Tom McMahon

G. David Schine, Sen. Joe McCarthy, and Roy Cohn

• Wikipedia, imdb, and the G. David Schine Official Site
• Schine Music holds the copyright to the old DeFranco Family hit "Heartbeat -- It's A Lovebeat"
• Batman: It was the favorite show of his 6 kids, so he made a cameo in the next-to-last episode.

From a guy who was there, Dr. Jack Wheeler:

So it was a strange experience for me to see the movie "Charlie Wilson's War," a movie portraying events I participated in, to see how it was both true and not true, magnificent and ludicrous at the same time.

First, the truth: Tom Hanks has Charlie spot on. His mannerisms, voice, posture, facial expressions: Hanks is Charlie, and he might get his third Oscar for playing him that he was denied in "Cast Away" and "Saving Private Ryan" (he along with six others have won Best Actor twice; no one has won it three times).

Further, Hanks portrays Charlie as the hero he really was. A larger-than-life, America-loving, communist-hating true-blue patriot who used his power and influence to the max to stick it to the Soviets big time. That Hollywood would make a major motion picture about a genuine anti-communist hero, about a noble anti-communist triumph over the evil communist empire of the Soviet Union is morally thrilling. The movie is magnificent.

Not taking anything away from the magnificence, it is also ludicrous. ...

The movie overplays his flamboyance, as much as the décolletage of his staff. The ladies who worked for him, such as Molly Hamilton, were beautiful but serious and professional. Charlie was a consummate pro who knew just what he was doing, including the "Good Time Charlie" act. I never saw him drink to excess or act inappropriately. He was always the true gentleman, treating Annelise, for example, like the true lady she was.

The moral lesson of the movie should be a very sobering one for the Democratic Party. Charlie Wilson was proudly and unashamedly a pro-American, anti-communist Democrat. His heroism should be a deep embarrassment to the party of Pelosi Galore and Lost Harry Reid, the party who apologizes for America's existence and has neither the spine nor will to defend her.

Cuban Rebel Girls: The 1959 Pro-Castro Semi-Documentary Filmed By Errol Flynn During The Cuban Revolution

Errol Flynn, playing himself as a war correspondent, helps Fidel Castro overthrow Cuban dictator Batista. The film was shot, with Castro's cooperation, while he was still fighting Batista. You can buy the VHS of this, Errol Flynn's last film, for $15. Anyone who knows anything about Flynn knows I'm not exactly going out on a limb by saying you could write a whole blog about that guy.

• You wicked human scum, we will mercilessly crush you with the weapon of singlehearted unity!
• You bloodthirsty philistine, we will resolutely smash your desperate war moves!
• You extra-large flunkey, such a provocation will be regarded as a declaration of war!
• You despicable hooligan, you would be well advised to behave with discretion!
• You half-baked traitor, you have glaringly revealed your true colours!
• You half-baked hooligan, we will transform your country into a sea of fire!
• You shameless gangster, we will resolutely smash your desperate war moves!

Roll your own here.

An excerpt from The Informed Reader:

Some aspects of the glider-like U-2 seem at odds with an age of high-tech surveillance tools such as satellites and “drones,” which operate by remote control. The pilots have to wear a pressurized space suit and breathe pure oxygen for an hour before their flight to survive at 70,000 feet. At landing, the pilot stalls the U-2’s engines at the last moment before hitting the runway. The Air Force envisions phasing out the U-2 around 2012 or 2013, replacing it with the Global Hawk plane, which would be operated by remote control.

However, the U-2 -which came into use in the mid-1950s—can still claim some unique abilities. Unlike a satellite, it can fly over an area for a while, allowing it to track insurgents’ movements in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unlike low-altitude drones, the U-2 can’t be heard by the people it is observing. Thanks to these and other qualities,the number of U-2 missions flown has increased 20% in the past two years. It has been used to detect improvised explosive devices along Iraq’s roads and supplied 88% of all battlefield imagery in Iraq. Twenty-eight of the planes are flying active missions.

And while we're at it, we might as well give equal time to that other relic of the Cold War that just won't die either, the B-52:

First deployed in February 1955, the B-52 has proven its endurance over the years, and is expected to remain in service to the middle of the twenty-first century.

Over a period of eight years that ended in October 1962, a total of 744 B-52s were built and delivered. The only models remaining in service are B-52Hs, which are assigned to Air Force Air Combat Command and the Air Force Reserves. The H model, of which 102 were built, is made to carry as many as 20 air-launched cruise missiles. ...

The same plane that bombed North Vietnam remained in service to bomb Iraq over a quarter-century later. It was also used in Operation Allied Force, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) campaign against Serbia in 1999. Engineering analysis conducted at the end of the twentieth century indicated that the B-52 could remain in service past 2045—a full 90 years after its initial deployment.

An excerpt from Hugh Hewitt:

This is the ghost haunting the anti-war left, and the left shudders and screams whenever it floats into the room.  All those millions of Cambodians didn't have to die, and all those Boat People didn't have to sail into death or exile.  The Kennedys didn't have to topple Diem any more than Senators Levin and Clinton have to work to force the toppling the Maliki.  And the Democratic Congress elected in 1974 didn't have to abandon South Vietnam to North Vietnam.

America's Vietnam policy of intervention, manipulation, and then withdrawal represented a series of choices.  The Democrats of those years, urged on by a hard left anti-war front, finally made a choice to leave, a choice with awful consequences.

This is the crucial point: The Democratic Party and their supporters made that choice, cheered on by the anti-war left.  They own the consequences.

From Jay Nordlinger:

You surely saw this story about East Germany: An order to kill those trying to escape the socialist paradise was uncovered. The order said, “Do not hesitate with the use of a firearm, including when the border breakouts involve women and children, which the traitors have already frequently taken advantage of.” More than 1,000 people were killed on the border of the Germanys, about 125 of them at the Berlin Wall.

I was reminded of something that made a big impact on me when I was young, trying to figure out the world: figuring out what I thought, where I stood. Caspar Weinberger was secretary of defense, and hated by virtually everyone around me. He made the following point: West German border guards and East German border guards were both facing the same way: east.

What a tremendous, shattering point that was. For that and a million other reasons, I couldn’t remain on the left — any kind of left — for very long. People forget how East Germany was praised in “liberal” circles. I have not. Herr Honecker was thought to have achieved a fine social justice, little seen either in the “capitalist” camp or the communist one.

It Has Haunted The Democrats For A Generation

Excerpts from Peter W. Rodman:

Military historians seem to be converging on a consensus that by the end of 1972, the balance of forces in Vietnam had improved considerably, increasing the prospects for South Vietnam’s survival. That balance of forces was reflected in the Paris Agreement of January 1973, and the (Democratic) Congress then proceeded to pull the props out from under that balance of forces over the next 2 ½ years — abandoning all of Indochina to a bloodbath. This is now a widely accepted narrative of the endgame in Vietnam, and it has haunted the Democrats for a generation. ...

The president is absolutely right to include the Khmer Rouge genocide in his recitation of the Vietnam endgame. When Congress, in the summer of 1973, legislated an end to U.S. military action in, over, or off the shores of Indochina, the only U.S. military activity then going on was air support of a friendly Cambodian government and army desperately defending their country against a North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge onslaught. “Cambodia is not worth the life of one American flier,” Tip O’Neill declared. By 1975, administration pleas to help Cambodia were answered by New York Times articles suggesting the Khmer Rouge would probably be moderate once they came into power and the Cambodian people had a better life to look forward to once we left.

And on and on it goes, right up to the present day. The Left is still haunted by this, so they do one or more of the following:

• Ignore it and pretend it never happened. This worked better when they controlled all the media. Not so good now.
• Blow up at you when you bring up the subject. Go absolutely non-linear. Repressed guilt? I dunno, but watching one of these eruptions makes you wonder.
• Keep themselves busy at meaningless tasks. Like cyber-stalking Jessica McBride. Or ineffectively piling on Charlie Sykes new book. That sort of thing.

But deep down inside, they know. The one person they can't run away from knows. So they keep running, and running, and running . . .

Everyone Smokes!

The story from Alexander Zakharov at his fine new blog A Soviet Poster A Day:

In Russia tobacco and alcohol has always been quite popular, being one of the main sources for state treasury income. Tobacco was brought to Russia in the 16th century during the reign of Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible. Later smoking was strictly prohibited, as it supposedly caused a vicious fire which burned down Moscow in 1634. Infringers were subject to chopping of their noses. During the next 50 years Russian rulers were prohibiting and legalizing tobacco, until realizing that monopolization of the tobacco market could result in fantastical profits.

After the WW1 the Bolshevics were in financial trouble, as the country economy struggled to survive the nationalizing and planned economy measures. Tobacco and alcohol were the most significant financial drivers for the young soviet government, so massive advertising campaigns started – promoting tobacco and smoking. Although nationalized some factories were still operating under old brands.

This poster says: “Everyone smokes! Donskaya State Tobacco Factory (fomer Asmolov and Co)”. And this was sad but true – more than 90% of the adult population were smoking tobacco in the twenties. Later, this figure went down, albeit slowly, resulting in 70% of smokers among the adult male population nowadays.

(via PCL Linkdump )

Pumpkin Patch Picture PO's Progressives

The site of the former pumpkin patch where the "pumpkin papers" were stored by Whittaker Chambers. The "pumpkin papers," stolen and secret State Department documents given to Chambers by Hiss and hidden in the form of microfilm in a hollowed-out pumpkin at Chambers’ farm, were absolute proof of Hiss’s role as a Soviet spy

An American Sailor Skateboards In Vladivostok

During the Cold War the only way an American sailor could see Vladivostok was through a submarine periscope. My, how times have changed . . .

• Ajax: Stronger Than Dirt: The origin of the last four notes of The Doors' "Touch Me"
• USS Nautilus: The first atomic submarine
• Dustin Hoffman in a Volkswagen Commercial: Fun
• Barbara Walters & Ed McMahon in a Citgo Commercial: Back in the day, Uncle Ed was simply everywhere
• The Frito Bandito: In the days before you had to press "1" for English
• The Original 1955 Mickey Mouse Club Intro: In Color and in Black & White
• A Tribute To Communism: The best of the bunch
• John Wayne Does A Commercial for the American Cancer Society: A class act to the end
• A Young Betty White Does a Commercial: Betty's been around forever too.
• Lifebuoy Soap Drives Women Wild!: Weird

My Gedunk Medal

When I went into the Navy during the Vietnam Era, I was awarded one of these -- The National Defense Medal. Just like everyone else, there's no way you could avoid getting one. We called them "gedunk medals", since in Navy slang a gedunk machine was a vending machine for candy bars and the like. As if you had gotten this medal out of a candy machine.  (link via J-Walk)

Gene Deitch: The Creator of Tom Terrific Spent 30 Years As The Only Free American in Communist Prague

Detailed in his book For The Love of Prague. The 83-year-old Deitch publishes a newsletter, The Occasional Deitch. Sounds like an interesting guy, eh?

Dippity-Do: The Grooming Secret of Sailors in the 1970's

You simply put a boatload of this stuff in your hair during the day, enough to pass inspection. Off-duty, you'd wash it out so you would look like a civilian.

Brian Tracy has been traveling in Eastern Europe:

On Wednesday, April 25, I flew through Vienna to Vilnius, Lithuania. Again, the entrepreneur and promoter was a talented woman named Skirmante Laucyte who organized the entire seminar from beginning to end. We had about 200 Lithuanian businesspeople all day learning about Personal Productivity and Effectiveness. ...

Skirmante was telling me that, during the Russian times, her parents kept a bundle of warm clothing next to the door so that they could grab it if they were arrested in the night and deported to Siberia. They never knew, from one day to the next, if the secret police would burst in and exile them for life.

Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wisconsin), November 1954

Interesting that these two famous Commie-fighters died 15 years apart, to the day.

Tom Lehrer vs Wernher von Braun: Whose Work Has Been Of Greater Benefit To Mankind?

Their lives are forever linked by this song penned in the 60's by Tom Lehrer:

Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun,
A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience.
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown,
"Ha, Nazi, Schmazi," says Wernher von Braun.

Don't say that he's hypocritical,
Say rather that he's apolitical.
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude,
Like the widows and cripples in old London town,
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.**

You too may be a big hero,
Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.
"In German oder English I know how to count down,
Und I'm learning Chinese!" says Wernher von Braun.

Biting satire, at least it was considered so forty years ago. And old Wernher was on the wrong side in WWII, no doubt about it. (Then again, so were the Communists in Russia, at least for a while, anyway.) But the question on the table is this: Whose Work Has Been Of Greater Benefit To Mankind?

Tom Lehrer wrote some amusing songs, and invented the Jello Shot, for all you alcoholics in my reading audience. Smart, witty guy, by all accounts. But in the Benefit-to-Mankind category, not much to show for it, really.

Wernher von Braun's work, on the other hand, led to the we-all-take-it-for-granted network of modern communications and weather satellites. So we can phone Ireland for less than we used to pay to call the next county. And we know where the hurricanes are, unlike those poor souls caught by surprise in the New England hurricane of 1938.

My point is not to criticize a forgotten show-biz type like Tom Lehrer. But hey, he brought it up.

An excerpt from a 1991 Straight Dope Classic by Cecil Adams:

The combined population of North and South Vietnam in 1969, the midpoint of substantial U.S. involvement, was somewhere around 39 million. That means that over 10 years we spent about $3,600 for every Vietnamese man, woman, and child. Today you could buy most of a Yugo with that kind of money. At first glance, hardly enough reason to abandon a war of national liberation.

But let's put this in perspective. Per capita annual income in South Vietnam in 1965 by one estimate was $113. At $3,600 per, we could have kept those guys in rice and fish sauce for pretty much the rest of their lives, with color TV and a Barcalounger thrown in.

I remember reading something similar regarding the American Civil War, that by the time you added up the cost of the war you could have simply paid the slaveowners for all their slaves several times over. Interesting stuff.

1984: The Almighty Wonderboy Bruce Springsteen Pees On The American Flag

And a diabolically clever double bind eh?: If all those Springsteen fans click on the link and buy the CD to show support for their beloved "Boss", I'll be (KA-CHING!!) making some money. And if they don't click on the link and buy the CD to show support for their beloved "Boss", it means they agree with me. This is why blogging is much more satisfying than any of those home-based businesses they talk about on TeeVee . . .

The AN/FLR-9 Antenna System: The Elephant Cages / Dinosaur Cages Of The Cold War

Basically a bunch of very tall antennas arranged in a circle. The radio signal from the bad guy would hit one of the antennas a fraction of a millisecond before it would hit the other antennas, and from that The Good Guys could figure out the direction it came from. Then, if you had another one of these cages somewhere else in the world, they could do the same thing, and where the lines intersected, why, that's where the bad guy was! Clever, eh? These were very impressive close up.

The USS Halibut: The World's First Nuclear-Powered Guided Missile Submarine

Before Trident, before Poseidon, before Polaris, there was the USS Halibut and the Regulus guided missile. After the Regulus became obsolete, the Halibut found a second life as a spy submarine. It was decommissioned at Mare Island Naval Shipyard on 30 June 1976, while I was stationed there.

The 8th of March: The Day Of Revolt Of Working Women Against The Kitchen Slavery

Sounds like the tagline for a modern-day infomercial.

The Nuclear-Powered NR-1: The 11-Man Midget Submarine Of The US Navy

The NR-1 is what found the location of all the debris from the Space Shuttle Challenger back in 1986. Here's a bit of history on the NR-1 from Wikipedia:

It was launched on 25 January 1969, completed her initial sea trials 19 August 1969, and is homeported at Naval Submarine Base New London. It was never named or commissioned. The United States Navy is allocated a specific number of warships by the U.S. Congress. Not only did Admiral Hyman Rickover not want to "use up" one of those authorizations, but he also wanted to avoid the oversight that a warship receives from various bureaus.

So it's not the USS NR-1, it's just NR-1. More info from LT Doug Perry, the Executive Officer of the NR-1:

NR-1 is a nuclear-powered, deep-submergence submarine, capable of exploring ocean depths to 3,000 feet, which allows access to most of the world’s continental shelves. Displacing just under 400 long tons, she is roughly 1/16th the size of a Los Angeles-class submarine. Although her small size limits the underway crew to a mere three officers and eight enlisted men, the exceptional endurance of her nuclear propulsion plant allows the crew to conduct uninterrupted bottom operations for up to 30 days, restricted only by the food and air purification supplies on board. ...

Some of NR-1’s unique features include three viewing ports for visual observation, exterior lighting to support both television and still cameras, an object recovery claw, a manipulator arm for various gripping and cutting tools, and a work basket to hold items recovered from the sea. Unlike the smooth, faired black hulls of today’s SSNs and SSBNs, NR-1 is adorned with a bright orange sail, a flat superstructure deck topside, an awkward box keel underneath, and numerous protuberances around the ship, including two retract-able bottoming wheels – mounted with alcohol-filled Goodyear truck tires! These wheels give the ship her unique bottom-sitting and crawling capability. ...

Deployments on board NR-1 are akin to college or family road trips in an old Jetstream mobile home, and the amenities are Spartan. Although the hull is 145 feet long overall, the operations compartment and Engine Room combine for a total of only 58 feet, making the ship’s interior less roomy than a 737 airliner’s. Abaft the conn are equipment racks for computers, sensor electronics, and data-handling hardware. Next come the “mess decks” with a sink and one-gallon hot water heater, the convection oven, frozen and dry food storage, and a small entertainment center with a card table and book lockers in the overhead. These are followed by atmosphere control equipment and general storage, a head – without a shower – to port, and a set of bunk beds stacked four high to starboard.

Another great glimpse of life aboard can be found at A Dive On The NR-1.

Photos Of North Korea

Taken by a Russian. Lots of interesting photos. In the picture above, the big cubes can be pushed on the road to trap the enemy tanks in case of an invasion. (via VodkaPundit)

James Taranto sums up the 1960's:

The civil rights movement could not prevail merely by appealing to the self-interest of blacks, who, as a disfranchised minority, lacked the political power to bring about change. A significant number of whites had to be convinced that justice demanded they act counter to their self-interest by giving up their privileged position. This took many decades to achieve, and it required maturity, forbearance, and moral and intellectual rigor.

By contrast, expediency was sufficient to create a mass antiwar movement. Half-baked pacifistic and anti-American notions were all it took to make young people feel justified in acting on their own self-interest, and to bring about, in less than a decade, an end to the draft and an American retreat from Vietnam.

But this could not endure. With the threat of the draft gone, those who had opposed the war out of self-interest moved on and got about the business of living. That left only a tiny core of true believers, who exaggerate their own importance because so many of them hold important positions in elite institutions like the media and academia. They will likely go to their graves wondering when they'll get another Vietnam.

Congratulations to my blogroll buddy Jack Yoest for having his article published yesterday in National Review Online! Pretty neat, I'd say. Very sad subject, though, but quite appropriate for Memorial Day. An excerpt:

Yolanda Mazzuchi was about the prettiest girl in our school class. Our dads were in the Navy, often gone for months at a time. And they would be welcomed home at dockside with cheers and homemade signs. These gatherings at the D&S Piers at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia, were a regular part of our lives growing up. Families often took children out of school to celebrate a ship’s homecoming.

At 1 in the afternoon on Monday, May 27, 1968, at the height of the Cold War the USS Scorpion was due in port.

Yolanda didn’t know it then, but her dad was already dead.

The families gathered on Pier 22 and huddled together in the wind and rain. And looked out over the storm, over white-capped waves.

They waited for the USS Scorpion without any word for five days.

The Russian Version Of Winnie-the-Pooh

A short explanation from the Russian Insider :

The own screen version of adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh has been created in USSR practically simultaneously with Disney. Though it was totally illegal, nobody cared about it. The three films was done: WINNIE-THE-POOH (1969), WINNIE-THE-POOH GOES ON A VISIT (1971) and WINNIE-THE-POOH AND THE DAY OF CARES (1972).

CONELRAD

An excerpt from the C. Crane Company:

In 1951, fearful of a Soviet attack, and determined to keep U.S. citizens alert, President Truman signed into existence the Control of Electromagnetic Radiation system, or CONELRAD. Back then, controlling electronic radiation meant keeping Soviet planes from tracking targets in the U.S. by tracking radio signals. To keep this from happening, CONELRAD called for commercial radio stations to stop broadcasting immediately when receiving an alert. Only select stations would stay on air, broadcasting on 640 or 1240 kHz.

Between 1953 and 1963, all radios sold in the United States were required to have the two CONELRAD frequencies marked clearly on the dial. If you have older radios in your home, or if you browse through older radios in a flea market, you can identify CONELRAD-era radios from the two small triangular marks on the dial known as CD symbols. These triangles provide a very useful identifying mark for radio collectors. Sometimes the triangles are enclosed in small circles as well.

The USS Thresher was lost with all hands at sea April 10, 1963. Peacetime. No shooting.

When I was on the USS Flasher in the shipyard, we were running some hydraulic pressure test when a baseball-sized metal fitting blew off. Made about a quarter-inch dent in a thick metal plate where it hit. A friend of mine was standing right there. The fitting would have gone right through his head if he hadn't stooped down a couple of seconds earlier to check on a temperature gauge that had been giving us problems. He was OK. No injuries. We were lucky that time. My friend with his life. The rest of us with the horrible images we didn't have to live with for the next 30 40 50 60 years of our lives.

Whether you're in a submarine, or in a jet fighter, it's a dangerous place. It's just part of the deal.

Yury Mukhin, The First Electric Guitar Player In The Soviet Union

An excerpt from The Moscow Times :

The members of an American guitar and saxophone band, whose name Mukhin has forgotten, started talking to the Soviet musician, and eventually offered to let him have a guitar and amplifier at the end of the festival -- for $1,000. That was approximately 5,000 rubles, he recollected. By comparison, a Volga car cost about 4,500 rubles.

Luckily, Mukhin said, he had saved the money from his Voronok gigs and by "not eating." The remaining problem was how to exchange rubles into dollars -- an illegal operation -- and get in and out of the Metropol hotel to collect the guitar. "God spared me, because they could have put me in prison, and that would have been it."

Soon afterward, Mukhin quit his orchestra job and began accompanying top singers such as Mark Bernes and Kapitalina Lazarenko. He also made his first recording, of a piece he had composed called "First Steps." It was accompanied by an early music video, which showed him playing the piece's four different guitar tracks at the same time, a bit like the video for Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," but with only one person. It was shown on television only once or twice, Mukhin said with regret. He doubts that the film has survived.

After Yury Gagarin returned from his successful space flight in 1961, Mukhin took part in a closed concert at the Kremlin with an audience of just Gagarin, Nikita Khrushchev and the Soviet leader's daughter and son-in-law. The musician became friendly with Gagarin and met the other early cosmonauts, even attending the wedding of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.

The Opinion Journal on how the Olympic Games have now become The Individual Games, and lack the political drama of yesteryear:

Before the Berlin Wall fell, the Olympics were considered, to adapt Clausewitz, politics by other means. Occasionally this was explicit, such as when Cold War opponents boycotted each other's Summer Games in 1980 and 1984. But when enemy countries did agree to participate, geopolitical overtones permeated the Games and produced some of the more memorable Olympic contests. More people tuned in when more was at stake.

Nothing viewers are likely to see in Turin can compete with the bloody 1956 water polo match in Melbourne in which the Hungarians defeated the Soviets weeks after the Soviet army had crushed an uprising back in Hungary. Or the 1972 basketball game in Munich in which the Soviets, with considerable help from the men in stripes, handed the U.S. team its first ever loss. And should the U.S. hockey team meet Russia in a medal round next week, no one expects the drama of the Lake Placid "miracle" of 1980.

An excerpt from Bert Prelutsky:

I grew up in a typical middle-class Jewish home, the third son of Russian immigrant parents. In other words, FDR was our patron saint. In our house, the feeling was that Roosevelt could walk – or at least roll – on water. Then, after his death, when Harry Truman recognized the state of Israel in 1948, that cinched things. After that, if the Republicans had run God for president, we wouldn’t have voted for Him.

So, by the time I got to cast a vote in my first presidential election in 1964, naturally I cast it for Lyndon Johnson. Then, in ’68, I voted for Hubert Humphrey. After that, things only got worse. Over the course of the next two decades, I actually voted for McGovern, Carter, Carter, Mondale and Dukakis. I would say that sounds like the name of a sleazy law firm, but that would be unfair to sleazy law firms. The thing is, even back then, I’d wake up the day after voting for one of these clowns and I’d hate myself.

Back in the 80s, I was still one of those shmoes who laughed at jokes about Ronald Reagan nodding off during cabinet meetings. Somewhere along the line, though, it began to sink in that the sleepy head had managed to turn around an economy that had a 21% rate of inflation under his predecessor, and, for an encore, managed to end the Cold War. Even a dope like me who had voted for a sanctimonious phony like Jimmy Carter had to admit that was a pretty sensational performance.

Don't Give Your Small Children Any Sweets, Snack Food, Sunflower Seeds, Nuts, or Alcoholic Beverages

One of a collection of old Soviet posters (via Bibi's Box)

Happy New Year!

One of many Russian New Year's post cards via Coudal Partners. Just like the Coca-Cola commercial, eh?

"Lavrentii Beria (1899 - 1953) was one of the cruelest leaders in a regime known for its brutality. He first reached a position of power by working his way up the police organization in the Soviet republic of Georgia. In 1938, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin summoned him to Moscow to work as the deputy to the chief of the Soviet secret police (NKVD). Within months the chief had disappeared and Beria had replaced him. After the Soviet scientists succeeded in testing their first atomic device in August 1949, a secret decree granted honors to the leaders of the project. In deciding who was to receive which award, Beria is said to have adopted a simple principle: Those who would have been shot had the bomb been a failure were to become Heroes of Socialist Labor; those who would have received maximum prison terms were to be given the less prestigious award, the Order of Lenin. "

From Mona Charen's Useful Idiots : How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First:

There was a sequel to the Vietnam War. For three years and eight months, beginning in April 1975, when the Communist Khmer Rouge movement defeated the forces of Marshall Lon Nol, the little nation of Cambodia was plunged into hell. Americans were not watching. They had turned their backs on Southeast Asia and were enjoying the first years of "peace". But for those left behind, for America's former allies, there was no peace.

The victorious Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians) rolled into Phnom Penh and began a systematic war on the entire population so savage that it almost defies description. Estimates of the number of dead range between 1.5 and 2 million out of a nation of 7 million. At least one million were executed and another million died of starvation and disease that were the direct consequences of government policy.

In a nation of Cambodia's size, two million deaths represents between one quarter and one third of the population. The Khmer Rouge caused this enormous number of deaths in less than four years.

An excerpt from Michael Barone:

Twenty-five years ago, in December 1980, Jimmy Carter was serving his last full month in office and Ronald Reagan was president-elect. More than 50 Americans were being held hostage in Iran -- an act of war by the revolutionary mullahs. The Soviet Union was on the march in Afghanistan. The American economy was finishing a decade of high inflation and sluggish growth, at best -- stagflation. The past three presidents had been repudiated: Richard Nixon in 1974, Gerald Ford in 1976 and Jimmy Carter 1980.

Experts preached that America's best days were behind it, counseled that we seek accommodation with the Soviet Union and urged nations of the avaricious North to share their wealth with nations of the deserving South. Low-inflation economic growth was no longer possible.

Now we know, with as much certainty as is possible in these things, that these experts were dead wrong. Less than a decade later, the Berlin Wall fell -- and not long after that, the Soviet empire was no more.

The Atomic Cannon

A snippet from RoadsideAmerica.com:

The atomic cannon was a huge piece of ordnance built by the United States in the mid-1950s to hurl nuclear shells far enough that they wouldn't kill the people who fired them.

It's really not just the oddball travel attractions that make RoadsideAmerica such a terrific site, it's the great writing.

This story pretty much sums up the shift from the Cold War to the War On Terror. An excerpt from the Navy Times:

The guided-missile submarine Ohio, the first of four former Trident ballistic missile boats undergoing conversion to the new SSGN mission, is scheduled to start sea trials soon. Four former Trident submarines, including Ohio, Georgia, Florida and Michigan, are being converted to SSGNs, at a total cost of approximately $4 billion.

Instead of Trident nuclear-warhead tipped missiles, the new SSGNs will carry an arsenal of up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and serve as special operations platforms. As part of the conversion, the battery of 24 Trident missile tubes were removed, freeing up space for cruise missile canisters and storage space. Officials have said an SSGN will be able to host as many as 66 SEALs or Special Operations forces, along with transporting a mini-submarine called the Advanced SEAL Delivery System, and a dry deck shelter with a SEAL Delivery Vehicle.

(via The Sub Report)

The East Side Of The Berlin Wall
A Secret Photo Taken By Don Salyards In the 1970s

You weren't supposed to take photos of the Wall while you were in East Berlin, but Don Salyards did anyway. More guts than I would have had.

Left: Soviet Spy Glenn Michael Souther
Right: The Book On The Souther Case

You always think of History as happening somewhere else, to someone else. But one day back in 1986 a met an active Soviet spy in my hometown of Belvidere, Illinois. How many people do you know who've ever met a Soviet spy?

Here's a summary of Glenn Michael Souther from the Defense Security Service:

SOUTHER, GLENN MICHAEL. On 11 July 1988, Soviet newspaper Izvestia announced that Souther, a former navy photographic specialist who disappeared in May 1986, had been granted political asylum in the Soviet Union. Just before his disappearance, Souther, a recent graduate with a major in Russian Studies from Old Dominion University, was questioned by FBI counterintelligence agents. According to one source, investigators were acting “on more than suspicions, but didn't catch him in the act of espionage, and thus couldn't hold Souther at the time he was questioned.” While attending college, Souther had been assigned as an active reservist to the Navy Intelligence Center in Norfolk, Virginia, where he had access to classified information. Souther's sudden disappearance was of considerable concern to FBI and Navy officials since the former Navy enlisted man had held special security clearances while on active duty with the Sixth Fleet in the early 1980s. During that time he had access to highly classified photo-intelligence materials. Souther joined the Navy in 1975 and left active duty in 1982 with the position of photographer’s mate. According to the Soviets, the former Navy specialist had asked for asylum because “he had to hide from the US special services which were pursuing him groundlessly.” Described as a bright but undisciplined young man by former teachers and acquaintances, Souther reportedly had wanted to become a US Naval officer, but had been turned down as a Navy officer candidate. On 22 June 1989, at the age of 32, he reportedly committed suicide by asphyxiation after shutting himself in his garage and starting his car. Russian newspapers suggested he had been disappointed by aspects of Soviet life after defecting in 1986 and was prone to depression.

From the summer of 1985 to the summer of 1986 I was in a carpool with Souther's mother, Shirley Wiergacz, along with two other people. The others all lived in Rockford, and I would meet them in the parking lot of the old Eagle food store on Bypass 20 in Belvidere. We then all shared a ride for the 50 miles to Elk Grove Village (near O'Hare), where we all worked. Shirley Wiergacz was an executive secretary to the President of the Loyola Paper Company.

Shirley had the unique ability to talk all the way from Belvidere to Elk Grove Village, and all the way back again. Every Day. Drove me nuts. But we got along, in the manner of people who have to get along get along. And for all her annoyances, she was really a decent person who tried to do he right thing. One of her favorite topics of conversation was her son Glenn. She talked on and on about how he loved Russian Culture and Russian Literature, and knew a lot about Russian History. I thought this was odd for a former Navy enlisted man, but I just figured that the nut hadn't fallen too far from the tree, so to speak.

Then one spring day in 1986 he joined us one day for the ride into Elk Grove Village. He was about like I figured he'd be. A very polite smart ass, an updated Eddie Haskell. The photo pretty much captures it, I think. But all in all it was a relatively nice 50-mile drive in that day, as it was a change of pace from listening to his mother talk. But still, what an Odd Duck.

As summer came our carpool broke up, and in August I started a new job in Milwaukee. But I heard from one of the other carpool folks about Souther's disappearance in Italy. I figured it was probably drug-related or something like that. It never entered my mind that maybe the guy was a spy. Like I said, that sort of stuff always happens to somebody else, certainly never in boring old Belvidere.

A couple of years af