America Needs Another Ike

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"Censorship, in my opinion, is a stupid and shallow way of approaching the solution to any problem. Though sometimes necessary, as witness a professional and technical secret that may have a bearing upon the welfare and very safety of this country, we should be very careful in the way we apply it, because in censorship always lurks the very great danger of working to the disadvantage of the American nation."

Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 24, 1950

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As a student of history, I tend to believe that Dwight Eisenhower could not have been elected president in the modern incarnation of a world that was only beginning to develop when he served as America's commander–in–chief.

Presidents tend to be products of their times, not the other way around. Even if they enter the presidency with a specific agenda, circumstances often force them to change direction in ways they never anticipated. Presidents aren't prophets, and few probably would have chosen the crises they had to face.

But they are also influenced by the technology that exists when they live and serve. Some presidents have been slower than others to embrace emerging technology, and some have been ill–equipped to do so. Most presidents have been the first presidents to do something, but history always remembers things like:

• the first president to be photographed (John Quincy Adams — although he wasn't president when the photograph was taken);
• the first president to ride in a train (Andrew Jackson);
• the first president to have a telephone installed in the White House (Rutherford B. Hayes);
• the first president to ride in a submarine and an airplane (Theodore Roosevelt in both instances);
• the first president to own an automobile (William Howard Taft);
• the first president to give a radio broadcast from the White House (Calvin Coolidge), and
• the first president to appear on television (Franklin D. Roosevelt).

In a more recent presidential first, Bill Clinton was the first president to send an email, but apparently — and contrary to what his wife has said — he hasn't made any use of email in his post–presidential years.

Eisenhower, who was born 125 years ago next Wednesday, was the last president born in the 19th century. He was not far removed from his heroic military leadership in World War II, an experience that clearly shaped his view of the world, and he benefited from the public's good will because of it. But America was only beginning to see emerging technological advances, often made possible by war–related research and development, that would come to play important roles in American politics in the not–so–distant future.

In Ike's day, for example, it wasn't crucial to look good on television because TV wasn't yet a commonplace item in every home. By the time Ike's vice president, Richard Nixon, was elected president, there were a lot more TVs in American homes, and how a candidate came across on television was more important. Today it is impossible to imagine a candidate who does not give a good impression on television being much of a success.

In many ways, that is reflected by a growing tendency to favor candidates because of which demographic group(s) they are believed to bring to the electoral table. The face of America is its president, and Americans increasingly show an inclination for that face to be a particular color or gender — and, in equal and opposite proportions, disdain for what Martin Luther King Jr. would call the content of a person's character.

Ike wasn't very photogenic, when you get right down to it. And he wasn't a stemwinder of a speaker, either. But he had some core virtues. Modern politicians would do well to follow his lead. The country certainly would benefit.

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He said things that made a lot of sense, things that both Democrats and Republicans ought to study today, but he showed no penchant for what is known today as a "sound bite." He probably thought they were frivolous and overly simple, but such things win elections these days. Common sense often cannot be boiled down to a single phrase that is suitable for a bumper sticker — although "I Like Ike" wasn't bad for its day.

Ike might have been persuaded to run as a Democrat. He had no party affiliation and was pursued by officials from both parties to seek their nominations. It is interesting that House Speaker Sam Rayburn brushed off talk about Eisenhower seeking the presidency when the topic was first raised in 1948: "Good man," Rayburn said, "but wrong business."

Eisenhower decided not to seek the presidency in 1948, and many people thought he had passed up his only opportunity. It was widely assumed at that time that Tom Dewey, who had lost the 1944 election to Franklin D. Roosevelt, would be elected over Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman. It was further assumed that Dewey would be re–elected in 1952 — and Eisenhower, at age 66, would be too old to seek the presidency by 1956.

But Truman won in what is still regarded as a major upset, then became phenomenally unpopular and chose not to seek another term in 1952. By that time, Eisenhower was ready to declare himself a Republican after voicing his disagreements with Democrat policies. He may have been just as motivated by a desire to prevent Sen. Robert Taft, a non–interventionist, from winning the Republican nomination.

Eisenhower did deny Taft the nomination — after one of the closest, most bitterly fought presidential nomination battles in American history — but I have always wondered if it had as much (if not more) to do with Taft's unpopular opposition to the postwar Nuremberg trials. (In the interest of fairness, I should point out that future President John F. Kennedy praised Taft in "Profiles in Courage" for taking a principled stand in spite of public opposition.)

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During his tenure, Ike balanced the budget three times and cut the federal debt as a share of GDP. He was criticized as a "do–nothing" president, probably because of his domestic record, particularly Ike's record on civil rights. Seen from the 21st century, Ike's record on promoting racial equality appears to be unimpressive, but he took some important steps. Truman gets credit, and rightfully so, for desegregating the military, but Ike took it farther, ending the segregation that existed in VA hospitals and schools on military installations. His administration also navigated legislative waters in 1957 to pass the first civil rights act since Reconstruction.

Having grown up in Arkansas, one of the first things I learned about Eisenhower was that he enforced a desegregation court order that had been defied by Orval Faubus, the governor of Arkansas. It's worth noting that one of the members of Congress who opposed the president's action was Democrat John F. Kennedy.

I studied this when I took Arkansas history in school; in those days, I think it was a class everyone took in the fifth grade. For me that would have been more than a decade after the Little Rock Central crisis, but my memory is that our textbooks were brand–spanking new, so new that the books squeaked when you opened a cover or turned a page. Ours was the first class in my hometown to study an unbiased account of that moment in our home state's history. Those books had not been in use the previous year, when a text that was less balanced and tended to favor Faubus was used.

The New Republic's Richard Strout, bewildered by Eisenhower's soaring popularity (which seldom strayed below 50%), complained that "the less he does the more they love him." He didn't understand, as Ike did, that the American public was weary from the back–to–back experiences of the Great Depression and World War II. In the '50s, Americans craved stability.

Black Americans were still inclined to heavily support Democrats, as they had been since the ascent of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932, but in 1956 Eisenhower received 39% of black America's vote when he sought a second term. Within a decade, Republican presidential nominees were receiving much less than 10% of black votes. Win or lose, has any Republican presidential nominee even come close to matching Eisenhower's achievement in the last 60 years?

In his rather modest, soft–spoken Midwestern way, Eisenhower achieved things without feeling the need to resort to self–promotion. He respected constitutional limits — on the use of military power, of the capacity of the government and the role of the president — and worked within them. He didn't try to get around them.

But there were still times when he wanted credit for things he did.

"The United States never lost a soldier or a foot of ground in my administration," he said after leaving the White House. "We kept the peace. People ask how it happened — by God, it didn't just happen, I'll tell you that."

We could use another Eisenhower today. Unfortunately, no candidate in either party remotely resembles him.

Seventy Years Ago Today

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"The atomic bomb is too dangerous to be loose in a lawless world. That is why Great Britain, Canada and the United States, who have the secret of its production, do not intend to reveal that secret until means have been found to control the bomb so as to protect ourselves and the rest of the world from the danger of total destruction."

Harry Truman
Aug. 9, 1945

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Seventy years ago today, an atomic bomb was dropped on one country by another for what was the last time — so far.

The rationale for using the bombs in 1945 was to prevent what was widely believed to be a bloodier invasion of the Japanese mainland. But that has been questioned from the start, and proponents of the use of the bomb have been raising the estimate of lives saved ever since. If one is to defend the use of the atomic bomb, I suppose, any lives that are saved, even if it is only one or two, not hundreds of thousands or millions, is justifiable.

But then we start getting into complicated math — because there were casualties, between 50,000 and 150,000 initial civilian casualties, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. It is hard to be precise. Harry Truman had been told that a quick resolution of the war in the Pacific would save about 200,000 soldiers who could be expected to be lost in an invasion of Japan.

If you are of the opinion that all lives matter, though, even if the civilian casualties were the low–end figure, that would produce a much smaller net gain than simply focusing on the invasion that was prevented.

But that is just one part of the story, and it really only compares apples to oranges. The estimated casualties from an invasion would be accumulated over weeks and months of painstakingly capturing ground from a determined enemy; the civilian casualties I just cited came from the bombs' immediate detonations. To be more accurate, you would have to include those who died weeks and months later from radiation poisoning, which would further reduce the number of lives that were presumably saved.

Those who supported the use of the bomb kept raising the estimate over the years; recent estimates have been in the millions.

Of course, the whole subject of how many lives were saved by dropping two atomic bombs 70 years ago is a purely hypothetical one — and, as a rule, I prefer to avoid hypotheticals. What really is of greater importance is where we are now, seven decades later.

I suppose the nuclear technology that was born in World War II could not have remained secret for long, especially when you consider that so many scientists on both sides had been trying to harness the power of the atom; showing the world what the bomb could do may well have made the world, as some people claimed, safer — for awhile.

Until other countries began to get the technology, by legitimate or illegitimate means, and that was inevitable because, throughout history, unconventional weapons have, in time, become conventional weapons. It might have been delayed for a time by withholding the revelation from the public — but it could never have been kept under wraps forever.

That visual display of the bombs going off — and the photographs of victims that circulated later — may have been more valuable than anyone knew in preventing the use of nuclear weapons in the last 70 years. As more nations have joined the nuclear club, a sense of the awesome responsibility in their hands seems to have come with it. Perhaps that has been because, until fairly recently, everyone who acquired nuclear technology felt the weight of a moral obligation not to use it.

But now nations that sponsor terrorism are acquiring the technology, and I fear they will not hesitate to use it. They have already expressed their objectives, and the annihilation of perceived enemies is at the top of their lists. They have made no attempt to conceal their intention, and the United States has made no real attempt to prevent them from achieving it.

The "secret" to which Truman referred has been out for a long time, and there is much work to be done if his pledge to "control the bomb" is to be fulfilled.

The Day Hitler Died

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"Outside in the passageway, Dr. (Joseph) Goebbels, (Martin) Bormann and a few others waited. In a few moments a revolver shot was heard. They waited for a second one, but there was only silence. After a decent interval they quietly entered the fuehrer's quarters. They found the body of Adolf Hitler sprawled on the sofa dripping blood. He had shot himself in the mouth. At his side lay Eva Braun. Two revolvers had tumbled to the floor, but the bride had not used hers. She had swallowed poison."

William L. Shirer
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

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World War II and Adolf Hitler and the Nazis all came before my time so I only know what I have read or seen in documentaries.

It was real for my parents, though. They were not quite grown when the war began, not even when the war ended, but they were old enough to know who was fighting and what the stakes were.

And when the news that Hitler had committed suicide 70 years ago today reached them, they must have known that the war in Europe would be over soon.

I don't know if that means they felt the war in general was over — or if they realized that the war in the Pacific continued.

My guess is that, in 1945, most people who were old enough to remember Pearl Harbor knew there would still be a fight to finish in the Pacific. There was considerable angst about the prospect of an invasion of Japan — widely believed in April 1945 to be the only way to end the fighting but just as widely believed to be likely to claims hundreds of thousands of American lives in the process.

The Japanese were determined fighters, and no one thought they would go down easily. The invasion of Japan was expected to be won by whoever was the last man standing.

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But that was a matter to consider some other time. Seventy years ago today, Hitler was dead, and the German surrender was only days away.

Hitler's death, TIME magazine recalls, was shrouded in mystery.

"It wasn't immediately clear what had happened on April 30, 1945," wrote TIME. "This much the world knew: Adolf Hitler was gone, one way or another."

And Hitler had been at the core of Nazi Germany. The tide had turned against the Nazis — it was why Hitler committed suicide — and, when Hitler was gone, all motivation to continue fighting was gone, too.

Questions remain, though, about Hitler's final hours, even after seven decades. Was his suicide the last act of an irrational man who had been waiting vainly for the arrival of Nazi troops who never came? Or was it the cool, deliberate act of a man who had considered all the possible endings to the scenario and concluded suicide was the best choice? The people who were with him in the bunker insist they heard a single gunshot — and that Eva Braun's revolver was not fired. Papers in the Russians' files indicated that Hitler poisoned himself. Were both accounts true? Did Hitler shoot himself after (or while) biting down on the poison capsule? Or did someone else pull the trigger?

We'll probably never know — and it really doesn't matter, does it?

The Day FDR Died

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My parents were both teenagers when, 70 years ago today, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga. He was 63 years old.

Like millions of other teenage Americans, my parents could not remember a time when FDR had not been president — and, unless the 22nd Amendment is repealed, theirs will be the only generation like that. No succeeding president will ever be able to serve more than 10 years; if circumstances ever do permit one person to serve as president for 10 years (which can only happen if a vice president succeeds a president who has just under half of his current term left and then is elected to two four–year terms), it will be nearly, but not quite, as long as FDR's actual tenure turned out to be. Roosevelt was elected to four four–year terms, but he died only a few months into his fourth term so he wound up serving 12 years, not 16.

The authors of the 22nd Amendment made it clear the restriction would not apply to whoever was president when it became the law of the land. So Harry Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt and was the president when the 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951, could have served more than 10 years. Truman, of course, did go on to win a four–year term of his own in 1948, but his popularity had deteriorated so by 1952 that Truman chose not to run again.

Thirty years from now, we may be able to find out if the New York Times was correct when it wrote, following FDR's death, "Men will thank God on their knees a hundred years from now that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House."

That story is yet to be written, of course, and I often doubt that it ever will, so little regard do most people seem to have for history anymore. By the time 2045 rolls around, it is possible that few people will remember his name, let alone his actual existence. There will be fewer still who will remember him as a living, breathing human being who led his country through its worst economic crisis and a war to stop fascism.

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Here's a tip for anyone who may be reading this 30 years from now: Those who are alive in 2045 who want to know more about FDR's life and death should read Jim Bishop's book, "FDR's Last Year: April 1944 to April 1945." It is likely that those who read it will learn more about FDR and the decisions he made (and why he made them) than nearly all Americans knew at the time.

That isn't unusual, I suppose. At one time or another, every administration must operate in secret. Some do cross the line and use unlawful tactics, though, so a republic must remain forever wary, and the press must never lose sight of its primary role — watchdog.

Of course, there are certain things that were long considered personal and off limits that are not that way anymore. The members of the press who covered FDR knew that he was handicapped, but they never mentioned it in their articles nor did they photograph FDR in a way that showed the heavy leg braces he wore or the wheelchair in which he sat.

And it seems no one outside Roosevelt's inner circle knew that the woman with whom he had been having an affair for two decades, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, was with him at the Little White House, the cottage where he had stayed when he came to bathe and exercise in the natural spring waters of western Georgia, when he died. In spite of reports of an affair between FDR and an unnamed woman — and the mention in a book by FDR secretary Grace Tully, who was also there, of Rutherfurd as one who was present when Roosevelt died — the affair itself wasn't public knowledge until the 1966 publication of a book written by a former Roosevelt aide.

Over the years, I have become convinced that the story of Franklin D. Roosevelt should be a cautionary tale for presidents and their doctors. Indeed, in some ways, I guess it has. Bishop's book showed that the president's doctor knew FDR was dying, could see it in his face and body, for at least a year before Roosevelt finally died, but he did not stop Roosevelt from doing many of the things that were accelerating his decline. Presidential physicians seem to have more authority with their patients now.

Bishop's passage about the moment when FDR was stricken paints a vivid domestic picture of a spring afternoon. It was lunch time, and Roosevelt was posing for artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff, who was painting his portrait. It seemed like a fairly ordinary kind of lazy afternoon when Roosevelt began rubbing his temples. "I have a terrific headache," he said, almost in a whisper, then slumped and his hand fell to his side.

One of the women on hand thought perhaps the president had dropped something and asked him what he had dropped. Roosevelt's eyes were on Rutherfurd who was standing straight ahead, Bishop wrote, then he slipped into unconsciousness. Shoumatoff screamed and never got back to the portrait she had been painting as the folks on hand focused all their energies on trying to save the president's life. For the last 70 years, her painting has been known as the "Unfinished Portrait."

As a veteran of newsrooms, I have often wondered what it must have been like for people who were working on days when important, truly historic events, like the death of a president, occurred out of the blue. Oh, I've had my share of races with the deadline clock, but there haven't been any major unexpected events on days when I have been at work at a newspaper. So it was that I read with interest Val Lauder's recollections of being a young copygirl for the old Chicago Daily News, an afternoon daily, when FDR died. When the news came racing across the newswire, she wrote, the newsroom was sucked into "the silence of shock."

Newsrooms are noisy places. When a cloak of silence descends upon one, it becomes an eerie place.

Then, like an aftershock, the newsroom sprang into action. "The Daily News, an afternoon newspaper, was strictly limited in the hours it could publish," Lauder wrote. "Only an hour or so remained for EXTRAs."

Observing that "I knew clips would be needed," Lauder made a beeline for the newspaper's morgue. A newspaper morgue isn't a place where bodies are kept (well, I guess that is a matter of opinion); it is or was, basically, a newspaper's library where clips and photos were kept in file folders (perhaps they are now extinct, like photographers' dark rooms, with everything being stored digitally).

Anyway, Lauder discovered there was a lot of material on FDR but not so much on the new president, Harry Truman. It reminded me of the first time Ross Perot ran for president. I was working for an afternoon daily in Texas, and we had just finished putting together that day's paper and the presses were running when the news came that Perot was officially in.

It was a chance for the managing editor to go to the pressroom and say something I've always wanted to say — "Stop the presses!"

Which he did.

And I was dispatched to gather information from our morgue for a story on Perot — but I found, when I went to the morgue, that the material we had on Perot was sparse, even though Perot had been a prominent Texan who had been making news as an entrepreneur for 30 years. We went with the newswire story instead.

By the way, an observation here: From time to time, a populist candidate like Perot will gather some momentum, presumably on the logic that, as a political neophyte, such a candidate has not been corrupted by the system. For some, there is a desire to return to the days when it seems it was possible for someone to rise from the ranks of ordinary civilian to the highest office in the land. But political neophytes are apt to make mistakes, which is why they almost never win the presidency — unless they happen to be General Eisenhower fresh from winning World War II against the Nazis.

And which is why I don't think a Ben Carson candidacy will get very far, regardless of what some have told me.

But I digress.

For those who had been close to Franklin D. Roosevelt, his death 70 years ago today was a loss, but it may not have been a surprise. For the rest of the nation, though, it must have been a shock. Roosevelt's appearance clearly had changed in his 12 years in the White House, but many people could rationalize that as normal aging. In the aftermath of his death, they had to come to terms with some unpleasant facts.

The Dearborn (Mich.) Press & Guide probably summed things up for many when it wrote recently, "This year marks the 70th anniversary of several events huge in our nation’s history. None stunned us more than the sudden death in office of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ..."

It was a milestone in mass communication, though, as the Press & Guide observed: "It had been 22 years since President Warren G. Harding had died in office in 1923, and there were no networks then. Radio news, if there was such a thing, meant an announcer grabbed a newspaper and read it on the air. ... In 1945, within minutes of the 5:47 p.m., Eastern time, INS announcement, the sad message had been flashed to a nation."

The next time that a president died in office — John F. Kennedy in 1963 — many Americans got the news and followed the developing story on television.

We've had no presidential deaths since then, but the next time we have one, my guess is that most Americans will get the news via the internet — or whatever technology is dominant at the time.

Auschwitz and Lessons For Today

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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana (1863–1952)

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This week, we observed the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz at the end of World War II. The day of the liberation by Russian troops — Jan. 27, 1945 — is commemorated annually as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It is an appropriate time and Auschwitz an appropriate place to mark this anniversary. It has a unique significance, being the site of the first executions in what was to have been the Nazis' "final solution."

It was before my time so I have no firsthand knowledge, but I guess this was the first time that most people in the Allied countries realized what had been happening in the camps. If so, it probably came as quite a shock to some folks. Must have been hard to imagine how one group of people could be so hostile — so savage — in its treatment of another group. Sadly, it really isn't hard to imagine. Man has always been capable of great cruelty. Read your history.

I guess no one will ever know the actual figures, but the widely accepted casualty number is 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. It is further estimated that one in six Jews who died in the Holocaust died at Auschwitz. Could there be a more appropriate day or place to remember what happened?

Well, remembering is the problem for some Auschwitz survivors. If you happen to meet an Auschwitz survivor today, he or she likely was a teenager — or younger — when the camp was liberated. You can still find a few who were in their 20s when the camp was liberated, and there may be a few who were 30 or so, but they would have to be 100 or older by now.

Before long, they will all be gone. No one who lived through it will be alive to tell the tale, making it all the easier for those who deny the Holocaust to press their case.

Those Auschwitz survivors fear that the past will be forgotten, opening the door for it to happen again. It is only natural, I suppose, for them to fear renewed persecution of the Jews — it's been going on for centuries — but those who love freedom should be concerned as well.

For if one group is persecuted, none are safe. If rights are denied to some, they can be denied to all.

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That is why America must remain vigilant.

The modern enemies of freedom do not wear the uniform of a country and are therefore harder to see when they are in our midst "hiding in plain sight." But they are there. Of that, you may be sure.

And they will not be defeated until we face facts and call them what they are. This isn't a religious war. But every extremist group has at least one characteristic that its members have in common with each other. In this case, it happens to be devotion to an extreme religious doctrine. For America to preserve its way of life, it will have to confront the enemies of freedom

There is always an extreme characteristic. No more searching for euphemisms that hide the truth.

Revisionism Does No One Any Favors

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"At daybreak on September 1, 1939 ... the German armies poured across the Polish frontier and converged on Warsaw from the north, south and west. ... The people in the streets ... were apathetic despite the immensity of the news which had greeted them from their radios and from the extra editions of the morning newspapers. ... Perhaps ... the German people were simply dazed at waking up on this first morning of September to find themselves in a war which they had been sure the Fuehrer somehow would avoid. They could not quite believe it, now that it had come."

William Shirer

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One of the great what–ifs of history allegedly occurred on a battlefield in northern France in the autumn of 1918, the waning days of World War I.

Adolf Hitler, who was 29 at the time, was serving in the German army. He had been wounded and was stumbling across the battlefield when he encountered a British soldier named Henry Tandey, 27 years old.

Reportedly, the weary Hitler staggered into Tandey's line of fire, and, for a time, Hitler was in Tandey's sights. But Tandey lowered his gun, and Hitler nodded his thanks and moved on.

That story may be merely a myth, a legend without a morsel of truth in it. But we do know that Tandey lived and served during World War I, and we know that Hitler also served in World War I and lived to propel the world into a second World War. If that story about the encounter between Tandey and Hitler is true, in such a moment, the course of human history truly hangs in the balance.

If Tandey had pulled the trigger, Hitler would have died that day, and the tens of millions who died on the European battlefields, in the gas chambers or in the ovens of World War II because of him would have been spared. If Tandey had been blessed with the ability to look into the future, my guess is he would have chosen to kill Hitler to prevent the deaths of the millions.

But Tandey couldn't do it. Even with the knowledge of what could be prevented, it might still be difficult for most of us to shoot at another human being. In general, it is a good thing that most of us have that spark of humanity within us that prevents us from taking another person's life. But sometimes it is necessary to prevent or, at least, mitigate the consequences of things that are inevitable. At least, they often appear inevitable in hindsight.

If Hitler had been killed on that battlefield in France, it is highly unlikely that Germany would have invaded Poland 75 years ago today. But Tandey couldn't pull the trigger — so Hitler lived to launch the Holocaust.

The fact that Hitler lived made the Holocaust virtually inevitable, didn't it? I mean, he might have died on that battlefield in France a couple of decades earlier — or he might have died any time (and for any reason) in the next 21 years. If he had died, the likelihood of the Holocaust happening would have died with him. But, of course, he didn't — and it didn't, either. No amount of revisionist history writing would change those facts.

The invasion of Poland didn't actually start the Holocaust. That really began years earlier when Hitler started to implement anti–semitic laws in Germany — and began to fine–tune his plans for eastern Europe. Consequently, it would be wrong to designate today as the anniversary of the start of the Holocaust. It had already begun and wouldn't go into overdrive for a few more years.

In Germany, the invasion of Poland was called the "Defensive War." The Germans were told that Germany had been attacked by Poland and that Germans living in Poland were being persecuted.

But we know that wasn't true. You can clearly see — in these pictures that were published in LIFE magazine — that the Poles were not invading Germany 75 years ago today.

When people speak today of a war on a particular demographic group, they should be reminded of what a war on a particular demographic group really looks like. There are still those who know, but their numbers grow smaller with each passing year. They remember the Holocaust and the price that humanity paid for it; unfortunately, many of those who have come along in the last half century or so think the invasion of Poland and the events that followed have been blown out of proportion — if many of them happened at all.

Revisionism does no one any favors.

The invasion of Poland had many objectives, some of which were obvious while others were not so obvious.

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One of its objectives was Hitler's often–stated goal (consistently denied by western governments and elements in the media of the day who sought to appease the Nazis) of eliminating the Jewish race.

Los Angeles is home to the second–largest Jewish population in America, fourth largest in the world (larger even than Jerusalem). Amanda Susskind of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles writes of her own family's experiences in the German concentration camps and, while "it is hard to shock me," Susskind writes that she "found it particularly chilling" to discover from recent surveys that staggering numbers of people across the globe "never heard of the Holocaust or believe it has been greatly exaggerated."

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"The survey data reveal that that it is imperative to continue to teach about the Holocaust. Sadly, we face another challenge meeting this imperative: One of the indicators of anti–Semitism is the stereotype — and roughly 30 percent of those surveyed worldwide think this — that 'Jews talk too much about the Holocaust.'"

Amanda Susskind
Jewish Journal

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Revisionist historians seem to have gained the upper hand, and appeasement is once again in the air.

As ISIS terrorists wage war with Israel and Russia continues its march to reassemble the Soviet Union, it is an appropriate time for us to remember the invasion of Poland 75 years ago today and ponder the perils of appeasement.

Have we learned anything from that experience?

When Germany and Russia Signed Their Nonaggression Pact

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By and large, people are pretty good about learning from their mistakes. When they do something that results in physical pain and/or humiliation, most people make a mental note not to do that anymore. It's a defense mechanism, I suppose.

But there is one lesson — well, actually two lessons — that people repeatedly refuse to learn: (1) There is evil in the world, and (2) there is always someone who will be willing to cooperate with that evil.

I think just about everyone can agree that Adolf Hitler was evil. Everything he did in World War II was influenced by his experiences as a soldier in World War I.

One of the most significant lessons he took from World War I was that Germany came closest to victory when Russia was not involved. When that changed, so did the fortunes of war.

Consequently, as Hitler was readying his forces for the invasion of Poland that would set World War II irretrievably in motion 75 years ago, he dispatched foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop to Moscow to work out an agreement with the Russians: The countries would agree not to attack each other.

Hitler intended to keep the Soviet Union out of the fighting this time.

Ribbentrop's trip to Moscow was announced on Aug. 22, 1939. Actually, I suppose, things got started around Aug. 14, when Ribbentrop contacted the Soviets to work out the second of a couple of deals.

The first pact was an economic one. The Soviets promised to provide food and raw materials to the Nazis; in return, the Nazis promised to provide products like machinery to the Soviets. (This made it possible for the Nazis to sidestep Britain's blockade in the early years of the war.) The details had been worked out earlier in the summer, and the agreement was signed in Berlin on Aug. 19.

The second agreement was the nonaggression pact.

Under the cloak of darkness in the late hours of Aug. 23, Ribbentrop and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov signed a nonaggression pact that history remembers as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. It achieved what Hitler wanted. It kept the Soviet Union out of the hostilities.

Until Hitler himself broke the pact with Germany's invasion of Russia in June 1941.

Why did Hitler do it? I suppose you can answer that with another question: Why did Hitler do anything? The simple answer was that keeping Russia out of the war had helped him strengthen his hand in Europe. The nonaggression pact had served its purpose, and Hitler was looking to fulfill his pledge in Mein Kampf to look to the east for "living space" for the German people — and the raw materials he needed for the war effort.

He misjudged the strength of his position, and, apparently, he forgot with whom he was dealing.

Hitler's military leaders warned him that a two–front war would put enormous strain on the already weak German economy, but Hitler saw only the potential benefits. He soon saw the downside as his Army was repelled outside Moscow after the Russian winter set in.

There was a secret protocol in the nonaggression pact of which the world knew little until the Russians confirmed its existence in 1989.

Under this secret protocol, the Nazis and Soviets divided up eastern Europe into what were called "spheres of influence." In exchange for the Soviets' promise to stay out of the coming war, the Nazis gave them the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) to act as a buffer from an invasion from the west. Poland also would be divided between the two countries.

The spoils of war were already being divvied up — and not a single shot had been fired ... yet.

The Son Who Was Meant to be King

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Seventy years ago today, Joseph Kennedy Jr. was killed in action in World War II.

He was the oldest of nine children born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy — and he was the son Joe Sr. always expected to be president. Joe Jr. had three brothers, and each sought the Democratic Party's presidential nomination — and one was nominated and elected — but Joe Jr. died before he could attempt to fulfill his father's dream for him.

In fact, he died before his political career ever began although he clearly had political ambitions for his post–war life. He dropped out of Harvard's law school to enlist in the Navy, where he became a bomber pilot, but he and his father had begun making preparations for his political career. The plan was that he would seek the U.S. representative seat from Massachusetts' 11th district in 1946.

But he didn't live to do that.

Seventy years ago today, Joe Kennedy Jr. was part of a two–man mission to fly a plane over targets in northern France, activate a remote control system that would arm the detonators of the explosives on board and bail out of the plane before it crashed into its target. The plan was that they would parachute into the English Channel, where they would be picked up by an Allied boat.

Things didn't go according to plan. The explosives went off prematurely, and Kennedy and his co–pilot were killed.

Consequently, it was the second son, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who ran for and won the congressional seat from Massachusetts' 11th district in 1946. He held it for six years — until he sought a U.S. Senate seat in 1952. He won, was re–elected in 1958 and went on to be elected president in 1960.

It might have been Joe Jr.

John served in World War II like his brother did, but he survived and Joe didn't.

Historians have spoken in glowing terms of JFK's talents, but, from all the accounts I have read, Joe Jr. had even better people skills than JFK.

From the perspective of an historian, even an amateur one such as myself, it is natural to wonder if Joe Jr. might have beaten Nixon handily enough to prevent his ever seeking the presidency again — thus sparing the country the anguish of Watergate.

But Joe Jr. died almost 30 years to the day before Nixon's resignation, the 40th anniversary of which was only a few days ago.

His brother's win over Nixon was, of course, razor thin. Rumors persist to this day that the Democrats stole the election, thanks to falsified vote returns in places like Illinois, where Mayor Daley and his cronies were well known for fraud of all kinds, especially in elections.

So add one more to history's intriguing "what–if" list.

What if Joseph Kennedy Jr. had survived World War II and started his political career as expected?

The world might never have heard of John F. Kennedy — or he might have been known as an adviser to his brother, as Bobby was known to be for him.

Intriguing, isn't it?

D-Day: The Beginning of the End

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"Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!

"You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty–loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers–in–arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

"Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.

"But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940–41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man–to–man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.

"The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!

"I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle.

"We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."

Dwight Eisenhower's Order of the Day, June 2, 1944

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I thought about writing about those who gave their lives in service to this country last week on Memorial Day — but my thoughts of late have been on today's 70th anniversary of D–Day so I waited.

"Long after they happen," wrote historian William Manchester, "historic events take on an air of inevitability."

He was writing of D–Day, the invasion of Normandy that catapulted the Allies into Nazi territory. It was the beginning of the end of World War II, a conflict that had claimed millions of lives and would claim millions more before the wars in Europe and the Pacific ended.

"[W]e assume that the Germans in France never had a chance — that [Eisenhower's] crusade was as good as won," Manchester wrote. "It wasn't."

Historian Jim Bishop observed, "In the history of man, no force matched the assemblage of ships and men waiting in chaotic order along the south coast of England."

But the outcome was far from certain for those who were about to unleash that force — and all that most of the more than 150,000 Allied soldiers who were about to participate in it knew was that many of them were not expected to return. What they would encounter on those beaches was anyone's guess.

The landings along the French coast that day must have been frightful, a soul–scarring experience for all who survived — and thousands did not.

It inspired the most intense combat sequence ever made in the movies — 14 or 15 disturbing minutes in "Saving Private Ryan," which probably wasn't nearly as intense as the real thing.

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And more than a decade before "Saving Private Ryan" was made, it inspired one of the most memorable speeches of Ronald Reagan's presidency, delivered on the 40th anniversary of D–Day.

Perhaps Manchester was right about that "air of inevitability" stuff. In the rearview mirror of history, events always seem to be inevitable, don't they? No matter how lopsided or narrow the outcome turns out to be. They happened, and they're in the history books. It seems to be impossible to imagine a different outcome.

But that is with the benefit of hindsight, which they wisely say is 20/20. On the threshold of D–Day, there was much doubt — as there usually is before a critical mission is launched.

Eisenhower prepared a statement in case the invasion failed. He never had to deliver it, but it reveals the conflict that raged within his mind on the eve of the invasion.

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"Our landings in the Cherbourg–Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone."

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Combat has always struck me as being the closest thing to hell on earth that a human being is likely to endure. A battle isn't neat and orderly. It isn't like a football game or any other competition that is likened to war — because nothing else is like war. It is sure to be chaotic and terrifying.

(Before a battle begins, soldiers can't tell themselves it will all be over in 30 minutes or an hour — as a civilian might say about something he/she has been dreading, like a trip to the dentist or the Department of Motor Vehicles. Battles last as long as someone from each side refuses to give in.)

Even so, the success of D–Day was due to a combination of factors. The absence of any one might have meant the failure that Eisenhower clearly feared.

"Much has been made of the rough weather and how it hampered landing operations," Manchester wrote. "It was really a blessing" because essential German officers, believing the Allies would never invade in such conditions, were absent when the invasion began.

Radio broadcasts from Germany suggested that the Nazis knew an invasion would come, but there was disagreement about where it would be. At one point, Hitler believed the invasion would occur at Normandy and began moving forces and equipment into position there, but he changed his mind and agreed with his advisers, who believed the invasion would happen at Calais, farther north and a shorter trip across the English Channel.

"This was the best possible piece of luck for Eisenhower," Manchester wrote.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who was in charge of defending the French coast against the Allies, also was not present when the invasion began. He had left for Germany to celebrate his wife's birthday with her. There seemed to be no reason for him not to. Historian William Shirer observed, "There were the usual reports from German agents about the possibility of an Allied landing ... but there had been hundreds of these since April and they were not taken seriously."

The Germans had 10 panzer divisions available to repel the invaders; only one saw action, but it managed to drive back the British and force an extended battle for the city of Caen in northwest France. If even two or three additional panzer divisions had participated in the battle, the outcome might well have been different.

In Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt told his wife that the long–awaited invasion would occur in the morning. "She said she wished, in a way, that he had not told her," Bishop wrote, "because she knew she wouldn't sleep."

Roosevelt, "who could will himself to sleep, failed on the night of June 5," Bishop wrote. "[H]e was on and off the phone to the Pentagon until 4 a.m." By that time, FDR knew that the invasion was under way.

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And the tide of the war had turned. In Europe, anyway.

Of course, that part wasn't immediately clear — but it became clear in the days and weeks that followed.

By noon the day of the invasion, Winston Churchill notified Roosevelt that the initial landings had been successful, and Roosevelt summoned the press. He was in a jovial mood, but he cautioned the reporters that "[t]he war isn't over by any means.

"You don't just land on a beach and walk through — if you land successfully without breaking your leg — walk through to Berlin. And the quicker this country understands it the better."

The presidency always demands a certain amount of leadership skill, but it required a lot of it from Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1944. As he was finalizing the plans for the invasion of Normandy, he was contending with the escalating cost of the top–secret Manhattan Project. He had managed to finance the project in the early years, Bishop wrote, by "manag[ing] to squeeze secret funds into the War Department budget,"

That month, the head of the Manhattan Project reported needing $200 million immediately. "[S]omeone would have to take Congress into this most secret of projects," Bishop wrote.

Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Gen. George C. Marshall and Office of Scientific Research and Development director Vannevar Bush to lobby congressional leaders for huge appropriations with few, if any, questions asked.

"It wasn't an easy assignment," Bishop wrote, "but leaders of both parties worked it out."

And, while few may have realized it at the time, the tide of the war in the Pacific had turned as well.

The Dawn of the Cuban Missile Crisis

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President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney will meet in their second debate tomorrow night.

It will follow a "town hall" format in which members of an audience made up entirely of undecided voters will ask the questions. I suppose the general idea is that the audience will ask the questions that are of the most concern for undecided voters, which should be instructive.

In fact, it should be interesting, but I kind of wish tomorrow night's debate was the one on foreign policy instead. It would be much more appropriate, given that half a century ago today, the Central Intelligence Agency's National Photographic Interpretation Center identified what it believed to be missiles in surveillance photos of Cuba.

The State department was notified that evening, as was Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. National Security adviser McGeorge Bundy decided not to inform President Kennedy until the next day.

Consequently, on the evening of Oct. 16, after confirming to his satisfaction that the photographs did indeed reveal the presence of missile sites in Cuba, Kennedy called the first meeting of what came to be known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM) — the nine members of the National Security Council and five other advisers.

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It is almost a cliche now to say that the Cuban Missile Crisis — which really can be said to have begun 50 years ago today because that is when the Photographic Interpretation Center first spotted missiles in Cuba although the president wasn't informed until the following day — is the closest the world has come to a nuclear war.

But there is certainly a lot of truth behind that assertion.

I suppose it seems anticlimactic to people who study that period in school today. Heck, it seemed anticlimactic to me when I studied it, and I can only imagine how it must seem to young people in 2012. When historic events are studied, it always seems the outcome was inevitable.

But the men who participated in the Cuban Missile Crisis did not know how the situation would play out, and it was in large part because of the lessons that were learned 50 years ago that the leaders of the larger governments of the world forged foreign policies that showed the proper respect for the truly awesome power that had been unleashed at the end of World War II.

They had stared into the abyss, to use language and imagery that became fashionable after the fact, and had resolved to do whatever was necessary to avoid a similar confrontation in the future.

It quickly became conventional wisdom that Harry Truman's decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved hundreds of thousands of lives because Japan promptly surrendered, sparing the Americans and their allies from a possibly prolonged invasion of Japan.

And, if the reports that the Nazis were on the brink of developing nuclear weapons and the Americans beat them to it are correct, then perhaps it is a good thing that the genie was let out of the bottle.

It was not a good thing that tens of thousands of civilians were killed on both occasions — but perhaps those sacrifices were necessary to impress upon those who had unleashed the power exactly how mighty was the power they held in their hands.

But the issue was not resolved in 1945. After the end of the war, the United States, the world's only nuclear power, chose to disarm, naively believing that merely having the most destructive weapon known to mankind would be enough to prevent acts of aggression.

America, to put it mildly, was caught with its pants down when it was revealed that the Soviet Union had developed the technology for assembling nuclear weapons.

Although most nations appear to recognize and respect nuclear power — and, to be fair, the world has seen no nuclear attacks in more than 65 years — the threat is very much with us today — in the form of terrorists who only want enough nuclear material to spread fear from sea to shining sea.

Reducing cities to piles of rubble is not in their plans — as far as we know.

Perhaps the greatest problem EXCOMM faced when it met for the first time 50 years ago tomorrow was that American naivete had backfired again. In spite of the fact that we had been involved in a Cold War since before the revelation that the Soviet Union had nuclear weapons, the Americans foolishly believed the Russians would never put missiles in Cuba.

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So, when the Russians did put missiles in Cuba, EXCOMM and Kennedy had to decide how to respond. There was no plan in place for such a situation.

For awhile, some members of EXCOMM probably felt that an invasion of Cuba was inevitable. The advocates of an invasion told Kennedy — forcefully — they believed the Soviets would do nothing in retaliation. Kennedy disagreed.

"If [the Russians] don't take action in Cuba," Kennedy reportedly said, "they certainly will in Berlin."

Fifty years ago, cooler heads prevailed. While diplomatic discussions, both formal and informal, went on, the Americans opted for a blockade in which the Navy would block any more shipments of missiles to Cuba.

Thankfully, things worked out in 1962. And one of the biggest reasons why things did work out was because Kennedy trusted the people of America enough to be honest with them about what was happening and what the risks were.

His actions were not guided by his memories of failure at the Bay of Pigs the year before.

But here we are, more than a month after four Americans were slain in a clearly coordinated attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya — and it is hard to tell if America has any friends left in the Middle East.

It is hard to tell because we get so much conflicting information from the administration that was going to be the most transparent in our history.

Even after the whopper that a video allegedly sparked a spontaneous demonstration that (allegedly) got out of hand had been discredited, U.N. ambassador Susan Rice continued to insist that it was true, as did the president.

My guess is that political considerations have been key factors in deciding what the president will or will not tell the American people — but I don't know that for certain. I'm simply acting on the old "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ..." rule of thumb.

I do know that jobs and the economy make everything else pale in comparison in this campaign, but I'd like to think that someone from the audience of undecided voters will ask the candidates about Libya and the four Americans who died there on the 11th anniversary of 9–11.

The Wrong Man?

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"Demjanjuk is essentially on trial not for anything he did, but simply for being at Sobibor. No specific criminal acts need be alleged, much less proved. Page through transcripts of previous Nazi trials and you'll find a rigorous focus on particulars, because that is what should be required to convict a defendant. No one in any such trial ever was convicted simply on the basis of being present at the scene."

Scott Raab
Esquire magazine
Aug. 11, 2010

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In 1956, Alfred Hitchcock made a film called "The Wrong Man."

Like some of Hitchcock's films, it was inspired by a true story. But, unlike those other adaptations, Hitchcock didn't have to change the facts much. The real story was bizarre enough. Even someone like Hitchcock couldn't embellish it.

In the movie, a struggling musician (played by Henry Fonda) tries to borrow on his wife's insurance policy so she can have some dental work done. But the man is fingered as the suspect in a couple of armed robberies at the office, robberies for which he was not responsible.

In court, the man's attorney builds a pretty solid case for mistaken identity. The man had been on vacation with his family when the first robbery occurred, and, at the time of the second, he had been suffering from a swollen jaw (which the people in the office couldn't have helped but notice).

But the defense runs into problems trying to locate someone to testify that the man was on a vacation trip at the time of the first robbery, and, eventually, a mistrial is declared because of a remark made by one of the jurors. Before the re–trial can begin, the real robber is arrested, and the musician is exonerated — but considerable damage to his life has already been done.

There is a lot more to that story, of course, but I don't really want to get into that today. I bring it up only because John Demjanjuk died today.

You might not be old enough to remember when Demjanjuk first came to the public's attention. It was in the mid–1980s when Demjanjuk, a U.S. autoworker, was deported to Israel to face trial on war crimes charges.

Demjanjuk was born in the Ukraine and served in the Russian Red Army early in World War II, but he was captured by the Germans and was recruited to serve in the German army while he was in custody. After the war, he and his family emigrated to the United States.

His indictment alleged that he was "Ivan the Terrible" (his given name was Ivan, but he changed his name to John when he became an American citizen) and that he had been a particularly brutal guard at the Treblinka and Sobibor camps.

Demjanjuk claimed he was a victim of mistaken identity, that he was not "Ivan the Terrible," but he was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to death by hanging. While Demjanjuk was in solitary confinement for the duration of his appeals, Israel's Supreme Court overturned his conviction, finding that there were plenty of reasons to doubt whether he really was "Ivan the Terrible."

The Court also found that Demjanjuk had been a prison guard during the war but not at Treblinka or Sobibor. I suppose it is possible that some prisoners might have seen him somewhere else and thought they had seen him at Treblinka or Sobibor. He was released, and he returned to the United States.

I would hardly call myself an expert on World War II, but my understanding of the way things were done in Nazi Germany — with efficiency always one of the Nazis' objectives — is that prisoners ordinarily were not transferred from one camp to another, that when they arrived at one, that was where they stayed.

(The prisoners, after all, were not soldiers. They came from what the Nazis would have considered the dregs of civilian society — the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and Communists. There may have been occasional logistical reasons for transferring prisoners, but my understanding is that it seldom happened.)

A decade after his first conviction, Demjanjuk was charged again and ordered deported. The new charges did not mention the earlier allegations that he was "Ivan the Terrible," but that continued to be the name that was used for him.

Nearly a year ago, Demjanjuk was convicted on more than 28,000 counts of being an accessory to murder at Sobibor. The number was determined because that is how many were killed while he was there. No evidence was presented linking him to a specific murder. His conviction has been under appeal.

When he died today at the age of 91, all of this ended for Demjanjuk — but there are questions that remain. And one of the most troubling may concern the apparent attitude that, because what happened in Germany was so heinous, someone must be held accountable for them, even if that person was not guilty or was coerced into cooperating with those who were.

Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer made a revealing comment in an interview with the Associated Press: "His case illustrates the principle that whenever even a very low–ranking Nazi criminal can be found and convicted, the importance is not in the sentence, not in the amount of time such a person may have to sit in jail ... the important thing is to bring the crime to the attention of the general public."

I know there are those who deny the Holocaust ever happened — in spite of ample evidence to the contrary. And I am not saying it didn't happen.

But this country has always stood for the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty — and tangible evidence of guilt must meet certain standards. Circumstantial evidence alone is not adequate.

I didn't participate in either of Demjanjuk's trials so I don't know all the evidence that was presented, but it seems like most, if not all, of the evidence against him was circumstantial.

For that matter, one of the reasons why the war crimes trials in Nuremberg were discontinued was because the defendants largely became enlisted men who could plausibly claim that they were following the orders of their superiors.

Ask any American veteran what kind of punishment he could expect if he refused to obey such an order — and then try to imagine how it must have been for someone like Demjanjuk, who has been described as a watchman, "the lowest rank of the 'Hilfswillige' prisoners who agreed to serve the Nazis and were subordinate to German SS men," according to AP.

Demjanjuk's son said today that his father had been "a victim and survivor of Soviet and German brutality."

We'll probably never know the truth of the matter. But one thing is clear in the hours since Demjanjuk's death.

Time is running out for the Nazi hunters. The war ended nearly 67 years ago, and anyone who was at least 18 at that time would be in his mid–80s today.

It may no longer be possible to find the real "Ivan the Terrible." It may not be possible to hold the people who truly were responsible for the deaths at Sobibor accountable for their acts.

Even the scapegoats are dying.

Was Demjanjuk the wrong man?

War and Peace

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We'll be hearing a lot today about war and peace.

Mostly war, I suppose, and that is understandable. Today is, after all, the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor — the event that literally pushed the United States into World War II although one could argue that it had been getting more and more involved in the conflict in the months leading up to the attack.

It is an event that still resonates with people of my parents' generation. They were children when the attack occurred, and, although my mother has been gone for many years now, I remember her telling me of the peaceful Sunday afternoon that suddenly changed when the news came across the radio that Pearl Harbor had been the victim of a sneak attack.

It is hard for me to imagine anyone going through the American education system and not hearing a recording of FDR's famous speech to Congress, when he said that Dec. 7, 1941 was a "date which will live in infamy."

That date has certainly lived on in people's memories.

For me, today brings back memories of 20 years ago when I was working for a small daily newspaper, and I participated in the production of a special section commemorating the 50th anniversary of that attack. For weeks, we solicited 1940s era photos of local residents, both living and dead, who served their country — and we published articles about many of them and their experiences.

That project coincided with my graduation from graduate school. A week later, I was going to receive my master's degree. There were many things demanding my time and attention.

It was a grueling period in my journalism career, to be sure. I had no idea there were so many WWII veterans in the county where I was living — until we took on that project.

Most of them were living then. Far fewer are apt to be living today — and it does make me wonder when we will stop observing Pearl Harbor Day in the kind of semi–official way that we have in recent years. It seems we are moving in that direction with the attrition of people who still remember that day.

That happens with some of history's significant dates. So much time goes by and the people who remember the event pass away, and we are left with holidays and/or anniversaries for which we must be reminded the origin.

Take Veterans Day. It used to be called Armistice Day, which was the observation of the anniversary of the end of World War I.

Hostilities in that conflict ended in 1918, more than 90 years ago. The last time I recall anyone mentioning that event was when I studied history in high school — and my memory is that my history teacher really didn't spend much time on it.

To be sure, the outcome of World War I wasn't very popular in Germany, which paid a heavy price — and that could be said to have played a role in the eventual rise to power of the Nazis in the 1930s. Kinda depends on one's interpretations of things.

Chronologically, though, it is beyond dispute that anyone who was old enough to serve in that war would have to be around 110 years old today. There are a few of those left in the entire world, but not many. Armistice Day long ago lost its meaning as the World War I generation dwindled — so today it is known by the more generic designation of Veterans Day.

Which is not to be confused with Memorial Day. That is a completely different holiday in a completely different time of year — but it does have a similar history.

It started out as Decoration Day, a day for honoring those who died during the Civil War. I don't think there is a particular anniversary connected with it; the graves of Confederate soldiers were decorated in several Southern cities during the war and the practice simply continued after it ended.

Obviously, no one who was alive in the mid–19th century is still living — so there is no one for whom Decoration Day has any meaning. We continue to observe it, though, under the more generic name of Memorial Day.

The purpose evolved to include remembering those who fought in all wars, not just the Civil War, and in recent years it has expanded to include memories of anyone who is no longer living, even if that person didn't serve in the military.

George Carlin used to point out that sports like football that tend to emulate war are played in facilities that use such generic names as War Memorial Stadium or Soldier Field. It is part of the competitive nature of sports, I suppose, that the places where these games are played should bear names that conjure violent images — even though a sport will never be as violent as war.

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But not everything that happened on Dec. 7 has been violent.

Sometimes there has been peace and hope.

On this day in 1972, for example, Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the moon, was launched. As they left the earth and began making their way to the moon, the crew looked back and took a picture of the earth that is known today as the "Blue Marble."

Seen from that vantage point, the blue marble looks so peaceful, just floating along in the black velvet of space. One would never guess that so much turmoil exists on the surface of that marble, that there is savagery loose upon the land capable of causing great pain to millions without the slightest hint of remorse.

Yet the image of the blue marble sparks in many of us that wish for peace on earth and good will to men.

Not a bad thought to keep in mind during the Christmas season.

Two Speeches

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"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' "

Sir Winston Churchill

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As Barack Obama looks for the right leadership style for guiding the nation through the simultaneous crises in the Gulf and the economy, there may be lessons to be learned from reflecting on two speeches that were delivered on this day in London 70 years ago.

On June 18, 1940, it has been said, Charles de Gaulle became the true leader of the French Resistance. France had fallen to Nazi Germany, and de Gaulle had fled to Great Britain a few days before.

But de Gaulle tried to rally his people from afar.

"[H]as the last word been said?" de Gaulle asked. "Must hope disappear? Is defeat final? No!"

I have heard de Gaulle's speech called one of the most important in French history. I'm not an authority on French history so I can't say whether that is so, but it almost certainly was the most important speech given by a French leader in the 20th century.

It is often credited with being the start of the French Resistance, but the truth is that few people heard the speech as broadcast by the BBC. De Gaulle had a much larger audience when he delivered a similar speech four days later — prompting some to conclude that June 22, 1940, actually was the day the Resistance was born.

Be that as it may, the sentiments expressed by de Gaulle on June 18 almost surely influenced what followed.

"Whatever happens," de Gaulle said, "the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished."

For de Gaulle, the goal was to inspire his countrymen to stand up to their conquerors. The goal was similar — and yet different — for his British colleague. His task was to prevent the conquest of Britain — for, if he did not, the fate of the free world surely would be imperiled.

Britain's prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill, had been in office only a month, but he knew that, with the fall of France, Germany would feel free to focus its full attention on that island nation. Britain was the sole obstacle to the fulfillment of the Germans' goal of dominating Europe, and Churchill knew that the future depended upon how the British fared against the Nazis.

Despite his brief tenure, the prime minister had made two earlier attempts to prepare the British for what was to come. About a month earlier, he delivered his "blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech, in effect pledging everything Britain possessed to the goal of turning back the Nazis. About three weeks later, he gave his "we shall fight on the beaches" speech, encouraging the Britons to fight on — alone, if necessary, and it certainly appeared, at that time, that the British would have to fight the Germans by themselves.

Then, just before Churchill's "finest hour" speech before Parliament's House of Commons, France unsuccessfully sought an armistice with Germany.

In previous years, the British policy had been to seek to appease an increasingly aggressive Nazi regime. Long before June 1940, the British seemed to realize that Neville Chamberlain's attempts to avoid another world war had failed, and they turned to Churchill for leadership.

It is indeed fortunate for Western civilization that they did.

Meeting the Challenge, Overcoming the Odds

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Today is the 64th anniversary of VE Day, the day that World War II officially ended in Europe.

It wasn't the end of the war — VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day) was still a few months in the future, and that would bring the final conclusion of the hostilities. But there was celebrating everywhere, in every major city in America and across Europe as well. In London, Princess Elizabeth (who became Queen Elizabeth II less than 10 years later) and her sister Princess Margaret wandered among the festive crowds in anonymity and participated in the jubilation.

That day also happened to be President Harry Truman's 61st birthday. Truman dedicated the victory to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died less than a month earlier and for whom flags still flew at half–staff. The traditional 30–day mourning period for a president had not yet concluded.

Much remained to be done — and endured. Rationing would continue. Many of the great cities of Europe lay in ruins and would need years to rebuild.

But the guns had fallen silent. Instead of the sound of cannon fire, there was music and dancing in the streets. After nearly six years of war, a weary Europe could finally start to look ahead to a hopeful future.

That hope may not have lasted long. Before the year was out, the nuclear age had begun, bringing new fears and challenges, and, before much time had passed, the Cold War held the world in a grip that would last for decades.

But all that lay in the future on May 8, 1945.

And, I suppose, if one could have spoken with those in the Allied countries and asked them to share their thoughts on that day, they would not have dwelled on the future but on the triumph over Germany and the effort it had taken to beat the Nazis.

So it is, whenever circumstances force people to pull together to defeat a common enemy. In the 1940s, the enemy was the Axis powers. Today, it is the recession and rising unemployment.

There are hopeful signs, though, that today's generation may be turning the corner in its fight.

The Labor Department released its monthly job loss figures today.

How those figures are interpreted may depend upon whether one is disposed to see the glass as half–empty or half–full, but there is encouragement if you know where to look.

On one hand, the unemployment rate did hit a 25–year high as 539,000 jobs were lost in April. That brought unemployment to 8.9% — the highest it's been since September 1983. Since the start of 2008, 5.7 million jobs have been lost.

On the other hand, however, job losses were significantly lower than they were in March, when almost 700,000 jobs were lost — and the number is lower than the 600,000 figure that had been anticipated for April.

In World War II, the Allies had to take their victories where they could find them at times — and sometimes they had to look for the good even as they were accepting the bad. But eventually, things turned around.

The same is true for this generation. The good news may come incrementally for awhile. The glass may appear half–empty. But at least something is there.