Historical Figures Who Outlived JFK

Today is the 60th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It is fascinating to consider some of the historical figures who outlived him.  The point here is not to satisfy a morbid curiosity, but to make a point about history.  "The past is never dead," William Faulkner wrote, "It's not even past."  Memories of the past shape current events, and people who took part in historic events often live long enough to reshape those memories.

Just hours before he died, Kennedy called former vice president John Nance Garner (who served under Franklin Roosevelt from 1933 to 1941) to wish him a happy 95th birthday.  Here are other major figures who were still alive on the fateful day:

• Winston Churchill (d. 1965)
• Charles deGaulle (d. 1970)
• Herbert Hoover  (d. 1964)
• Harry Truman  (d. 1972)
• Dwight Eisenhower (d. 1969)
• Douglas MacArthur (d. 1964)
• Gen. Bernard Montgomery (d. 1976)
• Adm. Chester Nimitz (d. 1966)
• Hellen Keller (d. 1968)
• Margaret Sanger (d. 1966)
• Upton Sinclair (d. 1968)
• Norman Thomas (d. 1968)
• John Steinbeck (d. 1968)
• Bernard Baruch (d. 1965)
• Joseph P. Kennedy (d. 1969)chu

Oswald Acted Alone

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

Oswald acted alone.  The more education you have, the more likely you are to know that. Gallup:

The latest poll, conducted Oct. 2-23, finds majorities of most key demographic groups believing that more than one person was involved in Kennedy’s assassination. Americans with postgraduate education are the exception, with more who say a lone gunman (50%) rather than multiple people (44%) killed the president. This was not the case when this question was last asked in 2013.

The views of college graduates (those without any postgraduate education) are closer to those of Americans with at least some postgraduate education compared with those without a college degree. Still, 57% of college graduates think there was a conspiracy among multiple parties, while 41% say Oswald acted alone.

Although majorities of all party groups believe Kennedy’s assassination involved a conspiracy, that view is less prevalent among Democrats (55%) than Republicans (71%) and independents (68%). Conversely, Democrats (39%) are more likely than Republicans (25%) and independents (25%) to support the idea of a lone gunman.

Paul Roderick Gregory at WSJ last year:

Less than a year after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Warren Commission released its findings to the public: JFK was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, who acted alone. The new tranche of files the National Archives released last week contains nothing that calls that conclusion into question. But many Americans do anyway.

When the Warren report came out in September 1964, some 80% agreed with its finding that Oswald acted alone. Today more than 60% don’t believe Oswald acted alone. The persistent belief in a conspiracy has been fueled by the 400 books published on the Kennedys, most on the multitude of conspiracy theories revolving around Cuba, the Soviet Union, the Mafia, Texas oil interests, Lyndon B. Johnson and so on. One of the most amusing, in an effort to shift the blame from the leftist Oswald, lists my father and me as part of a White Russian conspiracy.


We did have a connection with Oswald. My father, a native Russian speaker, taught the language at a public library in Fort Worth, Texas. Oswald wanted a certificate of fluency in Russian and invited my father and me to his brother’s house. There we met Lee’s wife, Marina, for whom my father translated after the assassination. Moscow and some American leftists accused him of mistranslating her to shift the blame to Lee. Lee’s brother identified me as Lee and Marina’s only friend during their stay in Forth Worth.

I never doubted that Lee did it, or that he did it alone, when I saw his image on the TV screen as he was brought into Dallas police headquarters. As I told the Secret Service the next day, the Lee Harvey Oswald I knew would be the last person I would recruit for a conspiracy. He was genetically incapable of being either a leader or a follower.

The Warren report itself is a masterpiece in careful investigation. Its agents interviewed almost everyone who crossed paths with the Oswalds, down to fellow passengers on Lee’s bus to Mexico City and a landlord who once knocked on their door. The explanation of the sustained rejection of its findings rests with incredulity that history-changing events can happen by chance, especially through the actions of a nobody like Lee Harvey Oswald—a paranoid, delusional high-school dropout who expected his Historic Diary to make him an intellectual figure of the left.

I have a quite different picture as I remember waving goodbye to Lee and Marina as they boarded the night bus from Fort Worth to Dallas on Nov. 22, 1962, exactly one year before the assassination. Lee had all the attributes for a “low-tech” assassination: motive, resources, persistence, street smarts and the soul of a killer. He also needed a string of the coincidences that formed the brew for the conspiracy theories that seem to have won the day.

The loss of national innocence begun with JFK’s assassination has only gotten worse—the Pentagon Papers, WikiLeaks, Russiagate, evidence of a partisan bureaucracy, and questioning of formerly revered institutions such as the Supreme Court and Federal Bureau of Investigation. Can public trust be regained after such damage?

Myths, Misinformation, and RFK Jr.

 Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation.

Julia Shapero at The Hill:

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested Wednesday that Russia has been “acting in good faith” in various efforts to end the war in Ukraine and placed blame on the U.S. for the 16-monthlong conflict.

Kennedy said in an interview on SiriusXM’s “The Briefing with Steve Scully” that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “repeatedly said yes” to negotiations.

Joan Walsh at The Nation:

I’ve been doing my best to ignore the farcical presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His noxious views on vaccines, the origin of AIDS, the alleged dangers of wi-fi and other forms of junk science deserve no wide hearing. Polls showing he’s favored by 20 percent of likely Democratic voters over President Biden are almost as laughable as Kennedy’s views. It’s early; he’s got iconic American name recognition; and there’s almost always an appetite, among Democrats anyway, for anybody but the incumbent. His lies have been thoroughly debunked by Judd Legum at Popular Info, Michael Scherer in The Washington Post, Naomi Klein in The Guardian, and Brandy Zadrozny on NBC News.

But I’ve come to believe I have a responsibility to write about Kennedy because of my own shameful role in sending his toxic vaccine views into public discourse: I was the Salon editor, in partnership with Rolling Stone, who 18 years ago published his mendacious, error-ridden piece on how thimerosal in childhood vaccines supposedly led to a rise in autism, and how public health officials covered it up. From the day “Deadly Immunity” went up on Salon.com, we were besieged by scientists and advocates showing how Kennedy had misunderstood, incorrectly cited, and perhaps even falsified data. Some of his sources turned out to be known crackpots.

///
But as subsequent articles and books continued to debunk Kennedy’s conspiracy theory, it felt irresponsible to leave it up. Six years later, in 2011, my successor as editor in chief, Kerry Lauerman, in consultation with me and others, decided we should take it down. Rolling Stone later did the same. (In the interests of transparency, we preserved the corrections page.)

Jake Tapper at CNN:

Go back to 2005. I was a reporter with ABC News and Salon.com reached out to see if we were interested in doing a TV spot tied to the publication of the Kennedy Jr. piece. I interviewed him via phone, with a TV crew in his office, and prepared a spot for “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.”

In Kennedy’s bizarre retelling a few days ago (the relevant part starts at 27:55 into the interview), I worked with him “for three weeks doing this incredible documentary” (no and no) about his Rolling Stone story – please note he makes zero mention of the article having since been retracted and disappeared – and then “the night before the piece was supposed to run, he called me up and said, ‘The piece just got killed by corporate.’” (I didn’t say that in any way and the piece wasn’t killed.) “All my career, I have never had a piece killed by corporate and I’m so mad,” he said I said. (I hadn’t. I had been at ABC News for two years. I had had plenty of pieces killed. Not once did “corporate” play a role in killing any of them.)

 

 

Cuban Missile Crisis Speech

 

JFK Calls Out Russian Lies

John F. Kennedy, Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/236392 

In this speech, John F. Kennedy revealed the Cuban Missile Crisis to the American public.

The size of this undertaking makes clear that it has been planned for some months. Yet only last month, after I had made clear the distinction between any introduction of ground-to-ground missiles and the existence of defensive antiaircraft missiles, the Soviet Government publicly stated on September 11 that, and I quote, "the armaments and military equipment sent to Cuba are designed exclusively for defensive purposes," that, and I quote the Soviet Government, "there is no need for the Soviet Government to shift its weapons . . . For a retaliatory blow to any other country, for instance Cuba," and that, and I quote their government, "the Soviet Union has so powerful rockets to carry these nuclear warheads that there is no need to search for sites for them beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Union." That statement was false.

Only last Thursday, as evidence of this rapid offensive buildup was already in my hand, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko told me in my office that he was instructed to make it clear once again, as he said his government had already done, that Soviet assistance to Cuba, and I quote, "pursued solely the purpose of contributing to the defense capabilities of Cuba," that, and I quote him, "training by Soviet specialists of Cuban nationals in handling defensive armaments was by no means offensive, and if it were otherwise," Mr. Gromyko went on, "the Soviet Government would never become involved in rendering such assistance." That statement also was false.

The People Rate the Presidents

 Matthew Smith at YouGov:

The respective excellence of US presidents is always being debated. Many academics have put together rankings over the years to demonstrate who they think is best, and in one famous case the features of one person’s top four have been carved into a mountain.

But how do the leaders of the nation rank in terms of public opinion? A new YouGov poll has asked Americans their view on the 45 men who have served as president to date.

Topping the list is Abraham Lincoln. Eight in ten Americans (80%) have a favorable view of the president who freed the slaves and won the Civil War, including 56% who have a “very favorable” view of him.

In a perhaps surprise second place – if going by combined very+somewhat favorable ratings – is John F. Kennedy, whom 73% of Americans have a favorable view opinion of. This puts him three points ahead of the more traditional runner-up George Washington (70%), who places third on this measure (although the scores are within the margin of error). It is worth noting that fewer people have a “very” favorable view of Kennedy: 35% to Washington’s 44%.

Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson complete the top five, both being seen favorably by 62% of Americans.

...

 There are only two presidents who are currently seen unfavorably by a majority of Americans: Richard Nixon (56%) and Donald Trump (54%). More Americans take a “very” negative view of Trump (47% to Nixon’s 34%), although he is also popular among a wider group: 39% like Donald Trump compared to 27% for Nixon.

How Presidents Mention Their Predecessors

Amnon Cavari, Benjamin Yoel, Hannah Lowenkamp have an article at American Politics Research titled "In the Name of the President."  The abstract:

Presidents often make references to their predecessors in their oral remarks—a rhetorical tool that can advance support for their policies, define their presidency, and achieve political gains. And yet, despite the frequency that this rhetorical tool is used and its possible impact, references to former presidents have so far defied a systematic empirical research. To fill in this void in the literature, we examine the frequency of references to presidents, the identity of referenced presidents, and the policy context of each reference in all oral references made by presidents Reagan through Trump. We demonstrate that mentioning former presidents is a political tool that presidents use routinely in their public speeches. We find that presidents use this tool strategically—controlling the timing and identity of references and in connection to their policy appeals.

Reagan mentioned JFK more than any other president, even Lincoln.

 

Nixon Announces that JFK Has Won

On January 6, 1961, after the official counting of the electoral votes in a joint session of Congress, Vice President Richard Nixon announced the election of his 1960 opponent, John F. Kennedy.

Mr. Speaker,  since this is an unprecedented situation,  I would like to ask permission to impose upon the time of the Members of this Congress to make a statement which in itself is somewhat unprecedented.

I promise to be brief. I shall be guided by the 1-minute rule of the House rather than the unlimited time rule that prevails in the Senate.

This is the first time in 100 years that a candidate for the Presidency announced the result of an election in which he was defeated and announced the victory of his opponent. I do not think we could have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our constitutional system and of the proud tradition. of the American people of developing, respecting, and honoring institutions of self-government. 

In our campaigns, no matter how hard fought they may be, no matter how close the election may turn out to be, those who lose accept the verdict, and support those who win. And I would like to add that, having served now in Government for 14 years, a period which began in the House just 14 years ago, almost to the day, which continued with 2 years in the Senate and 8 years as Vice President, as I complete that 14-year period it is indeed a very great honor to me to extend to my colleagues in the House and Senate on both sides of the aisle who have been elected; to extend to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, who have been elected President and Vice President of the United States, my heartfelt best wishes, as all of you work in a cause that is bigger than any man's ambition, greater than any party. It is the cause of freedom, of justice, and peace for all mankind.

It is in that spirit that I now declare that John F. Kennedy has been elected President of the United States, and Lyndon B. Johnson Vice President of the United States.

Members of the Congress, the purpose for which the joint session of the two Houses of Congress has been called pursuant to Senate Concurrent Resolution 1, having been accomplished, the Chair declares the joint session dissolved.

Virtual Debate, 1960

"I'm Bill Shadel ABC News...The 2 candidates will not be sharing same platform. In NY John F Kennedy. Separated by 3,000 miles in L.A. studio, Richard Nixon. Joined for discussion by network of electronic facilities which permits each candidate to see & hear the other"
10/13/1960 pic.twitter.com/9GottJMbPP

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) October 8, 2020

Presidential Illness

Jessica Pearce Rotondi at History.com:

Woodrow Wilson nearly died of the 1918 flu pandemic during sensitive negotiations with world leaders at the Paris Peace Talks. With the flu decimating civilians and soldiers in World War I—20 million people eventually died from the disease worldwide—Wilson’s doctor lied, telling the press the President had caught a cold from the rain in Paris.

Wilson’s illness depleted him, and aides became worried it was hindering the president's ability to negotiate. Ultimately, Wilson relinquished his demands on French leader Georges Clemenceau, accepting the demilitarization of the Rhineland and French occupation of it for at least 15 years. The resulting Treaty of Versailles was so harsh on Germany that it contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the outbreak of World War II.

It wouldn’t be the last time a doctor lied about Wilson’s condition: In 1919, he suffered a series of strokes that prompted his cabinet to suggest the vice president take over. First Lady Edith Wilson and the president’s doctor, Cary Grayson, refused.

 Joel Achenbach and Lillian Cunningham at WP:

The public had limited information about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s physical condition when he ran for president in 1932. The press corps avoided mentioning that Roosevelt used a wheelchair. By the time he ran for a fourth term in 1944, he had heart disease, was constantly tired and had trouble concentrating. Frank Lahey, a surgeon who examined Roosevelt, wrote a memo saying FDR would never survive another four-year term. The memo was not disclosed until 2011.

Harry Truman, FDR’s final running mate, was shocked when he saw Roosevelt for the first time in a year, because, as he told an aide, “physically he’s just going to pieces” — a moment recounted in Michael Beschloss’s book “The Conquerors.” When a friend told Truman to take a close look at the White House because he would soon be living there, Truman answered, “I’m afraid I am, and it scares the hell out of me.”

But the public didn’t know any of this, Beschloss writes. Roosevelt’s opponent, Thomas Dewey, derided “tired old men” in the White House, but Roosevelt sailed to victory that November. He died just months later, in April 1945, leaving Truman to close out World War II. Truman had known nothing of the Manhattan Project and had to make the difficult decision about dropping atomic bombs on Japan.

Robert Dallek at The Atlantic:

But the full extent of Kennedy’s medical ordeals has not been known until now. Earlier this year a small committee of Kennedy-administration friends and associates agreed to open a collection of his papers for the years 1955–63. I was given access to these newly released materials, which included X-rays and prescription records from Janet Travell’s files. Together with recent research and a growing understanding of medical science, the newly available records allow us to construct an authoritative account of JFK’s medical tribulations. And they add telling detail to a story of lifelong suffering, revealing that many of the various treatments doctors gave Kennedy, starting when he was a boy, did far more harm than good. In particular, steroid treatments that he may have received as a young man for his intestinal ailments could have compounded—and perhaps even caused—both the Addison’s disease and the degenerative back trouble that plagued him later in life. Travell’s prescription records also confirm that during his presidency—and in particular during times of stress, such as the Bay of Pigs fiasco, in April of 1961, and the Cuban missile crisis, in October of 1962—Kennedy was taking an extraordinary variety of medications: steroids for his Addison’s disease; painkillers for his back; anti-spasmodics for his colitis; antibiotics for urinary-tract infections; antihistamines for allergies; and, on at least one occasion, an anti-psychotic (though only for two days) for a severe mood change that Jackie Kennedy believed had been brought on by the antihistamines.

 

JFK Reads the Declaration of Independence

At The Washington Post, Michael S. Rosenwald tells the backstory.

Castro: Arde in Regnum Phasmatis

Four days before he died, JFK spoke about Castro to the Florida Chamber of Commerce:

... I do not think that there is any doubt that Fidel Castro, as a symbol of revolt in this hemisphere, has faded badly. Every survey, every report, I think every newspaperman, every publisher, would agree that because Mr. Castro has embraced the Soviet Union and made Cuba its satellite, that the appeal that he had in the late fifties and early sixties as a national revolutionary has been so badly damaged and scarred that as a symbol, his torch is flickering. We have not been successful in removing Mr. Castro. We should realize that that task is one which involves not only the security of the United States, but other countries. It involves possibilities of war. It involves danger to people as far away as West Berlin, Germany, countries which border upon the Soviet Union in the Middle East, all the countries that are linked to us in alliance, as the Soviet Union is so intimately linked with Cuba.

So we have attempted to isolate Cuba in the hope that some day Cuba will be free and that the pressures of life in Cuba will make it more obvious to people around this hemisphere that communism does not offer a shortcut to economic well-being. The gross national product of Cuba is 25 percent below what it was in 1958. The Soviet Union today is giving $450 million worth of assistance every year to Cuba. They are pouring into Cuba--and this should be a source of concern to us, because Latin America is still before us, and the challenge of Latin America--they are giving as much aid to Cuba alone as we are giving to all of Latin America. That is not a statistic in which I take particular pride, but it does indicate how heavy is their commitment and how successful so far has been their support.

Some Soviet troops still remain, not as armed units. There has been a substantial withdrawal, but there is a good deal of unfinished business in Cuba.

In answer to your question, Mr. Castro still is in control in Cuba, and still remains a major danger to the United States.

Two postscripts:

JFK tried very hard to kill Castro.  See the Church Committee report. 

Trump violated the embargo.

Moonshot

President Obama has compared the search for a cancer cure to the moon shot.

PZ Myers writes at ScienceBlogs:

Everyone admires John F. Kennedy’s ambition in setting a specific goal for the space program, way back in the 1960s. It was smart to focus. But here’s the difference: we knew where the moon was. There it is, 380,000km away, in a predictable orbit around the planet, and we had these technologies to fire off rockets that already contained the basic principles we needed to get to the moon. It was a nontrivial effort, but getting from here to there was an already specified problem.

Where is “cancer”? Can you even define the problem? Do you see a solution that you can reach by just throwing a lot of money at it and telling a team of doctors to fix it?

No, you can’t. Scientists who study cancer will even tell you flat out that cancer isn’t one disease, it’s a multitude of diseases. It’s more like a pattern of collapse of a complex structure, and there’s a million different ways it can happen. A “moonshot” is a terrible metaphor for how to approach the treatment of cancer.

Ike Swetlitz writes at STAT:

Nixon, of course, also invoked a “war on cancer.” Decades later, with the war still not won, the Clinton administration turned again to that militaristic metaphor.

“We want to be the first generation that finally wins the war on cancer,” then-Vice President Al Gore told the Toledo Blade in 1998. He said science was on the verge of a breakthrough: “For the first time, the enemy is outmatched.”

It wasn’t.

In the following campaign, Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush returned to the space metaphor. He promised to “fund and lead a medical moonshot to reach far beyond what seems possible today,” to cure not just cancer but many ills associated with aging.

Catholicism and Civic Duty

Dotson Rader writes at Parade:

It’s not surprising that the Kennedy tradition of service is steeped in religion: The family is famously Catholic. “Bobby almost was a priest, so he was very religious,” says Jean [Kennedy Smith, sole surviving sibling of JFK]. “We all were, in different ways. Because our parents were.”

Tim Shriver, whose mother, Eunice, was one of Joe and Rose’s nine offspring (his dad, Sargent Shriver, a former U.S. Ambassador to France, ran for vice president in 1972), credits Catholicism for rallying his family to serve not out of obligation, but because of a uniquely sincere desire to help others. “I don’t think ought is enough to sustain a commitment,” he says. “What our Catholic tradition has done well is make you not just ought to help, but want to help—hunger for it. Be hungry for justice, be hungry for healing, be hungry for connection, be hungry for leveling the playing field. That’s more than just a moral imperative. It’s believing that your best self will always be in solidarity with those who are having a hard time.” After all, he adds, “Jesus was all about [taking care of] the poor and the marginalized and then having a party.”

Cruz Channels JFK

Ted  Cruz announcement: "What is the promise of America? The idea that — the revolutionary idea that this country was founded upon, which is that our rights don’t come from man. They come from God Almighty."

John F. Kennedy inaugural address: "And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God."

Forgetting Presidents

A release from Washington University in St. Louis:

American presidents spend their time in office trying to carve out a prominent place in the nation's collective memory, but most are destined to be forgotten within 50-to-100 years of their serving as president, suggests a study on presidential name recall released today by the journal Science.

 

...

Findings showed several consistent patterns in how we have forgotten past presidents and offer a formula to predict the rate at which current presidents are likely to be forgotten by future generations.

Among the six presidents who were serving or had served most recently when the test was first given in 1973, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald R. Ford are now fading fast from historical memory, whereas John F. Kennedy has been better retained. The study estimates that Truman will be forgotten by three-fourths of college students by 2040, 87 years after his leaving office, bringing him down to the level of presidents such as Zachary Taylor and William McKinley.

...

America's memory for Johnson and Reagan, like that for most presidents, is destined to fade along a quick and predictable trajectory as new elections inexorably push them and their memories further down the list of the most recent and currently best-remembered presidents, the study suggests.

While most collective memory research conducted thus far has explored how we as a nation remember historic events, such as the Holocaust or the 9/11 terror attacks, this study is among the first to focus on how we forget salient events of the past over generations and to obtain estimates of rate of forgetting over time.

"Our results show that memories of famous historical people and events can be studied objectively," Roediger said. "The great stability in how these presidents are remembered across generations suggests that we as a nation share a seemingly permanent form of collective memory."


Journal Reference:
H. L. Roediger III And K. A. Desoto. Forgetting the presidents. Science, 28 November 2014: 1106-1109 DOI: 10.1126/science.1259627

The National Guard, Armed Forces, and Civil Disorder

Events in Ferguson raise the question of the role of the armed force in domestic unrest.  From Charles Doyle and Jennifer Elsea, "The Posse Comitatus Act and Related Matters: The Use of the Military to Execute Civilian Law," Congressional Research Service, August 16, 2012:

Section 333 of Title 10 permits the President to use the Armed Forces to suppress any “insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” if law enforcement is hindered within a state, and local law enforcement is unable to protect individuals, or if the unlawful action “obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.” This section was enacted to implement the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee for equal protection. It does not require the request or even the permission of the governor of the affected state.

The provision lay dormant after the end of Reconstruction until 1957, when President Eisenhower ordered a battle group of the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock 246 and federalized the entire Arkansas National Guard 247 in order to enforce a court order permitting nine black students to attend a previously white high school. The proclamation to disperse cited both Sections 332 and 333 of Title 10, U.S. Code.248 By federalizing the Arkansas Guard, the President effectively deprived the governor of forces that had several days previously been used to enforce the governor’s view of law and order.249

Presidents Kennedy and Johnson followed the Little Rock precedent to deal with resistance to court-ordered desegregation in a number of Southern states. In 1962, after the governor of Mississippi attempted to prevent black student James H. Meredith from registering at the University of Mississippi at Oxford, President Kennedy sought to enforce the court order  with federal marshals.250 When marshals met with resistance from state forces and later a  riotous mob, President Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard and ordered active Army troops  already gathered in the area to take action.251 The President’s proclamation to disperse named the governor and other state officials as forming the unlawful assemblies obstructing the enforcement of the court order, citing as authority both Sections 332 and 333.252 President Kennedy followed a similar course of action to confront state resistance to court ordered desegregation in Alabama twice in 1963.253 President Johnson cited the same authority in 1965 to deploy troops, both regular Army and federalized National Guard, to Alabama to protect civil rights marchers as they made their way from Selma, AL, to Montgomery.254

• 246 PAUL SCHEIPS, THE ROLE OF FEDERAL MILITARY FORCES IN DOMESTIC DISORDERS, 1945-1992  (2005), at 40. 

• 247 Exec. Ord. No. 10,730, 22 Fed. Reg. 7628 (Sept. 24, 1957).  

• 248 Proclamation No. 3204, 22 Fed. Reg. 7628 (Sept. 24, 1957).  

• 249 Robert W. Coakley, Federal Use of Militia and the National Guard in Civil Disturbances, in BAYONETS IN THE  STREETS, 17, 30 (Robin Higham, ed. 1989). The governor had ordered the National Guard to enforce segregation by  preventing students from entering any high school that had previously been used exclusively for students of another  race, in defiance of a federal court order. See SCHEIPS, supra footnote 246, at 34.  

• 250 See SCHEIPS, supra footnote 246, at 86-87.  

• 251 Id. at 87-93; Exec. Ord. No. 11053, 27 Fed. Reg. 9693 (Oct. 2, 1962).  

• 252 Proclamation No. 3497, 27 Fed. Reg. 9681 (Oct. 2, 1962).  

• 253 Proclamation 3542, 28 Fed. Reg. 5705 (June 12, 1963); Exec. Order No. 11,111, 28 Fed. Reg. 5709 (June 12, 1963); Proclamation 3554, 28 Fed. Reg. 9861 (Sept. 11, 1963); Exec. Order 11,118, 28 Fed. Reg. 9863 (Sept. 11, 1963).  

• 254 Proclamation No. 3645, 30 Fed. Reg. 3739 (Mar. 20, 1965); Exec. Ord. No. 11,207, 30 Fed. Reg. 3743. The governor was enjoined by court order from interfering with the march, and he refused to call out the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers on the grounds that he did not want the state to foot the bill. See SCHEIPS, supra footnote 246, at 162-63. 

Historical Figures Who Outlived JFK

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It is fascinating to consider some of the historical figures who outlived him.  The point here is not to satisfy a morbid curiosity, but to make a point about history.  "The past is never dead," William Faulkner wrote, "It's not even past."  Memories of the past shape current events, and people who took part in historic events often live long enough to reshape those memories.

Just hours before he died, Kennedy called former vice president John Nance Garner (who served under Franklin Roosevelt from 1933 to 1941) to wish him a happy 95th birthday.  Here are other major figures who were still alive on the fateful day:

• Winston Churchill (d. 1965)
• Charles deGaulle (d. 1970)
• Herbert Hoover  (d. 1964)
• Harry Truman  (d. 1972)
• Dwight Eisenhower (d. 1969)
• Douglas MacArthur (d. 1964)
• Gen. Bernard Montgomery (d. 1976)
• Adm. Chester Nimitz (d. 1966)
• Hellen Keller (d. 1968)
• Margaret Sanger (d. 1966)
• Upton Sinclair (d. 1968)
• Norman Thomas (d. 1968)
• John Steinbeck (d. 1968)
• Bernard Baruch (d. 1965)
• Joseph P. Kennedy (d. 1969)

Harry Reid Misquotes Dante

The Senate Majority Leader should have a word with his speechwriter. From a speech today:

As you enter the exhibits at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, you see a quote from Dante’s famous Inferno. This is what it says: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.

The quotation does appear on artwork at the museum:

 

But the line does not come from Dante.  Rather, it is JFK's very loose paraphrase of Dante.

Respectfully Quoted explains:

  This remark may have been inspired by the passage from Dante Alighieri’s La Comedia Divina, trans. Geoffrey L. Bickersteth, “Inferno,” canto 3, lines 35–42 (1972):        by those disbodied wretches who were loth        when living, to be either blamed or praised.… … … … … …Fear to lose beauty caused the heavens to expel        these caitiffs; nor, lest to the damned they then        gave cause to boast, receives them the deep hell.

What's more, Dante depicts the 9th circle of Hell as cold, not hot.

Ambassadors

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Since the beginning of his second term, President Obama has appointed campaign fundraisers, party allies and other political figures as ambassadors at a level that is now almost double what has prevailed in the last few administrations.

More than 56% of Obama's 41 second-term ambassadorial nominations have been political, compared with an average of about 30% for recent administrations, according to U.S. government figures compiled by the American Foreign Service Assn. Of the political nominees, at least half have had fundraising roles.

The trend has emerged as the nomination of Caroline Kennedy to be ambassador to Japan, announced Wednesday, could renew the debate about selecting political allies who may have little diplomatic or country-specific expertise.
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But critics say the professionals still have an advantage, which is why America's most important allies, including Japan, generally assign career diplomats who can make their case on television in English to serve in Washington. The current Japanese ambassador to the U.S. is a 39-year veteran of the Foreign Ministry.

"Our ambassadors so often don't really know much about the place," said Clyde Prestowitz, an Asia specialist and former U.S. official. "And their ability to play the game is a lot less."

Kennedy has been trying to learn more about Japan and is considering hiring a Japan specialist as a personal advisor if she becomes ambassador, according to Washington experts on Japan.

Yet even with a good staff, "it's not optimal," said Douglas Paal, an Asia specialist and former U.S. official with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Last year, Foreign Policy reported:

Candidate Barack Obama promised to end the time-honored American practice of appointing ambassadors who have no experience in foreign policy, but President Obama has completely ignored that promise, appointing fundraisers to dozens of ambassadorships all over the world.
Today, the State Department revealed that another fundraiser turned ambassador ran her embassy into the ground ... only to return to fundraising and leave the State Department to pick up the pieces.

According to a new State Department inspector general's report on the U.S. Embassy in the Bahamas, Ambassador Nicole Avant presided over "an extended period of dysfunctional leadership and mismanagement, which has caused problems throughout the embassy" since she was appointed by the president in 2009. Prior to being America's envoy in the Caribbean, Avant was Southern California finance co-chairwoman of Obama's presidential campaign and vice president of Interior Music Publishing.

According to her glowingly positive Wikipedia page, Avant spent her time in the Bahamas "focused on five priority initiatives: Education, Alternative Energy, Economic and Small Business Development, Women's Empowerment and Raising awareness of the challenges facing people with disabilities."

But according to the State Department's internal investigation, Avant was away from the embassy an inordinate amount of time -- mainly shuttling back and forth to her home in Los Angeles -- and when she was in town, she worked from her residence most of the day.
Avant was absent from the embassy 276 days between September 2009 and November 2011, including 102 "personal" days and 77 "work travel" days to the United States, of which only 23 were on official orders