-be enemies in an effort to appease and impress. But wouldn’t it be far more effective for our future, and refreshing for the republic, if we had people in charge who were willing to humble themselves before Almighty God, instead of petty potentates, as a shining example to all of us?

Oh, and speaking of Presidents and prayer, maybe someone in the White House should pull out any good biography of another Obama hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and turn to the part about D-Day in June of 1944. There they’d find what I consider FDR’s finest moment and most effective and eloquent utterance and it was in the form of a prayer. That’s right—he led the nation, via radio, in prayer. And, in part, he said this:

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

That’s right. Mr. New Deal said that those heroes storming the beaches of Normandy that fateful day were doing so to “preserve…our religion.”

We’ve apparently come—or better, descended—a long way since then.

Hope For All C Students

April 13, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, National Security, News media, Nixon Administration, Nixon Administration figures, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

The FBI file of Pulitzer-winning columnist and Nixon White House speechwriter, the late William Safire, has become public. The Associated Press’s Jessica Gresko describes the contents:

Some of the earliest material dates from 1969, when investigators did a background check on Safire, who was joining the Nixon White House as a speech writer. The FBI’s investigators learned that Safire, then 39, had been an “honor senior” at the Bronx High School of Science and served as circulation manager of the newspaper. As a student at Syracuse University between 1947 and 1949, he had an average “just short of a B” before quitting the school. Later, while running his own public relations firm, he had clients such as The Good Humor Corporation and Ex-Lax Inc. in Brooklyn.

The bulk of the file is only partly related to Safire, however, and includes an investigation into the wiretapping, which lasted from 1969 into 1971 and was apparently started because of leaks surrounding Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. The talks between the U.S. and Soviet Union were on the subject of arms control. The documents show Safire was among more than a dozen people, including some at the White House and four journalists, whose phones were tapped. The wiretap on Safire lasted four months and found nothing.

“I have a thing about wiretapping,” Safire said on “Meet The Press” in 2006, describing what had happened to him and referencing wiretapping during the Bush administration. “I didn’t like that … it told me how easy it was to just take somebody who was not really suspected of anything for any good reason and listen to every conversation in his home.”

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.

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.

Bruce Herschensohn’s New Book

March 31, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under International Affairs, Nixon Administration figures, Nixon Library events, Nixon in the News, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History, Vietnam | 9 Comments 

On April 19, political commentator, former assistant to President Nixon, and 1992 Republican senatorial candidate Bruce Herschensohn comes to the Nixon Library to discuss his new book American Amnesia, which presents his thesis that had Congress been prepared to support Presidents Nixon and Ford when they asked for military aid to South Vietnam after North Vietnamese violations of the 1973 peace accords, then Hanoi’s forces would not have been able to defeat that nation in 1975. The theme of his book has particular relevance as American forces prepare to depart from Iraq, a nation whose future may be determined by the whims of its eastern neighbor Iran unless the United States is ready to ensure otherwise. In today’s Victorville (California) Daily Press, Herschensohn discusses his book:

On January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed by the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Viet Cong. North Vietnam agreed to an immediate cease fire, and South Vietnam was promised the same sort of freedoms guaranteed Americans under the First Amendment.

Officially, the war was over.

But, Herschensohn says, the U.S. wasn’t so naive as to believe there would be no more hostilities by North Vietnam after American troops went home. So, the accords promised piece-for-piece replacement of any military assets South Vietnam used to defend itself after the Americans left.

“We didn’t do it,” Herschensohn said flatly. “Congress saw a way that we could lose (the war) by not appropriating funds in the piece-for-piece provision.”

Editors note: Bruce Herschensohn will be at the Nixon Library on Monday, April 19, to discuss and sign copies of American Amnesia. For more information click here.

Got A Condo Made O’Stone-a

March 24, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Art, Comedy, Entertainment, Middle East, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | 2 Comments 

Last night I read Born Standing Up, actor Steve Martin’s account of the seventeen years he spent making his way up the ladder of standup comedy. It’s a rather worthwhile book. In well-written prose, replete with many funny passages, Martin describes the process by which he rose from playing open-mike nights at obscure folk clubs around Los Angeles to filling stadiums across the country.

As many TNN readers know, Martin acquired his earliest showbiz experience in Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm near Garden Grove, the town in which he spent his teenage years, toward the end of Richard Nixon’s Vice Presidency. And RN figured in Martin’s struggling years as a standup; he mentions than when he played college campuses as an unknown in the early 1970s, he had only to mention the President’s name to be guaranteed a laugh. (In fact, the predictability of this response was one thing that led him to remove all political material from his act. Coincidentally or not, his career took off soon after.)

But I didn’t know that one of President Nixon’s decisions, toward the end of his Administration, led to one of the most celebrated episodes of Steve Martin’s comic career. It’s especially timely now, as the exhibition of the relics of Egypt’s King Tutankhamun finishes its run at San Francisco’s DeYoung Museum and gets ready to go to Discovery Channel’s Times Square showplace in New York.

It was in 1974 that President Nixon decided that the United States should respond to the successful display of Egyptian art in the Soviet Union with a truly memorable exhibit to tour the United States. After bringing up the idea during his visit to Egypt’s President Anwar al-Sadat a few weeks before his resignation, he urged Secretary of State Kissinger to work on bringing such an exhibit to these shores. Dr. Kissinger got in touch with the late Thomas Hoving, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the process was begun which, a couple of years later, resulted in the spectacularly successful first visit of King Tut and his relics to the United States – a visit which inspired Steve Martin to write that immortal tune which was introduced to the world on Saturday Night Live.

More than thirty years after he last came for a visit, the boy king is generating some more memories to last a lifetime for countless Americans, continuing a process that started with President Nixon’s proposal for a tour to generate income to help Egyptian museums on that summer day so long ago.

3.24.70

March 24, 2010 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Civil rights, Domestic issues, Nixon Administration, Richard Nixon, Supreme Court, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Forty years ago today, RN issued a Statement About Desegregation of Elementary and Secondary Schools.

The almost 17,000-word document surveyed the the issue beginning with the first Brown decision in 1954.  Clearly, and in very plain language, the President surveyed the history and set out his Administration’s position:

This issue is not partisan. It is not sectional. It is an American issue, of direct and immediate concern to every citizen.

I hope that this statement will reduce the prevailing confusion and will help place public discussion of the issue on a more rational and realistic level in all parts of the Nation. It is time to strip away the hypocrisy, the prejudice, and the ignorance that too long have characterized discussion of this issue.’

He described his underlying approach:

We are dealing fundamentally with inalienable human rights, some of them constitutionally protected. The final arbiter of constitutional questions is the United States Supreme Court.

And he set out his specific objectives:

–To reaffirm my personal belief that the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education was right in both constitutional and human terms.

–To assess our progress in the 16 years since Brown and to point the way to
continuing progress.

–To clarify the present state of the law, as developed by the courts and the Congress, and the administration policies guided by it.

–To discuss some of the difficulties encountered by courts and communities as desegregation has accelerated in recent years, and to suggest approaches that can mitigate such problems as we complete the process of compliance with Brown.

–To place the question of school desegregation in its larger context, as part of America’s historic commitment to the achievement of a free and open society.

RN was obviously aware of the widespread criticism regarding what conventional wisdom had decided was his “Southern strategy” regarding race relations.  He addressed this with some home truths:

We should bear very carefully in mind, therefore, the distinction between educational difficulty as a result of race, and educational difficulty as a result of social or economic levels, of family background, of cultural patterns, or simply of bad schools. Providing better education for the disadvantaged requires a more sophisticated approach than mere racial mathematics.

In this same connection, we should recognize that a smug paternalism has characterized the attitudes of many white Americans toward school questions. There has been an implicit assumption that blacks or others of minority races would be improved by association with whites. The notion that an all-black or predominantly-black school is automatically inferior to one which is all- or predominantly-white—even though not a product of a dual system inescapably carries racist overtones. And, of course, we know of hypocrisy: not a few of those in the North most stridently demanding racial integration of public schools in the South at the same time send their children to private schools to avoid the assumed inferiority of mixed public schools.

It is unquestionably true that most black schools–though by no means all–are in fact inferior to most white schools. This is due in part to past neglect or shortchanging of the black schools; and in part to long-term patterns of racial discrimination which caused a greater proportion of Negroes to be left behind educationally, left out culturally, and trapped in low paying jobs. It is not really because they serve black children that most of these schools are inferior, but rather because they serve poor children who often lack the home environment that encourages learning.

This comprehensive, thoughtful, and vital document deserves attention.  It can be read in full here.  The Nixon administration’s pivotal role in the desegregation of America’s schools will be the subject of the Nixon Legacy Forum in September.

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