Wednesday, June 23, 2010
* A Giant's robe upon a dwarfish President
Maureen Dowd
"Seven Days in June"
New York Times Op-Ed
June 22, 2010
I'm all for insubordination at the highest level, not the lowest. It opens a window on the truth----and the truth is that the civilians running this war don't know what they are doing, and ---as in Viet Nam --- young Americans are getting killed because of it. Leave it to the symbol of a 1970's drug culture Rolling Stone Magazine to lure this modern day Oedipus, General McNuggets, into his own trap of hubris, from which he can orchestrate his own destruction. (Aren't we supposed to be weaning Afghanistan off an economy based on drugs? Rolling Stone is a 70's symbol of drugs and disobedience: Nice P.R. coup , Big Mac!)
Biden is a clown. Holbrook is an obsessive thinker (and e-mailer apparently). Obama is pusillanimous until pushed by circumstances to act.
General McNuggetts is a hero in my opinion for letting the public in on the inner workings both of the military mindlessness and the civilian mindlessness that perpetuates this war: THE TESTOSTERONE SURGE.
Men can't and won't admit a mistake----unless forced to or put in the position of gaining something greater from the admission as an act of humility than from stonewalling.
Would women be any better running a war?
Some say that people with wombs are less likely to put the fruit of that nine-month miracule-organ into harm's way than those without them and that therefore we should let women run wars.
Golda Meir ? Margaret Thatcher ? Cleopatra ? Joan of Arc ?
In the final moments of Macbeth (V, ii) , Angus says of the Butcher of Inverness,
"Now does he [Macbeth] feel his title / Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe / Upon a dwarfish thief."
This is the perfect description of the previous President who, with the aid of the Supreme Court, did become a de facto thief, stealing the Presidency from the electorate.
Obama may not be a thief, but the robe is looking bigger and their wearer smaller every day: from the Gulf of Mexico ------ to the Graveyard of Empires.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
* Kent State Author Responds
Mr. Gordon Clarifies
I am posting here the part of Mr. Bill Gordon's post which pertains to my entry Order to Fire Certified in Kent State Slayings 40 Years Later (Thursday, June 17, 20l0).
I used to be informed first-hand on these issues. Now I just go by what the Press and other researchers tell me.
Perhaps Mr. Gordon is correct. My point was, and is, that it was THE YALE KENT STATE COLLECTION which contained the tape which was unearthed. It matters little who unearthed it.
Had I known Mr. Gordon's email address, I would have courtesy copied him also, for he is certainly one of the most informed people alive on the Kent State issue.
Alas, I am out of touch with many from the past.
PK
Mr. GORDON'S POST (IN PART)
. . . For the record (in case anyone else reads this), Canfora did not "discover" anything. He made a copy of a tape in his attorney Dave Engdahl's files--a tape that had been previously commissioned by the Justice Department and introduced into evidence at both the criminal and civil trials. Canfora claimed he had the tape enhanced by his rock and roll buddies and heard an order to "get ready, point, set, and fire"--a claim that was actually disproven by the analysis of the audio experts commissioned by the Plain Dealer. That these experts unexpectedly concluded they heard something else--a "prepare to fire" order--was nothing more than a fluke that no one had anticipated. Contrary to Keane's headline, their findings do not "certify" anything. There still has not been an analysis of the original tape recording made by Terry Strubbe. The audio experts' test was conducted on a copy of a tape that the New York Times reported was a fifth generation copy. Moreover, no Guardsman has come forward to confirm this report, and there is the pesky fact that the audio experts' analysis is in complete contradiction to the analysis of the tape commissioned by the Justice Department, raising a host of other questions. John Mangels performed a great public service by have[having] the tape analyzed, and he came up with a real coup, but the fact remains that the next set of experts might come up with completely different conclusions. After all, the first set described the tape as muddy and very difficult to work with. At this point, we have more supporting evidence suggesting our suspicions might be right: that there was an order to fire. But the findings still have to be confirmed by experts working with the original tape. We do not know anything definitive yet. Six weeks after this headline, the state of Ohio and the U.S. Justice Department are not returning calls to say whether or not they will conduct any additional studies. The story is not over.
* Depression: The Silent Search for Self
By Vivian Yee
Staff Reporter
Published Monday, June 21, 2010
The Yale Daily News
Cell biology graduate student Sang-Ohk Shim GRD ’10, a Ph.D. candidate from South Korea, died Sunday in an apparent suicide, Graduate School Dean Jon Butler said in an e-mail to the Graduate School community Sunday evening.
Shim had been receiving psychiatric treatment for depression, but her death still came as a shock, friends said. She had told friends she had nearly finished her thesis, a research project on the role of a particular molecule in brain cell development and recovery, and she expected to receive her degree in September. She had gone out to dinner with other...
#1 By Y10 11:26p.m. on June 21, 2010
All my love to her friends and family. I can't imagine a more confusing sorrow.
And all my love to all of those who may be suffering in silence, as Shim was. There is hope for you--if you reach out, your loved ones will open their arms.
#2 By 이호빈 9:05a.m. on June 23, 2010
Such a travesty to both the Yale community and the Korean community here at Yale. May her family be strong and may she rest in peace.
#3 By newsonline 5:57a.m. on June 24, 2010
Such a loss to her friends, family and community. My condelences to you all
#4 By Helen Li 1:45p.m. on June 24, 2010
Absolutely shocking. Such a beautiful and outstanding young lady. My prayers and condolences for her family and friends.
#5 By by a news reader 3:16p.m. on June 24, 2010
I can't help my self to saying how sad i am for all her loved ones and those who new her. My condalences to you all at yale and the Korean community for such a lost.
#6 By Yalie 7:01p.m. on June 27, 2010
How sad. May she rest in peace. Remember to seek help, this is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
#7 By By a news reader 7:53a.m. on July 1, 2010
I just read this article,and i feel so sad for all of her family, loved ones, and to everyone at yale. It is such a shame that such a bright,beautifull, person would end her life, when it was only the beggining of her life.My prayers go out to everyone.
Depression
My sincere condolences to Ms. Shim's family.
“She was all about everyone else” said her deskmate.
____________________________________________________________
The following words are offered to those who think no one could ever feel as isolated as they feel:
The insidious thing about depression is the sense of emptiness and artificiality it creates in the depressed person. Religion—from Christianity to Buddhism - - - - preaches EXACTLY the wrong thing for such an illness: be SELFLESS, help OTHERS, get out of your SELF.
The trouble with depression is that the self either remains UNFORMED or, what there is of it, is DISINTEGRATING from the inside out.
In short, there is no SELF with which to be SELF-LESS; there is no THERE there. Attempting to give away what you don’t have in the first place simply digs the emptiness hole deeper.
Instead of self, there is the robotic performance of other people’s expectations, as if one were a puppet on a stage.
What a depressed person needs is permission and encouragement to be SELF-FULL, not SELF-LESS---permission to STOP being a people-pleaser and try to find out what one’s unique self is and what please IT, not what pleases OTHERS.
This is precisely the opposite of what the self-abnegation and self-mortification religions preach ( with much damage to the converted, I might add).
Freud’s “Where Id was, there shall Ego be” is ignored by these self-eradication religions, if not transformed into “Where Id was, there shall emptiness be”.
Weirdly, those religions think emptiness is cleanliness, and therefore suitable for entry of the numinous, the Divine.
For a depressed person, this emptiness is a recipe for suicide.
Having spent 17 years in academia as a student, I can say first-hand that in each of my college experiences (from age 20 to age 52) I reached a point in the process of obtaining a degree when I said “What am I doing this FOR? It’s all worthless and phony.”
This crisis point used to be called “sophomore slump” for undergraduates. I believe it is a distant and genderless cousin of post-partum depression:
Is that all there is?
What am I here for?
Why am I kowtowing to other people’s expectations?
What gives ME meaning?
These are the questions students should be exploring. Instead they are sometimes fed formulas of selflessness from religions, religions which have already decided the answers: Self is sin!
Mike Wallace, William Styron, Jane Pauley all embarked on such exploration after reaching a different kind of emptiness, the emptiness of success.
Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Wolfe, Sylvia Plath did not.
Depression is the silent, lonely search for self. Its negativity drives others away adding to the already crushing certainty that things will never get better. Often it is accompanied by 'racing-brain disease' and sudden panic which feels like adhesive bandages being ripped off the inside of one's chest.
Professionals can assist in lifting the burden with therapy and medication (whose side effects in rare instances provokes suicide), but the search must be by its nature a solitary one.
For the perfectionist, the intellectual, the artist, often a pet, a hobby, or a common duty (mowing the lawn) is salvation from incessant cerebration. Structure and a schedule are similarly salvific.
Depression needs to be respected as a courageous exploration, not hidden in a closet of smiles and service.
It also needs to be monitored.
Paul Keane
M.Div. ‘80
Sunday, June 20, 2010
* Unsinkable
Eva Hart
After 80 years as survivor of the Titanic
Saturday, June 19, 2010
* " Rushaholism ": Fast Food Reading
NH professor pushes for return to slow reading
By HOLLY RAMER (AP) – 2 days ago
CONCORD, N.H. — Slow readers of the world, uuuuuuuu...niiiiite!
At a time when people spend much of their time skimming websites, text messages and e-mails, an English professor at the University of New Hampshire is making the case for slowing down as a way to gain more meaning and pleasure out of the written word.
Thomas Newkirk isn't the first or most prominent proponent of the so-called "slow reading" movement, but he argues it's becoming all the more important in a culture and educational system that often treats reading as fast food to be gobbled up as quickly as possible.
"You see schools where reading is turned into a race, you see kids on the stopwatch to see how many words they can read in a minute," he said. "That tells students a story about what reading is. It tells students to be fast is to be good."
Newkirk is encouraging schools from elementary through college to return to old strategies such as reading aloud and memorization as a way to help students truly "taste" the words. He uses those techniques in his own classroom, where students have told him that they've become so accustomed from flitting from page to page online that they have trouble concentrating while reading printed books.
"One student told me even when he was reading a regular book, he'd come to a word and it would almost act like a hyper link. It would just send his mind off to some other thing," Newkirk said. "I think they recognize they're missing out on something."
The idea is not to read everything as slowly as possible, however. As with the slow food movement, the goal is a closer connection between readers and their information, said John Miedema, whose 2009 book "Slow Reading" explores the movement.
"It's not just about students reading as slowly as possible," he said. "To me, slow reading is about bringing more of the person to bear on the book."
Miedema, a technology specialist at IBM in Ottawa, Ontario, said little formal research has been done on slow reading, other than studies on physical conditions such as dyslexia. But he said the movement is gaining ground: the 2004 book "In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement is Changing the Cult of Speed" sprang from author Carl Honore's realization that his "rushaholism" had gotten out of hand when he considered buying a collection of "one-minute bedtime stories" for his children.
In a 2007 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the executive humanities editor at Harvard University Press describes a worldwide reading crisis and calls for a "revolution in reading."
"Instead of rushing by works so fast that we don't even muss up our hair, we should tarry, attend to the sensuousness of reading, allow ourselves to enter the experience of words," Lindsay Waters wrote.
Though slow, or close reading, always has been emphasized at the college-level in literary criticism and other areas, it's also popping up in elementary schools, Miedema said.
Mary Ellen Webb, a third-grade teacher at Mast Way Elementary School in Durham, N.H., has her students memorize poems upward of 40 lines long and then perform them for their peers and parents. She does it more for the sense of pride her students feel but said the technique does transfer to other kinds of reading — the children remember how re-reading and memorizing their poems helped them understand tricky text.
"Memorization is one of those lost things, it hasn't been the 'in' thing for a while," she said. "There's a big focus on fluency. Some people think because you can read quickly ... that's a judge of what a great reader they are. I think fluency is important, but I think we can err too much on that side."
It's all about balance, said Patti Flynn, an assistant principal in Nashua, N.H., and mother of a 10-year-old girl.
Her school has offered, and her daughter has participated in, numerous reading challenges that reward students for reaching certain milestones — a pizza party for a class that reads 100 books, for example. Though such contests may appear to emphasize speed rather than reading for pleasure or comprehension, they also are good incentives for children who weren't motivated to read, she said. The challenges have encouraged parents to make reading a priority at home, Flynn said.
"The goal shouldn't be to be whipping through a certain number of pages, the goal should be to make sure kids are gaining some conceptual understanding," she said.
Her daughter, Lily, said she considers herself a "medium-speed" reader and had to increase her speed to finish about 10 books for her classroom's 100-book challenge. But she said she enjoyed the process and feels like she understood and remembers what she read.
"It was fun," she said.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Friday, June 18, 2010
* The Refu$al to $poil More
More from VPR
Vermont's NPR News Source
UsTranscripts
Billboard ban turns 40
Tuesday, 01/15/08 2:04pm and 2:04pm
Lynne McCrea - Colchester, VT
. (Host) Vermont's landmark billboard law changed the roadside view forever.
The law was largely the work of one man-Ted Riehle, who died on New Year's Eve, just as the 40th anniversary year of his legacy was about to begin.
As VPR's Lynne McCrea reports, the views we take for granted now were not a sure thing in 1968 when the idea was debated in the legislature.
(Highway sound in background)
(McCrea) Driving south on Interstate 89 in Richmond, a view appears around a bend. It's an unobstructed panorama of gently sloping hills stretching into the distance.
(Bruhn) "We're about to go down French Hill, which is one of the most beautiful views in Vermont, I think...
(McCrea) Paul Bruhn is Executive Director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont. He credits Ted Riehle - and the ban on billboards - for the unblemished view just ahead. Bruhn says it's a view that Vermonters tend to take for granted.
(Bruhn) "...Camel's Hump, in the distance... the wonderful steel truss bridge that crosses the Winooski in Richmond... it's a very special panorama, and Ted's foresight and tenacity in getting that bill passed is one of the great gifts that legislators have made to Vermonters."
(McCrea) By all accounts, getting the billboard legislation passed was no easy task. It was 1968. And there was deep opposition to the proposed ban, from businesses who relied on the advertising, and from farmers, who made money by leasing their land to billboard companies.
Ted Riehle, a former New Yorker and successful businessman, was in his third year in the Vermont legislature. He didn't like the look of billboards, and he was determined to banish them from Vermont.
(Helen Riehle) I think he had a tremendously forceful personality, was extremely charming and engaging...
(McCrea) Helen Riehle is a daughter-in-law of Ted Riehle's. She says the success of the billboard legislation was rooted in her father-in-law's ability to win people over, one by one.
(Helen Riehle) "He started with the garden clubs...and went to, I guess, every garden club in the state, and generated that kind of support in the background, and grew it that way."
(McCrea) Phil Hoff, a Democrat, was governor when Ted Riehle started pushing for the billboard ban.
(Hoff) "He came from what I call the ‘liberal tradition of the Republican Party'. And he was very environmentally oriented..."
(McCrea) Hoff remembers some of the political positioning at the time. He says Riehle and the Republican leadership had decided to keep this legislation as their party's own initiative-which he says angered many Democrats.
(Hoff) "Now they had an overwhelming majority of the members of the house, but even so, that angered a lot of Democrats who ordinarily would have been much in favor of this legislation."
(McCrea) In the end, Hoff says the bill ran into trouble when the House Republicans didn't have the votes they needed.
(Hoff) "So they needed some help, which I provided, I must say with a little bit of resentment because they had been so adamant about this being their baby... Now, having said that, you have to give Ted Riehle real credit for this bill. It was a far reaching piece of legislation, very carefully thought through and crafted, and I think it served us very well..."
(McCrea) And so, in 1968, Vermont became the first state in the nation to have a total ban on billboards, one of only four states today. But after it was enacted, the billboard ban remained controversial in some circles in Vermont.
When Ted Riehle ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state, his son, Ted, was his driver for the campaign. Daughter-in-law Helen Riehle recalls that there were some tense moments on the campaign trail that year...
(Helen) "His father said 'keep the car running (laughs) this might be a short visit'. So there were very strong feelings about it because it really was a very important source of income for some people and they had a hard time imagining living without it"...
(McCrea) Today, 40 years later, it might be hard to imagine Vermont with billboards. Paul Bruhn of the Preservation Trust says the absence of billboards sets the state apart...
(Bruhn) "You know, people come to Vermont and say, ‘hum... this is different here. Why is this place different?' And a big piece of that is the billboard ban. But it's also how we try to take care of the environment and be good stewards of the state."
(McCrea) After the billboard legislation passed, Ted Riehle went on to help establish "Green Up Day" in Vermont.
Ted Riehle died on New Year's Eve, a week after turning 83 years old.
For VPR News, I'm Lynne McCrea.
(Host) There are photos of old Vermont billboards, from before the ban, on our website: vpr.net.
The family plans to hold a remembrance of Ted Riehle later in February.
PHOTO: Ted Riehle Jr. in 1988, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the ban on billboards in Vermont
Thursday, June 17, 2010
* Order to Fire Certified (?) in Kent State Slayings 40 Years Later
Mr. John Mangels
Reporter
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Dear Mr. Mangels:
I admire your article on the Kent State "order to fire" tape. Kent State
I especially like the fact that your opening sentence correctly states that some of the students shot were protestors and some were not. That distinction is often overlooked and everyone lumped together under the heading "anti-war protestors." Not so.
I would like to call your attention to a sentence in the article stating that Alan Canfora found "a copy of the tape" in "a library archive in 2007."
The archive was The Kent State Collection at Yale University's Manuscripts and Archives Division, Sterling Memorial Library, a collection which I co-founded in 1977 with Peter Davies, author of The Truth about Kent State (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux: 1973).
I had been a graduate student at Kent State when the shootings took place and later, along with the President of the Kent State Young Republican Club, Greg Rambo, I petitioned Nixon with 10,000 Kent State student and faculty signatures for a federal grand jury investigation.
When I attended Yale Divinity School (1976-80), Mr. Davies and I decided to donate his manuscript and my papers to Yale's Manuscripts and Archives Division, rather than to Kent State Library, since Kent State Library was in a conflict of interest position because of its funding source: the University and the Ohio legislature, both of which were defendants in a lawsuit brought by the parents of the slain students for the deaths of their loved ones.
Yale decided to create a"Kent State Collection" around our donations.
Larry Dowler was the archivist then (later at Harvard) and is now retired and working on a book about Kent State. Christine Weideman is currently in that position at Yale and was there when Alan's discovery was made public two years ago, I believe.
I call this minor matter to your attention because my hope had been, in arranging for the donation in 1977, to protect documents from the vagaries of time and circumstance with the belief that something important might inadvertently emerge from those protected donations.
As your article so ably suggests, Alan Canfora's discovery of the long forgotten tape has proved to be just that.
It may be that scholarship has, at long last, begun to play a pivotal role in the unfolding history of the slayings at Kent Sate, May 4, 1970.
Many thanks for your attention,
Sincerely,
Paul D. Keane,
M.A., M. Div., M. Ed.
PS:
I do not have Mr. Davies's address or I would send him a copy of this email also.
Audio analysis offers new take on Kent tragedy
Prepare-to-fire order given to Guard, recording indicates
Sunday, May 9, 2010 2:57 AM
By John Mangels
THE PLAIN DEALER
PLAINFIELD, N.J. - The Ohio National Guardsmen who fired on students and antiwar protesters at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, were given an order to prepare to shoot, according to a new analysis of a 40-year-old audio tape of the event.
"Guard!" says a male voice on the recording, which two forensic audio experts enhanced and evaluated at the request of The Plain Dealer. Several seconds pass. Then, "All right, prepare to fire!"
"Get down!" someone shouts urgently, presumably in the crowd. Finally, "Guard! ..." followed two seconds later by a long, booming volley of gunshots. The entire sequence lasts 17 seconds.
The previously undetected command could begin to explain the central mystery of the Kent State tragedy - why 28 Guardsmen pivoted in unison atop Blanket Hill, raised their rifles and pistols and fired 67 times, killing four students and wounding nine others in an act that galvanized sentiment against the Vietnam War.
The order indicates that the gunshots were not spontaneous, or in response to sniper fire, as some have suggested over the years.
"I think this is a major development," said Alan Canfora, one of the wounded, who located a copy of the tape in a library archive in 2007 and has urged that it be professionally reviewed.
"There's been a grave injustice for 40 years because we lacked sufficient evidence to prove what we've known all along - that the Ohio National Guard was commanded to kill at Kent State on May 4, 1970."
The review was done by Stuart Allen and Tom Owen, two nationally respected forensic audio experts.
Allen is president and chief engineer of the Legal Services Group in Plainfield, N.J. Owen is president and CEO of Owl Investigations in Colonia, N.J. They donated their services because of the potential historical significance of the project.
Although they occasionally testify on opposing sides in court cases hinging on audio evidence, Owen and Allen concur on the command's wording. Both men said they are confident their interpretation is correct, and that they would testify to its accuracy under oath, if asked.
The original 30-minute reel-to-reel tape was made by Terry Strubbe, a Kent State communication student in 1970 who turned on his recorder and put its microphone in his dorm window overlooking the campus Commons, hoping to document the protest.
It is the only known recording to capture the events leading up to the shootings - including a tinny bullhorn announcement that students must leave "for your own safety," the pop of tear gas canisters and the coughs of people in their path, the raucous protest chants, the drone of helicopters overhead, and the near-constant chiming of the campus victory bell to rally protesters.
Strubbe has kept the original tape in a bank vault. He recently has been working with a colleague to have it analyzed and to produce a documentary about what the examination reveals.
The Justice Department paid an acoustics firm to scrutinize the recording in 1974 in support of the government's ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prosecute eight Guardsmen for the shootings. That review focused on the gunshot pattern and made no mention of a command readying the soldiers to fire.
Using sophisticated software, Allen weeded out extraneous noises - wind blowing across the microphone, and a low rumble from the tape recorder's motor and drive belt - that obscured voices on the recording.
He isolated individual words, then boosted certain characteristics of the sound or slowed the playback to make out what was said. Owen independently corroborated Allen's work.
Without a known voice sample for comparison, the new analysis cannot answer the question of who issued the prepare-to-fire command.
Most of the senior Ohio National Guard officers directly in charge of the troops who fired May 4, 1970, have since died. Ronald Snyder, a former Guard captain who led a unit that was at the Kent State protest but was not involved in the shootings, said Friday that the prepare-to-fire phrasing on the tape does not seem consistent with how military orders are given.
Whether the prepare-to-fire order could lead to new legal action or a reopened investigation of the Kent State shootings is unclear. A federal judge dismissed the charges against the eight indicted Guardsmen in 1974, saying the government had failed to prove its case. The surviving victims and families of the dead settled their civil lawsuit for $675,000 in 1979, agreeing to drop all future claims against the Guardsmen.
The federal acquittal means the soldiers could not be prosecuted again at the federal level, although a county or state official potentially could seek criminal charges, said Sanford Rosen, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys in the civil lawsuit.
jmangels@plaind.com
* BLANK
Some days it would profit The New York Times to leave its editorial page blank too.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
* Suspend the Jones Act: The Unions be damned!
When asked by Rose "Why aren't we doing that?" Hofmeister answered: Because we have a Jones Act which says you can't use foreign ships you can only use U.S. ships in such a crisis.
"Why not declare a national crisis and suspend The Jones Act ?" was the next question,
Hofmeister answered: "Because it would offend every union member in America."
And so, on a cross dripping with oil, we will crucify the American shoreline from Texas to possibly the Carolina's (if not New England) with the 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons) of oil which have been spilling into the Gulf every day ?
Suspend the Jones Act and the Unions be damned!
PS: Just for an experiment, pour four quarts of motor oil on your kitchen floor and try to clean it up. (Hope that your dog and cat don't get into it first.)
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
* For God, For Country, and For Sale
Pimpin' for Mammon
Bank pays Univ. millions to market credit cards
By Carmen Lu
Staff Reporter
The Yale Daily News
Published Friday, June 11, 2010
Yale has been providing Chase Bank with the names and contact details of alumni, staff and sports fans for the past three years under a deal worth $7.98 million, according to an article published Monday in the Connecticut Post.
The seven-year deal, which remained secret until the enactment of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act this year, stipulates that Yale must pass on contact information for about 136,000 staff and affiliates each...
#1 By not surprised 8:57a.m. on June 11, 2010
Great! Now Swensen and the rest of the administration can get more bonuses!!
#2 By too poor for credit card 11:00a.m. on June 11, 2010
Wake up, you idiot. We'll have been without a raise for 2.5 years when we'll get our paltry 1.67% in Sept--if we're lucky. I wish we had bonuses.
On the other hand, no one should begrudge Swensen a penny. He's done more for this university financially, than anyone on the planet.
#3 By WTF 11:18a.m. on June 11, 2010
...yet student tuition goes up, and staff doesn't get raises. Makes total sense for the "Corporation".
Yale is such a great place.
/sarcasm
#4 By WHAT 11:23a.m. on June 11, 2010
How do we get off this list??
#5 By Angry Alum 12:41p.m. on June 11, 2010
This is disgusting. I graduated in 09, and probably since about then I get credit card offers from Chase in the mail at least once a month. It's kind of irritating. I wonder who else bought my info from Yale?
#6 By nice 3:20p.m. on June 11, 2010
Nice touch with the Chase credit card ad on the right of this YDN post.
#7 By Yale has more money than God 10:18p.m. on June 11, 2010
Yale gets so much money yet they still needed to lay off all those workers. What a crying shame I tell ya! They used the economy as an excuse to do their dirty work.
#8 By alum 8:49a.m. on June 12, 2010
They didn't sell just privacy. They also sold loyalty. No more donations from me.
#9 By Yale College '01 9:32a.m. on June 12, 2010
Mr. Conroy, I received Chase's Yale-affinity marketing and opened a Chase Visa with Harkness Tower and the Yale name on it somewhere between my prefrosh and sophomore years, that would be '97-'99 sometime. I used it irresponsibly, which is my fault, but please don't claim that Yale didn't take their $3 and run with it. These carfs were marketed to 18-year-olds on financial aid, without any notice to parents. I think my interest rate climbed as high as 24.99%.
#10 By sickened 12:49p.m. on June 12, 2010
I am sickened by Yale.
#11 By Sergio 1:23p.m. on June 12, 2010
I wonder if the Medical School has signed any contracts?
#12 By Mercantilia 7:17p.m. on June 12, 2010
For God, For Country, and For Sale.
Paul Keane
M.Div. '80
#13 By Not surprised 7:31p.m. on June 12, 2010
This is an institution devoid of basic values when it comes to dealing with people, be they faculty, students, alumni or staff. Selling names and addresses without the permission of those entrusting such information to the institution is arrogant carelessness. Since the faculty are the only ones who really matter anymore, perhaps their outrage will change the Administration's way of cavalierly dealing with privacy issues.
#14 By yale '12 9:50p.m. on June 12, 2010
Yale, I pay $50,000 dollars a year in tuition, why do you need to make $3 by selling my personal information to a credit card company?
I feel betrayed. I had wrongly assumed that Yale uses my private information in a responsible way. What other pieces of my personal data are you selling?
#15 By Yale '10 11:43p.m. on June 12, 2010
This is absolutely appalling and outrageous. I received these offers at least 1x per month this past year. I find it absolutely disgusting that Yale is selling student information.
#16 By to #13 5:30a.m. on June 13, 2010
This isn't arrogant carelessness. From an institution that is always warning its staff about privacy, this is nothing short of deliberate participation in identity theft.
#17 By angry alumni 9:31a.m. on June 13, 2010
people should be fired and go to jail
#18 By Young Alum 11:34a.m. on June 13, 2010
Who is God's name thought this was an acceptable idea?
I just donated to the Alumni Fund, but I wish I could take it back.
#19 By This is the plot to the 2010 Yale Show 3:33p.m. on June 13, 2010
Yale should steal its plot points from more established authors.
#20 By BA08MA09 8:36p.m. on June 13, 2010
This just sucks.
#21 By '11 8:47p.m. on June 13, 2010
I get at least one Chase bank envelope a WEEK as a graduate student, and I live in an off-campus apartment. This is completely ridiculous. I can't even believe that this is not illegal to do without permission from the students and alumni, or at least a disclaimer. It's not like I can avoid giving Yale my address or have a choice in the matter, because it's required information for registration! It is a flat out lie that they don't market to current students, or at least current students who live off campus.
#22 By Young Alum #2 12:00a.m. on June 14, 2010
@ #18
Yep, there goes my future donations to the university.
#23 By Yale '11 12:41a.m. on June 15, 2010
Fellow Yalies--how can we (as students and alumni) organize to change this policy?
#24 By Yale Parent 10:43a.m. on June 15, 2010
Not Yale's finest hour, for sure.
#25 By Yale student 11:24p.m. on June 15, 2010
Even if Yale would make that $7.98m value is their base profit on our information, it's still under $2.10 per person. I'm pretty disgusted.
#26 By Mercantilia Amended 7:42p.m. on June 16, 2010
Kindly permit me to add a variation to my post #12:
For God, For Country, and For Jail.
Paul Keane
M.Div. '80
#27 By upset 9:18p.m. on June 16, 2010
I wish someone from the university would explain further. YDN, can you do some follow up?
Saturday, June 12, 2010
* " . . . condemned to repeat it" ?
It is almost trite: "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
As I get older and see our civilization like a giant ant colony ever building, digging, marching on, I am amazed that we can preserve the vitality of any memory at all. Gettyburg, Iwo Jima, Kent State: These names seem bloodless, the bones of history, to anyone who did not live through the events they signify. Even for those of us who did, memory fades and emotions diminish.
Hitler, even when viewed in documentaries, seems like a stiff Charlie Chaplain character. Only for the octogenarians today, who are fast fleeing the earth, does the terror of Hitler have any reality. The cowardice and shame of the world has long been washed away in the collective glorification of his final defeat.
I just watched a video from the Anne Frank Foundation (see link below) and am impressed at how methodically we try to keep the flame of history alive.
It flickers too in the National Historic Site dedication speech (YouTube video below) of 90-year old Mrs. Florence Schroeder, whose son Bill, a Kent State ROTC cadet, was shot to death by Ohio National Guardsmen as he watched (merely watched, as a bystander) a rally of hundreds of students at Kent State chanting "pigs off campus" May 4, 1970, the fourth day of student demonstrations after President Nixon's announced invasion of Cambodia.
Candles in the wind. All.
http://www.annefrank.org/
Thursday, June 10, 2010
* Fat Cat at Yale
The Seat at Woolsey Hall: The Table at the Faculty Club
It is not politically correct these days to use the word "fat" when referring to a person. President William Howard Taft, however, was certainly that---although we can use the word corpulent, rotund, or enormous, if you prefer.
My childhood in New Haven included attending social training events prior to ballroom dancing class (I was a scholarship participant due to financial need) at what was then the Yale Faculty Club, aka The Pierpont House (see *below).
One of the charming curiosities of that place was a large faculty dining table which has a semi-circle cut out of one of the sides of the flat serving surface itself. It was described to me at the time as an accommodation to former Professor of Law, William Howard Taft, so that he could fit his rotundity comfortably at the table, "belly-up" to the table might be a more blunt way of describing it. (I believe I saw this with my own child eyes half a century ago, but five decades does play tricks on the memory.)
Another such accommodation was a seat in the audience of Woolsey Hall, a seat which had one arm removed (between it and the seat immediate adjacent to it): again, so that Professor Taft could sit comfortably at University convocations. ( I did not actually see this seat, but I heard about it: it may be apocryphal.)
With all due respect to political correctness, I hope that the faculty dining table and double-seat at Woolsey Hall (if it existed) have not been lost to careless, fashionable posterity.
Political correctness is nice: Historical charm is nicer.
Nota Bene:
It is fashionable to believe that corpulence contributes to ill health ( viz. Dr. Oz's "truth tube"). Taft weighed 380 lbs. [340] and had high stress jobs: President of the U.S.; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He died (still working as Chief Justice) at age 73: The Bible's promise of three score and ten.[He hd dropped to 244 lbs at the time of his death.]
Psalms 90:
The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,
yet is their strength labor and sorrow;
for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Seems like a healthy life to me.
The CBS program Biography has a fascinating/horrifying newsreel clip of Taft at 73 stepping out of a limousine on his way to the Supreme Court (limousines were tall and square in 1930 and you could emerge almost standing up) and being stricken by a heart attack at the same time. Two aides grab him under the arms and drag him still almost standing (like an unrolled carpet) into the building, feet scraping the sidewalk all the way.
________________________________________
*(Mead Visitor Center resides in the historic Pierpont House, which is the oldest private residence in New Haven. It was erected in 1767 by John Pierpont, grandson of one of Yale’s founders. The original wood frame structure was occupied by descendants of Pierpont until the beginning of the 20th century. During the brief British occupation of New Haven, the Pierpont home was used by the British as their headquarters and hospital. In 1900 the home was purchased by the Reverend Anson Phelps Stokes, Secretary of Yale University. Upon his resignation in 1921, it was deeded to the University and converted into a faculty club. It remained the Yale Faculty Club for more than 50 years and in 1977 was converted to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. It became the Visitor Center in 1995.
The Pierpont house has recently undergone an extensive renovation thanks to the support of The Mead Witter Foundation and George Mead ’50. The home has been restored and furnished consistent with the period in which it was built. Some of the hand-hewn chestnut used in the original structure remains intact as well as some of the original floorboards. The home is complete with replica 12 over 12 sash windows made with wood pegs and glass similar to the original panes. The wood shingled roof replicates the early roof, and shutters complete with handcrafted wrought iron hardware replace those original to the house.
The Visitor Center has recently added two exhibits about Yale's history and its famous alumni.)
Yale Alumni who held the office of U.S. President:
•George H. W. Bush (B.A. 1948), President of the United States (1989-1993), Vice President of the United States (1981-1989), member of Congress (R-Texas) (1967-1971)
•George W. Bush (B.A. 1968), President of the United States (2001-present), Governor of Texas (1995-2000)
•William Jefferson Clinton (J.D.), President of the United States (1993-2001), Governor of Arkansas (1983-1992)
•Gerald Ford (J.D.), President of the United States (1974-1977), Vice President of the United States (1973-1974), member of the House of Representatives
•William Howard Taft (1878), President of the United States (1909-1913), Chief Justice of the United States (1921-1930)
*Bureaucrazy
September 7, 2005
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Spoken as reassurance by President Geroge W. Bush ('68) to his hand-picked chum (Mr. Brown) for Director of FEMA, in the midst of public criticism over Brown's inadequate response to the Hurricane Katrina crisis.
September 8, 2005
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
* HelenBack
Helen Thomas, veteran White House correspondent, resigns at 89 after controversial remarks on a YouTube video saying Israel should "get the hell out of Lebanon" and that the Israeli's there should return to their homelands of origin.
by Amb. Richard Holbrooke Published May 2008
The Jerusalem Viewpoints series is published by the Institute for Contemporary Affairs, founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation.
No. 563 26 Iyar 5768 / 1 May 2008
Israel at 60
President Truman's Decision to Recognize Israel
Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke
•President Truman regarded his Secretary of State, General of the Army George C. Marshall, as "the greatest living American." Yet the two men were on a collision course over Mideast policy. Marshall firmly opposed American recognition of the new Jewish state.
•Officials in the State Department had done everything in their power to prevent, thwart, or delay the President's Palestine policy in 1947 and 1948. Watching them find various ways to avoid carrying out White House instructions, I sometimes felt they preferred to follow the views of the British Foreign Office rather than those of their President.
•At a meeting in the Oval Office on May 12, 1948, I argued: "In an area as unstable as the Middle East, where there is not now and never has been any tradition of democratic government, it is important for the long-range security of our country, and indeed the world, that a nation committed to the democratic system be established there, one on which we can rely. The new Jewish state can be such a place. We should strengthen it in its infancy by prompt recognition."
•Since at the time a significant number of Jewish Americans opposed Zionism, neither the President nor I believed that Palestine was the key to the Jewish vote. As I had written in 1947, the key to the Jewish vote in 1948 would not be the Palestine issue, but a continued commitment to liberal political and economic policies.
•The charge that domestic politics determined our policy on Palestine angered President Truman for the rest of his life. In fact, the President's policy rested on the realities of the situation in the region, on America's moral, ethical, and humanitarian values, on the costs and risks inherent in any other course, and on America's national interests.
To commemorate Israel's 60th anniversary, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is publishing excerpts from "Showdown in the Oval Office," the first chapter of Counsel to the President, the memoirs of Clark Clifford with Richard Holbrooke, published in 1991, that describes in detail the drama in Washington surrounding the Truman administration's then-controversial decision to recognize Israel. This text is being reproduced with the permission of Ambassador Holbrooke.
"The Wise Men" Oppose U.S. Recognition of Israel
Of all the meetings I ever had with Presidents, this one remains the most vivid. Not only did it pit me against a legendary war hero whom President Truman revered, but it did so over an issue of fundamental and enduring national security importance - Israel and the Mideast, an issue as relevant and contentious today as it was then.
The President regarded his Secretary of State, General of the Army George C. Marshall, as "the greatest living American." Yet the two men were on a collision course over Mideast policy, which, if not resolved, threatened to split and wreck the Administration. British control of Palestine would run out in two days, and when it did, the Jewish Agency intended to announce the creation of a new state, still unnamed, in part of Palestine.
Marshall firmly opposed American recognition of the new Jewish state; I did not. Marshall's opposition was shared by almost every member of the brilliant and now-legendary group of men, later referred to as "the Wise Men," who were then in the process of creating a postwar foreign policy that would endure for more than forty years. The opposition included the respected Undersecretary of State, Robert Lovett; his predecessor, Dean Acheson; the number-three man in the State Department, Charles Bohlen; the brilliant chief of the Policy Planning Staff, George F. Kennan; the dynamic and driven Secretary of Defense, James V. Forrestal; and a man with whom I would disagree again twenty years later when we served together in the Cabinet, Dean Rusk, then the Director of the Office of United Nations Affairs.
Some months earlier, during one of our weekly breakfasts at his elegant Georgetown home, Forrestal had spoken emotionally and frankly to me concerning his opposition to helping the Zionists, as advocates of the creation of a Jewish state were called. "You fellows over at the White House are just not facing up to the realities in the Middle East. There are thirty million Arabs on one side and about six hundred thousand Jews on the other. It is clear that in any contest, the Arabs are going to overwhelm the Jews. Why don't you face up to the realities? Just look at the numbers!"
"Jim, the President knows just as well as you do what the numbers are," I replied, "but he doesn't consider this to be a question of numbers. He has always supported the right of the Jews to have their own homeland, from the moment he became President. He considers this to be a question about the moral and ethical considerations that are present in that part of the world. For that reason, he supports the foundation of a Jewish state. He is sympathetic to their needs and their desires, and I assure you he is going to continue to lend our country's support to the creation of a Jewish state."
Forrestal answered bluntly: "Well, if he does that, then he's absolutely dead wrong." His attitude was typical of the foreign policy establishment, especially the pro-Arab professionals at the State Department, who, deeply influenced by the huge oil reserves in the Mideast, supported the side they thought would be the likely winner in the struggle between the Arabs and the Jews. Officials in the State Department had done everything in their power to prevent, thwart, or delay the President's Palestine policy in 1947 and 1948, while I fought for assistance to the Jewish Agency. Watching them find various ways to avoid carrying out White House instructions, I sometimes felt, almost bitterly, that they preferred to follow the views of the British Foreign Office rather than those of their President.
At midnight on May 14, 1948 - 6 p.m. in Washington - the British would relinquish control of Palestine, which they had been administering since World War I under mandate from the League of Nations. One minute later, the Jewish Agency, under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion, would proclaim the new state. (The name "Israel" was as yet unknown, and most of us assumed the new nation would be called "Judaea.") The neighboring Arabs made it clear that the fighting, which had already begun, would erupt into a full-scale war against the new state the moment the British left. In order to avoid this, the British and the State Department wanted to turn Palestine over to the trusteeship of the United Nations - a position I strongly opposed as dangerous to the survival of the beleaguered Jews in Palestine. I already had had several serious disagreements over State's position with General Marshall's protégé, Dean Rusk, and with Loy Henderson, the Director of Near Eastern and African Affairs. Henderson, a mustachioed, balding, tightly controlled and somewhat pompous career diplomat, was strongly pro-Arab and heavily influenced by the British. I had no firsthand evidence of it, but I knew Henderson was among a group of Mideast experts in the State Department who were widely regarded as anti-Semitic. He had no use for White House interference in what he regarded as his personal domain - American policy in the Mideast.
On May 7, a week before the end of the British Mandate, I met with President Truman for our customary private day-end chat in the Oval Office. In these informal sessions, which were never listed on his official schedule, he was often very blunt. No one else knew what passed between us in those sessions unless he wanted them to. In this case he didn't.
I handed him a draft of a public statement I had prepared, and proposed that at his next press conference - scheduled for May 13, the day before the British Mandate would end - he announce his intention to recognize the Jewish state. The President was sympathetic to the proposal; keenly aware of Secretary Marshall's strong feelings, though, he picked up the telephone to get his views. As I sat listening to the President's end of the conversation, I could tell that Marshall objected strongly to the proposed statement. The President listened politely, then told Marshall he wanted to have a meeting on the subject.
I was sitting, as usual, in a straight-backed chair to the left of the President's desk. As he ended the conversation with Marshall, he swiveled his chair back toward me. "Clark, I am impressed with General Marshall's argument that we should not recognize the new state so fast," he said. "He does not want to recognize it at all, at least not now. I've asked him and Lovett to come in next week to discuss this business. I think Marshall is going to continue to take a very strong position. When he does, I would like you to make the case in favor of recognition of the new state." He paused, then looked at me intently for a moment. "You know how I feel. I want you to present it just as though you were making an argument before the Supreme Court of the United States. Consider it carefully, Clark, organize it logically. I want you to be as persuasive as you possibly can be."
The Case for a Jewish State
From our many talks over the past year, I knew that five factors dominated Truman's thinking. From his youth, he had detested intolerance and discrimination. He had been deeply moved by the plight of the millions of homeless of World War II, and felt that alone among the homeless, the Jews had no homeland of their own to which they could return. He was, of course, horrified by the Holocaust and he denounced it vehemently, as, in the aftermath of the war, its full dimensions became clear. Also, he believed that the Balfour Declaration, issued by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917, committed Great Britain and, by implication, the United States, which now shared a certain global responsibility with the British, to the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine. And finally, he was a student and believer in the Bible since his youth. From his reading of the Old Testament he felt the Jews derived a legitimate historical right to Palestine, and he sometimes cited such biblical lines as Deuteronomy 1:8: "Behold, I have given up the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the Lord hath sworn unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob."
From the beginning, I had also supported the creation of the Jewish state, even though this put me in opposition to an entire generation of senior foreign policy makers whom I admired and numbered among my friends, because I considered such action a historical and strategic necessity. I recognized then, of course, that oil, historic antagonisms, and numerical imbalances might create many of the problems Israel's opponents in Washington predicted. Many of their fears, in fact, came true; the Mideast remains today the single most volatile place on earth, a legacy, in part, of the events of 1948. And Israel, having survived four wars and awed the world with its courage and energy, has also veered toward policies that sometimes fall short of the dreams of its founders and their American supporters.
The Zionist position in 1948 was simple: Partition Palestine into two parts, one Jewish, one Arab. On its surface, the joint British-State Department position favoring trusteeship might have seemed a reasonable way to avoid conflict, but the President feared that if Palestine was turned over to the UN, the Arabs would combine military action and diplomatic footdragging in an effort to throttle the Jewish state at its birth. I fully agreed. I knew Marshall and Lovett would argue that we should continue to support trusteeship, and delay in recognizing the new state - but by "delay" I was convinced that State in fact meant "deny."
My fears about the State Department had crystallized after a bitter incident in March, when, without informing the President, it had permitted the American delegation to the UN to reverse its support for partition and switch to trusteeship for Palestine - a contradiction of a personal commitment the President had given the previous day to Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader who would later become the first President of Israel. Furious and depressed when he learned what had happened, President Truman wrote on his calendar for March 19, 1948: "The State Dept. pulled the rug from under me today....The first I know about it is what I see in the papers! Isn't that hell? I am now in the position of a liar and a double-crosser. I've never felt so low in my life. There are people on the third and fourth level of the State Dept. who have always wanted to cut my throat. They've succeeded in doing it."
That afternoon, the President had angrily instructed me to "read the riot act" to those "third- and fourth-level" people at State. A few hours later, I held a contentious meeting with Rusk, Henderson, and State Department Counselor Charles Bohlen, which left us barely on speaking terms. Despite his annoyance, though, the President did not order the State Department to reendorse partition, lest he create a crisis with Marshall. Thus, with the May 14 deadline fast approaching, the U.S. was in the awkward position of having its UN delegation still rounding up votes for trusteeship while the President favored partition and prompt recognition of the soon to be proclaimed Jewish state.
Showdown in the Oval Office: May 12, 1948
At 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 12, a cloudless, sweltering day, we assembled in the Oval Office. President Truman sat at his desk, his back to the bay window overlooking the lawn, his famous THE BUCK STOPS HERE plaque in front of him on his desk. In the seat to the President's left sat Marshall, austere and grim, and next to Marshall sat his deputy, Robert Lovett. Behind Lovett were two State Department officials, Robert McClintock and Fraser Wilkins. I wondered why Rusk and Henderson, who had been centrally involved in every phase of the policy debate for months, were not present. Only forty years later did I learn from Wilkins that just before the meeting Lovett had decided the presence of Rusk and Henderson in the same room with me would be too inflammatory, and he had substituted their deputies.
David Niles, White House Appointments Secretary Matthew Connelly, and I sat together in chairs to the right of the President. As the meeting began, exactly fifty hours remained before the new nation, still without a name, would be born.
The meeting began in a deceptively calm manner. President Truman did not raise the issue of recognition; he wanted me to raise it, but only after Marshall and Lovett had spoken, so he would be able to ascertain the degree of Marshall's opposition before showing his own hand. Lovett began by criticizing what he termed signs of growing "assertiveness" by the Jewish Agency. "On the basis of some recent military successes and the prospect of a ‘behind the barn' deal with King Abdullah," Lovett said, "the Jews seem confident that they can establish their sovereign state without any necessity for a truce with the Arabs of Palestine."
Marshall interrupted Lovett: he was strongly opposed, he said, to the behavior of the Jewish Agency. He had met on May 8 with Moshe Shertok, its political representative, and had told him that it was "dangerous to base long-range policy on temporary military success." Moreover, if the Jews got into trouble and "came running to us for help," Marshall said he had told them, "they were clearly on notice that there was no warrant to expect help from the United States, which had warned them of the grave risk they were running." I was surprised to hear, from Marshall himself, how bluntly he had dealt with Shertok. He had laid down a tough opening position.
As Marshall spoke, he was interrupted by an urgent message from his special assistant. The United Press had reported that Shertok had returned to Tel Aviv carrying Marshall's personal warning to David Ben-Gurion. Clearly displeased, Marshall told us that not only had he not sent Ben-Gurion a message, but he had never even heard of Ben-Gurion - a surprising statement about the leader of the Jewish Agency, who was about to become the new nation's Prime Minister.
Marshall directed the State Department to refuse to comment on the UP news story, and then concluded his presentation. The United States, he said, should continue supporting UN trusteeship resolutions and defer any decision on recognition.
It was now my turn. Even though I disagreed with many of Marshall's and Lovett's statements, I had waited without saying a word until the President called on me - in order to establish that I was speaking at his request, not on my own initiative.
I began by objecting strongly to the State Department's position paper reaffirming American support of Security Council efforts to secure a truce in Palestine. "There has been no truce in Palestine and there almost certainly will not be one," I said. I reminded everyone that in a meeting chaired by the President on March 24, "Dean Rusk stated that a truce could be negotiated within two weeks. But this goal is still not in sight."
"Second," I went on, "trusteeship, which State supports, presupposes a single Palestine. That is also unrealistic. Partition into Jewish and Arab sectors has already happened. Jews and Arabs are already fighting each other from territory each side presently controls."
The time had now come to join the issue. "Third, Mr. President," I said, "I strongly urge you to give prompt recognition to the Jewish state immediately after the termination of the British Mandate on May 14. This would have the distinct value of restoring the President's firm position in support of the partition of Palestine. Such a move should be taken quickly, before the Soviet Union or any other nation recognizes the Jewish state."
I knew my comment would displease Marshall and Lovett, since I was implying that State had embarrassed the President by reversing the American position in the UN two months earlier. But I strongly believed this, and I saw no reason not to bring it up.
"My fourth point," I continued, "is that the President should make a statement at his press conference tomorrow which announces his intention to recognize the Jewish state, once it has complied with the provision for democratic government outlined in the UN resolution of November 29, [1947]. I understand this is in fact the case, and therefore presents no problem." I handed around the room a proposed press statement, and read aloud its conclusion: "I have asked the Secretary of State to have the Representatives of the United States in the United Nations take up this subject with a view toward obtaining early recognition of the Jewish state by the other members of the United Nations." When everyone had examined it, I went on, "My fifth point relates to the Balfour Declaration. Jewish people the world over have been waiting for thirty years for the promise of a homeland to be fulfilled. There is no reason to wait one day longer. Trusteeship will postpone that promise indefinitely. Sixth, the United States has a great moral obligation to oppose discrimination such as that inflicted on the Jewish people. Alarmingly, it is reappearing in communist-controlled Eastern Europe. There must be a safe haven for these people. Here is an opportunity to try to bring these ancient injustices to an end. The Jews could have their own homeland. They could be lifted to the status of other peoples who have their own country. And perhaps these steps would help atone, in some small way, for the atrocities, so vast as to stupefy the human mind, that occurred during the Holocaust."
"Finally," I concluded, "I fully understand and agree that vital national interests are involved. In an area as unstable as the Middle East, where there is not now and never has been any tradition of democratic government, it is important for the long-range security of our country, and indeed the world, that a nation committed to the democratic system be established there, one on which we can rely. The new Jewish state can be such a place. We should strengthen it in its infancy by prompt recognition."
Secretary of State Marshall Threatens President Truman
I had noticed Marshall's face reddening with suppressed anger as I talked. When I finished, he exploded: "Mr. President, I thought this meeting was called to consider an important and complicated problem in foreign policy. I don't even know why Clifford is here. He is a domestic adviser, and this is a foreign policy matter."
I would never forget President Truman's characteristically simple reply: "Well, General, he's here because I asked him to be here."
Marshall, scarcely concealing his ire, shot back, "These considerations have nothing to do with the issue. I fear that the only reason Clifford is here is that he is pressing a political consideration with regard to this issue. I don't think politics should play any part in this."
Lovett joined the attack: "It would be highly injurious to the United Nations to announce the recognition of the Jewish state even before it had come into existence and while the General Assembly is still considering the question. Furthermore, such a move would be injurious to the prestige of the President. It is obviously designed to win the Jewish vote, but in my opinion, it would lose more votes than it would gain." Lovett had finally brought to the surface the root cause of Marshall's fury - his view that the position I presented was dictated by domestic political considerations, specifically a quest for Jewish votes.
"Mr. President, to recognize the Jewish state prematurely would be buying a pig in a poke," Lovett continued. "How do we know what kind of Jewish state will be set up? We have many reports from British and American intelligence agents that Soviets are sending Jews and communist agents into Palestine from the Black Sea area." Lovett read some of these intelligence reports to the group. I found them ridiculous, and no evidence ever turned up to support them; in fact, Jews were fleeing communism throughout Eastern Europe at that very moment.
When Lovett concluded, Marshall spoke again. He was still furious. Speaking with barely contained rage and more than a hint of self-righteousness, he made the most remarkable threat I ever heard anyone make directly to a President: "If you follow Clifford's advice and if I were to vote in the election, I would vote against you." (Emphasis added.)
Everyone in the room was stunned. Here was the indispensable symbol of continuity whom President Truman revered and needed, making a threat that, if it became public, could virtually seal the dissolution of the Truman Administration and send the Western Alliance, then in the process of creation, into disarray before it had been fully structured. Marshall's statement fell short of an explicit threat to resign, but it came very close.
Lovett and I tried to step into the ensuing silence with words of conciliation. We both knew how important it was to get this dreadful meeting over with quickly, before Marshall said something even more irretrievable. My suggested Presidential press statement was clearly out of the question, and I withdrew it. Lovett said that State's Legal Adviser, Ernest Gross, had prepared a paper on the legal aspects of recognition, and he would send it to us immediately.
President Truman also knew he had to end the meeting. He said he was fully aware of the dangers in the situation, to say nothing of the political factors involved on both sides of the problem; these were his responsibility, and he would deal with them himself. Seeing Marshall was still very agitated, he rose and turned to him and said, "I understand your position, General, and I'm inclined to side with you in this matter."
We rose with the President and gathered our papers. Marshall did not even glance at me as he and Lovett left. In fact, not only did he never speak to me again after that meeting, but, according to his official biographer, he never again mentioned my name. Then, at the end of that day, still steaming, he did something quite unusual, although the President and I were unaware of it at the time. Certain that history would prove him right, he wanted his personal comments included in the official State Department record of the meeting. It is normal for the records of such meetings kept by the State Department to water down or leave out personal comments; Marshall did exactly the opposite. His record, exactly as he wanted historians to find it when it was declassified almost three decades later, reads as follows:
I remarked to the President that, speaking objectively, I could not help but think that suggestions made by Mr. Clifford were wrong. I thought that to adopt these suggestions would have precisely the opposite effect from that intended by Mr. Clifford. The transparent dodge to win a few votes would not in fact achieve this purpose. The great dignity of the office of the President would be seriously diminished. The counsel offered by Mr. Clifford was based on domestic political considerations, while the problem which confronted us was international. I said bluntly that if the President were to follow Mr. Clifford's advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the President.
General Marshall's position was grossly unfair: he had no proof to sustain the charge, nor did he offer any - nor had I given him any, for I had not mentioned politics in my presentation. My growing involvement in foreign policy was at the President's direction. I believed then, as I do now, that the President's position was based on the national interest.
Marshall and Lovett's view was based on the assumption that the Palestine issue would decide how Jewish Americans voted. In my opinion, their assumption was incorrect. In fact, a significant number of Jewish Americans opposed Zionism: some feared that the effort to create a Jewish state was so controversial that the plan would fail. In 1942 a number of prominent dissident Reform rabbis had founded the American Council for Judaism to oppose the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. It grew into an organization of over fourteen thousand members, which collaborated closely with State Department officials, including Dean Acheson and Loy Henderson. Its leaders believed that the establishment of an exclusively Jewish state was "undemocratic and a retreat from the universal vision of Judaism," and would lead to "ghettoizing Jews by segregating them from their compatriots and turning them into aliens." Other individuals, including Arthur H. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times (who supported the American Council for Judaism), and Eugene Meyer, the publisher of The Washington Post, opposed Zionism. Sulzberger's wife, the redoubtable Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, who disagreed strongly with her husband, later recalled that "Zionism was a heavily debated issue among American Jews." Many Jews opposed American backing for any Jewish state in Palestine.
As for domestic politics, neither the President nor I believed that Palestine was the key to the Jewish vote. As I had written the President in 1947, in a lengthy memorandum proposing a strategy for the 1948 election campaign, the key to the Jewish vote in 1948 would not be the Palestine issue, but a continued commitment to liberal political and economic policies. Noting the sharp divisions over Zionism within the Jewish community, I concluded, "In the long run, there is likely to be greater gain if the Palestine problem is approached on the basis of reaching a decision founded upon intrinsic merit."
Marshall had deeply disappointed me. I thought his implied threat had crossed the bounds of what was permissible and proper in a meeting with the President. I thought I had lost. In the course of the meeting in the Oval Office, I had left the proposed press statement and some other papers on the front of the President's desk. I lingered a moment to pick them up.
Seeing my face, President Truman thought I needed to be cheered up. "Well, that was rough as a cob," he said, using one of his favorite Missouri farm phrases. "That was about as tough as it gets. But you did your best."
"Boss," I replied, "this isn't the first case I've lost. I never expected to win them all." Then, to see if he wanted to try again, I said, "Maybe it's not over yet. I'd like approval to test the waters one more time."
The President's reply was ambiguous: "You may be right, I don't know. I never saw the General so furious. Suppose we let the dust settle a little - then you can get into it again and see if we can get this thing turned around. I still want to do it. But be careful. I can't afford to lose General Marshall."
May 14, 1948
This was the beginning of a historic day in Palestine, but the American government still had not decided what it would do when 6 p.m. came. The unseasonably hot and muggy weather in Washington finally showed signs of breaking; when I reached the office, earlier than usual, I called Lovett. He was looking for ways to calm things down, but he and Marshall were still opposed to recognition of the Jewish state.
I was also in close contact, directly and through David Niles, with Eliahu Epstein, the Jewish Agency representative in Washington. Through Epstein, I had been able to learn much about the situation in the Mideast, in particular the position of the Jewish Agency - information that went beyond what the State Department, with its pro-Arab bias, allowed to filter across the street to the White House through official channels.
In our conversations, Lovett searched for the minimum that would satisfy the President. Finally, I had an idea: "Look, Bob, the President understands General Marshall is not going to support him on this. Let's forget Wednesday. We're not seeking a formal retraction of what the General said. The President doesn't care whether he supports this now or never. If you can get him simply to say that he will not oppose this, that's all the President would need." There was a brief pause at the other end of the line. "Let me see what I can do," was all Lovett said in reply.
Israel Requests U.S. Recognition
Even without a clear signal from Lovett and Marshall, I felt we had to set in motion the machinery for recognition, in the event a favorable decision was made. At 10 a.m., I made a different call, one that I would look back on later with great pleasure. "Mr. Epstein," I told the Jewish Agency representative, "we would like you to send an official letter to President Truman before twelve o'clock today formally requesting the United States to recognize the new Jewish state. I would also request that you send a copy of the letter directly to Secretary Marshall."
Epstein was ecstatic. He did not realize that the President had still not decided how to respond to the request I had just solicited. It was particularly important, I said, that the new state claim nothing beyond the boundaries outlined in the UN resolution of November 29, 1947, because those boundaries were the only ones which had been agreed to by everyone, including the Arabs, in any international forum.
A few minutes later, Epstein called back: "We've never done this before, and we're not quite sure how to go about it. Could you give us some advice?" I told him that I would check with the experts and get back to him. With my knowledge and encouragement, he then turned for additional advice to two of the wisest lawyers in Washington, David Ginsburg and Benjamin Cohen, both great New Dealers and strong supporters of the Zionist cause. Working together with me during the rest of the morning, Epstein and his team drafted the recognition request.
It was short: "My dear Mr. President," it began, "I have the honor to notify you that the state of .... " Here Epstein and I had a problem - we did not know the name of the new state. After some discussion, Epstein simply typed in "the Jewish State" and finished the letter. I asked Epstein to be sure the letter explicitly referred to the November 29 UN resolution. The document ended with a minor rhetorical flourish that we worked out over the telephone together:
With full knowledge of the deep bond of sympathy which has existed and has been strengthened over the past thirty years between the Government of the United States and the Jewish people of Palestine, I have been authorized by the provisional government of the new state to tender this message and to express the hope that your government will recognize and will welcome [the new state] into the community of nations.
Epstein handed the letter to his press aide, Harry Zinder, and told him to take it to my office immediately. As I waited anxiously for it, Epstein got word on his shortwave radio that the new state would be called "Israel." He immediately sent a second aide after Zinder to change the letter. Two blocks from the White House, Zinder, sitting in the car Epstein had provided, crossed out with a pen the words "Jewish State" and inserted the word "Israel." Zinder then proceeded to my office. It was the first time I had heard the name of the new state.
When we received Epstein's letter, Niles and I began drafting the reply, checking with State on technical details. Niles also checked with, of all people, Ben Cohen, who thus found himself on both sides of the first official exchange between the U.S. and Israel. However, there was still no word from Lovett or Marshall. In the late morning, unable to contain my concern and tension, I called Lovett again and said we should move to resolve the matter; in response, he suggested we meet for lunch at a small, private club to which he belonged, the F Street Club, not far from the White House.
The luncheon with Lovett was a remarkable example of the way we were operating. With time literally slipping away, Lovett and I functioned in a sort of never-never land; while we calmly and professionally discussed technical aspects of the decision, we continued to disagree profoundly as to whether or not the decision should be made at all. Lovett's ability to function effectively on such murky terrain was one reason I respected him so much.
I brought Epstein's request for recognition, our proposed reply, and a draft of a Presidential statement with me. I wanted to increase the pressure on State. In a friendly but firm manner, Lovett continued to argue against recognition: delay, he said, was essential. Delay, I said, was the equivalent of nonrecognition in the explosive conditions that existed at that moment in the Mideast.
There were less than four hours remaining until the new nation would be proclaimed. I picked my way carefully through the conversation. "The President was impressed, as I was, by your argument, but at 6 p.m. tonight, without action by us, there will be no internationally recognized government or authority in Palestine," I said. "A number of people have advised the President that this should not be permitted. The President wishes to take action on recognition."
Lovett still had not given up: "Indecent haste in recognizing the new state would be unfortunate for the very reasons that I mentioned on Wednesday. Please get the President to delay for a day or so. It is hard for me to believe that one day could make so much difference. There will be a tremendous reaction in the Arab world. We might lose the effects of many years of hard work with the Arabs. We will lose our position with Arab leaders. It will put our diplomatic missions and consular representatives into personal jeopardy."
"Speed is essential to preempt the Russians," I replied, and reminded him that he and Marshall had been expressing great concern that the Soviet Union might take advantage of indecision on our part to gain a toehold in the area. "And a one-day delay will become two days, three days, and so on."
Lovett could see that our position was absolutely firm. If the State Department did not change its attitude, the feared explosion between the President and the General could not be averted. He simply had to back down.
"It is impossible to time our messages to arrive in so many distant capitals when we still don't know when the final decision will be made," he said, somewhat weakly. He again suggested a one-day delay.
"We have the formal request from the Jewish Agency, and the President will make the final decision this afternoon," I replied. On this ambiguous note our luncheon - friendly in tone, contentious in content - ended, and I returned to the White House, still uncertain if Lovett could "deliver" Marshall.
The President viewed my luncheon as a sign Lovett was trying to lead Marshall and his colleagues out of their bunker a step at a time. If Lovett wanted me to play the heavy in this minuet, by allowing me to reject their arguments one by one, partly in the name of the President, I was more than willing. And if he was trying to get himself and State off the hook by saying the decision was dictated by domestic politics, I thought that was an acceptable price for us at the White House to pay to get the job done. The only important thing, with time running out, was to get it done quickly.
A Breakthrough at the State Department
Around 4 p.m., Lovett made the telephone call I had waited so long to receive: "Clark, I think we have something we can work with. I have talked to the General. He cannot support the President's position, but he has agreed that he will not oppose it."
"God, that's good news." I was truly thrilled. I thanked Lovett for his efforts, and asked if he could get Marshall to call the President directly with the news. Lovett said he would try. Marshall never did make the call himself - I assume it was too painful for him to do so - but Lovett confirmed Marshall's position directly with the President a few minutes later. As Lovett called the President, I called Epstein and told him, in strict confidence, the good news.
Only thirty minutes remained before the announcement would be made in Tel Aviv. The American segment of the drama was now coming to its climax in three places simultaneously - the mini-command center in my office; the State Department; and the floor of the UN General Assembly, then located at Flushing Meadow, New York.
I had thought the issue was finally behind us, but to my astonishment, Lovett called to suggest another delay. Would the President agree to defer any action until after the General Assembly adjourned around ten that night?
Saying I would check with the President, I waited about three minutes and called Lovett back to say that delay was out of the question. It was about 5:40 p.m., and the State Department had run out of time and ideas.
But one last, suitably bizarre scene was still to be played out. At 5:45 p.m. I called Dean Rusk to ask him to inform Ambassador Warren Austin, the head of our UN delegation, that the White House would announce recognition of Israel right after 6 p.m.. I realized as I talked to Rusk that Lovett had not yet told him that the decision had been made. He reacted as if he had been stung: "This cuts directly across what our delegation had been trying to accomplish in the General Assembly - and we have a large majority for it," he responded testily.
"Nevertheless, Dean, this is what the President wishes you to do."
Reluctantly, Rusk called Austin off the floor of the General Assembly and told him what was about to happen. Stunned at the news, Austin decided not to return to the floor in order to signal that he had not known in advance of the President's decision. Instead, he got into his car and went home. Thinking that Austin had simply gone to the washroom, his colleagues in the American delegation continued to round up votes for trusteeship.
Just after 6 p.m., I walked hurriedly past the White House press corps, who were lounging, as usual, on the worn sofas in the lobby of the West Wing, to the office of Charlie Ross, the President's press secretary. Impatient to be told there would be no more news that day, the reporters wondered what story they were waiting for so late in the day. Handing Ross a piece of paper, I asked him to gather the press as quickly as possible. At 6:11 p.m., Ross read aloud to them: "Statement by the President. This government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine....The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel."
Back at the UN, the situation unraveled. Unaware of the White House announcement, the delegates continued to debate trusteeship status for Palestine. Suddenly a rumor swept the floor: the U.S. had recognized the Jewish state! As The New York Times reported the next morning, "the first reaction was that someone was making a terrible joke, and some diplomats broke into skeptical laughs." In the ensuing chaos, American delegates had to restrain physically the Cuban delegate, who tried to march to the podium to withdraw his nation from the world assembly!
The Aftermath
It had been a near-run thing, but the deed had been done. The U.S. had been the first to recognize Israel, as the President had hoped and wanted. (The Soviet Union followed suit three days later.) The struggle with Marshall, Lovett, Forrestal, and the entire foreign policy establishment had been contained - but only barely.
Lovett never told me exactly what had passed between him and Marshall in those last two days. From his general comments I concluded that Lovett had finally sat down alone with Marshall on Friday and said, in effect, that, having argued their position, they had an obligation to accept the President's policy or resign.
Although Marshall never forgave me, these events did nothing to impair my relations with Lovett. In fact, the curious combination of disagreement over substance and collaboration to solve the crisis had forged stronger and closer bonds between us. At the beginning of 1949, just before he left the government and returned to New York, we exchanged personal letters. In his, he wrote, "One of the happiest recollections of my tour of duty down here is the basis on which we worked on our common problems, and I am grateful to you beyond words for the understanding and help you always gave me." I certainly felt the same way.
Lovett remained adamant for the rest of his life, however, that the President and I had been wrong - as did most of his colleagues. Nothing could ever convince him, Marshall, Forrestal, Acheson or Rusk otherwise. Like Marshall, Lovett made sure that historians would find a personal record of his views - something that he rarely did in his long and distinguished career. In a vivid closing paragraph of his memorandum, written three days after these events but classified top secret for almost thirty years, Lovett revealed his true feelings:
In this memorandum I have omitted, for the sake of brevity, the long arguments back and forth through the afternoon [of May 14]. My protests against the precipitate action and warnings as to consequences with the Arab world appear to have been outweighed by considerations unknown to me, but I can only conclude that the President's political advisors, having failed last Wednesday afternoon to make the President a father of the new state, have determined at least to make him the midwife.
When I read this memorandum, I knew exactly whom Lovett meant when he referred to "the President's political advisors." In the same memorandum, he quoted me as saying, "The timing of this action is of the greatest possible importance to the President from a domestic point of view." It is regrettable that Lovett must have misunderstood some comment I had made. At no time did I suggest, or intend to suggest, that President Truman's major concern was domestic politics. During the luncheon we did discuss the election that would take place later that year, and three days later, when he dictated his record, it is possible that Lovett merged the two subjects. But his view that my desire to recognize Israel was motivated by political considerations was incorrect. Although domestic considerations are in fact a legitimate part of any important foreign policy decision, I never rested the case for recognition upon politics.
It is now more than forty years since those "timeless moments" in May. I can still see General Marshall exploding in anger; Bob Lovett fixing a drink while testing our determination; Loy Henderson looking for every possible way to stop the President; Eliahu Epstein joyfully asking how to request recognition for his new, still-unnamed nation; and Dean Rusk telling me that the President's decision contradicted American policy.
But never once, in these forty-plus years, have I wavered in the conviction that what Harry Truman did was correct. Lovett had been right on one point - the U.S. was "midwife" to Israel's creation. But he was wrong to ascribe this to the President's "political advisors." I believed in the advice we gave the President, but it was he who made the decision.
Under our system, political considerations are present in every important decision a President makes, but in this case it was in no way the central factor. The charge that domestic politics determined our policy on Palestine angered President Truman for the rest of his life. I shared his anger at the implication that the President and those Americans who supported the Zionists were somehow acting in opposition to our nation's interests. In fact, though, the President's policy rested on the realities of the situation in the region, on America's moral, ethical, and humanitarian values, on the costs and risks inherent in any other course, and - of course - on America's national interests.
What would have happened if President Truman had not acted as he did? History does not allow us to test alternatives, but, in my view, American recognition and the support that followed was vital in helping Israel survive. Had the U.S. continued to support trusteeship status for Palestine, Israel's condition at birth would have been infinitely more precarious, and in the war that followed, the Israelis would have been at an additional disadvantage. Emboldened by less American support for Israel, the Arabs might have been more successful in their war against the Jews. If that had happened, the U.S. might have faced a far more difficult decision within a year: either offer the Israelis massive American military support, or risk watching the Arabs drive the Israelis into the sea.
Because President Truman was often annoyed by the tone and fierceness of the pressure exerted on him by American Zionists, he left some people with the impression he was ambivalent about the events of May 1948. This was not true: he never wavered in his belief that he had taken the right action. He felt particularly warmly toward Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first President, and David Ben-Gurion, its first Prime Minister. In 1961, years after he left the White House, former President Truman met with Ben-Gurion in New York. Ben-Gurion's memory of that meeting is revealing:
At our last meeting, after a very interesting talk, just before [the President] left me - it was in a New York hotel suite - I told him that as a foreigner I could not judge what would be his place in American history; but his helpfulness to us, his constant sympathy with our aims in Israel, his courageous decision to recognize our new state so quickly and his steadfast support since then had given him an immortal place in Jewish history. As I said that, tears suddenly sprang to his eyes. And his eyes were still wet when he bade me goodbye. I had rarely seen anyone so moved. I tried to hold him for a few minutes until he had become more composed, for I recalled that the hotel corridors were full of waiting journalists and photographers. He left. A little while later, I too had to go out, and a correspondent came to me to ask, "Why was President Truman in tears when he left you?"
I believe that I know. These were the tears of a man who had been subjected to calumny and vilification, who had persisted against powerful forces within his own Administration determined to defeat him. These were the tears of a man who had fought ably and honorably for a humanitarian goal to which he was deeply committed. These were tears of thanksgiving that his God had seen fit to bless his labors with success.
* * *
Clark M. Clifford served as Special Counsel to President Truman from 1946 to 1950 and as Secretary of Defense in 1968-69 under President Johnson.
Richard C. Holbrooke served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (1977-81), U.S. Ambassador to Germany (1993-94), Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs (1994-96), and U.S. Ambassador to the UN (1999-2001). He was the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement which ended the war in Bosnia.
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