On The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of Robert F.Kennedy-The Class of 1964-The Generation of '68-Innocence Lost

The Class of 1964-The Generation of '68-Innocence Lost   


Commentary by late Peter Paul Markin 

Recently, as part of a search for a pair of missing brothers from the neighborhood of my youth detailed in this space in the commentary Markin Takes A Turn As Neighborhood Historian, I contacted various members of my high school class, the Class of 1964, whom I knew, or through investigation, found out were still in the area and might be able to help. In conversations with a couple of them I found out about the fate of a number of former friends. One of the people I interviewed as a result happened to be a class officer and requested that I write a little resume of what I had been doing the past forty some odd years for the class record.

I have spent a fair among of ink in this space pointing out that I am part of the generation of ’68. I say that with no regrets whatsoever. I am, however, also part of the Class of 1964 that formed a solid core of the ‘68'ers. That is a different proposition, especially coming from a very, very working class high school that at the time had no minorities-none. The closest we came to that (pardon the silly joke from my youth), this being a heavily Irish area, was to have let a few Italians come in. The span of four years from 1964 to 1968 was not just a time of change but a virtual sea change for me. Below is the short commentary (edited somewhat to omit some local and family references).


The Class of 1964

I am now a proud member of the class of 1964, a class that started in 1960 with the hopes of a fresh breeze with the Kennedy Administration and its short-lived Camelot. Now in 2008 it looks like a new breeze like that of our youth might be blowing once again. For the kids’s sake I hope so. I would also note that I, along with many of you, are also part of the generation of ’68, a generation that raised some hell with the way things were done in this country. We lost that fight but some values remain from those times. All of this is by way of a preface to what I have been doing since high school.

Needless to say I got caught up in the politics of the time, civil rights, the fight against the Vietnam War, Bobby Kennedy’s ill-fated campaign, SDS-type organizations, the anti-war fight for the soul of the American Army and later other left-wing political causes. Ah, those were the days. I also did my share of time as a counter- cultural devotee, a ‘hippie’ living in various communal situations. You know the anthem-drugs, sex, rock and roll. Ah, those also were the days, as well. Then, in some ways unfortunately, I had to grow up. I have for the past thirty years been working as an educator. Along the way I had a mid-life crisis (you KNOW what that was) and went to back to school and got yet another degree. (Here I included some information about my family, etc.) …. Reading this little resume over I think I like the first part with the politics and the alternate lifestyle the best. I will say once again, ah, those were the days.

The Tattered, Battered Generation of '68

Commentary

In searching for a couple of old neighbors, whose stories I have related in this space, from the old working class neighborhood where I grew up I, unintentionally, found some other people from my high school class who helped me in my search. In what I, innocently, thought was a simple effort to help out one particular classmate, a former class officer, I agreed to answer some questions for a project that my class, the Class of 1964, was doing in preparation for next year’s 45th (ouch!) class reunion. Apparently, this is to be an endless series of questions that is starting to make my run of the mill entries in this space seem like child’s play by comparison. I am placing here, as I have done in the past, the answer to the question below, as it may be of interest to those who, long of tooth now, come from that time. I cannot complaint too much on this particular question, however, since I motivated it by a comment that I made to a previous question on the class survey.

Today’s Question: Do you consider yourself a member of the Generation of ‘68?

"In that time, twas bliss to be alive, to be young was very heaven"- a line from a poem by William Wordsworth in praise of the early stages of the French Revolution.


I mentioned in the Tell My Story section of my profile that while we were all members of the Class of 1964 some of us were also members of the Generation of ’68. I guess to those of us who considered themselves part of that experience no further explanation is necessary. However, if you are in doubt then let me give my take on what such membership would entail.

This question is actually prompted by an observation made by my old friend, and our classmate, the legendary track and cross-country runner Bill C. Part of my motivation for joining in this work was to find him. I have done so and we have started to keep in touch again. At one of the bull sessions that we have had I asked him whether he had gone to any class reunions. I had not done so and therefore I was interested in his take on the subject. Bill said that the only one that he had gone to was the 5th reunion in 1969. Of course that is the high water mark for the Generation of ’68. A key observation that he related, as least for my purpose here, is that when he went to that reunion and people came up to him to introduce themselves he had trouble identifying people, especially the guys, because of all the beards and long hair that were supreme tribal symbols at the time. So that is one, perhaps superficial, criterion for membership.

Frankly, dear classmates, among the reasons that I turned my back on the old hometown right after high school was that it seemed like a ‘square’ (remember that tribal term from our youth meaning not hip) working class town that did not fit in with my evolving political and cultural, or rather counter-cultural, interests. Thus, Bill’s comments rather startled me. My assumption would have been that the ‘squares’ would have gotten a job after high school (or gone to college and then gotten a job), gotten married, had kids, bought a house and followed that trail, wherever it led. This new knowledge may tell me something different.

Is it possible that there were many other kindred spirits from our class who broke from that pattern, as least for a while? Who not only grew their hair long (male or female) or grew beards (male) but maybe dressed in the symbolic Army/ Navy store fashions of the day (male or female) or burned their bras (female)? Or did some dope (Yes, I know we are all taking the Bill Clinton defense on this one. Now) and made all the rock concerts? Or hitchhiked across the country? Or opposed the damn Vietnam War and got tear gassed for their efforts, supported the black liberation struggle and got tear gassed for their efforts, supported an end to the draft, ROTC on campus, etc. and got......well, you know the rest of the line? Or lived in a commune or any number of other things of like kind that were the signposts of the generation of ’68? In short, tried to 'storm heaven'. We lost that fight but the storm clouds are gathering again in 2008. Your stories, please (and that includes those ‘squares’ who do not now seem quite that way anymore).

*The Defeat Of The French At Dien Bien Phu- "Valley Of Death"- A Guest Book Review

Click on the headline to link to a "The Boston Sunday Globe",dated March 14, 2010, book review of "Valley Of Death: The Tragedy At Dien Bein Phu That Led America Into The Vietnam War".

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the defeat of American imperialism in Vietnam with the NLF/NVA takeover in Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon). All honor to the Vietnamese national liberation fighters.

Markin comment:

Obviously the sub-title tells the viewpoint here. That struggle, now seemingly long ago in 1975, however was a victory for our side. As was Dien Bien Phu in 1954. We need more, and we will get them in due course.

*Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-“The People’s Will Is Greater Than The Man’s Technology”-"Avatar”

Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of the movie trailer for "Avatar".

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

Film Review

Avatar, written and directed by James Cameron (director of “Titanic”), 2009

What is not to like here, for an old political leftie, right? A summary of the plot tells the tale, and incidentally explains part of the headline above. Greedy, apparently, American imperialists (they speak English and are loaded up to the gills with the latest technology so it has to be Americans, right?) having wreaked havoc and exhausted the Earth’s resources are now, as the film starts, in the process of doing the same to other faraway planets. For what purpose? To get that next important natural resource to monopolize and sell on the international, make that interplanetary, market. The target resource at this time is on Pandora (in honor of her nasty box, I presume) right in the heart of the “rain forest” and, more importantly, right at the spiritual center of the “primitive communist” campsite of the indigenous hunter-gatherer inhabitants of that planet. The imperialists are willing, to a point, to negotiate with these inhabitants but come hell or high water they are going to get the “gold”, so the bulldozers are on the march. Oh, yes, and in case of necessity they have their own private Blackwater-style mercenary operation to “enforce the peace”, the peace of the graveyard.

Enter our transformative (literally) avatar hero, a combat-hardened, war-injury paralyzed, ex-Marine used initially to get information about the “enemy” in case they get uppity about the impeding destruction of their sacred grounds. He is slated to, through the genius of modern technology, become one of the “natives”. The long and short of this process is that while our avatar learns the “native” culture from a “girl inhabitant”, in a salute to the best trans-planetary multiculturalism and a tip of the hat to earthly political correctness, he turns traitor once he knows what the old ways mean to this native, and gets wind of the ultimately evil intentions of the imperialists.

Well, as is to be expected in an action movie-all hell breaks loose as the imperialist demonstrate their mastery, led by a battle-tested Marine officer, with an overkill display of “shock and awe” on one of the important religious sites. This is now getting to sound very familiar, right? But here is where the “people’s will is greater than the man’s technology” comes in. Taking a page from the Vietnam War period (and from the time when that slogan had currency, reflecting Western admiration for the Vietnamese, their courage and creativity in the face of massive American firepower) the now renegade ex-Marine and what is left of the indigenous peoples decide to “fight back”, guerilla-style, using their primitive forms of weaponry and knowledge of the terrain. Naturally, the underdog wins. Although as with the case of the Vietnamese the struggle could have been much easier had they had massive amounts of modern weaponry to “fight back” with. There is no inherent virtue in fighting heavily-armored enemies with sticks and stones. But here is the best part, for an old political leftie, at least. After the final battle the imperialists, in a scene reminiscent of the last days of the American Embassy in Vietnam, are marched, guarded by the now well- armed indigenous inhabitants, through the airport to a waiting plane to be shipped back to earth. And all of this in 3-D. Wow!

But can all of that political stuff. This movie is really just an old- fashioned “boy meets girl” story that Hollywood has been cranking out since the dawn of film. It just so happens that the indigenous person who “finds” the avatar is a girl, a rather sprightly girl at that, with a mind of her own and a certain surface contempt for earthling ways, or maybe ex-Marines. Moreover, she is assigned to teach our avatar the native ways, up close and personal. And the long and short of this story is that they fall in love, a seemingly chaste love that will conquer all Pandora’s enemies. And it does. I once read in a survey of Western literature that there were about ten basic story lines that had evolved throughout the whole existence of that literature. If there is any truth to that cut it in half to get the number of basic story lines from the film industry. “Boy meets girl” is still a top drawer though. Hey, and they won too!

*The 40th Anniversary Of The "Days Of Rage"-October 1969- The Days Of Political Futility

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for the "Days Of Rage".

Markin comment:

I was originally going to make some extended remarks about this 'event' but after thinking about it, given how far we are removed in political time, space and consciousness from even that futile gesture against that version of the American imperial war machine I decided there were other topics that are more pressing and worthy of commentary. Like today where have all the anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist protesters gone? Liberal, radical or revolutionary. We are at square one (or maybe one and one-half) and best realize that.

A couple of little, little comments to finish up. The rationale for this entry can be summed up this way- Today I am 'wishing' that the energy of those "days of rage", if not the political confusion behind the events, was stirring the political air. And the disastrous outcome of this event, for a lot of people I knew back in those days and who were sympathetic to its aims, got us thinking not only about the futility of isolated, virtually leaderless actions, but to seriously "hit the books" and go back to look seriously at the work of Karl Marx and fighting for a perspective of a mass movement based on the leadership role of the working class as the way to bring social change. That, my friends, is still a good lesson to remember on these cool, lonely nights.

As The Burns-Novick Vietnam War Documentary Airs- No Black-Bordered Obituary For Defense Secretary Robert McNamara

As The Burns-Novick Vietnam War Documentary Airs- No Black-Bordered Obituary For Defense Secretary Robert McNamara 

A Link To "New York Times" July 6, 2009 Obituary For Robert McNamara. The Point Of This Link Is To Teach The Next Generation To Know The "Rational" Kind Of Monster We Have To Boot Out In Order To Get The Just World WE Desperately Need.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all


Commentary (July 6, 2009)

The recent death, at 93, of Kennedy/Johnson Vietnam War-era War Secretary Robert McNamara has been met with a number of tributes in the bourgeois media about his role as architect of various Cold War military policies in defense of the American Imperial state. That is to be expected for those sources. There is, apparently, an unwritten rule that one does not speak ill of the dead in those circles. Including legitimate war criminals. And in the normal course of events that might be an appropriate response. But one Robert Strange McNamara is of a different stripe.

After a life time of public service to the bourgeois state Mr. McNamara, seemingly, late in life started to worry about his eternal soul and the harm that he had done to it by trying, as an example, to wipe the country of Vietnam, North and South at the time, off the face of the earth with his incessant strategic bombing policy. After exhibiting some qualms late in the Johnson presidency (and around the time of TET 1968) he was booted upstairs to become President of the American-dominated World Bank. Nice soft landing for a war criminal, right?

And who called him a war criminal? Well, of course, this writer did (and does). And so did many of the anti-war activists of the 1960’s. Those calls are to be expected (and might be considered to constitute a minimum response to his egregious policies). But, surprise, surprise late in life, after serious reflection, McNamara implied, haltingly to be sure, in his memoirs (a review of which is re-posted below) that that might have been the case. However, unlike some of his compadres at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunals and other such venues, Mr. McNamara died quietly in his bed.

Not so fortunate were the millions of Vietnamese peasants and workers who bore the onslaught of the maximum fire-power the American military could lay down. No, there will be no final justice in this sorry old world until a future American Workers Republic pays real justice (and serious cash) to the people of Vietnam. As for Robert Strange McNamara, if the worst that happened to him was a “bad conscience” he got off easy.

******

Reposted below is a review of Robert Strange McNamara’s memoirs and of a documentary “Fog Of War” used by him in order to help “the second draft” of history of his legacy.

Reposted From April 30, 2009 Entry

The Fog Of War, Part II- War Secretary Robert McNamara’s View Of His Handiwork in Vietnam

Book Review

In Retrospect: The Tragedy And Lessons Of Vietnam, Robert Strange McNamara with Brain VanDeMark, Random House, 1995

Anyone who had caught the Friday March 27, 2009 headlines is aware that the Democratic Party-run Obama government has called for some 4,000 additional troops for Afghanistan and what they, euphemistically, call civilian support teams in order to bolster the sagging regime of “Mayor of Kabul” Karzai. Those numbers are in addition to the 17,000 extras already committed by the Obama regime in February. Does the word escalation seem appropriate here?

One of the problems of having gone through the Vietnam experience in my youth (including periods of lukewarm support for American policy under John F. Kennedy, a hands-off attitude in the early Lyndon B. Johnson years and then full-bore opposition under the late Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford regimes) is a tendency to view today’s American imperial policy in the same by-the-numbers approach as I took as a result of observing the Vietnam War as it unfolded. There are differences, some of them hugely so, between Vietnam and Afghanistan. Just as, I have previously noted in this space, there are differences between Vietnam and the recently “completed” Iraq War. (Hey, I’m just going by what the media tells me is going on. They wouldn’t lead us astray, would they?)

But, I keep getting this eerie feeling in the back of my neck every time I hear, or see, anything concerning Afghanistan coming out of this new Obama administration. They appear clueless, yet are determined to forge ahead with this policy that can only lead to the same kind of quagmire than Vietnam and Iraq turned into. That is where the analogies to Vietnam do connect up. In this regard, I have recently been re-reading Kennedy/Johnson War Secretary Robert Strange (that’s his middle name, folk, I didn’t make it up and didn’t need to) McNamara’s memoirs, written in 1995, of his central role in the development of Vietnam policy, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam”.

Obviously McNamara has put his own ‘spin’ on his personal role then in order to absolve himself (a little) before history. That is to be expected. What comes through crystal clear, however, because in the final analysis McNamara still doesn’t get it, is that when you’re the number one imperial power all the decisions you make are suppose to fall into place for your benefit because you represent the “good guys”. Regardless of what you do, or do not, know about the internal workings of the situation at hand. The Kennedy/Johnson administrations were almost totally ignorant of the internal working of Vietnamese society. That is why I have that eerie, very eerie, feeling about this Obama war policy.

In the normal course of events former high level bureaucrats in American presidential administrations usually save their attempts at self-justification for high ticket published memoirs or congenial `softball' speaking tours and conferences. In short, they prefer to preach to the choir at retail prices. Apparently, Cold Warrior extraordinaire Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara felt that such efforts were very necessary in his case and hence he had to go to the prints in order to whitewash his role in the history of his times. Despite an apparent agreement with his “ghost writer” not to cover certain subjects and be allowed to present his story his way it is always good to catch a view of how the other side operates. It ain't pretty.

After a lifetime of relative public silence, at the age of 8o something, McNamara decided to give his take on events in which he was a central figure like dealing with the fact of American imperial military superiority in the post- World War II period, dealing with the Russians and the fight for American nuclear superiority during the Cold War, the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the later Cuban Missile crisis and above all his role in the escalation of the wars in Southeast Asia, primarily Vietnam.

Very little here focuses on his time at the World Bank, a not unimportant omission that would highlight my point that he might have changed his clothing in the course of his career but not his mindset. While those of us interested in learning the lessons of history have long understood that to know the political enemy is the beginning of wisdom one will not find much here that was not infinitely better covered by the late journalist David Halberstam in his classic “The Best and The Brightest”.

McNamara has chosen to present his story in the form of parables, or rather, little vignettes about the “lessons” to be drawn from experiences (eleven in all by the way). Thus, we are asked to sit, embarrassingly, through McNamara's freshman course in revisionist history as he attempts to take himself from the cold-hearted Cold Warrior and legitimate “war criminal” to the teddy-bearish old man who has learned something in his life- after a lifetime of treachery. Yet, like that freshman course there are things to be learned despite the professor and more to learn, if only by reading between the lines, than he or she wanted to express.

McNamara presents his take by dividing the Vietnam War buildup, at least at the executive level, into periods; the early almost passive Kennedy days; the post Kennedy assassination period when Lyndon Johnson was trying to be all things to all men; the decisive post-1964 election period; and, various periods of fruitless and clueless escalation. It is this process that is, almost unwittingly, the most important to take from this world. Although McNamara, at the time of writing was an older and wiser man, when he had power he went along with ever step of the “hawks”, civilian and military. He led no internal opposition, and certainly not public one. This is the classic “good old boys” network where one falls on one’s sword when the policy turns wrong. And he is still scratching his head over why masses of anti-war protesters chanted “war criminal” when they confronted him with his deeds. And then listen to the latest screeds by current War Secretary Gates concerning Afghanistan. It will sound very familiar.

In the end, if one took his story at face value, one could only conclude that he was just trying to serve his bosses the best way he could and if things went wrong it was their fault. Nothing new there, though. Henry Kissinger has turned that little devise into an art form. Teary-eyed at the end McNamara might be as he acknowledges his role in the mass killings of his time, but beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yet, you need to read this book if you want to understand how these guys (and gals) defended their state then, and now.

DVD REVIEW

The Fog of War, starring former Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara, 2003

In the normal course of events former high level bureaucrats in American presidential administrations usually save their attempts at self-justification for high ticket published memoirs or congenial `softball' speaking tours and conferences. In short, they prefer to preach to the choir at retail prices. Apparently, former Kennedy and Johnson Administration Cold Warrior extraordinaire Secretary of War Robert Strange McNamara felt that such efforts were not enough and hence he had to go before the cameras in order to whitewash his role in the history of his times. Despite an apparent agreement with his interviewer not to cover certain subjects and be allowed to present his story his way it is always good to catch a view of how the other side operates. It ain't pretty.

After a lifetime of relative public silence, at the age of 85, McNamara decided to give his take on events in which he was a central figure like dealing with the fact of American imperial military superiority in the post- World War II period, dealing with the Russians and the fight for American nuclear superiority during the Cold War, the ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the later Cuban Missile crisis and above all his role in the escalation of the wars in Southeast Asia, primarily Vietnam.

Very little here focuses on his time at the World Bank, a not unimportant omission that would highlight my point that he might have changed his clothing in the course of his career but not his mindset. While those of us interested in learning the lessons of history have long understood that to know the political enemy is the beginning of wisdom one will not find much here that was not infinitely better covered by the late journalist David Halberstam in his classic The Best and The Brightest.

McNamara has chosen to present his story in the form of parables, or rather, little vignettes about the `lessons' to be drawn from experiences. Thus, we are asked to sit, embarrassingly, through McNamara's Freshman course in revisionist history as he attempts to take himself from the cold-hearted Cold Warrior and legitimate `war criminal' to the teddy-bearish old man who has learned something in his life- after a lifetime of treachery.

In the end, if one took his story at face value, one could only conclude that he was just trying to serve his bosses the best way he could and if things went wrong it was their fault. Nothing new there, though. Henry Kissinger has turned that little devise into an art form. Teary-eyed at the end McNamara might be as he acknowledges his role in the mass killings of his time, but beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yet, you need to watch this film if you want to understand how these guys (and gals) defend their state.

Another Time To Try Men's Souls- The Detroit Winter Soldier Investigations-1971

As The Burns-Novick Vietnam War Documentary Airs- Another Time To Try Men's Souls- The Detroit Winter Soldier Investigations-1971

DVD Review

Winter Soldier, various soldier witnesses, Winterfest Productions, 1972

I am rather fond of invoking, especially in writing of the American Revolution that we have just again celebrated, Tom Paine’s little propaganda piece in defense of that revolution which hails the winter soldiers of 1776 for staying at their posts when others either ran away or became faint-hearted at the prospects of defeating the bloody English. It is those efforts by those long ago winter soldiers that other leftists and I have honored in the past and continue to honor today. We will leave the hollow holiday rhetoric and mindless flag waving to the sunshine patriots. Needless to say, given the title of the film under review, I am not the only one who appreciates that description and the producers here, I believe, have caught the essence of the spirit of those long ago winter soldiers in this documentary about the rank and file soldier-driven investigation in 1971 into the atrocities and horrors produced by the American military in the Vietnam War.

It is an old hoary truism, if not now something of a cliché, that war does not bring out humankind’s nobler instincts. For a very recent example one need look no further back than at the newspaper headlines of the past few years concerning various atrocities and acts of torture committed by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, Iraq and Afghanistan are hardly the first time that the American military has been exposed acting in less than its self-proclaimed ‘agent of liberation’ role in its various imperial adventures. If one rolls the film of history back to the last generation, for those who have forgotten or were not around, Vietnam presents that same story. As against prior wars two things made awareness that something had gone horribly wrong possible in Vietnam. First, Vietnam was the first televised war and at some point it became impossible for the military to hide everything that it was doing. Secondly, a small critical mass of American military personnel, mainly those rank and file personnel who actually carried out military policy, wanted to clear the air of their complicity in that policy.

Needless to say, an investigation into atrocities and torture is not something that the American military establishment wished to have aired in public (and as the fate of this film indicates raised hell to successfully keep it out of the major media markets of the time). That establishment was much more comfortable with internal governmental investigations or whitewashes of their actions as occurred, ultimately, in the case of My Lai. However the traumatic reaction of a significant element of the rank and file soldiery in Vietnam caused this 'unofficial' investigation to take place. For those who grew up, like this reviewer, believing something of Lincoln’s expression that the American democratic experience was the ‘last, best hope for mankind’ this was not pretty viewing. For one, also like the reviewer, who was a soldier during the Vietnam War period and who had friends and ‘buddies’ just like those that populate this documentary AND DID SOME OF THE SAME THINGS it was doubly hard. But, dear reader, for the most part what the citizen-soldiers- our brothers, sons and other relatives- have to say here needed to be said.

Naturally in a documentary that films an investigation into atrocities, torture and military standard operating procedure (SOP) during the Vietnam War the interviewees are going to be a little more articulate, a little more remorseful and a lot more angry than the average soldier who went through Vietnam came home and tried to forget the experience. These soldiers had an agenda- and that agenda was to get their buddies- the troops still in Vietnam- home. Nevertheless one must be impressed by the way they expressed themselves –sometimes haltingly, sometimes inarticulately, sometimes from some depth that we have no understanding of. Moreover, their testimony has the ring of truth. Not the SOP military truth but this truth- humankind has a long way to go before it can, without embarrassment, use the word civilized to describe itself. No, my friends, these were not our soldiers but, they were our people-these were the winter soldiers of the Vietnam War.

On the 40th Anniversary Year of the Vietnamese Tet Offensive And The 33rd Anniversary Day Of The Fall Of Ho Chi Minh City (Then Saigon)-TET- A Book Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Tet Offensive of 1968.


Book Review

This Year Marks the 45th Anniversary of the Tet Offensive of 1968 and also this month marks the 38th Anniversary of the fall of Saigon in 1975. Two victories for our side.

TET!, Don Ordorfer, Putnam, New York, 1971

A new edition of this book was published in 2001 with, I believe, a new introduction by the author. I am using the old edition for my own political purposes. I will read the new introduction at some point and add comment at that time.

Recently I was listening to Talk of the Nation on National Public Radio and the subject concerned formation of political consciousness. One of the callers identified himself as an ardent 1960’s anti-Vietnam War protester and self-styled ‘hippie’ who in 1984 ‘got religion’ and saw the error of his ways. The formative point of this new found wisdom was a documentary on the Public Broadcast System (PBS) that indicated to him that the Tet Offensive of 1968 has not been a military victory for the North Vietnamese/South Vietnamese Liberation Front forces (hereafter NVA/NLF). Somehow along the way he had assumed, based, he said, on information from Walter Cronkite that it was a military victory. Well, this writer then as now, as we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of that event, can confirm for that caller that, indeed, Tet was not a NVA/NLF military victory. Here is the point, however, military victory or not, it was certainly a political victory for those NVA/NLF forces. In modern conditions, sometimes, political victories are more important that military ones. The book under review, whatever else it shortcomings might be, confirms this view.

Is this book the best one on the history of the Tet offensive? Probably not. However it has the virtue of having been written a short time after this major political event. Thus, although it is not the "first draft of history" it is close enough for our purposes. The drawback here is that it was written while the war was still going on so that the relationship between Tet 1968, Tet 1972 and then the final military victory in 1975 does not give the event its full impact in the overall scheme of NVA/NLF strategy and American/South Vietnamese counter-strategy.

The author hits all the high points of this decisive several month period from about the summer of 1967 when the NVA/NLF decided to make a major push against the South to Tet itself and its immediate aftermath. The author starts off his book with a description of the famous NLF raid on the American embassy, goes on to the discuss the strategic aims of the North Vietnamese and the American response to it, the personal saga of one Lyndon Baines Johnson, and the in-fighting in the old Cold war national security establishment about the proper American response and then the results and aftermath of the offensive.

Reading history with a purpose, in short, to learn some lessons is sometimes a chancy thing. Here that purpose can be encapsulated in the following few words- to draw the lessons of history of the Vietnam War in order to apply them to the opposition struggle against the Iraq war. Yes, the differences between Vietnam and Iraq, in the final analysis are probably greater than the similarities however the American hubris that led Lyndon Johnson to escalation in Vietnam and George W. Bush to occupation in Iraq is still in operation. In the end the author draws the conclusion that history will eventually draw on Tet 1968, and that today's American leaders seem to be willfully ignoring- in modern military warfare the political question is the question. From the NVA/NLF side that entailed heavy and dramatic losses but I would argue that their decision to probe American military and political resolve was essentially correct. Read on.

*The Streets Were Not for Dreaming, Part II- The Struggle Against The Nixon Juggernaut

Click on the headline to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for the Chicago democratic Convention in 1968.

BOOK REVIEW

Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man, Garry Wills, New American Library, New York, 1969

The English poet and Cromwellian revolutionary John Milton had his Samson struggling against forces that he did not understand and that in the end he was unable to overcome. Professor Wills in his seminal contemporaneous study of the career through his successful run in 1968, up close and personal, of one Richard Milhous Nixon, former President of the United, common criminal and currently resident of one of Dante’s Circles of Hell tries to place the same spin on the vices and virtues of this modern “Everyman”.

Wills takes us through Nixon’s hard scrabble childhood, the formative Quaker background in sunny California, the post World War II start of Nixon’s rapidly advancing hard anti-communist political career, his defeats for president in 1960 by John Kennedy and for California governor in 1962 by Pat Brown and his resurrection in 1968 against Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey. And through his discourse, as is his habit, Professor Wills seemingly writes about every possible interpretation of his rise to power and what Nixon symbolized on the American political landscape. If one has a criticism of Wills it is exactly this sociological overkill to make a point but make your own judgment on this one as you read through this tract.

However, as well written and well researched as this exposition is it will just not wash. Nixon knew what the score was at all times and in all places so that unlike old Samson there was no question of his not understanding. As Wills points out Nixon had an exceptional grasp of the ‘dark side’ of the American spirit in the middle third of the 20th century and he pumped that knowledge for all it was worth. Moreover, rather than cry over his self-imposed fate one should understand that Nixon liked it that way. There is no victim here of overwhelming and arbitrary circumstances clouding his fate.

It is perhaps hard for those who were not around then, or older folks who have forgotten, just what Nixon meant as a villainous political target to those of us of the Generation of 68 for all that was wrong with American political life (although one Lyndon Johnson gave him a run for his money as demon-in-chief). Robert Kennedy had it very eloquently right, as he did on many occasions, when he said that Richard Nixon represented the ‘dark side of the American spirit’. For those who believe that all political evil started with the current President George W. Bush, think again. Nixon was the ‘godfather’ of the current ilk. Some have argued that in retrospect compared to today’s ravenous beasts that Nixon’s reign was benign. Believe that at your peril. Just to be on the safe side let’s put another stake through his heart. And read this book to get an idea of what a representative of a previous generation of political evil looked like.

Although the Nixon saga is the central story that drives this book Professor Wills, as is his wont, has a lot more to say about the nature of those times. He takes some interesting side trips into earlier days in California where Nixon grew up. He draws a direct line on the various other personalities like Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney (Mitt’s father) and a younger Ronald Reagan who fought Nixon for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968. He gives an interesting overview of the state of liberal and radical thought during 1968 and how the tensions between them were fought out at the Democratic Convention and in the streets of Chicago.

Wills also tries to draw out the meaning of the virulent George Wallace independent third party campaign and how that kept everyone on their toes on the question of law and order the code word then, and today, for race. In short, Professor Wills has enclosed the Nixon story in a hug sociological and political survey of the times. Some of his observations had momentary importance; some have a more lasting value. Others seem rather beside the point. Collectively, however, they give a helpful history of the key year 1968 in America. The proof is in the pudding. The ‘culture wars’ on the nature of personal rights, political expression and lifestyle choices that we have been fighting for the past forty years have their genesis in this time. Give this book a good, hard look if you want to know what that was all about by someone who covered many of the events closely.

An Uncounted Causality Of War- The Never-Ending Vietnam War Story On The Anniversary Of The Fall Of Ho Chi Minh City 1975 (Then Saigon)

As The Burns-Novick Vietnam War Documentary AirsAn Uncounted Causality Of War- The Never-Ending Vietnam War Story



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THERE IS NO WALL IN WASHINGTON-BUT, MAYBE THERE SHOULD BE



This space is usually devoted to ‘high’ politics and the personal is usually limited to some experience of mine that has a direct political point. Sometimes, however, a story is so compelling and makes the point in such a poignant manner that no political palaver is necessary. Let me tell the tale.

Recently I returned, while on some unrelated business, to the neighborhood where I grew up. The neighborhood is one of those old working class neighborhoods where the houses are small, cramped and seedy, the leavings of those who have moved on to bigger and better things. The neighborhood nevertheless reflected the desire of the working poor in the 1950's, my parents and others, to own their own homes and not be shunted off to decrepit apartments or dilapidated housing projects, the fate of those just below them on the social ladder. While there I happened upon an old neighbor who recognized me despite the fact that I had not seen her for at least thirty years. Since she had grown up and lived there continuously, taking over the family house, I inquired about the fate of various people that I had grown up with. She, as is usually the case in such circumstances, had a wealth of information but one story in particular cut me to the quick. I asked about a boy named Kenny who was a couple of years younger than I was but who I was very close to until my teenage years. Kenny used to tag along with my crowd until, as teenagers will do, we made it clear that he was no longer welcome being ‘too young’ to hang around with us older boys. Sound familiar?

The long and the short of it is that he found other friends of his own age to hang with, one in particular, from down the street named Jimmy. I had only a nodding acquaintance with both thereafter. As happened more often than not during the 1960’s in working class neighborhoods all over the country, especially with kids who were not academically inclined, when Jimmy came of age he faced the draft or the alternative of ‘volunteering’ for military service. He enlisted. Kenny for a number of valid medical reasons was 4-F (unqualified for military service). Of course, you know what is coming. Jimmy was sent to Vietnam where he was killed in 1968 at the age of 20. His name is one of the 58,000 plus that are etched on that Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington. His story ends there. Unfortunately, Kenny’s just begins.

Kenny took Jimmy’s death hard. Harder than one can even imagine. The early details are rather sketchy but they may have involved drug use. The overt manifestations were acts of petty crime and then anti-social acts like pulling fire alarms and walking naked down the street. At some point he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. I make no pretense of having adequate knowledge about the causes of mental illnesses but someone I trust has told me that such a traumatic event as Jimmy’s death can trigger the condition in young adults. In any case, the institutionalizations inevitably began. And later the halfway houses and all the other forms of control for those who cannot survive on the mean streets of the world on their own. Apparently, with drugs and therapy, there were periods of calm but for over three decades poor Kenny struggled with his inner demons. In the end the demons won and he died a few years ago while in a mental hospital.

Certainly not a happy story. Perhaps, aside from the specific details, not even an unusual one in modern times. Nevertheless I now count Kenny as one of the uncounted casualties of war. Along with those physically wounded soldiers who can back from Vietnam service unable to cope with their own demons and sought solace in drugs and alcohol. And those who for other reasons could no adjust and found themselves on the streets, in the half way shelters or the V. A. hospitals. And also those grieving parents and other loved ones whose lives were shattered and broken by the lost of their children. There is no wall in Washington for them. But, maybe there should be. As for poor Kenny from the old neighborhood. Rest in Peace.