Many links. Mark Baker has more.
Category: History
Gingrich on WWII vs the Four Years since 9/11
Newt Gingrich raises some useful points in comparing WWII’s four years vs. the four since 9/11 [pdf]:
I appreciate the opportunity to testify today about the nation’s intelligence system and the absolute imperative for effective ongoing reform.
It is now four years and one month since the 9/11 attack on America.
The comparable date for World War II would have been January 19, 1946. By that point the United States was largely demobilizing its forces after a victorious global war.
During the comparable length of time that we have been responding to the 9/11 attacks on America, the World War II generation of Americans had rebounded from the attack on Pearl Harbor and defeated Germany, Japan and Italy, built a worldwide military and intelligence capability, built the atomic bomb, massed and organized industrial power, and laid the foundation for the worldwide network of alliances that has stabilized the world for the last sixty years.This difference in energy, intensity, and resolve should worry all of us.
This is a fascinating topic. One thing that strikes me is how different our national awareness of the globe must have been in 1946, given millions of Americans stationed overseas. This is much different, today, I think.
T.E. Lawrence’s Middle East Vision
One of the most popular books among American military officers serving in Iraq is Seven Pillars of Wisdom — the accounts of T. E. Lawrence, the British colonel who rallied Arab tribal leaders during World War I. Lawrence wrote about unconventional warfare and the people of the region.
A new exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum features a long-lost map of the Middle East drafted by Lawrence and presented to the British cabinet in 1918. It provides an alternative to present-day borders in the region, taking into account local Arab sensibilities rather than the European colonial considerations that were dominant at the time.
Fascinating stuff, particularly his map. More photos later.
A Bit of Cold War Reading from the CIA: Tolkachev
On 20 September 1985, international wire service reports carried a statement distributed by the official Soviet news agency TASS that one A. G. Tolkachev, whom it described as a staff member at one of Moscow’s research institutes, had been arrested the previous June trying to pass secret materials of a defensive nature to the United States. Subsequent news stories said Tolkachev was an electronics expert at a military aviation institute in Moscow who was compromised by former CIA officer Edward Lee Howard.
In October 1985, The Washington Post ran a story that described Tolkachev as “one of CIA’s most valuable human assets in the Soviet Union.” According to FBI affidavits related to the Howard espionage case that were made public, Tolkachev had provided information on Soviet avionics, cruise missiles, and other technologies. The Soviets subsequently publicly confirmed that they had executed Tolkachev in 1986 for “high treason.”
Fascinating and well worth reading.
Before and After New Orleans Satellite Photos
Don Park has posted satellite photos before and after Hurricane Katrina, via GlobeXplorer.
The Price
Looking forward to July 4th, I came across this article by James H. Warner, a Marine Corps Officer who spent five years and five months in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp:
the first of June, I was put in a cement box with a steel door, which sat out in the tropical summer sun. There, I was put in leg irons which were then wired to a small stool. In this position I could neither sit nor stand comfortably. Within 10 days, every muscle in my body was in pain (here began a shoulder injury which is now inoperable). The heat was almost beyond bearing. My feet had swollen, literally, to the size of footballs. I cannot describe the pain. When they took the leg irons off, they had to actually dig them out of the swollen flesh. It was five days before I could walk, because the weight of the leg irons on my Achilles tendons had paralyzed them and hamstrung me. I stayed in the box from June 1 until Nov. 10, 1969. While in the box, I lost at least 30 pounds.
New USPS Stamps: Famous Scientists
USPS:
Four American Scientists-Thermodynamicist Josiah Willard Gibbs, geneticist Barbara McClintock, mathematician John von Neumann and physicist Richard P. Feynman-were honored with postage stamps dedicated in a special ceremony today at Henry R. Luce Hall, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Las Vegas Centenary – in Pictures
The BBC commemorates Las Vegas Centenary, in pictures.
Lind: 17th Century Spain = 21st Century USA?
When people ask me what to read to find an historical parallel with America’s situation today, I usually recommend J. H. Elliott’s splendid history of Spain in the first half of the 17th century, The Count-Duke of Olivares: A Statesman in an Age of Decline. One of the features of the Spanish court in that period was its increasing disconnection with reality. At one point, Spain was trying to establish a Baltic fleet while the Dutch navy controlled the Straits of Gibraltar.
WW2 Landmarks: VR panoramic scenes
Mickael Therer announced an impressive collection of Quicktime VR WWII European landmark scenes. Beautiful work.