Book of the Month

Shuts and Failures

by Michael Maiello

EmmaZahn's picture

Happy 50th Anniversary

by EmmaZahn 10/22/2012 - 3:05 pm

We still here!  

The closest we ever came (publicly) to mutually-assured destruction.  Where were you then?

Read the full article at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/cuban-missile-crisis.html

I was 3 1/2 years old, living in Buffalo.  I don't recall offering unsolicited advice on how President Kennedy might have handled the matter better, but I probably did. 

You?

by AmericanDreamer 10/22/2012 - 3:35 pm

Just beginning 9th grade.  My first real awareness of politics and world affairs.  That may explain their abiding interest.

 

by EmmaZahn 10/22/2012 - 3:38 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

I was 3 and 1/2, living in NS.

I suggested using Bobby as a trusted go-between. 

Glad it all worked out.

by quinn esq 10/22/2012 - 3:52 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

Well, fortunate for the President and our respective countrypersons that he had advice coming from the two of us.  Those combined seven years of experience that went into our recommendations may have proven decisive in helping the President stand up to the majority who were suggesting he bomb first and ask questions later. 

by AmericanDreamer 10/22/2012 - 4:14 pm (re: quinn esq)

Of course I conveniently neglected to note that had the President by-passed the two of us and gone directly to the precocious and far more seasoned Emma for advice, he and all of us would have come out the same way in the end. 

by AmericanDreamer 10/22/2012 - 4:58 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

I was four at the time. I'm embarrassed to admit I was a low, or more accurately, no information non voter. I didn't even know it was happening. Had I know I'm sure I'd have suggested the president send in Underdog to deal with it.

Have no fear.... Underdog is here.

by ocean-kat 10/22/2012 - 4:50 pm

Simon Barsinister really wasn't his match, was he? 

And that Sweet Polly Purebread. A real Hotsy-Totsy, that one. 

by quinn esq 10/22/2012 - 5:31 pm (re: ocean-kat)

Gettouttahere, if you knew about Underdog, you also knew from the Saturday morning media who the enemy was:

photo source: http://www.americanheritage.us/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=2981

by artappraiser 10/22/2012 - 6:02 pm (re: ocean-kat)

I remember it well. I should have know you'd come by and "pull a rabbit out of a hat." Anything else up your sleeve?

by ocean-kat 10/22/2012 - 6:24 pm (re: artappraiser)

Its interesting how much more sophisticated cartoons were in our day compared to more recent times. There was so much irony, parody, and adult level humor in the cartoons back then. I wonder why and if that adult level content affected our minds. I wonder how or if the change affects the minds of children today.

by ocean-kat 10/22/2012 - 6:40 pm (re: ocean-kat)

I was fifteen. I was immortal back then so I didn't much give a flip at the time.

 I know it isn't your favorite way to get info, but BloggingheadsTV has an extremely interesting interview with  Peter Kornbluh of The National Security Archive. He was the first to get the recently released papers of Robert Kennedy and I'll bet he tells you things you didn't know before. Some he didn't know until recently. Anyway, below are the topic breakdowns.
    Fifty years later, lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis   5:53
    Kennedy's secret overture to Castro   9:12
    Is Iran a slow-motion Cuban Missile Crisis?   6:13
    How the mythology of the Crisis has hurt America   5:29
    Kennedy's real strength: willingness to compromise   9:35
    How the US can have normal relations with Cuba   4:43
 

http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/11976

by A Guy Called LULU 10/22/2012 - 5:28 pm

We were never going to mutually destruct and I can tell you why.

One day 50 years ago this week, (I don't remember which day in particular, unfortunately,) after we came back from morning mass to break fast with our breakfasts (which had to be shoehorned into our lunchboxes with our lunch,) the nuns dragged us back to church to pray nearly all day for God to show the way for their dear President Kennedy. Perhaps it wasn't all day but it seemed like all day to us in 2nd grade. We had only just had it pounded into us how prayer worked, and so there was no reason to doubt that it would work on whatever the grownups were upset about. We just knew that it was our duty to save the USA and we did what we were told; no thanks required then or now.

by artappraiser 10/22/2012 - 5:53 pm

I was a just under two years from leaving my previous life and starting this life (of which the sole purpose was to eventually irritate the life of a small child in Nova Scotia at the time, who unbeknownst to him at time had angered the gods).

by Another Trope 10/22/2012 - 7:57 pm

Okay, I was 12 and therefore in the 5th grade? I dunno, I was never held back although I should have been put in the 10th grade right away because....

Anyway, I had no idea what was going on; I had no idea that those films that we saw in school had anything to do with anything and I knew that those poor folks in Hiroshima could not take care of themselves underneath desks and such.

But that is okay because at the age of 62 I have not had the opportunity to read all of the files and the only defense I have for my ridiculous political positions is that I really know that Mitt has no idea what the current files really tell us.

the end

by Richard Day 10/22/2012 - 8:45 pm

I was in the 6th grade. Like duck and cover would really save our asses.  And those silly ID bracelets would have been slag.

by cmaukonen 10/23/2012 - 12:36 am (re: Richard Day)

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