Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 222

NFL: Heading for Trouble

Here's the trailer for the upcoming PBS Frontline probe on concussions in the NFL--viewing this reportedly caused ESPN to pull out of their partnership on the doc, afraid to anger NFL.

Bad Timing? Files Show U.S. Helped Saddam As He Used Chem Weapons

Not exactly the best news for the White House as it ramps up for attack on Syria.  The reputable Foreign Policy magazine reports this and charges U.S. with "complicity":

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent....

In contrast to today's wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein's widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted. 

It has been previously reported that the United States provided tactical intelligence to Iraq at the same time that officials suspected Hussein would use chemical weapons. But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United States' knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.

MLK on 'MTP'

You've probably heard about this but if you haven't seen you really must watch  Meet the Press re-broadcast of its interviews with Dr. King and Roy Wilkins 50 years ago.  Note that David Gregory in intro failing to mention pathetic, obnoxious, questions throughout.  But then would Gregory even recognize?


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When 'Born to Run' Was Born

The iconic breakthrough Springsteen album released on this day in 1975.  We had just given our friend his first magazine cover at  Crawdaddy--more than two-and-a-half years after publishing first magazine feature (fun video here).  Here's collection of nine outtakes or rough versions from the album, including quite different  "Thunder Road."  By the way, I will always believe I inspired the famous Roy Orbison line (see upcoming memoir).

68 Years Ago: Time to 'Get the Anti-Propagandists Out

As I've noted in many previous posts--and in my book Atomic Cover-up --the U.S. after dropping the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki was confronted with a worldwide publicity (not to mention,  moral) problem:  reports from Japan of a mysterious new disease afflicting survivors of the twin blasts.  Some there were already dubbing it "radiation disease," which was what our bomb-makers and policy-makers expected--but still, officials and most in media in U.S. mocked the idea.  No one from the West had yet reached either city.

Sixty-eight years ago today one of the most remarkable conversations of the nuclear took place. 

Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project (with J. Robert Oppenheimer, left), had received a telex the day before from Los Alamos, as scientists asked for information on those reports from Japan. Groves responded that they were nothing but "a hoax" or "propaganda."  The top radiation expert at Los Alamos also used the word "hoax."  Knowing that the press would be seeking his official response, Groves called Lt. Col. Charles Rea, a doctor at Oak Ridge hospital (part of the bomb project).  According to the official transcript, Rea called the reports of death-by-radiation "kind of crazy" and Groves joked, "Of course, it's crazy--a doctor like me can tell that."

But Groves knew it wasn't crazy and he grew agitated as he read passages from the Japanese reports.  He even asked if there was "any difference between Japanese blood and others."  Both men ultimately seized on the idea that everything was attributable to burns--or "good thermal burns," as Rea put it.  Groves replied, "Of course we are getting a good dose of propaganda"--and blamed some of our scientists and our media for some of that.  Groves revealed, "We are not bothered a bit, excepting for --what they are trying to do is create sympathy."

But Rea surely knew they were merely denying reality, admitting finally, "Of course, those Jap scientists over there aren't so dumb either."  Still, in a second conversation that day with Groves, Rea advised: "I think you had better get the anti-propagandists out."  One of the great quotes of our time. 

Five days later, on a visit to Oak Ridge, Groves labelled the reports from Japan propaganda and added, "The atomic bomb is not an inhuman weapon."

Groves' top aide, Kenneth D. Nichols, would admit in his 1987 memoirs that "we knew that there would be many deaths and injuries caused by the radiation..."  Much more on the decades-long cover-up, including film footage, in my book.

Party Like It's 2003

 UPDATE:  Gotta love McClatchy which like other news outlets today cites in opening graf of story that Obama now deeply considering strikes on Syria, but unlike others, adds in 2nd graf:  "But any strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime would occur over the misgivings of a majority of Americans, according to a new poll, and with only limited support from Congress. The fallout from such action includes likely retaliation from Iran, Russia and the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah – Assad’s three chief foreign patrons – and could draw the United States deeply into a new Middle East conflict after years of entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/25...
Earlier: Repeat of Iraq 2003?  Syria today okays inspection of site of alleged chem attack by UN but U.S. racing to launch attack before inspectors can report?  Already were reports today from White House or military sources saying "too late."  And complaint that no firm date given.  Now (according to Richard Engel in a tweet) Syria says:  tomorrow.   So rockets may fly tonight.

Even some good people often critical of hasty moves have fallen into line on this--you know who you are.   We recall the self-proclaimed "liberal hawks" and (in Bill Keller's immortal phrase) "reluctant hawks" who backed Iraq invasion, to their and our shame.  You'll ID them now by their full cynicism about worth of UN inspections, "came to late," "won't have full access" etc.  Also references to Kosovo.  Maybe we'll attack before McClatchy has a chance for a few full reports.  Recall that UN inspectors were on ground in Iraq in 2003 and finding nothing (accurately) and we didn't care.

In the case of Syria, there is actually more seeming evidence, if no proof, simply because a top aid group said yesterday they'd treated 3000 with some sort of toxic symptoms, though from unknown cause and perps. But hey, let's rush to attack--after sitting by for months--without on-the-ground proof.  

New Film and Book Reveal Salinger Secrets, They Say

Sunday Update #2  NYT has obtained a copy of the Salinger book and just reviewed by Kakutani.  She calls it a bit slapdash, confirm earlier reports on the plans to publish new books by him (see below) and adds:  'The sharp-edged portrait of Salinger that Mr. Shields and Mr. Salerno draw in this book is that of a writer whose 'life was a slow-motion suicide mission' — a man who never recovered from the horrors of wartime combat and the soul-shaking sight of a Nazi death camp filled with burned and smoldering corpses."

Thanks partly to religion the authors says he ended up as a "blinkered and condescending curmudgeon who is frequently guilty of the same sort of phoniness or hypocrisy his characters so deplored."  You have to wonder about their claim that he stayed out of the media glare because he was allegedly born with one testicle....Shields is author of recent Kurt Vonnegut bio.  My new Vonnegut ebook here.

Sunday:  NYT just up with story revealing secrets from the film and book (co-authored by David Shields.  There are new Salinger books coming, as instructed, starting in 2015, they claim.  They also reveal, among other things, details about his first wife (German woman he sent back home after learning she may have helped Gestapo) and affair with teen (dumped her after sleeping with her once, allegedly).  And more.

Earlier: Great mysteries surrounded J.D. Salinger after he semi-disappeared, back in the mid-1960s, and then in the past year, re: an upcoming documentary about him, the first of its kind.   What exactly did the film-makers discover?  Secrecy has been the key.  I know this terrain well, as a Salinger reader back in the '60s, then as an editor at Crawdaddy in the '70s when we assigned the ritual "find Salinger" cover story (more about that in my upcoming memoir).  Anyway: I happened to see the trailer for the film last night and here it is.   Also: Speaking of novelists popular with young people, my new ebook on Kurt Vonnegut.

Cohen Does Simon

Just came across this, Leonard Cohen, our greatest living poet, reciting Paul Simon's "Sounds of Silence," with a few twists.  And then, below that, he recites part of his "Alexandra Leaving." Sharon Robinson, who wrote the music, then sings it. One of the greatest songs of our time.

Dylan at the March on Washington

Fifty years ago, joined by Joan Baez.

'Dream,' Baby

Dean "The Dream" Meminger from some of the great old Knicks teams has died.  Robert Ward, who used to write for me at Crawdaddy and went on to a very successful career writing novels and TV scripts and again now a friend has a wonderful story about Dean just up at Facebook:

My pal Dean "The Dream" Meminger who I played basketball with three days a week at the YMHA on the Upper East Side of New York died today. He was an All American at Marquette, a great defensive specialist on the World Champion Knicks. We played in a morning game at the Y and often ran on the same team.

After the main game he and I and his teammate Hawthorne Wingo would hang out and play three on three with anyone hanging around. Dean could score any time he wanted but was generous and fed me the ball. At first I would lob passes to Wingo who could jump out of the gym. But one day he looked at me and said:"You shoot. I bound." I got it. He needed to practice bounding since that's how he stayed on the Knicks. Dean gets the ball, passes to me and they want me to shoot! This was a gunner's dream come true. I shot, missed Hawthorne bounded and threw the ball back out to me to shoot again. It became embarrassing. I gave the ball back to Dean who would shoot and make EVERY shot.

On same days after everyone else left Dean and I would play one on one. He was two inches taller than me and nine million times better so we made up our own rules. 1. He had to shoot outside the three point line. (Or outside the circle, as I'm not sure they had three pointers yet) 2. He could rebound his ball but still had to run back outside. No put backs. With these rules firmly in place we started out. I was a good shooter and if left alone I could hit shots. Dean left me open and I hit eight shots in a row in a game of fifteen. I could hear a happy little inner voice singing inside my head:"Bobby Ward is going to beat a world champion Knicks player at one on one." Then I missed. Dean got the ball and with me draped all over him made fifteen three pointers in a row. At the end I was laughing and tackling him as he shot and he still made them all. He looked at me and said, "Good try Bobby."

He was a lovable and wonderful guy who everyone at the Y loved. His life was fouled up by drugs and the usual suspects but he was a dear pal and a buddy to all the guys who played with him. In our games he was generous, and would much rather pass than shoot. RIP Dream. No one who knew you will ever forget you.