Howard Zinn and Irrational Answers

By

Richard J. Garfunkel

February 6, 2006

 

 

I would love to see Bush impeached, but Howard Zinn is no bargain! I knew him when I was a student at BU and I personally do not like him or agree with his political views. From my perspective Howard Zinn wouldn't be satisfied unless he got the “people” out in the streets behind barricades and throwing rocks and burning down buildings. He reminds me of the “Spartacusites” who brought us the wild radicalism and street warfare of Weimar Germany after the crash. They opened the door for the Nazis and you know what happened! We need real reform and it has to come through our political process not “street” action. When he talks of “people's councils,” his language starts to smack of the creation of “soviets.” When one thinks of the Great Depression one could also think of Gerald L.K. Smith, Francis Townsend and Huey Long and their faux “share the wealth” ideas. When extremists, of the left and the right, start to author the agenda of the country watch out. The world has been through the era of “street radicalism” many times and it has always ended in disaster. Just revisit the simplistic concept of the film “Meet John Doe.”

 

George Bush is a rotten and corrupt President, but unfortunately when the Iraq War is taken out of his personal equation, the public is not so sick of him. What is really needed is an effort to unearth and defame his other policies. But ironically no one (or very few) is/are in the street protesting his policies regarding; stem cells, tax-giveaways to the rich, women's choice, global warming, open borders, flat-earth faith-based thinking, the environment or a plethora of other shortcomings and disastrous actions and ideas. George Bush is a horror, but to many in this polarized society, it is not his policies or philosophy or lack of it, but his incompetence.

 

It will certainly be up to the Democrats to have courage on many issues, but history has shown them to be much more in the model of the “cowardly lion,” than their opposites across the aisle. The Democrats have only shown real courage through the White House and even with large majorities on their side, they have rarely been able to create real reform. Only FDR and Johnson were able to be pro-active with their domestic agenda and FDR was forced to veto over 500 bills and Johnson's Great Society got swallowed in the morass of the Vietnam War. Carter was a mediocre failure, JFK could not sufficiently influence the Dixiecrats with his narrow electoral and numerical victory, and Big Bill Clinton was a successful counter-puncher who was able to triangulate Gingrich's “Contract with America” in a way to achieve some middle of the road reforms. Certainly one was overdue welfare reform, which the GOP pushed and the Democrats avoided for years. Truman, like Carter left office with incredibly low popularity, but unlike the peanut farmer from Georgia, was able to achieve high marks from later historians on leadership. But Truman opened the door to the hegemony of Dixiecrat control that existed right through and to JFK, and Carter opened the door to the Conservative Reagan Revolution. The disaster of Vietnam and Korea was placed at the footsteps of the Democrats and it led to political defeat. When Vietnam was essentially de-funded by Democrats, it was the public that did not reward their actions. The GOP would have stayed in control of the White House easily without Watergate. Remember, Ford, a bumbling, inarticulate nobody, who was a failure as President, pardoned Nixon and only lost 51-49 to Carter. Within four years Carter and the Democrats were out!

 

All in all, the Democratic message must be better articulated and it must be pro-growth also. We cannot afford to finance our huge entitlement obligations by turning to a non-incentive based economy. Richard Ottinger, a liberal Congressman, said many times to me personally, “we must save both the river and the factory.” Ottinger was right. No matter how we pine and moan about social justice, we must find a way to finance it. Taxing for the sake of “leveling the playing field” is not the complete answer. We must recognize the “producers” now and again. Howard Zinn, an academic, who has never run a business, nor made a payroll, or created a genuine product, is a “false prophet” who must be regarded with much skepticism. I would start with a roll-back of the Bush tax giveaways to the super-rich and I would start to create a reasonable alternative to the Bush policy of action without diplomacy. Iraq, a regional problem has been escalated into a worldwide one. Without help of our NATO friends and the regional moderates the Iraq War will be a growing cancer for years to come.

 

Richard

 

 

A Cold Night on Park Avenue

By

Richard J. Garfunkel

February 5, 2007

 

As anyone in the Northeast or Tarrytown would know, unless they were asleep for twenty years like Rip van Winkle, it is very cold. The Hudson River, in spots, is clogged with ice and in certain locations barge traffic has ceased. Just when we were all starting to enjoy the virtues of “global warming,” Old Man Winter, along with Jack Frost, roared into our neighborhood, and like a boorish guest, just won’t leave.

 

With all this in mind, we still ventured out the other night to see the “mover and shakers” in the business management world. I won’t mention the exact address and names of our hosts, but they live on Park Avenue in the 90’s right before the subway goes above ground. By the way, there are some wonderful pre-war apartment buildings in that neighborhood. Linda gets to meet a lot of these people through her affiliation and employment with a private equity firm. So every once in a while we get invited to eat canapés, sip Perrier or wine with the “elites” of that world, which circulates in and around the corridors of the Yale School of Management and the Harvard Business School.

 

Of course this occasion was the promotion of Professor Jeff Sonnenfeld’s new book Firing Back, “How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters.” Linda had left her office on 55^th Street and caught a Madison Avenue bus that made excellent time to her destination. We were to meet at 6:30 pm in the lobby of the our destination. As I was exiting the West Side Highway at 125^th Street, where the Fairway Super Market has uplifted that seedy neighborhood, my cell phone rang. Linda was already awaiting my arrival and was wondering what progress I was making. I had decided to go on the West Side, and cross upper Manhattan above the Park on 125^th Street in the heart of Harlem. I made my way quickly past the famous the Apollo Theater that has been enjoying a new life and prominence since its rehabilitation in 1983.

 

The theater’s name dates back to its original creation as a dance hall and ballroom   in the 1860’s by one General Ed Ferrero. It was called the Apollo Hall and in 1872 it was converted to a theater. It was shifted to its current location at 253 W. 125^th Street in 1913. It was then called the Hurtig and Seamons (New) Burlesque Theater and it would remain in operations as a “whites only” establishment until 1928.  When Bill Minsky took it over, he transformed it into the 125^th Street Apollo Theater. Finally with Minsky’s untimely death in 1932, Sidney Cohen, a theater impresario, purchased the edifice, and opened it up to the African-American community in 1934. An early star of one of the first African-American Amateur Night contests was a dancer turned singer, the sensational teenager Ella Fitzgerald.

 

Within a few minutes I reached Park Avenue, where I turned right and headed south. Park Avenue is quite different in that area of Manhattan. It is a narrow street that hugs the huge stonewall that supports the elevated portion of the subway line that runs under Park Avenue from 96^th Street to Grand central Station. I found a parking space a couple of short blocks from my eventual destination. As I entered the building after a short walk, there was Linda, waiting patiently, and sitting in the lobby on a non-descript couch. There are two sides to the massive and handsome lobby and there is a coat rack on both sides. We were directed to the left.

 

Joseph Paterno developed this 17-story building in 1929, and it has 55 apartments and some duplexes. It has a three-story lime base, which fronts on Park Avenue and Rosario Candela designed it at the end of the “golden age” of building. Mr. Candela, who was born in Sicily and immigrated to America in 1909, graduated from the Columbia School of Architecture in 1915.  Elizabeth Hawes, in her book, New York, New York, said that, “Candela’s buildings were the grandest in a decade that was itself the greatest.”

 

On the left side of the lobby we were greeted, checked our coats and picked up our ID badges. We entered a private elevator and were quickly whisked to the 16^th floor. The elevator opened up into a magnificent duplex apartment. As we walked in, our host, who we quickly learned was an important principal of a major private equity firm, greeted us with a hearty handshake. My brother-in-law, who has lived in England for thirty-seven years, and was the managing director of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ was founded in 1959, and one of its principals, William H. Donaldson, was the Chairman of the SEC from 2003 through 2005.) in Europe, was offered an important position with this firm when DLJ was acquired. I asked our host if he knew him, and he told me that he was from the other side of the acquisition and unfortunately did not know him.

 

I learned quickly that they were expecting at least 168 invitees and that they had just recently hosted another book party for over 350! It wasn’t easy to see how 350 or so souls could fit in this apartment, and I later heard that people were even wandering upstairs into the living quarters. The apartment was decorated with incredible taste. The walls were covered with magnificent nineteenth century oils that were framed with gilt-washed carved wood. The living room featured two sumptuous chairs and an antique couch surrounding a huge fireplace. I was also impressed by the multiple silver service sets that dominated both the coffee table and another side table that was on the other side of the couch. The dining room, with its impressive mahogany table, the kitchen and the den were equally impressive. Unfortunately, within a few moments, the apartment filled up quickly and it was almost impossible to move around and effectively look at all the treasures that adorned the walls, filled the breakfronts, and were on the tables. Meanwhile the view downtown from the 16^th floor was spectacular and since it was evening much of the glow and glitter of Manhattan could be enjoyed

 

We found some people to talk to and coincidently Linda met the brother of one of the managing partners of her firm, who is one of the top management people at Verizon. Another was the director of the New York-based Clinton Global Initiatives, and we reminisced about our wonderful trip to Little Rock and the opening of the Clinton Library in November of 2004. We were only able to meet a fraction of the guests. But whomever we bumped into was an adventure. We even met Ms. Laura Donna, of the Connecticut Forum, who invited us to Hartford’s Bushnell Theater to hear a talk on “Saving the World,” which is being held this Thursday night and would feature, Tm Robbins, Rory Kennedy and Nicholas Kristoff.

 

Delightfully there were hundreds of books lying around and free to all who wanted one. Eventually I spotted Jeff Sonnefeld, who was surrounded by his friends and admirers, and I was able to squeeze in and get my copy signed. He’s a big man, who had originally made his name at Emory University, where he left under pressure, and now is the Senior Associate Dean for Executive Programs and the Lester Crown Professor in Management at the Yale graduate School of Management. Essentially Firing Back, which is about how great leaders rebound from adversity, was probably inspired by Professor Sonnenfeld’s own experiences regarding his departure from Emory. Eventually Sonnenfeld and his co-author Andrew Ward spoke to the delight of all of their fans.

 

Meanwhile, in this most recent work of his, Fighting Back, Sonnenfeld states, “this book examines the often and abrupt and unexpected fall from grace of prominent leaders and the process by which they recover and even exceed their past accomplishments with a new adventure.”  He goes on to review the “five levels of resilience from adversity to reveal the solid foundation in research and theory that anchors each of these requirements for recovery.”

 

He later chronicles many tragedies, failures and setbacks in his chapter on the nature of adversity. Of course he starts to build a case for his way of finding one’s way back.

 

1)      Stress and trauma: don’t adapt to the adversity or fearfully give in, but instead fight it.

2)      Affiliation: Do not isolate yourself in grief; engage others for mutual support

3)      Self-esteem, attribution theory, impression management, reputation management: Do not blame yourself or let others blame you; offer meaning and explanation.

4)      Effectance motivation:  Assert your mastery and competence

5)      Existential Purpose: Set an anchor in the future that gives you a reason to survive and a purpose in life.

 

In other words, he believes, “Don’t adapt to Adversity- Fight It.” Of course Sonnefeld adeptly goes through chapter after chapter reviewing the various barriers to recovery:

 

1)      Societal Culture

2)      Corporate Culture

3)      Departure Causes

4)      Psychological Stresses

 

Finally, Sonnenfeld turns in his final chapters of “how to fight”, and reviews the issue of facing up to the problem at hand. I remember so well his quote from Ray Donovan, the Secretary of Labor under Ronald Reagan, “Where do I go to get my reputation back?” Sonnenfeld describes, in detail, the experiences of Donovan and how he dealt with the rumor mills regarding his career with Schiavone Construction Company. Eventually Donovan weathered the storm that raged around him during his confirmation hearing, and went on to serve throughout Reagan’s first term. Ironically after beating back all the rumors regarding “mob influence,” a month before the 1984 election, he was indicted on 137 counts of fraud and grand larceny. He was forced to take a leave of absence, and eventually won the battle, but lost his public reputation. Sonnenfeld quoted Warren Buffet who said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to lose it.” I remember the Donovan Case quite well and frankly I was astounded that he was exonerated.

 

Sonnenfeld closed his book with the chapter “Creating Triumph from Tragedy- Lessons Learned from Legends and Losers.” He concludes that the “Final Lesson: Comeback is not a matter of luck, It is taking a chosen path.” In other words, he ends with “no one can take away our hope and opportunity for tomorrow unless we close our own eyes.”

 

I am reminded with those inspiring words of Winston Churchill’s monumental history of World War II. In his final volume Triumph and Tragedy, he talks of the Moral of the Work, In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity and In Peace: Goodwill. In the basking glow of triumph, Churchill recalls how in the depths of despair, in February of 1941, Mr. Wendall Willkie hand delivered a letter to him from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In that letter, which was written in FDR’s own hand, contained the famous lines of Longfellow:

 

            “ ‘Sail on, O ship of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate’ “

 

Probably nowhere in our history and time can we find a better example of “Fighting Back” and how the inspiration of Franklin Roosevelt’s profound message along with the announcement of our assistance called “Lend-Lease,” worked miracles with Churchill and the British people. Both Churchill and Roosevelt, titans of the last millennium, were prime examples of individuals who triumphed over personal and political adversity and setbacks. More than once, they used the mantra of hope and confidence to rise again to success, prominence and social adulation.

 

Hyde Park in Mid-Winter

By

Richard J. Garfunkel

January 30, 2007

 

 

Last year on this exact date I drove up the Taconic and across Rte 55 through Poughkeepsie and made my way up the Route 9 to Springwood, FDR’s home in Hyde Park. As I recall, it was a bit colder today, than a year ago and there is a damp rawness in the air. Today, of course like last year, was the anniversary of FDR’s birth. Now, 125 years have past since the only child of Sara Delano Roosevelt and James Roosevelt was born. His father James, who was born in 1828, had been married to his cousin Rebecca Howland in 1853, and she had given birth to FDR’s half-brother James Roosevelt “Rosy” Roosevelt in 1854. After Rebecca died in 1876, his father, James, met and married the young and vivacious 23-year old Sara Delano in 1880. His only son “Rosy” was already married for five years to Helen Schermerhorn Astor when young Franklin was born.

 

It wasn’t an easy birth. According to his mother’s diary, because of an excessive dose of chloroform administered to Sara, he was almost smothered. Nevertheless he was a healthy 10 pounds at birth. He was breast fed for almost a year and being raised on a large country estate, without other children, was not exposed to the usual childhood illnesses. He was therefore vulnerable to infectious diseases in his later life, and plagued by the common cold from infancy until age eighteen.

 

His mother read aloud to him when he was quite young and besides his fame of being an avid hobbyist (especially stamps) he became a voracious reader. He had an early interest in his seafaring maternal Delano ancestors, and also developed an early hero worship of his cousin Theodore Roosevelt. (All through his life he stated that Theodore Roosevelt was the greatest man he had ever known. Unfortunately TR’s sons never appreciated that fact, but his cousin Alice seemed secretly enamored with him.) In his teens he had acquired a remarkable amount of information about geography (again from his stamp collection, originally left him by his Uncle Frederic Delano), naval, military, political and natural history. He had relatively little interest in fiction or poetry. He enjoyed Francis Parkman’s Montcalm and Wolfe, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s Influence of Sea Power Upon History, and Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval War of 1812 and Winning of the West.

 

FDR loved books and he was quoted extensively in an anti-Nazi posters, “Books cannot be killed by fire (an answer to Hitler’s public book burnings).

 

People die, but books never die. No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever. No man and force can take from the world the books that embody man’s eternal fight against tyranny. In this war, we know books are weapons.”

 

So today, like that warm day in April of the last year of the Second World War, a West Point honor guard stood silently at attention beside his grave. It was almost 62 years ago. How fast time passes. There was a large elderly crowd of mostly neighbors from Hyde Park and nearby Poughkeepsie. Chris Roosevelt, one of FDR’s many grandsons, spoke at the graveside along with the newly elected Lt. Governor David Patterson. Patterson, who is legally blind, felt and stated that FDR’s “inspiration had guided me personally.” He concluded, with humor, that he had “wished that he had met him and that his birthday was on May 30^th.” The frigid crowd almost all nodded in approval. They both spoke movingly of FDR’s incredible legacy and drew attention to his undying belief in the democratic process.

 

At the Henry A. Wallace Visitor’s Center is an exhibition called FDR at 125, His Vision: Freedom Still Alive. Amongst the many guests was Margaret Marquez, at age 89, the Hyde Park Town Historian. Ms. Marquez, whose father Gilbert Logan worked on the Roosevelt estate in the early years of the 20^th Century, was always impressed and surprised that FDR knew whom every one, was. She shared his love and appreciation for history.

 

Many years before the poet Wordsworth said about Horatio Nelson the following lines:

 

“But who if be called upon to face some awful moment to which heaven has joined. Great issues, good or bad, for humankind! Is happy as a lover, and attired with a brightness like a man inspired “.

 

It was from that same Wordsworth that FDR had borrowed the term ”Happy Warrior” to first describe Al Smith at the 1924 Democratic Convention. But it was in reality, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was that valiant “Happy Warrior,” who governed. With all of his leadership skills and his magnificent accomplishments, most who knew of him recall his charm and boundless spirit and enthusiasm, the real personification of the “Happy Warrior!”

 

 

 

Letter to the Editor – January 24, 2007

 

The State of the Union

 

Most State of the Union speeches have been judged by certain standards. In Bush’s passionless speech, he failed to meet the benchmarks of vision, substance and creditability. Some Presidents, through the majesty and timber of their voices, have inspired us. John F. Kennedy’s challenge to put a man on the moon in a decade, or Franklin D. Roosevelt setting forth the “Four Freedoms” and Ronald Reagan articulating a vision of a “shining house on the hill,” were inspiring to millions. Because I had no such great expectations from George W. Bush, he, therefore, didn’t let me down. The State of the Union address with its feel good litany of inspirational guests, references to sacrifice and faux camaraderie has become this leader’s annual attempt to re-shape his disastrous and flawed legacy. His talk of energy and health reform, are hollow echoes of half-hearted, never fulfilled, initiatives. What is really most apparent is that we are being held hostage to his failed presidency regarding the lives of our brave and patriotic military. It is these men and women who have become the pawns in this losing chess game. The two issues, in the coming year, are how do we extricate ourselves from this sinkhole in Iraq that was promulgated by falsehoods and deception, and by what means do we start bridging the ever-widening divide between those who have plenty and those who are living the lives of quiet desperation. Is it to be more tax cuts for the super wealthy and lies about terrorism and Iraq, or the hard decisions of what is really needed and demanded by the American public?

 

 

Richard J. Garfunkel

 

After Newport:

Our Nation’s Capital, Mayan Pyramids and Faneuil Hall!

By

Richard J. Garfunkel

January 12, 2007

 

 

After our weekend trip to Newport, where we lunched downtown at the Red Parrot, on Thames Street with our fellow travelers, the Habers, and our children: Dana and Jon we headed back to New York. We had seen the Touro Synagogue once again, walked through old Newport, visited a few Mansions, saw the Tennis Hall of Fame, enjoyed the company of our kids and had some laughs and a few good meals.

 

Of course the traveling had just started for us and we had planned to be in Washington DC for Thanksgiving. There was no reason to stay around New York, my parents were now gone and we were looking for an interesting place to visit with our children. We settled on our nation’s capital, and what better way to celebrate the fantastic Democratic victory than to go the center of our nation’s power. Of course we had decided on Washington months before, but I had predicted that the Democrats would take both Houses of Congress, despite the many naysayers about and around in the land. Of course the taking back of the Senate was always a “stretch” but I had even assumed that some of the so-called “safe” seats would fall over. But, the seats that were predicted to fall did, and if it weren’t for a slimy and almost racist ad in Tennessee, the Democrats would have probably picked up another seat. That was too bad because Harold Ford Jr. would have probably made a great Senator. Of course, the country hasn’t heard the last of him and he’ll be back sooner than later.

 

Of course the die was cast early on, and favorites for early retirement like Bob Ney, Mark Foley, Duke Cunningham and Tom Delay were already out, under indictment or in jail. But, like all contests, they are never over until the “fat lady” sings. Other House GOP stalwarts like Hayworth, Pombo, Leach, Sweeney, Sherwood, were beaten, and the Democrats were finally able to defeat 22 Republican incumbents and win nine “open” seats that the GOP had previously held. Even the Democrats were able to get rid of the obnoxious Cynthia McKinney and still hold that seat.

 

Of course I won’t miss two of my all-time “favorites” Senators Allen and Santorum. Because of the proximity of Pennsylvania to New York we were constantly exposed to the flat-earth mendacity of Rick Santorum. As a long-time observer and participant of politics and American history for forty plus years, he was one of the most distasteful. I could take even Al D’Amato or Jim Buckley over the pontificating and hypocritical Santorum. The other race that I enjoyed most was the defeat of George Allen. Now former Senator Allen, the son of the late NFL football coach with the same name, was a particularly offensive individual. With his faux drawl, cowboy boots and his airhead reasoning I was happy to see him defeated. The idea that George Allen, Jr. was being considered by the “talking heads” as a potential Presidential candidate and a “wannabe” infuriated me at the least. But Allen wound up hanging himself with the same noose that he displayed in his office. His stupid remarks and his denial of his real background exposed him to enough of the Virginia electorate to bring in Jim Webb by a bit over 9000 votes. I knew something about Webb from his days in the Navy Department. Meanwhile I loved him as a writer, and his book about the Philippines, the surrender of Japan and General McArthur, The Emperor’s General was sensational. Jim Webb was one of the youngest cabinet appointees at age 41 and he was decorated three times for “extraordinary heroism” in Vietnam. The “Swift-boaters” out there could not lay a finger on this guy. I predict that he will be a dynamic Senator and I look for big things to come out of his work in the Senate.

 

“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death – the seas bear only commerce – men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific, which marked the way. I speak for the unnamed brave millions homeward bound to take up the challenge of that future which they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster…” General Douglas MacArthur’s remarks at the surrender ceremonies on board the USS Missouri (BB62) on September 2, 1945 (VJ Day).

 

MacArthur’s poetic cadence sounded flat and hollow, echoing like ricochets off the sharp rocks and barren peaks of the central Cordillera Mountains. We were in Northern Luzon’s (Philippines) Asin Valley, a mile high and a world away from Tokyo Bay, where Japan’s formal surrender was taking place on the main deck of the USS Missouri. But the surrender ceremony was being broadcast live across the world, even reaching this last remote outpost through radio speakers mounted on a nearby truck.”

 

From: The Emperor’s General, page 115, by James Webb, Michael Joseph, pub. 1999

 

So with all that in mind, it was off to our nation’s capital. I had been there a number of times since my first trip, with Charles Columbus and his parents: George and Fritzi, in 1957. I had been living with the Columbus family while my parents took a sixteen-week trip to Europe on the trans-oceanic liner Queen Elizabeth. During the Easter break we took a long drive in George’s big Chrysler 300 to the Capital, Richmond and through the Shenandoah Valley. Even before I was married I had made a few other quick trips to Washington, and I even visited my sister Kaaren, who lived there during the first year of her married life to her husband Charles Hale. Charles ran a branch office of the Hirsch and Company brokerage firm before they moved to New York. Later on, Linda and I made a number of trips to Washington, and when she was on the staff of Congressman Richard L. Ottinger –Democrat, 24^th CD, we went down to his office now and again.

 

But since George W. Bush had assumed the Presidency, we had basically avoided going to Washington. As a partisan Democrat and a political activist and junkie I have not been happy with Republican Presidents. I opposed with money and sweat equity Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush 41. But even with Nixon, I grudgingly had to respect him for having a brain. Ford was basically unqualified for the job and Reagan I could never take seriously. I didn’t dislike either Ford or Reagan but I had little respect, if any for either of them or their presidencies. Bush 41 was more qualified, it seemed than the other Republican incumbents since Hoover, but he was an ineffectual lightweight who was patently unattractive to the electorate. After having an incredibly high popularity after the Gulf War I, he wound up getting a lower percentage of the popular vote (37.7%), as an incumbent, than any President since William Howard Taft (23.2%). One could hardly blame Taft, in as much as his Republican vote was halved by the Bull Moose candidacy of the former, and very popular former President Theodore Roosevelt. To put it in context, Bush had a lower percentage of the popular vote than Hoover (39.6%), Carter (41%), John Quincy Adams (44%) and Martin Van Buren (46.9%), all defeated unpopular incumbent Presidents.

 

Therefore my “dissatisfaction” quotient with George 43 has exceeded all previous levels. The fact that this “individual” was re-elected is beyond comprehension. But of course Henry Louis (H.L.) Mencken, (1880-1956) The Sage of Baltimore, the first 3^rd of the 20^th Century’s preeminent literary and social observer and critic once said, … “No one in this world, so far as I know… has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.” (September 19, 1926)

 

I don’t always agree with Mencken, but his famous reflection on the paucity of gray matter of the average American must be the excuse we all must except when analyzing the 2000 and 2004 elections. In 2000 we do have somewhat of an excuse, Al Gore at least won the popular vote by over 500,000 and if the electoral vote of Florida had not been stolen by some “hanging chads,” a phony recount and some silly voters in Dade County who mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan over Al Gore, our history would have been quite different.

 

Henry Louis Mencken was born in Baltimore, Md., on September 12, 1880. He graduated the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute at age 16, became a reporter on the Baltimore Herald, and rose rapidly to become the city editor and editor. Mencken’s appreciation of the American speech as unique led him to produce The American Language in 1919, and subsequent supplements and revisions over the succeeding decades.  On October 25, 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Baltimore during the last few weeks of the campaign. Roosevelt invoked the Republican “Four Horseman of Destruction, Delay, Deceit, and Despair.” H.L. Mencken, a conservative, was skeptical about FDR, but detested the Republicans.  The Encyclopedia of World Biography

 

Mencken eventually became a vituperative critic of President Roosevelt. The iconoclastic social critic was recruited to roast Roosevelt at the Washington Press Corps, Gridiron Dinner in 1934. Because FDR was present at the dinner, Mencken moderated his usual scathing attacks, and began, “fellow subjects of the Third Reich,” and said, “Every day in this great country is April Food Day.”  FDR would not be deterred by Mencken’s gentleness on this occasion from returning the fire in (and from) Mencken’s previous writings. Roosevelt referred to the comments of “my old friend Henry Mencken,” and then, in a room filled with journalists, began a bitter diatribe against the press, attacking  “the stupidity, cowardice, and the Philistinism of working newspapermen.”  He continued to smile beatifically and aroused the mirth of the audience with his versatile intonation as he went on about those “who do not know what a symphony is or a streptococcus.” And referring to American journalists as “pathetically feeble and vulgar, and so generally disreputable.” Only gradually did it become clear that the entire reflection was a lift from an editorial of Mencken’s in the American Mercury of more than ten years before. Roosevelt finally amusingly, identified it as such. Mencken fumed: “I’ll get the son of a bitch. I’ll dig the skeletons out of the closet.”  Roosevelt was wheeled past him at the end of his remarks, which were received with great mirth when he revealed his source. The two shook hands, and Mencken gamely said, “fair shooting.”  Harold Ickes wrote that FDR had “smeared Mencken all over.”

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Champion of Freedom, Conrad Black, page 340-1, Public Affairs. 2003

Putting that short history behind us, our children Dana and Jon drove down from their respective homes in Brighton and Arlington, Massachusetts on Wednesday, and on Thanksgiving Day we headed out early for the Capital. No matter when one leaves for Washington, the trip takes at least five hours.. One can make excellent time getting out of New York, but the traffic on the Jersey Turnpike will always eventually slow one down. Besides the problems of excess traffic on that inadequate road, Baltimore and Washington traffic is always a problem no matter when and where you reach it. Our trip down was uneventful until we hit the proverbial “wall” on the Jersey Pike. Thanks to our son’s quick analysis of the situation, and intrepid map-reading, we exited the road just south of his alma mater Princeton, detoured west until we reached I-295 and breezed southward until we encountered another disaster at the beginning of Route 50, the Baltimore and Washington Parkway, where a terrible accident closed the entrance ramp that led west to Washington. With another brilliant suggestion by Jon we headed south on I-295 towards Richmond, got off at the next exit, came back the other way, got off on the other side and flew around and past the police and ambulance blockages on Route 50. It never hurts to have smart children.

 

Once in Washington, and despite the rain, we headed over to the National Portrait Gallery and the newly renovated and re-opened old US Patent Office and had a great time romping around their barely occupied corridors. Those two places are rarely visited by the multitudes and they are quite enjoyable. The old Patent Office is now called the Reynolds Art Gallery and it is linked to the National Portrait gallery, which has representative art chronicling all of our national heroes from Presidents to poets. The whole effort took six years to complete and after $283 million in expenses, one can see 19,000 pieces of artwork and everything from a room-sized electronic video map of the United States to a bust of James Buchanan.

 

In the portrait gallery there are great oil paintings, as Gilbert Stuart’s famous 1796 rendition one of George Washington, busts, photographs and statues of many of our most prominent generals, baseball stars, jazz artists, theatre icons, and literary giants. All in all, it is a wonderful place to spend an afternoon. So Thanksgiving Day was a bit damp and many people were at their local high school turkey bowls, shopping for last minute accoutrement for the feast or already at their grandmother’s and settling down for the great American culinary happening. We finished our ocular exercise and made our way out to the quiet damp streets, 8^th and “F” that make up the Penn Quarter and Chinatown section. We headed past DuPont Circle to 2100 Massachusetts Avenue NW where the cozy Embassy Row Westin Hotel is nestled. Linda used her terrific planning skills to make sure that we had top-notch rooms, paid for by our Westin time-sharing points, and we all checked in, rested up, showered and dressed for our Thanksgiving dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill, located at 675 15^th Street NW.

HISTORY OF OLD EBBITT GRILLThe Oldest Saloon in WashingtonThe Old Ebbitt Grill, Washington’s oldest, most historic saloon, was founded in 1856. According to legend, innkeeper William E. Ebbitt bought a boarding house at that time, but no one today can pinpoint its exact location. It was most likely on the edge of present-day Chinatown, somewhere near the MCI Center. As a boarding house, the Ebbitt guest list read like a Who’s Who of American History. President McKinley is said to have lived there during his tenure in Congress. Presidents Grant, Andrew Johnson, Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt and Harding supposedly refreshed themselves at its stand-around bar. Each table in the Ebbitt was graced by a blue history card that read: “Many other famous statesmen, naval and military heroes, too numerous to mention here, have been guests of the house.” Evolving to a higher form, Old Ebbitt became Washington’s first known saloon. And as the years passed, it moved to a number of new locations. By the early 20th century, it had found its way to what is now the National Press Building at 14th and F Streets, N.W. Two saloons co-existed in the Press Building at the time, a Dutch room and an Old English room. During the 1920s, when the Ebbitt moved to a converted haberdashery at 1427 F Street, N.W., the legacies of these Dutch and English bars were combined into a single Old Ebbitt Grill. The F Street location was just two doors away from the Rhodes Tavern, which occupied the northeast corner of F and 15th Streets. Having a considerable history of its own, its bar was reportedly the site where British generals toasted one another as they watched The White House burn during the War of 1812. The Final Move In 1983, the Old Ebbitt Grill was uprooted one last time. The building was razed, and Old Ebbitt moved around the corner to its current location at 675 15th Street, N.W., to the Beaux-Arts building that was once the old B. F. Keith's Theater. Bringing its rich history with it, the “new” Old Ebbitt remains a virtual saloon Smithsonian.

<?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml” />

It was a short drive from DuPont Circle to NW 15^th Street and before long we were seated in a quiet rear table and the Perelman’s eventually arrived to join us from their home in Lake Ridge, Virginia. Frankly, I cannot remember what anybody else ordered, but I had the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner, and it was great. The bill, with wine and beer for the six of us, was quite reasonable, and we did not have to wash dishes or go to the poor house.

 

We enjoyed the ambiance, and after a long interregnum, it was nice to see the Perelmans. Lewis and I grew up quite near each other in Mount Vernon, NY and we have stayed friendly for many, many years. He’s been all over the place, while I have not strayed far from my hometown for over 60 years.

 

The Perelman’s moved from Tecumseh Avenue, in the Graham School District, to 72 Sycamore Avenue in the late 1950’s, which was three houses north of my house, which was located at 500 East Prospect Avenue. I came in contact with Lewis through a veritable baptism of fire. While observing him, as he tried to relax on his deck, from Joel Grossman’s 2^nd floor window, which overlooked his yard (my old grammar school buddy), we decided to bombard him with firecrackers.  It was an inauspicious but enlivening introduction. Eventually I got to know him better, and I was able to “bum” rides to AB Davis High School, with his father, Mr. Leonard Perelman (1914-1987), and their Dalmatian Cindy in his sub-compact Rambler. Leonard was a great guy and he went by his nickname “Snip.” He was life-long Mount Vernonite, and we remained friendly with him and his wife Ruth, until his death.  “Snip” once had a run-in, while in school, with a local hood named “Peanuts” Manfredonia. He never spoke well of “Peanuts” who became a renowned and notorious bookmaker in his later years. The Perelmans eventually moved to Florida, and we would see them whenever we were in the Sunshine State. One day old “Peanuts’ was gunned down, unceremoniously, on the streets of Mount Vernon, and I sent the newspaper clipping to “Snip.” I am sure he felt society had gotten even with his old adversary. Lew Perelman traveled around America and after earning a Phi Beta Kappa key at City College as physics major, he received a doctorate from Harvard University. He is currently living in Virginia with his wife Isabella and could be considered a “professional thinker.”  Lewis even wrote a very good book on the downfall of education, called, School’s Out.

 

“The belief that education is a key factor of global competitiveness has been expressed in self-defeating strategies of reform aimed at closing imagined  “gaps” between the reputed quality of American’s schools and those of other nations. Analysts of competitive strategy from David Ricardo to Michael Porter and from Sun Tzu to Douglas MacArthur have known for centuries that the least promising path to competitive advantage is that of catch-up or copycat.”

 

School’s Out, page 338, by Lewis J. Perelman, Morrow, 1992

 

Meanwhile, because it was a quiet weekend, we found parking right on the side streets off Massachusetts Avenue and our stay continued to be quite inexpensive. The next morning we were up and about early, had breakfast at a local eatery and made our way over to the Lincoln Memorial, the reflecting pool and all the outdoor monuments. We did much walking and were able to visit the Vietnam, Korea. World War II and FDR Memorials. Since the weather was beautiful and warm for late Thanksgiving, the sites became crowded as the morning wore on. I had forgotten about the World War II Memorial and was astounded when we reached its location, which is about halfway between the Lincoln Memorial and George Washington Monument. I later learned that the critics thought that it was a monstrosity and they were correct. It looked like something out of the King Victor Emmanuel (Rome) Memorial School of design. It said nothing, but seemed to emote the loud clanging sound of a very large cash register ringing up 10’s of millions of taxpayer dollars. We all thought it was a grotesque, out of proportion boondoggle that should never had been built. Wherein the Iwo Jima Memorial (built between 1951-4) that stands majestically in Arlington conveys strength, history and elegance and cost $850,000  (1954 dollars) this WWII colossus cost way over $200 million. The Boston Herald called it “vainglorious, demanding attention and full of trite imagery.” I would agree with the Philadelphia Inquirer that likened it to the “pompous style favored by Hitler and Mussolini.”  It is massive, blocks the vista of the broad green and blue expanse of the lawn and the reflecting pool, and winds up saying virtually nothing. One thing we all noted was that there was no real recognition of our Allies in that titanic effort. Even the meaning placed in the 400 gold stars representing 10,000 American causalities each was quite arcane. One would be hard-pressed to learn any of the history or of the people that won World War II from visiting that concrete sink hole.

 

According to James Bradley, in his great book, Flag of Our Fathers, Iwo Jima took a great and savage toll on the American marines who fought there. “Of the original eighteen men photographed around the second flag raising fourteen were casualties. Of Colonel Johnson’s 2^nd Battalion: 1400 boys landed on D-Day; 288 replacements were provided as the battle went on, a total of 1688. Of these, 1511 had been killed or wounded. Only 177 walked off the island. And of the 177, 91 had been wounded at least once and returned to battle.” One of the stark facts is that it took 22 crowded transports to bring the 5^th Division to Iwo and the survivors fit easily into 8 as they left. The Battle of Iwo Jima incurred, for the first time in the Pacific War, more casualties on the attacking American force than on the defending Japanese. The Americans lost approximately 6800 men along with over 20,000 wounded. The Japanese lost over 20,000 men with only a few hundred captured. 

 

From Wikipedia and Flag of our Fathers, by James Bradley and Ron Powers, Bantam Books, 2000.

 

But Washington is still a great place to visit. We got over to the Iwo Jima Memorial on our way to Alexandria, where we strolled around that historic town, and we had lunch with the Perelmans. We walked up hill and dale in Arlington Cemetery, saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and watched the changing of the guard. We visited a new wing there that commemorated women’s efforts throughout our military history.  Later on we visited Mount Vernon, our first President’s home. After Congress refused to save the property, thankfully the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association purchased the home and gardens in 1858 from the estate of John Augustine Washington, a great grand nephew of George and Martha Washington. Without the efforts of Ann Pamela Cunningham of South Carolina, the founder of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association the home of our first President may have disappeared forever. The home today can be found in absolutely pristine condition and the grounds are immaculate. Because of the efforts and fund-raising of the Ford Motors Company and the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, George Washington’s home and grounds received an infusion of $110 million and created an incredible museum and learning center. We all loved walking around the home, the grounds and the wonderful interactive learning center.

 

“No estate in America is more pleasantly situated than this. It lies on a high, dry, and healthy country, 300 mile by water from the sea…. on one of the finest rivers in the world. It is situated in a latitude between the extremes of heat and cold, and is the same distance by land and water, with good roads and the best navigation (to and) from the Federal City, Alexandria, and George town…” George Washington

 

“Time and circumstance have wrought no changes to qualify or invalidate the foregoing description of Mount Vernon from a letter written by George Washington to an English correspondent in 1793. Mount Vernon stands as a monument to its builder.”

 

From the official Mount Vernon Guide, published by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.

 

Eventually we made ourselves back to the city and Jon and I went to the US Postal Museum, which is located near the Union Station. We dropped Dana and Linda off at the Mall where they went into the Smithsonian to see the American History Museum. With the weather cooperating and the crowds flowing into Washington, the Smithsonian was packed. We finally met up a little later in the afternoon and got back on the road to New York. Again, the traffic was impossible, and with two strategic course corrections and hours of playing “geography” in the car we finally made it home.

 

Within a short week of our arrival home we were once again packing for a new trip. We had planned to celebrate Linda’s 60^th birthday, December 5^th with a Caribbean cruise. With the usual disruptions regarding flying these days, we were able to get into Fort Lauderdale International Airport about four hours later than we originally planned for and expected. We rented a car, and were lucky to upgrade without cost, to a sporty convertible after our reserved mid-sized model was unavailable. We checked into the Yankee Clipper Hotel, which is located on AIA in Fort Lauderdale, just south of Las Olas Boulevard. Our cruise was due to leave Monday afternoon so we had a few days to see some friends and family. We were able to visit Linda’s cousins; Bernice Adler, her younger sister Myrna and her husband Jerry in Delray Beach. Coincidently Bernice’s younger son Joel, and his wife Terre, happened to be at a hotel on A1A not far from the Yankee Clippe,r and they were attending their daughter’s dance recital. We met them and were taken to lunch on Los Olas Boulevard. It was fun catching up on old stories. After our goodbyes, we made connections with some of my old friends from Mount Vernon; Bill and Joan Bernstein, Barry and Jill Reed and Roland and Barbara Tucci Parent.

 

I met Bill Bernstein around 1952 when we were in the lowest level of grammar school. It may have been 2^nd grade. He was a friend of Joel Grossman and he had a sister and brother and they lived on Darwood, which paralleled Magnolia Avenue, where Joel lived. One could cut through some one’s backyard and get to Billy’s house. Bill and I had similar interests in American military history and even though we disagree on some aspects of political philosophy most of our thoughts and interests dovetail. His older bother Phil still lives in White Plains and had a wonderful collection of Playboy Magazines. He married a Mount Vernon girl, named Joan Brenner, who I casually was aware of through my contact with her brother. Bill and Joan have one son who is a graduate of Georgia Tech.

 

Barry Reed, who also grew up in Mount Vernon with his three other brothers, came from an intellectually talented family and all of them were high academic achievers. Barry was a cloe friend of Lewis Perelman, and also had been raised in the Graham School district. He was the youngest of the four brothers, and I actually met him when I was in college. His family had moved to New City, in Rockland County, and only spent one year in AB Davis High School, and our paths had never crossed. Barry had a strong academic career, at Harpur College (now SUNY-Binghamton), MIT and Downstate Medical School. He met his wife Jill, a native Floridian, who was graduate of Stern College. He practices medicine in Florida. The Reeds have three very smart children.

 

Barbara Tucci was a vivacious cheerleader in Mount Vernon, and was the belle of everyone’s ball. She was incredibly popular, a friend to many and a terrific cheerleader. She grew up on the other side of town, and I became aware of her while playing basketball. She married Roland Parent, a naval officer, who had roots in Newport, RI, and they have been living in Fort Lauderdale for decades. The Parents have four children, two grown married sons, who live in New York, and two daughters, one of which is a sailor and the other a student.

 

Bill has a great home in Manalapan that is located on the Inter Coastal. He has a marvelous collection of rare books and even has a couple of FDR pieces that I do not possess. We had a spectacular lunch and it was nice to touch base after a number of years. Barry and Jill Reed have been living in an area of unincorporated Dade County called Pinecrest, which is located quite near Kendall, for many years. Roland Parent had a long career that started with the Merchant Marine and ended by being a partner in a consortium of harbor pilots that steered ships in to Port Everglades. We have been visiting with, and enjoying the hospitality of Barbara and Roland, for many years now. Roland’s hobby for many years was making scale models of merchant ships, and now in retirement, he has taken up that interesting and demanding work in earnest. While we were there I photographed some of his great pieces. We also made a trade. He had a spare miniature of an ocean liner that I liked and I promised to send him one of my FDR- Man at the Helm clock frames. While in Fort Lauderdale, we went out with them to dinner at the Wilton Manor’s Old Florida Seafood House.

 

FDR Clocks come in few varieties. The usually picture FDR, either standing on the left or the right of a ship’s steering wheel or helm. Usually the figure has a clock in its center and it is painted gold. The lettering under the steering wheel could say “Man of the Hours” or “Man at the Helm.” There are other statuettes without clocks, but have lamps attached.

 

After the weekend ended we headed off to the Enchantment of the Seas. It’s a big ship by any standard, 81,045 tons. The famous ocean liners of the late 1930’s and 40’s, the Normandie, the Queens Mary and Elizabeth were all in that range of tonnage, but much sleeker and built for speed and the North Atlantic transoceanic trade. Today’s monsters are much more vertical and are being made larger and larger. The current Cunard star Queen Mary II, which just happened to be docked at the harbor when we returned from Belize, is over 1132 feet long and weighs in at 151,400 tons. Its smaller and older sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth II is a mere 70,327 tons and 963 feet long. Cunard will soon launch a third ship, the Queen Victoria, which will be approximately the same length 964 feet but more luxurious and 90,000 tons. But the real behemoths of the industry are the new Freedom Class generation of ships from Royal Caribbean. The 18-deck Liberty of the Seas, due in the spring of 2007 will carry 4,370 passengers and a crew of 1360 on 160,000+ tons stretched over 1,112 feet.  In comparison the Enchantment, which is registered in the Bahamas, is 989 feet long, carries 2,730 passengers with a crew of 840 and its 68, 500 horse power engines has the use of its 432,000 gallon capacity.

 

The French and the British Cunard Lines were the great rivals of the Golden Age of transoceanic travel that started in the mid 1890’s and ended in 1960’s. My grandfather John Kivo loved to travel to Europe and he managed to sail on the maiden voyages of great ships like the Ile De France  (completed in 1926, broken up in 1959, 44,356 gross tonnage), Normandie (completed in 1935, capsized in New York harbor 1942, 83,423 gross tonnage), United States,  (completed 1952 discontinued service 1969, 50,924 gross tonnage), Queen Mary (completed 1936 discontinued service 1967, after 1,000 trips, 81,237 gross tonnage), Queen Elizabeth (completed 1940, destroyed by fire during renovation in Hong Kong, 82,998 gross tonnage), Mauretania II (completed 1939 withdrawn from service 1965, 35,655 gross tonnage) and the Aquitania (completed 1914, discontinued service 1949, 45,647 gross tonnage). Of all those great ships, he loved best the Normandie of the French Line.

 

The Normandie won the Blue Riband (for speed) from the Italian Line’s Rex on her maiden voyage by making the run from Bishop Rock to Ambrose Light Ship in 4 days, 3 hours and 14 minutes at a speed of 29.94 knots. She was a beautiful three-funneled ship with majestic lines. Her dining room was three decks high and could seat 1000. Her interior décor was second to none. Her exquisite cuisine was also the best afloat and her service was unrivaled. Unfortunately she was laid up in New York Harbor in August 1939, right before the outbreak of the 2^nd World War.  She was seized by the United States on December 16, 1941. While she was being converted to the troopship Lafayette, she caught fire by an errant acetylene torch. The fireboats brought alongside, flooded the ship until it capsized. It was re-floated in 1943 at the huge cost of $4 million, but never really was used and it was sold for scrap in 1946. The luxury transoceanic business continued to grow and succeed in the decade after the war. But the development of long-range jet air traffic doomed those uneconomical though magnificent ships.

 

     From: Passenger Liners of the World, by Nicholas T. Cairis, Bonanza Book, 1979

 

We brought back our sleek Chrysler Sebring convertible to the Thrifty Car Rental, which is located right on the Terminal Drive, that leads directly to the port. We had put over 240 miles in just two and a half days! In a short time we were on the jitney to the embarkation spot and before long it was our turn to check in. As usual Linda had all our papers, passports, and contracts ready for processing. We were on board without too much of a wait and we were upgraded to deck seven (room 7016) with an outside cabin and balcony. Like all cruises, once the ship is underway there is a mandatory “muster” drill where everyone, young and old, must be at their stations with a life vest just in case of an emergency! The whole procedure took no more than a half an hour, and before long, we were back in our cabins as the ship made headway into the Straits of Florida.

 

The cruise ships of today are wonderful floating hotels with just about any accommodation one could want or afford. All of them are remarkable pieces of engineering and they are capable of traveling at 40+ knots. The Enchantment of the Sea used only half of its power and basically cruised at 20-23 knots per hour. It didn’t take long to advance out into the ocean and to leave the protected Port of Everglades swiftly behind. The water was smooth, most people had gotten their luggage by that time and the floating hotel was on its way. The first night is always a bit exciting. Every one is anxious to find their way to the dining room, find their table, meet their dinner companions, see the menu and meet their servers. We always choose the second sitting. It has fewer children, we have more time during the day, and after the meal we can go to a show or head back to our cabin. Meanwhile it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize right away that eating is a big a big event on board these ships. Each section has its own maitre d’ or area coordinator. It’s these individuals who make sure everyone is happy. The waiter and his assistant fawn over everyone, and after a day or so he/she knows the culinary habits of each person under his/her care. If you like rolls, water, butter, tea or coffee, or anything else, they know to make sure you don’t have to ask twice. These food servers are from all over the world. Our head guy was from Turkey, our waiter was from Spain and his assistant was from India. The experience is very reminiscent of being in the Catskill Mountain, or as we used to refer them as the “Jewish Alps.” One thing I love is bread, and at the first sitting I always start off with the first obligatory roll and before long I have four or five. The bus boy (he’s a man) knows that right away, and he is always replenishing my roll supply. The food is very good, the variety is above adequate and each night there are different choices. One must learn to push away. I made sure that I had dieted for almost two months before this gastronomic orgy and after it was over I had gained nine pounds!

 

The evening was uneventful. Though we had been on cruises before, we explored the ship, found out where we wished to eat breakfast, found the pools and become decently comfortable with the layout of the ship. The most frequented place on this ship is the Windjammer Room, where almost every one eats from 10am to 5pm.

 

Eventually we finished our first evening’s dinner, made friends with an English couple from Essex who were assigned to our same table, and met our second couple from Baltimore, who wound up eating in the ultra high priced Chops Grille a few times. After a long day we retired to our outside cabin on the 7^th deck. We found new towels, are bed ready for sleep and chocolates on the pillow. It was a comfortable evening with smooth seas rocking us gently to sleep as we drifted off watching one of the 6 language versions of the Da Vinci Code. That was being offered on television. In actuality, there was a lot offered and we had a decent selection of old movies to enjoy when we saw fit.

 

Our first port of call was Key West, and the ship was able to dock and we disembarked, found our tour group that was assembling outside the ship and marched off into town. By the way, everyone has a photo ID credit card issued by the ship and one cannot get off the ship without one’s card and to get back on ship’s security compares a picture of you and your face! G-d forbid they do not match up. Once ashore in Key West we made our way to along Front Street where the President Harry S Truman’s Little White House was located. This rambling white mansion, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is where the late President spent his winter holidays. It is a beautiful area, with leafy palm trees, quiet non-trafficked avenues and ritzy residences.

 

The Little White House was originally built in 1890 and the first officer’s quarters. Over the years it served as a guesthouse for many famous people. Even, Thomas Edison while working o depth charge research, stayed there during World War I. President Truman, who loved to fish, first visited Key West in 1946 and wound up staying there for 175 days during his Presidency. Other presidents also used the quarters over the years. President Eisenhower recuperated therein 1956 after his heart attack. Jack Kennedy and British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan also huddled there during the Cuban Missile Crisis and it is now one of Key West’s most visited attractions.

 

The property there is incredibly expensive and even virtual shacks go for $600K and up. It became sort of a joke to me because every time we passed a home, our guide would throw out another incredible dollar figure. Eventually every time we passed a rundown ramshackle abandoned lean to, Linda and I would look at each other and say $660K if a dime. Curiously Key West has a thing about chickens and roosters, and for the life of me I can’t remember why. But they are a “protected” and honored lot and are allowed to walk all over Key West with the protection of endangered specie.

 

With that in mind we continued to trek towards our destination, the Ernest Hemingway residence. Hemingway (1899-1961) lived there from 1931 to 1940 with his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer. His house is truly a local landmark and one of the main attractions for most visitors who make their way to Key West. It is two-story, stucco home that was built in 1851 by one Isaac Tiff. It is incredibly solid with 18” walls of stone. It is also built on one of the highest points on the Key. The building is impervious to the elements and though many building were damaged by the recent hurricanes, the Hemingway-Tiff house was not. It has a wonderful wrought iron wrap around deck around the second floor and a iron walkway from the second floor to his two story working office that is located 30 or so feet next store. Unfortunately the last hurricane, which destroyed a great deal of their foliage, also knocked down a tree that fell and destroyed the walkway. Hemingway would go from his bedroom and walk across to his office.

 

Hemingway had originally moved there on the advice of his friend the author John Dos Passos and bought this house in 1931 for $8000 when he was 32 years old. In 1927 Hemingway had divorced his first wife, Hadley Richardson and married Pauline Pfeiffer, a devout Roman Catholic from Pigott, Arkansas. She was fashion writer, who worked at times for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Eventually Hemingway converted to Catholicism and he moved to Key West in 1928, with Pauline and his first son Patrick. It was in Key West where his second son Gregory was born. I was an avid fan of Hemingway and read his wonderful book, The Sun Also Rises  (1926) when I was about fifteen. I was really impressed with his description of expatriate-Paris in the 1920’s and his heroine Lady Ashley Brett. She was one of the first fictional characters that I ever “fell” in love with.

 

“She stood holding the glass and I saw Robert Cohn looking at her. He looked a great deal as his compatriot must have looked when he looked at the promised land. Cohn, of course, was much younger. But he had that look of eager, deserving expectation.

 

Brett was damned good-looking, She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none it with that wool jersey”.  – The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway, Charles Scribner and Sons, 1926.

 

Hemingway was always controversial, and remains so to this day. He had problems with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford, who called him impotent. As a result of his contretemps with other writers, one of his publishers called him a “fag and wife-beater.” It was also claimed that Pauline was a lesbian, and she was alleged to have lesbian affairs after their divorce. Along with those literary catfights, his old Parisian contemporary Gertrude Stein accused him of borrowing her writing style in her book, the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, published in 1933, is Gertrude Stein’s best-selling work and her most accessible. Consisting of seven chapters covering the first three decades of the twentieth century, the book is only incidentally about Toklas’s life. Its real subject, and narrator, is Stein herself, who reportedly had asked Toklas, her lifelong companion, for years to write her autobiography. When Toklas did not, Stein did. Stein published excerpts of the work in the Atlantic, which occasioned a response from behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner whose essay, ‘‘Has Gertrude Stein a Secret?’’ connected the style Stein employed in the book with her work on automatic writing in Harvard’s psychology laboratories a few decades before. Automatic writing, popularized by the surrealists in the 1920s, was writing that follows unconscious as well as conscious thought of the author. Stein’s writing certainly has some of that element in the Autobiography but on the whole she sticks to telling a story of her life and times in more or less chronological order. That life includes details of her relationships with artists and writers who would become some of the most famous of the twentieth century, including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Max Jacob, and Sherwood Anderson

In Paris in the 1920’s this group of expatriates, which included Ezra Pound, the Fitzgerald’s Stein and Hemingway, got together to break bread, drink and discuss the literary news on and about the rialto. In a conversation between Stein and Hemingway she said, “You are all a lost generation.”  It wasn’t lost on Hemingway, and in the beginning of the Sun Also Rises, he gives her credit for that famous line.

“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever…The sun also riseth and the sun goeth down.”  Ecclesiastes.

The house itself is not an overly impressive edifice. It is a center hall dwelling with a living room on the left and a dining room on the right as one entered the center hall. It has one of the first full bathrooms to the left of the living room and a small kitchen in the rear. The upstairs has a large airy master bedroom with two smaller rooms for his boys.

In the master bedroom the queen-sized bed is roped off and its only occupant is a large yellow cat that frequently naps in the center. The house and property are maintained by a private group, which gives very laid-back tours and is also the home to about 46 cats. It seems that his wife Pauline liked feline companionship.

 

While Hemingway was off in a safari in 1933 that led him to Mombassa and Nairobi, he did the research for the Green Hills of Africa and the Snows of Kilimanjaro. Pauline built a large pool for the astronomical cost of $25,000. When he returned in he found that the “pool cost” had thrust him into debt. He took a 1934-penny out of his pocket and had it placed in the cement near the pool where it can be still seen. It was said, that Hemingway claimed that this was his last cent. We were told that he had been away covering the Spanish Civil War, but that was impossible. The Spanish Civil War started in 1936 and he left for Spain in 1937. It was there, while he was reporting for the North American Newspaper Alliance that he became disenchanted with the Roman Catholic Church of Spain, who backed the fascist-backed Franco led Nationalists. This unhappiness with the Church caused strain in his marriage with Pauline, who was a devout Catholic and a supporter of the fascist regime of Francisco Franco. Eventually Spain was lost to Franco in 1939 and he lost his house to divorce in 1940. A few weeks after his final decrees came though he married his companion of four years in Spain, the reporter Martha Gellhorn.

 

The tour continued down Whitehead Street into town. There is a wonderful old building ton Front Street that houses the Key West Museum of Art and History. One could not miss it if they wanted. Its bright red terra cotta roof and red brick exterior stands out like a huge angular corniced tangerine, it that is possible. As we walked down to the main streets of Key West, which contain bars, restaurants and souvenir joints one gets the impression that Key West is a tale of maybe three cities. On one hand there are the super wealthy, who are mostly absentee landlords and owners who live in and around the Truman compound. These people come in for short periods of time, go fishing, have their Margaritas downtown and escape back to where they came from.

 

There are the residents of Old Town who are black, Hispanics, and lower middle class whites who do the physical work, and they are the “blue-collar” backbone of the key. They are being forced out of Key West as its limited space becomes more and more gentrified by the skyrocketing cost of real estate. Of course the last group are the retailers and the people who run the eating and drinking establishments that dominate the streets that intersect the business district of the Key. These businesses cater to the flocks of tourists who disembark from the numerous cruise liners that anchor off Front Street and the Hilton Sunset Celebration and the Clinton Square Mall. In, and around Greene, Caroline and Duval Streets one could buy tee shirts, shorts, sweaters, message-embossed underwear, shot glasses, caps, and collectibles. Generally speaking there is little meaningful or indigenous art or antiques sold in Key West. There is always jewelry available and we were amazed by the incredible amount of Israelis who dominate many of the retail businesses. Ironically we found Israelis in Ottawa and eventually in Cozumel and Belize that also were well represented in the retail and souvenir shop commercial areas. As we headed down Whitehead Street towards the port area we came to Fleming Street where the famous “0” mile marker of Route 1 is located. Everyone wants to pose in front of that sign, and we were told that it has been stolen and replace much more than once. The Key West merchants are well aware of the fame of that sign, and every store has it share of shot glasses and shirts embossed with the “0” mile marker. As one strolls along Whitehead Street, we passed another landmark, the Cornish Memorial AME Baptist Church. It’s a big white church that has been undergoing rehabilitation for years.  Obviously there are some who still go to church on the Key.

 

After the hard work of touring starts to wear on the body, we entered into the Key’s famous row of bars. The feature one is called Captain Tony’s, which is not only the oldest bar in Florida, but located on the original site of Sloppy Joe’s Bar (that was opened there between 1933 and 1937) where Hemingway and his buddies tossed many a brew.  In those days life was simpler and boilermakers were the drink de jour of many of the naval personnel. Today white wine spritzers, chardonnays and flavored martinis seem, along with designer beers, the new thirst quenching favorites of the tourist and beautiful people.

 

Eventually Key West wore out its welcome and lunch was about to serve to be served on the Enchantment of the Seas. So we headed back I sort of regretted that I didn’t buy a G-string with a clever ribald message, but my inner self told me that I didn’t want to be embarrassed by some frisky, zealous and inquisitive customs official that profiled me because of my grey goatee.

 

Once we entered the ship, passed security, and washed our hands. That’s mandatory for all who re-board the ship. Everyone on board is concerned about the spread of germs. Too many ships come back to their homeports with hundreds of passengers retching their innards out. Our cruise was lucky; we had little or nothing of that! When we reached our room, we quickly hustled down, without even changing, to the wine tasting event in the My Fair Lady dining room. We arrived just in time, and had the pleasure of quaffing a number of varieties of the fruit of the vine. After a number of large sips of zinfandel, rose, merlot, chardonnay and a finishing glass of champagne we were quite lubricated. As the ship started to pull away from US territory, we headed off to our stateroom for a well-needed rest. After a few hours of horizontal inactivity we got up, showered and headed off the Captain’s cocktail party. We weren’t in the mood for more bubbly, but it was fun to shake hands and be photographed with the diminutive Norwegian, Captain Gunnar Oien. All this was done on Linda’s 60^th birthday, and from there we headed into the dining room for more food and a eventually a cheesecake with a birthday candle. Linda had salmon and I had roast beef, and we headed from dinner to the Internet Room and and then on to the Orpheum Theatre, where their “song and dance” group put on an excellent review called From Hollywood to Broadway,” which featured routines from “West Side Story,” “Hairspray,” “Chicago,” “Sweet Charity,” and “Little Shop of Horrors. We both loved the show! In a few hours we were out into Atlantic Ocean on our way to the Caribbean and Cozumel, and the Mexican Riviera.

 

The history of Cozumel is linked to the Mayan civilization. Cozumel was a sacred Mayan shrine referred to as Ah-Cuzamil_Peten, or Island of the Swallows. The Mayan culture began to decline in the 10^th century with the arrival of the more aggressive Toltecs. By the 12^th century, the Toltec cult of the god Quetzalcoatl, meaning, “plumed serpent,” dominated the Mayan culture. The Spanish first arrived on Cozumel in 1518, many of the Mayan temples lie in ruins, but the real damage was done by smallpox. From 1519, when Hernan Cortes reported that there were 40,000 inhabitants until 1570 the population was reduced to only 300. Thirty years later the island was abandoned. The island served as a base for pirates for decades, and finally in 1848 it was re-settled when Mexicans fled the mainland from the ravages of the “War of the Castes.” By 1979 the population ad grown to 10,000 and today some 175,000 inhabit the island.

 

On Wednesday morning at 10 am, Central time, we lost an hour as we moved west, and docked off Cozumel. The docks had not been rebuilt since the last hurricane damage and we sat outside awaiting our tender. We could see the Constellation of the Celebrity Line and the Holiday of the Carnival Line from the deck of the Enchantment.  The tender came alongside the 2^nd deck opening and these tenders hold at least 300 passengers. Within five minutes the tender was filled and within a few minutes we were docked along side the International Duty Free Zone and awaited out but tour of the Island. While we waited for our group to assemble we wandered through the duty free shops looking at mostly silver. On my own, I found (secretly) a lovely piece of Amber that was mounted on silver, and put it away to surprise Linda for her day old birthday. The zone was a mad house and it took forever for the tour to assemble. As we waited, more and more ships spewed forth their human cargo, and the Zone became more and more jammed with shoppers.

 

We finally found our way to our air-conditioned bus, though we were a bit delayed by a gravity-challenged individual, who fell on his head. Cozumel rarely gets below 65 degrees and in the summer the heat ranges from 98 to 110 degrees. We took a long bus ride to a small unimpressive Mayan village with a tiny temple.  We eventually headed out to the ocean, took some marvelous pictures of the incredible surf and headed back into the downtown of San Miguel. In San Miguel the shopping was incredible, but we were worn out. Linda sat down in a café with two of our English friends that we met on the ship. I walked up to the post office, mailed some postcards; the cost of a stamp is one US dollar!  I walked back towards where I left the three gals, and we all met halfway down the long shopping street. The International Duty Free Port was three miles away. We would not walk, hailed one of the numerous cabs parked on the street, paid the $6 and headed back to the Zone, the tender and the ship.

 

Once back on board we hustled our way up top to the Windjammer room and arrived just in time to get the last morsels left (4:50pm) before they cleaned up and closed the doors for the dinner hour. It was an overly long day, but Cozumel’s ocean vistas were first rate and I was able to take some great pictures. Cozumel is basically a magnet for people who like underwater activity, and if one snorkels, snubas, or scubas they have reached a diver’s paradise. So after caloric replenishment we made our way back to our stateroom, rested a bit, cleaned up and made ready for the next show in the Orpheum Theatre. We went to see a comic/magician named “Levant” who put on an entertaining act. We enjoyed his effort and he was well received by the audience. After we departed we were off to the Crown and Anchor Society’s party that was held for frequent voyagers. It was informative and the ship’s perky British hostess was quite charming and enjoyable. She knew her job and handled it exceptionally. The hors d’oerves and the champagne went down well, and we were still able to move under our own steam, so we headed down to dinner. The weather had started to affect the current and even on an 81,000-ton ship one could start to feel the ship starting to gently rock. Our dinner was excellent as usual, the service was great and our political and social conversation with our dinner mates was quite stimulating.  At the end of the meal, which was over past 10:15 pm, we made our way back to our stateroom, watched some television, felt the surge of the higher seas as it buffeted against the ship, and fell quickly to sleep. There is nothing as dark as a moonless night at sea.

 

The next morning, December 7^th  (Pearl Harbor Day) we awoke to a rainy morning, as the ship entered into the Gulf of Honduras and past Ranguana Caye headed towards anchorage off the port of Belize City. These cruise ships are too big for the shallow waters that splash along the low-level coastline of Belize, so we anchored in the middle of the channel miles from the shoreline. In fact, we could hardly see Belize from the ship. We had an early tour schedule so we ate breakfast early and by 7:30 am we had gathered in the theatre and awaited our turn on the tender. Before long we were given our tour labels, and we were sent downstairs to a double-hulled catamaran. We loaded quickly and tender literally flew across the bay. It still took twenty minutes, but the trip was generally smooth across the choppy bay and before too long we pulled into the International Duty Free Zone at Belize City. This shopping was not in Cozumel’s league, but it didn’t matter too much, because our tour was quickly organized.  Fortunately the skies cleared and we were on our way with the “Tale of Two Cities” tour.

 

For those who know nothing of Belize, it was formerly known as British Honduras, and it is a tiny country of approximately 8060 square miles and is 84 miles at its widest and 184 miles at its longest, on the eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered on the northwest by Mexico and Guatemala to the south and west. It is a parliamentary democracy and still recognizes Queen Elizabeth II as its sovereign. Because of its former status as a British colony, it is the only English-speaking country in Central America. It had been a colony for more than a century and became independent in 1981. Its historical legacy is linked to the Mayan civilization, which enveloped its land from between 1400 BCE and 300 CE. No one knows where the name Belize comes from and some attribute to a mispronouncing of the last name of the pirate Wallace who founded a settlement there in 1638. It could also come from the Maya word belix, meaning “muddy water” a name for the Belize River. Because Belize City was so vulnerable to hurricanes and it lies below sea level, a new capital, named Belmopan has been created in the geographical center of the country. From 1970 onward the country started to slowly transfer it government offices to the new capital. There are a number of rivers that run through Belize and it is country divided into six different districts with a capital city in each district. One great asset it has is its incredible 200-mile long barrier reef flanking Belize. Our ocean liner had to sail through this channel bordered by the reef to reach Belize City.  This reef is second only in size to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and makes its “cayes” pronounced “keys” a marvelous area to indulge in snorkeling and scuba diving.

 

Belize is an incredibly poor country from my observation. Its birth rate is amongst the highest in the world and the population is relatively young. Over 40% of the population is under the age of fifteen. It’s a racially mixed multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society with approximately 300,000 residents that enjoy little racial problems or tensions. It is predominantly Christian with Roman Catholicism representing half the population, and Protestant sects representing another 25%. The rest of the people are comprised of Taoists, Buddhists, Hindus and even some Islamists.

 

Once our bus started out on its journey, we hugged the coastline making our way along Princess Margaret Road, which was named for the Queen’s sister who had visited there in the 1960’s. As we veer northwest, we merge onto the Northern Highway into the interior of Belize. We enter into a dense jungle area dominated by Mangrove trees that line the banks of the Belize River. It is a long slow journey because the roads are narrow. There are numerous ruts and potholes in the roadbed, and there are “built in” speed bumps called “sleeping policemen” that slow the bus down every 50 yards. Our guide, a charming smart young fellow named Robert Johnson, tells us that these so-called “sleeping policemen” or “speed bumps” are put in to slow the traffic down. Well the “speed bumps,” the general narrowness of the roads and their horrible condition extended the 34-mile trip into hours. Eventually we finally reached our destination: the Mayan ruins of Altun Ha (Water of the Rock) located near the Rockstone Pond Village, in the Chiquibul Rain Forest of the Cayo District (Carocal). Upon disembarking from the bus, everyone made the biologically important and necessary stop at the bathrooms and we then proceeded to a central square of pyramids. Within a few hundred yards of the rest and refreshment area, the valley of the Mayan Gods opened up for all of us to see.

 

This Mayan center that encompasses 840 major and minor sites along with eight pyramids (only five have been worked on) was thought to be a religious center of their classic period, from 250 CE to 900 CE, where over 8000 people lived and worked. The surrounding jungle area was actually identified as a Mayan city in the late 1950’s and the pyramids were explored, exposed and excavated by the Canadian archeologist David Pendergast and his wife Professor Elizabeth Graham in the period 1961 through 1974. All these rock structures were cut mostly by flint and are composed basically of limestone. Here are located the famous 140 foot tall Caana (Sky Palace) Pyramid and the giant Jade Head, the largest carved jade object in the whole Mayan region. It represents Kenich Ahau, the Sun God. In fact, when one stands as I did, on the top of the Temple of the Rain God, I could see into both Mexico and Guatemala.

 

The view into the green plains of the central Mayan religious square is remarkable. Today it is a verdant paradise surrounded on four sides by magnificent rock edifices. Each structure has its own character and architectural personality. One can only imagine how it looked, over 1000 years earlier, when it thousands of pilgrims entered into its quadrangle. As part of the whole center square there is a pyramid that is still covered mostly by vegetation. When one looks at that still uncovered massive mountain of rock, one can just imagine what this whole place looked in period before its uncovering and excavation. All these incredible mounds were covered by jungle, the large, wide, manicured, grassy plain was also forest and in most cases modern life had not intruded into this massive over grown area since shortly after its abandonment. These structures are virtually indestructible and one can only imagine, in one’s mind’s eye, the effort made in their construction. One could spend many hours looking at these incredible monuments to man’s ingenuity and wonderment about this unknown lost world, but the tour schedule had its demands. We regrettably said our mental goodbyes, and moved back to the departure area. Along the way we were able to buy some teak objects that were hand made by the indigenous residents of the region.

 

The bus ride back to our next stop, Belize City was even longer. The roads are incredibly bad, as I had written earlier and along with their man-made “speed bumps” we weren’t terribly happy about our lack of speed. Finally we entered into the outskirts of their major city. Belize City, which is over 300 years old, is a horrible place. Its slums are shocking. Never did I imagine that I would see such poverty, especially in a former British possession. No matter where one turned, the houses were in terrible and the side streets were decrepit condition. Many were wrecked beyond belief. There was not one house that I saw that was in decent shape. Not one house was painted, and many of these tin-roofed shanties were propped up by two by fours, or cut down trees. There was no such a thing as a yard. The fronts of many of the houses were strewn with garbage, old tires and junk. Many of the houses had old “junker” automobiles sitting next door with their windows broken, their trunks open and their rusting hulks corroding in the sun. It was as if a hurricane had passed through, and I am sure it did. Much of the degradation was probably due, in part to the recent storms, but still much of the housing stock looked terribly old and worn.

 

Finally we entered into the commercial heart of Belize City where the banks, stores and other public building were located. That part of their inner city was drab, squalid and rundown. I certainly would never think about walking around that area to satiate my curiosity. I did not see a store that was attractive, modern or worthwhile. We were all quite happy when the bus eventually reached the International Free Port Zone. We had arrived back at 2:22 pm Central Time and we only waited five minutes for our high-powered tender, and it was off quickly to our sea hotel.

 

We again made our way to the Windjammer Room for a late lunch, met our English friends Valerie and Amorel from Yorkshire, compared notes about Belize and headed back to our stateroom for showers, rest, and recovery. We were up and about at 6:00 PM, and made our way to the shops. Linda had complained about our trip to Cozumel and, lo and behold, they gave her a full credit for the cost of the excursion. We had also benefited by an earlier complaint to Royal Caribbean and they had given us each a $100 credit to spend as we wished. Quite often it pays to speak up and voice objections about conditions and unfulfilled promises. We went back to the Orpheum Theatre, we saw a great show based on “rock and roll” numbers from the movies, went from there to the Bolero Room where there was a Big Band trivia contest, and eventually made our way to dinner.

 

The seas started to turn rough as we headed into the Caribbean and our long trip back to Fort Lauderdale. We made our way back to our room as the shipped rolled from side to side. We weren’t in the mood to go anywhere. It was an early evening for us and probably everyone else. The next morning we awakened to a rough day on the open seas and we found our way to the indoor, Solarium pool deck, where we read and basically stayed in one place. It was pretty rocky and almost impossible to walk across the open pool deck. So, no one was on the open decks, and I can only guess that they were eating, in their rooms, or somewhere else in the middle of the ship, where the rocking was physically less evident.

 

So it was now the “end game” of our trip. We enjoyed the last day on board, took care of our tip money, had a great dinner, were entertained by the “serving” staff, and went back to our room, packed our bags and relaxed for the evening. The ship pulled into Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades, we were up early for breakfast, and we joined some of our fellow passengers in our assigned “waiting” section of the ship. We had some fun playing cards and sitting next to some young and good-looking Mormon gals and guys, who had just graduated college and were waiting to hear where their “mission” assignments would send them.

 

When our group was announced, we disembarked easily, found our luggage and had the pleasure of seeing the massive Queen Mary II, which was berthed right next to our ship. It was really hard to believe that she was almost twice as large our ship. So it was on to the port, off to the airport and back to New York.

 

It was nice to be back home and it was most gratifying to see friends and family in Florida and Washington. We didn’t have long to rest because Linda had her annual Charlesbank Capital Partners holiday party in Boston. We left for Boston early in the morning on Friday the 15^th of December. It was one of our most uneventful rides. We always drive up the Merritt Parkway (named in 1938 after Schuyler Merritt, 1853-1953, who was a long-time Republican Congressman). It is 37 miles from King Street in Port Chester to the Sikorsky Bridge where it merges into the Wilbur Cross Parkway (Named after Wilbur Lucius Cross, 1862-1948, who was the Democratic Governor from 1931-9). From the Wilbur Cross Parkway it is another 30 miles to Meriden and the Berlin Turnpike or I-91 to Sturbridge and than on to the Massachusetts Turnpike. Many years ago when I used to drive home from Boston University, we had to take this four-lane, eleven-mile stretch, which was like Central Avenue, from Wethersfield to Meriden. It was a slow, congested road that featured an incredible amount of traffic lights, and was known as the “Christmas Tree.”  Eventually I-91 was built, which went directly to and around Hartford. From Hartford it was straight on I-84 to Sturbridge where we picked up the Mass Pike that leads directly into Boston. Its about 49 miles on the Mass Pike and we were in downtown Boston in less than two hours and fifty minutes.

 

I dropped Linda off at her office and I found my way over to Commonwealth Avenue and Jon’s apartment, which is located right on the border of Brighton and Brookline. We had pastrami sandwiches for lunch on Harvard Street and then made our way down to Quincy Market and the famous and historical Faneuil Hall.

 

Faneuil Hall Boston, the Cradle of Liberty, has a greater historical interest than any other building in the United States, save Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was built at the expense of Peter Faneuil, a wealthy merchant of French descent, and given by him to the town.  The building was completed in September 1742, with the people voting that it be called 'Faneuil Hall' forever.  On March 3, 1748, Faneuil died, and the first public gathering in the new hall was on the occasion of the eulogy of him on March 14th 1748. Faneuil was buried in the Granary Burying Ground.

The building was almost destroyed by fire on January 18, 1761. It was re-built, with the funds being in part raised by a lottery authorized by the state. The lottery tickets bore the ample signature of John Hancock.  When re-opened on March 14, 1763, James Otis Jr. delivered an address dedicating the hall in the cause of liberty, and so it has been ever called the Cradle of Liberty. In 1805, the building was considerably enlarged.

In the tumultuous times before the Revolution, the hall was the scene of the most excited public meetings, and the great patriot orators of that day sounded from its platform. On the morning of March 6th 1770, following the Boston Massacre, the first public meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, packed from entrance to platform.  Witnesses of the Massacre described the events, and Samuel Adams gave an impassioned speech.  Adams was appointed to lead a committee to strongly urge the lieutenant governor to remove all British troops, or the safety of the citizens and soldiers would be compromised.

In 1772, the first Committee of Correspondence was established here by a motion by Samuel Adams, and contained the premises of the Revolution, which Loyalists of that time state to be the origin of the rebellion.  On November 29, 1773, the first meeting in protest of the imposed tea tax took place at Faneuil Hall.  A vote was taken, and it was resolved that ‘as the town of Boston, in a full legal meeting, has resolved to do the utmost in its power to prevent the landing of the tea.’  Because of limited space for the crowds, meetings were often moved to the Old South Meeting House.  During the occupation of Boston in 1774, the hall was used as a theatre for British officers.
                   From the Celebrate Boston website.
                                   

Faneuil Hall has been a meeting place for Bostonians for more than 200 years. Downstairs there are many shops and a post office, but upstairs there is the meeting hall that is still mostly unchanged from its expansion in 1805. The Quincy Market was decently busy, but maybe because it was Friday the upstairs was virtually empty except for Jon, a visitor from England, myself and the National Park’s guide, who gave us our own private tour and lecture.

 

After re-learning some long-forgotten vignettes of American history we made our way downstairs and sauntered over to the Union Oyster House, which is right around the corner from the two bronze statues of former Mayor James Michael Curley (1874-1958) and across the street from the Holocaust Memorial.

 

               

 

 

 

 

James Michael Curley was a unique Boston character, who had an incredible political career. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1911 and served part of two terms He later was elected to two-terms in 1943. In between he was elected Mayor in 1914-18, and twice more he was elected and served, 1922-26, 1930-34, until elected Governor in 1935. He served for two years, was defeated, returned to the House in 1943 for two terms and became Mayor again in 1947 and served until 1950. He was convicted twice of felonies and served time in jail while Governor. In 1932, FDR’s presidential aspirations were almost derailed by Curley’s ambition. Curley convinced FDR and his advisors to enter into the Massachusetts Presidential Primary. Curley thought by linking his name to Roosevelt’s rising star it would help his statewide ambitions. The Curley machine handled almost all of the literature, and campaign material, and his picture was paired with FDR’s all over the state. It was a terrible miscalculation. Al Smith, a Catholic with Irish blood in his veins, beat FDR three to one in the heavily Irish-Catholic dominated Democratic Primary. 

 

See Conrad Black’s FDR, the Champion of Freedom, page 229, Public Affairs, 2003 and Wikipedia for more information on Mayor Curley.

               

 

The Union Oyster house is the oldest restaurant in Boston and the oldest restaurant in the United States that is in continuous service. Union Street was laid out in 1636, and even though there are no existing land records from those days, the current building there is known to be at least 250 years old. Eventually, in 1826, new owners installed a semi-circular oyster bar.

 

1826 marked the end of Capen's Dry Goods Store and the beginning of Atwood and Bacon's establishment. The new owners installed the fabled semi-circular Oyster Bar — where the greats of Boston paused for refreshment.

It was at the Oyster Bar that Daniel Webster, a constant customer; daily drank his tall tumbler of brandy and water with each half-dozen oysters, seldom having less than six plates.

The toothpick was first used in the United States at the Union Oyster House. Enterprising Charles Forster of Maine first imported the picks from South America. To promote his new business he hired Harvard boys to dine at the Union Oyster House and ask for toothpicks

 

From the Union Oyster Website!

 

From my first visit to Boston with my grandfather John Kivo, in 1960, I still try to get over to the Union Oyster House and have a draft beer, now usually Sam Adams and eat at least a half-dozen Cherrystone clams. I feel I am always at good company at the Oyster Bar. One can always hear great talk about politics, Boston sports: the Red Sox, the Pats, the Celts and Bruins and the general state of the world. John F. Kennedy loved to eat upstairs in a private dining room and there is plaque honoring his presence. Upstairs, long before there was a bar and a restaurant, in 1771, the stirrings of the American Revolution were stimulated by one Isaiah Thomas, who published The Massachusetts Spy, long known as the oldest published newspaper in the United States.

 

After our adventure, in and around, Quincy Market we made our way eventually back to Brookline and Jon’s synagogue, Kehillath Israel on 384 Harvard Street. Linda took a cab from her office party and met us just in time for the Friday night service. At the end of the service, we went out to eat nearby at Vinny Testa’s, a large, local, Italian cuisine, eatery on Beacon Street. After our meal, we took Jon home to Brighton and made our way over to Dana’s apartment on Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington where we stayed for the evening. The next day, we got up early, picked up Jon and took a tour through downtown Brighton, (Brighton Center) a place that I had never visited in all my years living and coming to Boston. We had breakfast in a place called Athan’s Restaurant and headed over to the Boston Fine Arts Museum on Huntington Avenue.

Brighton was settled in the late 17th century and was known as “Little Cambridge” in its early years. Before the Revolution, Little Cambridge was a prosperous farming community of fewer than 300 residents. Its habitants included such distinguished figures as Nathaniel Cunningham, Benjamin Faneuil and Charles Apthorp. Cunningham and Faneuil were wealthy Boston merchants. Apthorp was paymaster of British land forces in North America. All three maintained country estates here in the 1740 to '75 period.

Today Brighton is home to St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, and part of the campus of Boston College is located within its borders. The university recently purchased the 43-acre campus that formerly housed the chancery of the Archdiocese of Boston, located at the corner of Lake Street and Commonwealth Avenue. That campus still houses St. John's Seminary.

The neighborhood, which is primarily populated by undergraduate and graduate students, young professionals working class families, and townies. Brighton consists of an intricate network of streets lined with multi-family houses, three deckers, and apartment buildings. Local family businesses mix with national chains of pharmacies and banks along Brighton's main street, Washington Street, which runs straight through Brighton Center to Oak Square.

                From: Wikipedia, and the Brighton website

The Fine Art Museum is a fabulous asset of Boston’s cultural legacy. We always try to get over there when we have the time or are in the neighborhood. It is located on Huntington Avenue, which has gone through a remarkable renaissance over the past decades. Because of the MBTA tracks that run down the center of the street, that area of Boston was always a bit run-down. We became more familiar with it because Harvard’s Graduate School of Dentistry is located off of Huntington Avenue, and Dana worked there for a few years. Huntington Avenue runs into Massachusetts Avenue where Boston’s Symphony Hall, the home of the Boston Pops, is located. Another factor in the resurgence of Huntington Avenue is the growth of the Northeastern University campus that straddles Huntington Avenue. 

The Museum was founded in 1870 and opened in 1876, with a large portion of its collection taken from the Boston Athenaeum Art Gallery. Originally located in a red Gothic Revival building on Copley Square in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, it moved to its current location on Huntington Avenue, Boston's “Avenue of the Arts,” in 1909.

The museum's present building was commenced in 1907, when museum trustees hired architect Guy Lowell to create a master plan for a museum that could be built in stages as funding was obtained for each phase. The first section of Lowell’s neoclassical design was completed in 1909, and featured a 500-foot façade of cut granite along Huntington Avenue, the grand rotunda, and the associated exhibition galleries. Mrs. Robert Dawson Evans then funded the entire cost of building the next section of the museum’s master plan. This wing along the Back Bay Fens, opened in 1915 and houses painting galleries. From 1916 through 1925, John Singer Sargent created the art that lines the rotunda and the associated colonnade. Numerous additions enlarged the building throughout the years including the Decorative Arts Wing in 1968 and the Norman Jean Calderwood Garden Court and Terrace in 1997. This wing now houses the museum's cafe, restaurant, and gift shop as well as exhibition space.

                From- Wikepedia- The Boston Fine Art Museum, website

After being enraptured once again by their magnificent collection of Greco-Roman and Etruscan pottery, along with their remarkable classical era statuary, we said goodbye to culture and made our way over to Beacon Hill, the Boston Commons and Charles Street. Charles Street is at the base of Beacon Hill and has some wonderful shops squeezed into its 100 to 150 year old buildings. This section, that surrounds the State House, is of course, the home to many of Boston’s wealthiest and most influential citizens. It is a great place to stroll about, especially during the holiday season, when all of the street lamps and windows are festooned with seasonal greenery. The Boston Commons is a fantastic city park with beautiful vistas, inspiring statuary and a wonderful outdoor skating rink, which we observed was quite busy children and adults of all ages.

 

On Charles Street there are great antique stores, an old print and map shop, and plenty of places to grab a bite or have a slice of pizza. In years past we have bought Wedgwood, holiday ornaments and a terrific leather vest from the street’s various purveyors.

 

Well it was a long day with much seen and a lot accomplished. As the sun set on the short December afternoon, we called it a day and headed over to Beacon Street and back to Jon’s home in Brighton. He had plans for the evening and we were going to dinner with our old friend and customer from Peabody, Richard Straus and his wife Debbie. We all met in Arlington at Prose, a little restaurant on Massachusetts Avenue. We had not seen them in many years, but we’ve kept in contact through the mail. We spent the eclectic meal catching up with our recent histories, their business in Gloucester, and their two boys. We had fun re-living times past and the restaurant let us stay for a few hours, so we were able cover everything that needed to be said. Finally we had to say goodbye, we parted, they headed back to the north shore and we made our short way back to Dana’s apartment. The next day, it was up early again, and off to New York and our home in Tarrytown. It was over a month of traveling from Newport to Washington to Florida, the Caribbean and to Boston. It was good to get home.

 

One always should learn something whenever one strays away from the comfort and confines of home. For sure I have always learned that there is vibrant life outside of New York. One thing I constantly see is that the American Spirit is still alive and well. Even thought the “media” is enamored with the fascination of material and celebrity, the average citizen is still very much involved with their families, their hobbies, their curiosities and their interest in travel. Americans like to go places and almost every social stratum seems to be well represented when it comes to touring. The American people are still an idealistic lot, who love life. That virtue should never be lost.

 

Letter to the Editor

The Westchester Jewish Chronicle

 

January 5, 2007

 

In the January issue of the “Chronicle”, Ms. Rhea Tauber wrote a column titled “Memories of Cuba as a Haven for Jews.” Unfortunately her memory is a bit clouded and her facts are incorrect. The German ship, “St. Louis” was one of three ships that brought passengers, including Jews, to Cuba at that time. Cuba, because of the influence of local Nazis, put onerous restrictions on Jewish immigration. Already 6000 Jews immigrants were living in Cuba, most without legal documentation. Also a house-to-house check was being made for all German refugees and there was great fear from the Joint Distribution Committee in the United States that a pogrom was being planned if more Jews were granted asylum. When a $500 cash bond was put up for each passenger, amounting to $500,000, the Cubans refused. There were definitive conflicts between Batista and Manuel Benitez, who was receiving bribes for each illegal alien allowed into Cuba. Strongman Colonel Fulgencio Bastista wanted his “cut” or would end the practice. Two other ships had already just arrived, the British ship “Orduna” and the French ship, “Flanders.”  Within a twenty-four hour period more than 1200 refugees had arrived from three European ports. The Cubans had just passed a law limiting to 1500 the number of immigrants that could be yearly allowed to land. Eventually, after a collapse in negotiations, the ship left port and while off Florida, on June 4, the figurehead President Bru relented and said that they could land for $650 per head. The Joint Committee refused to pay the extra dollars. They thought there would be more ships and the price would continue to escalate. The “St. Louis,” amidst all of the negotiation with Cuban and the American officials, who were trying to get around our strict immigration laws, turned seaward to Germany. The JDC was besieged with criticism from the American Jewish community and its friends, but felt they were being blackmailed by the Cubans. Ms. Tauber stated that the passengers were “returned to Germany and certain death for all abroad.” She also stated that that “…Jews trying to escape the Holocaust, came into Havana harbor.”  Of the 936 Jews on board  who had left Hamburg, 29 disembarked in Havana, 907 sailed back to Europe; 288 disembarked in England and lived through the Holocaust. The remaining 619 went to France, Belgium and Holland. The 392 of 619 who had disembarked at Antwerp, survived the war. The remaining 227 were murdered by the Nazis. The US Holocaust Museum estimates more than two-thirds of the passengers survived the war. Also, in June of 1939, it certainly was not yet the Holocaust. War had not been declared, over 75% of the Jews living in Germany, at the time of Hitler's ascendancy to power, had either left Germany or had been forced out. German policy was “Judenrein” not extermination. Up until Kristalnacht under 1000 Jews had been killed in Germany from 1933 until late 1938. Even up until the war, which started on September 3, 1939, relatively a small percentage of the remaining Jews from the 1930 population of 500,000 had been killed. The Holocaust really emerged from a number of distinct occurrences. The first was the invasion and conquering of Poland, and the fact that millions of Jews in Poland came under the direct control of the Nazis. The second would be the invasion and conquering of the Baltic States and the siege of the Soviet Union, where millions of other Jews came under Nazi control, and third would be the Wannsee Conference, in a Berlin suburb, on January 12, 1942 where the “Final Solution” was articulated and planned. By that time, no power on earth could have saved the vast majority of 6 million or so Jews that were eventually killed. In June of 1939, few in Europe really believed there would be war, no less World War. Few Jews, outside of Germany, thought their lives were eminently at risk, and the Low Countries and France were not invaded until the spring of 1940. Most Jews believed that Germany only was interested in ridding itself of Jews. But, it is true, that many Jews wished fervently to get out of Europe. These are incontrovertible facts reported in numerous histories of that era. Refer to Conrad Black and Robert Rosen's recent histories of FDR.

 

Richard J. Garfunkel

 

 

 

Gerald Ford

A Modest Man but then he has so

 Much to be Modest About!

By

Richard J. Garfunkel

December 31, 2006

 

Only in America, as the late Harry Golden would say, have we raised to an art form in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries this curious ritual of embalming the recently departed with a theatrical mythology about their lives and legacy. There is no doubt that throughout the last fifty or so years we have canonized people like James Dean, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, with a macabre type luminescence that they may never have deserved. Of course, each case must stand on its own merit. Marilyn Monroe is still sorely missed. But in the last few years of her relatively young life, she was cascading down a path to self-destructiveness, in the same way as James Dean and Elvis. Like many of her contemporaries she was trashed by the media, public opinion, and her celebrity was in eclipse. Others, like John F. Kennedy, who was liked and admired, was cut down in the prime of his life, and historically has been elevated to not only sainthood, but to the level of one of the most admired Presidents. Many other political and entertainment figures have also gone through this orgy of public sentimentality. Unfortunately, for many, in their last years they were relatively forgotten, or unfairly ignored or cast away.

 

In the case of the late Gerald R. Ford, the 38^th President of the United States, we are now hearing him being eulogized and honored in a way that should confuse and befuddle most people who knew of him or lived through his presidency. From a personal view I would not recognize the man they are talking about. When John Kivo, the only grandfather I knew, passed away more than 33 years ago, I was unfortunately a bit late for the funeral. For some unfortunate reason we got held up in terrible traffic and by the time we got to the Riverside Memorial Chapel in NYC, the service had just started. We hurried in and took a seat in the crowded rear of the chapel. A rabbi was talking about my grandfather, who was the most irreligious of men, and I honestly looked around and wondered whether I was in the right service. Of all of his four grandchildren, I was by far the closest to him, but was I asked to contribute some thoughts and impressions about him when this rabbi was engaged to eulogize him? No! Of course not! In the same way, once again, I feel that I, like millions of others, are being bombarded by a cacophony of eulogies that make me wonder aloud, am I at the right funeral? As Winston Churchill said about Clement Attlee, the Labour Prime Minister who succeeded him in 1945, “A modest man, but then he has so much to be modest about.” Unfortunately for us, Ford wasn’t as successful as Attlee, and though he was quite a departure from Churchill, as Ford was from Nixon, he was a serious professional who was eventually admired greatly by his Conservative (Whig) successors. His leadership style, of consensual government, acting as a chairman rather than a president, won him much praise from historians and politicians alike. Unfortunately for America, Ford had the same opportunity to become a unity president, and he failed.

 

Gerald Ford was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1948.from the then 5^th District in Michigan that encompassed Grand Rapids, the 2^nd largest city in that state. He had defeated the incumbent Republican, Bartel J. Jonkman, a conservative isolationist. That district happened to be the home of many people who were Dutch descendents. Grand Rapids in the early 1970’s, just before Gerald Ford ascended to the presidency, was a very conservative Republican city, which reflected many of the values of the stern Calvinism of their (the Dutch) Christian Reformed Church. Up to that time, in recent history, the only Democrats to carry that city were the then popular Senator Philip Hart, and President Lyndon Johnson. It seemed that the Dutch community was unhappy with Barry Goldwater’s profanity and that led them to believe that he was a “flamboyant” man. Ford was born in 1913 with the name Leslie Lynch King Jr., but his father left his mother Dorothy Ayer Gardner 16 days after he was born. It was said that he had threatened both mother and child with a knife and eventually ran away to Texas. His mother moved back from Omaha to her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan and eventually, after three years, married a paint-salesman named Gerald Rudolff Ford. It was 15 or so years later when the younger Ford learned that he had been abandoned and that Ford was not his real name. He admired his stepfather greatly, was never legally adopted, and his name was not legally changed until 1935.

 

After another disastrous fall showing by the GOP in 1964, Gerald Ford challenged and defeated Charles Halleck in 1965, (1900-1986, a member of the house from 1935 until 1969) for the Minority leadership of the House Republicans. Halleck, who with Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen (1896-1969, member of the House 1933-49, US Senate 1951-1969) formed a “GOP truth squad” and made many television appearances, and were nick-named the “Ev and Charlie Show.” Dirksen, a lugubrious individual, who was known for his flowery oratory, was famous for saying, “When I feel the heat, I see the light!”  He also is most often quoted about government spending with his remark, “You spend a billion here, and a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money!”

 

Although Ford was considered by many to be more moderate than the Neanderthal Halleck, he still had an ADA (Americans for Democratic Action) rating of 7 in 1969 and by 1970 when it went up to 12, his ACA (Americans for Constitutional Action) rating was 68! On the Conservation side, the League Conservation Associations gave him a 10, wherein the National Association of Business gave him an 83 rating. Ironically Ford turned out to be much more aggressive than his predecessor, and he believed that it was necessary for the Republicans to have an alternative plan of action rather than “blind opposition.”

 

Of course, he was pretty much thought of as a Nixon loyalist by the time of the Watergate Crisis. I cannot be positive of Ford’s total legislative record, but it is said that he authored very few pieces of legislation in his time. But he was in the minority for much of those years and with his football, World War II and law school background, he fit quite well into the roll of a partisan critic of the Johnson Administration.

 

As a young person involved in politics in the late 1960’s, I was quite active in the campaign to impeach Richard Nixon, whom I disliked intensely. I never thought that anyone would take Nixon’s “place” in my heart until the emergence of our current incumbent. Nixon was smart, experienced, articulate, and thoroughly familiar with the workings of our government. He had a long history in public office and was seemingly well prepared to be President. In fact, unlike George W. Bush, he seemed to have many of the positive virtues, a good part of the electorate, seeks in its leaders. Unfortunately for the country, Nixon’s most fatal flaw, his paranoia, affected him regarding the problem of “leaks” in the White House. He was so concerned over that problem, that he hired some, as it turned out, not-so professional “plumbers,” to fix those “leaks.” Of course those types of “leaks” differed from the ones Truman became aware of when he was forced to move out of the Executive Mansion and take residence across the street in the Blair House.

 

As we all know, the Watergate Crisis eventually brought down Richard Nixon, and the consequences of the congressional impeachment vote sent him packing to his exile in San Clemente, California.  Of course, before that happened, his vituperative and criminal Veep, one Spiro Agnew, pleaded “nolo contendere” to a charge that he had been a long-time “bagman” while he was Baltimore County Executive and later Governor of Maryland. For those reasons he resigned the Vice-Presidency. After his departure and the payment of a $10,000 fine, that only covered the taxes and interest due on “unsupported income,” he seemed to have gotten away very lightly. Agnew was infamous as a Nixon “hatchet-man” and had become notorious with the phrases, “nattering nabobs of negativism” (written by William Safire), “radiclib,” and “hopeless, hysterical, hypochondriacs of history.” Former Maryland Attorney-General Stephen Sachs later sarcastically said, “he had gotten away with the greatest deal in history since the Lord spared Isaac on the mountaintop.” But, that wasn’t the end of the Agnew saga! A professor at the George Washington Law School found four Maryland residents, and they demanded in a suit against Agnew that he repay the state for his real crimes. The court’s ruling determined that he had taken bribes of $262,482, he was therefore convicted, and after two lost appeals, he wrote a check for that amount and was later disbarred. His meteoric six-year rise from Baltimore County Executive to the Vice-Presidency was accompanied by an even quicker fall to ignominy.

 

Ironically after the 1972 Nixon landslide, Agnew started to consider himself Nixon’s eventual successor. Nixon was not happy with that prospect and started to cut back Agnew’s staff and responsibilities. Later, Agnew blamed Nixon for leaking accusations of bribes and tax evasion to divert attention from the growing Watergate scandal. After Agnew’s departure from public life he became a trade executive with homes in Rancho Mirage, Bowie, and Ocean City, Maryland. Who says “cheating doesn’t pay?” Ironically in 1976 he briefly re-entered the public eye with a series of anti-Israel statements and called for the withdrawal of United States’ backing for Israel, as well as “unsavory” remarks about Jews, which Gerald Ford publicly criticized. In 1980, Agnew, in a memoir, implied that Nixon and Alexander Haig had planned to assassinate him if he had refused to resign. He said that Haig told him “to go quietly…or else.”

 

That action of resigning, only the second time in American history (the first was the resignation of John C. Calhoun to become a United States Senator) caused a vacancy in the Vice-Presidency, and for the first time, under the 25^th Amendment to the United States Constitution a new Vice-President was to be appointed. Gerald Ford was selected, because many said that he could survive the Congressional hearings and would be easily confirmed by his colleagues in the House and Senate, who had known him for decades. In those heady days, National Public Radio broadcast gavel-to-gavel coverage of those hearings. I was an avid and loyal listener to every word that was broadcast. I was never enamored with Ford and particularly thought him to be a fool when he tried to impeach Justice William O. Douglas. William O. Douglas (1898-1980) was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1939 to replace the retiring Justice Louis D. Brandeis. He was confirmed by a United States Senate vote of 62-4. Douglas who served 36 years and 7 months and longer than any other Justice was a confirmed liberal and believed in a ”literal” reading of the First Amendment. I read his biography Go East Young Man, and I remembered well his admonition that everyone should spend a year working on Wall Street. It was good advice.

 

Justice Douglas got in trouble with the Congress in 1953 when he granted a temporary stay of execution for the Rosenbergs. The basis of that stay was because of Judge Irving Kaufman’s decision to sentence them to death without the consent of the jury. It seems that because they were tried under the Atomic Secrets Act of 1946, which held that only a jury could pronounce the death penalty, Judge Kaufman had gone beyond his rights. Of course, the Asst. Attorney-General, who feared a six-month delay because the court had adjourned, rushed to Chief Justice Fred Vinson, who re-convened the court. The court ruled, in Douglas’s absence, he had already left for Oregon on a vacation, that the crime in question fell under the Espionage Act of 1917. The court put aside the stay, and the rest is history. Due to his opposition regarding their execution, Douglas briefly faced a Congressional call for his impeachment. But because his fellow Democrats still narrowly controlled the Senate, the attempt to remove him failed and was quickly forgotten.

 

During the 1960s, Douglas, who was not a rich man, had become impoverished as a result of the divorce actions of his first wife. He embarked on a very busy speaking and publishing schedule motivated by his financial problems. Further settlements with his divorced 2^nd and 3^rd wives essentially took all of his judicial earnings. Douglas as a spokesperson for liberal causes wrote a book titled Points of Rebellion and controversially authored a piece for a hippy publication Evergreen Magazine. He later became head of the Parvin Foundation and his ties to Albert Parvin, whose fortune had been financed by the sale of the Flamingo Hotel had become too much for Congressman Gerald Ford. Ford, who was long disgusted with Douglas’s lifestyle, and was offended when two of Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees; G. Harold Carswell and Clement Haynsworth were rejected by the Senate, took out his wrath on Douglas. In April of 1970 he moved to impeach Douglas.  This was done despite careful maneuvering by the House Judiciary Chairman Emmanuel Celler, and the complete lack of any proof that Douglas had done anything wrong. Nixon used Attorney-General John N. Mitchell to gather evidence on Douglas. Later Mitchell would go to jail for his actions during Watergate, and his poor abused wife Martha, who suffered from an over-active mouth, succumbed to a mysterious illness.

 

The hearing began in late April 1970, and Ford was the main witness, attacking Douglas’s “liberal opinions,” his defense of the “filthy” Swedish film I am Curious Yellow, and his ties to Albert Parvin. Additionally he was criticized for accepting $350 for an article that he wrote for the magazine Avante Garde, published by Ralph Ginzburg (1929-2006), who had served a prison sentence for the distribution of another magazine that had been deemed pornographic.

 

Ford stated, that the Douglas’ “article itself was not pornographic, although it praises the lusty, lurid and risqué along with the social protest of left-wing folk singers.”  Ford also attacked Douglas for his article in Evergreen Magazine, which was infamous for its depiction of women in various poses with and without attire. The GOP Congressman refused to give the majority Democrats copies of the magazines, prompting Congressman Wayne Hays to remark, “Has anybody read the article—or is everybody over there who has a magazine just looking at the pictures?” When it became abundantly clear that the hearings were foolish and a waste of time, they were brought to a close and no public vote was ever taken or recorded. Douglas achieved some interesting milestones during his long service. Along with his longevity record, he also established ones for written opinions, dissents, speeches given, being married four times and having had three divorces. He also faced three impeachment attempts. So far no one else has approached those “achievements.”

 

After listening to Ford’s flummery and being a reader of both Evergreen and Avante Garde, I had “new” respect for William O. Douglas. Ford on the other hand, to coin a phrase, had “exposed” himself to public ridicule. Gerald Ford, who had been a very fierce partisan as Minority Leader, now had opened the door for more and more strident partisanship during the bickering that had ensued from the Fortas, Haynesworth, Carswell, and Douglas fights over the Supreme Court. His actions added to my already active dislike for him and his hypocritical colleagues. Generally speaking he was well liked by his colleagues, but President Lyndon Johnson was not happy with Ford and privately remarked, “He can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.” A few years later, even though he was athletically blessed, his clumsiness became a national joke, and comedian Chevy Chase made a fortune falling down stairs in the style of Gerald Ford. He also became quite dangerous on the golf course and the cry of “fore” became endemic when he played.

 

In the December 30, 2006, edition of the New York Times, in an article about Ford, by Mark Leibovich, entitled “Chevy Chase as Klutz in Chief” he quotes Landon Parvin, who has written humorous speeches for Presidents Bush and Reagan. Parvin talks about Ford’s supposed great sense of humor. Paradoxically, it was another Parvin, named Albert, who Ford attacked when he spearheaded the effort to remove William O. Douglas from the Supreme Court. I never got the impression that Ford had a sense of humor, but in later life, with all the trappings and wealth from being a former president, one could readily understand why he was laughing most of the time.

 

It seems that on October 10, 1973, Nixon called in a senior bipartisan group of Congressional leaders and asked their advice and counsel on a new Vice-President. “We gave Nixon no choice, but Ford,” said House Speaker Carl Albert. On October 12^th the desperate Richard Nixon, who was being buffeted by the severe winds coming from the press and the halls of Congress, nominated Gerald Ford. Why Gerald Ford? Well he was a sort of genial soul whose nomination would not be readily fought over by his colleagues. Obviously many also thought that Nixon would not survive politically to finish his term. I am sure the Democrats also felt that Ford was too dull to be a threat to run in the next election if he succeeded Nixon or if Nixon was able to stay in office for his remaining 29 months. Many probably thought, why should we give the opposite party, who just gave us Richard Nixon and his baggage, the advantage of a strong incumbent for the next election? Therefore most democrats thought that Ford would be an interim President, who would fill out the remaining months of Nixon’s failed term and in 1976 there would be an open field for both parties to challenge for the Presidency.

 

Before the Congress was about to vote on elevating Congressman Ford to the Vice-Presidency and possibly the Presidency, there were the obligatory hearings. These Congressional hearings were broadcasted gavel-to-gavel on National Public Radio. Being the political “junkie” that I was, my ears were glued to the radio and all the testimony, and at night I was able to watch again the “give and take” and see what I may of missed. One of the questions that struck me at the time was the one about Gerald Ford’s paychecks. One of the Congressmen or the committee’s counsel asked Ford why he never “broke” his paycheck? In other words, how could he deposit his whole check in the bank, every pay period, and not have any spending money? Of course the meaning of this question was very simple, where did Gerald Ford get his money to live and function every day? If his check was fully deposited, how did he eat or have spending money in his pocket? Ford answered that he went to the House barbershop, and the House cafeteria and other places where he did not need money. Frankly, I was very unhappy that this line of questioning and his insipid answers were not followed up. Maybe the questions were too sensitive and too close to home for the other members. It is not a stretch to believe that many of his questioners did the same exact thing. Of course the meaning to me was obvious. No one can continue to deposit their whole checks and go without money in their pockets. It is impossible. Credit cards were not very popular in those days and one cannot charge for a newspaper or a cab ride. Someway Congressman Ford had access to “cash.” But of course the fact that he or other members of Congress could be on the “take” was not “on the agenda” during these hearings. Immediately I wrote a letter to the New York Times about his unsatisfactory answer. As I recall, I questioned the committee’s emphasis on Ford’s opinion on Justice Douglas and the fact that they virtually ignored how he handled his finances. To my surprise, a few days later, I noticed, by chance, a letter to the editor of the Times that had a title, “Gerald Ford’s Funds Questioned,” and I can recall my happiness, before reading the letter, that some one else had picked up on this part of his testimony. As I looked down at the newspaper I was sort of shocked and delighted, on the other hand, that the author was me! Basically no one else cared. Politics has always had payoffs, big and small. In that manner Agnew was a “pig” about taking bribes and kickbacks and possibly Ford wasn’t. Funny thing, over the last six years, the GOP controlled Congress seemed to forget its oversight responsibility. Not only was this past Congress in session less time than any other since the Republican-controlled do-nothing 80^th that ended in 1949. As a result, of their inaction the Republicans lost nine Senate and seventy-five House seats and Truman won re-election. A similar situation was not lost on the 2006 electorate, and the leadership of the do-nothing 109^th Congress was also removed. (Of course Gerald Ford was never accused of being on “take,” and my comments were not meant to accuse him of that action. But the subject was brought up in “open” session during a Congressional Hearing, and it was never fully explored!)

 

Without any further dramatics, Gerald Ford was approved by an overwhelming vote by both the House (387-35) and the Senate (92-3). He was quickly sworn in to the office of the Vice-Presidency. From Agnew’s resignation on October 10th, until the Senate’s confirmation on December 6, 1973, the whole process was completed in less than two months. During his 10-month tenure as Vice-President he was virtually ignored. The press was much more concerned about the ongoing Watergate scandal, and Ford said little about what was happening. On August 1, 1974, Nixon’s Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig contacted Ford and told him of the “smoking gun” evidence that had been uncovered. It wasn’t too long after the Haig conversation that Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. When Ford ascended to the Presidency, he made some small gestures that included a new attitude of leniency to draft resisters, and opened up the White House to people that were on Nixon’s “enemies list.”

 

From my perspective Ford’s administration quickly went downhill starting with his pardon of Richard Nixon on September 8, 1974. Personally I believe that the Congress made a terrible mistake by not conditioning Ford’s appointment with a promise that he would not pardon Nixon.  There were many claims that the pardon was a quid pro quo in exchange for Nixon’s resignation that elevated Ford to the Presidency. Haig actually did offer a deal to Ford, and in Bob Woodward’s book, Shadow, he recounts that Haig had offered Ford three pardon options.

 

They were as follows:

 

1)      Nixon could pardon himself and resign

2)      Nixon could pardon his aides involve in Watergate and then resign

3)      Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new president would pardon him.

 

Haig also gave Ford various papers which included the president’s legal authority to pardon and the other was a draft copy of a pardon that only needed Ford’s signature and Nixon’s name on it to be legal. The NY Times, said at the time that the Nixon pardon was “a profoundly unwise, divisive, and unjust act” that in a stroke had destroyed the new president’s “creditability as a man of judgment, candor and competence.” At the time and in retrospect I agree completely with those thoughts and sentiments. I never really liked Gerald Ford, and from that day on I never expected much from him. In truth, I believe that he fulfilled my early analysis. I believe that he was a failure, and that the pardon was a predictor of the future. Ironically Ford was responsible for elevating George H.W. Bush to prominence with his selection to be his liaison to the People’s Republic of China and then his appointment as the Director of the CIA. Besides Bush, he eventually made Donald Rumsfeld his Secretary of defense and Dick Cheney his Chief of Staff. In retrospect, he elevated these two individuals to high office and we are all suffering with their lack of judgment. So it was Ford, who gave us this troika of failures that helped begat the worst disaster of them all, George W. Bush.

 

The public wasn’t too happy with the so-called new environment that President Ford created. In the midterm elections of 1974, and in the wake of Watergate the Democrats picked up 49 more seats in the House, which increased their huge majority to 291 members. In the Senate their majority reached 60 in the 100-seat chamber. This Congress almost had reached the two-thirds mark required to override any presidential veto. During the 94^th Congress, Ford vetoed 50 bills and the Congress subsequently overrode the highest percentage of his vetoes since the administration of Franklin Pierce. On the domestic front, inflation was gnawing away at our economy and Ford embarked on a mindless public relations gimmick to combat its destructiveness. He announced a program called “whip inflation now.” Along with this “toothless” effort he urged people to put a “WIN” button in their lapel. When NYC faced bankruptcy, he refused Mayor Abe Beame’s request for help with a federal bailout. When Ford refused, the New York Daily News published their famous headline “Ford to the City: Drop Dead.”

 

Recently we have become aware of the possibility of a “bird flu” epidemic, but ironically there was a “swine flu” scare in 1976. An Army recruit fell ill and died and four fellow soldiers were also taken ill. Ford’s administration urged that every person in the United States be vaccinated and even though the process was incredibly flawed by delays and foul-ups. Some 25% of the population was inoculated. Ironically the vaccine was blamed for 25 deaths and more people died from the injections than from the swine influenza.

 

No matter what Ford did, whether it was getting off a plane, or his frequent malapropisms, failure seemed to follow him like his own personal black cloud. When the Khmer Rouge-led Cambodians seized the American merchant ship, the Mayaquez, Ford dispatched the Marines to rescue the ship and crew. Unfortunately the Marines landed on the Kho Tang Island, which was not the correct location, met stiff resistance and while this was going on, the crew of the Mayaquez was being already released. In this worthless, miss-directed and failed operation 41 US servicemen were killed, 23 airmen died in a related crash and 50 were wounded. Ironically when Carter’s attempt at rescuing the Iran hostages failed in the desert, he was excoriated as “bumbling incompetent.”

 

Of course Ford’s second great legacy, besides his pardon of Nixon, was his presidential debate with his Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter of Georgia. The 1976 election saw the return of the presidential debates that were first held in 1960. During the second debate Ford stated, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there will never be under a Ford Administration.” Ford also said that he did not “believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union.” I have been an observer of politics and history for 45+ years and I have never heard a stupider, and more ill timed statement by a president of the United States. Even Ronald Reagan’s theories on trees and pollution and the current incumbent whose intellectual reputation is well know, have never made a more egregious and foolish remark. Even with a so-called 34-point lead, Jimmy Carter did all he could to throw away the election victory that was in his hands. Eventually Carter won the election with only 50.1% of the vote, and 297 electoral votes to Ford’s 48% and 240 electoral votes. The election was close enough that if there had been a shift of less than 25,000 votes in Wisconsin and Ohio, states that bordered Ford’s Michigan home, he would have won the electoral vote and the election.

 

One of the Seven Sages, quoted from Diogenes Laerius (650-550 BCE) said, “Do not speak ill of the dead! So now that we are in the official mourning period for the late Gerald Ford, I should heed that admonition. But I am amazed that there is all this hubbub and faux sense of loss for Mr. Ford. It is not like he was a sitting president. He left office 30 years ago, and his record during his, thankfully short, tenure was mediocre at best. He did not spend the rest of his life contributing to the commonweal and doing good deeds. He certainly did not have the excuse of bad health. Historically I felt that he missed a great opportunity to be a unifying force in a period of political turmoil and rancor. He had an opportunity, in the wake of the Vietnam War that basically ended his administration, to be up front and honest with the American people. I feel and felt that he was actually more divisive than his disgraced predecessor and that he quickly forgot the legacy of what had transpired in the past thirteen years since the death of Jack Kennedy. But, be that as it may, he will be remembered for few achievements, he lost to a rank an unknown outsider, and he will always have the image of a clumsy failure who pardoned Richard Nixon, whose presidency caused incalculable harm to the nation state.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Was the Roosevelt Branch Jewish?

Probably Not!

By

Richard J. Garfunkel

December 14, 2006

 

 

It seems both the anti-Semites claim FDR was Jewish and the Jews out of some strange sense of ownership and or pride want to claim that he was Jewish! Nicholas Martens, the son of Martin, had a charge of slander brought against him by Philip Teyler at the Council of New Netherlands in 1638. Whatever Martens had said against Teyler has not been recorded. The charge was dismissed. Nicholas Martens held his tongue for 11 years and over that period of time it is not recorded where he had been. He came back to New Amsterdam in 1649, bought a farm from one Lambert van Valkenburgh, and had a wife Jannetje. It would have been located between present day 4^th Avenue (in 1942) and 29th Street in NYC. The farm was known as Rose Hill-maybe it was known also as the Field of Roses from Zeeland where he was born. This Nicholas Martens or as he was variously known as Claes, was also known as the “The Little One” because he was so big and strapping. The legend about him said that he was the son of Martin and Anna of the village of Het Rosen Velt (Field of Roses) on the island of Tholen, near Zeeland.

 

North of the farm was a high hill, known today as Murray Hill, and a stream that emptied into a duck pond where the first Madison Square Garden was then located. A number of years later and after six children, he was always referred to by his nickname Claes and sometimes he was called Klein Klassjie; or Cleyn Claesjen, or even Colyn Claesie, which all meant Little Claes. He was referred twice in the old records of New Amsterdam as Claes Martenzen van Rosenvelt or Nicholas the son of Martin of the Rose Field. (Remember his dog Fala was named Murray, the Outlaw of Falahill after an earlier Scotty that FDR had owned and had named after a long-lost ancestor.)

 

When Jannetje Thomas, the widow of Cleyn Classie, died, and left five minor children, the Guardian, one Tomas Hall, from Gloucestershire, England, placed a family named Grevenraet, possible relatives of Janetje, to care for young Nicholas and his sisters. The daughters grew up and married and young Nicholas, who might have assumed the name of his guardians or even the name of his nurse Metje Grevenraet, preferred his father's name and modified it to Nicholas Roosevelt. Therefore, from all evidence available, his name was taken, either in New Amsterdam (New York) or Holland, from the Dutch translation of a hill or field of roses, not a Jewish sounding derivative name like Rosenvelt. The Martens were Dutch Protestants in New Amsterdam from the 1640’s. There is no evidence that he or his forbearers were Jewish in Holland, but when the question was posed to him about his supposed ancestry he did say, “In the dim distant past my ancestors may have been Jews, Catholics, or Protestants, but what I am more interested in is whether they were good citizens and believed in G-d.” He was certainly a believer in G-d, was somewhat influenced by the Reverend Endicott Peabody’s (headmaster at Groton) concept of Protestantism but did not have a consistent history of attending church services. As a young man he did tend to agree with his illustrious cousin Theodore Roosevelt that G-D looked favorably upon the United States, but nowhere does history seem to indicate that he had any sort of messianic complex. According to Conrad Black, in his book Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Champion of Freedom, Black states, “Franklin D. Roosevelt’s G-d was indulgent but exacting, fair and condign and ultimately forgiving. Beyond this, his exact ecclesiastical views, like most of his inner thoughts, are indiscernible.”

 

As to Sara Delano, other oppressed people came to the New World besides the Pilgrims. Many of the Dutch of Leyden, where the early Pilgrims had friends, had also settled in Plymouth. One ancestor of Sara, was Richard Warren from London. He was a religious man, and was not a member of the Church of Leyden when he sailed on the Mayflower. He was a signer of the Compact. Another passenger on the Mayflower and a descendent of FDR was one Degory Priest, who had married Isaac Allerton's sister Sarah. He died in the first winter and his widow married again and one of her daughters married a Frenchman named John Coombs. Among some of the other people that felt oppressed and settled in Leyden was a family of French origin named de la Noye. A son of that family Philippe eventually, after going from Leyden to England and then to the New World on the ship “Fortune,” married an English girl named Hester Dewsbury from Duxbury, Ma. After establishing himself in Duxbury, he answered the call by the Connecticut General Court to fight the Pequot Indians along with some 90 others and several hundred warriors from the Narraganset tribe. Under the influence of the English colonists with who he associated, his name soon lost its French spelling, and became Delano.

 

Basically, in conclusion, there is no evidence that his earliest recorded paternal ancestor, Claes Martens was Jewish or that his maternal descendents, Richard Warren or Phillipe de la Noye were Jewish either.

 

 

Newport, Wall Street, the Gilded Age and its Collapse!

By

Richard J. Garfunkel

November 28, 2006

 

It is not a long drive to Newport from, Tarrytown New York. One goes east on the Cross Westchester Expressway and since it’s about twelve miles from the Tappan Zee Bridge to the Connecticut border it should only take about 15 or so minutes to reach the New England Thruway. Once on the New England (I-95) one keeps going slightly northeast past Greenwich, Stamford, New Haven, and New London and across Connecticut until the Rhode Island frontier. One could stay on I-95 until Route #138 in Rhode Island, or one could drive along the scenic ocean on Route 1 and go past the little towns that dot the Block Island Sound coast. In fact, if one wanted to go to Block Island one could pick up the ferry docked along the State Pier, Galilee, at Point Judith and take a leisurely 12-mile trip out in the Atlantic. One would dock at Champlin’s Marina, in the Great Salt Pond (New Harbor) at Block Island in about 45 minutes depending on how rough was the water.

 

Block Island is a quaint get-away place that has a lot of beach, about 17-miles worth, 250-foot bluffs and 350 freshwater ponds. The island has a winter population of about 800, but many people own and live in houses for the summer. I was up there twice, once in the early 1980’s with our kids and the second time in the mid 1990’s. Both times we stayed with our friends from White Plains, the Keating’s, who own a Dutch Gambrel house a few miles from the small downtown. But there are a great many day visitors who take the ferry from Point Judith, Providence, New London, or even Orient Beach on the north fork of Long Island.

 

Meanwhile it’s about 150 miles or so to the Claiborne Pell – Newport Bridge that leads from Jamestown right into Farewell Street or the northern part of Newport. Of course when we first took this bridge across to Newport the toll was about $2.00 and I jokingly asked the toll-taker why it was so expensive, and she retorted that, “Newport was an expensive town!” She was right about that. But ironically the toll hasn’t changed much in many years. On the other hand, one could spend $8.00 to go back and forth on the Whitestone Bridge and one would only be in and out of Queens. Speaking of the bridge and its new name, when Claiborne Pell (born, 1918, went to Princeton, Class of 1940) retired from the United States Senate 1997 (He served from 1961-1997.) they renamed the bridge in his honor. That was a nice touch. He was quite well liked and was largely responsible for the educational “Pell” Grants (1973). His fore bearers went way back to colonial times and he is a descendent of a number of Congressmen, at least two Senators, and is the great, great grandnephew of Senator and Vice-President George M. Dallas, a Democrat, who served as Vice-President of the United States with James Polk, from 1844 to 1849.

 

Newport was the home of the super rich of the late 19^th century, and the best-known family name that built their summer “cottages” in Newport were the Vanderbilt’s. They were descendants of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877). He was descended from an indentured servant named Jan Aertson, who emigrated (1650) from the Village of De Bilt, which was located in Utrecht in the Netherlands to New York. In Dutch “van der” means “of the,” so Jan Aertson, who was van der (of the) Bilt, added Vanderbilt to his name. The Commodore first made his money in steamboat ferries that plied their trade along the Hudson. In the 1840’s with over 100 of these boats his fortune was soon established. It was said that he was the largest employer in the United States in those days. He eventually supplied ships for those hardy souls that wished to sail around the Horn to San Francisco and partake in the Gold Rush of 1849. Eventually the Commodore sold his ship holdings, became a director of the Long Island Railroad, acquired the New York and Harlem Railroad, and by 1869 merged a number of these lines into the New York Central and Hudson Railroad. He then built the Grand Central Station. On the same day as his death, in 1877, the glass roof of the Grand Central Station collapsed in a snowstorm. He left a large fortune of $100 million. The bulk of it went to his son William K. ($95 million). His eight daughters and his second wife (his first wife died in 1869) were left $500,000 each. He also left 2000 shares in the New York Central Railroad to his second wife, whose mother was a distant cousin to his own mother. It was that part of the family that had convinced him to leave $1 million for the creation of Vanderbilt University.

 

Two of the most famous of these “cottages” of that era were the Breakers and the Marble House. At William K. Vanderbilt’s death (1821-1885), only nine years after his father’s demise, he had increased his inherited fortune to over $200 million. Therefore it was left to his sons, Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843-1899), who built the Breakers and his brother William K. Vanderbilt (1849-1920) to built the Marble House to establish the Newport society that we know of today. Another brother, George Washington Vanderbilt II (1862-1914), built the fabulous Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina that helped usher in the Gilded Age, an era of profligate spending and American noblesse oblige.

 

Newport is much different today, as one could understandably assume. The Gilded Age probably had ended with World War I and Woman’s Suffrage. But it certainly ended with the stock market crash of 1929. The Dow Jones Average had hit a high of on September 3, 1929, at 381.17. The market had been a bit shaky throughout the fall. Richard Whitney (1888-1974), who had graduated from Groton and Harvard, as did Franklin D. Roosevelt, but was admitted to Pocellian, unlike the late President, was a Wall Street legend. He was a member of the New York Stock Exchange at age twenty-three, was elected to the Board of Governors at thirty-one, and was the head of his own investment company. He was the mirror of the “old guard” of the New York Stock Exchange, which was a loose group of wealthy investors who crafted and guided its direction and destiny. As the leader of this group and at that time in the fall of 1929, he was a Vice-President of the Exchange and its acting President. At the beginning of the Panic on “Black Thursday”, October 24, 1929, he moved on the floor in the midst of the selling frenzy, and placed huge orders in an attempt to bring confidence back to the marketplace and to try to stem the avalanche of selling. He placed an order for 10,000 shares of US Steel at 205, which was 40 points above its current selling price. He also placed other orders for his group in a number of other blue-chip stocks. These orders were estimated to be in the range of $20 million. No one in history had ever spent that type of money in a single afternoon. Of course since he was associated with the House of Morgan, many traders assumed that Morgan was behind such incredible action. This legendary effort seemed to work for a while, and the market, which had dropped precipitously, seemed to take pause. That day over 12.9 million shares had changed hands and the market had lost an incredible amount of its value. Over the weekend investors thought over the situation and decided to sell their holdings and the market absorbed a record 13% loss in value. This set the stage for its ultimate collapse. On “Black Tuesday”, October 29, 1929 the selling reached a historically un-reached crescendo. The losses were incredible and with record 16.4 million shares traded, the market lost another 12%. The market crash had wiped out an incredible amount of wealth. It would eventually bottom out at 41.22 on July 8, 1932 to a level not seen since the 1800’s. By April of 1942 it would have lost 75% of its 1929 value and the Dow Jones Industrial Average would not recover to its 1929 levels until November of 1954. Richard Whitney would still represent the “old guard” as its spokesperson. He served multiple terms as its President from 1930 onward and would be a frequent witness in front of Congressional Hearings until 1935. Because reform elements had indicated he would be opposed fore re-lection in 1935, he chose not to run again. Ironically, he was a terrible manager of his own money. He borrowed from friends and investors by using the name of JP Morgan as his assumed backer. It was estimated that he had borrowed over $30 million and by 1938 he declared bankruptcy and owed over $6 million personally. He was indicted, and pled guilty to misuse of funds and spent three years and four months of his five-to-ten year sentence in the Big House at Sing Sing.

 

Of course, when I worked on Wall Street in the summer of 1969 many things had changed, but much had still stayed the same. I was at Bache & Company, a well-known brokerage house located high up in the 40 Wall Street skyscraper. The year before, in 1968, Wall Street had enjoyed a terrific year. Volume was at all-time high. Trading on the New York Stock Exchange, on a daily basis, was exceeding those record-setting disastrous days of October 1929. If one would include the Over-the-Counter (the fore runner of the NASDAQ) volume and the American Stock Exchange, the street was now trading daily 30+ million shares on an average. Of course, just like 40 years earlier, big changes were also on they way. The “artificial” volume brought on by the peace-feelers in Paris regarding the ongoing Vietnam War, the withdrawal of LBJ from the Presidential race, the murders of Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy and the Presidential campaign of 1968, that elected Richard Nixon, had created money and paper work for the “pre-computer age” Wall Street. Those 30 million shares were causing processing problems that were unheard of just a few years earlier. The “street” which, of course included Bache & Company, had to process its “paper” somewhere. It had to lease out space, hire secretaries and all sorts of back-office help. Bache was the second biggest brokerage house with 100 offices around the country. But, Merrill-Lynch, which had over 1000 offices, dwarfed it, and all of its smaller competitors. In fact, Merrill had more offices than all the rest of the industry combined. Therefore, when the country returned to a more normal state in the spring and summer of 1969, volume dropped off dramatically. It wasn’t that the market had crashed. It was an era of relatively high interest rates, government debt had escalated over the eight Kennedy-Johnson years and war, and the market was incredibly flat. There just wasn’t any volume. The price/earnings ratio had been growing upward until 1967 and, again, after the turmoil of 1968, it started to shrink until the computer revolution of the 1980’s. So the market would hover around the 1000-point mark until the early 1980’s.

 

As a consequence of that volume drop, business on Wall Street started to slump. Many companies had over-extended themselves because of the paper processing and storage dilemma and therefore went broke. There were incredible lay-offs, old companies merged and many disappeared. It was tough to create investor interest in a market that went sideways. Inflation has always been the bane of the capitalist. When money markets rival the return on equities, the buyer will beware. Most people would love to find fixed and guaranteed rates of return in the seven percent range. They would run from the stock market in a moment.

 

Of course the Gilded Age and Newport’s grand society had gone out of fashion way before my time on Wall Street. The panic and collapse of the economy, brought on by the crash resulted in a massive deflation that President Herbert Hoover called the “Depression.” The New Deal, authored by Franklin D. Roosevelt stopped the bleeding, but because of the severity of the collapse it could never resurrect the artificially inflated, halcyon days of the 1920’s. Of course present day business -oriented “talking heads” like to say that the New Deal prolonged the slump. Of course they have conveniently forgotten that the 1920’s made the “Techie Bubble” of 2000 look like a walk in the park. The post-World War I years were artificially sustained by the collapse of European economies. During the war American railroads, our biggest employer and the farms were booming. Farms couldn’t grow enough food for needy Europe and between coal and grain shipments the railroads were booming. After the war, the European economies were still devastated and the American economic juggernaut continued its happy charge. But there were economic rumblings being heard and even though there was a return to the pre-war wealth, there would be great change in the wind.

 

Meanwhile, Newport was founded in 1639 by a small group of Boston colonists who had first settled on Aquidneck Island at Portsmouth and then made their way south, where there was an excellent harbor leading into Narragansett Bay. By the mid 1700’s Newport was a center of commerce and shipbuilding. Because of all the sea borne commerce between New England and the Caribbean, piracy also sprung up in the region. Even the infamous Captain Kidd broke bread with Thomas Paine in Jamestown, which is located east of Newport, across the Bay. Colonial Newport was an unusually sophisticated and cosmopolitan place and even other religious groups, besides the Anglicans were welcomed. It continued to grow until the revolution disrupted life and commerce, and after the war its commercial importance declined rapidly. Even in the period from 1825 to about the mid 1850’s Newport started to develop as a vacation and tourist haven. Bellevue Avenue, the present location of most of the old Gilded Age mansions, became home to many hotels, and in 1839 Kingscote, a Gothic-style edifice, was erected by a Georgian planter George Noble Jones. The British writer Anthony Trollope wrote of Newport as a resort center in 1862. Eventually it was not fashionable to stay in a hotel while summering in Newport, so people staying for the season had to rent or own a cottage. By the 1860’s there were over 250 summerhouses and about 100 were available to be rented. The Civil War stopped the flow of Southerners, who had originally migrated from the hot climes of the south for the summer. As a result of that change, Newport became dominated by the beautiful and rich from Boston and New York.

 

In 1879, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the owner of the New York Herald, and a yachtsman, was snubbed by some of the members of Newport’s leading club. He therefore built the Newport Casino, where people could dine, listen to music and play tennis. In truth, he was right, and the “beautiful” people eventually started to come to The Casino. Also let us not forget that Bennett owned a polo field at the corner of 110^th Street and 5^th Avenue in Manhattan. The New York Giants, after they had moved from Troy, NY in 1883 and the owner John T. Brush contracted to play baseball on his field. Eventually a new street had to be made through his property and the Giants again moved uptown. The Newport Casino, which opened up on August 2, 1880, still sits on Bellevue Avenue across from where Bennett’s home used to be. Now there is a shopping center. It was immediately a great success. One can still sit today in the La Forge Restaurant and look out on the original lawn tennis court. Newport and tennis became synonymous and the first United States National lawn tennis championships were held there in 1881. Richard Sears, a 19-year old Harvard student won the inaugural event and went on to win six more championships without losing a set. Eventually there was doubles competition and Sears entered into it in 1882, and with both James Dwight and Joseph Clark, won five titles in a row. The championships stayed there until the onset of World War I and after 1914 never returned. Time and democracy moved on, and Nationals moved to the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, NY for the next 63 years. Even the Forest Hills facility became antiquated as the Nationals eventually became an “Open” and the professionals started to dominate the game. The National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows became the next and present venue.

 

But there were still amateur grass-court tennis events every summer through the 1960’s. Some of the most memorable champions of the Casino Invitation were Bill Tilden (1919,1926-7,9,30), Ellsworth Vines (1931-2), Don Budge (1935,37-8), Bobby Riggs (1936), Bill Talbert (1942,48), Pancho Gonzalez (1949), Tony Trabert (1953), Rod Laver (1960) and Chuck McKinley (1962, 64), who later on, happened to be married to my AB Davis classmate Fran Sanders, who I see once a year during the High Holidays.

 

Today Newport is still a stop on the men and women’s professional tennis tour. It is not a great field usually, but one can easily get up close and personal with the players. Our first visit to The Casino to see a tournament was in July of 1984. On this occasion the Miller’s National Tennis Hall of Fame, which is located in The Casino had it’s annual inductions. Francisco “Pancho” Segura, Neal Fraser, Manuel Santana and the Australian tennis pair of John Bromwich and Adrian Quist were inducted. As a youngster, in 1957, I wound up being a ball boy in a tennis match that featured Pancho Segura and Ramu Raju, a top-notch Indian player against the great young amateur brothers, Lloyd (age, 18) and Leslie Moglen (age, 16) who happened to be from Mount Vernon, NY, my home town. They were handsome blond demigods who lived down Lorraine Avenue hill and just to the right on Esplanade. They were probably in their late teens in those days and I knew nothing about them except they were ranking Eastern players. Later I met and became friendly with Dave Brechner, who was their contemporary. Dave was a great ambidextrous player from Princeton, who got to meet the Moglen’s a number of times on, and off, the courts. He wasn’t their greatest fan!

Lloyd M. Moglen M.D., psychiatrist, Newport Beach, Ca., died on July 27, 2002. Moglen was born in Brooklyn on November 23, 1939, and earned his M.D. from the University of Louisville in 1966. During his undergraduate years, ar Colombia, Moglen played No. 1 for the freshman and varsity tennis teams and captained the team in 1960. He won the boys’ and junior New York State Championships for six consecutive years, retiring both trophies. One of his tennis career highlights was a first round upset of the then No. 1 seeded junior, Butch Bucholtz, 6–4, 6–3, at the Junior National Tennis Championships. His senior term paper on the Sacco and Vanzetti case was instrumental in their posthumous pardon. Moglen was a loyal brother of Tau Epsilon Phi. After two years of psychiatric residency at the University of Cincinnati, he entered private practice in Foster City, Calif., and enjoyed an active practice for the next 32 years. During this time, he earned the love and gratitude of thousands of patients and the deep respect of his fellow psychiatrists. He pioneered the psychiatric counseling genre of radio talk show for seven years on KQRA in San Francisco. Moglen is survived by his former wife, Diane; daughter, Laurel; son, Brandon ’98J; brothers, Les ’62 and Leland ’66; and sister, Betty Lou.

           Leslie Moglen, MD– A newspaper article about him in the San Francisco Examiner, September 14, 1998!

The misgivings, for both women, started immediately, moments after emerging from the haze of anesthesia. As they lay in the recovery room, both felt instant, grave doubts. “The room was dirty, there were spider webs on the ceiling,” remembers Beverly Leonard. “It was a cattle-herding operation,” remembers Tere Brenner. “A girl was lying by me in pain; she was moaning. The doctor said to me, “She's a baby.' ” I thought, “Gee, I hope I'm not a baby.' ” The women don't know each other, but their experiences with the same San Francisco plastic surgeon, Dr. Leslie Moglen, are remarkably similar. Both say they wound up in excruciating pain from complications after breast augmentations, both required corrective operations, both wound up suing Moglen. Brenner settled her case; Leonard's is pending.  And both women live with abiding regret, blaming themselves for not investigating Moglen's track record before undertaking elective surgery. “I think it is terrible that that man is allowed to practice medicine at all,” says Leonard, 37, a paralegal who lives in Concord. “It is appalling to me that he was allowed to continue to practice considering all the many problems he's had,” says Brenner, also 37, a San Mateo resident. “And it's appalling that, as a physician, he would allow himself to practice. You would think that he would wake up one morning and say, “Maybe I'm not good at this.' ”

Leslie Moglen, MD, A San Francisco Plastic Surgeon, responds:

Moglen says he has had innumerable patients happy with the results of their elective procedures. The subjective nature of plastic surgery, he says, inevitably leads some to unrealistic goals. “I don't think I'd be in practice . . . if the vast majority of my patients were not satisfied with the results,” he says. “You occasionally operate on a patient who has unrealistic expectations. If the result falls short, there is frequently sadness and anger.” Some of Moglen's former patients say their cases epitomize profound lapses within a medical watchdog system designed to ensure consumer safety. State medical authorities are failing to sufficiently monitor doctors, the patients say, thus allowing problem-prone physicians to practice without enough scrutiny, without adequate public warning, without malpractice insurance. Moglen, they say, has remained in practice despite clear-cut signals of incompetency. Between 1983 and 1997, Moglen was a defendant in more than 24 lawsuits lodged in San Francisco Superior Court by patients accusing him of malpractice, negligence or personal injury. San Francisco lawyer Michael Fitzsimons, who has represented Moglen in civil litigation, says the majority of cases were dismissed, resolved in the doctor's favor, “or there was a nominal amount paid.” Moglen says the largest settlement was $60,000.

 

 

Disciplined by state<

Moglen also has been disciplined by the state. In 1993, the Medical Board of California suspended him for 30 days and placed him on probation for seven years over his handling of three patients, including Brenner, in what the state termed a “pattern of repeated negligent acts.” Then, his probation was extended another three years for business violations. Two years ago, while he was on probation, one of his patients, Jennifer Ha of Santa Rosa, died following surgery. The state now seeks to revoke the medical license Moglen has held for 31 years. He is charged with gross negligence, incompetence and dishonesty in the Ha death, and with mishandling the case of another patient just five months later. “Dr. Moglen has demonstrated that he cannot safely practice medicine in a surgical field,” says Dave Carr, San Francisco-based deputy attorney general prosecuting Moglen. “It puts people at risk. We have demonstrated more than a risk, but a death. The board wants to ensure it doesn't happen again.”

Getting back to Newport, on that day in July, the semi-finals matched up Vijay Amritraj (who later played a tennis-playing British agent in the Bond film “Octopussy”) against Leif Shiras and then Tim Mayotte against John Sadri, Amitraj would go on to win the event as he did earlier in 1976 and 1980. The whole venue was so entertaining that we decided to come back the next year and see the 1985 Virginia Slims of Newport tournament held between July 15^th and the 21^st. The semi-finals featured the great Chris Every-Lloyd, the Floridian, who was then 31, versus Eva Pfaff, age 24, from West Germany and in the other match, Wendy Turnball, who was a 33 year old Australian, versus Pam Shriver, who was a Baltimorean then just 23 years old. It wasn’t a surprise that Evert won both the singles and the doubles partnering with Wendy Turnball. I vividly remember standing right next to Chrissy while she leaned against the railing, as she watched some of the other players warming up, and thinking to myself how small she was at 5’ 4” and 114 pounds. Today women tennis players are much, much bigger, and for sure much more powerful. The Williams sisters and Lindsay Davenport are over 5’ 10” and weigh at least 150+ lbs!  After an interruption of one year, we made it back to Newport for the July 6-12, 1987 summer edition of the Volvo Tennis/ Hall of Fame Championships. The Men’s field was a lot weaker with only a few name players, which included Wally Masur, Paul Annacone, and Bill Scanlon. There were upsets in the second round as top seeded David Pate (ranked 19) lost to the eventual winner Dan Goldie (ranked 99) and Scott Davis (ranked 21), the second seed lost to the other finalist and runner-up, Sammy Giammalva (ranked 85). In 1987 the inductees to the Hall were a formidable group, which included some real greats, as with Bjorn Borg and Billie Jean King. The others, Alex Olmedo, Dennis Ralston, and Stan Smith, weren’t so bad either, but they weren’t really in Borg or King’s class.

Of course, the reason The Casino was built in the first place was the aforementioned incident, involving the quirky newspaper man James Gordon Bennett, Jr., who had earlier caused a stir by sending reporter Henry Stanley to Africa to find the lost and reclusive Dr. David Livingston, of  “Dr. Livingston, I presume!” One dull day in 1879, in a fit of spirited good times and fun, Bennett dared Captain Candy, a visiting polo player, to bring his horse into Bennett’s club, The Reading Room. His fellow members weren’t amused by having a horse cantering around their sanctum and threw the horse out along with Bennett. Therefore since they couldn’t take a joke, Bennett established is own place, The Casino. Years later, another Candy- Candace Van Alen, asked her tennis-playing enthusiast husband, Jimmy Van Alen, “Why doesn’t tennis have a Hall of Fame like baseball.” A year later, in 1954, Van Alen posed the question to the US Tennis Association. Therefore, with that question posed, the Tennis Hall of Fame started to come into existence. A few of the early inductees were Oliver Campbell, James Dwight, Richard Sears, the first champion, Henry Slocum, Jr., Malcolm Whitman and Robert Wrenn. Even Jimmy Van Alen was inducted in 1965. It only took another 21 years, for the Hall of Fame to be renamed the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1975 with the induction of the great Englishman Fred Perry.

The Casino is quite unique because it is the only Hall of Fame that has a real championship played there. Baseball and football are played at Cooperstown and Canton, but they are only exhibition games that do not count in the seasonal standing. But, of course sports aside, Newport is still the home of many, many rich people. Some of them did liked to be inconvenienced, and when a cold rain comes through there is not much shelter. Jimmy Van Alen’s mother, Mrs. Louis S. Bruguiere, was one of the Grande Dames of Newport society, and a large contributor to The Casino. Shenever liked to be vulnerable to the weather and the winds of chance and therefore she would attend the matches and remain in her Rolls-Royce, which entered the grounds through a back route. She would park behind the grandstand and watch from the comfort of her very luxurious car. By the way, tennis at The Casino wasn’t always economically successful. In 1967, after attendance had been slipping for years a desperate move was made, and James Van Alen, always the tennis innovator, suggested that the “Virginia Slims Invitational,” an all-female event come to Newport. Finally, in 1971, with the likes of Margaret Court, Françoise Durr, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, and Kerry Melville, it was standing room only. Miss Durr stayed with Countess Szapary at the Breakers and it was said that her bedroom was large enough to practice her game. This eventually bolstered Newport’s tennis reputation and the women have been there ever since.

But Newport has many other attractions. When one crosses the Pell-Newport Bridge and turns right onto Farewell Street, within a few short blocks one could find a very different and old neighborhood centered around Touro Synagogue. Thought it is just down the block and across Memorial Boulevard, it seems light years from the glitter and faux image of The Casino and Belleview Avenue.

Because religious freedom was scarce in Portugal and Spain in the late1400’s and both Jews and Moslems were given the choice to convert to Christianity, leave or die. Many Jews moved to the New World and to Dutch colonies specifically.  Roger Williams, who was forced to leave the Puritan Colony of Massachusetts because of his own religious beliefs, was convinced of the necessity of the separation between “church and state.”  Therefore, Williams and his fellow colonists were able to convince King Charles II to go along with what was called the “lively experiment.”

…that no person within the said colony, at any time hereafter shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called into, for any differences in opinion in matters of religion.

For that reason, information reached backed to the West Indies of a colony based on religious freedom, a stream of Sephardic Jewish families immigrated to Newport in 1658. They eventually grew, prospered and looked to Amsterdam for a Rabbi. In 1758 Isaac Touro came to Newport, and officiated as a cantor, and functioned a rabbi. Eventually the congregation grew and an architect was hired to construct a place of worship.

Therefore, in this section of Newport, the old Touro Synagogue, named in honor of Isaace Touro, remains the home of the oldest Jewish congregation in America. The architectural landmark, designed by Peter Harrison, was dedicated in 1762, and completed in 1763 after four years of planning and work. One can see, in front of the synagogue, a bronzed copy of President George Washington’s answer to a letter sent by the congregation’s warden, Mr. Moses Seixas. It reads the following:

To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island.

Gentleman.

While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of affection and esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you, that I shall always retain a grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in my visit to Newport, from all classes of Citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the

Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.

G. Washington

Right along Touro Street is an old neighborhood of many 18^th century buildings. Walking along the narrow alleys of Bull, Spring, Marlborough, and Sherman Streets one could see the Colony House, the Court House, the Newport Historical Society, Hazard House and many, many quaint shops. Also along Touro Street is the Viking Hotel, which at one time was one of the best places to stay. Now there are scores of “Beds and Breakfast” places to stay that range from $120 to $200 per night. They are basically clapboard or wood-shingled one to two-storied edifices that have been kept in excellent condition. People live in some of them, there are offices in others, and some of the larger ones are now “Bed and Breakfasts.” Almost all have an historical designation sign placed near their front door or at the corner of the house. One year we stayed in the Admiral Farragut Inn and, as I can recall, it was quite pleasant. We even went to a Friday night service at Touro Synagogue one evening. Touro Synagogue was and remains affiliated with the orthodox movement and therefore there are two different levels with a women’s gallery upstairs, reached by a separate staircase. Each level has twelve columns, carved from a single tree representing the twelve tribes of Israel. But today most of the membership is no longer Sephardic, but Askenazic and few are orthodox. I can recall quite vividly that Friday night that there were many men in uniform.

Newport is still home to the US Naval War College. The college was founded in 1884 and wargaming and strategy became part of the early curriculum in 1887. The main building of the College is named for the famous naval visionary, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), who led the Naval War College from 1886-89, and again from 1892 thru 1893. Eventually the NWC was expanded to its present size in the 1970’s, and the last major additional, Spruance Hall, was named after NWC head, Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (1886-1969) who commanded our fleet victoriously at the Battle of Midway. Spruance eventually was promoted to the high rank of Fleet Admiral, despite having his promotion blocked numerous times by Congressman Carl Vinson who was a friend of his rival Admiral William “Bull” Halsey.

As one comes back up the hill past Touro Synagogue and the Viking Hotel one reaches Memorial Boulevard. On one trip we stayed in a private home that overlooked Memorial Drive just north of Bellevue Avenue and not far from the beginning of the North End of the Cliff Walk. One can look down Memorial Boulevard heading towards Middletown and see the land bridge that cuts across an inlet of the Rhode Island Sound. On the side that faces the Sound is Easton’s Beach. On the other side of the road is Easton’s Pond. Past the land bridge, and at the entrance to Middletown are beach houses and seafood restaurants. Crossing Memorial Drive from Touro Synagogue, is The Casino and a well-off end of Bellevue Avenue. This section of Bellevue is the home of many of the remaining mansions. The big attractions are The Elms, Chateau-Sur-Mer, The Breakers, Rosecliff and the Marble House. The Breakers, which is Rhode Island’s most popular tourist Mecca, is the grandest of all the mansions. Even its surrounding concrete wall and wrought iron fence would cost a fortune to replicate today. Cornelius Vanderbilt II originally paid $450,000 for the 71-acre site, which has the most magnificent view of the ocean. The first “Breakers” burned down in 1892, and the one that remains today is completely fireproof. It was opened for public viewing in 1948, and the Newport Preservation Society purchased it in 1972. The front wrought iron gates weigh seven tons, and the scrollwork arch is thirty feet high. Of course the view of the ocean, and Ochre Point is breathtaking and unique to this mansion. The Great Hall rises to 50 feet and the first floor and logia open on to a panoramic view of the Cliff Walk and the Atlantic Ocean. We have always visited The Breakers when we were in Newport In our recent trip we also visited the equally incredible Marble House. It took four years to build this white marble palace. It was finished in 1892 for Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, and Harold S. Vanderbilt, the yachtsman, gave it to the Society in 1963. The high Corinthian columns and its balustrade drive make it the most impressive of the Bellevue Avenue cottages. The rooms in the Marble House are even more impressive than The Breakers. The dining room and the Gothic Room are incredibly impressive, but the Gold Ballroom is almost unlike anything outside of the Versailles Palace. Its chandeliers, carved gilt wall panels, mirrors, ceiling and mythological figures make this room incredibly unique. It is just breathtaking! Going to the rear of the Marble House one would find the Chinese Tea House, a lavishly decorated outdoor structure built in 1914 for the former Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, who had divorced her husband and had remarried one Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont.

One of the earliest of the super-mansions built was Chateau-Sur-Mer, which was built out of Fall River granite in 1852, for William S. Wetmore. Seth Bradford and Richard Morris Hunt, the most popular Newport architect, remodeled the mansion in the early 1870s’for Wetmore, who made his fortune in the China trade. The rooms are interesting, especially with its wood paneling, but they pale in comparison with The Breakers or the Marble House. The Elms, built for coal magnate EJ Berwind in 1901, is a copy of Chateau d’Agnes, at Asniere, France. Its immense stairway and triple doors leads directly to its unique divided stairs. The grounds are superior to all of the other houses with its fountains, lawn and statuary. Its rooms are almost in the league of The Breakers, or Marble House, but not as ornate. In the back is a marvelous sunken garden with two gazebos that flank the upper terrace. Rosecliff, built in 1902 for Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs, is a 40-room French chateau that was modeled on the Court of Love, designed by Augustus Saint Gaudens, after Marie Antoinette’s home at Versailles. It was given to the Society in 1971. Rosecliff was the location for the filming of the Great Gatsby in 1973.

Of course not all of Newport is tennis and Mansion hopping. Though at one time one could drive out on Ocean Drive and find their way to Hammersmith Farm. Hammersmith Farm was established in 1640, when a surveyor for the English crown, one William Brenton was awarded 1100 acres for his efforts for Charles II. Hammersmith Farm, up until recently was owned by only three families. Brenton’s loyalist descendents owned it until1780, when it was confiscated by the local colonists. For a hundred years, a family named Ayrault owned it until it was sold it off to John Auchicloss in 1887. A few summers later it was deeded to his younger brother Hugh. Hugh had a son, Hugh Jr., who married Janet Lee Bouvier (1907-1989). Ms. Bouvier had divorced her husband, a rake named John Vernou “Black Jack” Bouvier III (1891-1957). Bouvier, a notorious womanizing stockbroker fathered two daughters Jacqueline (1929-1994) and Lee. Jacqueline, who as a young gal, went to the Chapin School in Manhattan, Mrs. Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut and Vassar. She eventually worked for the Washington Times-Herald as the Inquiring Camera Girl in 1951. Her job was to interview interesting people. It was through this job that the engaged Jackie Bouvier ( to one John Husted), met the young Massachusetts Senator, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Her mother, Janet Lee, was opposed to her engagement to Mr. Husted because of his supposed lack of wealth. As things happen, Jackie broke her engagement, became romantically involved with Senator Kennedy, a most eligible bachelor. Eventually they were married in a remarkable ceremony held on the lawn of Hammersmith Farm on September 12, 1953. There were over 2000 guests at this social event of the season. One of them was not the father-of-the-bride. It was said that the Auchincloss family did not want “Black Jack” to give away the bride. It was rumored that friends of the family effectively lubricated him, the night before the wedding, and in his inebriated state he was unable to make the event.

Years later when, after I met my future wife Linda (who worked actively in the Robert Kennedy Campaign of 1968), I came in contact with her cousin the famous Frederick W. Rosen, Lt. Commander (retired) who had just happened to have served in the PT Boats and was a contemporary and friend of Jack Kennedy.  Fred was born in Brooklyn in 1917 (the same year as JFK), and moved to Georgia in the 1930’s when his older brother sought opportunities in the textile industry. Fred enlisted in the US Navy and met Jack Kennedy in Charlestown when they were both assigned to the Commandant’s staff in the code-deciphering department. Kennedy had been stuck in this unglamorous duty and some historians thought that he was there being “set-up” by the FBI. During that period of time the handsome, single Kennedy was having a relationship with one Inga Marie Arvad, a 28-year-old beautiful Dane, who was suspected as being a Nazi spy. She was then married, and represented one of the leading Danish Newspapers, and had interviewed Goring, Goebbels and even Hitler! Of course, though warned of Inga’s connections, he did not want to give up Inga, who was the most intriguing women he had so far met. As traveled and sophisticated as he was in meeting ambassadors and diplomats, his extraordinary experience as a 24 year old paled in comparison with this worldly 28 year old. She was not only well traveled like Jack, but was smart, sharp, beautiful, sophisticated and sexually experienced.

 

It seemed that the FBI had been trailing Inga for quite some time and was wire tapping her phones, observing her actions and bugging her hotel rooms wherever she went and tracking whomever she was associated with. But with all of their efforts, it was said, that they were only able to chronicle her high level of passion and nothing about codes or secrets. If they wanted to entrap the young Kennedy with a potential spy, it failed. The affair with Inga passed, and more serious business was at hand for the young recruits. As time passed in the de-coding section, news came through asking for volunteers for Midshipman School in Chicago, and both Fred and a bored Jack Kennedy immediately volunteered. They were both originally rejected, seemingly because they didn’t have replacements in Charlestown. Fortunately the demand for officer candidates in Chicago was so great that they were both eventually approved for sea duty training.

 

Eventually, the famous Lt. Commander John Duncan Bulkeley of New York City, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for taking General Douglas MacArthur out of the Phillipines, recruited both Fred and Jack Kennedy for the PT Boat service. Bulkeley was so famous that he was given a ticker-tape parade up Broadway; a best seller (and later a movie was made with Robert Montgomery and John Wayne) They Were Expendable was written about his exploits crossing 600 miles of open sea, in a PT Boat carrying MacArthur from Corregidor to Mindanao, and FDR not only presented him personally with the Congressional Medal of Honor, but also treated him to a private audience. In the seclusion of their meeting Bulkeley extolled the virtues of the PT Boat and requested that 200 be immediately shipped to the Pacific. Bulkeley later related his “fantasies” to Kennedy’s class in Chicago. and requested the “toughest, hard-boiled men who can take all the punishment in the world.” Fred later recalled that he (Bulkeley) was just recruiting volunteers for that service, because that was the only way one could get into that type of service. (Years later I spoke to Fred about Bulkeley, (1911-96), who had been awarded, along with the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, the Army Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, the Legion of Merit and two Purple Hearts had attained rank of Vice-Admiral, and was being honored in his 80’s. Fred did not speak enthusiastically about him! I was quite surprised but didn’t pursue the discussion.)

 

While they were both at the Melville Motor Boat Training School (Rhode Island), Jack was the only one with a car and they drove into nearby Newport nightly, and NYC on the weekends. Fred who was from Dalton, Georgia was able to experience a pretty exciting night life with the young Kennedy and he clearly remembered his first time at the “21” Club. Another fellow that they “hung out” with was Knox Aldridge, who played football with Fred at the University of Georgia. Fred had played for the Georgia Bulldogs who tied 10-10 the famous Fordham College Ram team, and its Seven Blocks of Granite linemen of 1937.

 

Of course Fred saw many sides of the young Kennedy, and some of his remarks could be quite offensive. One time Jack said that the “Jews were all going into the Quartermaster Corps to escape combat.” In truth, Kennedy not only misinterpreted the Quartermaster Corps and its role, but Fred got him to admit that his statement was outrageous. There were many other times that the future President had a tendency to reflect his father’s prejudices. Eventually they were sent to New Orleans where the boats were being built in the Higgins Boat Yard. There, Fred and Jack separated. Fred later served in the Mediterranean as skipper of his own ship, PT-207 of the squadron MTB Ron 15. He was a decorated sailor who was engaged in 73 actions and 55 OSS missions. One included support for the bringing of Michael Burke (member of the OSS, later owner of the NY Yankees) into Italy for the purpose of arranging the surrender of Italian Forces and ending their participation in the Axis Alliance. Of course, on the other side of the world, in the Pacific, Jack Kennedy gained fame with his crew of the ill-fated PT-109.

 

Fred Rosen stayed friendly with Kennedy after the war and was the only PT boat commander in attendance at his wedding in Newport at Hammersmith Farm. He was on the board of PT Boat Men for Kennedy in 1960 and was invited to be in attendance during the President’s swearing in as President. Fred representing Peter Tare, the PT Officers alumni association, presented President Kennedy with a Steuben glass replica of his famous boat that remained a fixture on his desk during his Presidency. My daughter, who worked at the Kennedy Library, during her graduate school days in Boston, gave us a tour of the Library and we looked immediately for the famous model.

 

We were able to visit Hammersmith Farm a few times before it was closed to the public. Janet Lee Bouvier Auchincloss Morris (her fourth husband.) still lived in a small yellow house on the property when we first toured Hammersmith Farm and its marvelous Frederick Law Olmstead designed gardens. The elaborate gardens, designed in the early 1900’s, were said to need 32 gardeners to maintain its care. By our last visit, the house that had served as the Summer White House during the years, 1961-3 had been recently sold to a private owner. We were actually among the last lucky few to see the house publicly. Our visit was the last ever scheduled by the Foundation that controlled the property. One of my most vivid memories was that of the “deck room.” This was a fantastic windowed porch that looked over Narragansett Bay. The charmingly appointed dining room and the breakfast alcove looked out over the long pasture that led up from the waters of the Bay. The late President would, once in a while, take a cruise to Newport on an aircraft carrier, and fly over to the house in a Marine helicopter. It would land on the lawn outside of the dinning room’s large bay window and door and the President would enter directly into the house and have lunch.

 

It was never easy to reach Hammersmith Farm, and without the many signs it would have been virtually impossible. The Farm was located quite a distance off the road, and one would never be able to see the house today. When we drove out on Ocean Drive this November trip I was not able to recognize any way to find the Farm. But I did notice the explosions of new modern mansions that were recently built on the cliffs that overlook the ocean.

 

How could one sum up Newport without two of the most important aspects of that town? Unfortunately both, Jazz and the America’s Cup yacht racing have long since reached their peak in Newport and have been on the decline for years. The Newport Jazz Festival, is an on again, off again, music event held in Newport in August. George Wein, a Boston nightclub owner, established it in 1954, and it probably became famous because of Miles Davis’s solo “Round Midnight” in 1955 and Duke Ellington’s great appearance in 1956. The Festival certainly got a little publicity from the film High Society that was also released in 1956. It was a shallow re-make of The Philadelphia Story, put to music and its venue was moved from the “Main Line” of Philadelphia to the mansions of Newport. Bing Crosby replaced Gary Grant as C.K. Dexter-Haven, the divorced husband of Grace Kelly, who replaced Katherine Hepburn. Music of course was the main feature to this “fluffy” and “tepid” version. With Frank Sinatra playing the Jimmy Stewart role, and the great Louis Armstrong adding Jazz to the score, Newport’s connection with the Jazz Festival was reinforced.

 

The Festival was originally held at Belcourt (now known as Belcourt Castle) a Bellevue Avenue estate owned by Louis and Elaine Lorillard. Probably the best known of the albums made from those 1950’s events was the Columbia record album Newport 1958, featuring Duke Ellington and his Orchestra with Gerry Mulligan. Some of the memorable cuts were; Just Scratchin’ the Surface, El Gato, Princess Blue, Juniflip, and Prima Bara Dubla. The film Jazz on a Summer’s Day documented the 1958 musical event. But all did not work out well for the annual event. In 1960, overly enthusiastic fans, probably well lubricated, got carried away with the vibes and created a virtual riot. The police were called, and they couldn’t quell the upheaval and the National Guard had to be brought in to douse the revelers. Despite the unpleasantness of the year before, the Festival was resumed once again in 1961. Stars like Dave Brubeck, Nina Simone and Nate “Cannonball” Adderley continued to bring the “house” down. Unfortunately the outdoor performances were plagued by the vicissitudes of the weather and after some, up and down, financial years, along crowd conduct problems in 1969 and 1971, the Newport Jazz Festival moved to New York in 1972. It returned once again to Newport in 1981 and became a two-city event. Remarkably it is still directed by George Wein and since 1984 it has been called the JVC Jazz Festival, as JVC is now its principle sponsor. These Jazz festivals are now played all over the world and are not unique to Newport.

 

When driving into Newport one realizes immediately that water has always been important to Newport’s existence. Along America’s Cup Way and Thames Street one could look out and see not only extensive wharfs and docks that provides a safe harbor to a multitude of yachts and smaller water craft, but scores of restaurants offering every variety of local seafood. One can also drive over a causeway to Goat Island, which used to house the Fleet Landing and Section base piers for the US Navy. In 1946, at the end of the Second World War, the use of Goat Island Torpedo Station created for torpedo production, came to a close. Goat Island is now the home to a hotel-marina-apartment complex.

 

It was in Newport that yachting came of age in America. It became the home for the top sailors and designers of yachts because of the America’s Cup competition. Originally the “Cup” was offered as the Royal Yacht Squadron Cup. But the New York Yacht Club, which challenged for it with its ship America. a 30,86 meter schooner-yacht won it, in open competition, in a regatta around the Isle of Wight, on August 22, 1851. Garrard and Company crafted the “Cup”, (one of 3 or 6 that were made) an ornate silver-plated, bottomless pitcher, around 1848 and Sir Henry Paget, the Marquess of Anglesey bought one of them and donated it as a prize. It was originally known also as the “RYS Cup for One Hundred Sovereigns.” That became translated into the “One Hundred Guinea’s Cup.” The America won the race by 20 minutes, and supposedly Queen Victoria asked who was second; the answer famously was: “There is no second, your Majesty.”

The “Cup” was officially donated to the New York Yacht Club in 1857, and the “trophy” was held in trust as “challenge” prize to foster friendly racing competition between other countries. With their pride damaged, the British yachting enthusiasts sponsored plethora of challenges. Over the next 113 years 25 efforts failed and the New York Yacht Club’s fleet of defenders remained invincible. Matches were held in the vicinity of New York from 1870 until 1920. But from 1930 until the early 1980’s the races were held off Newport. One of the greatest challenges came from the tea magnate, Sir Thomas Lipton, who would mount five unsuccessful efforts between 1899 and 1930. His yachts, the Shamrocks, were very large sailing sloops. One, the Shamrock V is still around today, over 75 years since Lipton’s death in 1931.

After the war ended, the huge and costly J-class yachts were replaced by the much more economical 12-meter types. I can remember vividly the 1958 defense of the “Cup” by the Columbia with Briggs Cunningham as its skipper. This was the first renewal of the event since 1937 when Harold S. Vanderbilt commanded the Ranger as he defeated the Endeavor II from England. Vanderbilt captained three successful defenses off his home base of Newport. One could see a room dedicated to Vanderbilt and his efforts at the Marble House. The United States continued to successfully defend the “Cup” in Newport waters until 1980 with the Freedom. In 1883 the Australia II was able to break the long victory string that had begun in1851 with a victory over the Liberty in the seven-race event, 4-3. In the next challenge the United States yacht, Stars and Stripes ’87, with Dennis Connor in command, fended off 13 other syndicates and won back the “Cup” off Fremantle, Australia. A bitter legal challenge between the Team New Zeeland and Dennis Conners ensued over ship design, but with the victory of the United States, the races went to San Diego. It was there that the New Zeeland challenger Black Magic defeated the United States yacht, Young America. The race would move to Auckland and eventually a Swiss yacht took the “Cup” and the next race, in 2007, will be held off Valencia, Spain.

The era of Newport being the host for the America’s Cup races has been over for more than two decades. Will it come back? Who can tell? Like the Gilded Age, the National Tennis Championships, the Jazz masters of the 1950’s and the racing days of the Vanderbilt’s, time marches on. Newport has survived without them, but their memories still evoke a warm feeling among the fans, spectators and the folks that remember the class, opulence and substance of a bygone age.

PS: On December 30, 2006 I received a call from Leland Moglen. He happened to find the article on a “search engine,” was quite shocked and called me from California where he and the other Moglen's live. The last time I saw Leland or spoke to him was 45+ years ago. 

rjg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 9, 2006

 

Hon. Sue Kelly

2182 Rayburn

House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

 

Dear Ms. Kelly,

 

Despite the recent election results, I hope this letter finds you quite well. As a resident of Westchester County, I was exposed to almost all of the political commercials that were aired in the late campaign. Of course there were not a great many contested campaigns and therefore the variety of commercials were quite limited. One of the commercials that I happened to hear was one of yours, and it resonated with me more than others.

 

Your commercial, calling your opponent a hypocrite because of his ownership of mutual funds, was quite hilarious. As a NASD registered representative and an owner of mutual funds myself, I found your commercial accusing Mr. Hall of hypocrisy most amazing. I am sure that almost all citizens of Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess County own a mutual fund through either their 401(k), or 503(b), or deferred annuities or variable insurance policies. Of course there are exceptions. But as a person who does understand mutual funds I found your commercial foolish, disingenuous and misleading. With regards to mutual funds, their holdings are strictly limited to a small percentage of any one company’s stock. No mutual fund can own more than a small percentage of that company’s outstanding stock and when that stock grows in value beyond that legal limit, shares must be sold to equalize the fund’s holdings. Therefore all mutual funds, no matter if they are concentrated in a specific economic sector can never be dominated by one stock. I am sure you aware of that and I also assume you own mutual funds and your Congressional retirement account is also invested in that type of financial vehicle. Therefore to accuse someone of being a hypocrite because of that type of ownership is ridiculous. Mutual funds, in most cases, do not spin off earnings and grow tax deferred until sold. Therefore to accuse Mr. Hall of owning Walmart, or other stocks in a mutual fund’s portfolio is and was misleading. In the same way you, or anyone else, does not have control over any of the stocks in your mutual funds. Therefore to accuse someone who owns diversely invested mutual funds of being a hypocrite, regarding their criticism of those company’s actions, is meaningless. It would be like owning a telephone and complaining about its service. Should one give up one’s phone?

 

I did contribute to Mr. Hall’s campaign and I am a registered Democrat and therefore, even though I do not know you or him personally, I am exquisitely happy with the change of leadership in the Congress. The Republican leadership and the Republican members have been in lock step as cheerleaders and co-conspirators with one of the worst and most divisive Presidents in our history. His venal conduct and his pandering to the flat-earth thinkers of our society have reduced us to the laughing stock of most of the world. (Read Gary Wills piece “A Country Ruled by Faith”) Thankfully a vast majority of Americans have awakened to his charade and have spoken out in righteous indignation. They have repudiated your do-nothing, “rubber stamp” 109th Congress that has ratified his errors, miscalculations and lies. 

 

Of course it will not be an easy task to undo the harm that this President has wrought. But be assured, history will show eventually, that this administration, and the Republican led Congress, will be accurately portrayed as one bought and sold by some of worst and greediest elements of our society. When the harsh and long overdue light of oversight enters the halls and hearing rooms of Congress, much will be exposed to the public. I am sure that we will see revealed a level of corruption and misconduct that will make Teapot Dome, Watergate, Iran-gate and other scandals pale in comparison. Unlike the mindless meandering witch-hunt led by Kenneth Starr we will see a true and thorough unearthing that will let all the poisons come forth. Hopefully the Congress will open up the files on Mr. Bush and his family that he so conveniently locked away from public scrutiny at Texas A.M. under the former guardianship of Bob Gates. (See Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, November 9, 2006) It is too bad that so much suffering in New Orleans and in overseas has happened because of the stolen election of 2000. The Bush legacy has been a disaster for America and most of the world, but finally the public is awakening to the truth.

 

Regards,

 

 

Richard J. Garfunkel