What's Past Is Prologue

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Charles Manson died the other day, and I have struggled with my thoughts about that.

He was, after all, 83. He was in his mid–30s when his "Family" committed the 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders on his behalf, not quite 40 when he was convicted and sentenced to death, only to have his sentence commuted to life in prison when the death penalty was abolished in California.

Clearly he lived a lot longer than he probably expected when his conviction was handed down.

And he was the notorious mastermind of murders that shook the nation then but would hardly merit a passing glance from today's media.

There is no reason to mourn his passing. And yet I am conflicted.

In the past I haven't regretted feeling no sorrow over the deaths of those who were responsible for much suffering and showed no remorse for it. Haven't regretted it at all.

I even sympathized with those who celebrated when Ted Bundy was executed or Jeffrey Dahmer was killed by a fellow inmate or the Night Stalker died of apparently natural causes.

But it's a problem for me. It goes against my upbringing to rejoice when a fellow human being dies. I guess I was able to rationalize it better when I was younger. Not so much now.

I'm sure that when he died, Manson was no better than he was when he terrorized Southern California. Every time that I heard a comment he had made from prison, he seemed just as twisted as ever — and I suppose he will always be a textbook case for the argument that some criminals are completely irredeemable — and thus, there is no real point behind incarcerating them for a lifetime.

Except to preserve a life.

I understand the need some people have for revenge, and I don't want to minimize that. There is something to be said for an eye for an eye. I could even support it if I felt it guaranteed closure for the survivors. But it doesn't — not always, maybe not even a majority of the time.

And as Gandhi said, an eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.

Nixon's Appeal to the Great Silent Majority

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"So tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support. I pledged in my campaign for the presidency to end the war in a way that we could win the peace. I have initiated a plan of action which will enable me to keep that pledge. The more support I can have from the American people, the sooner that pledge can be redeemed. For the more divided we are at home, the less likely the enemy is to negotiate at Paris."

Richard Nixon
Nov. 3, 1969

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If it hadn't been for the speeches and statements he made during the Watergate scandal, the speech that Richard Nixon gave 45 years ago tonight might have been remembered as his most significant presidential address.

The American people were divided over the war in Vietnam, a division that came to be perceived along all sorts of other (mostly irrelevant) lines — by race, by age, by gender, by region, by economic status — that weren't entirely irrelevant.

On this night in 1969, Richard Nixon introduced the concept of the mythical "great silent majority" into the American dialogue — suggesting that, in spite of themselves, most middle class Americans agreed with each other but were too polite to say so, and implying that he was one of them — a true–blue patriotic American who had remained silent too long. He contrasted his strategy of political realism with the vocal minority and its unrealistic idealism.

He tried to strike a somewhat defiant note. "If I conclude that increased enemy action jeopardizes our remaining forces in Vietnam," Nixon declared, "I shall not hesitate to take strong and effective measures to deal with that situation." He assured his listeners that was not a threat but a promise.

Nixon appealed for their support — and urged them (again by implication) not to participate in demonstrations against the war or to side with the counterculture — on this night 45 years ago. He had been elected president a year earlier by an extremely narrow margin, and he wanted to build a consensus.

He did better than that, at least initially. Before the speech, Gallup reported that his approval rating was 56%; after the speech, his approval was up 11 points to 67%, nearly the highest of his presidency.

And, in reality, it may well have laid the foundation for his 49–state landslide re–election in 1972.

In many ways, though, I have believed that the speech was a logical extension of the "Southern strategy" Nixon used to win the 1968 presidential campaign. At that time, Democrats still dominated Southern politics, but by using subtle and not–so–subtle appeals to racism, Republicans began chipping away at the Democrats' grip on politics in the South.

The most immediate effect was to siphon off votes upon which the Democrats' presidential nominee could always depend in the past — with the most direct recipient being independent candidate George Wallace. The Republicans hoped to pick off a few Southern states with Wallace and Hubert Humphrey dividing a vote that almost certainly would have defeated Nixon if it had remained united. At least, that is how Nixon saw it.

Nixon learned that divide and conquer works. Wallace still won nearly half a dozen Southern states, but Nixon managed to carry Florida, Virginia, Tennessee and the Carolinas — and, in so doing, won the election. But the Southern strategy was regionally confining. "Silent majority" transcended regional boundaries.

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After his speech 45 years ago tonight, Nixon used appeals to patriotism to define Republicans — and to divide groups of Americans — having already begun a process that would fulfill Lyndon Johnson's prophecy that his advocacy of civil rights legislation had handed the South to the Republicans for a generation.

In hindsight, I would say the ongoing shift from Democrat to Republican in the South truly began in that 1968 election. What other conclusion can one draw? The Democrats swept the nation and many Southern states in 1964, when Johnson faced Barry Goldwater. But, in the 1964 election results, there were clues to be found, hints about the direction the South was traveling.

It happened quietly and gradually. It certainly was not achieved overnight. But little by little, one by one, Southern states voted for Republicans on the federal level, then they began to do it on the state and local levels as well. And, one by one, Republicans picked off each state.

Tomorrow, it is quite likely that my home state of Arkansas will be the last Southern domino to completely fall when Sen. Mark Pryor appears poised to lose his bid for a third term — perhaps the last time that Nixon's political legacy will be felt in America.

The Southern strategy has seen some backsliding in recent elections, though, with Virginia and North Carolina voting for a Democrat for president for the first time in decades and Florida voting Democratic as well — and Democrats representing states like Louisiana and North Carolina in the Senate — but much of that can be attributed to the arrivals of Democrats whose jobs have brought them there from Northern and coastal cities. So the Southern strategy may be around for a few more elections. There may still be some work to be done in some place.

But, by and large, that transition is nearly complete now.

That shift in party preference may have been the most remarkable domestic political development I have witnessed in my lifetime — the transformation of an entire region, the South, from reliably Democrat to reliably Republican. I grew up in the South; it simply went without saying that just about everyone there was a Democrat, and political squabbles came down to the liberal, conservative and moderate wings of the party. Winning the primary in the spring or early summer was tantamount to election; beating the Republican in November was a formality.

Some people would say that Republicans have always been right–wingers, but the truth is that there really was no rightward shift in Republican ideology, in the South or elsewhere, until 1980, when the Reagan campaign and the emergence of the Moral Majority combined to coax conservative Christians into politics. There were pockets of Republican support throughout the South before then. Up until that time, I saw no real political involvement on the part of the churches — but I sure saw it after that.

Nearly all of the Republicans who were nominated in the decades before Reagan — including both Nixon himself and the man Nixon served as vice president, Dwight Eisenhower — are increasingly viewed as too moderate for the modern Republican Party.

It was only after Reagan won the nomination that the momentum for Republicans in the South really became noticeable.

All that was still many years away when Nixon spoke to the "great silent majority" 45 years ago tonight. Nixon drew the lines in the dirt that night.

"Let historians not record that, when America was the most powerful nation in the world, we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism," Nixon said.

Something to think about when you watch the election returns tomorrow night.

Helter Skelter

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When I was in high school, I remember reading a dog–eared paperback of Vincent Bugliosi's book about the Manson family murders in the summer of '69, "Helter Skelter."

No telling how many people read that copy before I did, but it was in great shape, no matter how many people had read it. No one had marked on any of the pages, and none of the pages was torn. Only the cover was tattered — "dog–eared," as I said before.

The first page of the book had one sentence in the middle of an otherwise blank page on which people could have written or drawn things — but didn't. Perhaps it was an indication of how respectful people were of the story the book told: "The book you are about to read will scare the hell out of you."

And it did.

I slept with a baseball bat under my bed for weeks. I was convinced that, at some point, someone would come into my room when I was sleeping, and that person would probably have a perfectly legitimate reason for being there, but I would be roused from my slumber by an unfamiliar and unexpected noise and reach under my bed for the bat — and use it without asking any questions.

Fortunately, that didn't happen.

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America has had a lot of exposure to cults in the years since the Manson murders terrorized southern California — and, really, the rest of the nation — so the story of that deadly weekend may seem tame to modern readers.

But it was still comparatively rare in 1969 — and it was frightening for average Americans.

And I'll bet Bugliosi's book still packs a powerful punch for unprepared readers. (Here's a tip: Don't watch the TV movie that was based on Bugliosi's book. The book kept me up at night. The movie almost put me to sleep. It's a strong story. It deserves better.)

Charles Manson's group consisted of a bunch of displaced young people. He had been predicting a race war between whites and blacks in America for a long time, but the Beatles' "White Album" provided justification for his predictions — according to his interpretations of songs from the album.

The song "Helter Skelter" was a direct reference to such a war, Manson told his followers. He saw all sorts of symbolism in certain songs — "Blackbird," "Revolution," "Piggies" as well as "Helter Skelter" — but he saw modest messages in all the other songs on the album, too. He had spoken of hidden meanings in individual Beatles songs in the past, but this was the first time that every song on an entire album — and a double album, at that — was cited.

"Every single song on the White Album," former follower Catherine Share said in a 2009 documentary, "[Manson] felt that they were singing about us."

Manson drew parallels between the songs and verses from the Book of Revelation. He always cast himself as the prime beneficiary, the one to whom both races would turn for guidance following "Helter Skelter" — the apocalyptic race war of which he warned his followers.

Bugliosi, who prosecuted Manson, explained it all in chilling detail in his book on the case. I know I was an impressionable teenager at the time I read it, but I'm pretty sure it was vivid enough to horrify the most hardened reader.

If there had been a checklist of the things that really scared people in the late '60s and early '70s, it would have included all the things that people saw in the Manson family — young, unkempt people living in a rural commune (hippies in the language of the times) under the direction of an older, manipulative, self–appointed messiah.

In the years to come, Americans became familiar with the tactics used by cult leaders to manipulate their followers. Jim Jones' followers committed suicide for him in 1978. So, too, did the members of Marshall Applewhite's religious cult, Heaven's Gate, in 1997. David Koresh and more than 80 of his followers in the Branch Davidians cult died fiery deaths in the siege in Waco, Texas, in 1993.

But in August 1969, people weren't prepared for what they about to witness.

Forty years ago today, Manson sent out four members of his family with the instruction to "totally destroy everyone" in the house he knew as the home of record producer Terry Melcher (Doris Day's son), but Melcher was no longer the tenant. Neither Manson nor his followers knew the current tenants, director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate. Polanski was out of the country 40 years ago tonight, but Tate, who was pregnant, was there, along with three friends.

All four, along with an 18–year–old man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, were killed. Well, truthfully, they were slaughtered. Manson encouraged them to be "as gruesome as you can be," and they were. Most of the victims were carved up, and code words from Beatles lyrics that were intended to incite Manson's race war were written in blood.

The same thing was done the next night when Manson sent half a dozen of his followers into the night. This time he went along "to show them how to do it." The chaos of the previous evening had disappointed him.

They went to the home of a supermarket executive and his wife, where much the same sort of scene unfolded as happened the previous night. Things were done in a more orderly fashion, though — no one had to be chased down and stabbed to death on the lawn this time.

More words were written in blood.

Needless to say, Manson's race war never happened. But Manson and the six who did his bidding were imprisoned and sentenced to death — sentences that were commuted to life when the death penalty was suspended by the Supreme Court in 1972. The death penalty was reinstated in 1976, but the sentences were not changed.

One of Manson's followers, Susan Atkins, who participated in both killing sprees, died in prison nearly five years ago. The rest are still there.

Ted's Side of the Story

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It has been 45 years since Ted Kennedy's car plunged into the waters of Chappaquiddick. A young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned that night. Kennedy himself has been dead for nearly five years, but the event is still capable of provoking passionate debates.

With only a few exceptions, Kennedy spent the seven days immediately following the incident in seclusion. When he was seen, he was wearing a neck brace, a silent reminder of the accident. He emerged 45 years ago today — sans neck brace — to deliver a national address on the matter.

Since Bobby Kennedy's assassination a year earlier, Kennedy was widely regarded as virtually a sure thing if he wanted the Democratic presidential nomination; after the accident, the conventional wisdom was that he was damaged goods — damaged beyond repair.

Before the Chappaquiddick incident, Kennedy was often mentioned as a potential Democratic candidate for 1972. Even after Chappaquiddick, his name was still mentioned in connection with the 1976 race. He chose not to seek the nomination in either year, and it seemed his presidential ambitions really were behind him.

Incredibly, he did seek the presidency — in 1980 — but it always seemed to me he did so more out of a sense of personal obligation than anything else.

And he picked a year to run in which it was almost certain that he would not succeed. He ran against an incumbent Democrat, Jimmy Carter, in a year that was shaping up to be a Republican year. Running against an incumbent from one's own party has almost always been a "Man of La Mancha"–esque proposition — and, predictably, at least in the context of history, Kennedy did not defeat the incumbent.

But there was more to it than that. Early in the campaign for the nomination, Carter benefited from a rally–'round–the–flag mentality following the takeover of the American embassy in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

If Kennedy had beaten Carter, it is far from certain that he would have defeated the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan. In hindsight, it really seems the tide was running against all Democrats in 1980.

Before any votes had been cast, Kennedy's commitment was brought into question when he gave a rambling answer to a pretty straight–forward question posed by CBS' Roger Mudd — "Why do you want to be president?"

But on this night in 1969, he didn't speak about the presidency. He spoke about Chappaquiddick. Earlier in the day, he had entered a plea of guilty at the Edgartown, Mass., courthouse; he was given a suspended sentence and his driver's license was taken away.

Thoughts of the presidency probably were part of the equation, though, particularly when you examine the issues he chose to address when he spoke before the cameras:

• His wife, Joan, had not accompanied him that weekend due to "reasons of health." Her absence had been frequently mentioned, and Kennedy apparently felt obliged to say that she was pregnant (she suffered a miscarriage shortly thereafter).
• He denied the "widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct" by himself and Kopechne.
• He denied that he had been under the influence of alcohol while he was driving.
• He acknowledged that his actions after the accident "made no sense to [him] at all."
• He said he had been told by his doctors that he had suffered a concussion and shock, but he didn't use that as an excuse for his actions.
• He said it was "indefensible" that he did not contact authorities after the accident.
• He told viewers that he had enlisted the help of two friends at the party to help try to rescue her.
• He said that "all kinds of scrambled thoughts" went through his head that, in hindsight, seem like nothing short of denial — including the idea that Kopechne may have saved herself somehow and whether "some awful curse actually did hang over all the Kennedys."

"The speech was not a success," wrote William Manchester. "He answered questions that hadn't been asked ... He also seemed to imply that the damage to his career was more momentous than [Kopechne's] death." That, I suppose, remained to be seen.

The Dawning of a New World

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"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Neil Armstrong
July 20, 1969

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I've heard that astronaut Neil Armstrong, the man who took the first steps on the moon, was a modest man, not prone to hyperbole.

When he said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" as he descended the ladder on the lunar module and planted his foot on the moon's surface, I believe he really did understand the huge implications of that single, simple act. Regardless of how educated they were, all people — and it was estimated that half a billion people worldwide were watching — could understand what it meant to put a foot on the ground, and most could probably grasp that it was merely the first step on a journey that would take mankind into an era of unimagined developments and changes.

But all would not be revealed at once. In a manner of speaking, it was the first day of school for the human race. Science continues to build on things that were discovered via NASA's missions to the moon.

I was a small boy at the time, of course, so I didn't understand everything. Nevertheless, for me, the most heart–stopping moment on Apollo 11's historic voyage was the descent of the lunar module to the moon's surface on this day in 1969. I understood enough to know there were risks in that procedure.

Earlier, the lunar module had separated from the command module, which was piloted by Michael Collins, and Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin began their journey to the moon.

As the lunar module descended, computers were reporting lots of errors — which turned out not to be errors, after all, just computer miscalculations — and Armstrong and Aldrin reported back to mission control that they were passing lunar landmarks four seconds earlier than expected and would be "long" — landing west of their intended landing site.

The folks back in Houston would easily adapt their design for later flights — but nobody in the viewing audience knew that. Viewers were told that the lunar module might not have enough fuel to re–connect with the command module if it didn't land within a certain time. Turned out the astronauts were receiving premature low fuel warnings, and there was no crisis after all.

But no one knew that. I remember feeling a genuine concern for the men on board — and a genuine sense of relief when they reported a successful landing with a few seconds to spare.

I wasn't the only one who responded that way — but I was part of a decidedly smaller subset that may have felt such anxiety for the first time in their lives on that occasion.

"Tranquility, we copy you on the ground," came the reply from Mission Control. "You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."

It was the first mission to the moon. The astronauts and the crew on the ground were learning things that would be adjusted on succeeding flights, but, in July 1969, it was all new.

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The astronauts did not step out on the moon right away. NASA had scheduled a five–hour sleep period for them because they had been up since early that morning, but the astronauts apparently did not sleep. With an unexplored frontier waiting just outside their door, I guess that would have been like asking a kid to sleep late on Christmas morning. Anyway, Armstrong and Aldrin spent the downtime preparing for their historic moon walks instead of napping.

While not mentioned publicly at the time, Aldrin also took communion prior to going out on the moon's surface. He did so privately because, at the time, NASA was contending with atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair's lawsuit that demanded that astronauts abstain from religious activities while in space.

I think that originated when the crew of Apollo 8 read passages from the Bible on Christmas Eve.

So Aldrin took communion on the moon with a special kit that had been prepared by his pastor, but he drew no attention to it.

When he returned to earth, Aldrin gave the chalice he used to his church, which still has it. Every year, on the Sunday closest to July 20, the church commemorates his lunar communion.

Once the astronauts were on the moon, I figured the hard part was over. I mean, all they had to do was go out the door of the lunar module, climb down that ladder and walk around on the surface, right? Nothing to it.

I suppose I was much too young to understand that, until someone did get out and walk around, no one really knew what to expect. All kinds of possibilities went through people's minds — and it's safe to say that most, if not all, were not good.

Before Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon, there was still a kind of mysterious aura surrounding it. Astronauts had been close enough to the moon to peer at its surface from their space capsules, and they thought they knew what to expect — but no one was really sure.

The moon, Shakespeare said, "comes more nearer earth than she was wont and drives men mad." And there did seem to be a kind of madness settling upon the earth around the time of Apollo 11's journey to the moon.

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Most of the madness at the time was brought on by the space race. At the height of the Cold War, Russia and the United States were driven mad in a desperate race to get to the moon first. America won that race 50 years ago today.

But the madness wasn't confined to space. There were times that summer when it seemed the world was on the brink of spinning out of control.

Less than 48 hours before Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon, a car driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy plunged into the channel on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass. Kennedy survived, but a young woman who was riding in the car with him, 28–year–old Mary Jo Kopechne, perished.

And about three weeks later, the Manson Family would commit a series of highly publicized (for that pre–cable, pre–internet era) horrific murders in California.

Much of the world watched that night. It is said that more than 500 million people witnessed those first steps on the moon and heard Armstrong say, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

And, from that moment on, it really was a new world — a world in which man could fly to the moon and back if he chose to do so.

The Death of Mary Jo Kopechne

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Mary Jo Kopechne was, by all accounts, a serious and hard–working member of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's staff. Apparently, she seldom drank or got involved with men.

To say she was merely a secretary would belittle her contribution — for she did much more than type letters and fetch coffee. She was an important member of the team, staying up all night once to retype a speech Kennedy was going to give on Vietnam while Kennedy and his advisers made alterations.

A product of parochial schools, she taught for awhile after earning her degree from a Catholic liberal arts college in New Jersey, but her passion was for politics, originally working for a senator from Florida but quickly moving on to Kennedy's staff.

During Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, she was one of the so–called "Boiler Room Girls," an affectionate nickname given to six young women on Kennedy's staff. Perhaps more than any, Kopechne was devastated by Kennedy's assassination in June 1968 and temporarily left political campaign work shortly thereafter, vowing not to return to Washington because "I just feel Bobby's presence everywhere."

But she returned to Washington before the year was out.

Fast forward to Friday, July 18, 1969. It was the weekend of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was also the weekend of a regatta in Edgartown, Mass., in which Sen. Edward Kennedy was competing.

Kennedy hosted a reunion for the "Boiler Room Girls" at Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., that Friday evening.

"Among the many responsibilities Ted had inherited from his brothers," wrote historian William Manchester, "was one for lifting the morale of the family's loyal campaigners." That was the objective of the gathering that night.

Actually, it wasn't as if the girls hadn't seen each other since the assassination. It was the fourth such reunion in a year's time, but the girls all seemed to enjoy being with each other — and a group of men who were there, too. Among them were a Kennedy cousin, one of his school buddies, an attorney and Kennedy's driver.

By 11:15 that night, Kennedy later told authorities, he decided to leave, and Kopechne asked him for a ride to her hotel. Kennedy agreed and told his driver to stay where he was since he seemed to be having a good time.

Kopechne didn't tell anyone she was leaving with Kennedy — and left her purse and hotel key behind. Odd behavior for someone who supposedly wanted to return to her hotel.

Accounts of what happened after that vary.

Kennedy later told local authorities that he made a wrong turn and went off a bridge. He said the car turned over and landed on its roof under water. Kennedy couldn't recall how he got out of the vehicle, only that he did and that he made repeated attempts to rescue Kopechne but was unsuccessful.

He returned to the party on foot and told authorities he saw no houses with lights on between the accident scene and the party, but it was established that Kennedy's route back to the party would have taken him past four houses, at least one of which had a light on all night.

Kennedy would have found a working phone at that house, as well as the one where the party was being held, but he didn't contact authorities until the next morning. Instead, he and two of the men at the party returned to the accident scene, where both of the men reportedly made several attempts to reach Kopechne.

When those attempts also failed, the men parted company. Kennedy's companions later said they assumed Kennedy would contact authorities, but he did not. Instead, he returned to his hotel, where he nursed the fantasy that Kopechne had, somehow, managed to escape the vehicle — and that he would learn she was all right the next day.

The next morning, however, two fishermen found the submerged vehicle, and the authorities were summoned. A scuba diver was dispatched, and he was the one who located the body. Upon hearing that a corpse had been found, Kennedy turned himself in to the local police.

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The diver who found the body said she did not drown but, rather, died of suffocation. The position of the body suggested she had found an air pocket and had been trying to breathe. It was estimated that it took her three or four hours to die.

The diver was convinced she could have been saved. "I could have had her out of that car 25 minutes after I got the call," the diver said. "But he [Kennedy] didn't call."

A week later — and only a couple of days after Kennedy (wearing a neck brace) and his wife attended Kopechne's funeral — Kennedy spoke on national television. Of that I will have more to say next week.

There was considerable uncertainty about the timing of the accident. Based on Kennedy's version of events, it could have happened any time after 11:15 p.m. on July 18, but a deputy sheriff who had been working at a regatta dance that night said he encountered a dark car containing a man and a woman that appeared to be lost between 12:30 and 12:45 a.m. on July 19. He said he got out of his car and approached the other vehicle, intending to offer assistance, and the car drove off.

The inquest report only said the accident happened sometime between 11:30 p.m. on July 18 and 1 a.m. on July 19.

To Boldly Go Where No Man Had Gone Before

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"The mission was Apollo 11. It was the capstone of an extraordinary effort ... and while men could argue endlessly over whether it had been worth the cost, its success was undeniably an American triumph."

William Manchester

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When this day dawned 45 years ago, many things were true that would not be true anymore when the sun went down.

July 16, 1969 was a Wednesday. I don't know if Wednesday was known colloquially as "Hump Day" then as it is today, but millions of Americans got up that morning and went to work, just as they did every weekday morning. Some commuted great distances — as some do today.

It was summer, which meant that some families were on vacation road trips to landmarks, beaches, amusement parks or baseball games.

Wanderlust is deeply embedded in the American DNA, but, no matter how far any other Americans traveled in July 1969, the concept of travel would be forever changed by three men. Travel generally implies a destination of some kind, and those three men gave that word a makeover on this day.

Those three men — Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins — were the crew of Apollo 11, NASA's fifth manned space mission of the Apollo program.

In recent years, Americans had seen many manned space missions lift off in the Mercury and Gemini programs as well as the Apollo program. They knew the risks all too well, having witnessed the fiery deaths of three astronauts during a ground test for Apollo 1 a couple of years earlier. They knew there was nothing routine about space travel.

Except the destination.

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"Apollo 11, with its 36–story–high Saturn 5 rocket, was fired at Cape Kennedy's launch complex 39A at 9:32 on the morning of July 16, 1969. ... The Saturn's third stage put them into an orbit at a height of 118 miles. After a 2½–hour check of all instruments systems, they refired the third stage. This gave them a velocity ... sufficient to throw them beyond the earth's atmosphere and on their way to the moon, a quarter–million miles away."

William Manchester

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The eventual destination for Apollo 11 would be — as it had been for all space missions that had gone before — a splashdown. American missions splashed down in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and Apollo 11 was scheduled to complete its mission with a splashdown in the Pacific.

But in between the liftoff 45 years ago today and the splashdown eight days later, Apollo 11 did something that no other mission had done. It stopped somewhere — the moon. Two members of the crew descended to the moon's surface and walked around. They planted a flag to show they had been there.

And they left the first of several piles of space–travel debris.

On this anniversary, I suppose it is appropriate to wonder what kind of future, if any, America's space program has.

Aldrin has been an advocate of one–way missions for the first travelers to Mars.

And recently he revealed that he saw a UFO during Apollo 11's journey to the moon.

If that one–way trip to Mars materializes, the first travelers might expect to encounter a UFO as well — although Aldrin conceded that it could have been sunlight reflecting off panels from the spaceship. Since he does not know which panel, it qualifies (technically) as unidentified, and it was a flying object — just not, apparently, a flying saucer.

But Aldrin has also said that he believes there must be life somewhere else. If that is true, it seems at least possible that a spaceship from earth bound for Mars could encounter a UFO.

No one knows how long it will take a manned rocket to make the journey. So far, only unmanned probes have been sent, but it typically takes six months to a year for them to cover the 55 million–kilometer distance.

Surely they will bump into a real flying saucer during that time.

Man on the Moon

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"He was the best, and I will miss him terribly."

Michael Collins
Apollo 11 command module pilot

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There may be no more vivid memory from my childhood than that of Neil Armstrong taking his first step on the moon in July 1969 and declaring it "[o]ne small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Before his historic moon walk, I don't recall hearing Armstrong's name. I think he flew in space once before — one of the Gemini missions in the mid–'60s, I believe — but I don't think he did anything that was especially noteworthy.

Certainly not when compared to being the first man to walk on the moon.

Armstrong was an inspirational figure then, and he continued to be an inspirational figure throughout his life, largely because of the values he acquired in his youth in Ohio and carried with him as an adult.

He did not seek the spotlight and often appeared uncomfortable discussing his role in the space program. When the subject of his moon walk came up, as it inevitably did, Armstrong always seemed eager to give credit to all the folks at NASA whose collective efforts had made it possible.

"Those who know him say he is a smart and intensely private, even shy, man determined to live life on his own terms despite having floated down that ladder into the public domain," wrote Kathy Sawyer in the Washington Post Magazine on the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing.

I knew Armstrong was getting old, but I didn't realize just how old (82) until I heard the news yesterday that he had died of complications following heart surgery.

As many have already said, he was a genuine American hero. Forty–three years ago, he was the first man to walk on the moon, inspiring millions of American boys to dream grand and glorious dreams.

But I always believed Armstrong would have happily piloted the command module on that trip and never even walked on the moon if that had been what was asked of him. Instead, Michael Collins was asked to perform that solitary task while Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the first steps on the moon.

Armstrong was a team player — not unlike another pioneer from America's space program who died recently, Sally Ride.

Armstrong and Ride were good foot soldiers in the quest to conquer space. If they had been called upon to sweep up or fetch coffee, they would have done so.

But fate had much bigger things in store for them. Armstrong would be the first man to walk on the moon, and Ride would be the first American woman to fly in space.

At a time when positive role models are in shockingly short supply, we've lost two in the span of a single month.

We are much poorer for it.

Uncovering a Coverup

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When I was a boy, the Vietnam War ripped apart the fabric of American life.

There was a time, early in America's involvement in the conflict, when the majority of Americans supported the U.S. effort. But public opinion gradually turned against the war and the president who oversaw it, eventually forcing Lyndon Johnson to abandon his pursuit of another term.

About two weeks before Johnson withdrew from the race, something happened in a tiny hamlet in South Vietnam that changed the dynamics of the public's perception of what was being done in its name halfway around the world.

I don't know if it played a role in Johnson's decision. I don't know if Johnson was even aware that it had happened. But it certainly played a prominent role in the first years of the next presidency.

On March 16, 1968, between 350 and 500 South Vietnamese civilians, most of them women, children and the elderly, were killed by members of a unit of the U.S. Army at a place called My Lai. Many of the victims were sexually abused. Some were beaten and/or tortured. Some were mutilated after they died.

It was not long after North Vietnamese forces had humiliated the Americans with their much–heralded Tet offensive in January 1968, which may explain, in part, the vicious nature of the Americans' attack, but it could never justify it.

I mean, how could anyone consider wiping out a tiny hamlet in South Vietnam any kind of payback for what the North Vietnamese had done? Only those, I suppose, who had been conditioned to regard all Asians as "gooks."

Initially, details were sketchy, as I recall, but I was just a child and not aware of much of what was happening in the world.

But the story that the American public was given was simply that — a story.

In fact, a coverup began virtually the moment the gunfire stopped on the day of the massacre. Official accounts spoke of a great victory, and Stars & Stripes said it had been a "bloody day–long battle" in which communist casualties outnumbered American, 128 to 1, but there were those in the Army who knew differently.

A soldier named Ronald Ridenhour who had heard of the massacre from friends gathered information on his own and sent letters about it to members of Congress and other officials about a year later.

In the annals of the My Lai massacre, It seems to me, that letter played much the same role as the letter from James McCord to the judge who presided over the original trial of the Watergate burglars a few years later.

Without that letter, the world probably never would have known the truth. It blew the lid off the coverup.

Journalist Seymour Hersh apparently got his hands on a copy of the letter and launched the investigation that would expose the dark side of the military's "body count" and "kill ratio" strategies. He published his findings with Dispatch News Service in November 1969.

About a week later, on Nov. 20, 1969, the media began to fill in the gaps. Time, Newsweek and Life gave considerable space to what Hersh had revealed.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer published explicit photos that had been taken at the scene — some of which can be seen in this post.

The coverup that had been successful for nearly two years came undone. And what had been originally praised by military leaders as an heroic chapter was transformed in the public's eyes into a despicable one.

It wasn't despicable because the media wrote about it. It was despicable because the media wrote the truth about what had happened.

It was a courageous thing to do, and I'm sure those who wrote for those publications faced their share of abuse for violating the code of silence that had kept well–connected violators from facing the consequences of their actions in the past.

Three members of a helicopter crew that had tried to intervene could sympathize.

They were denounced at the time by members of Congress. One died in Vietnam, but the other two received hate mail and death threats after they returned to the United States and were not recognized for what they had tried to do until three decades after the fact.

(I have often thought that it was such a cocoon of denial that must have permitted a serial killer nicknamed "Citizen X" to get away with his crimes in the Soviet Union as long as he did. Soviet officials refused to acknowledge that such a thing as serial murder was possible in their country, dismissing it as a "decadent, Western phenomenon."

(To their great chagrin, they learned that not only was such a thing possible in the Soviet Union but the killer actually had been in custody early in the investigation and was subsequently released. Based on the number of killings that had already been committed when he was arrested and the number with which he eventually was credited, it is possible that more than three dozen lives might have been spared if he had not been freed.

(We will never know if there were any other My Lais during America's lengthy involvement in Vietnam — although it seems to me there almost certainly must have been — or whether any might have been prevented if there had been a more forceful response from the U.S. government.)

More than two dozen soldiers ultimately were charged, but only one, Lt. William Calley, a platoon leader, was convicted of murder. Calley was given a life sentence, but, in what was a controversial move at the time, President Nixon decided to have Calley released, pending his appeal.

Eventually, Calley's sentence was adjusted, and he served 4½ months in a military prison. He was sentenced to — and could have ending up serving — a life sentence.

Nevertheless, his conviction only served to widen the gulf that existed between those who supported the war and those who opposed it.

Last year, more than 40 years after the massacre, Calley publicly apologized for the first time.

The revelation that babies had been among the victims at My Lai led many antiwar activists to label all Vietnam veterans "baby killers." That wasn't fair, but I guess it was the unavoidable legacy of the event combined with the deception the American public had come to associate with the war in Vietnam.

Tales of murdered infants from that case were so abundant at the time one might have thought that "My Lai" meant "nursery."

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I must admit that I have often wondered if the G.I. culture in Vietnam — as one soldier put it, "most people in our company didn't consider the Vietnamese human" — contributed not only to My Lai but other atrocities during the Vietnam era — like the napalm attack that led to the Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph of children fleeing from their burning village in 1972.

A Dramatic Day

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Until recently, if anyone thought of Oct. 15, 1969, it probably was in connection with the World Series, which was known at the time — and is still remembered today — as the triumph of the Miracle Mets, the Amazin' New York Mets, over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles.

October 15 wasn't the day that the Mets wrapped up their improbable championship — that happened the next day — but it may have been the day when the Mets' triumph became all but official.

On that day, the teams met in the fourth game of the World Series. The Mets held a two games to one advantage. After dropping the opener on Oct. 11, the Mets got a narrow win in Game 2 and a 5–0 victory in Game 3 and entered Game 4 with the chance to build a 3–1 lead, which has been virtually insurmountable in the annals of World Series competition.

Oct. 15, 1969, was a controversial day. For one thing, it was Moratorium Day, a global demonstration against American involvement in Vietnam. The mayor of New York (where Game 4 was to be played) ordered flags flown at half–staff in honor of all who had died in Vietnam, but the commissioner of baseball, in an apparent effort to keep the Series out of the political debate, said the American flag would be flown at full staff during the game.

That wasn't all, though. A photograph of Mets pitcher Tom Seaver, who lost the opener to Baltimore, was used in antiwar literature that was circulated outside New York's Shea Stadium that day — even though Seaver insisted the photograph had been used without his permission.

Seaver was slated to pitch on October 15 as well. He shut Baltimore out through eight innings, then yielded a run in the ninth and the game went to a 10th inning, when the Mets scored the winning run. They clinched the championship with a 5–3 victory the next day.

For the most part, public attention was devoted to Moratorium Day and the fourth game of the World Series on Oct. 15, 1969. I know of nothing that President Richard Nixon said about the World Series, but he did say that, while activities like Moratorium Day were expected from antiwar activists, "under no circumstances will I be affected whatever by it."

Nixon's actions in Vietnam were, indeed, apparently unaffected by the massive protests, but, within the last week, we have heard, through England's Telegraph, of actions that Nixon apparently took to prevent a nuclear war on that day.

The Telegraph reports that a Chinese historian claims that, on Oct. 15, 1969, the Soviets were about to launch a nuclear strike against China but were dissuaded by Nixon's assurance that, if they did, the United States was prepared to attack more than 100 Russian cities, thereby starting World War III.

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If that is true — and I have no reason to think it is not — it may lend some credence to a scene from Oliver Stone's 1990s biopic "Nixon," in which Nixon, Henry Kissinger and other Nixon advisers discussed foreign policy over dinner on the presidential yacht.

In the movie, Nixon talked about playing Russia and China against each other and using "triangular diplomacy" to get better diplomatic deals from each. Introducing the nuclear option may have been a high–stakes way to nudge each into doing as he wanted.

Nixon played hardball, as his handling of the Watergate scandal clearly demonstrated. In spite of extremely vocal opposition in this country to American involvement in Vietnam, Nixon followed his own course, initiating a policy that was, if anything, even bloodier than the approach that had been taken by the much–reviled Johnson administration, and he always claimed that, if he had not resigned the presidency, the Americans never would have been driven from Saigon less than a year after he relinquished power.

But perhaps there was more to it than that.

I was never an admirer of Nixon, but one thing was clear to me when he was alive and has become even more so in the years since his death. Things were never simply one way with Nixon. He was calculating, yes. He was manipulative. He was paranoid and secretive, and writer Richard Reeves may well have been correct when he observed that Nixon "assumed the worst in people, and he brought out the worst in them."

Nixon's personality may have been predisposed to wreck his presidency, but there were also aspects of his character that seemed to make him more empathetic than normally would be expected from someone who has often been described as a narcissist.

Perhaps Nixon was offended by the Soviet Union's belligerence, its reckless approach to the use of nuclear power only seven years after the Cuban missile crisis.

Even a narcissist may have a sense of what he/she believes to be correct — if only because it violates the narcissist's view of his/her role in events.

As a young man, Nixon was quite a poker player. During his time in the Navy in World War II, Nixon won enough money playing poker to finance his successful 1946 campaign for a House seat. Perhaps he felt that the Russians were forcing him to reveal his hand so he upped the ante.

The real truth may never be known.

But it is a fact that neither the Soviets nor the Chinese — nor, as a result, the Americans — used nuclear weapons on Moratorium Day 1969.

The only bombshells that week came in the world of baseball.

The Right Name

Tonight, I've been musing about the difference having the right name can make.

Entertainers and writers often take a nom de plume, and it seems to be beyond dispute that having the right name can make all the difference, no matter what one's line of work may be.

And it's funny, sometimes, the names that gravitate to certain professions.

I recall seeing, for example, a sign for a dentist whose name was Dr. Paine. I often wondered how many potential patients were driven to a different dentist simply because of his name.

(Which reminds me of something George Carlin once said. "If 'Janitor in a Drum' made a douche," he said, "no one would buy it.")

I once knew a florist named Rose. No kidding.

A few times I have known of basketball players whose last name was Short. That doesn't sound like the right name for someone who plays a game in which height is looked upon as a decided advantage.

For many years, I worked on copy desks for daily newspapers. On one such job, I worked nights. It was a morning paper. For awhile, I worked with a fellow named Day. I suppose that is considered ironic.

Another irony from those days involved one of our lead editors, the fellow who designed the front page of the paper every night. In those days, color was not as widespread as it is today. The editors could use it on the front pages of their sections if they wanted to — but it was with the understanding that the color process would make production more expensive.

Color gradually became commonplace for newspapers, but, in those days, the decision to use color was often a gut–wrenching experience for the editors, who frequently had to justify their decisions. For those who designed the front page, the most compelling reason to use a color photo was to attract readers. We were in the midst of a newspaper war, and the editors of the main section saw color as the key to boosting circulation.

I worked in sports, which seemed to have been given the green light to use color whenever we wanted to. And color really did bring sports photos to life, whether they were produced by one of our photographers or came across the wire. But the front page of the sports section was not the one on display in convenience stores and news boxes.

Anyway, this fellow on the news side had a reputation for resisting color. I always assumed it had something to do with his frugal nature — and, truth be told, I agreed with him most of the time. In those days, it was hard to justify using color for photos of people's faces — like the photos you see on columns.

The newspaper term for such photos is mugshot, and most of the mugshots that news had were of men wearing dark suits and dark ties standing in front of a dark background (think Blues Brothers without the sunglasses). What could color possibly add to that?

But there were times when I disagreed with the decisions that were made.

The name of the night editor who stoutly resisted using color photos on the front page was ... Ed Gray.

Known as the "aptly named Ed Gray" by some of the copy editors on the news side.

Still with me?

Well, the reason I'm on this tangent this evening has a lot to do with some interesting facts that are connected to tomorrow, November 19:

• Forty years ago tomorrow, Apollo 12 landed on the moon, and Pete Conrad and Alan Bean became the third and fourth men to walk on its surface.
  
  For more than 40 years now, children have studied the Apollo program in school, and they have been told that Neil Armstrong spoke the now iconic words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," as he took the first steps on the surface of the moon.
  
  I suppose it was the luck of the draw that Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first to step on the moon, but sometimes it seems like it was destiny. What if the crew had come down with something and a backup crew had to go instead? Suppose it had been Conrad or Bean who spoke the first words from the moon. What was said surely would have been different. And neither Conrad nor Bean has the same impact as the name Armstrong.
  
  Maybe that's because it conjures up images (for older Americans) of Jack Armstrong, the All–American Boy, a radio character who was popular when Neil Armstrong was a boy.


• Ten years earlier, in 1959, the Ford Motor Co. discontinued the Edsel. It was named after Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford, company founder. Edsel the man died of cancer in 1943. His namesake vehicle was introduced to the public in September 1957, but it was discontinued a little more than two years later because it was so unpopular.
  
  No one ever determined an overriding reason for the Edsel's lack of popularity. But I always thought the name had something to do with it. Edsel didn't have much magic.


• Sometimes, I guess, it isn't necessary to do anything at all if you've got the right name. On Nov. 19, 1990, a pop duo that went by the name of Milli Vanilli were stripped of their Grammy Award because they did not perform at all on the album that won the award — studio musicians and singers were used instead. The duo merely lip synched in live performances.


• As I said, some names just seem destined for certain occupations. On Nov. 19, 1862, a boy named William A. Sunday was born in Iowa. As an adult, he was known as Billy Sunday, the most famous evangelist in America in the early part of the 20th century.
  
  Billy Sunday influenced national policy. He was a supporter of Prohibition, and it was widely believed that he played a key role in the passage of the 18th Amendment, which made the transportation and sale (but not the consumption) of alcohol illegal.
  
  If your aspiration is to be a preacher, Sunday is a pretty good surname to have.

There and Back Again

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The historic journey of Apollo 11 came to its conclusion 40 years ago today.

It's been a long time since America sent a crew into space in anything other than a space shuttle. I guess you'd have to be over a certain age to remember a time when America's returning star travelers didn't glide into an air base. But in 1969, astronauts returned to earth the way they had been doing for years — splashdown at sea.

So, in late July 1969, Apollo 11 returned to earth. The USS Hornet was on hand to welcome them back, along with President Nixon. The splashdown occurred east of Wake Island in the Pacific.

In the last week, I have written about my memories of the start of that historic mission and the night that man walked on the moon for the first time. In all honesty, I can't remember much about the splashdown.

I guess it was dramatic, but mostly because people were anxious to get the crew back on earth, successfully fulfilling President Kennedy's challenge. I remember that the astronauts were quarantined upon their return and remained that way until someone — a doctor, I presume — verified that they hadn't picked up anything in their trip to the moon and that they weren't likely to expose anyone to anything, either.

After the walk on the moon, the splashdown must have seemed pretty anticlimactic — a capsule bobbing in the waves while a helicopter lowered its basket three times to recover the astronauts.

The fact that there was a splashdown really wasn't noteworthy. We had seen so many splashdowns by that time that it was really nothing special. To me, it simply meant the trip to outer space was over. But this time, the astronauts had done more than just go into outer space.

I'm sure all three of the networks were televising it. But by the time Apollo 11 returned, space travel already seemed to be routine — so routine that, when Apollo 13 encountered difficulties that forced the crew to scrap its planned moon landing nine months later, it came as a shock to most Americans, who apparently had forgotten that three astronauts had died a little more than three years earlier in a launch pad fire on earth.

As you can see in the attached video clip, the astronauts came to the window of their quarantined quarters to talk with President Nixon.

The mission was over. The men were back on earth. There would be parades and rallies and speeches in the weeks and months and years to come.

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In fact, just last Sunday, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, the Apollo 11 crew members, along with former space center director Chris Kraft, were speakers at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

Lately, I have witnessed a bit of a revival of the old conspiracy theory that says Apollo 11 was faked. I never thought it was faked. Logic tells me it couldn't have been faked.

I've heard it said that 400,000 people worked on the space program in one capacity or another. My thinking is that figure would include scientists and engineers — and wouldn't necessarily include those who worked on the technical aspects of faked broadcasts, like the people who maintained the sets and the people who operated the cameras.

Including the Apollo 11 crewmen who did so, a dozen Americans walked on the moon and came back to earth to talk about it. If Apollo 11 was staged, those missions must have been staged as well. And I guess it would mean that Apollo 13's aborted mission also was faked.

How could you keep all those people quiet for 40 years? Well, some have died, but (as far as I know) no one has died of suspicious or seemingly unnatural causes.

I've heard it said it would have been impossible for a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy to succeed, even one involving as few as a dozen men. What are the odds of keeping close to half a million people quiet about a trip to the moon?

It probably would have been easier to actually land men on the moon than to handle the logistics such a conspiracy would entail.

The Original Moon Walk

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I don't know how long my life will last, but I think I will always remember the night of July 20, 1969.

And I think anyone who is old enough to remember that day will say the same thing. My brother, for example, was 6 years old, and I'm sure he remembers it, but anyone who was younger than that might not have much recollection of it.

Anyway, I feel pretty safe in assuming that most of the people who were alive on that day remember it because that is the day that two men landed on the moon and then walked on the moon's surface. No man had ever done that before, and less than a dozen Americans have done it since.

In hindsight, though, I really wonder why we were all so concerned about whether Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would be able to descend from the lunar module to the surface of the moon. I'm not sure of the exact distance, but my guess is that it was about 15–20 feet down a ladder. What did we all think might happen? Did we think they would spontaneously explode because of the change of pressure? Did we think they would go flying off into space, never to be seen again?

There was always more reason for concern — at least I thought so — when the astronauts were landing the lunar module on the moon or taking off to rendezvous with the command module.

In fact, the landing was quite dramatic. It was unexpectedly drawn out, and the crew had less than 30 seconds of fuel to spare. Armstrong and Aldrin compensated for faulty computer readings and landed safely. After that, I figured walking on the moon was a mere formality — and a somewhat unremarkable one, at that.

Boy, was I wrong.

As I recalled in this blog last year, my family went to our pastor's home to watch the moon walk, and we all shared the big moment when Armstrong spoke his immortal words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." My memory is of our pastor's rather large living room filled with adults and children, none of whom made a sound as they watched Armstrong make his descent down that ladder.

It is a lasting memory, of course. It is a moment I will always remember, not only because of what I witnessed but because of those with whom I shared the moment.

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And I also remember the actual landing on the moon, a moment that left Walter Cronkite himself at a loss for words.

That rarely happened with Cronkite, and Americans really seemed to take their cue from "Uncle Walter" at times. When Ted Koppel says, "When Walter rejoiced over man landing on the moon, America rejoiced with him," you can take that to the bank.

Those who saw him, grinning from ear to ear, as two men fulfilled what must have been a boyhood fantasy of his (and countless others) will never forget the scene. Cronkite was devoted to the neutrality of the newsman, but he could hardly be neutral on that day, even without saying much.

Today is also a sad reminder how tragic it is that Cronkite didn't live to see the 40th anniversary of this achievement. I can't help but think that he would have had some unique insights to share. He was always capable of putting every event in the perspective it deserved. And Apollo 11 deserved a lot of attention.

July 20, 1969 was truly an historic day for all Americans — but especially so for the people of Wapakoneta, Ohio. That is the town where Armstrong was born in 1930. On this occasion, Bob Greene reflects on Armstrong's "giant leap from Ohio" at CNN.com.

The summer of '69 was unique. A lot of memorable things happened that summer — the Woodstock festival, the Manson family murders, the Stonewall riots. John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded "Give Peace a Chance" during their famous bed–in. Ted Kennedy's presidential ambitions probably died at Chappaquiddick while Apollo 11 was on its way to the moon, although Kennedy did try to win his party's presidential nomination in 1980.

In fact, the whole year was filled with transitional and noteworthy moments. Richard Nixon became president in January. The man Nixon served as vice president, Dwight Eisenhower, died in March. Charles DeGaulle was replaced as president of France. Charles became the prince of Wales. Joe Namath made good on his "guarantee" that the New York Jets would win the Super Bowl and, later that year, the "Amazin' Mets" won the World Series.

But that summer will always be remembered for the landing on the moon.

Reaching for the Stars

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Forty years ago today, man embarked on the most significant journey in his existence on this planet — Apollo 11's trip to the moon.

The world held its collective breath on July 16, 1969, as the rocket lifted off. Four days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first steps on the moon.

In today's Washington Post, Aldrin repeats a call he issued at CNN.com last month for missions to Mars.

This time, Aldrin puts a little more flesh on the bones of his proposal. But he is clear that it is not an objective that can be met in a few years. It is a long–term project.

"If we avoided the pitfall of aiming solely for the moon, we could be on Mars by the 60th anniversary year of our Apollo 11 flight," he writes.

Aldrin insists that this plan "wouldn't require building new rockets from scratch, as current plans do, and it would make maximum use of the capabilities we have without breaking the bank. It is a reasonable and affordable plan — if we again think in visionary terms."

July 16 is memorable for a lot of things — visionary in nature or not.

• In 1945, the atomic age began with the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in a test near Alamogordo, N.M. Less than a month later, the United States dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan, and World War II came to an end.


• In 1973, four years after the launch of Apollo 11, Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of a taping system in the Nixon White House during his testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee. The tapes that were produced by that taping system ultimately led to the end of Nixon's presidency.


• And, in 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn and sister–in–law Lauren died in a plane crash off Martha's Vineyard. The timing of the crash was ironic, since Kennedy's father had been the one who challenged America to go to the moon in the early 1960s.

In fact, although July marked the triumph of President Kennedy's vision, it has also been a month of tragedy for his family.

Not only did his son die in that plane crash, but also, while Apollo 11 was on its way to the moon, President Kennedy's youngest brother, Ted, drove his Oldsmobile off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, injuring himself and killing his passenger, 28–year–old Mary Jo Kopechne.