Richard Nixon

New, previously classified telephone conversations and other information by former President Lyndon Johnson have been released to the public.  They confirm "that Richard Nixon sabotaged Vietnam peace talks in October 1968 in order to strengthen his own presidential campaign...Defense Sect Clark Clifford told Johnson that the FBI had overheard a Nixon campaign adviser persuading the South Vietnamese government to withdraw from peace talks, promising them a better deal if they wait until Nixon is elected. Hanoi was offering major concessions at the time, and a settlement would have allowed Johnson to stop bombing North Vietnam".  Johnson accused Nixon of treason but kept quite for fear of alerting the South Vietnamese that their phones were being bugged by the FBI.  As this source notes, the war continued with an additional 22,000 Americans being killed.  (Source:  "Washington D.C. Nixonian guile".  In The Week for March 29, 2013)

NSA spying

During the Vietnam War era the NSA conducted surveillance on a number of high profile Americans with the knowledge of President Nixon; he wanted to know if they were receiving aid from abroad.  Those spied on included Martin Luther King Jr, Muhammad Ali, Sen Frank Church, Sen Howard Baker and Art Buchwald and Tom Wicker. What is odd about this list is that Baker was a supporter of the war in Vietnam while the others opposed it.  It is also disturbing that the last two on the list where journalists, and a intelligence historian noted, "since when did journalists become legitimate intelligence targets".  The spying went on from 1967 to 1973 and included some 1800 names.  This article notes that spying of ths nature is not something new to our political world.  The CIA and the Army were involved at some point, and the FBI provided some names.  The program was called "Minaret".  

(Source:  "NSA snooped on MLK, Ali, Buchwald, other critics" by Richard Leiby of the Washington Post.  In The Virginian Pilot on 9/29/13.

Timbuctoo in New Jersey

A recent newspaper article reported on a village of "freed and runaway slaves along Rancocas Creek" in Burlington County, NJ.  A Temple University archaeology dig at the site is turning up thousands of artifacts on the buried village.  A small cemetery off Church Road is the only thing left of the site and has grave markers of 13 soldiers of the US Colored Troops who fought in the Civil War.  It is believed the village started aroung 1825, included 125 families and ended in mid 20th century.  Besides being a site on the Underground Railroad during the Civil war is was also known for a battle to protect runaway slaves from a slave catcher and his 12 or so followers in pursuit of a runaway.  The village members fought them off with what ever weapons they could find to protect the former slave.  That incident is known as the Battle of Pine Swamp in 1860.  The township of Westampton and the Burlington County Lyceum of History at Mount Holly Library are preserving the site and displaying the artifacts.

(Source: "Enclave of former slaves uncovered in South Jersey" by Jan Hefler of The Philadelphia Enquirer.  From The Record on 12/2/14.)

Navajo Code Talkers

An obit in The Week last June reported on the death of a "talker", Chester Nez, who along with 28 other male members of the Nahajo tribe created a code that the Japanese never broke.  As a matter of fact, other Navajos could not read it either.  The irony of his story is that as a child on the reservation in New Mexico he was punished with a mouth-washing of soap, for speaking his native language (at about the same time in Ireland, the British punished native Irish for speaking their language as well).  In 1942 the military came to him and wanted him to create the code using that same language he once got punished for speaking.  They used Navajo words and labeled a tank a "tortoise" and a grenade a "potatoes".  At one point during his service in the Pacific an officer mistook him for a Japanese and almost shot him.  When he returned to New Mexico after the war we could not vote till 1948, or discuss the code until it was de-classified in 1968 and got official recognition in 2001 with a Congressional Gold Medal.  (I wonder how many of the talkers were still alive).  Nez said he was always bothered by the irony of being punished for speaking his language and then asked to use it by those who punished him.

(Source:  The Week, June 20, 2014, "The Navajo warrior who baffled the Japanese")

Antebellum Slavery

David Brion Davis has completed a three volume study of slavery with his book on slavery in the "age of Emancipation" dealing exclusively with slavery in the US.  It is titled The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation.  It is hailed by Eric Foner in a The Nation (Feb 17, 2014) book review, who states it is a "towering achievement of historical scholarship".  He writes that slavery so brutalized its victims as to make them a "menace to the social order if allowed to remain" in the US and for many black leaders, colonization was the only way to "allow former slaves to overcome" the psychological damage done to them.  He notes that the fugitive slave issue was "central in bringing on the Civil War" for it proved the falsehood of southern claims of the contended nature of their slaves.  When the British emancipated their 800,000 slaves (August 1, 1834, a day of national celebration for African Americans) the former owners were paid 20 million pounds in compensation, mostly from taxes raised on the working class (somethings never change).  Davis also claims that if the South had won the war, slavery would have lasted "well into the 20th Century.  While slavery was  diminishing in British Caribbean and Spanish America, "there were more slaves in the Western Hemisphere on the eve of the Civil War than at any point in history".  Davis reports that his interest in the subject began with his WWII service, when shipped overseas in a troop transport, African American troops were "jammed together in the hold" much like the slave ships of he Middle Passage. 

(Source:  "Slavery in the Modern World" by Eric Foner in The Nation on Feb 17, 2014)

Guernica

I am reading a historical novel about the bombing of the Basque town in northern Spain in 1937; it is entitled "Guernica" and was written by Dave Boling.  The story tells us a lot about the way of the people of the Basque region of Spain and their sense of independence from Spain or France.  The author claims that Spain had granted to the region a form of autonomy and the Basque people had elected a President whose name was Jose Antonio Aguirre (I will have to research to confirm).  The destruction of the town is well described and it is noted that there was one significant target of military importance in the town but it was not bombed.  The story also tells of the painting of the mural-Guernica-by Pablo Picasso.  (I will try to add more later)

WWI and new research

The Nation from 12/2/13 reviews three new tomes about the war to end all wars.  They are The War That Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan, The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark, and Dance of the Furies by Michael S. Nieberg.  I am not reviewing them all or reviewing the review of then but just wanted to note a few items.  MacMillan notes that the decision to go to war "...was made by a surprisingly small number (of men) who came largely but not entirely from the upper classes, whether the landed aristocracy or urban plutocracy".  It was key individuals rather than "broad categorical forces".  Nieberg claims that "...the elites in Berlin, and Austria and to a lessor extent St. Petersburg were the only ones who truly did want war".  These writes all blame the "Great Men" theory for the war coming about.  "Contrary to popular belief, most Europeans were not rabid nationalists hankering for a blood feud".  Nieberg also claims that up to the last "days and hours" individual decisions could have stopped the rush to war.

(Source:  The Nation "Behind the Storm" by Tara Zahra.  12/2/13)

Greensboro Four

I read recently of the death of Franklin McCain who was one of the four young black college students who conducted the most significant "sit-in" at a Woolworth lunch counter on Feb. 1, 1960.  The state was North Carolina and the group sought service on four days without success; but the article notes, no violence.  On the fifth day, after news got around, a crowd of 1000 gathered at the store and Woolworth decided to change their policy and serve blacks.  The students tactic involved the purchase of items in the store-school supplies-and then showing their receipt at the lunch counter and openly noting that if the store was willing to take their money to buy store items they should also take their money to serve them food.  Mr McCain gave an interview in 2010 to discuss the events then.  He said a black dishwasher in the store accused the four of being "rabble-rousers" and the sit-in would hurt black people.  The article I read indicated that while there were some who were verbally hostile, their was no physical violence and even some who encouraged them.  He also noted that a "white woman said she was proud of the young men and she wished they had acted 10 years ago".

(Source:  "One of Greensboro Four countered segregation" by Douglas Martin of the New York Times.  In The Virginian Pilot on 1/12/14)