Podcast appearances and mentions of theodore white

Last time we spoke about the Battle of Taierzhuang. Following the fall of Nanjing in December 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War entered a brutal phase of attrition as Japan sought to consolidate control and press toward central China. Chinese defense prioritized key rail corridors and urban strongholds, with Xuzhou, the JinPu and Longhai lines, and the Huai River system forming crucial lifelines. By early 1938, Japanese offensives aimed to link with forces around Beijing and Nanjing and encircle Chinese positions in the Central Yangtze region, threatening Wuhan. In response, Chiang Kai-shek fortified Xuzhou and expanded defenses to deter a pincer move, eventually amassing roughly 300,000 troops along strategic lines. Taierzhuang became a focal point when Japanese divisions attempted to press south and link with northern elements. Chinese commanders Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, Tang Enbo, and Sun Lianzhong coordinated to complicate Japanese plans through offensive-defensive actions, counterattacks, and encirclement efforts. The victory, though numerically costly, thwarted immediate Japanese objectives and foreshadowed further attritional struggles ahead.   #171 The Flooding of the Yellow River Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. We last left off with a significant event during the Xuzhou campaign. Three Japanese divisions under General Itagaki Seishiro moved south to attack Taierzhuang and were met by forces commanded by Li Zongren, Sun Lianzhong, and Tang Enbo, whose units possessed a decent amount of artillery. In a two-week engagement from March 22 to April 7, the battle devolved into a costly urban warfare. Fighting was vicious, often conducted in close quarters and at night. The urban environment negated Japanese advantages in armor and artillery, allowing Chinese forces to contend on equal terms. The Chinese also disrupted Japanese logistics by resupplying their own troops and severing rear supply lines, draining Japanese ammunition, supplies, and reinforcements. By April 7, the Japanese were compelled to retreat, marking the first Chinese victory of the war. However both sides suffered heavy losses, with around 20,000 casualties on each side. In the aftermath of this rare victory, Chiang Kai-Shek pushed Tang Enbo and Li Zongren to capitalize on their success and increased deployments in the Taierzhuang theater to about 450,000 troops. Yet the Chinese Army remained hampered by fundamental problems. The parochialism that had crippled Chiang's forces over the preceding months resurfaced. Although the generals had agreed to coordinate in a war of resistance, each still prioritized the safety of his own troops, wary of Chiang's bid to consolidate power. Li Zongren, for example, did not deploy his top Guangxi provincial troops at Taierzhuang and sought to shift most of the fighting onto Tang Enbo's forces. Chiang's colleagues were mindful of the fates of Han Fuju of Shandong and Zhang Xueliang of Manchuria: Han was executed for refusing to fight, while Zhang, after allowing Chiang to reduce the size of his northeastern army, ended up under house arrest. They were right to distrust Chiang. He believed, after all, that provincial armies should come under a unified national command, which he would lead. From a national-unity perspective, his aspiration was not unreasonable. But it fed suspicion among other military leaders that participation in the anti-Japanese war would dilute their power. The divided nature of the command also hindered logistics, making ammunition and food supplies to the front unreliable and easy to cut off. By late April the Chinese had reinforced the Xuzhou area to between 450,000-600,000 to capitalize on their victory. However these armies were plagued with command and control issues. Likewise the Japanese licked their wounds and reinforced the area to roughly 400,000, with fresh troops and supplies flowing in from Tianjin and Nanjing. The Japanese continued with their objective of encircling Chinese forces. The North China Area Army comprised four divisions and two infantry brigades drawn from the Kwantung Army, while the Central China Expeditionary Army consisted of three divisions and the 1st and 2nd Tank Battalions along with motorized support units. The 5th Tank Battalion supported the 3rd Infantry Division as it advanced north along the railway toward Xuzhou. Fighting to the west, east, and north of Xuzhou was intense, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides. On 18 April, the Japanese advanced southward toward Pizhou. Tang Enbo's 20th Army Corps, together with the 2nd, 22nd, 46th, and 59th corps, resisted fiercely, culminating in a stalemate by the end of April. The 60th Corps of the Yunnan Army engaged the Japanese 10th Division at Yuwang Mountain for nearly a month, repelling multiple assaults. By the time it ceded its position to the Guizhou 140th Division and withdrew on 15 May, the corps had sustained losses exceeding half of its forces. Simultaneously, the Japanese conducted offensives along both banks of the Huai River, where Chinese defenders held out for several weeks. Nevertheless, Japanese artillery and aerial bombardment gradually tilted the balance, allowing the attackers to seize Mengcheng on 9 May and Hefei on 14 May. From there, the southern flank split into two parts: one force moved west and then north to cut off the Longhai Railway escape route from Xuzhou, while another division moved directly north along the railway toward Suxian, just outside Xuzhou. Simultaneously, to the north, Japanese units from north China massed at Jining and began moving south beyond Tengxian. Along the coast, an amphibious landing was made at Lianyungang to reinforce troops attacking from the east. The remaining portions of Taierzhuang were captured in May, a development symbolically significant to Tokyo. On 17 May, Japanese artillery further tightened the noose around Xuzhou, striking targets inside the city.  To preserve its strength, the Nationalist government ordered the abandonment of Xuzhou and directed its main forces to break out toward northern Jiangsu, northern Anhui, and eastern Henan. To deter the Japanese army's rapid westward advance and penetration into northern Henan and western Shandong, many leading military and political figures within the Nationalist government proposed breaching dams over the Yellow River to delay the offensive, a strategy that would have been highly advantageous to the Nationalist forces at the time. Chiang Kai-shek vetoed the proposal outright, insisting that the Nationalist army could still resist. He understood that with tens of millions of Chinese lives at stake and a sliver of hope remaining, the levee plan must not be undertaken. Then a significant battle broke out at Lanfeng. Chiang also recognized that defeat could allow the elite Japanese mechanized divisions, the 14th, 16th, and 10th, to advance directly toward Zhengzhou. If Zhengzhou fell, the Japanese mechanized forces on the plains could advance unimpeded toward Tongguan. Their southward push would threaten Xi'an, Xiangfan, and Nanyang, directly jeopardizing the southwest's rear defenses. Concurrently, the Japanese would advance along the Huai River north of the Dabie Mountains toward Wuhan, creating a pincer with operations along the Yangtze River.  Now what followed was arguably the most important and skillful Chinese maneuver of the Xuzhou campaign: a brilliantly executed strategic retreat to the south and west across the Jinpu railway line. On May 15, Li Zongren, in consultation with Chiang Kai-shek, decided to withdraw from Xuzhou and focus on an escape plan. The evacuation of civilians and military personnel began that day. Li ordered troops to melt into the countryside and move south and west at night, crossing the Jinpu Railway and splitting into four groups that would head west. The plan was to regroup in the rugged Dabie Mountains region to the south and prepare for the defense of Wuhan. Li's generals departed reluctantly, having held out for so long; Tang Enbo was said to have wept. Under cover of night, about forty divisions, over 200,000 men, marched out of Japanese reach in less than a week. A critical moment occurred on May 18, when fog and a sandstorm obscured the retreating troops as they crossed the Jinpu Railway. By May 21, Li wired Chiang Kai-shek to report that the withdrawal was complete. He mobilized nearly all of the Kuomintang Central Army's elite units, such as the 74th Army, withdrawn from Xuzhou and transferred directly to Lanfeng, with a resolute intent to “burn their boats.” The force engaged the Japanese in a decisive battle at Lanfeng, aiming to secure the last line of defense for the Yellow River, a position carrying the lives of millions of Chinese civilians. Yet Chiang Kai-shek's strategy was not universally understood by all participating generals, who regarded it as akin to striking a rock with an egg. For the battle of Lanfeng the Chinese mobilized nearly all of the Kuomintang Central Army's elite forces, comprising 14 divisions totaling over 150,000 men. Among these, the 46th Division of the 27th Army, formerly the Central Training Brigade and the 36th, 88th, and 87th Divisions of the 71st Army were German-equipped. Additionally, the 8th Army, the Tax Police Corps having been reorganized into the Ministry of Finance's Anti-Smuggling Corps, the 74th Army, and Hu Zongnan's 17th Corps, the new 1st Army, equipped with the 8th Division were elite Nationalist troops that had demonstrated strong performance in the battle of Shanghai and the battle of Nanjing, and were outfitted with advanced matériel. However, these so-called “elite” forces were heavily degraded during the campaigns in Shanghai and Nanjing. The 46th Division and Hu Zongnan's 17th Corps sustained casualties above 85% in Nanjing, while the 88th and 87th Divisions suffered losses of up to 90%. The 74th Army and the 36th Division also endured losses exceeding 75%. Their German-made equipment incurred substantial losses; although replenishment occurred, inventories resembled roughly a half-German and half-Chinese mix. With very limited heavy weapons and a severe shortage of anti-tank artillery, they could not effectively match the elite Japanese regiments. Hu Zongnan's 17th Corps maintained its national equipment via a close relationship with Chiang Kai-shek. In contrast, the 74th Army, after fighting in Shanghai, Nanjing, and Xuzhou, suffered heavy casualties, and the few German weapons it had were largely destroyed at Nanjing, leaving it to rely on a mix of domestically produced and Hanyang-made armaments. The new recruits added to each unit largely lacked combat experience, with nearly half of the intake having received basic training. The hardest hit was Li Hanhun's 64th Army, established less than a year prior and already unpopular within the Guangdong Army. Although classified as one of the three Type A divisions, the 155th, 156th, and 187th Divisions, it was equipped entirely with Hanyang-made firearms. Its direct artillery battalion possessed only about 20 older mortars and three Type 92 infantry guns, limiting its heavy firepower to roughly that of a Japanese battalion. The 195th Division and several miscellaneous units were even less prominent, reorganized from local militias and lacking Hanyang rifles. Additionally, three batches of artillery purchased from the Soviet Union arrived in Lanzhou via Xinjiang between March and June 1938. Except for the 52nd Artillery Regiment assigned to the 200th Division, the other artillery regiments had recently received their weapons and were still undergoing training. The 200th Division, had been fighting awhile for in the Xuzhou area and incurred heavy casualties, was still in training and could only deploy its remaining tank battalion and armored vehicle company. The tank battalion was equipped with T-26 light tanks and a small number of remaining British Vickers tanks, while the armored vehicle company consisted entirely of Italian Fiat CV33 armored cars. The disparity in numbers was substantial, and this tank unit did not participate in the battle.  As for the Japanese, the 14th Division was an elite Type A formation. Originally organized with four regiments totaling over 30,000 men, the division's strength was later augmented. Doihara's 14th Division received supplements, a full infantry regiment and three artillery regiments, to prevent it from being surrounded and annihilated, effectively transforming the unit into a mobile reinforced division. Consequently, the division's mounted strength expanded to more than 40,000 personnel, comprising five infantry regiments and four artillery regiments. The four artillery regiments, the 24th Artillery Regiment, the 3rd Independence Mountain Artillery Regiment, the 5th Field Heavy Artillery Regiment, and the 6th Field Heavy Artillery Regiment, possessed substantial heavy firepower, including 150mm heavy howitzers and 105mm long-range field cannons, placing them far in excess of the Nationalist forces at Lanfeng. In addition, both the 14th and later the 16th Divisions commanded tank regiments with nearly 200 light and medium tanks each, while Nationalist forces were markedly short of anti-tank artillery. At the same time, the Nationalist Air Force, though it had procured more than 200 aircraft of various types from the Soviet Union, remained heavily reliant on Soviet aid-to-China aircraft, amounting to over 100 machines, and could defend only a few cities such as Wuhan, Nanchang, and Chongqing. In this context, Japanese forces effectively dominated the Battle of Lanfeng. Moreover, reports indicate that the Japanese employed poison gas on the battlefield, while elite Nationalist troops possessed only a limited number of gas masks, creating a stark disparity in chemical warfare preparedness. Despite these disparities, Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government were initially unaware of the updated strength and composition of the Doihara Division. Faced with constrained options, Chiang chose to press ahead with combat operations. On May 12, 1939, after crossing the Yellow River, the IJA 14th Division continued its southward advance toward Lanfeng. The division's objective was to sever the Longhai Railway, disrupt the main Nationalist retreat toward Zhengzhou, and seize Zhengzhou itself. By May 15, the division split into two columns at Caoxian and moved toward key nodes on the Longhai Line. Major General Toyotomi Fusatarou led two infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, and one artillery regiment in the main assault toward Kaocheng with the aim of directly capturing Lanfeng. Doihara led three infantry regiments and three artillery regiments toward Neihuang and Minquan, threatening Guide. In response, the Nationalist forces concentrated along the railway from Lanfeng to Guide, uniting Song Xilian's 71st Army, Gui Yongqing's 27th Army, Yu Jishi's 74th Army, Li Hanhun's 64th Army, and Huang Jie's 8th Army. From May 15 to 17, the Fengjiu Brigade, advancing toward Lanfeng, met stubborn resistance near Kaocheng from roughly five divisions under Song Xilian and was forced to shift its effort toward Yejigang and Neihuang. The defense near Neihuang, including Shen Ke's 106th Division and Liang Kai's 195th Division, ultimately faltered, allowing Doihara's division to seize Neihuang, Yejigang, Mazhuangzhai, and Renheji. Nevertheless, the Nationalist forces managed to contain the Japanese advance east and west of the area, preventing a complete encirclement. Chiang Kai-shek ordered Cheng Qian, commander-in-chief of the 1st War Zone, to encircle and annihilate the Japanese 14th Division. The deployment plan mapped three routes: the Eastern Route Army, under Li Hanhun, would include the 74th Army, the 155th Division of the 64th Army, a brigade of the 88th Division, and a regiment of the 87th Division, advancing westward from Guide); the Western Route Army, commanded by Gui Yongqing, would comprise the 27th Army, the 71st Army, the 61st Division, and the 78th Division, advancing eastward from Lanfeng; and the Northern Route Army, formed by Sun Tongxuan's 3rd Army and Shang Zhen's 20th Army, was to cut off the enemy's retreat to the north bank of the Yellow River near Dingtao, Heze, Dongming, and Kaocheng, while attacking the Doihara Division from the east, west, and north to annihilate it in a single decisive operation.  On May 21, the Nationalist Army mounted a full-scale offensive. Yu Jishi's 74th Army, commanded by Wang Yaowu's 51st Division, joined a brigade of Song Xilian's 71st Army, led by the 88th Division, and drove the Japanese forces at Mazhuangzhai into retreat, capturing Neihuang and Renheji. The main Japanese force, more than 6,000 strong, withdrew southwest to Yangjiji and Shuangtaji. Song Xilian, commanding Shen Fazao's 87th Division, launched a sharp assault on Yejigang (Yifeng). The Japanese abandoned the stronghold, but their main body continued advancing toward Yangjiji, with some units retreating to Donggangtou and Maoguzhai. On May 23, Song Xilian's 71st Army and Yu Jishi's 74th Army enveloped and annihilated enemy forces at Donggangtou and Maoguzhai. That evening they seized Ximaoguzhai, Yangzhuang, and Helou, eliminating more than a thousand Japanese troops. The Japanese troops at Donggangtou fled toward Lanfeng. Meanwhile, Gui Yongqing's forces were retreating through Lanfeng. His superior strength, Jiang Fusheng's 36th Division, Li Liangrong's 46th Division, Zhong Song's 61st Division, Li Wen's 78th Division, Long Muhan's 88th Division, and Shen Ke's 106th Division—had held defensive positions along the Lanfeng–Yangji line. Equipped with a tank battalion and armored vehicle company commanded by Qiu Qingquan, they blocked the enemy's westward advance and awaited Japanese exhaustion. However, under the Japanese offensive, Gui Yongqing's poor command led to the loss of Maji and Mengjiaoji, forcing the 27th Army to retreat across its entire front. Its main force fled toward Qixian and Kaifeng. The Japanese seized the opportunity to capture Quxingji, Luowangzhai, and Luowang Railway Station west of Lanfeng. Before retreating, Gui Yongqing ordered Long Muhan to dispatch a brigade to replace the 106th Division in defending Lanfeng, while he directed the 106th Division to fall back to Shiyuan. Frightened by the enemy, Long Muhan unilaterally withdrew his troops on the night of the 23rd, leaving Lanfeng undefended. On the 24th, Japanese troops advancing westward from Donggangtou entered Lanfeng unopposed and, relying on well-fortified fortifications, held their ground until reinforcements arrived. In the initial four days, the Nationalist offensive failed to overwhelm the Japanese, who escaped encirclement and annihilation. The four infantry and artillery regiments and one cavalry regiment on the Japanese side managed to hold the line along Lanfeng, Luowangzhai, Sanyizhai, Lanfengkou, Quxingji, Yang'erzhai, and Chenliukou on the south bank of the Yellow River, offering stubborn resistance. The Longhai Railway was completely cut off. Chiang Kai-shek, furious upon hearing the news while stationed in Zhengzhou, ordered the execution of Long Muhan, commander of the 88th Division, to restore military morale. He also decided to consolidate Hu Zongnan's, Li Hanhun's, Yu Jishi's, Song Xilian's, and Gui Yongqing's troops into the 1st Corps, with Xue Yue as commander-in-chief. On the morning of May 25, they launched a determined counterattack on Doihara's 14th Division. Song Xilian personally led the front lines on May 24 to rally the defeated 88th Division.  Starting on May 25, after three days of intense combat, Li Hanhun's 64th Army advanced to seize Luowang Station and Luowangzhai, while Song Xilian's 71st Army retook Lanfeng City, temporarily reopening the Longhai Line to traffic. At Sanyi Village, Gui Yongqing's 27th Army and Yu Jishi's 74th Army captured a series of outlying positions, including Yang'eyao, Chailou, Cailou, Hezhai, Xuelou, and Baowangsi. Despite these gains, more than 6,000 Japanese troops offered stubborn resistance. During the fighting, Ji Hongru, commander of the 302nd Regiment, was seriously wounded but continued to fight, shouting, “Don't worry about my death! Brothers, fight on!” He ultimately died a heroic death from his wounds. By May 27, Chiang Kai-shek, concerned that the forces had not yet delivered a decisive victory at Lanfeng, personally reprimanded the participating generals and ordered them to completely encircle and annihilate the enemy west of Lanfeng by the following day. He warned that if the opportunity was missed and Japanese reinforcements arrived, the position could be endangered. The next day, Chiang Kai-shek issued another telegram, urging Cheng Qian's First War Zone and all participating units to press the offensive. The telegram allegedly had this in it “It will forever be a laughingstock in the history of warfare.” Meanwhile on the other side, to prevent the annihilation of Doihara's 14th Division, the elite Japanese 16th Division and the 3rd Mixed Brigade, totaling over 40,000 men, launched a westward assault from Dangshan, capturing Yucheng on May 26. They then began probing the outskirts of Guide. Huang Jie's Eighth Army, responsible for the defense, withdrew to the outskirts of Guide that evening. On May 28, Huang Jie again led his troops on his own initiative, retreating to Liuhe and Kaifeng, leaving only the 187th Division to defend Zhuji Station and Guide City. At dawn on May 29, Peng Linsheng, commander of the 187th Division, also withdrew his troops, leaving Guide a deserted city. The Japanese occupied Guide without a fight. The loss of Guide dramatically shifted the tide of the war. Threatened on the flanks by the Japanese 16th Division, the Nationalist forces were forced onto the defensive. On May 28, the Japanese 14th Division concentrated its forces to counterattack Gui Yongqing's troops, but they were defeated again, allowing the Japanese to stabilize their position. At the same time, the fall of Shangqiu compelled Xue Yue's corps to withdraw five divisions to block the enemy in Shangqiu, and the Nationalist Army shifted to a defensive posture with the 14th Division holding Sanyizhai and Quxingji. To the north of the battlefield, the Japanese 4th Mixed Brigade, numbering over 10,000 men, was preparing to force a crossing of the Yellow River in order to join with the nearby 14th Division. More seriously, the 10th Division, together with its 13th Mixed Brigade and totaling more than 40,000 men, had captured Woyang and Bozhou on the Henan-Anhui border and was rapidly encircling eastern Henan. By the time of the Battle of Lanfeng, Japanese forces had deployed more than 100,000 troops, effectively surrounding the Nationalist army. On May 31, the First War Zone decided to withdraw completely, and the Battle of Lanfeng ended in defeat for the Nationalists, forcing Chiang Kai-shek to authorize diverting the Yellow River embankment to relieve pressure. The consequence was a deteriorating strategic situation, as encirclement tightened and reinforcement options dwindled, driving a retreat from the Lanfeng front. The National Army suffered more than 67,000 casualties, killed and wounded more than 10,000 Japanese soldiers, Lanfeng was lost, and Zhengzhou was in danger.  As in Nanjing, this Chinese army might have lived to fight another day, but the effect on Xuzhou itself was horrific. The city had endured Japanese bombardment since August 1937, and the population's mood swung between cautious hope and utter despair. In March, Du Zhongyuan visited Xuzhou. Before he left Wuhan, friends told him that “the city was desolate and the people were terrified, all the inhabitants of Xuzhou were quietly getting on with their business … sometimes it was even calmer than Wuhan.” The Australian journalist Rhodes Farmer recalled a similar image in a book published at war's end, noting the “ordinary townsfolk who became wardens, fire-fighters and first-aid workers during the raid and then went back to their civil jobs.” Yet the mid-May departure of Nationalist troops left the city and its outskirts at the mercy of an angry Imperial Army. Bombing continued through the final days of battle, and a single raid on May 14, 1938 killed 700 people. Around Xuzhou, buildings and bridges were destroyed—some by retreating Chinese forces, some by advancing Japanese troops. Taierzhuang, the scene of the earlier iconic defense, was utterly destroyed. Canadian Jesuits who remained in Xuzhou after its fall recorded that more than a third of the houses were razed, and most of the local population had fled in terror. In rural areas around the city, massacres were repeatedly reported, many witnessed by missionaries. Beyond the atrocities of the Japanese, locals faced banditry in the absence of law enforcement, and vital agricultural work such as planting seed ground to a halt. The loss of Xuzhou was both strategic and symbolic. It dealt a severe blow to Chiang's attempt to hold central China and to control regional troop movements. Morale, which Taierzhuang had briefly boosted, was battered again though not extinguished. The fall signaled that the war would be long, and that swift victory against Japan was no longer likely. Mao Zedong's Yan'an base, far to the northwest, grasped the meaning of defeat there. In May 1938 he delivered one of his most celebrated lectures, “On Protracted War,” chiding those who had over-optimistically claimed the Xuzhou campaign could be a quasi-decisive victory and arguing that, after Taierzhuang, some had become “giddy.” Mao insisted that China would ultimately prevail, yet he warned that it could not be won quickly, and that the War of Resistance would be protracted. In the meantime, the development of guerrilla warfare remained an essential piece of the long-term strategy that the Communist armies would pursue in north China. Yet the loss of Xuzhou did not necessarily portend a long war; it could, instead, presage a war that would be terrifyingly short. By spring 1938 the Chinese defenders were desperate. There was a real danger that the entire war effort could collapse, and the Nationalist governments' notable success as protectors of a shrinking “Free China” lay in avoiding total disaster. Government propaganda had successfully portrayed a plan beyond retreat to foreign observers, yet had Tokyo captured Wuhan in the spring, the Chinese Army would have had to withdraw at speed, reinforcing perceptions of disintegration. Western governments were unlikely to intervene unless convinced it was in their interests. Within the Nationalist leadership, competing instincts persisted. The government pursued welfare measures for the people in the midst of a massive refugee relief effort, the state and local organizations, aided by the International Red Cross, housed large numbers of refugees in 1937–1938. Yet there was a harsher strain within policy circles, with some officials willing to sacrifice individual lives for strategic or political ends as the Japanese threat intensified. Throughout central China, the Yellow River, China's “Sorrow”, loomed as the dominant geographic force shaping history. The loess-laden river, notorious for floods and shifting channels, was banked by massive dikes near Zhengzhou, exactly along the line the Japanese would traverse toward Wuhan. Using the river as a military instrument was discussed as a drastic option: Chiang and Cheng Qian's First War Zone contemplated diverting or breaching the dikes to halt or slow the Japanese advance, a measure that could buy time but would unleash enormous civilian suffering. The idea dated back to 1887 floods that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and even in 1935 Alexander von Falkenhausen had warned that the Yellow River could become the final line of defense. In 1938 Chiang, recognizing the futility of defeating the Japanese by conventional means at Zhengzhou, considered unleashing the river's force if necessary to impede the invaders. The political and strategic calculus was stark: protect central China and Wuhan, even if it required drastic and morally fraught measures. A more humane leader might have hesitated to break the dikes and spare the dams, allowing the Japanese to take Wuhan. But Chiang Kai-shek believed that if the dikes were not breached and Wuhan fell within days, the Nationalist government might be unable to relocate to Chongqing in time and would likely surrender, leaving Japan in control of almost all of China. Some have compared the choice to France's surrender in June 1940, underscoring that Chiang's decision came during the country's most terrifying assault, with Chinese forces much weaker and less trained than their European counterparts. The dilemma over whether to break the Yellow River dikes grew out of desperation. Chiang ultimately ordered General Wei Rulin to blow the dike that held the Yellow River in central Henan. There was no doubt about the consequences: floods would inundate vast areas of central China, creating a waterlogged barrier that would halt the Japanese advance. Yet for the plan to succeed, it had to be carried out quickly, and the government could offer no public warning in case the Japanese detected it and accelerated their movement. Xiong Xianyu, chief of staff in the 8th Division at the time, recorded the urgency of those hours in his diary. The Japanese were already on the north bank of the Yellow River, briefly delayed when the Chinese army blew up the railway bridge across the river. The destruction of the dikes was the next step: if the area became a sea of mud, there would be no way the Japanese could even attempt to reconstruct the bridge. Blasting the dikes proved easier in theory than in practice. Holding back such a massive body of water required substantial engineering, dams thick and well fortified. The army made its first attempts to blow the dike at the small town of Zhaokou between June 4 and 6, 1938, but the structure proved too durable; another nearby attempt failed as well. Hour by hour, the Japanese moved closer. Division commander Jiang Zaizhen asked Xiong Xianyu for his opinion on where they might breach the dams. Xiong wrote “I discussed the topography, and said that two places, Madukou and Huayuankou, were both possible.” But Madukou was too close to Zhaokou, where the breach had already failed, presenting a danger that the Japanese might reach it very soon. The village of Huayuankou, however, lay farther away and on a bend in the river: “To give ourselves enough time, Huayuankou would be best.” At first, the soldiers treated the task as a military engineering assignment, an “exciting” one in Xiong's words. Xiong and Wei Rulin conducted their first site inspection after dark, late on June 6. The surroundings offered a deceptive calm: Xiong recounted “The wind blew softly, and the river water trickled pleasantly.” Yet gauging the water level proved difficult, hampered by murky moonlight and burned-out flashlights. They spent the night in their car to determine precisely where to break the dike as soon as day broke. But daylight seemed to bring home the consequences of what they planned to do, and the soldiers grew increasingly anxious. Wang Songmei, commander of the 2nd Regiment, addressed the workers about to breach the dike: “My brothers, this plan will be of benefit to our country and our nation, and will lessen the harm that is being done to the people.In the future, you'll find good wives and have plenty of children.” Wang's words were meant to reassure the men of the political necessity of their actions and that fate would not, in the traditional Chinese sense, deny them a family because of the enormity of their deeds. General Wei confirmed that Huayuankou was the right spot, and on June 8 the work began, with about 2,000 men taking part. The Nationalist government was eager to ensure rapid progress. Xiong recorded that the “highest authorities”,, kept making telephone calls from Wuhan to check on progress. In addition, the party sent performers to sing and play music to bolster the workers' spirits. Senior General Shang Zhen announced to the laborers that if they breached the dam by midnight on June 8, each would receive 2,000 yuan; if they achieved it by six the next morning, they would still be paid 1,000 yuan. They needed encouragement, for the diggers had no artificial assistance. After the initial failures at Zhaokou, Wei's troops relied entirely on manual labor, with no explosives used. Yet the workers earned their payments, and the dike was breached in just a few hours. On the morning of June 9, Xiong recorded a rapid shift in mood: the atmosphere became tense and solemn. Initially, the river flow was modest, but by about 1:00 p.m. the water surged “fiercely,” flowing “like 10,000 horses.” Looking toward the distance, Xiong felt as though a sea had appeared before him. “My heart ached,” he wrote. The force of the water widened the breach, and a deadly stream hundreds of feet wide comprising about three-quarters of the river's volume—rushed southeast across the central Chinese plains. “We did this to stop the enemy,” Xiong reflected, “so we didn't regret the huge sacrifice, as it was for a greater victory.” Yet he and the other soldiers also saw a grim reality: the troops who had taken on the task of destroying the railway bridge and the dikes could not bear the flood's consequences alone. It would be up to the government and the people of the nation to provide relief for the countless households uprooted by the flood. In fact, the previous evening Commander Jiang had telephoned to request assistance for those flooded out of their homes.   Wei, Xiong, and their troops managed to escape by wooden boats. Hundreds of thousands of farmers trapped in the floods were far less fortunate. Time magazine's correspondent Theodore White reported on the devastation a few days later “Last week “The Ungovernable” [i.e. the Yellow River] lashed out with a flood which promised to change not only its own course but also the course of the whole Sino-Japanese War. Severe breaks in the dikes near Kaifeng sent a five-foot wall of water fanning out over a 500-squaremile area, spreading death. Toll from Yellow River floods is not so much from quick drowning as from gradual disease and starvation. The river's filth settles ankle-deep on the fields, mothering germs, smothering crops. Last week, about 500,000 peasants were driven from 2,000 communities to await rescue or death on whatever dry ground they could find”. Chiang's government had committed one of the grossest acts of violence against its own people, and he knew that the publicity could be a damaging blow to its reputation. He decided to divert blame by announcing that the dike had been broken, but blaming the breach on Japanese aerial bombing. The Japanese, in turn, fiercely denied having bombed the dikes. White's reporting reflected the immediate response of most foreigners; having heard about the atrocities at Nanjing and Xuzhou, he was disinclined to give the Japanese the benefit of the doubt. Furthermore, at the very time that the Yellow River was flooding central China, the Japanese were heavily bombing Guangzhou, causing thousands of casualties. To White, the Japanese counterargument—that the Chinese themselves were responsible, seemed unthinkable: “These accusations, foreign observers thought, were absurd. For the Chinese to check the Japanese advance at possible sacrifice of half a million lives would be a monstrous pyrrhic victory. Besides, dike-cutting is the blackest of Chinese crimes, and the Chinese Army would hardly risk universal censure for slight tactical gains.” But, of course, that is exactly what they had done. During the war the Nationalists never admitted that they, not the Japanese, had breached the dikes. But the truth quickly became widely known. Just a month later, on July 19, US Ambassador Johnson noted, in private communication, that the “Chinese blocked the advance on Chengchow [Zhengzhou] by breaching the Yellow River dikes.” Eventually some 54,000 square kilometers of central China were inundated by the floods. If the Japanese had committed such an act, it would have been remembered as the prime atrocity of the war, dwarfing even the Nanjing Massacre or the Chongqing air raids in terms of the number of people who suffered. Accurate statistics were impossible to obtain in the midst of wartime chaos and disaster, but in 1948 figures issued by the Nationalists themselves suggested enormous casualties: for the three affected provinces of Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu, the number of dead was put at 844,489, with some 4.8 million becoming refugees. More recent studies place the numbers lower, but still estimate the dead at around 500,000, and 3–5 million refugees. In contrast, the devastating May 1939 air raids on Chongqing killed some thousands. Xiong reflected in his diary that the breaching of the Yellow River dikes was a sacrifice for a greater victory. Even to some Japanese it seemed that the tactic had been successful in the short term: the first secretary at the US Embassy in Wuhan reported that the flood had “completely checked the Japanese advance on Chengchow” and had prevented them taking Wuhan by rail. Instead, he predicted, the attack was likely to come by water and along the north shore of the Yangtze. Supporters of the dike breaches could argue that these acts saved central China and Chiang's headquarters in Wuhan for another five months. The Japanese were indeed prevented from advancing along the Long–Hai railway toward Wuhan. In the short term the floods did what the Nationalists wanted. But the flooding was a tactic, a breathing space, and did not solve the fundamental problem: China's armies needed strong leadership and rapid reform. Some historians suggest that Chiang's decision was pointless anyway, since it merely delayed the inevitable. Theodore White was right: no strategic advantage could make the deaths of 500,000 of China's own people a worthwhile price to pay. However, Chiang Kai-shek's decision can be partly explained, though not excused, by the context. We can now look back at the actions of the Nationalists and argue that they should not have held on to Wuhan, or that their actions in breaching the dam were unjustifiable in the extreme. But for Chiang, in the hot summer of 1938, it seemed his only hope was to deny Japan as much of China for as long as possible and create the best possible circumstances for a long war from China's interior, while keeping the world's attention on what Japan was doing. The short delay won by the flooding was itself part of the strategy. In the struggle raging within the soul of the Nationalist Party, the callous, calculating streak had won, for the time being. The breaking of the dikes marked a turning point as the Nationalists committed an act whose terrible consequences they would eventually have to expiate. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. In late 1937, China's frontline trembled as Japanese forces closed in on Wuhan. Chiang Kai-shek faced a brutal choice: endure costly defenses or unleash a desperate gamble. Chiangs' radical plan emerged: breach the Yellow River dikes at Huayuankou to flood central China, buying time. The flood roared, washing villages and futures away, yet slowing the enemy. The battlefield paused, while a nation weighed courage against civilian suffering, victory against devastating costs.

“This is not a message of happiness or reassurance,'' Carter said in his remarks 40 years ago, “but it is the truth and it is a warning.'' In a speech given in July of 1979, witten about here in an article titled "Jimmy Carter and the meaning of Malaise"  from JSTOR Daily: "Carter proclaimed that the nation was suffering a “crisis in confidence” which struck “at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.” He called upon the nation to reflect upon its meaning and purpose, and critiqued American materialism.The immediate response was generally favorable. “No president since Abraham Lincoln had spoken to the American people with such sincerity about matters of the spirit,” gushed presidential historian Theodore White. Polls indicated that 61 percent of the public said the speech inspired further confidence. Seventy-two percent said they were willing to sacrifice to help solve the energy crisis, which had been Carter's major policy plea. The president's approval ratings went up twelve points."But it was in fact, the beginning of the end of the Carter years. With in the next few months he would be challenged by Ted Kennedy, have Sky Lab fall out the sky, have gas lines throughout the country and have the biggest crisis of his term begin in Iran. This speech about "A Crisis in Confidence" in america would come to symbolize the lack of confidence Americans were growing to have in Jimmy Carter.  Carter would reshuffle his cabinet and try to provide leadership for the nation instead, as one Southern Governor put it " :“Mr. President, you are not leading this nation — you're just managing the government.'' Which is an image Jimmy Carter could never really shake with the American public.  Despite many accomplishments Jimmy Carter had during his term much of the feeling that the President was a dour, pessimistic leader, really began with this speech. Though the speech itself was really a call to action to deal with the energy problems the nation had and that Carter believed could be corrected, and that given the proper leadership we as a nation could become an export and energy leader rather than be myriad in problems created by competitors who wanted to hurt the American economy. The fact is Jimmy Carter was right. Years later we would become the number one energy producer in the world. This speech actually aged well, long after it could no longer do any good for a President who would be turned out of office after only a single term.  Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

The late author, Theodore White wrote several books during his storied career, including the Making of the President series. Starting with the election of 1960, considered by many the dawn of a new era in presidential campaigning and elections, to the elections of 1964, 1968, and concluding with the election of 1972. In each successive book, White went through with excruciating detail and superb research what made each electoral contest different from those that had come before it. We jump from what we now would consider a very different time for our nation, and in particular for the presidency to the events that took place on April 4, 2023, when the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump Made history in a different way when he was arraigned on 34 counts of falsifying business records by the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. Some thoughts and observations are shared in this episode of Law With Mr. Lafayette.

Gary Hart has perhaps the most unique political career of his generation...staffer for Robert Kennedy's Justice Department...manager of George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign...two-term US Senator...nearly becoming the Democratic nominee for President in 1984...starting 1988 as the Democratic frontrunner before leaving the race amid a media frenzy...and 5+ decades as a forward-looking thinker on the challenges facing the U.S. and the world.(To donate to support The Pro Politics Podcast, you may use this venmo link or inquire by email at mccrary.zachary@gmail.com)IN THIS EPISODE…Growing up in a farming town in Eastern Kansas and his roots in the Church of the Nazarene…How a connection to Robert Kennedy leads to managing the McGovern campaign in 1972…The Iowa strategy that helped McGovern win the '72 Democratic nomination…The one word that defined the success of the McGovern primary campaign…Inside the chaotic Tom Eagleton / Sargent Shriver '72 VP process…How he made the jump from campaign manager to a winning first-time US Senate candidate…Senator Hart remembers his Colorado Democratic colleague, the late Congresswoman Pat Schroeder…Early memories as a 36-year old U.S. Senator…How he forged a path as a new breed of Democrat…What led him to run for President in 1984 and how he nearly won the nomination….Who might have been Gary Hart's 1984 VP choice?Why he didn't run for re-election in 1986?What he will and won't say about the short-lived '88 campaign and why the “true story” may never come out…How he tackled his career after leaving the national stage as a candidate…The current issue Senator Hart believes is most under-discussed…Reflecting on his 50+ year friendship with Joe Biden…His confusion over the current state of US politics…His lifelong affinity for used-book stores… AND Atari Democrats, Matt Bai, Michael Bennet, Brumus, Carnegie libraries, clever journalistic shorthands, Bill Clinton, cool and aloof, Walter Cronkite, Detroit, Eisenhower Republicans, The Fairness Doctrine, Geraldine Ferraro, generational friction, Dick Gephardt, Newt Gingrich, John Glenn, Al Gore, Happy Days, hinges of history, Hubert Humphrey, Hugh Jackman, Jacob Javits, JFK, Pat Leahy, Mike Mansfield, Mac Mathias, the McGovern Army, Ed Muskie, the Military Reform Caucus, the National Security Division, The New York Times, Richard Nixon, peanut butter sandwiches, Warren Rudman, the Sermon on the Mount, Silicon Valley, super-delegates, Rick Stearns, Stu Symington, tremendous ferment, Stewart Udall, Watergate, Theodore White, Tim Wirth & more!

Last week marked the anniversary of journalist Theodore White's reporting on the 1942-44 famine in Henan, which helped spur greater relief for people in this inland province.Read the article by Richard Yarrow: https://supchina.com/2022/03/31/theodore-whites-reporting-of-famine-in-henan-saved-lives/Narrated by Cliff Larsen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Donald Trump and his regime posed a serious threat to the very soul of our nation. Beginning with Hillary Clinton's loss and continuing through Joe Biden's decisive victory, Isaac Dovere provides us with unprecedented behind-the-scenes reporting of the Democratic Party's fight to defeat Trump and restore America by retaking the White House. Edward discusses his new book Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaign to Defeat Trump, and the insights he gained while writing it. Praise for Battle For the Soul: PRAISE “In the tradition of Theodore White's The Making of the President . . . . A riveting account . . . filled with turning point moments. . . . Scenes jump off the page.” —The Washington Post “Essential reading. . . . Dovere's first book is informed and granular, filled with up-close quotes and lacerating observations, a must-read for newsrooms and political junkies. . . . Battle for the Soul provides ample warning and plenty of food for thought.” —Lloyd Green, The Guardian “A wide-ranging history of a tangled campaign.” —Kirkus Reviews “An incisive and deeply reported portrait of the Democratic party in exile during the Trump presidency . . . . Littered with rich characterizations, wry humor, and impressive insider access.” —Publishers Weekly “There's so much in it. It's so dishy. It's so fantastic. You'll learn a lot.” —Julie Mason, SiriusXM “Candy. . . . Even if you think you know the dynamics, you read a great book like this by a great reporter, and you learn these new things.” —John King, CNN “One juicy book.” —Alex Witt, MSNBC “It is outstanding. Strongly recommend. I think it is probably the best read of the 2020 campaign. The success of the book is that it doesn't get bogged down in the horse race, electoral math type thing, but it talks about the personalities, how the personalities drove what happened in an extraordinarily unpredictable campaign.” —Charlie Sykes, The Bulwark “Highly recommend – it is a dynamite book.” —John Fugelsang, SiriusXM “An extraordinary new book.” —Thom Hartmann “The inside campaign details I was craving. . . . Buy the book.” —Dave Weigel, The Washington Post SEE LESS --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/alyssa-milano-sorry-not-sorry/message

The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future by Chris Whipple Chriswhipple.net From the New York Times bestselling author of The Gatekeepers, a remarkable, behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to run the world’s most powerful intelligence agency, and how the CIA is often a crucial counterforce against presidents threatening to overstep the powers of their office. Only eleven men and one woman are alive today who have made the life-and-death decisions that come with running the world’s most powerful and influential intelligence service. With unprecedented, deep access to nearly all these individuals plus several of their predecessors, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the United States president alone, but whose activities—spying, espionage, and covert action—take place on every continent. At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a brake on rogue presidents, starting in the mid-seventies with DCI Richard Helms’s refusal to conceal Richard Nixon’s criminality and continuing to the present as the actions of a CIA whistleblower have ignited impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Since its inception in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency has been a powerful player on the world stage, operating largely in the shadows to protect American interests. For The Spymasters, Whipple conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with nearly every living CIA director, pulling back the curtain on the world’s elite spy agencies and showing how the CIA partners—or clashes—with counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Topics covered in the book include attempts by presidents to use the agency for their own ends; simmering problems in the Middle East and Asia; rogue nuclear threats; and cyberwarfare. A revelatory, behind-the-scenes look, The Spymasters recounts seven decades of CIA activity and elicits predictions about the issues--and threats—that will engage the attention of future operatives and analysts. Including eye-opening interviews with George Tenet, John Brennan, Leon Panetta, and David Petraeus, as well as those who’ve just recently departed the agency, this is a timely, essential, and important contribution to current events. About Chris Whipple Chris Whipple is an acclaimed writer, documentary filmmaker, and speaker. He is the author of the upcoming book, 'The Spymasters: How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future,' to be published by Scribner on September 15, 2020. Highly anticipated, 'The Spymasters' is the most thorough and illuminating portrait ever of America's CIA directors--based on extensive interviews with the directors themselves--those upon whom the country depends to prevent another Pearl Harbor, 9/11, or deadly pandemic. Epic in scope, spanning seven decades of intelligence gathering, espionage and covert warfare, and intimate in detail, featuring indelible portraits of the directors, this is the definitive story of the men--and, currently, the woman--who keep the secrets. Whipple's previous book, 'The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency,' was a critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller. The first in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the men who have been the president's closest advisers, 'The Gatekeepers' was named by both Amazon and Apple as one of their "best books of the year." The Huffington Post compared it to "classic works by Richard Neustadt, Theodore White and other White House chroniclers." A frequent guest on MSNBC and CNN, Whipple has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Politico, the Daily Beast, and many other publications. He is the chief executive officer of CCWHIP Productions, and executive producer of the Showtime film, 'The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs.' Whipple was educated at Deerfield Academy and received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in history from Yale College.

As we look out at the world we see a species besieged by a disease that has brought havoc to every corner of our lives.  Nothing is as it once was and we are in despair.  Supposing the worst is yet to come?  What if we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg?  Join your host, Chris Flisher as he speaks with mundane astrologer, Theodore White on the upcoming trends that are ominous at best.  How do we prepare? 

Nina Totenberg at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., May 21, 2019. (photo by Allison Shelley) Ep. 8 — An award-winning reporter struggles with balancing a demanding job and managing a family crisis and learns the true meaning of duty and family / Nina Totenberg, Legal Affairs Correspondent, National Public Radio (NPR) In this episode, NPR’s Nina Totenberg confesses that her youthful admiration for teen fictional detective Nancy Drew played a formative role in pursuing journalism as a career in an era when female reporters were a rarity. Totenberg reveals how she broke free from the confines of fashion and wedding news reporting via press releases and became one of the most acclaimed and celebrated legal reporters in the country. And she compares the challenges she and other working women of her generation faced to how women are handling sexual harassment today in light of the #MeToo movement. Totenberg describes what it’s like to have covered the U.S. Supreme Court for decades, and she reads the tea leaves on where this increasingly conservative court may be heading in the coming months. And she walks us through her difficult days holding down a high-profile job and taking care of her late first husband, Senator Floyd Haskell (D-Colorado), after he suffered a serious head injury from a fall and battled for his life for months in an intensive care unit. Totenberg shares with us the advice that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave her to help her through those trying times. And she talks about her own survival from a snorkeling accident when she was hit by a power boat during her honeymoon with her second husband, who just happened to be a trauma surgeon. Through these crises, Totenberg reveals how she came to have a renewed appreciation for friends and family and the importance of duty in life’s journey. Last but not least, Totenberg ends the conversation with a heartwarming anecdote about her virtuoso violinist father Roman Totenberg’s stolen Stradivarius. Transcript Download the PDF Chitra Ragavan:   Hello, and welcome to When It Mattered. I'm Chitra Ragavan. On this episode, we will be talking to Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio's award-winning legal affairs correspondent. Totenberg's coverage of the Supreme Court and legal affairs have won her widespread recognition and acclaim and earned many awards. She's often featured in Supreme Court documentaries, most recently in RBG. As Newsweek put it, quote, "The mainstays of NPR are Morning Edition and All Things Considered. But the créme del la créme is Nina Totenberg." Nina, welcome to the podcast. Nina Totenberg:   It's my pleasure, Chitra. Chitra Ragavan:   What was your path to becoming a reporter? Nina Totenberg:   Well, when I was a girl, really a girl girl, I was a great fan of Nancy Drew, and Nancy could do everything. And, of course, she had no mother. Her mother was dead, so she didn't even have to compete for her father's affections. And she had a boyfriend, Ned, and a roadster, and she solved all kinds of mysteries and could do a jackknife dive. And I wanted to be Nancy Drew, and I thought the mystery part was something that I could do. And so I think that that made me, at first, interested in journalism. Nina Totenberg:   And then later, when I was teenager, I read Theodore White's, The Making of a President, 1960, and I thought, "That's really what I want to do. I want to be ... " The elegant way of saying it is, "A witness to history." The inelegant way of saying it is, "I want to be a gossip," in the most regal sense. I mean, my colleague, Cokie Roberts, often says that, "Historians get it wrong. They make it boring." But history is gossip. It's what's going on and the story behind the story as well as the story in front of the story. And that's what I wanted to do from the age of about 16 on. Chitra Ragavan:   So how did you go from being a fan of Nancy Drew to actually becoming a real reporter?

From the moment that Jackie Kennedy branded the Kennedy presidency as Camelot, in an interview with author and historian Theodore White, royalty was suddenly bestowed upon the survivors. The recoil effect from that simple phrase on Ted and Bobby and the rest of the family was impactful. But at least they were able to understand and process it. For John F. Kennedy Jr. he would immediately become a prince without any say in the matter As he came of age emotionally, physically and politically, he was permanently marked by the mythology. It shaped every aspect of his public and private life, right up until his untimely death. Some men and women choose to live in the public eye. Others like royalty, like William and Harry, for example, are just born there and have to come to grips with it. JFK Jr. was as close as we have gotten to royalty. He was to become an American Prince. How well it served him and his country is still an open question. One explored by Steve Gillon, a historian and long-time friend in his new book America's Reluctant Prince: The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr. My conversation with Steven Gillon:  

Greetings, listeners! Welcome to the sleepy town of Enigma, Oregon, where strange things happen daily and only the kids and the weird adults experience it. In this Episode 0, you'll meet the cast consisting of Lukas McElroy, the Hick with a heart of gold, Theodore White, the truant rocker searching for his brother, Spencer Palmer, the cryptozoid fanatic shutterbug, and Lorraine "Rainey" Taylor, the tutu-wearing weirdo who can't help but getting into trouble. Thank you to Kevin McLeod of www.incomptech.com for the intro and outro theme, Vanishing, used under the Attribution 3.0 license, part of the Creative Commons license.

I just finished talking with Dan Drezner, Professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Stay with me now… because Drezner is most definitely not your parents’ poli sci professor.   For one, you’ve got to follow him on Twitter. He’s funny, topical, and as likely to tweet a goofy video as he is to include a scatter-plot graph. He’s also not above using a curse word every now and then. He also seems, on Twitter, like a guy you’d want to hang out with. For example, when he tweeted before the debate: “I'm stocked up on the necessary provisions for #debatenight. Are you,” the accompanying image wasn’t old Theodore White books on The Making of the President, but instead was a photo with bottles of rum, scotch, vodka, and ibuprofen. And the scotch was Blue Label. Like I said, definitely a new age professor – and we talked about that. In fact, it turns out that in addition to foreign policy and international security agreements and global trade, Drezner thinks a lot about how technology lets him and others like him become an important and growing part of every day political discussion. And if you listen to his analysis, you’ll understand immediately why Dan’s become a big player. But if you want to keep up with him, you better move quickly. In addition to teaching and tweeting seemingly non-stop, Dan’s a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s “PostEverything” blog. He’s also written 5 books, and is at work on number 6. He’s got a lot to say. Much of it’s really funny. All is incredibly insightful. I think you’re going to like this conversation...

Theodore White and his book the making of the President 1960.

Few people understand president Obama better than Jonathan Alter. He has covered Obama since his days in Chicago. He wrote an early Newsweek cover story that help bring Obama to national prominence and has been one of the preeminent chroniclers of Obama's campaigns and more importantly, it’s connection to the Obama Presidency. Over the years there have been several books central to changing our view of politics. Theodore White’s, Making of the President, F. Clifton White’s Suite 3505, Joe McGinniss’ Selling of the President 1968, and Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the 1972 campaign. Now Jonathan Alter, award winning reporter, columnist, former senior for Newsweek, adds his new book The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies to that list. My conversation with Jonathan Alter: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

The Rockefeller World, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission by Andrew Gavin Marshall It is quite apparent in the history of America from the late 19th century and into the 20th century, that the Rockefeller family has wielded massive influence in shaping the socio-political economic landscape of society. However, up until the first half of the 20th century came to a close, there were several other large dominant families with whom the Rockefellers shared power and purpose, notably among them, the Morgans. As the century progressed, their interests aligned further still, and following World War II, the Rockefellers became the dominant group in America, and arguably, the world. Of course, there was the well-established business links between the major families emerging out of the American Industrial Revolution going into the 20th century, followed with the establishment of the major foundations designed to engage in social engineering. It was with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that the changing dynamics of the Morgan-Rockefeller clan became most apparent. As discussed earlier in this book, the Council on Foreign Relations is the ultimate networking and socializing institution among the American elite. The influence of the CFR is unparalleled among other think tanks. One study revealed that between 1945 and 1972, roughly 45% of the top foreign policy officials who served in the United States government were also members of the Council, leading one prominent member to once state that membership in the Council is essentially a “rite of passage” for being a member of the foreign policy establishment. One Council member, Theodore White, explained that the Council’s “roster of members has for a generation, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, been the chief recruiting ground for Cabinet-level officials in Washington.”[1] The CIA, as previously examined, is also no stranger to this network, since more often than not in the first several decades of the existence of the Agency, its leaders were drawn from Council membership, such as Allen Dulles, John A. McCone, Richard Helms, William Colby, and George H.W. Bush. As some researchers have examined: The influential but private Council, composed of several hundred of the country’s top political, military, business, and academic leaders has long been the CIA’s principal “constituency” in the American public. When the agency has needed prominent citizens to front for its proprietary (cover) companies or for other special assistance, it has often turned to Council members.[2] Roughly 42% of the top foreign policy positions in the Truman administration were filled by Council members, with 40% in the Eisenhower administration, 51% of the Kennedy administration, and 57% of the Johnson administration, many of whom were holdovers from the Kennedy administration.[3] The Council has had and continues to have enormous influence in the mainstream media, through which it is able to propagate its ideology, advance its agendas, and conceal its influence. In 1972, three out of ten directors and five out of nine executives of the New York Times were Council members. In the same year, one out of four editorial executives and four of nine directors of the Washington Post were also Council members, including its President, Katharine Graham, as well as the Vice-President Osborn Elliott, who was also editor-in-chief of Newsweek. Of both Time Magazine and Newsweek, almost half of their directors in 1972 were also Council members.[4] The Council also has extensive ties to the other major American think tanks, most especially the Brookings Institution, as well as the RAND Corporation, the Hudson Institute, the Foreign Policy Association, and of course, the special-purpose foundations such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, of which fifteen of its twenty-one trustees (as of 1971) were also Council members, and its president from 1950 to 1971, Joseph E. Johnson, was also a director of the Council during the same time period.[5] The Council and the major philanthropic foundations have had extensive ties not only to each other, but in working together in constructing research and programs of study in foreign affairs. The State Department undertook a study of 191 university-connected centers for foreign affairs research, which revealed that the largest sources of funding came from the Ford Foundation (which funded 107 of the 191 centers), the federal government (which funded 67 centers), the Rockefeller Foundation (18 centers), and the Carnegie Corporation (17 centers), and that, “for eleven of the top twelve universities with institutes of international studies, Ford is the principal source of funding.”[6] These foundations, aside from being major sources of funding for the Council throughout the years from its origins, also share extensive leadership ties with the Council. At the top of the list is the Rockefeller Foundation, which in 1971 had fourteen out of nineteen of its directors also being members of the Council; the Carnegie Corporation followed with ten out of seventeen; then came the Ford Foundation with seven out of sixteen; and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund with six out of eleven board members also being members of the Council. It should also be noted that the Carnegie network extended beyond the Carnegie Corporation, and also included the Carnegie Endowment, the Carnegie Institute of Washington, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. From its founding until 1972, one-fourth of all the Council’s directors had served as trustees or directors of at least one of the several Carnegie foundations. John J. McCloy had served as chairman of both the Council and the Ford Foundation at the same time, from the 1950s until the late 60s.[7]