DALLAS ~ NOVEMBER 22, 1963

Photo:PBS.org

Fifty years ago, in the autumn of 1963, I was in ninth grade. I had Miss Mildred Brown again as homeroom teacher for the third year in a row. She was a rather plain looking geography instructor. But I guess she liked me. For citizenship she gave me an A double plus. That's really rather embarrassing.

My brother Sherry (Sheridan) was a senior at Princeton. For his junior year thesis, he had written a paper on Laos and Vietnam. Sometime when I was in elementary school, Sherry had suggested a future career for me. I should go to Princeton, of course, major in Arabic studies and become an expert in petroleum. This was 1960 or 1961. Today, Sherry doesn't recall suggesting that to me, but it was rather prescient for the time. Needless to say, I didn't do any of that. Although, for years I did have my heart set on going to Princeton for undergraduate studies.

Senior year, Sherry escorted Madame Nhu (the Dragon Lady) and her very attractive daughter (who later died in a Paris motorcycle accident) around the Princeton campus. This was just before the coup, which toppled the Diem regime in early November.

Friday November 22 started as an ordinary day. In second year Latin class with a severe Miss Halbert –while we were translating Julius Caesar's Gaul Commentaries— Miss Halbert started fiddling with the radio. As murmurs arose, she snapped at us: "For your disorderly information…... the President has just been shot!"

The class went into an uproar. Students screamed and sobbed. But we went on to the next class, typing, I believe. Finally, an announcement came from the Principal on the intercom that we were excused to go home early.

As I walked past Italian Lake, toward the Zembo Shrine Mosque, and the Scottish Rite Temple— just before the McFarland Rose gardens— my Dad came by in his Ford, looking for me and drove me home.

Remembering the events of that weekend, I regret I didn't insist on going to visit Aunt Marg and Uncle Elmer Staats in Washington. I should have liked to have gone to the viewing in the rotunda. Instead, like everyone else, I stayed transfixed to the television screen, and watched Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald in real time.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY ~~ November 20, 1925 ~~ June 6, 1968

Image:wikipedia.com

Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (November 20, 1925–June 6, 1968), also called RFK, was an American politician. He was United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964 and a United States Senator from New York from 1965 until his assassination in 1968. He was one of the younger brothers of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and also one of his most trusted advisers, working closely with the president during the Cuban Missile Crisis After his brother's November 1963 assassination, Kennedy continued as Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson for nine months. After breaking with Johnson over the Vietnam War, he resigned in September 1964 and was elected as a Senator from New York that November.

After Eugene McCarthy nearly defeated Johnson in the New Hampshire primary in early 1968, Kennedy announced his own campaign for president, seeking the nomination of the Democratic Party. Kennedy defeated McCarthy in the critical California primary but was shot shortly after midnight of June 5, 1968, dying on June 6. On June 9, President Johnson assigned security staff to all Presidential candidates and declared an official day of national mourning in response to the public grief following Kennedy's death. Text:wikipedia.com

At the end of my freshman year at Yale, I returned home to Harrisburg for just a few days, and then went back to New Haven. I was one of three freshmen invited to join the Yale Glee Club on a six-week tour around Latin America.

I never had been very good at writing Mother and Dad on a regular basis– both at Mercersburg and Yale. But when I got the invitation from Fenno Heath, I wrote a very detailed, engaging letter. Even the penmanship was decent. I probably had written two rough drafts. Although, I did not directly say that I would like to go, it was very clear from my careful letter. I think my expenses were about $600. But that was a lot of money then.

Back in New Haven, we rehearsed for the upcoming tour, gave a concert, and sang at the baccalaureate service in Woolsey Hall – for George W. Bush!

Robert Kennedy had been facing a critical primary in California. He had to win to stay in the running. I supported him and had done some volunteer work in his New Haven campaign office. The morning after the primary, I had breakfast at the Yankee Doodle on Elm Street. Somebody mentioned that RFK had been shot – I thought she meant that he had been shot down – had lost the winner-take-all primary. But soon I learned that he had joined his brother, John, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yet again!!! The King assassination had been one of the major political events of my freshman year, along with the Tet offensive, McCarthy’s unexpectedly strong showing in New Hampshire, and LBJ’s sudden announcement not to seek another term. Oh how we rejoiced, and thought the war would soon be over. Little did we know that almost half the names on the Vietnam War Memorial— designed by Yalie Maya Lin—would be added after the election of Richard Nixon, who had yet to announce his secret plan to end the war.

FROST/NIXON

After retelling my sad saga of New Year's Eve 1971/72, I stayed in the mood of the 70's by going to see the new Ron Howard film Frost/Nixon. It had been highly recommended by my friend Debbie Cornue. But when I suggested it to Adam K, he wasn't particularly interested. I guess it helps if you actually had lived through the period.

When I went to the first showing New Year's Day at the AMC on Van Ness, it clearly looked as though almost everyone there had experienced the events first hand. I was actually one of the younger members of the audience!

Ron Howard has really grown as a director. The play had been quite a success, but that didn't necessarily mean it would transfer successfully to the big screen. Howard pulled it off. Of course, the acting was superb. Below is a review from the Pasadena Star-News by Vernor Rodgers, published today 1/1/09.

Langella puts on masterful show in `Frost/Nixon'

Having Frank Langella reprise his Tony Award-winning role as Richard Nixon is a big plus in Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon," a fascinating look at the 1977 David Frost interview with President Nixon three years after he resigned the presidency.

It also is a plus that Peter Morgan adapted the screenplay from his stage play of the same name. Under the guidance of Howard, the film can fortify the original play by breaking out from the restrictions of a stage performance. For example, the stage version cannot capture the intimidating grand arrival of Nixon for the interviews, rumbling up to the location in a police-escorted motorcade.

Although he looks nothing like Nixon, Langella has nailed the late president's forceful voice and portrays Nixon as a sometimes bitter and unapologetic man but one who also is crafty and despite a shameful exit from the presidency still determined to leave a more positive legacy.

Going up against him is Michael Sheen as David Frost, a television personality whose efforts to sit down and grill Nixon were greeted by skepticism, especially by a media that believed a more legitimate journalist should take a crack at the former president.

Of course, the underlying issue is Watergate and the subsequent cover-up that crumbled the Nixon Administration. Could Frost get Nixon to own up to not only knowing about the cover-up but actually orchestrating some aspects of it?

Frost is savvy enough to accept that he might be considered an overmatched lightweight going up against Nixon, and recruits a couple of proven journalists - Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt) and James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell) - to dig up whatever information can find to hammer Nixon with potentially incriminating queries.

Nixon, meanwhile, has his own corps of advisers, led by Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon), to keep him focused on remaining presidential.

It is a sad commentary that the interview is seen by Frost and Nixon and the people in each camp as a competition - a boxing or chess match - when it is supposed to be a chance to extract truthful information.

The stakes are high for both men. Frost, unable to get financial backing from the U.S. television networks, puts up a lot of his own money and more borrowed from friends to bankroll the interview without any guarantee it will be on air. For Nixon, it is a chance to redeem himself while also carrying the potential of breaking him down or making look even more vile in the eyes of the American people.

"Frost/Nixon" portrays the two men as cordial adversaries. Nixon assumes a "bring it on" confident stance - after all, despite his mortifying fall from the presidency, he is an old pro politician, able to talk his way around any tough questions. Frost seems almost too complacent - even distracted by other elements of his work - and as a result loses control of the early portions of the interview. Fortunately for him, he is able to turn things around, leading up to the final moments of the interview that initially were seen as a victory for Frost.

In the end, neither man could claim he achieved everything he wanted from the interview. Although Nixon finally admitted to making mistakes and letting down the American people, there never was a true "conviction" of his alleged crimes, nor was he willing to apologize. As for Nixon, the interview did little to improve his image. Rockwell as Reston put it best: Even to this day, any malfeasance on the part of a politician gets labled with a "gate" after it.

Reston also noted that the end result really was not a victory for Frost and company, as the lasting image of the interchange would be that of a disconsolate Nixon admitting his political career was over - a scene that even the most passionate Nixon haters might find touching.

Those expecting "Frost/Nixon" to do a hatchet job on the late former president should be surprised at Langella's portrayal of Nixon. Yes, the man had issues, and he set aside any moral or ethical standards in his desperation to make a horrible blunder go away. Yet he is seen post-interview as a gracious man when Frost stops by to bid him farewell. Nixon even with a wry smile admits his demeanor may have been all wrong for a career in politics.

The final scene tells it all: Nixon at his massive San Clemente residence, staring out at a beautiful dusk over the Pacific Ocean, not really taking it in; a man beaten down by his own obsessions.

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Check out my postings on 10/02/08, October Surprise 1980 (1968) and 10/31/08, Halloween 1960. (At Discount Records, my first job in San Francisco, we had a countdown calendar leading up to impeachment and then the resignation.)

Photos:Imagine Entertainment

OCTOBER SURPRISE 1980 (1968)

I remember waiting for a bus with my friend Gary Evans Murakami at Van Ness by the Jack Tar Hotel, when word came down that President Carter had made an early concession on election night 1980. I was angry about that—first, that he had been defeated*—but second, that he had conceded before the polls had closed on the West Coast. I felt that his action would almost certainly impact some of the House and Senate seats.

I won’t include it here, but I wrote a five thousand word letter to professor Gary Sick in 1991 about the October Surprise in the 1980 presidential campaign. I know that it’s been discounted by the press, and it’s dropped off the radar screen of general interest; but I’m convinced that there was—and still is—a significant story.

The issue was not Vice Presidential candidate Bush’s going to Paris. That was a straw man—easily demolished—and effective in shutting down the investigative reporting.

What actually happened – and it has to be true, because it was stipulated by all the participants— was a meeting in Washington D.C. at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel, on October 2, 1980 with Richard Allen, Laurence Silberman and Robert McFarlane. Somebody claiming to represent the Iranian government offered to free the hostages to a President Reagan if the new government would sell arms to Iran to assist them in their war with Iraq. This meeting was never reported to the Secretary of State, though Silberman, as a former ambassador, knew that the law required him to do so. He later asserted the offer had not been credible.

Laurence Silberman is now a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. His was the deciding vote which overturned the conviction of Oliver North for his illegal activities in the Iran-Contra affair (which incidentally did not divert the largest amount of money to the Contras from the sale of arms to Iran, but instead set up secret Swiss bank accounts, whose purpose was to fund a permanent secret plumbers unit without Congressional oversight-- still an unaccounted-for fund).

The person who claimed to represent the government of Iran made offers that were eventually kept— and the hostages were released the actual minute Reagan was sworn in as President on January 20, 1981— 76 days after the election. Former Iranian President Beni Sadr claimed that the Reagan election campaign didn't want the hostages released until Reagan was sworn in, so that Carter would be denied any credit for their release. So were they held another 76 days just for spite? (During the last primary season, Rudy Guiliani citied the Iran hostages’ release on Inauguration Day as a prime example of Reagan’s influence and greatness.)

They were offered a deal— the terms of which were honored by both sides. Yet they claimed they had not accepted the deal. Is that credible? You decide.

It parallels what happened in 1968. And some of the same people were involved. The Paris Peace Conference was boycotted by President Thieu at the request of Madame Chenault, (wife of General Chenault of the "Flying Tigers") who stated on A&E's "Secret Biography of Richard Nixon" aired 2/19/91, that she did so at the behest of the Election Campaign for Richard Nixon. She persuaded President Thieu that he would receive better peace terms under a President Nixon than under a President Humphrey. Had it been reversed, would Republicans call this treason?

This episode was mentioned by Richard Allen on an NPR call-in show 4/17/91, though, he said it was an example of how "you cannot control people who work for campaigns and then go off the transom on their own initiative." That's how he also described the meeting on October 2, 1980. (I happened to call in and ask a question. Have you ever wondered why many people on call-in shows sound rather flustered and stupid when they ask their question? In my case I used my speed dial about 300 times before I got through and had my question screened. I was put on hold for about half an hour. Then without any warning, I was on the air. It sure would have helped if someone had given a five or ten second notice.)

Remember, almost half the names on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington were added after the election of Richard Nixon, who had his "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War. Did Madame Chenault's mission at the behest of Nixon's Campaign Committee actually block an earlier settlement of the war? We will never know. Former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's obituary in the NY Times cited this episode as one of the major frustrations and disappointments of his life.

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Tonight is the Vice-Presidential Debate between Senator Biden and Governor Palin. That should be fascinating! They had the first Presidential Debate last week after all. Although there wasn’t a knockout, I think Obama did pretty well.

*Carter has the reputation of being a much better ex-president than president. I contend he was a much better president than people give him credit, certainly in the area of developing alternate fuels. I think he was ahead of any of his successors. One of the first things Reagan did in office was to remove the solar panels from the White House. I’m sure that was because Nancy didn’t like the aesthetics; but think how much further along we’d be if Carter had been reelected in 1980. Carter is blamed for the terrible inflation in the late 1970’s. But he inherited that from Nixon and Ford, especially as a result of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Inflation was finally whipped (to use Ford’s term) and credit is generally given to Paul Volcker -- appointed by? You guessed it: President Jimmy Carter.