American businessman and Secretary of Defense
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3 episodes with Robert McNamara
3 episodes with Robert McNamara
2 episodes with Robert McNamara
2 episodes with Robert McNamara
2 episodes with Robert McNamara
4 episodes with Robert McNamara
2 episodes with Robert McNamara
3 episodes with Robert McNamara
2 episodes with Robert McNamara
5 Hours PG-13Here are episodes 6-10 of the Cold War series with Thomas777.The 'Cold War' Pt. 6 - Ho Chi Minh and the Origin of the Vietnam War w/ Thomas777The 'Cold War' Pt. 7 - Robert McNamara, Vietnam, and a World Turning 'Red' w/ Thomas777The Cold War Pt. 8 - How the On the Ground Battles in Vietnam Were Fought w/ Thomas777The 'Cold War' Pt. 9 - Battling the Khmer Rouge w/ Thomas777The 'Cold War' Pt. 10 - The Vietnam War Comes to an End w/ Thomas777Thomas' SubstackThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.
The winter auction season has concluded, and we are excitedly anticipating the opportunities that spring and summer will bring for agriculture. With tariffs, financing, and prices front and center, it's clear that these issues are top of mind for everyone in the industry. In the latest episode of Today's Ag podcast, host Robert McNamara had an insightful discussion with Pat Karst, delving into what the future holds as we head into planting season. The insights shared promise to shape our strategies for success in the months ahead.
Join us, as we remember the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war, to hear the novelist and poet Quế Mai in conversation with Craig McNamara, whose father was Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense under both JFK and LBJ during the Vietnam war. Quế Mai will discuss her poetry, the long-lasting impact of war on the Vietnamese, and how Vietnam has continued to change politically after the war. She will also focus on Vietnamese literary culture, its poetry and proverbs, and the various Vietnamese “ways of life” that have survived the violent chaos of several decades of war. Having experienced the hardships of rural life first-hand in the 1970s and 1980s, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai has used her literary skills to travel the world with her stories. The Color of Peace, her new book of poetry, can be read as a travelogue of the route one can take to forgiveness, appreciation and extending one's love for one's own people and homelands to all of humanity. Vietnam, with its more than 4,000 years of history and culture and its poetry-loving people, remains the passionate center of The Color of Peace. When read in the light of her international bestselling novels, The Mountains Sing and Dust Child, which have been translated into 27 languages, it provides her readers with a unique understanding of Vietnam's past and present and a glimpse into its future. Organizer: George Hammond A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The assassination of US President JFK in November 1963 shocked the world and has inspired conspiracy theories for over 60 years. President Trump has ordered the release of classified files from the period, which have revealed that the CIA kept files on both Ireland and the UK's military intelligence services, despite being close allies. Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Belfast Telegraph reporter Abdullah Sabri and Ulster University lecturer in international history Dr Robert McNamara. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Join us for an engaging and informative webinar hosted by Robert McNamara, where we bring you insights from one of our past webinars. You won't want to miss the expertise of Howard Halderman from the Halderman Companies, Damian Mason from The Business of Agriculture, and Ben Gordon from Fractual Agriculture. Together, they'll delve into the current outlook on farmland values, explore financing arrangements, and introduce innovative tools for alternative financing options. Get ready to enhance your understanding and stay ahead in the agricultural landscape!
5 Hours PG-13Here are episodes 6-10 of the Cold War series with Thomas777.The 'Cold War' Pt. 6 - Ho Chi Minh and the Origin of the Vietnam War w/ Thomas777The 'Cold War' Pt. 7 - Robert McNamara, Vietnam, and a World Turning 'Red' w/ Thomas777The Cold War Pt. 8 - How the On the Ground Battles in Vietnam Were Fought w/ Thomas777The 'Cold War' Pt. 9 - Battling the Khmer Rouge w/ Thomas777The 'Cold War' Pt. 10 - The Vietnam War Comes to an End w/ Thomas777Thomas' SubstackThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.
Our calendars have been packed with farm shows and seminars over the past few months. In today's Ag segment, host Robert McNamara engaged in an insightful conversation with Pat Karst about the key takeaways from their discussions with attendees regarding the state of agriculture in 2025.
Stu Burguiere breaks down the multiple embarrassing failures on the Left and in the mainstream media as they worked overtime to connect the Super Bowl LIX-winning Philadelphia Eagles to spurious reporting of a pending presidential snub by the champion team. Then, the Institute for Justice's Robert McNamara joins to break down the legal status of eminent domain as a crucial case nears the Supreme Court. And the Wall Street Journal completely obliterates the Left's economic worldview with one important dataset write-up. TODAY'S SPONSOR JASE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS ANTIBIOTICS Go to http://www.Jase.com and to enter the giveaway or enter code “STU” at checkout for a special discount on your order Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Robert McNamara of the Institute for Justice joins to talk about his oral argument to the Supreme Court of the United States in Devillier v. Texas. Robert discusses how he prepared for argument, what was at stake for his client, and what it means for eminent domain practitioners more generally. In the cross exam, Robert shares how much coffee he drinks, and what minor superpower he'd like to have. Links: Devillier Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-913_3204.pdf The Institute for Justice: https://ij.org/ Robert McNamara Profile: https://ij.org/staff/robert-mcnamara/ Devillier Oral Argument (with transcript and speaker highlights): https://youtu.be/OqpVdv_KkjE?si=2b0paALhLis_exLV
In this episode, join our host, Robert McNamara, as he takes us back to one of our favorite webinars about creative ways to finance your dream farm purchase! We're excited to have Howard Halderman from the Halderman Companies, Damian Mason from The Business of Agriculture, and Ben Gordon from Fractual Agriculture joining the conversation. They'll share valuable insights on the latest trends in farmland values, different financing arrangements, and some exciting alternative financing options. It's bound to be an engaging and informative discussion!
In this episode, we look at two specific programs within the Vietnam war: Project 100,000 & the Phoenix Program.Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/TheFactHunter Website: thefacthunter.com Email: thefacthunter@mail.com Snail Mail: George Hobbs PO Box 109 Goldsboro, MD 21636Show Notes: Vietnam War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War Was Vietnam a Holocaust for Zion? https://www.unz.com/article/was-vietnam-a-holocaust-for-zion/ Phoenix Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program The Vietnam War Is Not History For Victims Of Agent Orange https://naturalblaze.com/2017/10/vietnam-war-victims-agent-orange.html How The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident Sparked The Vietnam War https://allthatsinteresting.com/gulf-of-tonkin Will the Real Jim Morrison Please Stand Up? (And Something About the Gulf of Tonkin Hoax) https://theunexpectedcosmology.com/will-the-real-jim-morrison-please-stand-up-also-the-gulf-of-tonkin-was-a-hoax/ Project 100,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000 Robert McNamara's Infamous “Project 100,000” and the Vietnam War. A Premeditated Crime Against Humanity https://www.unz.com/lromanoff/robert-mcnamaras-infamous-project-100000-and-the-vietnam-war-a-premeditated-crime-against-humanity/
Is it conspiracy theory, something out of a fiction novel, or as real as apple pie? The Blue Beam project was once called the craziest conspiracy theory ever created and the man behind it just as nuts…but with recent events, could it be true? Did the man behind the theory actually get it right? Join Alesha and Kevin as they take us on another Bizarre AF adventure into the world of the unknown, the strange and unknown (tin foil hat encouraged). #projectbluebeam #aliens #UFO #alien #vietnamwar #war #drones #topsecret #rabbithole #globalelites NASA's Project Blue Beam written by Serge Monast (translated): https://educate-yourself.org/cn/projectbluebeam25jul05.shtml Newsweek's ‘What is the Project Blue Beam drone conspiracy theory?' : https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/what-is-project-blue-beam-drone-conspiracy/ Serge Monast's Rational Wiki: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Serge_Monast Audio Sources: Congress is briefed on the Drone situation, a response from a lawmaker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5vqljjW_Uc Steven Greer on Project Blue Beam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlboJl9-ZD8 Valuetainment:”Project Blue Beam" - Dr. Steven Greer Reveals The Dark Secrets Behind Alien Abductions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5cOdVZnIUQ The Call between Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara on 3 August 1964: https://prde.upress.virginia.edu/conversations/4002540
In his latest book, "LBJ & McNamara," Peter Osnos's dedication reads this way: "To those on the Vietnam Wall on the Mall and their countless Vietnamese counterparts. It did not have to happen." In his role as publisher at PublicAffairs Books, Osnos spent numerous hours working with former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara for his 1995 book, "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam." Osnos writes: "This book describes what happened in the years between 1963 and McNamara's last day as Secretary of Defense in February of 1968. Robert McNamara died in 2009 at the age of 93. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In his latest book, "LBJ & McNamara," Peter Osnos's dedication reads this way: "To those on the Vietnam Wall on the Mall and their countless Vietnamese counterparts. It did not have to happen." In his role as publisher at PublicAffairs Books, Osnos spent numerous hours working with former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara for his 1995 book, "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam." Osnos writes: "This book describes what happened in the years between 1963 and McNamara's last day as Secretary of Defense in February of 1968. Robert McNamara died in 2009 at the age of 93. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Anders briljerar helt i onödan under julklappsinköpen. Johan får änglabesök av Peter Crouch när helgen är som värst. Dessutom: Traumaintervjuer, den alkoholiserade inkilaren, skidfilosofiska rummet, träningskungar, spelarmobbning, försenad lön, julklappstips, 3 x Viktor i Lissabon, Robert McNamara och allt vi gör för att slippa bli förödmjukade. Bli en julhjälte genom att ge bort Offside till dem du tycker om: https://www.offside.org/prenumeration/order/orderforms/off159/
Thái độ kềm chế của tổng thống Mỹ John F. Kennedy và sự khôn ngoan của lãnh tụ Liên Xô, Nikita S. Khrushchev đã tránh cho nhân loại một thảm họa hạt nhân ở đầu thập niên 1960. Không chỉ là đối thủ của nhau, Kennedy-Khrushchev còn là những đồng minh trong nhiệm vụ gìn giữ hòa bình. Nhà sử học Georges Ayache trở lại với cuộc đấu trí giữa Nikita S. Khrushchev và John F. Kennedy trong tác phẩm Những cuộc đối đầu trong lịch sử của nhân loại. (Tạp chí phát lần đầu ngày 20/10/2016) Vào lúc quốc tế cảnh báo trước nguy cơ kịch bản chiến tranh lạnh tái diễn, vị lãnh tụ cuối cùng của Liên Bang Xô Viết, Michael Gorbatchev, lo ngại khi thấy Washington và Matxcơva đang « tiến gần tới lằn ranh đỏ ». Ngoại trưởng Đức Frank-Walter Steinmeier không lạc quan hơn khi cho rằng : tình hình hiện nay còn « nguy hiểm hơn cả so với thời kỳ chiến tranh lạnh ».Trong bối cảnh căng thẳng đó, đầu tháng 10/2016 dưới sự điều hành của Alexis Brezet và Vincent Tremolet de Villiers, hơn 20 nhà sử học, nghiên cứu, cựu nhân viên ngoại giao, nhà báo, nhà văn vừa cho ra mắt công chúng một tập hợp nói về 20 cuộc đối đầu đánh dấu lịch sử của nhân loại, từ thời Đại Đế Alexandre, hơn 300 năm trước Công Nguyên, cho đến cuộc song đấu Michael Gorbatchev - Boris Eltsine cuối thập niên 1980 đánh dấu ngày tàn của Liên Bang Xô Viết : Les Grands Duels qui ont fait le monde, Nhà Xuất Bản Perrin.Nổi bật hơn cả là cuộc đọ sức tay đôi giữa hai ông « K », Kennedy-Khrushchev ở vào đầu thập niên 1960, với đe dọa hạt nhân tiềm tàng, được Georges Ayache nhà sử học và cũng là một nhà ngoại giao kể lại.Vào mùa thu năm 1960, Hoa Kỳ chuẩn bị bầu lại tổng thống. Nixon hay Kennedy sẽ trở thành vị tổng thống thứ 35 trong lịch sử của nước Mỹ ? Điện Kremlin thận trọng theo dõi tình hình từ xa. Các cuộc thăm dò cho thấy, phó tổng thống Richard M. Nixon, ứng cử viên của đảng Cộng Hòa, một chính khách nổi tiếng chống cộng ở Mỹ, chiếm lợi thế so với thượng nghị sĩ John F. Kennedy của đảng Dân Chủ.Sói già và cừu non Tại Matxcơva, lên cầm quyền từ năm 1953, Nikita S. Khrushchev từng có dịp tiếp xúc với Nixon thực sự bất ngờ trước thắng lợi của Kennedy, một chính trị gia « còn quá trẻ để ngồi vào chiếc ghế tổng thống ». Mật vụ Liên Xô có một số thông tin về vị thượng nghị sĩ trẻ tuổi, nổi tiếng là « tay chơi » này : JFK là một cậu công tử con nhà giàu, tốt nghiệp đại học Harvard, đẹp như tài tử điện ảnh, nổi tiếng ăn chơi và dễ làm phụ nữ xiêu lòng.Kennedy, dành nhiều thời gian để du thuyền hơn là lui tới Thượng Viện. Mật vụ KGB còn nắm rõ cả hồ sơ bệnh lý của Kennedy : họ biết ông đã nhiều lần suýt chết, bị đau cột sống và mắc một chứng bệnh hiểm nghèo, phải chích cortisone với liều lượng mạnh để cầm cự.Theo lời tác giả, chỉ cần Mật vụ Liên Xô tung hồ sơ bệnh lý của Kennedy ra cho công chúng, là cũng đủ vĩnh viễn chôn vùi giấc mơ bước vào Nhà Trắng của thượng nghị sĩ bang Massachusetts. Đắc cử tháng 11/1960, John Fitzgerad Kennedy chính thức nhậm chức đầu tháng Giêng năm sau.Trong khi đó ở Matxcơva, tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản, Nikita Sergueievitch Khrushchev đã củng cố vị thế trên bàn cờ chính trị Liên Xô từ năm 1953, sau cái chết của Stalin. Xuất thân từ một gia đình nông dân, thủa trẻ Khrushchev từng lao động trong các lò rèn ở Donbass, miền đông Ukraina hiện nay, nhiều lần vào sinh ra tử trong các trận chiến trước khi từng bước thăng tiến trong guồng máy Đảng.Trên con đường thăng tiến đó, Nikita Sergueievitch Khrushchev đã từng bước qua không ít xác người. Dưới những năm tháng Stalin, ai ai cũng phải vận dụng mọi thủ đoạn, mánh khóe xảo quyệt để tồn tại. Sống sót được dưới gọng kềm của Stalin đã là một kỳ công, ngồi vào chiếc ghế của Stalin để còn vạch trần tội ác của Stalin cũng là những thành tích không kém.Nói cách khác, nếu như Jonh F. Kennedy, 43 tuổi, là một chính trị gia ít kinh nghiệm sống trong nhung lụa, phía bên kia võ đài, Nikita S. Khrushchev, 64 tuổi, là một con cáo già đã quá từng trải.Thượng đỉnh Vienna, chiến tranh tâm lý Kennedy-Khrushchev ? Dưới con mắt tinh đời của Khrushchev, Kennedy là một nhà chính trị tay mơ. Điều đã được chứng minh qua chiến dịch đổ bộ lên Vịnh Con Heo, Cuba tháng 4/1961. Chiến dịch đó là một thất bại ê chề của tình báo CIA với đồng thuận của tân chính quyền Kennedy, chống chế độ Fidel Castro.Từ điện Kremlin, Khrushchev lại càng thích thú khi thấy JFK phải cầu viện Nixon cố vấn trên hồ sơ Cuba, hay như hình ảnh trên bìa báo Life cho thấy một, Kennedy khép nép như cậu học trò đứng bên ông thầy, tướng Eisenhower sau một cuộc họp ở Camp David.Trong thời kỳ chiến tranh lạnh, Kennedy lên cầm quyền vào lúc quan hệ giữa Washington và Matxcơva xấu đi đáng kể sau vụ máy bay dọ thám U-2 của Mỹ bị phát hiện và bắn hạ trên bầu trời dãy núi Ural của Liên Xô (hồi tháng 5/1960), rồi kế tới là hồ sơ Cuba.Nhưng hơn bao giờ hết Washington và Matxcơva ý thức được là đôi bên cần nối lại đối thoại. Kennedy - Khrushchev dự trù họp thượng đỉnh tại Vienna, Áo vào tháng 6/1961.Nikita S. Khrushchev đến Vienna với quyết tâm « hỏi tội » Mỹ về vụ máy bay dọ thám U-2 và muốn chứng minh với quốc tế, Liên Xô là một siêu cường, ngang hàng với Mỹ. Đành là chưa giàu có như Mỹ, nhưng Liên Xô đã qua mặt Hoa Kỳ trong cuộc chạy đua chinh phục không gian.Theo nhà sử học và ngoại giao Georges Ayache, Khrushchev bằng mọi giá phải ghi được một bàn thắng tại Vienna về mặt ngoại giao để đánh lạc hướng công luận trong nước trước hàng loạt những khó khăn kinh tế. Chủ nhân điện Kremlin cũng biết rằng thành phần bảo thủ trong đảng chỉ chờ cơ hội để bắt Khrushchev « đền tội » sau khi đã hạ bệ Stalin.Không xem thường đối thủ nhưng Khrushchev nghĩ rằng, ông sẽ dễ dàng áp đảo được Kennedy, cái ông tổng thống « còn nhỏ tuổi hơn con trai » của mình.Về phía Kennedy, vị tổng thống trẻ tuổi này của nước Mỹ cũng cần một thắng lợi ngoại giao. Chẳng vậy mà, trước khi lên đường tới Vienna, Kennedy đã phải dừng chân ở Paris để tham khảo ý kiến tổng thống Pháp, vị lão tướng Charles de Gaulle.Thượng đỉnh Kennedy-Khrushchev mở ra trong hai ngày 03 và 04/06/1961 tại thủ đô nước Áo. Hơn 1.500 phóng viên quốc tế tập hợp về Vienna để đưa tin.Về hình thức, lãnh đạo hai nước họp kín với một dàn cố vấn trong bầu không khí « giá lạnh ». Như thông lệ, Khrushchev dùng những lời lẽ đao to búa lớn để hù dọa đối phương. Kennedy càng tỏ ra chừng mực và từ tốn chừng nào, Khrushchev lại càng lấn lướt chừng nấy. Thậm chí theo lời một người trong cuộc, Khrushchev « mắng » Kennedy như mắng trẻ con.Về nội dung thượng đỉnh Vienna, Kennedy muốn tập trung vào hồ sơ nguyên tử, Khrushchev sau khi dậy cho tổng thống Mỹ một bài học về thuyết Mác-Lênin, đòi Nhà Trắng giải quyết dứt điểm về quy chế của Tây Berlin, công nhận hai nước Đông và Tây Đức. Đây là lần thứ ba Matxcơva đòi Washington trở lại hồ sơ này.Với Liên Xô ốc đảo Tây Berlin giữa lòng nước Đông Đức cộng sản là một cái gai : sự phồn thịnh của Tây Berlin càng làm lộ rõ cách biệt về đời sống giữa hai khối Tự Do và Cộng Sản. Khoảng cách đó hủy hoại những nỗ lực tuyên truyền của khối Xã Hội Chủ Nghĩa.Kết thúc hai ngày họp, thượng đỉnh Vienna không đem lại một kết quả cụ thể nào. Trước khi ra về Khrushchev dọa Kennedy và phương Tây trước viễn cảnh nổ ra chiến tranh. Tổng thống Mỹ lễ phép đáp lời Chủ tịch Liên Xô : « Nếu như vậy thưa Ngài, thì chiến tranh sẽ xảy ra. Đó sẽ là một mùa đông buốt giá… »Rời Vienna, Khrushchev biết rõ ông đã áp đảo được đối phương và buông lời nhận xét về Kennedy như sau : « Hắn quá trẻ, chưa đủ già dặn, rất thông minh, nhưng quá nhu nhược ».JFK thì buột miệng than với các cộng tác viên là ông đã thực sự bị Khrushchev « xơi tái ». Nhưng qua cuộc chạm trán đó, Kennedy tin chắc tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản Liên Xô chỉ muốn « nắn gân » nước Mỹ : Matxcơva sẽ không khai chiến vì Berlin hay vì Đông Đức, bởi « có điên mới lao vào cuộc chiến » mà Khrushchev chắc chắn không phải là người điên.Kennedy không nhượng bộ tại Vienna lần này, nhưng Khrushchev hy vọng sẽ có cách « trị » ông tổng thống Mỹ còn non tay này. Matxcơva đợi cơ hội.Tháng 08/1961, điện Kremlin ngỡ rằng thời cơ đã đến. Trong đêm 12 rạng sáng ngày 13/08/1961, chính quyền Water Ulbricht bất đầu xây dựng bức tường « ô nhục » như để thách thức Washington. Căng thẳng Đông-Tây gia tăng thêm một nấc vào tháng 10 cùng năm khi chiến xa của Mỹ và Liên Xô « đối mặt » nhau trong nhiều giờ đồng hồ. Chỉ cần một tiếng súng, một sự cố nhỏ cũng đủ dẫn đến những hậu quả tai hại khôn lường.Không xảy ra chiến tranh, nhưng bức tường Berlin lại càng làm xấu thêm hình ảnh của Liên Xô trong công luận quốc tế.Khủng hoảng tên lửa Cuba Tại Washington Kennedy chịu áp lực của phe diều hâu chủ chiến. Ở Matxcơva, Khrushchev cũng không thoải mái hơn dưới sức ép của cơ quan Mật Vụ KGB và bên quân đội.Đầu năm 1962, viện cớ bảo vệ chế độ Castro ở Cuba, Liên Xô bí mật triển khai tên lửa, tàu ngầm, đưa quân sang sát cạnh lãnh thổ Hoa Kỳ. Kremlin thừa biết, sau thất bại ê chề ở Vịnh Con Heo, Mỹ không động chạm tới Cuba, nhưng Liên Xô muốn dùng lá bài Cuba để mặc cả với Mỹ về quy chế của Berlin. Tháng 10 cùng năm, kế hoạch của Liên Xô bị phát hiện.Tiếp theo đó là một cuộc khủng hoảng kéo dài trong 13 ngày. Tên lửa SS-4 của Liên Xô có sức công phá lớn gấp 200 lần so với quả bom đã thả xuống thành phố Hiroshima.Phe diều hâu chủ trương « ra tay trước » đối phương. Kennedy do dự và một lần nữa ông bị chỉ trích là « nhu nhược ». Trên thực tế, với Dean Rusk và Robert McNamara ở vị trí bộ trưởng Ngoại Giao và Quốc Phòng, JFK không « do dự hay yếu đuối ». Nhà Trắng nhìn thấy rõ nước cờ của điện Kremlin : triển khai tên lửa tại Cuba để mặc cả với phương Tây về Berlin. Kennedy nêu lên nghi vấn : Biết đâu, Liên Xô cũng e bom nguyên tử của Mỹ ?Còn tại Matxcơva, phe bảo thủ và diều hâu Liên Xô cũng dồn Khrushchev vào chân tường. Bên quân đội cũng chủ trương « đánh trước ».Ngày 22/10/1962 trong bài diễn văn để đời, tổng thống Kennedy chính thức thông báo phát hiện vũ khí của Nga tại Cuba, ban hành lệnh phong tỏa hòn đảo này. Không đi đến chiến tranh, nhưng thái độ của Mỹ không có chút gì là « nhu nhược ». Thông điệp của Nhà Trắng được chủ nhân điện Kremlin đón nhận như một tin vui. Khrushchev ý thức được rằng, Kennedy không tấn công ngay lập tức, có nghĩa là Washington tạm gác giải pháp quân sự sang một bên. Chiến tranh sẽ không xảy ra.Tối ngày hôm đó, Nikita S. Khrushchev an tâm đi xem hát : đó là buổi trình diễn của nam danh ca Mỹ Jerome Hines.Khác với Khrushchev, Kennedy không chơi đòn rung cây dọa khỉ, nhưng trong cuộc đọ sức tay đôi giữa hai ông « K », phần thắng đã nghiêng hẳn về phía Washington. Dù vậy Kennedy đã để ngỏ một cánh cửa, không để đối phương mất mặt.Sau một số các cuộc trao đổi trực tiếp, JFK lo ngại Khrushchev không hoàn toàn làm chủ tình hình ở Matxcơva. Đôi bên nhanh chóng tìm được thỏa thuận quy định Liên Xô rút vũ khí khỏi Cuba. Mỹ thì cam kết không động chạm đến chế độ Castro ở La Habana, và rút tên lửa Jupiter đặt tại Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ.Hạ màn Sau trận đối đầu kịch liệt đó, mở ra một thời kỳ « tan băng » - tiêu biểu nhất là đường dây điện thoại đỏ Hot Line giữa Nhà Trắng và điện Kremlin. Tổng thống Kennedy liên tục có những phát biểu hòa hoãn hướng về phía Liên Xô. Đổi lại, Khrushchev đã bằng lòng đàm phán với Mỹ về một thỏa thuận hạt nhân.Trong trên dưới một ngàn ngày tại Nhà Trắng, John F. Kennedy cùng với Nikita S. Khrushchev đã là tâm điểm trên sân khấu chính trị quốc tế, để rồi cả hai nhà lãnh đạo này đều bước vào hậu trường gần như cùng lúc.Tổng thống Mỹ, JFK bị ám sát tại Dallas tháng 11/1963. Tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản Liên Xô Nikita S. Khrushchev qua đời năm 1971 trong sự quên lãng của công luận và mang theo niềm cay đắng : bảy năm trước đó, ông bị hạ bệ. Sự nghiệp của Khrushchev đã khép lại khi khủng hoảng tên lửa Cuba bước vào hồi kết.Nhà sử học Georges Ayache kết luận : Trong trên dưới một ngàn ngày ở cương vị tổng thống Hoa Kỳ, Kennedy đã chứng minh ông là một vị nguyên thủ có đầu óc thực tiễn, một nhà lãnh đạo bình tĩnh và quyết tâm. Những đức tính đó của Kennedy càng làm lộ rõ hình ảnh một Nikita Khrushchev thùng rỗng kêu to.Ngày Kennedy qua đời, phu nhân tổng bí thư Khrushchev đã bất ngờ khóc khi bà đến tòa đại sứ Mỹ ở Matxcơva ký sổ tang. Một tuần sau, bà Kennedy, gửi thiệp cảm ơn đến lãnh đạo Liên Xô với lời lẽ cảm động và bất ngờ không kém. Jacqueline Kennedy viết : Từng là những đối thủ của nhau, nhưng hai ông Kennedy và Khrushchev lại là những « đồng minh trước quyết tâm để thế giới không bị phá hủy (…) Các vị đã tôn trọng lẫn nhau và đã có thể tìm ra một tiếng nói chung (…) Những vĩ nhân ý thức được rằng, họ cần kềm chế, còn những kẻ xoàng xĩnh thường bị nỗi sợ hãi và sự kiêu ngạo thôi thúc (…) Phải chi mà trong tương lai, những con người tầm thường cũng có thể cùng ngồi vào bàn đàm phán trước khi dùng đến vũ lực … ».
Thái độ kềm chế của tổng thống Mỹ John F. Kennedy và sự khôn ngoan của lãnh tụ Liên Xô, Nikita S. Khrushchev đã tránh cho nhân loại một thảm họa hạt nhân ở đầu thập niên 1960. Không chỉ là đối thủ của nhau, Kennedy-Khrushchev còn là những đồng minh trong nhiệm vụ gìn giữ hòa bình. Nhà sử học Georges Ayache trở lại với cuộc đấu trí giữa Nikita S. Khrushchev và John F. Kennedy trong tác phẩm Những cuộc đối đầu trong lịch sử của nhân loại. (Tạp chí phát lần đầu ngày 20/10/2016) Vào lúc quốc tế cảnh báo trước nguy cơ kịch bản chiến tranh lạnh tái diễn, vị lãnh tụ cuối cùng của Liên Bang Xô Viết, Michael Gorbatchev, lo ngại khi thấy Washington và Matxcơva đang « tiến gần tới lằn ranh đỏ ». Ngoại trưởng Đức Frank-Walter Steinmeier không lạc quan hơn khi cho rằng : tình hình hiện nay còn « nguy hiểm hơn cả so với thời kỳ chiến tranh lạnh ».Trong bối cảnh căng thẳng đó, đầu tháng 10/2016 dưới sự điều hành của Alexis Brezet và Vincent Tremolet de Villiers, hơn 20 nhà sử học, nghiên cứu, cựu nhân viên ngoại giao, nhà báo, nhà văn vừa cho ra mắt công chúng một tập hợp nói về 20 cuộc đối đầu đánh dấu lịch sử của nhân loại, từ thời Đại Đế Alexandre, hơn 300 năm trước Công Nguyên, cho đến cuộc song đấu Michael Gorbatchev - Boris Eltsine cuối thập niên 1980 đánh dấu ngày tàn của Liên Bang Xô Viết : Les Grands Duels qui ont fait le monde, Nhà Xuất Bản Perrin.Nổi bật hơn cả là cuộc đọ sức tay đôi giữa hai ông « K », Kennedy-Khrushchev ở vào đầu thập niên 1960, với đe dọa hạt nhân tiềm tàng, được Georges Ayache nhà sử học và cũng là một nhà ngoại giao kể lại.Vào mùa thu năm 1960, Hoa Kỳ chuẩn bị bầu lại tổng thống. Nixon hay Kennedy sẽ trở thành vị tổng thống thứ 35 trong lịch sử của nước Mỹ ? Điện Kremlin thận trọng theo dõi tình hình từ xa. Các cuộc thăm dò cho thấy, phó tổng thống Richard M. Nixon, ứng cử viên của đảng Cộng Hòa, một chính khách nổi tiếng chống cộng ở Mỹ, chiếm lợi thế so với thượng nghị sĩ John F. Kennedy của đảng Dân Chủ.Sói già và cừu non Tại Matxcơva, lên cầm quyền từ năm 1953, Nikita S. Khrushchev từng có dịp tiếp xúc với Nixon thực sự bất ngờ trước thắng lợi của Kennedy, một chính trị gia « còn quá trẻ để ngồi vào chiếc ghế tổng thống ». Mật vụ Liên Xô có một số thông tin về vị thượng nghị sĩ trẻ tuổi, nổi tiếng là « tay chơi » này : JFK là một cậu công tử con nhà giàu, tốt nghiệp đại học Harvard, đẹp như tài tử điện ảnh, nổi tiếng ăn chơi và dễ làm phụ nữ xiêu lòng.Kennedy, dành nhiều thời gian để du thuyền hơn là lui tới Thượng Viện. Mật vụ KGB còn nắm rõ cả hồ sơ bệnh lý của Kennedy : họ biết ông đã nhiều lần suýt chết, bị đau cột sống và mắc một chứng bệnh hiểm nghèo, phải chích cortisone với liều lượng mạnh để cầm cự.Theo lời tác giả, chỉ cần Mật vụ Liên Xô tung hồ sơ bệnh lý của Kennedy ra cho công chúng, là cũng đủ vĩnh viễn chôn vùi giấc mơ bước vào Nhà Trắng của thượng nghị sĩ bang Massachusetts. Đắc cử tháng 11/1960, John Fitzgerad Kennedy chính thức nhậm chức đầu tháng Giêng năm sau.Trong khi đó ở Matxcơva, tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản, Nikita Sergueievitch Khrushchev đã củng cố vị thế trên bàn cờ chính trị Liên Xô từ năm 1953, sau cái chết của Stalin. Xuất thân từ một gia đình nông dân, thủa trẻ Khrushchev từng lao động trong các lò rèn ở Donbass, miền đông Ukraina hiện nay, nhiều lần vào sinh ra tử trong các trận chiến trước khi từng bước thăng tiến trong guồng máy Đảng.Trên con đường thăng tiến đó, Nikita Sergueievitch Khrushchev đã từng bước qua không ít xác người. Dưới những năm tháng Stalin, ai ai cũng phải vận dụng mọi thủ đoạn, mánh khóe xảo quyệt để tồn tại. Sống sót được dưới gọng kềm của Stalin đã là một kỳ công, ngồi vào chiếc ghế của Stalin để còn vạch trần tội ác của Stalin cũng là những thành tích không kém.Nói cách khác, nếu như Jonh F. Kennedy, 43 tuổi, là một chính trị gia ít kinh nghiệm sống trong nhung lụa, phía bên kia võ đài, Nikita S. Khrushchev, 64 tuổi, là một con cáo già đã quá từng trải.Thượng đỉnh Vienna, chiến tranh tâm lý Kennedy-Khrushchev ? Dưới con mắt tinh đời của Khrushchev, Kennedy là một nhà chính trị tay mơ. Điều đã được chứng minh qua chiến dịch đổ bộ lên Vịnh Con Heo, Cuba tháng 4/1961. Chiến dịch đó là một thất bại ê chề của tình báo CIA với đồng thuận của tân chính quyền Kennedy, chống chế độ Fidel Castro.Từ điện Kremlin, Khrushchev lại càng thích thú khi thấy JFK phải cầu viện Nixon cố vấn trên hồ sơ Cuba, hay như hình ảnh trên bìa báo Life cho thấy một, Kennedy khép nép như cậu học trò đứng bên ông thầy, tướng Eisenhower sau một cuộc họp ở Camp David.Trong thời kỳ chiến tranh lạnh, Kennedy lên cầm quyền vào lúc quan hệ giữa Washington và Matxcơva xấu đi đáng kể sau vụ máy bay dọ thám U-2 của Mỹ bị phát hiện và bắn hạ trên bầu trời dãy núi Ural của Liên Xô (hồi tháng 5/1960), rồi kế tới là hồ sơ Cuba.Nhưng hơn bao giờ hết Washington và Matxcơva ý thức được là đôi bên cần nối lại đối thoại. Kennedy - Khrushchev dự trù họp thượng đỉnh tại Vienna, Áo vào tháng 6/1961.Nikita S. Khrushchev đến Vienna với quyết tâm « hỏi tội » Mỹ về vụ máy bay dọ thám U-2 và muốn chứng minh với quốc tế, Liên Xô là một siêu cường, ngang hàng với Mỹ. Đành là chưa giàu có như Mỹ, nhưng Liên Xô đã qua mặt Hoa Kỳ trong cuộc chạy đua chinh phục không gian.Theo nhà sử học và ngoại giao Georges Ayache, Khrushchev bằng mọi giá phải ghi được một bàn thắng tại Vienna về mặt ngoại giao để đánh lạc hướng công luận trong nước trước hàng loạt những khó khăn kinh tế. Chủ nhân điện Kremlin cũng biết rằng thành phần bảo thủ trong đảng chỉ chờ cơ hội để bắt Khrushchev « đền tội » sau khi đã hạ bệ Stalin.Không xem thường đối thủ nhưng Khrushchev nghĩ rằng, ông sẽ dễ dàng áp đảo được Kennedy, cái ông tổng thống « còn nhỏ tuổi hơn con trai » của mình.Về phía Kennedy, vị tổng thống trẻ tuổi này của nước Mỹ cũng cần một thắng lợi ngoại giao. Chẳng vậy mà, trước khi lên đường tới Vienna, Kennedy đã phải dừng chân ở Paris để tham khảo ý kiến tổng thống Pháp, vị lão tướng Charles de Gaulle.Thượng đỉnh Kennedy-Khrushchev mở ra trong hai ngày 03 và 04/06/1961 tại thủ đô nước Áo. Hơn 1.500 phóng viên quốc tế tập hợp về Vienna để đưa tin.Về hình thức, lãnh đạo hai nước họp kín với một dàn cố vấn trong bầu không khí « giá lạnh ». Như thông lệ, Khrushchev dùng những lời lẽ đao to búa lớn để hù dọa đối phương. Kennedy càng tỏ ra chừng mực và từ tốn chừng nào, Khrushchev lại càng lấn lướt chừng nấy. Thậm chí theo lời một người trong cuộc, Khrushchev « mắng » Kennedy như mắng trẻ con.Về nội dung thượng đỉnh Vienna, Kennedy muốn tập trung vào hồ sơ nguyên tử, Khrushchev sau khi dậy cho tổng thống Mỹ một bài học về thuyết Mác-Lênin, đòi Nhà Trắng giải quyết dứt điểm về quy chế của Tây Berlin, công nhận hai nước Đông và Tây Đức. Đây là lần thứ ba Matxcơva đòi Washington trở lại hồ sơ này.Với Liên Xô ốc đảo Tây Berlin giữa lòng nước Đông Đức cộng sản là một cái gai : sự phồn thịnh của Tây Berlin càng làm lộ rõ cách biệt về đời sống giữa hai khối Tự Do và Cộng Sản. Khoảng cách đó hủy hoại những nỗ lực tuyên truyền của khối Xã Hội Chủ Nghĩa.Kết thúc hai ngày họp, thượng đỉnh Vienna không đem lại một kết quả cụ thể nào. Trước khi ra về Khrushchev dọa Kennedy và phương Tây trước viễn cảnh nổ ra chiến tranh. Tổng thống Mỹ lễ phép đáp lời Chủ tịch Liên Xô : « Nếu như vậy thưa Ngài, thì chiến tranh sẽ xảy ra. Đó sẽ là một mùa đông buốt giá… »Rời Vienna, Khrushchev biết rõ ông đã áp đảo được đối phương và buông lời nhận xét về Kennedy như sau : « Hắn quá trẻ, chưa đủ già dặn, rất thông minh, nhưng quá nhu nhược ».JFK thì buột miệng than với các cộng tác viên là ông đã thực sự bị Khrushchev « xơi tái ». Nhưng qua cuộc chạm trán đó, Kennedy tin chắc tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản Liên Xô chỉ muốn « nắn gân » nước Mỹ : Matxcơva sẽ không khai chiến vì Berlin hay vì Đông Đức, bởi « có điên mới lao vào cuộc chiến » mà Khrushchev chắc chắn không phải là người điên.Kennedy không nhượng bộ tại Vienna lần này, nhưng Khrushchev hy vọng sẽ có cách « trị » ông tổng thống Mỹ còn non tay này. Matxcơva đợi cơ hội.Tháng 08/1961, điện Kremlin ngỡ rằng thời cơ đã đến. Trong đêm 12 rạng sáng ngày 13/08/1961, chính quyền Water Ulbricht bất đầu xây dựng bức tường « ô nhục » như để thách thức Washington. Căng thẳng Đông-Tây gia tăng thêm một nấc vào tháng 10 cùng năm khi chiến xa của Mỹ và Liên Xô « đối mặt » nhau trong nhiều giờ đồng hồ. Chỉ cần một tiếng súng, một sự cố nhỏ cũng đủ dẫn đến những hậu quả tai hại khôn lường.Không xảy ra chiến tranh, nhưng bức tường Berlin lại càng làm xấu thêm hình ảnh của Liên Xô trong công luận quốc tế.Khủng hoảng tên lửa Cuba Tại Washington Kennedy chịu áp lực của phe diều hâu chủ chiến. Ở Matxcơva, Khrushchev cũng không thoải mái hơn dưới sức ép của cơ quan Mật Vụ KGB và bên quân đội.Đầu năm 1962, viện cớ bảo vệ chế độ Castro ở Cuba, Liên Xô bí mật triển khai tên lửa, tàu ngầm, đưa quân sang sát cạnh lãnh thổ Hoa Kỳ. Kremlin thừa biết, sau thất bại ê chề ở Vịnh Con Heo, Mỹ không động chạm tới Cuba, nhưng Liên Xô muốn dùng lá bài Cuba để mặc cả với Mỹ về quy chế của Berlin. Tháng 10 cùng năm, kế hoạch của Liên Xô bị phát hiện.Tiếp theo đó là một cuộc khủng hoảng kéo dài trong 13 ngày. Tên lửa SS-4 của Liên Xô có sức công phá lớn gấp 200 lần so với quả bom đã thả xuống thành phố Hiroshima.Phe diều hâu chủ trương « ra tay trước » đối phương. Kennedy do dự và một lần nữa ông bị chỉ trích là « nhu nhược ». Trên thực tế, với Dean Rusk và Robert McNamara ở vị trí bộ trưởng Ngoại Giao và Quốc Phòng, JFK không « do dự hay yếu đuối ». Nhà Trắng nhìn thấy rõ nước cờ của điện Kremlin : triển khai tên lửa tại Cuba để mặc cả với phương Tây về Berlin. Kennedy nêu lên nghi vấn : Biết đâu, Liên Xô cũng e bom nguyên tử của Mỹ ?Còn tại Matxcơva, phe bảo thủ và diều hâu Liên Xô cũng dồn Khrushchev vào chân tường. Bên quân đội cũng chủ trương « đánh trước ».Ngày 22/10/1962 trong bài diễn văn để đời, tổng thống Kennedy chính thức thông báo phát hiện vũ khí của Nga tại Cuba, ban hành lệnh phong tỏa hòn đảo này. Không đi đến chiến tranh, nhưng thái độ của Mỹ không có chút gì là « nhu nhược ». Thông điệp của Nhà Trắng được chủ nhân điện Kremlin đón nhận như một tin vui. Khrushchev ý thức được rằng, Kennedy không tấn công ngay lập tức, có nghĩa là Washington tạm gác giải pháp quân sự sang một bên. Chiến tranh sẽ không xảy ra.Tối ngày hôm đó, Nikita S. Khrushchev an tâm đi xem hát : đó là buổi trình diễn của nam danh ca Mỹ Jerome Hines.Khác với Khrushchev, Kennedy không chơi đòn rung cây dọa khỉ, nhưng trong cuộc đọ sức tay đôi giữa hai ông « K », phần thắng đã nghiêng hẳn về phía Washington. Dù vậy Kennedy đã để ngỏ một cánh cửa, không để đối phương mất mặt.Sau một số các cuộc trao đổi trực tiếp, JFK lo ngại Khrushchev không hoàn toàn làm chủ tình hình ở Matxcơva. Đôi bên nhanh chóng tìm được thỏa thuận quy định Liên Xô rút vũ khí khỏi Cuba. Mỹ thì cam kết không động chạm đến chế độ Castro ở La Habana, và rút tên lửa Jupiter đặt tại Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ.Hạ màn Sau trận đối đầu kịch liệt đó, mở ra một thời kỳ « tan băng » - tiêu biểu nhất là đường dây điện thoại đỏ Hot Line giữa Nhà Trắng và điện Kremlin. Tổng thống Kennedy liên tục có những phát biểu hòa hoãn hướng về phía Liên Xô. Đổi lại, Khrushchev đã bằng lòng đàm phán với Mỹ về một thỏa thuận hạt nhân.Trong trên dưới một ngàn ngày tại Nhà Trắng, John F. Kennedy cùng với Nikita S. Khrushchev đã là tâm điểm trên sân khấu chính trị quốc tế, để rồi cả hai nhà lãnh đạo này đều bước vào hậu trường gần như cùng lúc.Tổng thống Mỹ, JFK bị ám sát tại Dallas tháng 11/1963. Tổng bí thư Đảng Cộng Sản Liên Xô Nikita S. Khrushchev qua đời năm 1971 trong sự quên lãng của công luận và mang theo niềm cay đắng : bảy năm trước đó, ông bị hạ bệ. Sự nghiệp của Khrushchev đã khép lại khi khủng hoảng tên lửa Cuba bước vào hồi kết.Nhà sử học Georges Ayache kết luận : Trong trên dưới một ngàn ngày ở cương vị tổng thống Hoa Kỳ, Kennedy đã chứng minh ông là một vị nguyên thủ có đầu óc thực tiễn, một nhà lãnh đạo bình tĩnh và quyết tâm. Những đức tính đó của Kennedy càng làm lộ rõ hình ảnh một Nikita Khrushchev thùng rỗng kêu to.Ngày Kennedy qua đời, phu nhân tổng bí thư Khrushchev đã bất ngờ khóc khi bà đến tòa đại sứ Mỹ ở Matxcơva ký sổ tang. Một tuần sau, bà Kennedy, gửi thiệp cảm ơn đến lãnh đạo Liên Xô với lời lẽ cảm động và bất ngờ không kém. Jacqueline Kennedy viết : Từng là những đối thủ của nhau, nhưng hai ông Kennedy và Khrushchev lại là những « đồng minh trước quyết tâm để thế giới không bị phá hủy (…) Các vị đã tôn trọng lẫn nhau và đã có thể tìm ra một tiếng nói chung (…) Những vĩ nhân ý thức được rằng, họ cần kềm chế, còn những kẻ xoàng xĩnh thường bị nỗi sợ hãi và sự kiêu ngạo thôi thúc (…) Phải chi mà trong tương lai, những con người tầm thường cũng có thể cùng ngồi vào bàn đàm phán trước khi dùng đến vũ lực … ».
Join our host, Robert McNamara, on Today's Ag as he catches up with Pat Karst, who just got back from the ASFRMA annual meeting! They chat about the exciting crop results, recent sales, and all the great things Pat learned at the meeting. It's a fun and informative conversation you won't want to miss!
NSFW: This episode contains strong language that may be offensive to some.The current political climate is undoubtedly tough for the LGBTQIA+ community. How do we persevere in a society where so many would like to see queer people go back in the closet? This week on Coming Out & Beyond: LGBTQIA+ Stories, host Anne-Marie Zanzal taps into the wisdom of individuals who have been out for several decades, discussing how to push through adversity and thrive. Anne-Marie is joined by her wife, Tonda McKay, who came out in the early '80s, Pam Nuchols, LCSW and therapist, and Robert McNamara, retired GM and founder of Franklin TN Pride. You'll here the group talk about their coming out stories, loss in the time of the AIDS crisis, emerging from conservative faith traditions, and how they've come through times that are even tougher than what we face in the present day.Robert's coming out song is Don't You Want Me by The Human League: https://youtu.be/uPudE8nDog0?si=uC0pHYXId_qrFsm0Pam's coming out song is Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon: https://youtu.be/zpOULjyy-n8?si=Mx9nk8yCXF8cwk9sand Pam also recommends reading Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/165395.Rubyfruit_JungleAnne-Marie and Tonda mentioned a song by Chappell Roan, "Good Luck, Babe": https://youtu.be/6ENzV125lWc?si=admdyeKj1VdmNsZyTonda recommends reading "Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay worlds" by Judy Grahn: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64767.Another_Mother_TongueThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
NSFW: This episode contains strong language that may be offensive to some.The current political climate is undoubtedly tough for the LGBTQIA+ community. How do we persevere in a society where so many would like to see queer people go back in the closet? This week on Coming Out & Beyond: LGBTQIA+ Stories, host Anne-Marie Zanzal taps into the wisdom of individuals who have been out for several decades, discussing how to push through adversity and thrive. Anne-Marie is joined by her wife, Tonda McKay, who came out in the early '80s, Pam Nuchols, LCSW and therapist, and Robert McNamara, retired GM and founder of Franklin TN Pride. You'll here the group talk about their coming out stories, loss in the time of the AIDS crisis, emerging from conservative faith traditions, and how they've come through times that are even tougher than what we face in the present day.Robert's coming out song is Don't You Want Me by The Human League: https://youtu.be/uPudE8nDog0?si=uC0pHYXId_qrFsm0Pam's coming out song is Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon: https://youtu.be/zpOULjyy-n8?si=Mx9nk8yCXF8cwk9sand Pam also recommends reading Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/165395.Rubyfruit_JungleAnne-Marie and Tonda mentioned a song by Chappell Roan, "Good Luck, Babe": https://youtu.be/6ENzV125lWc?si=admdyeKj1VdmNsZyTonda recommends reading "Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay worlds" by Judy Grahn: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64767.Another_Mother_TongueThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
There are few men politically or intellectually smarter than President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary Robert McNamara. So how did LBJ and McNamara screw up America's involvement in Vietnam so tragically? According to Peter Osnos, the author of LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail, it might have been because the two men were, in their own quite different ways, too smart. For Osnos - a legendary figure in American publishing who, amongst many other things, edited Donald Trump's Art of the Deal - the catastrophe of America's war in Vietnam is a parable about imperial hubris and overreach. According to Osnos, who has access to much previously unpublished material from McNamara, The Best and the Brightest orchestrated the worst and dumbest episode in American foreign policy. Peter Osnos began his journalism career in 1965 as an assistant to I. F. .Stone on his weekly newsletter. Between 1966–1984 Osnos was a reporter and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and served as the newspaper's foreign and national editor. From 1984-1996 he was Vice President, Associate Publisher, and Senior Editor at Random House and Publisher of Random House's Times Books division. In 1997, he founded PublicAffairs. He served as Publisher and CEO until 2005, and was a consulting editor until 2020 when he and his wife, Susan Sherer Osnos, launched Platform Books LLC. Among the authors he has published and/or edited are — former President Jimmy Carter, Rosalyn Carter, Gen. Wesley Clark, Clark Clifford, former President Bill Clinton, Paul Farmer, Earvin (Magic) Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Sam Donaldson, Kenneth Feinberg, Annette Gordon Reed, Meg Greenfield, Dorothy Height, Don Hewitt, Molly Ivins, Vernon Jordan, Ward Just, Stanley Karnow, Wendy Kopp, Charles Krauthammer, Brian Lamb, Jim Lehrer, Scott McClellan, Robert McNamara, Charles Morris, Peggy Noonan, William Novak, Roger Mudd. Former President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill, Nancy Reagan, Andy Rooney, Morley Safer, Natan Sharansky, George Soros, Susan Swain, President Donald Trump, Paul Volcker, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Nobel peace prize Winner Muhammad Yunus, as well as journalists from America's leading publications and prominent scholars. Osnos has also been a commentator and host for National Public Radio and a contributor to publications including Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. He wrote the Platform column for the Century Foundation, the Daily Beast and The Atlantic.com from 2006-2014. He has also served as Chair of the Trade Division of the Association of American Publishers and on the board of Human Rights Watch. From 2005-2009, he was executive director of The Caravan Project, funded by the MacArthur and Carnegie Foundations, which developed a plan for multi-platform publishing of books. He was the Vice-Chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review from 2007-2012. He is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations. He is a graduate of Brandeis and Columbia Universities. He lives in New York City, with his wife Susan, a consultant to human rights and philanthropic organizations. His children are Evan L.R. Osnos and Katherine Sanford. There are five grandchildren.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Tuesday, October 8, 2024 Hoover Institution, Stanford University The Hoover Institution's Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative presents To War or Not to War: Vietnam and the Sigma Wargames on Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 2:00PM PT. In 1964, America was slowly marching towards war in Vietnam. But what if that war could have been fought differently or avoided altogether? The Sigma Games, a series of politico-military wargames run by the Pentagon's Joint Staff in the 1960s, sought to understand the unfolding conflict in Southeast Asia. These games, which involved top figures from the Johnson Administration—including National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, Air Force General Curtis LeMay, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Earle Wheeler—offer a chillingly accurate forecast of the war's potential trajectory. Choose your character for an immersive experience. See the game unfold through the eyes of pivotal figures such as John McCone, Curtis LeMay, Earle Wheeler, and McGeorge Bundy in this interactive event. This event introduces the games and turns to a panel of historians to explore the Sigma Wargames, their prescient warnings, and why these early insights failed to shape the Johnson Administration's decision-making, ultimately leading to one of America's most costly conflicts. The conversation, while a look into a key set of games at a historical moment in American foreign policy, says something more broadly at the impact of wargames on US foreign and defense policy as well as how influence is created (and hijacked) within strategic decision making. PANELISTS H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. McMaster holds a PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was an assistant professor of history at the US Military Academy. He is author of the bestselling books Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World and Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam. In August 2024, McMaster released his most recent book, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House. His many essays, articles, and book reviews on leadership, history, and the future of warfare have appeared in The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, National Review, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. McMaster is the host of Battlegrounds: Vital Perspectives on Today's Challenges and is a regular on GoodFellows, both produced by the Hoover Institution. He is a Distinguished University Fellow at Arizona State University. Mai Elliott is the author of The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family, a personal and family memoir which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and RAND in Southeast Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era. She served as an advisor to Ken Burns and Lynn Novick for their PBS documentary on “The Vietnam War” and featured in seven of its ten episodes. She recently contributed a chapter analyzing “The South Vietnamese Home Front” for the soon to be published Cambridge University Press 3-volume work on the Vietnam War. Mai Elliott was born in Vietnam and grew up in Hanoi and Saigon. She attended French schools in Vietnam and is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. (She also writes under the name of Duong Van Mai Elliott). Mark Moyar is the director of the Center for Military History and Strategy at Hillsdale College, where he also holds the William P. Harris Chair of Military History. During the Trump administration, Dr. Moyar was a political appointee at the U.S. Agency for International Development, serving as the Director of the Office of Civilian–Military Cooperation. Previously, he directed the Project on Military and Diplomatic History at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and worked as a national security consultant. He has taught at the U.S. Marine Corps University, the Joint Special Operations University, and Texas A&M University. He is author of eight books, of which the most recent is Masters of Corruption: How the Federal Bureaucracy Sabotaged the Trump Presidency. He holds a B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Cambridge. MODERATOR Jacquelyn Schneider is the Hargrove Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Director of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative, and an affiliate with Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology, national security, and political psychology with a special interest in cybersecurity, autonomous technologies, wargames, and Northeast Asia. She was previously an Assistant Professor at the Naval War College as well as a senior policy advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Dr. Schneider was a 2020 winner of the Perry World House-Foreign Affairs Emerging Scholars Policy Prize. She is also the recipient of a Minerva grant on autonomy (with co-PIs Michael Horowitz, Julia Macdonald, and Allen Dafoe), a University of Denver grant to study public responses to the use of drones (with Macdonald), and a grant from the Stanton Foundation to study networks, cyber, and nuclear stability through wargames. Dr. Schneider is an active member of the defense policy community with previous positions at the Center for a New American Security and the RAND Corporation. Before beginning her academic career, she spent six years as an Air Force officer in South Korea and Japan and is currently a reservist assigned to US Space Systems Command. She has a BA from Columbia University, MA from Arizona State University, and PhD from George Washington University.
Hello and welcome to The Rob Burgess Show. I am, of course, your host, Rob Burgess. On this, our 262nd episode, our returning guest is Brian VanDeMark. You first heard Brian VanDeMark on Episode 134 of the podcast. Brian VanDeMark grew up and attended college in Texas, went to graduate school in California, and now lives in Maryland. He teaches history at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, where he has been a member of its History Department since 1990. The author of several books on American history, he co-authored Robert McNamara's #1 best-selling Vietnam memoir, “In Retrospect,” which became the basis of Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning documentary film, "The Fog of War." His book, “Road to Disaster: A New History of America's Descent into Vietnam” was published by HarperCollins in 2018. His latest book, “Kent State: An American Tragedy” was published by W. W. Norton & Company in August 2024. Subscribe to my Substack: therobburgessshow.substack.com/ Follow me on Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/robaburg.bsky.social Follow me on Mastodon: newsie.social/@therobburgessshow Check out my Linktree: linktr.ee/therobburgessshow
Author and publisher Peter Osnos talks about "LBJ and McNamara," a book-length Substack serial and soon to be book about President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's handling of the Vietnam War. Mr. Osnos, Saigon correspondent for the Washington Post during the war, also talks about publishing Robert McNamara's memoir "In Retrospect" and the meetings he had with McNamara in preparation for that book, which Mr. Osnos recorded. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Author and publisher Peter Osnos talks about "LBJ and McNamara," a book-length Substack serial and soon to be book about President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's handling of the Vietnam War. Mr. Osnos, Saigon correspondent for the Washington Post during the war, also talks about publishing Robert McNamara's memoir "In Retrospect" and the meetings he had with McNamara in preparation for that book, which Mr. Osnos recorded. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
5 Hours PG-13Here are episodes 6-10 of the Cold War series with Thomas777.The 'Cold War' Pt. 6 - Ho Chi Minh and the Origin of the Vietnam War w/ Thomas777The 'Cold War' Pt. 7 - Robert McNamara, Vietnam, and a World Turning 'Red' w/ Thomas777The Cold War Pt. 8 - How the On the Ground Battles in Vietnam Were Fought w/ Thomas777The 'Cold War' Pt. 9 - Battling the Khmer Rouge w/ Thomas777The 'Cold War' Pt. 10 - The Vietnam War Comes to an End w/ Thomas777Thomas' SubstackThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.
On May 4, 1970, during a rally on the campus of Kent State University opposing expanding the Vietnam War into Cambodia by United States military forces, as well as protesting the draft and the Ohio National Guard's presence on campus, all it took was 13 seconds for 28 National Guard soldiers to fire 67 rounds, killing four and wounding nine unarmed college students. One of the nine injured suffered permanent paralysis, and students Allison Krause, 19, Jeffrey Miller, 20, Sandra Scheuer, 20, and William Schroeder, 19, were killed. Students had been protesting on campus since May 1, and after the Kent State shootings, immediate and massive outrage sparked at college campuses across the country. More than four million students participated in organized walkouts at hundreds of colleges, universities, and even high schools, and the shootings made the United States' role in the Vietnam War even more contentious. It was a loss of innocence, and a Pulitzer Prize winning photo of a young woman wailing over the body of Jeffrey Miller summed up the feelings of a generation. In the photo, she seems to silently scream “Why? Why? Why?” After the incident, eight of the shooters were charged and ultimately acquitted in a bench trial. The Kent State massacre was a cultural moment that shook the nation, and, as Brian VanDeMark writes in his brilliant new book Kent State: An American Tragedy, out tomorrow, “If you want to know when the Sixties died, they died on May 4, 1970, right there and then, at 12:24 in the afternoon.” Today on the show, Brian and I discuss so much, including what Kent State represented on the whole for America, its legacy, and what we learned from it. Brian teaches history at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis and is the author of several books on American history, including co-authoring Robert McNamara's bestselling Vietnam memoir, In Retrospect, which became the basis of the Academy Award-winning documentary The Fog of War. Take a listen to this fascinating conversation with him about a moment that changed history forever. Kent State: An American Tragedy by Brian VanDeMark
Eric and Eliot host James Graham Wilson, an historian in the Department of State's Historian's Office to discuss his new book America's Cold Warrior: Paul Nitze and National Security From Roosevelt to Reagan. They discuss Nitze's background as an America First supporter between the wars, his anti-Semitism and his family's connection to the Black Tom sabotage incident during World War I. They talk about his pioneering work as a national security professional on the Strategic bombing survey during and after World War II as well as his role in drafting NSC 68 during the Truman Administration, his vexed personal relations with George Kennan (who he succeeded as Director of Policy Planning at State), Henry Kissinger, and Robert McNamara. His relentless focus on the strategic nuclear balance and the character traits that perhaps kept him from ever becoming the Cabinet Officer he longed to become while nonetheless serving and influencing national security policy for more than 40 years. They close noting that his concerns about nuclear self-deterrence seem eerily relevant in today's circumstances of great power competition. https://a.co/d/5thvl34 Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
Nuclear weapons are likely to be around for a long time to come – and the predicaments they create for world leaders are unlikely to be easily solved. Read by Helen Lloyd. Image: President John F. Kennedy with Robert McNamara during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Credit: RBM Vintage Images / Alamy Stock Photo
John's guest this week is Peter Osnos, nationally known and respected journalist and publisher. They talk over Peter's new internet serialized book, Robert McNamara, Lyndon Johnson and the War We Could not Win. It is a powerful narrative of how brilliant ant patriotic people could bring us into a war that they soon knew we could not win, costing the lives of 58,500 Americans and untold others.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Robert McNamara has been known in the Prospect community for three generations. Since 1974, he has dedicated his life to serving the community as a school bus driver. The CBC's Magda Bastida spoke with McNamara about what 50 years of service means to him.
In conversation with Wil Haygood Paul Hendrickson's books include Sons of Mississippi, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934–1961, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War, a National Book Award finalist. A creative writing teacher at the University of Pennsylvania for more than 25 years and a feature writer at The Washington Post for the two decades before that, he is the recipient of writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lyndhurst Foundation, among other institutions. In Fighting the Night, Hendrickson tells the story of his father's World War II service as a nighttime fighter pilot and the sacrifices he, his family, and his generation made on behalf of their country. Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Wil Haygood has, over a storied 30-year career, worked at the Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and as a globetrotting investigative reporter. He is most famous for his 2008 Washington Post article, ''A Butler Well Served by This Election,'' about the White House steward who bore witness to some of 20th century America's most notable events and figures. He later expanded the article into a bestselling book that was adapted into the critically acclaimed film The Butler, starring Forest Whitaker. Haygood is also the author of Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World and popular biographies of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and Sammy Davis, Jr. Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 5/16/2024)
This term is shaping up to be a big one for free speech cases. The Court heard arguments in three such cases this week and handed down decisions in other cases involving public officials blocking people on social media, the FBI's No-Fly-List, and the meaning of the word "and." Your hosts discuss those cases, and then GianCarlo interviews Robert McNamara of the Institute for Justice about his career defending property rights. Last up, trivia is Justices in Uniform, part 2.Follow us on X @scotus101 and @tzsmith. And please send questions, comments, or ideas for future episodes to scotus101@heritage.org.Don't forget to leave a 5-star rating.Stay caffeinated and opinionated with a SCOTUS 101 mug. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Robert McNamara briefs LBJ on Vietnam; Barry Goldwater speaks out; Robert Kennedy goes on the Jack Paar Show; Malcolm X defects from the Nation of Islam; the Celtics set another record. Newscaster: Joe Rubenstein. Support this project on Patreon!
Huss Banai of Indiana University is an individual Brent considers himself incredibly fortunate to call a friend. He joins the Hayseed Scholar podcast to tell his amazing story and journey through life and academia. Huss was born in Iran and grew up in Northern Tehran until his family moved to Canada when he was 15. In Iran, Huss and his family experienced the war with Iraq, the fallout from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (his father worked with Afghan refugees during that time), and with a dad who worked for a business promoting Japanese Exports, electronics and video games. The transition to living in Canada was a bit bumpy for Huss until he had a key bit of counsel and guidance from a high school teacher. Huss talks about going to York University as an undergrad, working on the set of The Fog of War with Errol Morris and Robert McNamara, his experiences as a Master's student at LSE and working on the editorial team of Millennium, and pursuing a PhD at Brown University. He talks about his experiences on the market, working at Occidental and now Indiana, his approach to writing, his love of gardening, and more!
Don't miss our newsletter! Mike and Jake host defense industry legend Norm Augustine in a rare interview! He started as an aeronautical engineer in the 1950s and rose to become the first CEO of Lockheed Martin, before leaving it all. He lived through the 1980s defense industry heyday, wrote a hilarious book called ‘Augustine's Laws ' and led the industry through a massive consolidation in the early 1990s after the infamous ‘Last Supper.' This is a first-hand account of how it all went down—he was in the room when it happened. Norm shares his professional experiences and some amazing personal stories—like how he almost bought Northrop Grumman. This is an interview you don't want to miss. If you need any more reasons to listen, his resume and achievements are so incredible they sound made up: - Co-founded In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA - Chairman of the Red Cross - President of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics - President of the Boy Scouts of America - Chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association - President and Chairman of the Association of the United States Army - Chairman of the National Academy of Engineering - Served 16 years on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology - traveled to 130 countries - holds 34 honorary degrees - received dozens of accolades, including the Pentagon's highest civilian decoration, the Distinguished Civilian Service Award---FIVE TIMES. For those interested in #defense #military #business leadership ---- Links • Sign up for our amazing newsletter! • Support us on Patreon! • Jake Chapman X (@vc) • Mike Benitez (Linked In) ---- Follow us on... • Instagram • Facebook • X (Twitter) • LinkedIn • Website ---- Show Notes (01:06) intro (03:48) 1950's at Boeing & Douglas (04:59) Sputnik (05:45) becoming Under Secretary of the Army (08:59) working for Robert McNamara (14:24) Martin Marietta (15:47) Space shuttle story (22:23) 1980's defense industry hey day (23:49) $600 roll of tape (29:25) Augustine's Laws (40:04) The Last Supper (51:04) The industry consolidates in the 1990s (54:17) The ramifications today (1:02:12) How Norm became CEO of Lockheed Martin (1:05:34) Norm almost bought Northrop Grumman? (1:13:41) How Lockheed Martin got its name (1:16:16) the lawsuit (1:20:32) Why Norm left the defense industry (1:25:12) Norm's passion now (1:26:18) 2 life-changing encounters (1:29:21) A call from the CIA leads to creating In-Q-Tel (1:36:44) outro
Steak Mtn (Christopher Norris) did the art for several Against Me! records including this one. We talk about the album White Crosses, the revolution being a lie, collaborating on art with Laura, Christopher's not a fan of anarcho-bucket music, getting that Warner Bros. money, this album has sheen but it also has teeth, the iconic Transgender Dysphoria Blues meat-cube album cover, scanning porn magazines and melting them in Photoshop, major-label tinkering, Laura being a teenage anarchist, The Ocean is an Against Me! song from the future, White Crosses is not pop-punk; it's pop-rock, more Florida talk, Robert McNamara's son is a farmer and I interviewed him once, Christopher sat on a flight with the manager who was suing the band, writing a book is hard, and he's not an artist nor is he an author, but he did design this record cover and you can buy his novel, The Holy Day, now. steakmtn.com https://www.rosebooks.co/ twitter.com/steakmtn twitter.com/routinelayup Email the show: delugepodcast@gmail.com Support the show: patreon.com/afterthedeluge --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/afterthedeluge/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/afterthedeluge/support
00:35 The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn, take 1. Ki maradt még halhatatlanul élve? A meghalt jobbkéz. Warren és Charlie évszázados barátsága. Elon Musk, az egyik véglet. Amancio Ortega, a másik véglet. 04:50 Kissinger és a hard power. Kissinger és a csajok. Akkor már inkább Serge Gainsbourg. Kissinger néhány apróbb hibája. Kambodzsa bombázása. Pinochetről már hallottál? 10:06 Kissinger és a bocsánatkérés. Robert McNamara és a háború köde. Hitler halála és a taps. A maja népirtás szükségtelensége. Kissinger és a Vörös Khmerek. A Rolling Stone nekrológja. 15:36 Shane MacGowan és Palotai Zsolt. General Levy: Incredible. Roni Size: Brown Paper Bag. 19:52 DJ Palotai kulturális jelentősége. Palotai, a kétfélé DJ., 23:52 Magyarország, a drumandbass-nagyhatalom. Palotai szomorú RTL-es interjúja. A Shane MacGowan-doksi. Ezt nem mernéd a Dropkick Murphys szemébe mondani! Shane MacGowan 1998-ban és 2003-ban is volt a Szigeten. 29:11 Shane Macgowan és a régi jó Írország. Zuhan az ír alkoholfogyasztás. Zuhan a lengyel templombajárási kedv és a templomi esküvők száma. 34:35 A csősál dicsérete. 36:12 A kínai konyha visszatér. A kínai késügyesség és alapanyaghiány. A kibaszott amur! 40:58 Ferran Adriá köszönetet mond Maónak. A széles kárász pusztulása. Sárkány kút majorság és tea. 45:01 Honnan rendeljünk karácsonyi halászlevet? Természetesen a Rév csárdából. Sörfőzés az erkélyen elveszett kovásszal. 46:31 Te láttad a nicaraguai Miss Universe-botrányt? Persze, megírtam. Bianca Jagger, a nicaraguai szupermodell-filantróp. Bukele nagy trükkje. Rosario Murillo, a nicaraguai first lady és alelnök. 52:36 VI. Mohamed különös élete. Lou Bega marokkói kalandjai és érdekes családfája. Komár László: Mambo Lackó. A Csepregi-bélyeg. 59:11 Az arab hercegek nyugati ébredése. Don Bigg. Raszputyin befolyása és fasza. 66:03 The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn, take 2. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On Saturday November 9th, fans rioted at Roosevelt Field Raceway in Long Island, battling police and setting fires. At least fifteen were hurt and the head of security died of a heart attack during the riot. Sunday November 10th was the evening before Veteran's Day. On NBC, Frank McGee signed on for Monitor with a salute to the holiday. Andrew Pearson had correspondence from Vietnam, while President Kennedy spent much of the weekend in New York City. On this same day, Black Muslim activist Malcolm X delivered what would become a widely re-quoted speech to the Northern Negro Leadership Conference at the King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit. His message was one of revolution. He heavily criticized civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., who he said sold out and added that the March on Washington was "nothing but a circus, with clowns and all... white and black clowns." The next morning President Kennedy and his family flew to the white house. The President and John Jr. went to Arlington National Cemetery to take part in Veterans Day Ceremonies. Meanwhile, The first interplanetary probe in the Soviet Union's Zond program, Kosmos 21, failed to escape Earth orbit after rocket misfire and a failure of proper altitude control. On November 12th, The President met with Portuguese and Uruguayan Ambassadors before hosting an off the record meeting on Cuba that included Robert Kennedy, Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara. He also signed off on National Security Memorandum 271, a then-secret memo to NASA Administrator James E. Webb, telling him "to assume personally the initiative and central responsibility" to develop specific technical proposals "for broader cooperation between the U.S. and the USSR in outer space, including cooperation in lunar landing programs." On Wednesday, November 13th, at 11:15PM, Jean Shepherd signed on from WOR talking about protests, intellectuals, and angry demagogues. Two days after this broadcast, on Friday November 15th, 1963, seven days before President Kennedy's scheduled visit to Dallas, Democratic Party leader Baxton Bryant sent an angry telegram to President Kennedy complaining that Democratic supporters were being shut out of the planned November 22nd luncheon by Dallas Republicans who were in control of the Dallas Citizens Council. The plea was for the President to do something or face a boycott by his most loyal supporters. A motorcade from Dallas Love Field to downtown Dallas was arranged for the Kennedys after another Bryant complaint. That evening, the President flew to Palm Beach, Florida.
In “The Pigeon Tunnel”, Errol Morris has crafted a career-culminating work. Morris skillfully deploys and redeploys: the revelatory recreations that he has been known for since “The Thin Blue Line”; an interview with a slippery subject that surpasses that even of “The Fog of War” subject Robert McNamara; and the intellectual curiosity on display in “Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control.” He sharpens them all, reflects back on them, and yet throws it all into the pale of “productive ontological uncertainty”. Errol joins Mike to discuss the life and career of David Cornwell, better known by his pen name, John LeCarré. In Cornwell Morris finds his ultimate subject: an avowed, unrepentant fabulist . At its core, much like the memoir that Cornwell wrote with which the film shares a title, is the insight that his spy novels are maybe even more influenced by his childhood–his con man father, his missing mother–then the few years he spent in the intelligence game. And always, behind both his work as well as Morris' is the worry–fear? belief? assurance?–that the final room, the ultimate safe, the culminating tunnel that haunts his work is quite bereft of any clarifying meaning. “The Pigeon Tunnel” can now be viewed on Apple+ Follow: @errolmorris on twitter @topdocspod on Instagram and twitter The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix
Justin Joseph Hall is an award-winning, multilingual multimedia director and founder of Fourwind Films and Quatre-Vents. His work has been acquired by major television networks such as HBO and he's worked as a lead creative on projects that received awards at The Emmys, TriBeCa Film Festival, Brooklyn Film Festival, and more. Our screening resumed back at Fourwind Films' headquarters. For his short, Justin brought his short series, Marcellus Hall an Artist in New York City. The five episode season has won six awards and been nominated for many more around the world. The documentary is of New Yorker Illustrator Marcellus Hall who also wrote the song Life Is Still Sweet that inspired Float On performed by Modest Mouse. We screened the entire series back to back and served white and yellow cheese with steak in conjunction with the series. The feature Justin chose inspired his series with a one-on-one interview that endures the entire documentary. It was Errol Morris' Oscar winning Fog of War where Robert McNamara goes through thought processes of military decisions during major wars of the United States of America. We served a juicy homemade Vietnamese Beef And Lettuce Curry during the screening. To learn more about Justin Joseph Hall, sign up for Fourwind Films newsletter. Credits: Host - Justin Joseph Hall Production & Event Space - Fourwind Films Post-Production - Quatre-Vents Event Producer - Laura Davi Editor - Billie Jo Laitinen Sound Mixer - Hans Bilger The theme song of Season 7 is New Tires by Silent Partner.
Over the course of a career focused on political media, Ed Blakely helped innovate within Republican politics that led to the modernization of the media arms of campaign committees of both parties. After a stint in US Amry intelligence, Ed spent nearly 20 years at the NRCC before joining the GOP media firm of Smith & Harroff. In this conversation, Ed talks his efforts to modernize political media at the NRCC, his favorite story of filming President Reagan in the Oval Office, memories from John McCain's first US Senate race in 1986, and much more across an incredibly interesting and influential career in politics. IN THIS EPISODEEd grows up in Hawaii after his father dies in WWII…The somewhat famous (if confidential) film that Ed produced after being drafted into the US Army…Ed's brush with fame as the youngest disc jockey in Hawaii…How Ed's path led to political media at the NRCC…Some of Ed's favorite stories of filming ads with President Reagan in the Oval Office…Ed talks the media innovations he brought to the NRCC that ultimately helped modernize the operations of both parties…Why Ed came back to the NRCC after being at a private agency for over a decade…Ed's memories of Newt Gingrich's ascent in the House GOP…Why Ed left the NRCC after more than a decade in the mid 80s & where he landed…Ed helps elect John McCain in 1986 in his first race for US Senate…Ed gives an impromptu history lesson of jingles in political TV ads…Ed talks his approach to fostering new Republican media talent that paid dividends…Ed's stints in the public sector… AND Creighton Abrams, Roger Ailes, Army Intelligence, Bailey-Deardorff, Baltimore, Katja Bullock, Jay Bryant, Edward Butler, Tom Delay, Bob Ehrlich, the fickle finger of fate, Gerald Ford, Barry Goldwater, Bobby Goodman, Peter Hannaford, Denny Hastert, Humphrey Browning MacDougall, Jim Innocenzi, LBJ, JFK, kinescope, The Lincoln Memorial, Bob Livingston, Robin Luke, Robert McNamara, Morning in America, Chris Mottola, Oahu, the Pentagon, Chip Pickering, radio actualities, Hal Riney, Santa Monica, slow boats, Smith & Harroff, Olympia Snowe, The Sound of Music, speech modules, Steven Spielberg, John Sununu, The Tuesday Team, USC, Guy Vander Jagt, The Washington Post, Watergate, Henry Waxman, whistlestops, Don Young … & more!
Deborah Shapley had a distinguished 30-year career as a journalist, serving as a reporter for the weekly journal, Science, and as the Washington Bureau Chief for Nature. She is the author of four books, the best known of which is Promise and Power: the Life and Times of Robert McNamara, published on Little Brown in 1993. She is the granddaughter of Harlow and Martha Shapley and is the writer, editor and publisher of the online blog Harlow Shapley Project. I found Deborah's recent post about her grandmother entitled, Martha Shapley, astronomer, fascinating. Martha was a very able mathematician who was instrumental in her husband's early work on galactic structure and also published papers on her own. But her career was sidelined by the pressures of having five children and supporting her husband's role as Director of the Harvard Observatory. Martha Shapley's work and the legacy of women astronomers is the topic of this episode of The Interviews. Support the show
Cruelly nicknamed McNamara's Morons, Project 100,000 was an initiative started under—you guessed it—Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War. In this project, over 320,000 men were either drafted or volunteered for service, nearly all of whom failed the Armed Forces Qualification Test, which is used to determine basic eligibility for military service. Project 100,000 inductees placed in the lower 10th to 30th percentiles of the test, referred to as Category IV. Normally, candidates who place in Category IV are deemed unsuitable for military service and are told to return to civilian life. Project 100,000, however, was an experiment to see whether military entry requirements could be lowered.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/ZeroBlog30
We continue our miniseries on the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, with a look at the films released in 1988. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. On this episode, we finally continue with the next part of our look back at the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, specifically looking at 1988. But before we get there, I must issue another mea culpa. In our episode on the 1987 movies from Miramax, I mentioned that a Kiefer Sutherland movie called Crazy Moon never played in another theatre after its disastrous one week Oscar qualifying run in Los Angeles in December 1987. I was wrong. While doing research on this episode, I found one New York City playdate for the film, in early February 1988. It grossed a very dismal $3200 at the 545 seat Festival Theatre during its first weekend, and would be gone after seven days. Sorry for the misinformation. 1988 would be a watershed year for the company, as one of the movies they acquired for distribution would change the course of documentary filmmaking as we knew it, and another would give a much beloved actor his first Academy Award nomination while giving the company its first Oscar win. But before we get to those two movies, there's a whole bunch of others to talk about first. Of the twelve movies Miramax would release in 1988, only four were from America. The rest would be a from a mixture of mostly Anglo-Saxon countries like the UK, Canada, France and Sweden, although there would be one Spanish film in there. Their first release of the new year, Le Grand Chemin, told the story of a timid nine-year-old boy from Paris who spends one summer vacation in a small town in Brittany. His mother has lodged the boy with her friend and her friend's husband while Mom has another baby. The boy makes friends with a slightly older girl next door, and learns about life from her. Richard Bohringer, who plays the friend's husband, and Anémone, who plays the pregnant mother, both won Cesars, the French equivalent to the Oscars, in their respective lead categories, and the film would be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1987 by the National Board of Review. Miramax, who had picked up the film at Cannes several months earlier, waited until January 22nd, 1988, to release it in America, first at the Paris Theatre in midtown Manhattan, where it would gross a very impressive $41k in its first three days. In its second week, it would drop less than 25% of its opening weekend audience, bringing in another $31k. But shortly after that, the expected Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film did not come, and business on the film slowed to a trickle. But it kept chugging on, and by the time the film finished its run in early June, it had grossed $541k. A week later, on January 29th, Miramax would open another French film, Light Years. An animated science fiction film written and directed by René Laloux, best known for directing the 1973 animated head trip film Fantastic Planet, Light Years was the story of an evil force from a thousand years in the future who begins to destroy an idyllic paradise where the citizens are in perfect harmony with nature. In its first three days at two screens in Los Angeles and five screens in the San Francisco Bay Area, Light Years would gross a decent $48,665. Miramax would print a self-congratulating ad in that week's Variety touting the film's success, and thanking Isaac Asimov, who helped to write the English translation, and many of the actors who lent their vocal talents to the new dub, including Glenn Close, Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Grey, Christopher Plummer, and Penn and Teller. Yes, Teller speaks. The ad was a message to both the theatre operators and the major players in the industry. Miramax was here. Get used to it. But that ad may have been a bit premature. While the film would do well in major markets during its initial week in theatres, audience interest would drop outside of its opening week in big cities, and be practically non-existent in college towns and other smaller cities. Its final box office total would be just over $370k. March 18th saw the release of a truly unique film. Imagine a film directed by Robert Altman and Bruce Beresford and Jean-Luc Godard and Derek Jarman and Franc Roddam and Nicolas Roeg and Ken Russell and Charles Sturridge and Julien Temple. Imagine a film that starred Beverly D'Angelo, Bridget Fonda in her first movie, Julie Hagerty, Buck Henry, Elizabeth Hurley and John Hurt and Theresa Russell and Tilda Swinton. Imagine a film that brought together ten of the most eclectic filmmakers in the world doing four to fourteen minute short films featuring the arias of some of the most famous and beloved operas ever written, often taken out of their original context and placed into strange new places. Like, for example, the aria for Verdi's Rigoletto set at the kitschy Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, where a movie producer is cheating on his wife while she is in a nearby room with a hunky man who is not her husband. Imagine that there's almost no dialogue in the film. Just the arias to set the moments. That is Aria. If you are unfamiliar with opera in general, and these arias specifically, that's not a problem. When I saw the film at the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz in June 1988, I knew some Wagner, some Puccini, and some Verdi, through other movies that used the music as punctuation for a scene. I think the first time I had heard Nessun Dorma was in The Killing Fields. Vesti La Giubba in The Untouchables. But this would be the first time I would hear these arias as they were meant to be performed, even if they were out of context within their original stories. Certainly, Wagner didn't intend the aria from Tristan und Isolde to be used to highlight a suicide pact between a young couple killing themselves in a Las Vegas hotel bathroom. Aria definitely split critics when it premiered at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, when it competed for the festival's main prize, the Palme D'Or. Roger Ebert would call it the first MTV opera and felt the filmmakers were poking fun at their own styles, while Leonard Maltin felt most of the endeavor was a waste of time. In the review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin would also make a reference to MTV but not in a positive way, and would note the two best parts of the film were the photo montage that is seen over the end credits, and the clever licensing of Chuck Jones's classic Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc, to play with the film, at least during its New York run. In the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper chose one of its music critics to review the film. They too would compare the film to MTV, but also to Fantasia, neither reference meant to be positive. It's easy to see what might have attracted Harvey Weinstein to acquire the film. Nudity. And lots of it. Including from a 21 year old Hurley, and a 22 year old Fonda. Open at the 420 seat Ridgemont Theatre in Seattle on March 18th, 1988, Aria would gross a respectable $10,600. It would be the second highest grossing theatre in the city, only behind The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which grossed $16,600 in its fifth week at the 850 seat Cinerama Theatre, which was and still is the single best theatre in Seattle. It would continue to do well in Seattle, but it would not open until April 15th in Los Angeles and May 20th in New York City. But despite some decent notices and the presence of some big name directors, Aria would stiff at the box office, grossing just $1.03m after seven months in theatres. As we discussed on our previous episode, there was a Dennis Hopper movie called Riders on the Storm that supposedly opened in November 1987, but didn't. It did open in theatres in May of 1988, and now we're here to talk about it. Riders on the Storm would open in eleven theatres in the New York City area on May 7th, including three theatres in Manhattan. Since Miramax did not screen the film for critics before release, never a good sign, the first reviews wouldn't show up until the following day, since the critics would actually have to go see the film with a regular audience. Vincent Canby's review for the New York Times would arrive first, and surprisingly, he didn't completely hate the film. But audiences didn't care. In its first weekend in New York City, Riders on the Storm would gross an anemic $25k. The following Friday, Miramax would open the film at two theatres in Baltimore, four theatres in Fort Worth TX (but surprisingly none in Dallas), one theatre in Los Angeles and one theatre in Springfield OH, while continuing on only one screen in New York. No reported grosses from Fort Worth, LA or Springfield, but the New York theatre reported ticket sales of $3k for the weekend, a 57% drop from its previous week, while the two in Baltimore combined for $5k. There would be more single playdates for a few months. Tampa the same week as New York. Atlanta, Charlotte, Des Moines and Memphis in late May. Cincinnati in late June. Boston, Calgary, Ottawa and Philadelphia in early July. Greenville SC in late August. Evansville IL, Ithaca NY and San Francisco in early September. Chicago in late September. It just kept popping up in random places for months, always a one week playdate before heading off to the next location. And in all that time, Miramax never reported grosses. What little numbers we do have is from the theatres that Variety was tracking, and those numbers totaled up to less than $30k. Another mostly lost and forgotten Miramax release from 1988 is Caribe, a Canadian production that shot in Belize about an amateur illegal arms trader to Central American terrorists who must go on the run after a deal goes down bad, because who wants to see a Canadian movie about an amateur illegal arms trader to Canadian terrorists who must go on the run in the Canadian tundra after a deal goes down bad? Kara Glover would play Helen, the arms dealer, and John Savage as Jeff, a British intelligence agent who helps Helen. Caribe would first open in Detroit on May 20th, 1988. Can you guess what I'm going to say next? Yep. No reported grosses, no theatres playing the film tracked by Variety. The following week, Caribe opens in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the 300 seat United Artists Theatre in San Francisco, and three theatres in the South Bay. While Miramax once again did not report grosses, the combined gross for the four theatres, according to Variety, was a weak $3,700. Compare that to Aria, which was playing at the Opera Plaza Cinemas in its third week in San Francisco, in an auditorium 40% smaller than the United Artist, grossing $5,300 on its own. On June 3rd, Caribe would open at the AMC Fountain Square 14 in Nashville. One show only on Friday and Saturday at 11:45pm. Miramax did not report grosses. Probably because people we going to see Willie Tyler and Lester at Zanie's down the street. And again, it kept cycling around the country, one or two new playdates in each city it played in. Philadelphia in mid-June. Indianapolis in mid-July. Jersey City in late August. Always for one week, grosses never reported. Miramax's first Swedish release of the year was called Mio, but this was truly an international production. The $4m film was co-produced by Swedish, Norwegian and Russian production companies, directed by a Russian, adapted from a Swedish book by an American screenwriter, scored by one of the members of ABBA, and starring actors from England, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Mio tells the story of a boy from Stockholm who travels to an otherworldly fantasy realm and frees the land from an evil knight's oppression. What makes this movie memorable today is that Mio's best friend is played by none other than Christian Bale, in his very first film. The movie was shot in Moscow, Stockholm, the Crimea, Scotland, and outside Pripyat in the Northern part of what is now Ukraine, between March and July 1986. In fact, the cast and crew were shooting outside Pripyat on April 26th, when they got the call they needed to evacuate the area. It would be hours later when they would discover there had been a reactor core meltdown at the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. They would have to scramble to shoot in other locations away from Ukraine for a month, and when they were finally allowed to return, the area they were shooting in deemed to have not been adversely affected by the worst nuclear power plant accident in human history,, Geiger counters would be placed all over the sets, and every meal served by craft services would need to be read to make sure it wasn't contaminated. After premiering at the Moscow Film Festival in July 1987 and the Norwegian Film Festival in August, Mio would open in Sweden on October 16th, 1987. The local critics would tear the film apart. They hated that the filmmakers had Anglicized the movie with British actors like Christopher Lee, Susannah York, Christian Bale and Nicholas Pickard, an eleven year old boy also making his film debut. They also hated how the filmmakers adapted the novel by the legendary Astrid Lindgren, whose Pippi Longstocking novels made her and her works world famous. Overall, they hated pretty much everything about it outside of Christopher Lee's performance and the production's design in the fantasy world. Miramax most likely picked it up trying to emulate the success of The Neverending Story, which had opened to great success in most of the world in 1984. So it might seem kinda odd that when they would open the now titled The Land of Faraway in theatres, they wouldn't go wide but instead open it on one screen in Atlanta GA on June 10th, 1988. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety did not track Atlanta theatres that week. Two weeks later, they would open the film in Miami. How many theatres? Can't tell you. Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety was not tracking any of the theatres in Miami playing the film. But hey, Bull Durham did pretty good in Miami that week. The film would next open in theatres in Los Angeles. This time, Miramax bought a quarter page ad in the Los Angeles Times on opening day to let people know the film existed. So we know it was playing on 18 screens that weekend. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses for the film. But on the two screens it played on that Variety was tracking, the combined gross was just $2,500. There'd be other playdates. Kansas City and Minneapolis in mid-September. Vancouver, BC in early October. Palm Beach FL in mid October. Calgary AB and Fort Lauderdale in late October. Phoenix in mid November. And never once did Miramax report any grosses for it. One week after Mio, Miramax would release a comedy called Going Undercover. Now, if you listened to our March 2021 episode on Some Kind of Wonderful, you may remember be mentioning Lea Thompson taking the role of Amanda Jones in that film, a role she had turned down twice before, the week after Howard the Duck opened, because she was afraid she'd never get cast in a movie again. And while Some Kind of Wonderful wasn't as big a film as you'd expect from a John Hughes production, Thompson did indeed continue to work, and is still working to this day. So if you were looking at a newspaper ad in several cities in June 1988 and saw her latest movie and wonder why she went back to making weird little movies. She hadn't. This was a movie she had made just before Back to the Future, in August and September 1984. Originally titled Yellow Pages, the film starred film legend Jean Simmons as Maxine, a rich woman who has hired Chris Lemmon's private investigator Henry Brilliant to protect her stepdaughter Marigold during her trip to Copenhagen. The director, James Clarke, had written the script specifically for Lemmon, tailoring his role to mimic various roles played by his famous father, Jack Lemmon, over the decades, and for Simmons. But Thompson was just one of a number of young actresses they looked at before making their casting choice. Half of the $6m budget would come from a first-time British film producer, while the other half from a group of Danish investors wanting to lure more Hollywood productions to their area. The shoot would be plagued by a number of problems. The shoot in Los Angeles coincided with the final days of the 1984 Summer Olympics, which would cut out using some of the best and most regularly used locations in the city, and a long-lasting heat wave that would make outdoor shoots unbearable for cast and crew. When they arrived in Copenhagen at the end of August, Denmark was going through an unusually heavy storm front that hung around for weeks. Clarke would spend several months editing the film, longer than usual for a smaller production like this, but he in part was waiting to see how Back to the Future would do at the box office. If the film was a hit, and his leading actress was a major part of that, it could make it easier to sell his film to a distributor. Or that was line of thinking. Of course, Back to the Future was a hit, and Thompson received much praise for her comedic work on the film. But that didn't make it any easier to sell his film. The producer would set the first screenings for the film at the February 1986 American Film Market in Santa Monica, which caters not only to foreign distributors looking to acquire American movies for their markets, but helps independent filmmakers get their movies seen by American distributors. As these screenings were for buyers by invitation only, there would be no reviews from the screenings, but one could guess that no one would hear about the film again until Miramax bought the American distribution rights to it in March 1988 tells us that maybe those screenings didn't go so well. The film would get retitled Going Undercover, and would open in single screen playdates in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, St. Louis and Tampa on June 17th. And as I've said too many times already, no reported grosses from Miramax, and only one theatre playing the film was being tracked by Variety, with Going Undercover earning $3,000 during its one week at the Century City 14 in Los Angeles. In the June 22nd, 1988 issue of Variety, there was an article about Miramax securing a $25m line of credit in order to start producing their own films. Going Undercover is mentioned in the article about being one of Miramax's releases, without noting it had just been released that week or how well it did or did not do. The Thin Blue Line would be Miramax's first non-music based documentary, and one that would truly change how documentaries were made. Errol Morris had already made two bizarre but entertaining documentaries in the late 70s and early 80s. Gates of Heaven was shot in 1977, about a man who operated a failing pet cemetery in Northern California's Napa Valley. When Morris told his famous German filmmaking supporter Werner Herzog about the film, Herzog vowed to eat one of the shoes he was wearing that day if Morris could actually complete the film and have it shown in a public theatre. In April 1979, just before the documentary had its world premiere at UC Theatre in Berkeley, where Morris had studied philosophy, Herzog would spend the morning at Chez Pannise, the creators of the California Cuisine cooking style, boiling his shoes for five hours in garlic, herbs and stock. This event itself would be commemorated in a documentary short called, naturally, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, by Les Blank, which is a must watch on its own. Because of the success of Gates of Heaven, Morris was able to quickly find financing for his next film, Nub City, which was originally supposed to be about the number of Vernon, Florida's citizens who have “accidentally” cut off their limbs, in order to collect the insurance money. But after several of those citizens threatened to kill Morris, and one of them tried to run down his cinematographer with their truck, Morris would rework the documentary, dropping the limb angle, no pun intended, and focus on the numerous eccentric people in the town. It would premiere at the 1981 New York Film Festival, and become a hit, for a documentary, when it was released in theatres in 1982. But it would take Morris another six years after completing Vernon, Florida, to make another film. Part of it was having trouble lining up full funding to work on his next proposed movie, about James Grigson, a Texas forensic psychiatrist whose was nicknamed Doctor Death for being an expert witness for the prosecution in death penalty cases in Texas. Morris had gotten seed money for the documentary from PBS and the Endowment for Public Arts, but there was little else coming in while he worked on the film. In fact, Morris would get a PI license in New York and work cases for two years, using every penny he earned that wasn't going towards living expenses to keep the film afloat. One of Morris's major problems for the film was that Grigson would not sit on camera for an interview, but would meet with Morris face to face to talk about the cases. During that meeting, the good doctor suggested to the filmmaker that he should research the killers he helped put away. And during that research, Morris would come across the case of one Randall Dale Adams, who was convicted of killing Dallas police officer Robert Wood in 1976, even though another man, David Harris, was the police's initial suspect. For two years, Morris would fly back and forth between New York City and Texas, talking to and filming interviews with Adams and more than two hundred other people connected to the shooting and the trial. Morris had become convinced Adams was indeed innocent, and dropped the idea about Dr. Grigson to solely focus on the Robert Wood murder. After showing the producers of PBS's American Playhouse some of the footage he had put together of the new direction of the film, they kicked in more funds so that Morris could shoot some re-enactment sequences outside New York City, as well as commission composer Phillip Glass to create a score for the film once it was completed. Documentaries at that time did not regularly use re-enactments, but Morris felt it was important to show how different personal accounts of the same moment can be misinterpreted or misremembered or outright manipulated to suppress the truth. After the film completed its post-production in March 1988, The Thin Blue Line would have its world premiere at the San Francisco Film Festival on March 18th, and word quickly spread Morris had something truly unique and special on his hands. The critic for Variety would note in the very first paragraph of his write up that the film employed “strikingly original formal devices to pull together diverse interviews, film clips, photo collages, and” and this is where it broke ground, “recreations of the crime from many points of view.” Miramax would put together a full court press in order to get the rights to the film, which was announced during the opening days of the 1988 Cannes Film Festival in early May. An early hint on how the company was going to sell the film was by calling it a “non-fiction feature” instead of a documentary. Miramax would send Morris out on a cross-country press tour in the weeks leading up to the film's August 26th opening date, but Morris, like many documentary filmmakers, was not used to being in the spotlight themselves, and was not as articulate about talking up his movies as the more seasoned directors and actors who've been on the promotion circuit for a while. After one interview, Harvey Weinstein would send Errol Morris a note. “Heard your NPR interview and you were boring.” Harvey would offer up several suggestions to help the filmmaker, including hyping the movie up as a real life mystery thriller rather than a documentary, and using shorter and clearer sentences when answering a question. It was a clear gamble to release The Thin Blue Line in the final week of summer, and the film would need a lot of good will to stand out. And it would get it. The New York Times was so enthralled with the film, it would not only run a review from Janet Maslin, who would heap great praise on the film, but would also run a lengthy interview with Errol Morris right next to the review. The quarter page ad in the New York Times, several pages back, would tout positive quotes from Roger Ebert, J. Hoberman, who had left The Village Voice for the then-new Premiere Magazine, Peter Travers, writing for People Magazine instead of Rolling Stone, and critics from the San Francisco Chronicle and, interestingly enough, the Dallas Morning News. The top of the ad was tagged with an intriguing tease: solving this mystery is going to be murder, with a second tag line underneath the key art and title, which called the film “a new kind of movie mystery.” Of the 15 New York area-based film critics for local newspapers, television and national magazines, 14 of them gave favorable reviews, while 1, Stephen Schiff of Vanity Fair, was ambivalent about it. Not one critic gave it a bad review. New York audiences were hooked. Opening in the 240 seat main house at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, the movie grossed $30,945 its first three days. In its second weekend, the gross at the Lincoln Plaza would jump to $31k, and adding another $27,500 from its two theatre opening in Los Angeles and $15,800 from a single DC theatre that week. Third week in New York was a still good $21k, but the second week in Los Angeles fell to $10,500 and DC to $10k. And that's how it rolled out for several months, mostly single screen bookings in major cities not called Los Angeles or New York City, racking up some of the best reviews Miramax would receive to date, but never breaking out much outside the major cities. When it looked like Santa Cruz wasn't going to play the film, I drove to San Francisco to see it, just as my friends and I had for the opening day of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ in mid-August. That's 75 miles each way, plus parking in San Francisco, just to see a movie. That's when you know you no longer just like movies but have developed a serious case of cinephilea. So when The Nickelodeon did open the film in late November, I did something I had never done with any documentary before. I went and saw it again. Second time around, I was still pissed off at the outrageous injustice heaped upon Randall Dale Adams for nothing more than being with and trusting the wrong person at the wrong time. But, thankfully, things would turn around for Adams in the coming weeks. On December 1st, it was reported that David Harris had recanted his testimony at Adams' trial, admitting he was alone when Officer Wood stopped his car. And on March 1st, 1989, after more than 15,000 people had signed the film's petition to revisit the decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Adams's conviction “based largely” on facts presented in the film. The film would also find itself in several more controversies. Despite being named The Best Documentary of the Year by a number of critics groups, the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences would not nominate the film, due in large part to the numerous reenactments presented throughout the film. Filmmaker Michael Apted, a member of the Directors Branch of the Academy, noted that the failure to acknowledge The Thin Blue Line was “one of the most outrageous things in the modern history of the Academy,” while Roger Ebert added the slight was “the worst non-nomination of the year.” Despite the lack of a nomination, Errol Morris would attend the Oscars ceremony in March 1989, as a protest for his film being snubbed. Morris would also, several months after Adams' release, find himself being sued by Adams, but not because of how he was portrayed in the film. During the making of the film, Morris had Adams sign a contract giving Morris the exclusive right to tell Adams's story, and Adams wanted, essentially, the right to tell his own story now that he was a free man. Morris and Adams would settle out of court, and Adams would regain his life rights. Once the movie was played out in theatres, it had grossed $1.2m, which on the surface sounds like not a whole lot of money. Adjusted for inflation, that would only be $3.08m. But even unadjusted for inflation, it's still one of the 100 highest grossing documentaries of the past forty years. And it is one of just a handful of documentaries to become a part of the National Film Registry, for being a culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film.” Adams would live a quiet life after his release, working as an anti-death penalty advocate and marrying the sister of one of the death row inmates he was helping to exonerate. He would pass away from a brain tumor in October 2010 at a courthouse in Ohio not half an hour from where he was born and still lived, but he would so disappear from the spotlight after the movie was released that his passing wasn't even reported until June 2011. Errol Morris would become one of the most celebrated documentarians of his generation, finally getting nominated for, and winning, an Oscar in 2003, for The Fog of War, about the life and times of Robert McNamara, Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War era. The Fog of War would also be added to the National Film Registry in 2019. Morris would become only the third documentarian, after D.A. Pennebaker and Les Blank, to have two films on the Registry. In 1973, the senseless killings of five members of the Alday family in Donalsonville GA made international headlines. Four years later, Canadian documentarian Tex Fuller made an award-winning documentary about the case, called Murder One. For years, Fuller shopped around a screenplay telling the same story, but it would take nearly a decade for it to finally be sold, in part because Fuller was insistent that he also be the director. A small Canadian production company would fund the $1m CAD production, which would star Henry Thomas of E.T. fame as the fifteen year old narrator of the story, Billy Isaacs. The shoot began in early October 1987 outside Toronto, but after a week of shooting, Fuller was fired, and was replaced by Graeme Campbell, a young and energetic filmmaker for whom Murder One would be his fourth movie directing gig of the year. Details are sketchy as to why Fuller was fired, but Thomas and his mother Carolyn would voice concerns with the producers about the new direction the film was taking under its new director. The film would premiere in Canada in May 1988. When the film did well up North, Miramax took notice and purchased the American distribution rights. Murder One would first open in America on two screens in Los Angeles on September 9th, 1988. Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times noted that while the film itself wasn't very good, that it still sprung from the disturbing insight about the crazy reasons people cross of what should be impassable moral lines. “No movie studio could have invented it!,” screamed the tagline on the poster and newspaper key art. “No writer could have imagined it! Because what happened that night became the most controversial in American history.” That would draw limited interest from filmgoers in Tinseltown. The two theatres would gross a combined $7k in its first three days. Not great but far better than several other recent Miramax releases in the area. Two weeks later, on September 23rd, Miramax would book Murder One into 20 theatres in the New York City metro region, as well as in Akron, Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianpolis, Nashville, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. In New York, the film would actually get some good reviews from the Times and the Post as well as Peter Travers of People Magazine, but once again, Miramax would not report grosses for the film. Variety would note the combined gross for the film in New York City was only $25k. In early October, the film would fall out of Variety's internal list of the 50 Top Grossing Films within the twenty markets they regularly tracked, with a final gross of just $87k. One market that Miramax deliberately did not book the film was anywhere near southwest Georgia, where the murders took place. The closest theatre that did play the film was more than 200 miles away. Miramax would finish 1988 with two releases. The first was Dakota, which would mark star Lou Diamond Phillips first time as a producer. He would star as a troubled teenager who takes a job on a Texas horse ranch to help pay of his debts, who becomes a sorta big brother to the ranch owner's young son, who has recently lost a leg to cancer, as he also falls for the rancher's daughter. When the $1.1m budgeted film began production in Texas in June 1987, Phillips had already made La Bamba and Stand and Deliver, but neither had yet to be released into theatres. By the time filming ended five weeks later, La Bamba had just opened, and Phillips was on his way to becoming a star. The main producers wanted director Fred Holmes to get the film through post-production as quickly as possible, to get it into theatres in the early part of 1988 to capitalize on the newfound success of their young star. But that wouldn't happen. Holmes wouldn't have the film ready until the end of February 1988, which was deemed acceptable because of the impending release of Stand and Deliver. In fact, the producers would schedule their first distributor screening of the film on March 14th, the Monday after Stand and Delivered opened, in the hopes that good box office for the film and good notices for Phillips would translate to higher distributor interest in their film, which sorta worked. None of the major studios would show for the screening, but a number of Indies would, including Miramax. Phillips would not attend the screening, as he was on location in New Mexico shooting Young Guns. I can't find any reason why Miramax waited nearly nine months after they acquired Dakota to get it into theatres. It certainly wasn't Oscar bait, and screen availability would be scarce during the busy holiday movie season, which would see a number of popular, high profile releases like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Ernest Saves Christmas, The Naked Gun, Rain Man, Scrooged, Tequila Sunrise, Twins and Working Girl. Which might explain why, when Miramax released the film into 18 theatres in the New York City area on December 2nd, they could only get three screens in all of Manhattan, the best being the nice but hardly first-rate Embassy 4 at Broadway and 47th. Or of the 22 screens in Los Angeles opening the film the same day, the best would be the tiny Westwood 4 next to UCLA or the Paramount in Hollywood, whose best days were back in the Eisenhower administration. And, yet again, Miramax did not report grosses, and none of the theatres playing the film was tracked by Variety that week. The film would be gone after just one week. The Paramount, which would open Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on the 14th, opted to instead play a double feature of Clara's Heart, with Whoopi Goldberg and Neil Patrick Harris, and the River Phoenix drama Running on Empty, even though neither film had been much of a hit. Miramax's last film of the year would be the one that changed everything for them. Pelle the Conquerer. Adapted from a 1910 Danish book and directed by Billie August, whose previous film Twist and Shout had been released by Miramax in 1986, Pelle the Conquerer would be the first Danish or Swedish movie to star Max von Sydow in almost 15 years, having spent most of the 70s and 80s in Hollywood and London starring in a number of major movies including The Exorcist, Three Days of the Condor, Flash Gordon,Conan the Barbarian, Never Say Never Again, and David Lynch's Dune. But because von Sydow would be making his return to his native cinema, August was able to secure $4.5m to make the film, one of the highest budgeted Scandinavian films to be made to date. In the late 1850s, an elderly emigrant Lasse and his son Pelle leave their home in Sweden after the death of the boy's mother, wanting to build a new life on the Danish island of Bornholm. Lasse finds it difficult to find work, given his age and his son's youth. The pair are forced to work at a large farm, where they are generally mistreated by the managers for being foreigners. The father falls into depression and alcoholism, the young boy befriends one of the bastard children of the farm owner as well as another Swedish farm worker, who dreams of conquering the world. For the title character of Pelle, Billie August saw more than 3,000 Swedish boys before deciding to cast 11 year old Pelle Hvenegaard, who, like many boys in Sweden, had been named for the character he was now going to play on screen. After six months of filming in the summer and fall of 1986, Billie August would finish editing Pelle the Conquerer in time for it to make its intended Christmas Day 1987 release date in Denmark and Sweden, where the film would be one of the biggest releases in either country for the entire decade. It would make its debut outside Scandinavia at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1988, where it had been invited to compete for the Palme D'Or. It would compete against a number of talented filmmakers who had come with some of the best films they would ever make, including Clint Eastwood with Bird, Claire Denis' Chocolat, István Szabó's Hanussen, Vincent Ward's The Navigator, and A Short Film About Killing, an expanded movie version of the fifth episode in Krzysztof Kieślowski's masterful miniseries Dekalog. Pelle would conquer them all, taking home the top prize from one of cinema's most revered film festivals. Reviews for the film out of Cannes were almost universally excellent. Vincent Canby, the lead film critic for the New York Times for nearly twenty years by this point, wouldn't file his review until the end of the festival, in which he pointed out that a number of people at the festival were scandalized von Sydow had not also won the award for Best Actor. Having previously worked with the company on his previous film's American release, August felt that Miramax would have what it took to make the film a success in the States. Their first moves would be to schedule the film for a late December release, while securing a slot at that September's New York Film Festival. And once again, the critical consensus was highly positive, with only a small sampling of distractors. The film would open first on two screens at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, December 21st, following by exclusive engagements in nine other cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC, on the 23rd. But the opening week numbers weren't very good, just $46k from ten screens. And you can't really blame the film's two hour and forty-five minute running time. Little Dorrit, the two-part, four hour adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, had been out nine weeks at this point and was still making nearly 50% more per screen. But after the new year, when more and more awards were hurled the film's way, including the National Board of Review naming it one of the best foreign films of the year and the Golden Globes awarding it their Best Foreign Language trophy, ticket sales would pick up. Well, for a foreign film. The week after the Motion Picture Academy awarded Pelle their award for Best Foreign Language Film, business for the film would pick up 35%, and a third of its $2m American gross would come after that win. One of the things that surprised me while doing the research for this episode was learning that Max von Sydow had never been nominated for an Oscar until he was nominated for Best Actor for Pelle the Conquerer. You look at his credits over the years, and it's just mind blowing. The Seventh Seal. Wild Strawberries. The Virgin Spring. The Greatest Story Ever Told. The Emigrants. The Exorcist. The Three Days of the Condor. Surely there was one performance amongst those that deserved recognition. I hate to keep going back to A24, but there's something about a company's first Oscar win that sends that company into the next level. A24 didn't really become A24 until 2016, when three of their movies won Oscars, including Brie Larson for Best Actress in Room. And Miramax didn't really become the Miramax we knew and once loved until its win for Pelle. Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 117, the fifth and final part of our miniseries on Miramax Films, is released. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.
Upon graduation from the US Military Academy in 1984, HR McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the US Army for thirty-four years. He retired as a lieutenant general in June 2018. From 2014 to 2017, General McMaster designed the future army as the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center and the deputy commanding general, futures, of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). As commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, he oversaw all training and education for the army's infantry, armor, and cavalry force.He commanded the Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2012; he commanded the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq from 2005 to 2006; he was also deployed in Operation Desert Storm from 1990 to 1991. General McMaster holds a PhD in military history. He was an assistant professor of history at the US Military Academy. He is author of the bestselling books Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World and Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam. General McMaster is the host of two podcasts: Battlegrounds: International Perspectives on Crucial Challenges and Opportunities and is a regular on GoodFellows, both produced by the Hoover Institution. He is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and he also teaches at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. And he chairs an advisory board at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Discussed in this episode: Dereliction of Duty by HR McMaster: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dereliction-of-duty-h-r-mcmaster/1126012409 Books on China by Frank Dikotter: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/frank%20dikotter Battlegrounds podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/battlegrounds-w-h-r-mcmaster-international-perspectives/id1551042106 GoodFellows podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/goodfellows-conversations-from-the-hoover-institution/id1505855709
Veteran journalist Bill Steigerwald, a libertarian who interviewed people across the spectrum -- like George McGovern, Robert McNamara, Christopher Hitchens, Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, and yours truly -- talks about being the ideological oddball in his profession. Plus, how to be a good writer, what advice he has for aspiring journalists, who the most interesting people he interviewed were, and more. Book Discussed: Grandpa Bear Goes to Washington
62 Minutes PG-13 Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer Thomas continues his talks on Vietnam finishing up on Robert McNamara and getting into how the war was carried out on the ground. Thomas' Substack Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1" Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2" Thomas on Twitter Get Autonomy 19 Skills PDF Download The Monopoly On Violence Support Pete on His Website Pete's Patreon Pete's Substack Pete's Subscribestar GabPay - @petequinones Pete's Venmo Pete on Facebook Pete on Twitter
64 Minutes PG-13 Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer Thomas continues his talks on Vietnam talking about the Secretary of Defense from 1961-1968, Robert McNamara. He also discusses how the third-world eventually started to view Moscow's ideology. Thomas' Substack Thomas' Book "Steelstorm" Thomas on Twitter Get Autonomy 19 Skills PDF Download The Monopoly On Violence Support Pete on His Website Pete's Patreon Pete's Substack Pete's Subscribestar GabPay - @petequinones Pete's Venmo Pete on Facebook Pete on Twitter
OUTLINE of today's show with TIMECODESMissiles near Ukraine-Poland border were nearly another Gulf of Tonkin. Robert McNamara recalls the FALSE FLAG event that was used to get us into a war with Vietnam in "Fog of War" documentary2:40Poland invokes Article 4 of NATO14:40Babylon Bee has solution to stop Ukraine war21:20UN serves notice to Russia — on the hook for war reparations. This will boost hardliners in Russia26:42We went to war on WMD lies from the CIA. Why did the UN never mention reparations for Iraq?31:59Another Trump family member threatens DeSantis. "Very messy, very raw." He should wait until 202838:17There were BIG SURPRISES in Trump's Announcement speech45:07Trump has some credibility issues with 2nd Amendment people1:08:39A police chief in Pennsylvania was shocked that he wasn't stiffed by Trump on a bill for a rally security.1:14:49Katie Hobbs projected to win the Arizona governor's race over Kari Lake, satirists and mathematicians puzzled by the results.1:21:10Kari Lake supporters reenacting the battle of Jericho — NOT the Babylon Bee1:24:47Democrat Campaign Chief "Let them eat Chef Boyardee" Maloney defeated.Bo-Nana Republican, Bo Hines handpicked by Trump, defeated1:31:09Why are the Republicans trying to push for preferential voting?1:45:21More sudden deaths, turbo cancers, heart attack deaths of young children: “There's nothing that will deter them from this.”1:48:22Excess death rate rise in younger age groups in 2021.1:51:58Why are Moderna and Pfizer going back to investigate their own vaccines?2:04:04Goat Tree joins — FTX Decrypted. What's going on with FTX is more political than tech2:10:22What do you think about Elon Musk's idea of a "blockchain version of Twitter"?2:20:44What's going on with paper gold and paper silver derivatives2:27:11Zuckerberg's move to become the “de facto standard” of a world CBDC2:33:49Bezos gives multi-millionaire Dolly Parton $100 Million for charities. How about the Amazon employees who have to pee in bottles because they're driven so hard, now 10,000 laid off?2:53:50If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-show Or you can send a donation throughZelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Mail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Money is only what YOU hold: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silver
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