Happy # 87 Judy Collins

We remember Judy Collins who was born on this day in 1939.  

My first experience with Judy Collins was "Both sides now", her big hit and Top 10 in the US.   After that, I loved "Someday soon" and "Send in the clowns".

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1941: "Citizen Kane", a great movie!

 

 

Happy birthday "Citizen Kane", a great movie!     It was released on this day in 1941.

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"No more Vietnams" and a bit of wisdom from President Nixon

It was many years ago that North Vietnamese troops marched into Saigon in the spring of 1975.   Their victory was followed by concentration camps, political prisons and the death of thousands of pro-US supporters.

In other words, we let them down. We walked away and let a superior North Vietnamese army overrun our friends.

President Nixon wrote a wonderful book in '85 called "No more Vietnams".   It was a review of the war and the mistakes made along the way.  It should be read by everyone, specially the left that looked the other way when the communists murdered thousands in Vietnam and Cambodia.

It's a great book.

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1975: The fall of Saigon that did not have to happen

Back in 1975, I was in college trying to pass my classes and looking at some job offers in the local banks.  As I recall, the economy was okay for college graduates but the word “recession” was mentioned in some circles.  Watergate was behind us and the new President Gerald Ford was months away from facing a challenge from the former Governor Ronald Reagan of California.

During my time away from school work, I was dancing to Van McCoy’s “The hustle“, enjoying Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom” and laughing to tears watching “Monty Python and the Holy Grail“.

Over in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong walked into Saigon and we’ve known it as “Ho Chi Minh City” ever since.

They walked in because the South Vietnam army, our ally, was totally overmatched by large and ruthless divisions pouring from the North. 

As a South Vietnamese soldier told me a few years later, they killed everybody that they suspected of supporting the government in Saigon. They didn’t care whether it was man, woman, or child.

The tragedy of Vietnam is that the USSR could not believe that we let South Vietnam collapse in 1975, as Stephen J. Morris wrote on the 30th anniversary of the disintegration of Saigon:

If the United States had provided that level of support in 1975, when South Vietnam collapsed in the face of another North Vietnamese offensive, the outcome might have been at least the same as in 1972. 

But intense lobbying of Congress by the antiwar movement, especially in the context of the Watergate scandal, helped to drive cutbacks of American aid in 1974. 

Combined with the impact of the world oil crisis and inflation of 1973-74, the results were devastating for the south. 

As the triumphant North Vietnamese commander, Gen. Van Tien Dung, wrote later, President Nguyen Van Thieu of South Vietnam was forced to fight “a poor man’s war.”

Even Hanoi’s main patron, the Soviet Union, was convinced that a North Vietnamese military victory was highly unlikely. 

Evidence from Soviet Communist Party archives suggests that, until 1974, Soviet military intelligence analysts and diplomats never believed that the North Vietnamese would be victorious on the battlefield. Only political and diplomatic efforts could succeed. 

Moscow thought that the South Vietnamese government was strong enough to defend itself with a continuation of American logistical support. 

The former Soviet chargé d’affaires in Hanoi during the 1970’s told me in Moscow in late 1993 that if one looked at the balance of forces, one could not predict that the South would be defeated. 

Until 1975, Moscow was not only impressed by American military power and political will, it also clearly had no desire to go to war with the United States over Vietnam. 

But after 1975, Soviet fear of the United States dissipated.

Again, it could have turned out very differently, especially for the many who served in Vietnam.  They won the battles, and the politicians lost the peace.   

So let remember today the generation drafted to fight a war that we chose to lose.  And let’s not forget the millions slaughtered by the communists in Vietnam and later in Cambodia.

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Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/the_fall_of_saigon.html#ixzz6LHX7N4C7

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"Lamplight", great song by The Bee Gees!

It was part of the "Odessa" LP released in the spring of 1969 and also the B side of "First of May".

"Lamplight" was one of my favorite songs from the Brothers Gibb.

The "A" side of this great single was "First of May", another wonderful 
song!   It was also included in the movie "Melody".

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First of May (remembering The Bee Gees)

It was originally released in the spring of 1969. The Bee Gees sold millions of records but "First of May" is still one of my favorites. 

First of May---Bee Gees

"When I was small, and christmas trees were tall,

We used to love while others used to play.

Dont ask me why, but time has passed us by,

Some one else moved in from far away.(chorus)

Now we are tall, and christmas trees are small,

And you dont ask the time of day.

But you and i, our love will never die,

But guess well cry come first of may.

The apple tree that grew for you and me,

I watched the apples falling one by one.

And I recall the moment of them all,

The day I kissed your cheek and you were mine.....

When I was small, and christmas trees were tall,

Do do do do do do do do do...

Dont ask me why, but time has passed us by,

Some one else moved in from far away."

Have a happy First of May!

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1956: "Heartbreak hotel" by Elvis was # 1 this week

  

Elvis recorded this song in January 1956 and it became his first # 1 and gold record.   "Heartbreak hotel" is one of the greatest rock songs of all time.  

It launched Elvis and everything that followed, from more gold records to movies.   I learned later that Chet Atkins played guitar and Floyd Cramer the piano in this recording.

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OPEC no more. SCOTUS opinions & Hitler dead 1945.

 

OPEC no more. SCOTUS opinions & Hitler dead 1945.

OPEC no more?

OPEC no more?:

I won’t miss the oil cartel.

If you recall the first oil embargo, circa 1973, and lining up to put gas in your dad’s Ford Gran Torino, then you remember that four letter word OPEC.  I recall people calling it “the oil cartel,” the first time I ever used that word.

We remember Bobby Vee (1943-2016)

We remember Robert Thomas Velline who was born in Fargo, South Dakota on this day in 1943.    

We known him as Bobby Vee, one of the most popular pop vocalists of the early 1960's.    

He put 30 songs in the Billboard Top 100 including several in the Top 10:  “Take Good Care of My Baby” # 1, “Devil or Angel” “Rubber Ball” “More Than I Can Say”, “Run to Him”, “The Night Has a Thousand eyes”, and “Come Back When You Grow Up”.    

As I understand, he was one of the first artists to use what we now call a video to promote a song.

Bobby Vee died in 2016.

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