''The Roosevelt I Knew'' (Collier's Magazine, 1946)Here is the recollection of FDR by a woman who worked closely with the man for nearly thirty five years as political colleague, state governor appointee and Labor Secretary: Francis Perkins (1880 - 1965).
Secretary Perkins and President Roosevelt were a vital team when it came to crafting many of the labor laws that are still enforced today. Click here to read a 1937 magazine article about the creation of the first minimum wage laws...
••Watch This Francis Perkins Film Clip•• The Lack of German Naval Power (United States News, 1946) "Not only did Germany limit the size of her fleet, but she failed to push technical developments. For example, she was behind the Allies in developing radar, and her torpedoes were mechanically deficient. She was ahead of the Allies in perfecting magnetic mines, but these proved to be a short-lived advantage... The priority for naval construction was so low that when the war began in September, 1939, the naval strength allowed in the treaty of 1935 had not been reached."
"Thus, in the opinion of Admiral Doenitz, Germany, for the second time within 25 years, lost her bid for world supremacy because of her weakness at sea."
Click here to read about an American destroyer on D-Day.
Un-Americanism (The American Magazine, 1946)New York's Cardinal Francis Joseph Spellman (1889 – 1967) wrote the attached editorial explaining why Marxism was the polar opposite of everything Americans holds dear:
"My sole objective in writing is to help save America from the godless governings of totalitarianism...if you believe with me that freedom is the birthright of the great and the small, the strong and the weak, the poor and the afflicted, then you would be convicted as I that [Socialism] is the antithesis of American Democracy."
Click here to read another argument opposed to socialism.
''Our Balance Sheet In Japan'' (Collier's Magazine, 1946)Here is an honest report card concerning the first six months of the American occupation of Japan. The list of things that we did successfully at that point were considerably shorter than the list of our failings. Much is said concerning the Japanese "deep state" and their resistance to the new order. The Japanese-Americans of the OSS (Rob Wagner's Script, 1946)Printed on the attached two pages is an informative history of the vital contributions that were made by the Japanese-Americans who served in the O.S.S. behind enemy lines during the Burma-China campaign. Additionally, the men who toiled on behalf of the Southeast Asia Translation and Interrogation Center are also praised. This article does not hold back in giving credit where it is due - many are the names that were remembered with gratitude.
Hiding A Military Error (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)This 1946 article puts a nice face on a subject that both American diplomats and military men were eager to hide from the world - the issue involving a total lack of military preparedness. The journalist reported on the military's push to bulk-up the reserves to an acceptable level, but the real story was that all branches of the armed services were on a recruiting drive for more men (and women) to make up for the fact that the post-war deployment program had drastically reduced the combat effectiveness of practically every unit. Under heavy pressure from civil authorities to save money, military planners failed to retain the services of numerous combat veterans to train the newest recruits. This partially explains the lack of accomplishments attained by the earliest divisions deployed to halt the North Korean advances in 1950. The Abusive Occupying Army (Collier's Magazine, 1946)This editorial lends credibility to Andrei Cherny's 2007 tome, The Candy Bombers , in which the author states that there was no love lost between the Berliners and the occupying American army in the immediate aftermath of the German surrender:
"Stories keep coming back to this country about American soldiers sticking up Berlin restaurants, or beating up German citizens, or looting German homes. How much of this stuff goes on, we don't know. We do know that some of it goes on, and that any of it is too much. Not that we believe in sobbing unduly over the German people, they let themselves be razzle-dazzled into the war by Hitler and his mobsters."
The WASPs (Think & Newsweek Magazines, 1942, 1946)"The WASP program, for as such the Women Airforces Service Pilots became known, was begun in August, 1943. In addition to providing women fliers who could take over certain jobs and thereby release their brothers for front-line duty, the program was designed to see if women could serve as military pilots and, if so, to serve as a nucleus of an organization that could be rapidly expanded...The women who took part in the pilot program proved of great value to their country, flying almost every type of airplane used by the AAF, from the Thunderbolt fighter, to the C-54 transport, they flew enough miles to reach around the world 2,500 times at the Equator." The WASPs were fortunate enough to have pioneering aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran (1906 – 1980) to serve at their helm. Click here to read about the WAC truck drivers of the Second World War.
The Plot to Assassinate Eisenhower Foiled by Cartoons...(Lion's Roar, 1946)An interesting W.W. II story was passed along by actor, announcer, producer and screenwriter John Nesbitt (1910 - 1960), who is best remembered as the narrator for the MGM radio series Passing Parade. Five months after the end of the war, Nesbitt relayed to his audience that during the Battle of the Bulge, U.S.-born Nazi agents, having been ordered to kill General Eisenhower, did not even come close to fulfilling their mission, suffered incarceration among other humiliations - all due to a lack of knowledge where American comic strips were concerned. Read on...
Here is another "Now it Can be Told" article... ''No More Pearl Harbors'' (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)When the twenty-year-old editor at Yank Magazine wrote this editorial at the close of W.W. II he was expressing a belief that was shared equally with the members of the W.W. I generation who prosecuted and managed the war from Washington - and that was an understanding that the world is a far more dangerous place than we thought it was and it needs to be watched. This 1946 article is similar to other columns that appeared in 1947 (when the CIA was established) and 1952 (when the NSA opened its doors) in that it announced the creation of a government agency intent on global espionage in order to have done with all future concerns that another Pearl Harbor was in the planning.
25 Years of Women Voting (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)Attached herein are two articles that tell the history of an organization that is still with us today: The League of Women Voters. At its birth, in 1869, it was a bi-partisan organization composed of women who made no stand as to which of the two political parties was superior - preferring instead to simply remind all ambitious candidates that American women were voiceless in all matters political and that this injustice had deprived them of a vibrant demographic group. Since women began voting in 1920, the League of Women Voters began promoting candidates from the Democratic party almost exclusively, while continuing to promote themselves with their pre-suffrage "bi-partisan" street hustle. No doubt, the League of Women Voters is an interesting group worthy of the news but it hasn't been bi-partisan in over seventy years. The Twilight of the New Deal (United States News and World Report, 1946)"The crusading spirit that Franklin D. Roosevelt was able to summon up in the minds of Government employees at the outset of his first administration, and again in the years that followed, now is vanishing. The spirit and imagination of Mr. Roosevelt brought into public service would not have been there."
"It was this quality that captured the enthusiasm of engineers like J.A. Krug; of lawyers like Oscar S. Cox, Ben Cohen and Thomas Corcoran; of economists like Robert Nathan, Launchlin Curie, Leon Henderson and Isadore Lubin". The Re-Education of German Prisoners of War (The American Magazine, 1946)During the earliest days of 1944, the U.S. Army's Special Projects Division of the Office of the Provost Marshal General was established in order to take on the enormous task of re-educating 360,000 German prisoners of war. Even before the Allies had landed in France it was clear to them that the Germans would soon be blitzkrieging back to the Fatherland and in order to make smooth the process of rebuilding that nation, a few Germans would be required who understood the virtues of democracy. In order to properly see the job through, two schools were set up at Fort Getty, Rhode Island and Fort Eustis, Virginia.
Smellivision Arrives (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)Technology blogs on the net have users who frequently post the question "When will T.V. be able to 'broadcast' smells?": the ability existed as early as 1946 - but there was no interest - or so this article has lead us to believe:
"Optimistic scientists visualized the day when television sets would come equipped with 200 to 300 different smells. (Aromas are automatically concocted by chemicals in the set, mixed by radio-remote-control from the studio.) Faint nostrils quavered at the thought of several odors on the same program..." Anita Colby (Pageant Magazine, 1946)For a time, Jinx Falknenburg shared the high ground as the best-paid fashion model with a lass named Anita Colby (1914 - 1992). She was restless and highly ambitious beauty who recognized that her exulted position in the fashion world was only a temporary one - and by the time that the clock ran out on her, Colby's resume would boast of numerous high-profile positions such as publicist, syndicated columnist, movie studio executive and T.V. talk show hostess.
This article pertains to her brief stint at the Selznick Studios as some sort of perfumed Über-Stylist who lorded over all the other glam-squad proletarians on the lot.
Her book, Anita Colby's Beauty Book , has become a classic on 1950s style. The Women of the U.S. Navy (Think Magazine, 1946)The attached is a short article from THINK MAGAZINE that sums up the contributions made by the 87,000 American women of the U.S. Navy during World War II. These women were organized into a body called WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service): "In 500 shore establishments of the United States Fleet, women in navy blue released enough men from non-combatant duty to man all of America's landing crafts in two important operations: the Normandy landings on D-Day and the invasion of Saipan." "Created July 30, 1942, the Corps completed more than three years of service while the nation was engaged in war. The director was Captain Mildred H. McAfee (1900 - 1994), former president of Wellseley College."
The U.S. Army Nurse Corps (Think Magazine, 1946)"The Army Nurse during World War II was at work in every quarter of the globe, serving on land, on the sea in hospital ships and in the air, evacuating the wounded by plane. Because of the rugged conditions under which she served, she was trained to use foxholes and to understand gas defense, to purify water in the field and to crawl , heavily equipped, under barbed wire."
By the time VJ-Day rolled around, the Army Nurse Corps was 55,000 strong.
(From Amazon: G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II ) Korea: 1946 (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946) 'Distribution of Wealth' (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)Columnist Wheeler McMillen penned the attached 1946 editorial concerning a subject African-Americans have long recognized as problematic: American democracy and the tyranny of the majority. This has become a timely subject since President Obama introduced the term distribution of wealth to the American vocabulary during the 2008 election - this was swiftly followed-up by the Occupy movement and their Tweets regarding the ambitions of the "99 percent" (meaning, "majority" - the Russian translation for this term is "Bolshevik"):
1946 Broadway (Pic Magazine, 1946) The Flight of Rudolf Hess (Newsweek, 1942 & Maptalk, 1946)Here are two short notices from the Forties about Rudolf Hess (1894 - 1987) and the motivation behind his mad dash to Scotland. The paragraphs ascribe two very different purposes to the flight. Pvt. Lloyd McCarter on Corregidor (GI Joe Magazine, 1946)We're sure that Pvt. Lloyd McCarter of Takoma, Washington would have undoubtedly preferred to have been anywhere else but the island of Corregidor during the February of 1945, but there were no other legal options open to him at the time. This proved to be bad luck for some thirty Japanese soldiers who happened to have been in that same zip code. Red Saskatchewan (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)When the our neighbors to the North first dipped their toe into the tepid waters of socialism, they they chose to do so with car insurance:
"A law compelling automobile operators and public schools to buy insurance from a state-owned company." The WASPs of W.W. II (Think Magazine, 1946)"The WASP program, for as such the Women Airforces Service Pilots became known, was begun in August, 1943. In addition to providing women fliers who could take over certain jobs and thereby release their brothers for front-line duty, the program was designed to see if women could serve as military pilots and, if so, to serve as a nucleus of an organization that could be rapidly expanded...The women who took part in the pilot program proved of great value to their country, flying almost every type of airplane used by the AAF, from the Thunderbolt fighter, to the C-54 transport, they flew enough miles to reach around the world 2,500 times at the Equator." The WASPs were fortunate enough to have pioneering aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran (1906 – 1980) serve at their helm. Korea: 1946 (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)"The Koreans were joining the ranks World War II's disillusioned peoples... Thus whichever way they looked at their political future, Koreans saw little hope for the unity and independence they'd dreamed would follow Japan's defeat... The Red Army would leave Korea when they felt like it. And it would feel like it when northern Korea was so safely Red that even the Red Army couldn't paint it much Redder." Howard Johnson's Roadside Restaurants (Coronet Magazine, 1946)By the mid-Twenties millions of cars were on America's highways and by-ways and family road trips were all the rage. However, the few roadside food stands that existed at the time were woefully inadequate and numerous journalists in every locale were writing articles about the various stomach aches that were regularly descending upon hapless motorists who patronized these businesses. This article is about a Massachusetts fellow named Howard Johnson -
"Somewhere along the line he figured out that what America needed even more than a good five-cent cigar was a chain of stands that would take the chance out of roadside eating."
The Fuehrer Schule at Vogelsang (See Magazine, 1946)"In 1934, Adolf Hitler boasted: 'In my Ordensburgen a virile youth will be developed from whom the world will recoil in terror - a violent, dominating, intrepid, brutal youth indifferent to pain and knowing no tenderness or weakness.'"
Nice. Kamikazes: The Naked Truth (All Hands Magazine, 1946)This unnamed journalist wished to discern fact from fiction as to what was expected from Kamikaze pilots. After spending almost an entire year in Occupied Tokyo, he read numerous reports on the topic, both military and civil. The PR blather fed to the Japanese public did state that a willing death was expected of them, but was surprised to find that many (not all) of the pilots were given parachutes (rarely used). His research revealed that the Kamikaze corps was hastily assembled and was composed of the lousiest pilots they could find. The Cadet Nurse Corps (Think Magazine, 1946)"Youngest and largest of the the women's uniformed services, the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, has made nursing history in the brief span of it's existence...the corps includes more than 112,000 women between 17 and 35 who enrolled to help meet the emergency demand for nursing service and at the same time prepare themselves for a post-war profession." Pointing Fingers (Maptalk Magazine, 1946)"Cordell Hull, aging ex-Secretary of State, snapped back in reply to the section of the report which had implied that he was partly at fault for the disaster because his actions had precipitated a crisis. In a hitherto unpublished letter, Hull pointed out
(1.) that he had personally advised the general staff on 25 November, 1941 that war was imminent, and (2.) that his final negotiations had not included any ultimatum that was a spark to set off the Asiatic conflagration."
Dealing with Lightning (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)When the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics was let-in on the secret that the U.S. Army intended to manufacture and deploy wooden gliders, a red light went on in their collective heads as they all remembered how susceptible wood and canvas aircraft had been in attracting lightning bolts. This article outlines the steps that were taken to remedy the problem. ''Is America Going Fascist?'' (See Magazine, 1946)German-born reporter Johannes Steel (1908 – 1988) was not an amateur when it came to identifying Fascists, he could spot them a mile away. In 1946, with Asian and European Fascism soundly defeated, he turned his attention to his adopted homeland and wrote this article concerning his disturbing observations.
Click here to read about Christian Nationalism.
Montgomery's Quarrel with Eisenhower (Collier's Magazine, 1946)One of the many "now-it-can-be-told" stories of the early post-war period had to be that friction that existed on the SHAEF staff between British General Bernard Law Montgomery and General Eisenhower. It is recalled herein by the noted English war correspondent Alan Moorehead (1910 — 1983). Paris Is Back! (Collier's Magazine, 1946)Having no foresight as to the fashion juggernaut that would commence in one year with the appearance of Christian Dior's New Look, the journalist puts all her credibility in one basket by declaring that all eyes are on the French fashion designer Madame Marcelle Dormoy. Much ink is spilled concerning the bleakness that clouded fashionable Paris during the occupation and the difficulty all fashion houses experienced in 1946 securing suitable fabric for their creations (at black-market prices).
The writer recovered some of her street-cred anticipating the meteoric career return of the well-loved French film actress Edwige Feuillère (1907 – 1998), who is personified herein as the epitome of French Glamour returned. Click here to read a 1946 article about Le Corbusier.
Confronting the Bigots (The American Magazine, 1946)With the passing of the Ives-Quinn Bill in 1945, the state of New York was empowered to bring the full weight of the law down upon all employers who practiced any sort of discrimination in the workplace:
"During the first eight months of the law's operation, the Commission received 240 formal complaints charging some form of discrimination in employment... The charges varied greatly. Fifty-nine complained because of alleged prejudice against their religion. Another 113 charged color bias: 105 Negroes and eight Whites. Still another 48 charged prejudice against their race or national origin: 8 Germans, 5 Spaniards..."
A similar article from 1941 can be read here... The Women of the U.S. Coast Guard (Think Magazine, 1946)"From the icy sweeps of Alaska to the tropical Hawaiian Islands, trimly clad girls in the dark blue of the Coast Guard SPARS have served since their organization was founded in 1942 to fill the shore posts of men at sea." "Communications and radio work were an important phase of their duty. Another field in which SPARS were exceptionally active was aviation, with young women in navy blue working in control towers, instructing fledgling fliers via the Link trainer, and parachute riggers...SPARS were also required to familiarize themselves with weapons." "Ranking woman officer is Captain Dorthy C. Stratton (1899 - 2006), Director of the Women's Reserve, appointed on November 24, 1942).
The Women of the U.S. Marine Corps (Think Magazine, 1946)"'Lady Leathernecks', as the trimly-clad members were affectionately dubbed, responded to their country's call some 19,000 strong, accomplishing more than 150 different jobs at more than fifty Marine bases and stations throughout the United States."
"Organized February 13, 1943 the Women's Reserve was directed by Lt. Colonel Ruth Cheney Streeter (1895 – 1990). Women in the Marine Corps were authorized to hold the same jobs, ranks and pay as Marines."
FDR's Doctor Speaks (Collier's Magazine, 1946)Published ten months after the death of President Franklin Roosevelt, Vice-Admiral Ross T. McIntire, Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy, reminisced about Roosevelt's illness and his observations of the man:
"The Pearl Harbor attack put a pressure on the President that never lifted."
"With the flower of American youth fighting and dying on land and sea, he looked on any sparing of himself as a betrayal..."
From Amazon:
FDR's Deadly Secret
General Dai Li: ''The Himmler of The East (Collier's, 1946)Kind words are written herein by Lt. Commander Charles G. Dobbin regarding the "Himmler of the East", General Dai Li(1897 - 1946), founder of China's secret police under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (1887 – 1975). Written in 1946, this reminiscence concerns the tight cooperation that existed between General Li's guerrilla units and the American military (Sino-American Co-Operative Organization: S.A.C.O.) during the later years of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Dobbins emphasized how deeply General Dai Li's intelligence operatives were able to circulate during the period in which U.S. Rear Admiral Milton "Mary" Miles commanded the S.A.C.O. troops. A Review of Brideshead Revisited (Rob Wagner's Script Magazinet, 1946)A favorable review of Evelyn Waugh's (1903 – 1966) triumph Brideshead Revisited
(1945): "Looking up momentarily from our crystal ball, we predict that 'Brideshead Revisited' will set sales records and arouse more comment - critical and otherwise - than any book in many a day." The Navy Nurse Corps (Think Magazine, 1946)The attached story of U.S. Navy Nurse Corps and the brave and remarkable women who gallantly served within it's ranks throughout the Second World War is told in this brief article. It documents the selfless service of Navy Nurses who stayed behind in the Philippines to face Japanese captivity rather than desert their patients. "That was typical of the steadfast manner in which Navy Nurses adhered to duty throughout the war, forsaking personal comfort and safety to bring the benefits of their skills to the sick and wounded".
General Hap Arnold, U.S. Air Corps (Coronet Magazine, 1946)"The famous smile which has won General Arnold the nickname of "Happy" is a pleasant front for a shrewd and grimly purposeful character. His real nature shows in his determined stride, his set jaw. He's a fighter. He's been fighting for our safety for almost forty years."
FYI: Orville Wright taught him to fly. Statism (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)Not long after the free world had conquered fascism, the long twilight struggle against Communism commenced. Stalin's Soviet Union had refused to comply with the treaties it had previously agreed to and was occupying North Korea and many of the Eastern European countries that the Nazis had invaded. Furthermore, Stalin was was funding armed insurgencies in Greece, Vietnam and China. In an effort to help define the tyranny that is Communism, Pathfinder ran this column that defined Communism as Statism and explained it in simple terms. The Eichman Connection (Tribune, 1946)During the hunt for Holocaust architect Adolf Eichman, an SS veteran stepped forward to say that he had seen Al-husseini in Eichman's company on several occasions throughout the years. Al-Husseini After the War (Tribune, 1946)Appearing in a British labor weekly was this short column pertaining to the whereabouts of Haj Amin Al-Husseini and his appearance as the "elected" representative of the Palestine Arab Delegation in London:
"Haj Amin Al-Husseini, ex-Mufti of Palestine, has had a varied and adventurous career. Few transformations in his fortunes, however, have been as startling as those of the last twelve months. Just before VE-Day, together with Rashid Ali, he gave himself up to French forces on the Austro-German frontier. In his wildest dreams at the time he could not have imagined that a year later he would be conducting Palestine Arab affairs from Cairo...." David Niven Returns to Hollywood (Rob Wagner's Script, 1946)After six years of war British actor David Niven (1910 – 1983) came back to resume his rightful place among the anointed swells of Hollywood. This single page article is interesting and not only touches upon his war years but also his earliest days in North America toiling-away on a series of menial jobs.
"He isn't talkative about what happened to him during that dark period [during the war]. He says his outlook has changed some. Even the gayest and most lighthearted can't participate in a ghastly war without some mark being left. The fight with the Nazis made David Niven conscious of other things than the drama pages."
''Our Schools Are A Scandal'' (Collier's Magazine, 1946)"Ten million Americans can't read and write, thousands of teachers are underpaid and, try as they may, our poorer states cannot afford to do anything about it. Every Congress since 1919 has refused to improve the situation... The truth seems to be that schools are no longer America's sweetheart. When there is money to be divided in a state, roads come first, public health second and schools third."
Click here to read about an American woman who grew heartily sick of the socialists who loitered on every street corner during the Great Depression...
D.W. Griffith: His Minor Masterworks (Rob Wagner's Script, 1946)In 1946 the Museum of Modern Art Film Department decided to exhibit only the most famous films of D.W. Griffith for the retrospective that was being launched to celebrate the famed director. This enormous omission inspired film critic Herb Sterne (1906 - 1995) to think again about the large body of work that the director created and, putting pen to paper, he wrote: "Because of the museum's lack of judgment, the Griffith collection it has chosen to circulate is woefully incomplete, thereby giving contemporary students of the motion picture a distorted and erroneous impression of the scope of the man's achievements."
To read a 1924 article regarding Hollywood film executive Irving Thalberg, click here.
Rob Wagner's Script (Rob Wagner's Script, 1946)Written by one of the underpaid ink-slingers who toiled silently on the corner of Dayton and Rodeo Drive, is the skinny on that unique magazine published in Beverly Hills, California between the years 1929 through 1949, Rob Wagner's Script . It was an exceptional magazine that took courageous stands on a number of moral issues, such as the wartime incarceration of Japanese-Americans. As a product of Los Angeles it not only addressed a good many issues involving Hollywood but also published the writings of Walt Disney, Dalton Trumbo, Ray Bradbury and Charlie Chaplin. From a graphic stand-point it was, perhaps, a bit envious of the New Yorker, but "Script" also laid claim to a number of fine cartoonists; Leo Politi (1908 – 1996) worked for a time as the magazine's Art Director. In the late Forties Salvador Dali contributed cover illustrations. We recommend that you read the attached article and suggest that you surf over to Wikipedia for additional history concerning this magazine. Louis L'Amour on Post-War Paris (Rob Wagner's Script Magazine, 1946)During the course of the Second World War, Western fiction writer Louis L'Amour (1908 – 1988) served as a U.S. Army lieutenant in a transport unit. He penned this nifty article about 1946 Paris while waiting to return home: "It is cold in Paris now. There are chill winds blowing down those wide streets. The fuel shortage is serious, and will probably continue to be so as transportation is not yet what it should be." "Vivid with historical background, the city somehow remains modern. It has kept step with the world without losing its beauty or its patina...Easy enough when riding along the Rue St. Antoine to forget that where the jeeps and command cars roll now, there were once Roman chariots. No corner of Paris is without its memories." It's Superman! (Coronet Magazine, 1946)Attached is a 1946 article by Mort Weisinger (1915 - 1978), who is remembered primarily as the editor for DC Comics' Superman throughout much of the Fifties and Sixties. His four page history of Superman, attached herein, lays out not simply the origins of the character but all his great successes when deployed on behalf of the enemies of bad grammar, tooth decay, and slot machines. The author lucidly explained his own amazement at the fact that during those years spanning 1936 through 1946, Superman not only fought tooth and nail for truth, justice and the American way, but had been successfully harnessed by numerous ad men to advocate for the study of geography, civics, literacy, vocabulary and the importance of iron salvage in wartime.
At the time Weisinger penned this article, SUPERMAN was purchased annually by as many as 30,000,000 buyers.
Click here to read about the roll comic books played during the Second World War.
Charles Lindbergh Goes to War (Collier's Magazine, 1946)When America entered the Second World War, Charles Lindbergh reached out to President Roosevelt and expressed his desire to serve; in light of the fact that Lindbergh had made numerous trips to Germany and met with Goering on several occasions, the President cordially declined his offer. However, these liaisons did not exclude him from working in the private sector for one of the many defense contractors, which is precisely what he did.
These two articles were written by an Army Air Corps colonel shortly after the war recalling his unexpected brush with Lindbergh when he was serving in New Guinea. The United Aircraft Corporation had hired "the Lone Eagle" to serve as a technical observer in the Pacific, where he could study the combat performance of the P-38 fighters. The articles served to expose to the American people that Lindbergh had performed a variety of patriotic tasks far beyond his corporate job description:
"My God! He shouldn't go on a combat mission, when did he fly the Atlantic? Must have been in 1927 and he was about twenty-five then. That would make him at least forty-two years old, and that's too old for this kind of stuff."
The Crash (Coronet Magazine, 1946)This is an article about the 1929 stock market crash - it was that one major cataclysmic event that ushered in the Great Depression (1929 - 1940). It all came crashing down on October 24, 1929 - the stocks offered at the New York Stock Exchange had lost 80% of their value; the day was immediately dubbed "Black Thursday" by all those who experienced it. When the sun rose that morning, the U.S. unemployment estimate stood at 3%; shortly afterward it soared to a staggering 24%.
"In every town families had dropped from affluence into debt...Americans were soon to find themselves in an altered world which called for new adjustments, new ideas, new habits of thought, a new order of values.
Yet, regardless of the horrors of The Crash, the United States was still an enormously wealthy nation...
Anti-Nazi POWs Schooled in the Ways of Democracy (American Magazine, 1946)Counted among the hundreds of thousands of captured Nazi combatants during the war were thousands of anti-Nazi German draftees who were predictably alienated from the majority of German P.O.W.s in their respective camps. Subjected to kangaroo courts, hazings and random acts of brutality, these Germans were immediately recognized by their captors as a vital element that could prove helpful in the process of rebuilding Germany when the war reached an end.
And so it was early in 1944 when the U.S. Army's Special Projects Division of the Office of the Provost Marshal General was established in order to take on the enormous task of re-educating these German prisoners of war , all 360,000 of them, in order that they might clearly understand the benefits and virtues of a representative form of government. This article tells the story of their education within the confines of two special encampments that were established just for this purpose, and their repatriation to Germany, when they saw the all that fascism had willed to their countrymen. Post-War America and the KKK (Rob Wagner's Script Magazine, 1946)Written in the aftermath of W.W. II, this is an article which cautioned that the KKK was attempting to pick-up where it had left off prior to the war and made known it's intentions to open a franchise in Southern California. The Japanese-Americans of the OSS (Rob Wagner's Script, 1946)When we think of the selfless acts performed by the Nisei during World War II we are often inclined to remember only the 442 Regimental Combat Team - that is why it is important to read this essay, that recalled many of the Japanese-Americans who served so selflessly in the O.S.S. behind enemy lines in the Burma-China theater as well as those who toiled on behalf of the Southeast Asia Translation and Interrogation Center. Max Beckman Since the War (Art Digest Magazine, 1946)Max Beckmann (1884 – 1950), having fled to Holland from his native Germany in order to escape Hitler, arrived in New York shortly after the end of the war and wasted no time in securing an aggressive dealer eager to arrange liasons between him and the the post-war dollar. "The first exhibition of Max Beckman's work since 1941 is currently being held at the Bucholz Gallery in New York. Director Kurt Valentin has assembled for this event important examples of Beckman's brush dating from 1939 to the present...Among the many drawings particularly remembered are a satirical 'Radio Singer' and a tongue-in-cheek 'Anglers', along with 'Head Waiters'." President Truman's VE-Day Proclamation (Think Magazine, 1946)Attached is a page from the "Diary of Participation in W.W. II" which was compiled by the editors of THINK MAGAZINE; this page contains the printable text of a portion of President Harry Truman's VE-Day Proclamation of May 8, 1945:
"The Allied armies, through sacrifice and devotion and with God's help, have won from Germany a final and unconditional surrender. The Western world has been freed of the evil forces which for five years and longer have imprisoned the bodies and broken the lives of millions upon millions of free-born men... Much remains to be done. The victory won in the West must now be won in the East..." The Birth of the KKK (Coronet Magazine, 1946)A brief account outlining the post-Civil War origins of the KKK:
"The original Ku Klux Klan began in 1865 as a social club of young men in Pulaski, Tennessee. Its ghostly uniform and rituals frightened superstitious Negroes; and when Klansmen discovered this fact accidentally, they lost little time in recruiting membership to 55,000."
During the Thirties and early Forties there was a link between the Bund and the KKK: click here to read about him.
Reichsmarshal Herman Göering Imprisoned (Collier's Magazine, 1946)An interesting article is attached herein that originally appeared in a 1946 issue of COLLIER'S MAGAZINE recalling the last days of the once fair-haired boy of the Third Reich, Herman Göering (1893 – 1946). Filed from the U.S. Army interrogation center at the "Ashcan" (nom de guerre for the Palace Hotel in Fromburg, Luxemburg) you'll get a sense as to how the fallen Luftwaffe Reichsmarshal, formerly so over-plumed and perfumed, paraded and posed for both his jailers and his fellow inmates while awaiting trial. A good read.
Click here to read an eyewitness account of the suicide of Himmler.
Click here to read about the dating history of Adolf Hitler. •Watch Color Newsreel Footage of Goering's First Day as a War Criminal• Meet Andrei Gromyko (Collier's Magazine, 1946)When this magazine profile of Andrei Gromyko (1909 – 1989) appeared on the newsstands in 1946, the man was already a mainstay in the State Department Rolodex. Anyone who came of age during the Cold War (1947 - 1991) will certainly recognize his name, because as Foreign Minister for the Soviet Union (for 28 years), Gromyko was without a doubt one of the architects of the Cold War.
The attached article outlines Gromyko's career highlights up to the Summer of 1946 when he was posted as the first Soviet Ambassador to the newly established United Nations. How Tokyo Learned of Hiroshima (Coronet Magazine, 1946)Shortly after Tokyo's capitulation, an advance team of American Army researchers were dispatched to Hiroshima to study the effects that the Atom Bomb had on that city. What we found most interesting about this reminiscence was the narrative told by a young Japanese Army major as to how Tokyo learned of the city's destruction:
"Again and again the air-raid defense headquarters called the army wireless station at Hiroshima. No answer. Something had happened to Hiroshima..." The First N.Y. Exhibit of Paris Art Made During the Occupation (Art Digest Magazine, 1946)"Recent paintings from Paris have been brought to New York by Pierre Matisse (1900 – 1989) and are now on view at his 57th Street Gallery [at the Fuller Building]. Represented are the Pierre Bonnard, Jean Dubuffet, Andre Marchand, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Rouault." One Year After the War (Collier's Magazine, 1946)An anonymous opinion piece that was published in the August 24, 1946 issue of COLLIER'S MAGAZINE in which the writer expressed his astonishment in finding that peacetime, after such a hard-fought victory, should seem so anti-climactic:
"Consumers goods are so scarce everywhere that all major countries are suffering more or less inflation. A wave of big strikes in this country earlier this year slowed production badly, so that it seems impossible for us to freeze our own relatively mild inflation at its present point."
Reforms in Post-Fascist Japan (United States News, 1946)Speaking of naive: when I was privileged to visit Japan in 2011 I actually believed that there would be a few native-born women who would recognize that I was an American and step forward to express some measure of gratitude for my country's part in granting Japanese women the right to vote. I'm still waiting - however, it is important for all of us to remember that in the immediate aftermath of the war, our occupying forces introduced American values to the Japanese and they have thrived as a result:
"General MacArthur has ordered the Japanese Government to provide for freedom of speech, of press, of assembly, and of worship. 'Thought control' by the secret police is to be a thing of the past." Defining the Left and the Right (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)Surprisingly, these definitions outlining Left and Right in American politics are almost accurate descriptions for our own day, but they still fall short in a number of areas - yet, wouldn't it be amazing if they still sufficed after all the numerous tremors that have served to rearrange the sociopolitical landscape during the past sixty years?
When the largely agricultural province of Saskatchewan (Canada) began their flirtation with socialism they, too, started with laws involving insurance - car insurance! read about it here...
Second Oscar for Tom and Jerry (The Lion's Roar, 1946)All told, the animated cartoon series "Tom and Jerry" would be awarded seven (7) Academy Awards before Oscar's attention turned elsewhere.
This 1946 article sings the praises of Fred Quimby (1886 – 1965), the animation producer who ran the shop at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio between the years 1937 and 1954: "Doff the cap to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Fred Quimby, producer of "Tom and Jerry', the only cartoon stars to have copped the coveted Oscar for two consecutive years. Even the distinguished Donald Duck has only been Oscarized once."
"'Tom and Jerry' reflect in broad comedy the faults and foibles of human beings, even as you and I. Here we have a thoroughly egotistical cat and a very shrewd mouse... a cartoon representation of the eternal conflict between HERO and VILLAIN. Toma always hopes to outwit Jerry who symbolizes the underdogs of the world."
This short notice appeared in The Lion's Roar, which was the monthly publicity rag for M.G.M. Studio.
Socialism Bad (The American Magazine, 1946)It seems difficult to imagine, but this opinion writer felt America leaning toward socialism as far back as 1949:
"While the people look more and more to Washington to do everything under the sun for them, the Federal Government hasn't been discouraging them at all. On the contrary, the Administration has been repeatedly asking for more and more powers to use when it may see fit."
He is sympathetic to their feelings, but cautions his readers that Marxism looks alluring on the printed page - but it will simply lead to serfdom in the end The WACs (Think Magazine, 1946)"The Women's Army Corps (WAC), first organized as an auxiliary May 14, 1942, became 'regular army' a little more than a year later...They were secretaries and stenographers for generals. They operated switchboards which kept communications alive throughout the European theater of operations...Their keen eyes and quick fingers made them expert as parachute riggers. They became weather experts [charting the aerial routes for the long-range bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force]."
140,000 women served as WACs - - although this article stated that there were only 100,000. New York Exhibit for Le Corbusier (Art Digest Magazine, 1946)A brief art review from 1946 announcing an exhibition of paintings, drawings, photographs, architectural plans and models by the modern architect Le Corbusier (né Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, 1887 – 1965) at the Mezzanine Gallery in Rockefeller Center.
"Along with Ozenfant, Le Corbusier invented Purism. The earliest painting in the collection, and the only one of that period (1920), which is familiar to art audiences as part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art."
Edwige Feuillère Gets Liberated (Collier's, 1946)A 1946 article in which the beloved French actress Edwige Feuillère (1907 – 1998) is personified as the epitome of wounded French Glamor returned to it's rightful place following the hasty retreat of those nasty Huns from the boulevards of lovely Paris: "Edwige Feuillère, France's Number One actress, is wearing evening clothes again - and all fashionable Paris rejoices. It is a sort of symbol, the blooming of the lovely Edwige into full-panoplied formality. For she, along with most women of France, abstained from festivities and the clothes that go with them throughout the war." Dalton Trumbo Brings on the Storm
(Rob Wagner's Script Magazine, 1946)Blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (1905 – 1976) did not do himself any favors when he wrote the attached essay outlining his sympathies for Stalin's Soviet Union at the expense of the United States. A year later he would find himself in the hot-seat in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (1938 - 1975) where his non-cooperation landed him eleven months in the hoosegow on contempt of Congress charges.
In 1887 the New York Times reviewed the first English edition of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, click here to read it...
The Hunt in Occupied-Germany (Pic Magazine, 1946)While the hunt for Nazis and hidden weapons cachés was taking place in allied-occupied Germany, a small number of U.S. Army detectives happened upon the entire archives of the Nazi Party.
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