Roundup: Talking About History

Paul Beston: Many Moons Ago

[Paul Beston is associate editor of City Journal.] On the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, it's tempting to emulate William F. Buckley, who was asked how he would describe the event. "With silence," Buckley said. This defining human achievement soon had the effect of making such awe harder to come by. Those who grew up after Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface viewed walking on the moon as an accepted fact of life, and it quickly became absorbed into an age

Dan at The Third Estate (blog): Lithuania – New Myths and Old

Eastern Europe is a land of myths and legends. I don’t mean the sorts of myths that the guide books harp on about, like how Duke Gediminas founded Vilnius after being told to in a dream in the 1320s. Rather I mean the myths of the twentieth century, the successive narratives and histories that have been imposed upon the region, through revolution, Fascism, Stalinism and finally the new nationalisms.

Norman Solomon: Beyond the Hype: Cronkite and the Vietnam War

[Norman Solomon’s books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,” which was adapted into a documentary film narrated by Sean Penn. For more information, go to: www.normansolomon.com] Media eulogies for Walter Cronkite -- including from progressive commentators -- rarely talk about his coverage of the Vietnam War before 1968. This obit omit is essential to the myth of Cronkite as a courageous truth-telle

Larry Sabato: 50 years later ... The legacy of massive resistance

Fifty years have now passed since the dark days of Massive Resistance, when public schools in some Virginia localities were shuttered rather than integrated. Virginia has had an overall proud and constructive history; yet except for the original sin of slavery, Massive Resistance is the most indelible stain on the state's soul. When today's young people are told about the school closings, they are astonished. In retrospect, it is almost unbelievable--even for those of

Greg Mitchell: Cronkite's 1968 Dissent on Vietnam Helped Save Thousands of Lives

[Greg Mitchell''s latest book is "Why Obama Won." He is editor of Editor & Publisher. ] I probably failed to watch the late Walter Cronkite's most important TV news moment: his famous February 1968 commentary (so out of character) after returning from Vietnam in which he cast strong doubt on our mission there and its chances for success. Yes, the JFK assassination and moon landing drew more viewers but this broadcast would help save many thousands of lives, U.S. and Vi

Jeff Gralnick: Remembering Walter

[Jeff Gralnick is a 50-year veteran of broadcast news who was fortunate enough to work for and with Walter Cronkite from 1961 to 1970. He is currently acting as Special Consultant on Global Business Development for NBC News.] The "memories of Walter" rush is on and rightfully so. No doubt many with bolder face names than mine are dictating or at keyboards knocking out their "I remember when" pieces as we all try to both honor the memory and pin down

Allen C. Guelzo : Should blacks get reparations?

[Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College, and the author of "Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President."] ... [O]n the surface, the case for reparations to African-Americans has all the legal simplicity of an ordinary tort. A wrong was committed; therefore, compensation is due to those who were wronged. But just below that surface is a nest of disturbing complications that undercut the ease with which Robinson, Mr. Burris, and o

Jeffrey Kluger: Moon Walkers

Metaphor had its way with Buzz Aldrin long before the moon did. There were always signs that the second man to set foot on the lunar surface would be stalked by demons. His grandfather fought depression for much of his life and ended his suffering only through suicide. His mother, too, struggled with melancholy and, after Aldrin's first spaceflight, in 1966, began wearing dark glasses in public to help her cope with the family's fame. In May 1968, just 14 months before Aldrin left for his lunar

Gordon Stewart: Carter’s Speech Therapy

[Gordon Stewart was the deputy chief speechwriter for Jimmy Carter from 1978 to 1981.] IN the summer of 1979, as millions of Americans idled in creeping gas lines, President Jimmy Carter was preoccupied with matters abroad: first he was in Vienna completing SALT II with Leonid Brezhnev, next pleading for it before Congress, then away in Japan and Korea, hoping to rest in Hawaii afterward. Instead, a White House reeling from approval numbers lower than Nixon’s urged Mr.

Gordon Stewart: 'The Malaise Speech' ... 30 Years Later

[Gordon Stewart was the deputy chief speechwriter for Jimmy Carter from 1978 to 1981.] IN the summer of 1979, as millions of Americans idled in creeping gas lines, President Jimmy Carter was preoccupied with matters abroad: first he was in Vienna completing SALT II with Leonid Brezhnev, next pleading for it before Congress, then away in Japan and Korea, hoping to rest in Hawaii afterward. Instead, a White House reeling from approval numbers lower than Nixon’s urged Mr.

Dennis Overbye: 40 Years on, Reflections in a Sliver of the Moon

In April of 1972, as John Young and Charles Duke were roaming around the highlands of the Moon, they picked up a bluish-black rock. It wasn’t a particularly pretty rock. Its glassy surface was pitted and pocked. It looked as if it had been blasted out of a nearby crater. The highlands were littered with rocks like it. The astronauts brought it and 200 pounds of other rocks back to Earth as the bounty from Apollo 16. At the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston, scientis

Liz Cheney: Obama Rewrites the Cold War

[ Ms. Cheney served as deputy assistant secretary of state and principal deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs from 2002-2004 and 2005-2006. ] There are two different versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: the Russian version, and the truth. President Barack Obama endorsed the Russian version in Moscow last week. Speaking to a group of students, our president explained it this way: "The American and Soviet armies were still massed

Mickey Edwards: A wide-ranging and clear-eyed examination of the history of American conservatism

For more than half a century, historians, sociologists, journalists, psychologists, political scientists, and philosophers have studied, probed, analyzed, pondered, attacked, lauded, and attempted to explain that force that is American political conservatism. Sometimes this avalanche of books, articles, and op-eds has veered weirdly into the realms of psychobabble (once a group of left-leaning psychiatrists, without ever meeting or talking to him, diagnosed conservative Senator Barry Goldwater,

Stanley Kutler: What Will History Make of Colin Powell?

[Stanley Kutler is the author of “The Wars of Watergate” and other writings.] "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on."—The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam How do we remember history? Time diminishes our memories of details and spear carriers. Thirty-five years ago, as Richard Nixon prepared to resign, we readily recited the real-life cast of all the president’s men: Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Dean, Kleindienst, Colson, Liddy and Agnew. Toda

John Hannah: Bush Deserves More Credit on Iran

[Mr. Hannah served on former Vice President Dick Cheney's national security staff from 2001-2009.] Defying their regime once more, Iranians have renewed their protests in the streets of Tehran. Last month, when the protests began, the New York Times ran a story hinting that Iran's demonstrators may have been inspired by an "Obama factor." The article suggested that President Barack Obama's diplomatic outreach, unlike his predecessor's approach, emboldened Iranians to rise

Laura Miller: History is bunk after all

Let's start with something small. Many people believe that each of the tartan (plaid) patterns worn by Scottish Highlanders corresponds to a particular clan and that kilts made of this fabric have served as the uniforms and emblems of that clan since time immemorial. But, as the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper pointed out in a famous essay titled "The Invention of History: The Highland Tradition of Scotland," that simply isn't true. "Indeed," Trevor-Roper wrote, "the whole

Andrew Salmon: A Cartoonist at War ... “Gobau’s” Korea, 1950

[Seoul-based reporter Andrew Salmon is the author of To The Last Round: The Epic British Stand on the Imjin River, Korea, 1951 (Aurum, London, 2009). He is currently working on a prequel, Year of the Tiger: The Commonwealth Versus Communism, Korea, 1950. ] Next year, 2010, marks the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of what is aptly called “The Forgotten War.” While Kim Il-sung’s invasion of the Republic of Korea in the early hours of June 25th, 1950, ignited the first hot war of the

Erin L. Murphy: Women's Anti-Imperialism, 'The White Man's Burden,' and the Philippine-American War

[Erin L. Murphy, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is the author of the "'Prelude to Imperialism': Whiteness and Chinese Exclusion in the Reimagining of the United States." Journal of Historical Sociology (2005), 18:457-490, and "Women's Anti-Imperialism, 'The White Man's Burden,' and the Philippine-American War: Theorizing Masculinist Ambivalence in Protest." Gender & Society (2009), 23:244-270. She can be contacted at

National Security Archive: Robert McNamara: An Appreciation

Reflecting on the life of Robert McNamara, who passed away this week on July 6th, the National Security Archive is posting this recognition of the extraordinary role he played in driving scholarly and policy reassessments of some of the most important and contentious U.S. foreign policy events in the latter 20th century. For most of the last two decades of his life, despite enormous criticism, McNamara took the lead in several series of historical investigations that have changed our understandi

Seth Lipsky: McNamara in Purgatory: Setting the War Record Straight

[ Mr. Lipsky, a former member of the Journal's editorial board, is founding editor of the New York Sun. ] ... The notion that for too long McNamara hid his doubts about the war rather than fighting against it has been aired anew in the wake of his death this week. This indictment was articulated most famously -- and eloquently -- in an editorial issued by the New York Times in 1995, when the former Whiz Kid came out with his memoir. "In Retrospect" was McNamara's confessi