Friday, December 28, 1973

1973: The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn



The Gulag Archipelago was published many years ago today:
"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "literary investigation" of the police-state system in the Soviet Union, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956, is published in the original Russian in Paris. The book was the first of the three-volume work. The brutal and uncompromising description of political repression and terror was quickly translated into many languages and was published in the United States just a few months later."
It is a very difficult book to read but worth the effort.  The USSR collapsed at the end of 1991 but we can not forget what was done in the name of communism.
 
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Sunday, December 16, 1973

1973: Top 10 this week WABC radio in New York

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1. The Most Beautiful Girl - Charlie Rich (Epic)
2. Top of the World - The Carpenters (A&M)
3. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John (MCA)
4. Just You 'n' Me - Chicago (Columbia)
5. Time In a Bottle - Jim Croce (ABC)
6. Hello It's Me - Todd Rundgren (Bearsville)
7. Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress) - Helen Reddy (Capitol)
8. The Love I Lost -
Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes (Philadelphia Int.)
9. The Joker - The Steve Miller Band (Capitol)
10. Photograph - Ringo Starr (Apple)
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Tuesday, December 11, 1973

We remember Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1911-2008)


Alexander Solzhenitsyn died in 2008.   He was born in Kislovodsk, Russia on this day in 1911.

We remember him as an author who wrote about Soviet communism. He knew first hand what repression and tyranny really were:
"Beginning with the 1962 short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," Solzhenitsyn devoted himself to describing what he called the human "meat grinder" that had caught him along with millions of other Soviet citizens: capricious arrests, often for trifling and seemingly absurd reasons, followed by sentences to slave labor camps where cold, starvation and punishing work crushed inmates physically and spiritually.
His "Gulag Archipelago" trilogy of the 1970s left readers shocked by the savagery of the Soviet state under the dictator Josef Stalin."
Mr. Solzhenitsyn was a real hero of the 20th century!

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Friday, December 07, 1973

We remember Pearl Harbor 1941


Today, we remember Pearl Harbor.   Again, we recall the bravery of everyone who died and fought in WW 2.

Let's hope that new generations always remember this day.

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Wednesday, December 05, 1973

December 5, 1872: What happened to the Mary Celeste?


On December 5, 1872, the Mary Celeste, an American vessel, was found near the Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.   The ship's supplies were untouched and everything looked normal.   However, there was not one passenger, or trait of anyone, on board.

So what happened?   We don't know.  There are many theories but nothing definite.  

It is one of the great shipping mysteries of the 19th century.

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Sunday, December 02, 1973

1973: The day that Gerald Ford became VP

On this day in 1973,  Representative Gerald Ford became Vice President of the US following the resignation of VP Agnew.   

David Shribman wrote an article reminding us of just how fortunate we were that Gerald Ford was the man who assumed the office.

Put me down as one of those who believes that President Ford was a great president.  He did not fight a war or deal with an economic depression.  He did restore the presidency and that's no small achievement.

As President Carter said after taking the presidential oath:   
"For myself and for our Nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land.."
Yes, we should all thank President Ford for healing the nation.  It was no small task.

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Friday, November 30, 1973

Nov 30, 1874: Winston Churchill was born!


We remember today one of the great men of the 20th century:

"Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain and the Allies through the crisis of World War II, is born at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England."   (History)

Churchill was the man at the right time for the UK in World War II.   

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Thursday, November 22, 1973

1963: President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas


As a kid in Cuba, I sat with my father and watched Fidel Castro on Cuban TV talk about the Kennedy assassination.  I don't remember what he said but my dad told me later that Castro was very nervous.  I guess that he felt that President Johnson would use the assassination to correct the mistake of The Bay of Pigs.  A few days later, I heard my father and some of his friends say the same thing over a little Cuban coffee and cigars.   

It was a very tense time in Cuba because the Castro regime was locking up dissidents, such as my father's cousin Dr. Ignacio Segurola who spent 14 years in prison without a trial.   My mother told me recently that she was afraid that my own father would be picked up because he refused to take a job with the newly created national bank that replaced all of the privately owned banks expropriated (or as they say "nationalized") during that time.

Over time, I've heard all of the conspiracy theories, watched a few documentaries and even that idiotic Oliver Stone JFK movie that came out in 1991.   

Can we finally call it?  President JFK was killed by a crazy guy who was hanging around with communists and supporting the Castro dictatorship in Cuba.

Yes, there were angry right-wingers in Dallas.  Some of them behaved poorly.  However, do you think that one of these groups would have "contracted" a head case like Oswald to kill anybody?.  My guess is that most of these right wing groups would have given Oswald a bloody lip for his communist ideas if they ever had a chance to run into him. 

A few years ago, James Piereson put the nail in all of the conspiracies, especially the nonsense that right wingers in Dallas or the "let's get into Vietnam" military industrial complex.

Mr Piereson tells us about Oswald, the communist who killed the president of the US:
"The facts are that President Kennedy was a martyr in the Cold War struggle against communism. The assassin was a communist and not a bigot or a right-winger. Oswald defected from the U.S. to the Soviet Union in 1959, vowing when he did so that he could no longer live under a capitalist system. He returned to the U.S. with his Russian wife in 1962, disappointed with life under Soviet communism but without giving up his Marxist beliefs or his hatred of the U.S. By 1963, Oswald had transferred his political allegiance to Castro's communist regime in Cuba.  

In April 1963, Oswald attempted to shoot Edwin Walker, a retired U.S. Army general, as he sat at a desk in his dining room. Walker was the head of the Dallas chapter of the John Birch Society and a figure then in the news because of his opposition to school integration and his demand that the Castro regime be overthrown. The rifle Oswald used in the attempt at Walker's life was the one he used to shoot Kennedy.  

Dallas police would not identify Oswald as Walker's would-be assassin until after the assassination of Kennedy, but Oswald, fearful that he would be identified for the Walker shooting, fled Dallas for New Orleans. 

In June 1963 he established a local chapter of Fair Play for Cuba, a national organization dedicated to gaining diplomatic recognition for Castro's regime. Oswald was filmed by a local television station in New Orleans circulating leaflets on behalf of the Castro government and was jailed briefly following a street altercation with anti-Castro Cubans. Soon thereafter he appeared on a local television program to debate U.S. policy toward Cuba.  

In late September, Oswald left New Orleans to travel to Mexico City in pursuit of a visa that would permit him to travel to Cuba and then to the Soviet Union. As documented in the Warren Commission Report, he took along a dossier of news clippings on his pro-Castro activities to establish his revolutionary bona fides with personnel at the Cuban and Soviet embassies in the city. 

Oswald returned to Dallas empty-handed after being told that his application would take months to process. He was still waiting on his application six weeks later when he read that President Kennedy's forthcoming visit to Texas would include a motorcade through downtown Dallas and past the building where he worked.  

The assassin's motives for shooting Kennedy were undoubtedly linked to a wish to interfere with the president's campaign to overthrow Castro's government. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy pledged to abandon efforts to overthrow Castro's regime by force. But the war of words between the two governments continued, and so did clandestine plots by the Kennedy administration to eliminate Castro by assassination."
Last, but not least, I have spoken to Cubans living in New Orleans in 1962-63 who got into heated arguments with Oswald over Cuba.  They will attest to the fact that Oswald was a "Castro loving communist," or exactly the kind of jerk who would kill the president of the US.

The right did not kill JFK.  The bloody communist did!

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Thursday, November 08, 1973

1864: President Lincoln was reelected!


On this day in 1864, President Lincoln was reelected in the middle of the US Civil War.   

As people voted, General Sherman's troops were running around the South and winning battles.  Lincoln carried all but three states (Kentucky, New Jersey, and Delaware), and won 55 percent of the vote.   He won 212 electoral votes to McCellan’s 21.    

On one hand, it was a good victory for President Lincoln.  On the other hand, it was not a national election since the South did not participate.


Thursday, October 25, 1973

1973: Ferguson Jenkins traded to Rangers for a young Bill Madlock


Who remember this?   On this day in 1973, the Cubs traded 6-time 20-game winner Ferguson Jenkins to the Rangers for third baseman Bill Madlock and utility man Vic Harris.     

Jenkins won 25 games for a very young Texas team that challenged Oakland for the AL West title in 1974.   

He won 284 with a 3.34 ERA and 267 complete games over 19 seasons.    Jenkins was selected to The Hall of Fame in 1991.

On the other hand, Madlock went on to have a great career: .305 average and 2,008 hits in 15 seasons.  He won 4 batting titles, 2 in Chicago and 2 in Pittsburgh.

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Saturday, October 20, 1973

1973: What they called "The Saturday night massacre"

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Back in October 1973, the A's and Mets were playing a very good World Series.  

By evening, it was all about the Nixon White House.   As I recall, the 3 networks went on "alert" to report on the firings at The White House.    

It started when President Nixon told Attorney General Richardson to fire Watergate prosecutor Archibald Fox. AG Richardson resigned in protest.   Deputy Attorney General Ruckelshaus resigned too.   

So President Nixon went down the chain of command and Solicitor General Robert Bork fired Mr. Cox.    (We would hear Bork's name again in 1987 when he was nominated by President Reagan to The Supreme Court.  We now use the word "Borking" when an opponent is attacked in every possible way)

It became "The Saturday Night Massacre".   However, no one got killed and President Nixon had the authority to fire the Watergate prosecutor.   

Archibald Cox was eventually replaced by Leon Jaworski.  He resumed the investigation and Nixon resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974.

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Wednesday, October 10, 1973

A man named Spiro









Maybe it's another urban legend but I heard it many years ago.

On this day in 1973, The Supreme Court was hearing some oral arguments, the Reds were playing the Mets in the National League Championship Series and the game was interrupted with the flash that Vice President Agnew had resigned.  The legend is that a clerk passed a note to one of the justices that went sort of like this:  Pete Rose crashed into Buddy Harrelson at second and Agnew resigned.  We don't know if that actually happened but it makes for a great story.

Spiro Agnew was elected governor of Maryland in the mid-1960s.   In 1968, Richard Nixon shocked the world by selecting him as VP on the GOP ticket.  "Spiro who?" was the talk of the land.   A few months later  they won a very close election but Governor Agnew did not deliver Maryland that year.   

Back then, many of my school friends started playing games saying that Spiro rhymed with Silvio.  It doesn't but VP Agnew and I do have strange names.   After all, how many people do you know named Silvio or Spiro?   There weren't many where I was hanging around.

During Nixon's first term, VP Agnew spoke around the country against antiwar demonstrators and the media.   He became very popular with "the Silent Majority" as President Nixon referred to people who worked, paid taxes, and loved their country.

The Nixon-Agnew ticket was reelected in 1972.  Nevertheless, the Nixon-Agnew relationship was never close but that's not unusual for a president and vice-president.  Agnew did deliver Maryland in 1972 but 49 states voted for President Nixon that year.

In 1973, we began to read stories of corruption.  First, the Justice Department uncovered widespread evidence of political corruption during Agnew's tenure as governor.  Secondly, there were stories of bribes during his tenure as vice president.

It all happened very quickly.  Within days, he resigned and was eventually replaced by VP Gerald Ford in December.  Later, he wrote a book presenting his defense but I don't think that it sold well.

Mr. Agnew wrote another book about a vice president a few years later titled The Canfield Decision.  It probably paid a few of his legal bills.  It was one of those books that I wanted to read but something more interesting came up,

It’s amazing how quickly he rose and fell, from an unknown Governor of Maryland to VP to disgrace.  Agnew died in 1996.


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Tuesday, October 09, 1973

1967: Che is still burning in hell after all of these years

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By 1965, Che Guevara had faded from public life. His disappearance created all kinds of speculation about Che’s relationship with Fidel and Raúl Castro. After all, some close to Castro in 1959 had been killed in accidents, like Camilo Cienfuegos, or stuck in political prisons, like Huber Matos. Cienfuegos’s plane was never found, and Matos was eventually released in some prisoner exchange.  Matos spent the rest of his life in exile.

Che reappeared in 1966 in Bolivia, where he hoped to bring about a revolution.  How did he get there?  Who paid his bills? Why did he suddenly leave Cuba?  Many believe that Fidel and Raúl wanted him out, and starting a revolution in Bolivia was the exit.  I think it’s fair to say that Che had worn out his welcome with the Castro brothers, specially after they saw how popular he was with the international left.  As we learned, there is only one “popular” person in Cuba, and that’s Fidel.

Fifty-five years ago this week, Che was captured and executed by Bolivian troops operating with the CIA.  It happened very fast.  As we learned in his diary, Che and his men lacked food and medicine and were barely surviving in the jungle.  It’s possible that Che would have died of bad health and no medical care.  He was battling asthma attacks constantly.  Also, they were not getting a lot of help from Cuba, either by design or because the supplies could not reach them.  My guess is that Che was happy to get captured and hoped for some prison time and then a return to Cuba.  He did not get his wish.

Che subsequently became “the image” on all those t-shirts.  He became the ultimate anti-U.S. symbol, the image that every left-wing group goes to when its members have a gripe against the U.S.

Ironically, he was captured because the campaign in Bolivia failed miserably.  It failed for two reasons, as Humberto Fontova explained in Exposing the Real Che.  Read the book for more details, but it went down like this:

1) Bolivia was not Cuba.

2) The natives in Bolivia never bought into the idea that a band led by a guy from Argentina and Cubans was there to save them.  In the end, it was the villagers he was trying to “liberate” who turned him in.  Again, the Bolivian campaign was a total failure.  The locals never read the memo about Cuban health care, I guess.

Che was a murderer and a man who said awful things about blacks, for example.  This is from Guillermina Sutter Schneider:

In his diary, he referred to black people as “those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing.” He also thought white Europeans were superior to people of African descent, and described Mexicans as “a band of illiterate Indians.”

Today, we would call him a racist and a homophobe!  We’d cancel him from universities.  Twitter would delete his account.

So I still remember my father saying in Spanish that they got him.  Indeed they did, and many champagne bottles popped in the Cuban exile community this week in 1967.

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Sunday, October 07, 1973

We remember Al Martino (1927-2008)


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Remember the opening wedding scene in "The Godfather"?  Remember Al Martino?   He was born in Philadelphia on this day in 1927 and passed away in October 2009.   He was 82.

We will always remember Al Martino because of "The Godfather" movies.

Al Martino had a great voice, as we can appreciate from listening to his many selections.

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Thursday, September 27, 1973

1973: Nolan Ryan 383 K's in one season



Image result for nolan ryan angels imagesWe remember Nolan Ryan on this day in 1973.   He struck Rich Reese for # 383 and a new season record.     

Ryan finished 1973 with a 21-16 record, 2.87 ERA, 2 no-hitters, finished second in the Cy Young Award voting to Jim Palmer and got 383 K's
.  




Tuesday, September 25, 1973

We remember Phil Rizzuto (1917-2007)


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We remember Phil Rizzuto, who was born in Brooklyn on this day in 1917.  Phil was born in the New York area and got to play shortstop with great Yankee teams. 

His teammates included Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra, played for the legendary Casey Stengel and got to watch young Mickey Mantle break into baseball.   Like many others of his generation, Rizutto served in the military during WW2.

After baseball, Phil called over 1,000 games on radio and TV.

What a great life!   Rizutto was selected to the Hall of Fame in 1994.

Last, but not least, Rizzuto played with the 1949-53 Yankees or the team that won the Series 5 years in a row.

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Friday, September 14, 1973

1901: President McKinley died on this day


On this day in 1901President William McKinley died from gun shots.    During the 2016 election, Karl Rove often brought up the 1896 election and even wrote a book about it.

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Tuesday, September 11, 1973

1973: Remember Chile's 9-11



Over in Chile, they remember another anniversary of the 1973 overthrow of President Allende.     


Back in 1970, Salvador Allende was elected in a very controversial three-way race that ended up in the Chilean supreme court.  The vote results were:   


Salvador Allende, socialist  1,075,616

Jorge Alessandri, independent  1,036,278

Radomiro Tomic, Christian Democrat  824,849

Allende won a plurality, or 36%.  It was challenged and ultimately upheld in the courts.  In retrospect, a runoff would have been better and Alessandri would have probably won.  It did not happen that way and Allende, whose socialist party was actually to the left of the Chilean communist party, made a massive turn to the left.

By the summer of 1973, Chile was in turmoil. Shortages abounded, political prisons were filled, workers were on strike, and Fidel Castro literally came down to give orders. President Allende had lost control of the situation.  I recall a business colleague of my father who returned from a trip to Santiago totally horrified with the situation.  He saw the panic in the streets, frustration and called it a perfect storm for a coup.

Allende embarked on what he called a "Chilean path to socialism" but he totally misread public opinion.  Chile did not vote for a bona fide communist revolution and President Allende was totally out of line.  

By the way, I see a connection to the current Biden presidency, or how the left totally misunderstood the election.  In Chile, that election result was comparable to the bitter fight between Trump and Biden but in no way a statement that the nation wanted a leftist transformation.

In early September, the Chilean legislature and the Chilean high court had ordered General Augusto Pinochet to take over. That was what the left calls the 'coup' although there are those in Chile who said it was not a coup given that Pinochet did not act on his own. He formed a military government and from there learned that it was not easy to turn around a country devastated by decades of extended socialism, culminating in the full blown communism of Allende.   He implemented market reforms, through his "Chicago Boys" free market economists, the first time such reforms had been tried -- privatization, free trade, private savings accounts for pensions (truly revolutionary) -- which was a radical shift. At times, the reforms were painful, and the adjustment was hard on the Chilean people.  Pinochet backtracked at least once, but in the end, went with the market reforms because it worked better than all other approaches. 

Is Chile better off today?  I say 'yes' but I respect those Chileans who lost loved ones during a very difficult period.  That included victims of the Marxists, of course, but also people on the left. According to reports, as many as 40,000 people were killed, tortured or disappeared at the hands of the regime, (the vast majority in guerrilla combat with the Chilean army in the first three years), yet there were many innocents and that's a black eye for the Pinochet years. 

Finally, Pinochet left power after losing big in a plebiscite in 1988, a notable thing given that actual dictators do not give up power.  Chile began its return to democracy the next year, and here we are.    

At the end of the day, Pinochet’s legacy is a prosperous and non-communist Chile, as Paul Weyrich wrote when Pinochet died in 2006.     

Pinochet saved Chile from turning into Cuba or Venezuela and most locals are very happy about that.   At the same time, Chile's left has flourished lately and let's hope that the new generation does not destroy the amazing progress of the last decades.

Thursday, August 30, 1973

August 1973: Willie Mays hit # 660 or his last HR


The great Willie Mays hit his last home run, or # 660, on this day in 1973.   He hit it off Don Gullett of the Cincinnati Reds.   
Mays was # 3 behind Ruth and Aaron when he retired.   He had a .302 career average, 3283 hits and 1903 Rbi.  
Maybe the greatest player ever?   He gets my vote.

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