Posts Tagged ‘LYNDON B. JOHNSON’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on August 21, 2014 at 10:27 pm
It didn’t take much for American Right-wingers to start salivating–and celebrating.
All it took was for Russia to move troops into its neighboring territories of Ukraine and Crimea.
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Right has felt dejected. Accusing Democrats of being “terrorist-lovers” just hasn’t been as profitable as accusing them of being “Communists.”
The torch had barely gone out at the much-ballyhooed Sochi Olympics when Russian President Vladimir Putin began menacing the Ukraine.
Even while the Olympics played out on television, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted their corrupt, luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
And this, of course, didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”–Putin.
Yanukovych had rejected a pending European Union association agreement. He had chosen instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia.
And that had sat well with Putin.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin had yearned for a reestablishment of the same. He had called that breakup “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
So it was almost a certainty that, when his chosen puppet, Yanukovych, was sent packing, Putin would find some way to retaliate.
And since late February, he has done so, gradually moving Russian troops into Ukraine and its autonomous republic, Crimea.
By late March, it was clear that Russia had sufficient forces in both Ukraine and Crimea to wreak any amount of destruction Putin may wish to inflict.
And where there is activity by Russians, there are American Rightists eager–in Shakespeare’s words–to “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”
Or at least to use such events to their own political advantage.
Right-wingers such as Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachussetts who lost the 2012 Presidential election by a wide margin to Barack Obama.
“There’s no question but that the president’s naiveté with regards to Russia,” said Romney on March 23.
“And unfortunately, not having anticipated Russia’s intentions, the president wasn’t able to shape the kinds of events that may have been able to prevent the kinds of circumstances that you’re seeing in the Ukraine, as well as the things that you’re seeing in Syria.”
All of which overlooks a number of brutal political truths.
First, all great powers have spheres of interest–and jealously guard them.
For the United States, it’s Latin and Central America, as established by the Monroe Doctrine.
And just what is the Monroe Doctrine?
It’s a statement made by President James Monroe in his 1823 annual message to Congress, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It has no other legitimacy than the willingness of the United States to use armed force to back it up. When the United States no longer has the will or resources to enforce the Doctrine, it will cease to have meaning.
For the Soviet Union, its spheres of influence include the Ukraine. Long known as “the breadbasket of Russia,” in 2011, it was the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
Russia will no more give up access to that breadbasket than the United States would part with the rich farming states of the Midwest.
Second, spheres of influence often prove disastrous to those smaller countries affected.
Throughout Latin and Central America, the United States remains highly unpopular for its brutal use of “gunboat diplomacy” during the 20th century.
Among those countries invaded or controlled by America: Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama, the Dominican Republic.
The resulting anger has led many Latin and Central Americans to support Communist Cuba, even though its political oppression and economic failure are universally apparent.
Similarly, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) forced many nations–such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslavakia–to submit to the will of Moscow.
The alternative? The threat of Soviet invasion–as occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslavakia in 1968.
Third, even “great powers” are not all-powerful.
In 1949, after a long civil war, the forces of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalist armies of Chaing Kai-Shek, who withdrew to Taiwan.
China had never been a territory of the United States. Nor could the United States have prevented Mao from defeating the corrupt, ineptly-led Nationalist forces.
Even so, Republican Senators and Representatives such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy eagerly blamed President Harry S. Truman and the Democrats for “losing China.”
The fear of being accused of “losing” another country led Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to tragically commit the United States to “roll back” Communism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Now Republicans–who claim the United States can’t afford to provide healthcare for its poorest citizens–want to turn the national budget over to the Pentagon.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Syria–even though this civil war pits Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of America’s greatest enemies, against each other.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Ukraine–even though this would mean going to war with the only nuclear power capable of turning America into an atomic graveyard.
Before plunging into conflicts that don’t concern us and where there is absolutely nothing to “win,” Americans would do well to remember the above-stated lessons of history. And to learn from them.
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 6, 2014 at 12:01 am
“For it is the doom of men that they forget.”
–Merlin, in “Excalibur”
June 6–a day of glory and tragedy.
The glory came 70 years ago–on Tuesday, June 6, 1944.
On that morning, Americans awoke to learn–from radio and newspapers–that their soldiers had landed on the French coast of Normandy.
In Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force was American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Overall command of ground forces was given to British General Bernard Montgomery.
Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion to liberate France from Nazi Germany, proved one of the pivotal actions of World War II.
It opened shortly after midnight, with an airborne assault of 24,000 American, British, Canadian and Free French troops. This was followed at 6:30 a.m. by an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the French coast.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel–the legendary “Desert Fox”–commanded the German forces. For him, the first 24 hours of the battle would be decisive.
“For the Allies as well as the Germans,” he warned his staff, “it will be the longest day.”
The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in history. More than 160,000 troops landed–73,000 Americans, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadians.
Initially, the Allied assault seemed likely to be stopped at the water’s edge–where Rommel had always insisted it must be. He had warned that if the Allies established a beachhead, their overwhelming advantages in numbers and airpower would eventually prove irresistible.
German machine-gunners and mortarmen wreaked a fearful toll on Allied soldiers. But commanders like U.S. General Norman Cota led their men to victory through a storm of bullets and shells.
Coming upon a group of U.S. Army Rangers taking cover behind sand dunes, Cota demanded: “What outfit is this?”
“Rangers!” yelled one of the soldiers.
“Well, Goddamnit, then, Rangers, lead the way!” shouted Cota, inspiring the soldiers to rise and charge into the enemy.
The command also gave the Rangers the motto they carry to this day.
The allied casualty figures for D-Day have been estimated at 10,000, including 4,414 dead. By nationality, the D-Day casualty figures are about 2,700 British, 946 Canadians and 6,603 Americans.
The total number of German casualties on D-Day isn’t known, but is estimated at 4,000 to 9,000.
Allied and German armies continued to clash throughout France, Belgium and Germany until May 7, 1945, when Germany finally surrendered.
But those Americans who had taken part in D-Day could be proud of having dealt a fatal blow to the evil ambitions of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.
So much for the glory of June 6. Now for the tragedy–which occurred 46 years ago, on Thursday, June 6, 1968.
Twenty-four years after D-Day, Americans awoke to learn–mostly from TV–that New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy had died at 1:44 a.m. of an assassin’s bullet.
He had been campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and had just won the California primary on June 4.
This had been a make-or-break event for Kennedy, a fierce critic of the seemingly endless Vietnam war.
He had won the Democratic primaries in Indiana and Nebraska, but had lost the Oregon primary to Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy.
If he could defeat McCarthy in California, Kennedy could force his rival to quit the race. That would lead to a showdown between him and Vice President Hubert Humphery for the nomination.
(President Lyndon B. Johnson had withdrawn from the race on March 31–just 15 days after Kennedy announced his candidacy on March 16.)
After winning the California and South Dakota primaries, Kennedy gave a magnaminous victory speech in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles:
“I think we can end the divisions within the United States….We are a great country, an unselfish country, and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running over the period of the next few months.”
Then he entered the hotel kitchen–where Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian from Jordan, opened fire with a .22 revolver.
Kennedy was hit three times–once fatally in the back of the head. Five other people were also wounded.
Kennedy’s last-known words were: “Is everybody all right?” and “Jack, Jack”–the latter clearly a reference to his beloved older brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Almost five years earlier, that brother–then President of the United States–had been assassinated in Dalas on November 22, 1963.
Then Robert Kennedy lost consciousness–forever, dying in a hospital bed 24 hours later.
Kennedy had been a U.S. Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator (1964-1968). But it was his connection to President Kennedy for which he was best-known.
His assassination–coming so soon after that of JFK–convinced many Americans there was something “sick” about the nation’s culture.
One of the best summaries of Robert Kennedy’s legacy was given in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s, by historian William L. O’Neil:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 22, 2014 at 12:40 am
In 1972, 41 years before Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was spying on the Internet, David Halberstam issued a warning about government secrecy.
As a young reporter for the New York Times covering the early years of the Vietnam war, Halberstam had repeatedly confronted government duplicity and obstruction.
David Halberstam (on left)
Halberstam arrived in South Vietnam in 1962. Almost at once he realized that the war was not going well for the United States Army and its supposed South Vietnamese allies.
The South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) was ill-trained and staffed with incompetent officers who sought to avoid military action.
Reports to military superiors were filled with career-boosting lies about “progress” being made against Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers.
“Screw up and move up” was the way Americans described the ARVN promotion system.
Halberstam soon learned that the phrase applied just as much to the American Army as well–for reasons of the same incompetence and duplicity.
Returning from Vietnam and resigning from the Times, Halberstam set to work on his landmark history of how the United States had become entangled in a militarily and economically unimportant country.
He would call it The Best and the Brightest, and the title would become a sarcastic reference to those men in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations whose arrogance and deceit plunged the United States into disaster.
Halberstam outlined how the culture of secrecy and unchecked power led American policymakers to play God with the lives of other nations.
Out of this grew a willingness to use covert operations. And this meant keeping these secret from Americans generally and Congress in particular.
This ignorance allowed citizens to believe that America was a different country. One that didn’t engage in the same brutalities and corruptions of other nations.
Thus, President Lyndon B. Johnson claimed to be the peace candidate during the 1964 election. Meanwhile, he was secretly sending U.S. Navy ships to attack coastal cities in North Vietnam.
When North Vietnam responded militarily, Johnson feigned outrage and vowed that the United States would vigorously resist “Communist aggression.”
The history of covert operations has had its own in- and -out-of seasons:
- During the Eisenhower Administration, the Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the governments of Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954).
- During the Kennedy Administration, the CIA repeatedly tried to assassinate Cuba’s “Maximum Leader,” Fidel Castro.
- During the Nixon Adminisdtration, the CIA plotted with right-wing army leaders to successfully overthrow Salvador Allende, the Leftist, legally-elected President of Chile (1973).
- In 1975, the CIA’s history of assassination attempts became public through an expose by New York Times Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh.
- Following nationwide outrage, President Gerald Ford signed an executive order banning the agency from assassinating foreign leaders.
After 9/11, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney decided to “take off the gloves.”
The CIA drew up an ever-expanding list of targets and used killer drones and Special Operations troops (such as SEALs and Green Berets) to hunt them down.
Predator drone firing Hellfire missile
And when these weren’t enough, the CIA called on expensive mercenaries (such as Blackwater), untrustworthy foreign Intelligence services, proxy armies and mercurial dictators.
In his 2013 book, The Way of the Knife, New York Times national security correspondent Mark Mazzetti traces the origins of this high-tech, “surgical” approach to warfare.
Within the course of a decade, the CIA has moved largely from being an intelligence-gathering agency to being a “find-and-kill” one.
And this newfound lethality came at a price: The CIA would no longer be able to provide the crucial Intelligence Presidents need to make wise decisions in a dangerous world.
While the CIA sought to become a more discreet version of the Pentagon, the Pentagon began setting up its own Intelligence network in out-of-the-way Third World outposts.
And, ready to service America’s military and Intelligence agencies at a mercenary’s prices, are a host of private security and Intelligence companies.
Jeffrey Smith, a former CIA general counsel, warns of the potential for trouble: “There is an inevitable tension as to where the contractor’s loyalties lie. Do they lie with the flag? Or do they lie with the bottom line?”
Mazzetti warns of the dark side of these new developments. On one hand, this high-tech approach to war has been embraced by Washington as a low-risk, low-cost alternative to huge troop commitments and quagmire occupations.
On the other hand, it’s created new enemies, fomented resentments among allies and fueled regional instability. It has also created new weapons unbound by the normal rules of accountability in wartime.
Finally, it’s raised new and troubling ethical questions, such as:
- What is the moral difference between blowing apart a man at a remote distance with a drone-fired missile and shooting him in the back of the head at close range?
- Why is the first considered a legitimate act of war–and the second considered an illegal assassination?
In time, there will be answers to many of the uncertainties this new era of push-button and hired-soldier warfare has unleashed. And at least some of those answers may come at a high price.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 21, 2014 at 1:03 am
Millions of Americans are outraged to find that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been running a program to spy on the Internet.
National Security Agency
Created in 1952, the NSA is the largest signals-intercepting and code-cracking agency in the world, using specially designed high-speed computers to analyze literally mountains of data.
Headquartered at Fort Meade, Maryland, the NSA dwarfs the better-known Central Intelligence Agency in both its budget (which is classified) and number of employees (40,000).
NSA’s program–entitled PRISM–collects a wide range of data from nine Internet service providers, although the details vary by provider.
Here are the nine ISPs:
- AOL
- Microsoft
- Google
- Yahoo
- Skype
- Facebook
- PalTalk
- Apple
- YouTube
And here is what we know (so far) they provide to the ever-probing eyes of America’s Intelligence community:
- Email
- Videos
- Stored data
- Photos
- File transfers
- Video conferencing
- Notification of target activity (logins)
- Online social networking details
- VolP (Voice Over Internet Porocol)
- Special requests
“Trailblazer,” NSA’s data-mining computer system
The program has been run by the NSA since 2007. But its existence became front-page news only in early June, 2013, when a former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, leaked its capabilities to The Guardian, a British newspaper.
While millions of Americans were surprised at this massive electronic vacuuming of data, at least one man could not have been.
This was Neil Sheehan, the former New York Times reporter who, in 1971, broke the story of the Pentagon Papers. A secret Pentagon study, it documented how the United States became entangled in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967.
Its existence had been leaked by Daniel Ellsburg, a former defense analyst for the RAND corporation.
Among the Pentagon Papers’ embarrassing revelations:
- Four Presidents–Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson–had misled the public about their intentions.
- At least two Presidents–Kennedy and Johnson–committed increasing numbers of ground forces to Vietnam out of fear. Not fear for the South Vietnamese but fear that they (JFK and LBJ) would be charged with being “soft on Communism” and thereby not re-elected.
- Kennedy knew the South Vietnamese government to be thoroughly corrupt and inept, and plotted to overthrow its president, Ngo Dinh Diem, to “save” the war effort.
- During the Presidential campaign of 1964, Johnson decided to expand the war but posed as a peacemaker. He claimed that his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, wanted to bomb North Vietnam and send thousands of American soldieers into an unnecessary war.
A memo from the Defense Department under the Johnson Administration summed up the duplicity behind the war. It listed the real reasons for American involvement: “To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat.”
- 70% – To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat.
- 20% – To keep South Vietnam and the adjacent territory from Chinese hands.
- 10% – To permit the people of South Vietnam to enjoy a better, freer way of life.
- ALSO – To emerge from the crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used.
- NOT – To ‘help a friend’.
The study implicated only the administrations of Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
But then-President Richard M. Nixon, a Republican, saw the release of the papers as a dangerous breach of national security.
After the New York Times began publishing the study, Nixon ordered the Justice Department to intervene.
For the first time in United States history, a federal judge legally forbade a newspaper to publish a story.
The Times frantically appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the Washington Post (having gotten a second set of the documents from Ellsburg) rushed its own version of the story into print.
On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court ruled, 6–3, that the government had failed to meet the burden of proof required for prior restraint of press freedom.
For Sheehan, reading the Papers was an eye-opener, a descent into a world he had never imagined possible.
As David Halberstam wrote in The Best and the Brightest, his best-selling 1972 account of how arrogance and deceit led the United States into disaster in Vietnam:
Sheehan came away with the overwhelming impression: that the government of the United States was not what he had thought it was.
Sheehan felt that he had discovered an inner U.S. government, highly centralized, and far more powerful than anything else. And its enemy wass not simply the Communists but everything else–its own press, judiciary, Congress, foreign and friendly governments.
It had survived and perpetuated itself, often by using the issue of anti-Communism as a weapon against the other branches of government and the press. And it served its own ends, rather than the good of the Republic.
This inner government used secrecy to protect itself–not from foreign governments but to keep its own citizens ignorant of its crimes and incompetence.
Each succeeding President was careful to not expose the faults of his predecessor.
Essentially the same people were running the government, wrote Halberstam, and so each new administration faced virtually the same enemies.
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In History, Military, Politics on March 25, 2014 at 1:04 am
It didn’t take much for American Right-wingers to start salivating–and celebrating.
All it took was for Russia to move troops into its neighboring territories of Ukraine and Crimea.
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Right has felt dejected. Accusing Democrats of being “terrorist-lovers” just hasn’t been as profitable as accusing them of being “Communists.”
The torch had barely gone out at the much-ballyhooed Sochi Olympics when Russian President Vladimir Putin began menacing the Ukraine.
Even while the Olympics played out on television, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted their corrupt, luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
And this, of course, didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”–Putin.
Yanukovych had rejected a pending European Union association agreement. He had chosen instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia.
And that had sat well with Putin.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin had yearned for a reestablishment of the same. He had called that breakup “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
So it was almost a certainty that, when his chosen puppet, Yanukovych, was sent packing, Putin would find some way to retaliate.
And since late February, he has done so, gradually moving Russian troops into Ukraine and its autonomous republic, Crimea.
By late March, it was clear that Russia had sufficient forces in both Ukraine and Crimea to wreak any amount of destruction Putin may wish to inflict.
And where there is activity by Russians, there are American Rightists eager–in Shakespeare’s words–to “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”
Or at least to use such events to their own political advantage.
Right-wingers such as Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachussetts who lost the 2012 Presidential election by a wide margin to Barack Obama.
“There’s no question but that the president’s naiveté with regards to Russia,” said Romney on March 23.
“And unfortunately, not having anticipated Russia’s intentions, the president wasn’t able to shape the kinds of events that may have been able to prevent the kinds of circumstances that you’re seeing in the Ukraine, as well as the things that you’re seeing in Syria.”
All of which overlooks a number of brutal political truths.
First, all great powers have spheres of interest–and jealously guard them.
For the United States, it’s Latin and Central America, as established by the Monroe Doctrine.
And just what is the Monroe Doctrine?
It’s a statement made by President James Monroe in his 1823 annual message to Congress, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It has no other legitimacy than the willingness of the United States to use armed force to back it up. When the United States no longer has the will or resources to enforce the Doctrine, it will cease to have meaning.
For the Soviet Union, its spheres of influence include the Ukraine. Long known as “the breadbasket of Russia,” in 2011, it was the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
Russia will no more give up access to that breadbasket than the United States would part with the rich farming states of the Midwest.
Second, spheres of influence often prove disastrous to those smaller countries affected.
Throughout Latin and Central America, the United States remains highly unpopular for its brutal use of “gunboat diplomacy” during the 20th century.
Among those countries invaded or controlled by America: Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
The resulting anger has led many Latin and Central Americans to support Communist Cuba, even though its political oppression and economic failure are universally apparent.
Similarly, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) forced many nations–such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslavakia–to submit to the will of Moscow.
The alternative? The threat of Soviet invasion–as occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslavakia in 1968.
Third, even “great powers” are not all-powerful.
In 1949, after a long civil war, the forces of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalist armies of Chaing Kai-Shek, who withdrew to Taiwan.
China had never been a territory of the United States. Nor could the United States have prevented Mao from defeating the corrupt, ineptly-led Nationalist forces.
Even so, Republican Senators and Representatives such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy eagerly blamed President Harry S. Truman and the Democrats for “losing China.”
The fear of being accused of “losing” another country led Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to tragically commit the United States to “roll back” Communism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Now Republicans–who claim the United States can’t afford to provide healthcare for its poorest citizens–want to turn the national budget over to the Pentagon.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Syria–even though this civil war pits Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of America’s greatest enemies, against each other.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Ukraine–even though this would mean going to war with the only nuclear power capable of turning America into an atomic graveyard.
Before plunging into conflicts that don’t concern us and where there is absolutely nothing to “win,” Americans would do well to remember the above-stated lessons of history. And to learn from them.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 28, 2013 at 12:00 am
With the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Republican Party went into a tailspin of dismay.
For almost 50 years, Republicans had conjured up The Red Bogeyman to scare voters into sending them to Congress and the White House.
But now that the “workers’ paradise” had disappeared, Americans seemed to lose interest in the Communist Menace.
True, the People’s Republic of China remained, and its increasing economic clout would challenge the United States well into the 21st century. But Americans didn’t seem to fear the Red Chinese as they had the Red Russians.
What was the Republican Party to do to lure voters?
On September 11, 2001, the answer arrived–in two highjacked jetliners that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and one that struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Exit The Red Bogeyman. Enter The Maniacal Muslim.
Consider:
- Mike Huckabee – “If the purpose of a church is to push forward the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then you have a Muslim group that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated, I have a hard time understanding that.”
- Herman Cain – ”I would not” appoint a Muslim in his administration.
- Newt Gingrich – “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they [his grandchildren] are my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists. …”
- Rick Santorum – On supporting the racial profiling of Muslims: “Obviously, Muslims would be someone you look at, absolutely.”
- Mitt Romney – “Based on the numbers of American Muslims in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position [for a Muslim] would be justified.”
And on July 13, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) sent letters to the Inspectors General of the Departments of
- Defense;
- State;
- Justice; and
- Homeland Security.
“The purpose of these letters,” wrote Bachmann, was to “request a multi-department investigation into potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the United States Government.”
Michelle Bachmann
Bachmann further asserted in her letter to the State Department that Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
And the evidence for this?
The Center for Security Policy’s claim that Abedin’s father (who died when she was a teenager), mother and brother are “connected” to the organization.
And what is the Center of Security Policy? A private organization subsidized by donors to neo-conservative causes.
In a separate letter, Bachmann demanded to know how Abedin received her security clearance.
Among the co-signers of Bachmann’s letter to the Inspectors General were:
- Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, who has said abortion has done more harm to blacks than slavery;
- Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, who called presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, ”uppity”; and
- Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, who claims that terrorist organizations send pregnant women into the U.S. so that their children will be American citizens–who can enter and leave the country at will as they are trained to be terrorists abroad.
When pressed for their evidence of “a vast Muslim conspiracy,” right-wing accusers usually refuse to provide any.
An example of this occurred during an August 13, 2010 interview between Gohmert and CNN’s Anderson Cooper:
COOPER: What research? Can you tell us about the research?
GOHMERT: You are attacking the messenger, Anderson, you are better than this. You used to be good. You used to find that there was a problem and you would go after it.
COOPER: Sir, I am asking you for evidence of something that you said on the floor of the House.
GOHMERT: I did, and you listen, this is a problem. If you would spend as much time looking into the problem as you would have been trying to come after me and belittle me this week –
COOPER: Sir, do you want to offer any evidence? I’m giving you an opportunity to say what research and evidence you have. You’ve offered none, other than yelling.
Nor did Gohmert offer any evidence that evening.
Of course, the ultimate Republican Muslim slander is that President Barack Obama–a longtime Christian–is himself a Muslim.
No doubt Republicans feel totally safe in making these attacks, since Muslims comprise only 1% of the American population.
This has long been a hallmark of right-wing attacks–to go after a minority that cannot effectively defend itself.
Thus, Adolf Hitler attacked the Jews of Germany.
And Republicans have successively attacked blacks, Hispanics and gays–until each group became politically influential enough to defeat Republican candidates.
Today, most right-wing politicians at least grudgingly court all of these groups.
When Muslims become a significant political force in their own right, the Right will court them, too. And then move on to yet another helpless scapegoat to blame for America’s troubles.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 27, 2013 at 12:05 am
“Judge not, that you not be judged. For with what judgment you judged, you shall be judged, and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
So warns the Gospel of St. Matthew, 7:1-2. It’s advice that Right-wingers Joseph McCarthy, Robert Welch and George H.W. Bush would have done well to heed.
Joseph McCarthy, Wisconsin’s gift to the United States Senate, became infamous as the demagogue whose Red-baiting accusations terrified America from 1950 to 1954.
Joseph McCarthy
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Americans were already growing increasingly fearful of Communism:
- Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had not withdrawn the Red Army from the countries it had occupied in Eastern Europe during World War II.
- In 1948, the Soviet Union developed–and demonstrated–its own atomic bomb, an achievement U.S. scientists had claimed would not happen for at least a decade.
- In 1949, China fell to the triumphant armies of Mao Tse Tung.
But anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerated following McCarthy’s speech. Republicans–resentful at being denied the White House since 1932–seized upon anti-communism as their passport to power.
No American–no matter how prominent–was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer–”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Among those accused:
- Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who had overseen America’s strategy for defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
- President Harry S. Truman
- Playwright Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller
- Actors Charlie Chaplin, Zero Mostel, Lloyd Bridges, Howard Da Silva, Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield
- Composers Arron Copland and Elmer Bernstein
- Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who presided over the creation of America’s atomic bomb
- Actressses Lee Grant, Delores del Rio, Ruth Gordon and Lucille Ball
- Journalists Edward R. Murrow and William L. Shirer, who had chronicled the rise of Nazi Germany
- Folksinger Pete Seeger
- Writers Irwin Shaw, Howard Fast, John Steinbeck and Dashiell Hammett
Even “untouchable” Republicans became targets for such slander.
The most prominent of these was President Dwight D. Eisenhower–labeled ”a conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy” by Robert Welch, who founded the John Birth Society in 1958.
Robert Welch
Welch, an independently wealthy businessman, used his money to publicize the Society and its views. Welch saw even hardline anti-Communists like Vice President Richard Nixon and actor Ronald Reagan as dangerously liberal.
Meanwhile, McCarthy finally overstepped himself. In 1953, he attacked the leadership of the United States Army as “a hotbed of traitors” and convened an inquiry through the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
But the hearings backfired, exposing McCarthy as the bullying demagogue he was. A Senate committee voted to condemn his behavior, charging that he had “acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
Although McCarthy remained in the Senate another two and a half years, his political influence had ended.
Journalists who had raced to cover his latest slander now avoided him. So did his Republican colleagues–many of whom had once sought his help at election time.
Yet even without McCarthy, Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1960.
After holding the White House for eight years under Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates. They elected Richard Nison–and re-elected him in 1972.
After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980, Republicans held the White House until 1992. Throughout that time, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents–or at least unwitting pawns–of “the Communist conspiracy.”
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.
Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.
Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchrian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas–one of America’s poorest states–and then President.
What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.
Although Republicans continued to hurl “Communist!” and “treason!” at their opponents, these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.
Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.”
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans–and their right-wing supporters–at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 26, 2013 at 12:09 am
“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohem, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Ernst Rohem
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohem, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohem’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohem–or they would get rid of him.
So Rohem died in a hail of SS bullets–as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
Among the SS commanders supervising those executions was Reinhard Heydrich–a tall, blond-haired formal naval officer who was both a champion fencer and talented violinist.
Ultimately, he would become the personification of the Nazi ideal–”the man with the iron heart,” as Hitler eulogized at Heydrich’s funeral just eight years later.
Reinhard Heydrich
Even so, Heydrich had a problem: He could never escape vicious rumors that his family tree contained a Jewish ancestor.
His paternal grandmother had married Reinhold Heydrich, and then Gustav Robert Suss. For unknown reasons, she decided to call herself Suss-Heydrich.
Since “Suss” was widely believed in Germany to indicate Jewish origin, the “stigma” of Jewish heritage attached itself to the Heydrich family.
Heydrich joined the SS in 1931 and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service. But his arrogance and overweening ambition created a great many enemies.
Only a year later, he became the target of an urgent investigation by the SS itself.
The charge: That he was part-Jewish, the ultimate sin in Hitler’s “racially pure” Nazi Germany.
The investigation cleared Heydrich, but the rumor of his “tainted” origins persisted, clearly tormenting the second most powerful man in the SS.
Even his superior, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, believed it.
When Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 by Czech assassins in Prague, Himmler attended his funeral.
He paid tribute to his former subordinate at the service–”You, Reinhard Heydrich, were a truly good SS-man.” But he could not resist saying in private:
“He was an unhappy man, completely divided against himself, as often happened with those of mixed race.”
Those who dare to harshly judge others usually find themselves assailed just as harshly.
A modern-day example is Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and now a candidate for U.S. Senator from Wyoming.
Liz is positioning herself as far more right-wing than her opponent, Republican U.S. Senator Michael Bradley “Mike” Enzi.
She has her work cut out for her: In March, 2007, Enzi was ranked by National Journal as the sixth-most conservative U.S. Senator.
Among his legislative priorities:
- Supporting partial privatization of Social Security
- Consistently voting against expanding Medicare.
- Voting against enrolling more children or the poor in public healthcare.
Mike Enzi
And Liz has a problem Enzi does not: Her sister, Mary, is not only a lesbian but legally married to another woman: Heather Poe.
This has led many Wyoming voters to wonder if Liz Cheney is far-Right enough to merit their support.
So Liz is going all-out to assure them that even though her sister leads a degenerate lifestyle, she, Liz, stands foursquare against legalizing gay marriage:
“I do believe it’s an issue that’s got to be left up to states. I do believe in the traditional definition of marriage.”
Liz Cheney
And, in another statement: “I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage.
“I believe the issue of marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves.”
This stance has led to a heated rift between her and Mary.
“For the record, I love my sister, but she is dead wrong on the issue of marriage,” Mary Cheney wrote in a Facebook post in September.
“Freedom means freedom for everyone,” she continued. “That means that all families–regardless of how they look or how they are made–all families are entitled to the same rights, privileges and protections as every other.”
Adding to the complications: Their father, Dick Cheney—often ridiculed as “Darth Vader” for his own extreme Right-wing views—endorsed same-sex marriage in 2009.
But, as was true for officials in Nazi Germany, so is it true for Right-wing Republicans: It’s impossible to be too radical a Right-winger.
In the 1930s and 40s, it was politically—and personally—dangerous to be labeled “pro-Jewish” or “pro-Communist” in Hitler’s Germany.
And today it is equally dangerous—at least politically—to be labeled “pro-liberal” or “pro-gay” in the Republican Party.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 22, 2013 at 12:30 am
Fifty years ago this November 22, two bullets slammed into the neck and head of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. It has been said that he left his country with three great legacies:
- The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- The Apollo moon landing; and
- The Vietnam war.
Of these, the following can be said with certainty:
- The Test Ban Treaty has prevented atmosphereic testing–and poisoning–by almost all the world’s nuclear powers.
- After reaching the moon–in 1969–Americans quickly lost interest in space and have today largely abandoned plans for manned exploration.
- Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam; 153,303 were wounded; and billions of dollars were squandered in a hopeless effort to intervene in what was essentially a Vietnamese civil war. From 1965 to 1972, the war angrily divided Americas as had no event since the Civil War.
But there was a fourth legacy–and perhaps the most important of all: The belief that mankind could overcome its greatest challenges through rationality and perseverance.
White House painting of JFK
At American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy called upon his fellow Americans to re-examine the events and attitudes that had led to the Cold War. And he declared that the search for peace was by no means absurd:
“Our problems are man-made; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
“Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”
Today, politicians from both parties cannot agree on solutions to even the most vital national problems.
On November 21, 2011, the 12 members of the “Super-Committee” of Congress, tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in cuts in government spending, threw up their hands in defeat.
President Kennedy speed-read several newspapers every morning. He nourished personal relationships with the press-–and not for entirely altruistic reasons. These journalistic relationships gave Kennedy additional sources of information and perspectives on national and international issues.
In 2012, Republican Presidential candidates celebrated their ignorance of both.
Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain famously said, “We need a leader, not a reader.” Thus he excused his ignorance of the reasons for President Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya.
Texas Governor Rick Perry showed similar pride in not knowing there are nine judges on the United States Supreme Court:
“Well, obviously, I know there are nine Supreme Court judges. I don’t know how eight came out my mouth. But the, uh, the fact is, I can tell you–I don’t have memorized all of those Supreme Ccourt judges. And, uh, ah–
“Here’s what I do know. That when I put an individual on the Supreme Court, just like I done in Texas, ah, we got nine Supreme Court justices in Texas, ah, they will be strict constructionists….”
In short, it’s the media’s fault if they ask you a question and your answer reveals your own ignorance, stupidity or criminality.
During the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy spoke with aides about a book he had just finished: Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, on the events leading to World War 1.
He said that the book’s most important revelation was how European leaders had blindly rushed into war, without thought to the possible consequences. Kennedy told his aides he did not intend to make the same mistake-–that, having read his history, he was determined to learn from it.
Contrast that with today’s woeful historical ignorance among Republican Presidential candidates-–and those who aspire to be.
Consider Sarah Palin’s rewriting of history via “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”: “He warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and, um, making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that, uh, we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.”
In fact, Revere wasn’t warning the British about anything. Instead, he was warning his fellow Americans about an impending British attack–as his celebrated catchphrase “The British are coming!” made clear.
Republicans have attacked President Obama for his Harvard education and articulate use of language. Among their taunts: “Hitler also gave good speeches.”
And they resent his having earned most of his income as a writer of two books: Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope. As if being a writer is somehow subversive.
When knowledge and literacy are attacked as “highfalutin’” arrogance, and ignorance and incoherence are embraced as sincerity, national decline lies just around the corner.
In retrospect, the funeral for President Kennedy marked the death of more than a rational and optimistic human being.
It marked the death of Americans’ pride in choosing reasoning and educated citizens for their leaders.
The Eternal Flame at the grave of President John F. Kennedy
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 21, 2013 at 12:16 am
Elected to the House of Representatives in 1946, John F. Kennedy served six undistinguished years before being elected U.S. Senator from Massachussetts in 1952.
In 1956, his eloquence and political skill almost won him the Vice Presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention. But the nominee, Adlai Stevenson, chose Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver as his running mate.
Fortunately for Kennedy.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, running for re-election, easily beat Stevenson.
Had Kennedy been on the ticket, his Catholic religion would have been blamed for the loss–and almost certainly prevented him from getting the Presidential nomination in 1960.
In 1957, his book, Profiles in Courage won the Pulitzer Prize for history.
From 1957 to 1960, Kennedy laid plans for a successful Presidential race. Many voters thought him too young and inexperienced for such high office.
But he used his TV debates with then-Vice President Richard Nixon to calm such fears, transforming himself overnight into a serious contender.
Many Americans identified with Kennedy as they had with film stars. In contrast with normally drab politicians, he seemed exciting and glamorous.
Since 1960, for millions of Americans, mere competence in a President isn’t enough; he should be charming and movie-star handsome as well.
John F. Kennedy after taking a swim at Santa Monica Beach, 1960
But charismatic politicians face the danger of waning enthusiasm.
Many people were growing disillusioned with Kennedy before he died. He had raised hopes that couldn’t be met–especially among blacks.
And many whites bitterly opposed his support of integration, believing that Kennedy was “moving too fast” in changing race relations.
Still, for millions of Americans, Kennedy represented a time of change.
“Let’s get this country moving again” had been his campaign slogan in 1960. He had demanded an end to the non-existent “missile gap” between the United States and Soviet Union.
And he had said that America should create full employment and re-evaluate its policies toward Africa, Latin America and Asia.
His youth, the grace and beauty of his wife and the oft-reported antics of his two young children–Caroline and John–added to the atmosphere that change was on the way.
But Kennedy was not so committed to change as many believed.
- As a Senator he had strongly opposed abolishing the Electoral College.
- He had made no outcry against the Red-baiting tactics of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, a frequent dinner guest at the home of his father.
- As President, Kennedy never forgot that he had been elected by a margin of 112,881 votes. He often rationalized his refusal to tackle controversial issues by saying: “We’ll do it after I’m re-elected. So we’d better make damn sure I am re-elected.”
- He thought it absurd for the United States to refuse to recognize “Red”China, but didn’t try to change American foreign policy in that area.
Nevertheless, many historians believe that. by vocally supporting civil rights and healthcare for the elderly, Kennedy laid the groundwork for Lyndon Johnson’s legislative victories.
Perhaps no aspect of Kennedy’s Presidency has received closer study than his assassination.
Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have hotly debated whether he was murdered by a lone “nut” or a deadly conspiracy of powerful men.
JFK’s assassination: The moment of impact
The murder has been the subject of two government investigations. The first, by the Warren Commission in 1964, concluded that an embittered ex-Marine and Marxist, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone in killing Kennedy.
Similarly, the Commission determined that nightclub owner Jack Ruby had killed Oswald on impulse, and not as the result of a conspiracy.
Millions of disbelieving Americans rejected the Warren Report–and named their own villains:
- The KGB;
- The Mob;
- Anti-Castro Cubans;
- Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson;
- Right-wing businessmen and/or military leaders;
- Fidel Castro.
Each of these groups or persons had reason to hate Kennedy:
- The KGB–for Kennedy’s humiliation of the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- The Mob–in retaliation for the administration’s crackdown on organized crime.
- Anti-Castro Cubans–for JFK’s refusal to commit American military forces to overthrowing Castro at the Bay of Pigs invasion.
- Lyndon Johnson–lusting for power, he stood to gain the most from Kennedy’s elimination.
- Right-wing businessmen and/or military leaders–for believing that Kennedy had “sold out” the country to the Soviet Union.
- Fidel Castro–knowing the CIA was trying to assassinate or overthrow him, he had reason to respond in kind.
The second investigation, conducted in 1977-79 by the House Assassinstions Committee, determined that Oswald and a second, unknown sniper had fired at Kennedy. (Oswald was deemed the assassin; the other man’s shot had missed.)
The Chief Counsel for the Committee, G. Robert Blakey, believed New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello organized the assassination, owing to his hatred of Robert Kennedy for his war on the crime syndicates.
Still, 50 years after JFK’s assassination, no court-admissible evidence has come forward to convict anyone other than Oswald for the murder.
The impact of Kennedy’s death on popular culture remains great. Millions saw him as an American sccess story–a brilliant and courageous hero who had worked his way to the top.
But his sudden and violent end proved a shock for those who believed there was always a happy ending.
If so gifted–and protected–a man as John F. Kennedy could be so suddenly and brutally destroyed, no one else could depend on a secure future.
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ONE DAY, TWO ANNIVERSARIES
In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 6, 2014 at 12:01 am“For it is the doom of men that they forget.”
–Merlin, in “Excalibur”
June 6–a day of glory and tragedy.
The glory came 70 years ago–on Tuesday, June 6, 1944.
On that morning, Americans awoke to learn–from radio and newspapers–that their soldiers had landed on the French coast of Normandy.
In Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Force was American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Overall command of ground forces was given to British General Bernard Montgomery.
Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion to liberate France from Nazi Germany, proved one of the pivotal actions of World War II.
It opened shortly after midnight, with an airborne assault of 24,000 American, British, Canadian and Free French troops. This was followed at 6:30 a.m. by an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the French coast.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel–the legendary “Desert Fox”–commanded the German forces. For him, the first 24 hours of the battle would be decisive.
“For the Allies as well as the Germans,” he warned his staff, “it will be the longest day.”
The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in history. More than 160,000 troops landed–73,000 Americans, 61,715 British and 21,400 Canadians.
Initially, the Allied assault seemed likely to be stopped at the water’s edge–where Rommel had always insisted it must be. He had warned that if the Allies established a beachhead, their overwhelming advantages in numbers and airpower would eventually prove irresistible.
German machine-gunners and mortarmen wreaked a fearful toll on Allied soldiers. But commanders like U.S. General Norman Cota led their men to victory through a storm of bullets and shells.
Coming upon a group of U.S. Army Rangers taking cover behind sand dunes, Cota demanded: “What outfit is this?”
“Rangers!” yelled one of the soldiers.
“Well, Goddamnit, then, Rangers, lead the way!” shouted Cota, inspiring the soldiers to rise and charge into the enemy.
The command also gave the Rangers the motto they carry to this day.
The allied casualty figures for D-Day have been estimated at 10,000, including 4,414 dead. By nationality, the D-Day casualty figures are about 2,700 British, 946 Canadians and 6,603 Americans.
The total number of German casualties on D-Day isn’t known, but is estimated at 4,000 to 9,000.
Allied and German armies continued to clash throughout France, Belgium and Germany until May 7, 1945, when Germany finally surrendered.
But those Americans who had taken part in D-Day could be proud of having dealt a fatal blow to the evil ambitions of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.
So much for the glory of June 6. Now for the tragedy–which occurred 46 years ago, on Thursday, June 6, 1968.
Twenty-four years after D-Day, Americans awoke to learn–mostly from TV–that New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy had died at 1:44 a.m. of an assassin’s bullet.
He had been campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and had just won the California primary on June 4.
This had been a make-or-break event for Kennedy, a fierce critic of the seemingly endless Vietnam war.
He had won the Democratic primaries in Indiana and Nebraska, but had lost the Oregon primary to Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy.
If he could defeat McCarthy in California, Kennedy could force his rival to quit the race. That would lead to a showdown between him and Vice President Hubert Humphery for the nomination.
(President Lyndon B. Johnson had withdrawn from the race on March 31–just 15 days after Kennedy announced his candidacy on March 16.)
After winning the California and South Dakota primaries, Kennedy gave a magnaminous victory speech in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles:
“I think we can end the divisions within the United States….We are a great country, an unselfish country, and a compassionate country. And I intend to make that my basis for running over the period of the next few months.”
Then he entered the hotel kitchen–where Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian from Jordan, opened fire with a .22 revolver.
Kennedy was hit three times–once fatally in the back of the head. Five other people were also wounded.
Kennedy’s last-known words were: “Is everybody all right?” and “Jack, Jack”–the latter clearly a reference to his beloved older brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Almost five years earlier, that brother–then President of the United States–had been assassinated in Dalas on November 22, 1963.
Then Robert Kennedy lost consciousness–forever, dying in a hospital bed 24 hours later.
Kennedy had been a U.S. Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator (1964-1968). But it was his connection to President Kennedy for which he was best-known.
His assassination–coming so soon after that of JFK–convinced many Americans there was something “sick” about the nation’s culture.
One of the best summaries of Robert Kennedy’s legacy was given in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s, by historian William L. O’Neil:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
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