Outsourcing U.S. Military Might

The death of Moammar Gadhafi last fall brought 42 years of oppressive rule to an abrupt and bloody end. For their part in eliminating this tyrant, NATO deserves thanks from the world in general and the Libyan people in particular. However, this praise is tempered by the enormous weaknesses revealed within NATO, particularly in the stock of precision ammunition—computer-guided missiles and bombs —so vital to success. Within weeks of the start of operations, Britain, Italy, and France had depleted their stocks of precision munitions without Gadhafi showing any signs of surrender. A reluctant Germany was finally convinced to break open its war reserves, but even that proved insufficient. In the end, emergency shipments from the U.S. allowed our European allies to continue their campaign.

Although American stocks of materiel were sufficient for tackling Libya, they are far from inexhaustible. In fact, the U.S. military remains critically short of these same types of weapons. Early in the Iraq war, for instance, stocks of precision bombs were so reduced that the Pentagon ordered Boeing to ramp up emergency production. Boeing’s attempts to supply the military’s needs were thwarted by a Swiss company, Micro Crystal, which—angered by the U.S. decision to invade Iraq—ceased delivery of a key part, according to defense officials. Because no firm in the U.S. made the part, finding an American company capable of starting a new production line took the Pentagon seven months. If the most powerful military in the world could run short of a key weapon system against a third-rate military power like Iraq, what would happen if we faced a more powerful opponent such as China?

In the last century, American industrial might twice rescued the democratic world: first from German militarism and then from Axis totalitarianism. After World War I, one of Germany’s top military commanders claimed that his country was not beaten by the Allied military but by “pitiless American industry” that was able to mass produce war materiel on a previously unimaginable scale. Two decades later that same “pitiless industry” became President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Arsenal of Democracy,” which buried the Axis powers under an avalanche of war materiel belched out of Pittsburgh’s furnaces and Detroit’s assembly lines. Sadly, those days are relegated to the past. As American heavy industry has moved off shore, so has much of the nation’s ability to mobilize the kinds of forces that met the crises of the last century.

Despite rumors to the contrary, however, America still possesses a formidable industrial base. Unfortunately, it is no longer unrivaled by other growing powers. Every passing year sees China further solidifying its position as the world’s production base. According to the Pentagon’s 2011 annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments this “sustained economic development … coupled with an expanding science and technology base, has facilitated a comprehensive and ongoing military modernization program.”

Knowing this, one cannot help but wonder if the U.S. industrial base is still capable of winning the production war in a major conflict. Meanwhile, there is another looming threat that is only beginning to be understood—the globalization of supply chains. In today’s globalized economy a weapon may consist of parts from a dozen or more countries that come together at a single assembly point. At least 50 percent of all of content in any item bought by the Department of Defense must, by law, come off American production lines, and some weapons are 100 percent made in the USA. Still, in certain cases, parts are made in America, shipped to China for assembly, and then shipped back to the U.S. for sale. This presents America’s high technology military with a major problem.

Outsourcing by Jonathan Bartlett
Illustration by Jonathan Bartlett

Then, there is the potential for sabotage anywhere along the supply chain. For instance, many of the microchips purchased for the Pentagon come from China, where they theoretically could be tampered with by Chinese intelligence. And, in fact, in 2010 alone the U.S. Navy purchased more than 59,000 computer chips from China that were discovered to be counterfeit. These chips were destined for use in our most sensitive weapons systems—from missiles to transponders, as reported in Wired magazine. Any or all of these chips could have included malware that would allow the Chinese military to turn off or otherwise wreck whatever systems the chips were inserted within. After counterfeit chips were discovered, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity initiated the Trusted Integrated Circuit Program both to help prevent foreign adversaries from tampering with U.S. chips and to check foreign-sourced chips for flaws after delivery.

But the problems don’t end there. The Pentagon is expecting huge budget cuts as a result of our current wars ending and the nation’s dire economic position.

For this reason, America’s defense industry is scrambling to reduce capacity.

Northrop Grumman, a global aerospace and defense technology company, recently announced plans to close troubled shipyards and leave the shipbuilding industry. This means that one of the country’s five remaining naval shipyards—Avondale—could close for lack of work with a loss of 5,000 jobs.

With those jobs goes decades of shipbuilding experience that will be near impossible to replicate if it is needed in an emergency.

Today U.S. shipyards produce less than one percent of all commercial vessels while Asia builds 95 percent. Without the naval shipyards America would effectively be exiting the shipbuilding business entirely, a sad end for an industry that in World War II produced ships six times faster than Hitler’s submarine wolfpacks could sink them.

In the meantime, China has the capacity to build almost 60 million tons of ships per year and is looking to increase that capacity, according to the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore.

In the end, if America loses a future war because of production shortfalls that leave our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines bereft of what they require to fight and win, it won’t be because we lack the capacity. America’s ability to win the wars of tomorrow rests on implementing the economic policies necessary to rebuild our industrial base and ensure the availability of funds required to meet an unforeseen crisis.

READY, FIRE, AIM

Poor planning and budget cuts mean more challenges for the military.

The outsourcing of U.S. industry is a serious national security problem—but it’s not the only problem. Other threats include:

Slashed budget.
With America’s heavy debt burden and a deadlocked Congress, huge cuts in funding loom in the Pentagon’s future. America’s production miracle in World War II was the result of a growing economy and not, as myth would have it, a radical reduction in consumer production in favor of war munitions. Although Americans could not buy big ticket items like new cars, consumer spending rose almost every year of the war. A huge number of unemployed workers and a huge amount of excess capacity brought about by the Great Depression made the American production miracle possible. And, despite the Depression, America’s Federal debt was still low, allowing the U.S. to borrow the hundreds of billions necessary to turn the nation into the “Arsenal of Democracy.” By 1943 America’s output in war materiel alone was more than the nation’s entire economy produced in the year before the war. The U.S. financed its unparalleled wartime growth on a sea of dollars, which increased our national debt from around 40 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to over 120 percent by 1945. Today, the nation would start any conflict with debt levels already exceeding 100 percent of GDP, and it probably couldn’t finance another supreme effort without collapsing an already fragile financial system.

Weak policy.
A major threat to the military comes not from abroad, but from domestic policymakers who knowingly or unknowingly undermine the mission of armed forces. The U.S. was once the leading producer of “rare earth minerals,” specialty metals crucial for high-performance aircraft and weapons. Due to challenges by the environmental lobby, U.S. rare earth production ceased a decade ago. As a result, China, potentially our most formidable long-term rival, produces 97 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals. In effect, the U.S., of its own free will, has pushed a global superpower into a monopoly position, and China is already beginning to use its dominance to curtail global supply. According to a 2011 Pentagon report to Congress, the Defense Department, already paying 40 percent more for these minerals than it did a year ago, considers this a serious risk, stating it “relies on rare earth materials in the production of many of its weapon systems and needs to ensure their continued availability to meet national security objectives.”

Jim Lacey, Ph.D., is the professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps War College. The opinions presented here are entirely his own and do not represent those of the Department of Defense or any of its members.

Edison and The Pirates: The Inventor’s Solution to Copyright Theft

One summer night in 1900, a reporter appeared at the door of Thomas Edison’s laboratory pleading for an interview. The night watchman wouldn’t admit him, even though Edison was still at work upstairs. The reporter, Remsen Crawford, said he needed to get Edison’s reaction to the news that seven of his inventions “would revert to posterity and the public good” when their patents expired at midnight.

The watchman conveyed the request on to Edison, who replied,

“Go back. Tell that fellow that I say the expiration of those patents won’t amount to a hill of beans.

“Tell him that Mr. Edison says he has never had exclusive use of his inventions and never expects to in this world.

“Tell him the expiring of a patent has no effect whatever upon the fortunes of an inventor.”
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hearing Edison’s response, Crawford wrote another note: “What do you mean by ‘no exclusive use’? No protection? Must see you.” Eventually the great inventor admitted Crawford and gave him this statement:

“There is no such thing in this country as an inventor’s monopoly. The moment he invents something that is an epoch-maker in the world of science and commerce, there will be pirates to spring up on all sides and contest his rights to his ideas.

“I might invent a new monkey wrench which could go without infringement, but the moment I take certain forces and work out a moving picture for the first time in history… mark you how the pirates rise up and call it their own.”

Thirty years later, Crawford was back at Edison’s laboratory, again asking about patents and their profitability. Having invented the sustainable electric lighting, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, Crawford asked him, “Why aren’t you the richest man in the world today?”

Edison’s reply:

The only patent that ever made money for Edison.

“Nearly $10,000,000,000, they tell me, are invested in modern industries which developed from ideas embodied in my inventions and my patents.

“A billion or so dollars, I am told, may be the annual total income to artisans and workers in fields thus created.

“But I have made very little profit from my inventions.

“In my lifetime I have taken out 1180 patents, up to date. Counting the expense of experimenting and fighting for my claims in court, these patents have cost me more than they have returned me in royalties. I have made money through the introduction and sale of my products as a manufacturer, not as an inventor.”
 
 

Edison was one of the fortunate few inventors who knew that great engineering, on its own, never earned a dime. The success of any technology is due to its business model. And the protection of its copyright.

Unfortunately, Edison said, the U.S. had a “miserable system” for protecting inventions from infringement.

Edison in 1906.

“I have never enjoyed a monopoly upon anything that I have ever invented, with this single modification: the producers of motion pictures did pay me royalties until my patents expired. But even in that case I had to fight a long time in court over my claims.

“I frankly acknowledge that on one of the patents I had filed claims that were a little too ambitious, too broad, and one of the courts threw us out.

“But we modified our claims and the patent was reissued to us, and the picture people recognized our rights and paid us royalties until the patents expired.”
 
 
 
 
 

The foundation of America's tattoo-parlor industry: Edison's Stencil Pen from the 1870s.

“I have known of several inventors [whose] ideas would have made them millionaires. But they were kept poor by the pirates who were allowed through our very faulty system of protection to usurp their rights.

“Do you see that little incandescent lamp hanging over my head? Well, I fought in the courts of this and other countries for fourteen years to establish my rights as inventor, even after I had the patents. My associates and I had to spend more than $1,000,000 to prove our rights to the incandescent light, even though our claims had been duly vouched by the United States patent office.

“Everywhere, all around the earth, the pirates kept picking on that little lamp, and they were able to keep me out of the profits on my patents until there were but three years left out of the seventeen. So, while the light was a boon to the world at large, to the inventor the patent was well-nigh useless.”

 

“The first step is to hire a sharp lawyer—one who can make any judge unfamiliar with technology believe that black is white. They set up the claim that they, and not the inventor, should be recognized as the originator of certain ideas. They boldly strut into court and enjoin the inventor from manufacturing anything from his own creations and formulas, even though the inventor may hold in his hands a patent issued by the United States Government.

“Pirates can readily get all the money they require—millions, if needed—to carry on their contests.”

As always, when facing a problem, Edison came up with a solution. The answer to high-tech piracy was a high-tech court.

The source of endless patent battles.

“A separate and special court. Take the whole business out of the regular judicial system. It has never belonged there.

“What does the average judge of our district courts, or circuit courts of appeal—or even of the Supreme Court, for that matter—know about the technical phases of chemistry or physics? These judges have been lawyers all their lives, and they are—some of them—distinguished for their ability as jurists. But when it comes to understanding a contest over amperes, or ohms, or the atomic theory, or subatomic energy, they can be fooled by a smart lawyer quite as soon as… any farmer from the hinterlands.

“I would appoint, to this special court for trying patent cases, judges from the faculties of colleges of technology, men who know something about science. They could travel around the country and hold court, if need be, in the factories and workshops of the inventors and their competitors, and get first-hand data upon each issue involved in the litigation, just as President Wilson’s War Labor Board, headed by William Howard Taft, went around during the war settling labor disputes in the mills, right on the ground. There wouldn’t be much quibbling on the part of lawyers before these scientist judges. Then, and not till then, will an inventor stand some show of being rewarded for the long, tedious labors he has expended through ceaseless experimentation to gain the fruition of his ideas.”

Perhaps Edison’s court of scientist-judges would make more intelligent decisions about the theft of patented technology. It might also spare businesses the overwhelming costs of time, money, and resources for such suits. (Surely the legal profession will profit more from the pending lawsuit of Apple and Google than the technology developers.)

However, an American court would be of little help in protecting U.S. patents in the global markets. According to our International Trade Commission, China’s theft of Americans’ intellectual property, in 2009 alone, cost U.S. businesses $48 billion and 2.1 million jobs.

Rockwell in the 1950s – Part I of III

“Rockwell Models”

Rockwell Models in “Progress?”
From August 21, 1954

 

One advantage of living near Rockwell in the 1950s is that you had a good chance of being forever remembered in a Saturday Evening Post cover.

“Progress?” – August 21, 1954

“Progress?” From August 21, 1954

“Progress?”
From August 21, 1954

 

This is progress? The construction crew is meant to build a cellar, but along come the local would-be All Stars pleading, “Gee, mister, this is our baseball lot!”

Rockwell gathered up models for this scene in midwinter by knocking on doors (in Stockbridge, Mass.) and rousting up members of the Little League team. My favorite touch is tiny Scott Ingram sucking his fingers as the negotiations proceed. The boy in the baseball suit is big brother, Kenneth Ingram. We’ll see Scott again.

The workers appear sympathetic, but we suspect things do not bode well for the great American pastime.

According to Kenneth, Scott’s best buddy was Eddie Locke (below).

“Before the Shot”– March 15, 1958

“Before the Shot” From March 15, 1958

“Before the Shot”
From March 15, 1958

 

We recently showed you Eddie Locke as “The Runaway” (see: ROCKWELL: BEHIND THE CANVAS). The young man shows up on yet another classic Rockwell cover: as the boy checking out the doctor’s credentials before getting a shot.

The physician preparing the shot was Donald Campbell, a real local doctor. “Norman lived across the street from me for a number of years, said Dr. Campbell in a 1976 issue of the Post. “It was a familiar sight to see his long legs carrying him down to the studio regularly before eight a.m. “

Dr. Campbell continued, “Norman couldn’t help being nice to people, especially children. When my five-year-old Betsy fell from her bike because a little dog followed her, barking, Norman gathered her up, stopped her tears and took her home with him. With Betsy on his knee, he drew a series of pictures as in a cartoon, showing a little dog chasing a little child on a bike. The picture showed the little girl’s face with the caption, ‘See. The nice little dog only wanted to play.’”

“Girl at the Mirror” – March 6, 1954

“Girl at the Mirror “ From March 6, 1954

“Girl at the Mirror”
From March 6, 1954

 

Rockwell once called Mary Whalen his favorite model, even if the young girl on the cover didn’t think she measured up to Jane Russell (who did?). The artist captures the “in-between” age well between the cast away doll and the closer “necessities” of lipstick and hairbrush.

Mary’s first memory of the artist “was at a high school basketball game in Arlington, Vermont, about 1950. His son Tommy was on the local team, so along with nearly everybody else in town, Norman was there to cheer them on. When I harassed my Dad for a Coke, a friendly man sitting behind us gallantly reached over my shoulder and invited me to drink some of his Coke. That was the beginning of my admiration for Norman Rockwell.”

How did Rockwell get the facial expressions he wanted from the kids? “He would laugh and shout, pound the floor, or jump up and down,” Mary recalled. “He did the acting while I reacted. What a wonderful moment of joy when Norman drew forth from me the expressions he wanted. He would burst out laughing, with happy shouts. It is the memory of those triumphant, creative moments which I treasure most,” she recalled, more than twenty years later. “I can still hear deep within me his laugh of celebration.”

“A Day in the Life of a Girl” – August 30, 1952

“A Day in the Life of a Girl” From August 30, 1952

“A Day in the Life of a Girl”
From August 30, 1952

 

Earlier in 1952, Rockwell did a cover called “A Day in the Life of a Boy,” which follows a boy getting up and ready for school, playing baseball, getting distracted by a pretty girl, and so on. A few months later, the summer version, “A Day in the life of a Girl” appeared. Both covers featured Charles Marsh, Jr. and Mary Whalen. Mary awakens, then it’s off to go swimming, where a young man promptly tries to drown her. The spirited lass returns the gesture, and it was love at first fight.

The last row shows a chaste kiss, which Marsh just couldn’t pull off. “I considered her my girlfriend then,” he said later, but I had never built up enough courage to kiss her. Mr. Rockwell finally gave up on trying to get me to kiss her and posed us puckering separately.” The ordeals of being a model!

“The Missing Tooth”- September 7, 1957

“The Missing Tooth” From September 7, 1957

“The Missing Tooth”
From September 7, 1957

 

When Rockwell needed a child for a Crest ad (“Look, Ma! No Cavities!”), he asked his friends, the Morgans, if he could borrow their daughter. When cute little Ann Morgan showed up at the studio, she was missing two front teeth. Oops. “Mr. Rockwell went ahead and painted my front teeth in for the ad,” said grown-up Ann Morgan Baker in 1976, “but my missing teeth may have given him the idea for a Post cover.”

Living near a famous artist had its perks: “Being on the cover changed my life,” Ann said, “People were always saying, ‘I saw you in Chicago,’ or ‘I saw you in a drugstore window in New York.’ I thought of myself as a tiny little international star.” And the modeling fee? “$25 when you’re six is a lot of money.” Famous AND rich—what more could you ask for?

Having Rockwell as a family friend has its odd moments, too. The artist would call Ann’s mother “at 7 a.m. and say, ‘Don’t make the beds. I want to come and look at some messy rooms.’ Then he would come and wander through our morning rubble.”

Ann’s first love? Neighbor and fellow Rockwell model, Scott Ingram (above as the littlest ball player and below).

“The Discovery” – December 29, 1956

“The Discovery” From December 29, 1956

“The Discovery”
From December 29, 1956

 

Poor little Scott Ingram—this unexpected discovery is suddenly answering a lot of questions. The good news is that this 1956 cover also made him a celebrity of sorts. He actually got fan mail and even made a television appearance with the famous artist. He enjoyed working with Rockwell, and looked forward to the end of each session, when he would be treated to a milkshake.

The painting is more multi-faceted than the first glance would indicate. The way Rockwell captured the burling of the wood of the dresser is one such detail. And life for the artist would have been easier had he just closed the door. Instead, he replicated the patterned wallpaper outside the room, illuminated by the light of a window we have the barest glimpse of.

Next: Rockwell in the 1950s Part II —including a controversial topless model.

Hello Manners, Goodbye Colds

Polite people around the world routinely fend off common colds better than rude ones, according to the HABIT (Hygiene: Attitudes, Behavior, Insight and Traits) study—the largest yet devoted to how psychology and social habits interact with health and hygiene.

“We have one and one-third million survey responses in our database waiting to be mined,” says Professor John Oxford, chairman of the Hygiene Council and lead investigator of the Lysol-funded study.

Current analysis shows that, among 12,000 responders from 12 countries, adults who felt embarrassed after sneezing or coughing on others were most likely to be free of colds. Why? Researchers found that those who respect the health of others are more apt to wash their hands frequently and generally protect themselves.

“Furthermore, we found that if considerate people do get infected, they are less likely to pass along germs than others who are generally less thoughtful,” explains Dr. Oxford. “There are three layers of protection to ward off spreading illnesses at home. First: vaccines. Second: antiviral or antibiotic drugs. Third, and perhaps most important, is breaking the chain of infection with good hand washing and use of disinfectants.”

In the study, stay-at-home moms took top honors for manners and hygiene. Students and office workers ranked lowest. But there’s room for improvement in all sectors, says Oxford.

“We’d like to see 80 percent of a population using good hygiene habits, and no country is at that mark,” adds the expert. “This is a big threat to public health. The good news is that people can change their habits. We learned to use seat belts, and we can adopt—and teach—better hygiene habits, too.”

Click here for tips on where, when, and how to disinfect.

Kick-Off Kabobs

If you’re searching for a delicious but easy appetizer to kick off your next party, give these spicy kabobs a try. The recipe comes to us courtesy of the National Pork Board.

Kick-Off Kabobs
(Makes 24 appetizers.)

Ingredients

Directions


Nutrition
Calories: 70 calories
Protein: 9 grams
Fat: 2 grams
Sodium: 135 milligrams
Cholesterol: 25 milligrams
Saturated Fat: 0 grams
Carbohydrates: 2 grams

The Little Miller Attack

Because Lena and Warren had settled down in their college town, moments from the past would occasionally flash out at them, much as artifacts surface from the earth after a hard rain. Debating with Warren over a used trike at a yard sale one day, Lena suddenly realized that she was standing before the very house she had flopped in one distant summer with a tribe of youths. Behind that bland stucco exterior she had widely shared her toothbrush, embroidered a pillow with the face of Chairman Mao, and spent a week in her room with an energetic Algerian who turned out to be a cocaine dealer.

“What’s wrong?” Warren asked. “Too old and crummy?”

“Huh?”

“This tricycle.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“What are you staring at?”

“Oh, nothing,” she said, turning away.

Another time, Lena happened to spot a hunched figure on a corner waiting for a traffic light, and once again a lost memory began to emerge. No way! Inevitably aged, with glasses and half as much hair, but otherwise no mistaking him. Little Miller! She rolled past slowly, confirmed the sighting, and that evening after dinner, when she and Warren fell into their nightly routine of kitchen clean up, said, “Today I saw a weird guy I used to know. Did I ever tell you about Little Miller?”

Warren, a man who liked to eat large drifts of peanut butter on toast and drive around listening to tapes he’d made with his brother when they were fifteen and had a band called “Mr. Peabody” said, “You’ve hardly told me anything. Who was he?”

The children screamed and fought. But she didn’t have to run to them immediately, did she? Better if they worked it out themselves, and so she began to explain.

The house with fruit trees and flowers had started as hers and Tom’s (her only boyfriend before Warren). They found it together, amazed by their luck. They were juniors, but having a life together off campus was all they cared about. They bought a set of china at the Goodwill and became known for their lavish dinner parties, until their budget gave out. No choice but to rent out the back bedroom they’d been using as a dumping ground. After dozens of calls came in, they settled on Yori, a Grateful Dead-loving free spirit with a Smith Barney account.

Soon Yori was joining them for meals, and before long, Yori’s friend Miller was hanging around most of the time, too.

Miller was a cipher. He was as small as a child, but looked old like a troll if you peered into his eyes. He wasn’t affiliated with the University. Yori said he’d met him downtown at a free concert. He said Miller was down on his luck and that he wanted to help him out for awhile. Miller clearly didn’t mind, happily playing the sidekick, laughing at Yori’s jokes, wearing his cast offs and accompanying him around town in the hand-me-down Volvo from Yori’s parents. Lena both felt sorry for Little Miller and disliked him. It was annoying he was always there waiting for his next meal, and his only possession was a dirty little backpack filled with crummy little things.

Even worse, he had started sleeping in the corner of the living room every night, emitting a slightly fungal smell. The house that she and Tom had loved so much had been invaded. Finally the day came when Lena and Tom asked Yori if he’d stop bringing Little Miller around so much, and to their surprise, Yori didn’t mind at all, as if looking for an excuse to get rid of him. That evening, while Lena and Tom were at a poetry reading at the bookstore, Yori delivered the blow. And when they returned home, Little Miller was finally out of their lives.

But so was Lena’s jewelry! And other things as well. Lots of things. Her stereo. Her clock. Some books. Even a small framed watercolor of an emu.

Furious that he’d been kicked out of the house, Little Miller had clearly gone on a rampage, looting and pillaging. They pounded on Yori’s bedroom door, and found him hanging upside down on the anti-gravity table he’d gotten from his parents for his birthday, listening to the Dead on headphones.

“What the hell happened?” Tom said.

“Did the deed,” Yori replied. “He was cool about it.”

“Are you sure he was cool?” Lena cried. “A lot of our stuff is gone.”

“He ripped us off!” Tom said.

Yori loosened his ankle straps and did a flip off the table. “Miller wouldn’t do that. Miller?”

Lena didn’t like to be accusing her housemate’s friend of stealing, but it wasn’t hard to imagine the little troll swiping a few things for revenge. He could sell the stuff at the flea market, make ends meet for a few days more.

“Why did we ever get a housemate anyway,” Lena cried that night. All her favorite necklaces, rings, and bracelets were gone, things she’d been given by friends and family over the years.

Next morning, as they sipped their first cups of coffee, there came a knock at the back door. To their amazement, Little Miller stood on the stoop. The nerve!

“Hey, I came by to get my sweater,” he said.

“Did you take our stuff?” Lena accused.

“What stuff?”

“You know! All the stuff, everything!”

“I didn’t take anybody’s stuff. I just want my sweater.”

Tom appeared behind her. “Get the hell out of here.”

“Hey man, my sweater!”

By now Little Miller had worked his way into their living room, but Tom was blocking him. “Give us back our stuff or get out.”

Little Miller tried to dart past him, but Tom was much bigger and he pushed Little Miller roughly.

“This is uncool!” Little Miller yelled.

“I said get out.” Tom shoved Miller so hard, Miller fell backwards. Then Tom lunged at him, and tore off Miller’s little knapsack.

Tom yelled, “Open it! See if anything’s in there!”

Lena didn’t like seeing Little Miller struggling on the ground and didn’t want to paw through his backpack, either. When she failed to respond, Tom grabbed the grimy pouch and shook it out onto the floor. A few t-shirts, an orange, some pens, some underwear, and a bag of potato chips fell out.

Illustrations by Owen Freeman.

“You jerk!” Miller gathered up his belongings and tried to stuff them back in. “I hate you guys!” He looked as if he might cry. But to Lena’s surprise, Tom still had no mercy. He began to kick Miller. He kicked his arm. He kicked him in the side. And when Miller stood up to put on his pack, Tom pushed him back out the door, sending him flat on the ground.

“You’re going to be sorry!” cried Miller.

“God! Did you have to be so mean to him?” she said.

“He stole our stuff!”

“So what!” Lena said.

“What do you mean, so what?”

Though they had been together almost three years, Lena and Tom didn’t last long after that episode. Lena was haunted by the way Tom had behaved. When they broke up, she even told him it was partly because of Little Miller.

Funny thing, because a year later, Lena ran into Tom at a Chinese restaurant downtown. He was with his new girlfriend, but he swaggered over to say hello anyway. He said, “Hey, by the way, remember that TA we used to have over for dinner sometimes, Richard, from Philosophy? Remember his spacey girlfriend Sunshine? Remember how we thought she was just using him? Turns out, Sunshine is the one who stole our stuff. She and some other guy. Richard found your emu picture in a box of junk in his garage, so you can get it from him sometime. What do you think about that?”
Lena gasped, “Poor Little Miller!”

The children were quiet now, and Lena was decidedly more relaxed. “So anyway,” she said, “I always felt like the whole thing happened for a reason. That Little Miller was a good luck figure for me.”

“Good god, why?” Warren said.

“Well, because if I hadn’t seen Tom attack him like that, I might not have realized how violent Tom was before it was too late.”

“Oh, so that’s the only reason you didn’t spend your life with Tom?”

“I doubt it, but who knows.”

“But,” Warren said, “maybe if there hadn’t been a Little Miller, Tom would never have reacted that way to anything.”

Lena shook her head. “No. It was just a matter of time.”

Warren said, quite irritably, “Who knows. If Little Miller was hanging around here, I’d probably attack him too.”

“You’d talk to him, you’d tell him to leave. Sure. But you wouldn’t go crazy like that. I know you wouldn’t.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Warren hissed.

“Evie needs a bath,” he sighed.

After that, a peculiar thing began to occur. Lena began to see Little Miller all over the place. Morning, noon, and night, in all different parts of town, she spotted him shuffling down the street with his backpack. Uncanny. It was as if a whole army of them had been unleashed, pacing the boundaries of her world.

There wasn’t much to complain about in Lena’s California town. The weather was clement year round. A little foggy sometimes in summer, and in the fall an occasional wind whipped in from the sea. Storms in winter. Nothing exceptional. Nothing except earthquakes rattling china cabinets and knocking down a chimney here and there. Nothing was perfect. How could she complain about a season of Little Millers?

“It’s weird, I keep seeing that Little Miller guy,” she told Warren one evening during their kitchen routine.

“I thought he was your good luck charm,” Warren said.

“Now I’m starting to feel like he’s some kind of curse.”

“Should I go beat him up?” Warren said, scouring a frying pan.

Warren was a good husband. She couldn’t complain about him, either. He did his own laundry and the children adored him. Nothing was wrong. Yet sometimes, Lena thought back to the days when she’d left this town and worked on the east coast at a distinguished magazine. It was the time of her life—she knew it even then. Sometimes she’d even think, “This is the time of my life.” Staff editor by age 24, bringing home manuscripts in her backpack every night on the T, discussing them the next day with the brilliant editor who was her boss and considered one of the great minds of his time. Lena had her own office at the magazine. It had high ceilings and beautiful moldings and a view from the old brownstone to the swan boats in the Public Garden. By now she would have risen up the masthead and would be spending summers out on Nantucket or the Cape. Her mind would be firing on all cylinders like a Mercedes-Benz engine purring over the Simplon. Full steam ahead.

Meanwhile, Warren often spent an hour driving home from the supermarket, circling around the neighborhood, just to listen to his old tapes. He always claimed the lines in the store were long, but Lena knew what he was really doing. She’d seen him once, barreling down the road, howling his head off with the windows up. Why did he have to listen to Mr. Peabody secretly? Looking back was a guilty pleasure, it seemed.

“It seems fairly certain you had lots of adventures before you decided on me,” Warren grunted, drying his hands.

“We’ve had lots of adventures too,” Lena said.

“Have we?”

“Of course!”

“Name one,” Warren said.

“What about having children and living in this house?”

“I suppose picking out grout and tiles and carpet squares is pretty adventurous,” he said.

She’d met him freshman year. Back then she thought of him as too straight-laced for her. The rest of her friends were sitting around listening to loud music and wearing hippie clothes. Warren wore plaid shirts with pens in the pocket.

Whenever he saw her standing at the bus stop, he’d pull over and offer her a ride into town. He had an old Datsun with ripped seats and a rattling dashboard. Wires hung from beneath it and tickled her legs. The heater was on all the time. If you let go of the wheel it took a nosedive off the road.

One Friday night she knocked on his door, her pupils wide and black as tiddlywinks.

“It’s Friday, Warren!” She could see he was studying with a hot gooseneck lamp on his desk.

“I have a mid-term Monday,” he shrugged. “How about you?”

“Well, there’s a party downtown if you feel like going.”

“Hmm. Okay,” he said, as if agreeing to a journey he would not complete for some time. “I could use a break.”

They lurched down the hill from the college. The air was so warm they had the windows down, and the sky was bright with stars and a moon nearly full, and when they reached the party people were putting eggs in the microwave and watching them explode. There was an apparatus in the living room you could hang upside down on to stretch your spine, and people were trying that, while others were dancing, and yet others were giving foot massages and smoking loosely rolled cigarettes of marijuana in the hall. Tom had invited her, and introduced her to his friends. After awhile she noticed Warren standing outside, his back to the party, perfectly still. Warren was strange, she thought. He didn’t care if he seemed like an oddball. He didn’t care if she saw him outside, standing alone.

In a while she came out to check on him.

“Shhh,” Warren said.

“What?”

On the moonlit lawn sat an opossum with brindled fur and a harlequin-shaped face, and it hissed at them, showing its pointy teeth.

“Wow,” Lena said.

The opossum hissed again.

“It’s stuffy inside,” Warren said.

“And it smells like rotten eggs,” she added.

“Do you want to stay?” He pulled his keys from his pocket. She assumed he wanted to get back to study, so she let him go. And it was the night she and Tom got together. But Warren had made a sound investment, and they stayed in touch over the next few years. One thing led to another. When he visited her in Boston, no longer did Warren seem square. He had become a nice looking man. He called it the opossum party—I didn’t want to go home and study, he told her. Didn’t you know? She hadn’t seen that at all.

One night, scrubbing chocolate out of a baking dish, Lena said, “So want to hear the latest chapter of the Little Miller story?”

“Okay, if I must.”

Yes, she had spotted Little Miller again, tiptoeing down the sidewalk like a mouse. This time, she pulled over and jumped out of her car and stood waiting as he approached.

“Hello there!”

He stopped in his tracks and peeled off his dark glasses.

“You’re Miller, aren’t you?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name is Lena. We knew each other a long time ago. Remember Yori?”

“Yori,” said Little Miller. “The clown?”

“Yori was a clown?”

“Yori the clown was a clown,” Little Miller said.

Lena said, “I was thinking of the Yori who lived in the house over on Cayuga Street. Who liked the Grateful Dead. I was his housemate. Remember? We used to eat together a lot?”

He squinted. “I meet a lot of people.”

“Remember when I accused you of stealing my stuff?”

Little Miller pursed his lips. “Don’t think I want to do business with you, ma’am.”

“Remember my boyfriend Tom, grabbing your backpack and shaking it out?”

Little Miller began to move on. “You’re stuck in the dismal past, lady.”

“We found out later you didn’t do it,” Lena called after him. “See, I’m trying to tell you I’m really sorry!”

He kept walking. How could she make him understand how much she’d thought about it all this time?
“You know, I was so mad at Tom for the way he treated you, we broke up,” Lena cried.

“Truth is,” Little Miller turned, “some bad things happened to me and I got mixed up with some really bad people, which is regretful, but people took advantage of me. Lots of them! Then I decided to draw the line. Now life is peaceful. Very serene. Beautiful. I’m blessed. God bless you.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Lena. “Anyway, I made you some brownies. Here.” She uncovered the plate she was holding. Wrapped in Saran, it was heaped with thick, chocolaty squares.

“What’s in ’em, rat poison?”

“Mostly just butter and cocoa,” Lena replied.

She took a few steps his way. He took a few towards her.

“Here,” she said, and bit into one herself. “Yum.”

With unexpected speed he advanced and latched onto the plate. He peeled open the Saran and neatly stuffed an entire brownie into his mouth. “Excellent,” he said, choking it down. “Bliss to you.”

“You did that?” Warren nearly shrieked. “Today?”

“Yep,” Lena said.

“You should have told me first. I probably would have said no. He’s obviously a mental case!”

“Warren,” Lena said, “if you said no, I would have done it anyway.”

“You would have? Don’t my feelings count?”

“What’s with you? I can’t believe you’re saying this.”

“I can’t believe you approached some borderline personality on the street with a delicious dessert. He’ll probably start stalking you.”

“God, Warren. You’re so sterile!”

Warren did the pots and pans for a while in silence, his elbows jerking wildly.

“He might have attacked you,” he said, after awhile.

“Warren, I’m the one who attacked him, remember?”

The children were watching a documentary about gorillas, gentle ones. There was static in the air, and Warren dried his hands.

“Then does this lift the curse? Are we free of Little Miller?”

“I think we are,” she said.

“You know, I’ve had a few adventures in this town.” He lifted the garbage pail towards the door.

“I’m sure you have.”

“Once I stole a birdbath. From the chancellor’s house.”

“A birdbath?” Most mischievous, most unlike him. “Why?”

The past flickered in his smile. “Someone wanted it. I had my reasons.”

“Tell me!” she cried.

“Never assume you have a man pegged,” he admonished, tripping out into the night.

Religion Steps into the Boxing Ring: Ali in ’64

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali, now 70 years old, is one of America’s most admired athletes. He has received an honorary doctorate at Princeton University, the Spirit of America award, the Presidential Citizens Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

All these honors in late life could obscure the fact that Muhammad Ali, in his youth, was a highly controversial figure—a racial revolutionary, some feared.

Ali had been generally popular up to the day he beat Sonny Liston in 1964 to become boxing’s heavyweight champion. Shortly afterward, though, he announced that he’d joined the Nation of Islam, and changed his name from Cassius Marcellus Clay.

The Nation of Islam was then widely regarded by the American media as a highly dangerous group. There were fearful rumors that the Black Muslims would forcibly create a separate nation for black Americans. So when Ali announced his conversion, the media reacted as if they had been betrayed. A Post editorial from ’64 captures the tone of dismissal and fear.

For a time, when he was confining himself to bad poetry, Cassius was a loudmouth but a likable character who seemed to be harmless in or out of the ring. Then he won the championship and became, in his own estimation, “The Greatest.” After the fight, he acknowledged that he was a Black Muslim, converted by the arch-extremist, Malcolm X, the man who crowed that President Kennedy’s assassination was “a case of the chickens coming home to roost.” Malcolm X was separated from the Black Muslim movement after that remark and is now attempting to organize his own black nation. He wants to arm all the Negroes in the U.S. and ultimately take them back to Africa.

One Post writer went so far as to hint that Ali was simply using his status as a Black Muslim to increase ticket sales.

Muhammad Ali training in 1964.

Clay’s history of calculated deceptions now prompts the suspicion, of course, that his present case of galloping religion is but another decoy to serve who knows what end. Clay himself strengthened the suspicion when he declared, “Just by my being a Muslim, that should draw a bigger gate…”

On re-examination, however, Clay’s remarks were nothing more than cute verbiage. He well knows… that his commitment to Islam has cost him roughly two million dollars in commercial endorsements.

The quote came from a ’64 Post article, “Muslim Champ,” by Myron Cope, which generally overlooked Ali the boxer to focus on Ali the Muslim. Cope regarded Ali’s new faith with frank derision.

Cassius Marcellus Clay, who now calls himself Brother Muhammad Ali… is convinced he is a beacon of righteousness in a wicked world.

Having succeeded Malcolm X as the loudest [sic] Black Muslim, Clay has been fighting a socio-religious battle with the Christian world, and this, more than anything else, seems to have taken away his former exuberance. He still acts the clown for TV cameras but only to sell fight tickets.

Ali in Harlem.

Reading the article today, it’s clear that Cope’s preconceptions were obscuring his view of Ali. He claimed that Ali had “completely severed communication with whites,” even though Ali spoke freely with Cope for this article. Ali also proves himself to be more tolerant than Cope concerning the use of his old name.

“Call me Muhammad or call me Ali,” Clay advised as we drove to his house, “but if you forget and call me Cassius, that won’t bother me none.”

Cope didn’t forget. He deliberately referred to him throughout the article as Cassius Clay. And though he portrayed Ali as a zealot of his new “cult,” the champion voiced rather middle-of-the-road political opinions.

Cruising along, the new Clay discussed politics. “Kennedy,” he said, “just seemed so nice, he didn’t seem like a President.” He expressed an admiration for Barry Goldwater, saying that “he say what he thinks.”

In fact, Ali showed himself to be little changed from the spirited, sociable boxer Cope had traveled with in his pre-championship days.

I had been unwilling to believe that a young man with so bright a gift for teasing the world could hate. Henry H. Arrington, a Negro attorney and adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr., told me; “I can assure you I have never seen any indication whatsoever of Cassius disliking white people generally.”

Muhammad Ali in 1964.

Whatever the actual teaching propounded in the Muslim meetings, Clay denies that he considers all whites to be devils. “I’m stressing just the works that the whites generally have been doing,” he said in his dressing room. “They blow up all these little colored people in church, wash people down the street with water hoses. It’s not the color that make you a devil, just the deeds that you do.

“It’s as our leader Elijah Muhammad teaches us. Couldn’t nobody argue it. I’m no authority on Islam. I am just a follower. If you be a blue race, and you do the works of the devil, then we can call you a devil. You got white people who died under demonstrations, died under tractor wheels for colored people. I wouldn’t call them no devil.”

He was attracted to the cult, he explained, because its people neither drank nor smoked, and they deported themselves well.

“I am an American; I was born here,” he said softly, trying to make himself understood. “Our leader and teacher will tell you himself, we respect America and respect whites for coming here and making a paradise from nothing. It’s not hate or fighting or arguing. We just want freedom.”

Ali’s religion was still a hot issue in 1965, when he fought former heavyweight champion Floyd Paterson. In an unpublished story, Post writer Bill Bridges described how the Ali-Patterson bout was being regarded as a test of Christianity and Muslim faiths. Some of Ali’s supporters, who had become estranged when he joined the Nation of Islam, were hoping that a Patterson victory would convince Ali to return to his old faith. After Patterson was defeated, however, there was no more talk about the match proving which was the superior faith.
 
The following photos were taken for Bill Bridges’ unpublished Post feature and were never printed.

Photo at top left: Ali exchanges angry looks at his former trainer, who had departed after Ali joined the Nation of Islam. Bottom left: the trainer can be seen mid-picture, with the arm of sports writer George Plimpton around his shoulders. He had hoped a defeat would return Ali to the Christian faith. Instead, with Ali victorious, the trainer returned to Ali who forgave him and rehired him as trainer.

Our Love for Cars

From the early 1900s through the 1960s and beyond, Saturday Evening Post covers have shown that we are definitely a car nation.

“Women, Auto & Mechanic” by Karl Anderson

Women, Auto & Mechanic by Karl Anderson from March 26, 1904

“Women, Auto & Mechanic”
by Karl Anderson
From March 26, 1904

 

These well-dressed ladies from a 1904 cover seem to be in need of a mechanic. Love those tires!

“The Fur Coat” by John Sheridan

“The Fur Coat” – by John Sheridan From January 5, 1918

“The Fur Coat”
by John Sheridan
From January 5, 1918

 

This beautiful cover from 1918 was by artist John Sheridan. Magazine covers such as this one gave a glance into a lifestyle most Americans could not otherwise imagine. This issue was full of the ongoing dreadful news of WWI. It also contained a great deal of fiction and a surprising number of car ads, including the ad below for the “Rex” automobile.

“REX Automobile Ad” from January 5,1918

"REX Automobile Ad" From January 5,1918

“REX Automobile Ad”
From January 5,1918

 

If you love old car ads, see “Have You Heard of These Classic Cars?”

“Caught in the Rain” by Albert W. Hampson

 “Caught in the Rain” by Albert W. Hampson From August 29, 1936

“Caught in the Rain”
by Albert W. Hampson
From August 29, 1936

 

“4 Wheels—No Brakes” is written on top of this jalopy from 1936. Apparently, there is no top, either. Love the facial expressions—clearly the young lady has had better dates.

“Ford V-8 Ad from 1936″

Ford V-8 from 1936

“Ford V-8 ad”
from August 1936

 

Much nicer than the brakeless heap with no top was the Ford V-8, as shown in this beautiful ad from August 1936.

“Parallel Parking” by Thornton Utz

“Parallel Parking” by Thornton Utz from April 1,1950

“Parallel Parking”
by Thornton Utz
from April 1,1950

 

Post editors asked artist Thornton Utz if the lady behind the wheel on this 1950 cover might be his wife. He recoiled in horror: “Oh no! Don’t say that!” The editors, who loved to tease cover artists, countered with something about women drivers in general. The artist begged that they not say that, either. Whoever the anonymous lady was, she was clearly determined to nab that last parking spot in front of the market.

“Packard Automobile Ad” from April 1, 1950

“Packard Automobile Ad” from April 1, 1950

“Packard Automobile Ad”
from April 1, 1950

 

Among the car ads in that issue was this one for a 1950 Packard Eight Deluxe 135-HP Touring Sedan:

If you want to see some beautiful old Packard ads, see our piece on “Classic Car Ads: The Packard”

“Backup Collision” by Stevan Dohanos

“Backup Collision” by Stevan Dohanos From August 4, 1956

“Backup Collision”
by Stevan Dohanos
From August 4, 1956

 

It’s easy enough to see how this could happen. Love the depiction of 1956 suburbia, including the man with the push mower. He seems to be wisely staying out of it. Unless one of the drivers is his wife and he is simply in shock.

“Speeder on the Median” by Richard Sargent

"Speeder on the Median" by Richard Sargent From June 2, 1962

“Speeder on the Median”
by Richard Sargent
From June 2, 1962

 

It wouldn’t be so bad if the guy on the mower wasn’t so smug-looking. Oh, who are we kidding? Even without the “Excuse My Dust” smirk on the mower’s face, it is still discouraging to have your zippy roadster—shall we say—“outclipped” by a lawnmower.

Sweet Hawaiian Mini Burgers

Winter blues got you down? Bring home a taste of the Aloha State with these delicious mini burgers that effectively combine savory and sweet. The juicy pineapple and the Hawaiian bread will make you feel like you’re lying on the beach sipping from a coconut. (Recipe and photo courtesy of The Beef Checkoff.)


Sweet Hawaiian Mini Burgers

(Makes 4 servings.)

Ingredients

Burgers

Sauce

Directions

Beyond “The Biggest Loser”

Not every journey, whether to a healthier lifestyle or a certain career path, follows a straight line. Mine has been no different.
 
After studying French in college and working as an international flight attendant, I decided to follow my heart and my passion for cooking by completing culinary training in San Francisco and France.  I prepared mostly healthy fare in top restaurants and as a private chef in San Francisco. Across the Bay, I legitimized the “healthy” aspect of my cooking at UC Berkeley, earning my degree in Nutrition and Clinical Dietetics along with my RD (Registered Dietitian) credential. Unsure of what to do with my new and unique skill set, I moved to what I saw as a land of opportunity: Los Angeles!
 
In Los Angeles, I became the health editor for a culinary website, and I also worked part time on a research project at UCLA with my friend Susan Bowerman, the Assistant Director of their Nutrition Department. Being a part of a hit television show was the furthest thing from my mind.
 
One morning Susan introduced me to a colleague, Dr. Rob Huizenga, who was working as a medical expert on a television pilot for a reality show about extreme weight loss to be called “The Biggest Loser.” We really didn’t know if anyone would watch back then. It seemed kind of wacky—no one else had done anything of the sort. That, of course, was 12 seasons and more than 250 contestants ago; the rest is history.
 

Cheryl Forberg hikes with contestants on "The Biggest Loser."
Cheryl leads the way on a hike with contestants from "The Biggest Loser'"

Looking back, it’s easy to say we were pioneers in weight loss reality television—there are so many similar shows now. Though I’m happy our work inspired and continues to inspire so many, it’s bittersweet, because the obesity statistics are not going down.
 
Like the rest of “The Biggest Loser” medical expert team, my role was off camera but vital to the show’s success. Most of the air time was dedicated to the trainers, work outs, challenges, the occasional guest chef appearance (such as Curtis Stone) and, of course, the stories of contestants themselves.
 
What people didn’t see on camera was that I met with every one of the prospective cast members who flew to LA to vie for a coveted spot on the show. Each season, I met with approximately 75 finalists (who were culled from much larger pool of thousands) for a comprehensive nutrition consultation, which was one component of an entire week of medical and psychological testing before the final cast selections were made.
 
Once the cast was identified (anywhere from 12 to 50 people depending on the season), I shared a personally tailored calorie budget with each of them and instructed them on the eating plan for the show, which I co-wrote. I also taught them about shopping, measuring and weighing food, portion sizes, cooking tips and maintaining a daily food journal. From there, I tracked their food intake to ensure they were getting enough calories, protein, calcium, fiber and all of the other nutrients that comprise “The Biggest Loser” eating plan. And, over the course of 12 seasons, I shared my cell phone number with 250+ cast members and availed myself 24/7 if they had any food/shopping/nutrition/cooking questions, or if they just wanted to chat. 
 
I never had any regrets about that. In fact, former contestants still call me to check in and I love hearing from them. Though it was incredibly rewarding to watch their knowledge grow (while their waistlines shrank!), my biggest regret was that I was only able to reach a small fraction of the overweight Americans who really need my help. And those who need me most can’t afford to hire me on their own.
 

Cheryl Forberg with "Biggest Loser" Season 9 contestant Stephanie Anderson.
Cheryl with "Biggest Loser" Season 9 contestant Stephanie Anderson.

This is ultimately one of the reasons I decided to move on. Although I’m extremely proud of what I accomplished with individual contestants in 12 seasons, I felt that there could be a way to reach and help many more people. I also realized my focus was on only one segment of the weight loss spectrum—from the morbidly obese starting point to the point of maintenance (or almost there). At the end of each season I had to stop there and circle back to start over again with a new season, never having enough time to dedicate myself fully to those who had achieved the lofty goal of reaching their maintenance weight, and helping them to stay there.
 
This year, I look forward with excitement to reaching a larger audience, on-camera and off, in person and remotely and in print, with you, at the Saturday Evening Post. I look forward to sharing my nutrition and culinary expertise with you. Whether you have questions about weight loss, weight maintenance, or healthy (but scrumptious!) eating and recipes—I look forward to answering them all and to sharing my stories with you about the urban farm I’m building in Napa, California.
 
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to knowing you better.

Join us again in two weeks for nutrition advice from Cheryl.


Former Biggest Loser Nutritionist Cheryl Forberg
 
Cheryl Forberg RD is a New York Times bestselling author and a James Beard award-winning chef. Cheryl co-wrote the eating plan for NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” and was the show’s nutritionist for twelve seasons. Her latest book is Flavor First, and she writes a blog of cooking and nutrition tips. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook for more tips and recipes. And continue to read the Saturday Evening Post website for more regular nutrition tips and features from Cheryl.
 
 
 
 

The Young Man With a Dream: Ali in 1961

At age 19, Muhammad Ali was a shining example of the American athletic hero. He was a confident, aggressive, and powerful boxer. But he could occasionally show the shyness and modesty Americans like in their celebrities, as Post writer Dick Schaap observed in 1961.

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., who at eighteen won the 1960 Olympic light-heavyweight boxing championship, has not the slightest doubt that he is the future heavyweight champion of the world.

Clay has had only five fights since turning pro last fall, but it is inconceivable to him that he could fail to go all the way.

Sprinkling bold and candid words that must be taken with grains of salt, Clay cultivates fame and popularity the way some fighters cultivate a knockout punch. “Man,” he says, “I love to see my name in print. I love to see my name where everybody can see it.”

Yet, Ali was more than a brash young contender. He charmed Schaap with his friendliness and his surprise at his newfound fame.

When a sports writer pointed out that he seemed more sociable than the usual fighter, Clay agreed. “I don’t pretend to be friendly,” he said, “like most people do when they’re trying to get on top. I am friendly.”

“Back home,” he said, “they’ll think it’s real. They won’t know the difference.”

As Clay strolled through Times Square, a passer-by did a double take and asked, “Aren’t you Cassius Clay?”

“How’d you know who I was?”

The stranger slapped Clay on the back. “I saw you on TV,” he said, “So did lots of people. They all know who you are.”

Clay hung his head, feigning modesty. “Really?” he said. “You really know who I am? That’s wonderful.'” Dozens of people stopped him on the street, and for each Clay had a grin and a fresh air of amazement. “I guess everybody do know who I am,” he conceded.

He entered a penny arcade and had a newspaper headline printed: CASSIUS SIGNS FOR PATTERSON FIGHT.

That headline became a reality just four years later, when Ali beat Patterson with a T.K.O. in the 12th round.

In trying to understand what motivated Ali, Schaap related an event that probably began the champ’s career.

When Cassius was twelve years old, he attended a meeting one night at the junior high school. While he was inside, someone stole his bicycle. Afterward he went to the Columbia Gym, where a Louisville policeman, Joe Martin, trained young fighters. He told Martin about the bicycle theft. “I’d like to get the boy who did it,” Clay snapped.

“Do you know how to box?” Martin asked.

“No,” Clay said,

“Why don’t you come down here? We’ll teach you.”

Clay never did get his bicycle back, but he did learn how to box. At the age of twelve, weighing eighty-nine pounds, he made his amateur debut.

The dream of greatness must have come early because it was firmly fixed in 1960 when he won the Olympic gold medal in boxing.

How good a pro prospect is Cassius Clay? He is almost as good as he says he is. His main asset is speed of hand and foot that enables him to dart in, hit an opponent and dart away before he himself gets hit. He punches in furious combinations, favoring a left-left-right-cross sequence designed to cut and tire his opponents.

The question is—does he have determination? Is he willing to make the sacrifices he has to make to become a champion?

No one knows the answers for certain, but it at least is clear that Clay has no objections to long, strenuous work.

But Ali had more than a strong work ethic. He had an unshakeable sense of future victory. This sense was probably what formed the dream he told Schaap he kept having.

“I dream I’m running down Broadway,” he explains. “That’s the main street in Louisville, and all of a sudden there’s a truck coming at me. I run at the truck and I wave my arms, and then I take off and I’m flying. I go right up over the truck, and all the people are standing around and cheering and waving at me. And I wave back and I keep on flying. I dream that all the time.”

Betty White Turns 90

Turning 90 is a wonderful thing, and being TV’s “It Girl” at age 90 is nothing short of amazing.

Those two achievements belong to none other than Betty White, whose 1995 book was appropriately called Here We Go Again. “The original idea,” Betty wrote, “was to visit the earliest days of television while I could still remember them.” White assumed, understandably, that her career was pretty much behind her—she was, after all, in her seventies.

In 2010, in an updated forward to the ’95 book, she wrote, “Who could have dreamed at the time, that, fifteen years later, I would still be hanging in there, busier than ever before?” Now at age 90, her star burns more brightly than ever before, as she appears in the hit TV show “Hot In Cleveland” and has been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series. ( She was nominated for the same award for the first time in 2011, at the young age of 89—and won.)

Indeed, 2010 was a crazy year for Betty, and it began with a sassy Snickers commercial, then morphed into a Facebook campaign to make Betty the oldest guest host on “Saturday Night Live” and “somewhere in here I agree to do a guest stint on a pilot for a new series” with the stipulation that “it would be only a one-shot deal.” It starred Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendy Malick. An instant hit, there was an order for ten episodes. In spite of the agreement that she wouldn’t be involved, Betty ended up doing all ten, and then the series got picked up for twenty more episodes. “I have no business working this much at this age,” she said.

In the madcap year of 2010 she even showed up in the sitcom, “The Middle,” starring Patricia Heaton. She played a spiteful librarian who enjoyed making life hell for second-graders.

The Betty White Show, 1954

The Betty White Show, 1954

Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1922, Betty was barely out of high school when she received her first big break—singing for an experimental LA television station. By 1953, she was starring in a series called “Life With Elizabeth” and she made regular appearances in the ’60s and ’70s on “Password,” hosted by her husband, Allen Ludden.

Her most famous roles were as the devious Sue Ann Nivens on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (1970–1977) and the hilariously ditzy Rose on “The Golden Girls” (1985-1992). But her list of credits even includes: “Mama’s Family,” “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and “Ugly Betty.”

Nabbing the popular actress isn’t enough; for some reason writers love putting her in unlikely situations—like throwing her in the slammer. They love having her say things you don’t expect to hear from a nice little old lady. The results are delightful.

Betty White and Mary Tyler Moore in a scene from "Hot in Cleveland." Photo Courtesy TV Land.
Betty White and Mary Tyler Moore in a scene from "Hot in Cleveland." Photo Courtesy TV Land.

“I’m in freaking jail here!” she yelled last year on “Hot in Cleveland.” Betty plays the widow of a Mafioso who absconds, faking his death, leaving her to take the heat for sitting on stolen loot. Oh, actually, she doesn’t technically play a widow—although “dead,” he showed up this season—played by Don Rickles, no less. In jail for a couple of hours, she starts singing “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” until her unseen cellmate tells her to knock it off. When the camera does show the snarling woman sharing the space, it’s none other than Mary Tyler Moore.

Leave it to Ms. White to make being a “senior citizen” fashionable. No doubt partly in deference to her age group, “Hot” has boasted a “Who’s Who” of guest stars, and many of them, like the beloved Moore, are older. What a treat to see Carl Reiner, Tim Conway, Orson Bean, Buck Henry, Hal Linden (“Barney Miller”) and John Mahoney (“Frasier”).

Betty White is not just about comedic timing. She’s just as famous for her passion for animals. She communes with elephants, giraffes and chimps, too, as trustee for the Los Angeles Zoo. She has tirelessly worked to raise funds for improvements to various areas of the Zoo, such as “the Red Ape Rainforest for our orangutans, followed by a great new home for our gorillas,” as she explains in her 2011 book, Betty & Friends—My Life at the Zoo.

It seems appropriate that Betty White, at the age of 90 has landed on the network “TVLand.” In spite of a wonderful film career, from “Time to Kill” in 1945 to “The Proposal” in 2009, the land of TV is where this always-delightful pioneer belongs.

Fleming. Ian Fleming.

This sort of thing never happened to James Bond.

One night in 1941, a member of British Naval Intelligence stops by the Estoril Casino in neutral Portugal. He is Lieutenant Ian Fleming, stopping over in Lisbon, on his way to secret talks in Washington. But tonight, he’s in his civilian clothes and trying his luck at the baccarat tables. He notices two players at another table, and recognizes them as Nazi Intelligence agents. Fleming, a gambler with a high opinion of his skills, has a sudden inspiration:

He decided to play them and take them for all of their secret funds.

Instead of taking the Nazis, however, the Nazis took him, and Fleming sheepishly had to ask his chief for more travel money.

When he used the incident in the first of his novels twelve years later, the story had a different ending. His fictional hero, James Bond, wiped out his villainous opponent.

The story, as Fleming told Post writer Geoffrey Boca, was typical of the difference between Bond and the man who created him. Boca saw little of the superspy in the retired Naval officer he met in 1963:


At 55, slowed in his movements by a heart attack two years ago, Ian Fleming has high cheekbones, close-set eyes, a bashed-in nose, and a rich taste for the luxuries of life.

Each winter, he retreats from the London whirl and writes a new Bond novel at his beach house in Jamaica. Every afternoon he lies face down in the water, looking at the fish through his faceplate. In this manner he thinks out the plot, and contemplates the trick he has been playing ever since Bond was born.

The trick consists of having led his readers to believe that Fleming has modeled Bond on himself. Like Bond, Fleming is a former naval commander. The creator and his creation share a taste for vodka martinis, custom-made cigarettes, and, until Fleming’s marriage, unattached women. Dust-cover photographs of Fleming with a gun help the illusion.

In fact, Fleming has created a character who is the opposite of himself. Bond, Fleming writes in every book, is “cruel.” The essence of Fleming’s personality is his gentleness. He abhors violence.

Fleming is so softhearted, in fact, that he finds it hard to reject a stranger’s request for money. And when a friend is ill he feels compelled to fill the hospital room with flowers.

Fleming also has interests that Bond would scorn. Bond has never read a book, but Fleming is one of England’s principal authorities on rare books. He is publisher of the London Book Collector, perhaps the leading magazine in the world on the subject.

The original James Bond. Fleming named his superspy after this ornithologist because he wanted a name that was bland and nondescript.

Fleming has an almost infinite number of quirks, prejudices and dislikes. Some are apparent in his form of dress, which he has not changed since he was demobilized from the Royal Navy in 1945. In London he invariably wears a dark-blue suit with cuffs on the sleeves, a spotted bow tie loosely tied, a blue shirt with short sleeves, and loafers. “Wearing the same clothes saves me from having to wonder what I shall wear today,” he says rather defensively. “I hate buttons, studs and laces. I wear short-sleeved shirts because I cannot stand dirty cuffs.”

Fleming protests constantly that he is not a gourmet like Bond, and that his favorite meal is scrambled eggs, but he cannot resist an adventure in exotic eating. The food does not have to be good, so long as it carries the spice of danger.

Many readers complain of the torture scenes which keep bloodying his books. Fleming replies that these are exactly what happened to Allied agents during the war. He should know. He worked with Allied agents during the war.

After D Day, Fleming took control, from London, of No. 30 Assault Unit, which was to become more celebrated among its members as F. P. N., or Fleming’s Private Navy. This was a group of some 300 Royal Marines who advanced with front troops to try to seize secret enemy equipment, codes, and so on.

In 1939 the Admiralty—at that time perhaps the most alert of Britain’s fighting services—decided that it needed men like Fleming: multilingual, imaginative, fit. Called home and commissioned as a lieutenant, he worked as personal assistant to Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence. Much of his wartime work is still secret today, and most of the stories Fleming tells are farcical rather than daredevil.

On one memorable occasion when he and an assistant were required to question a capture U-boat commander to find out which routes the U-boats were taking through the British minefields in the Kattegat, Fleming had a flamboyant idea. Instead of grilling the commander in a grim prison office, why not soften him up by bringing him to London and questioning him over good food and fine wine?

The German and his first lieutenant, of unmistakably Teutonic bearing, were escorted to Scott’s Restaurant in Piccadilly in civilian clothes. Fleming and his aide were in uniform. Everyone spoke German throughout. Fleming ordered a bottle of Rhine wine and another and another. While the Englishmen were getting progressively drunker, the Germans stayed rigorously sober revealing nothing. In the end Fleming gave it up and blearily took a taxi back to the Admiralty.

“Dammit, Fleming, what the devil have you been up to?” demanded the director of Naval Intelligence. “I have only just saved you from being arrested. You have tied up half of M.I.5 and the C.I.D.—listening to you all afternoon.”

“Baker, the maitre d’ hotel, had reported that we had been behaving suspiciously,” Fleming recalls. It showed an alert and proper attitude on his part, and I have patronized Scott’s ever since.”

Fleming has often mentioned during the war that he might write a novel some day. He finally settled down to the task in 1952, rolling a piece of paper into his battered portable, and started.

He began with the words, “The scent and smoke of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. James Bond suddenly knew that he was tired…”

It took him just two months to write Casino Royale. Over the next 12 years, he produced 12 novels and 9 short stories with Bond.

Fleming moves in a small society of talented friends who think he can and should do better than write spy novels. Fleming listens to the criticism with a sardonic grin, fits another cigarette into his holder, and goes his own way.

What he thinks of his own work, he does not say, but he shows no sign of changing. He much prefers laying face down in the Caribbean, with a hot sun beating on his back, his mind far away.

He died just one year after the Post interview. His last words, addressed to the ambulance drivers hurrying him to the hospital were,

I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don’t know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days.

Hardly the last words you’d imagine coming from James Bond.

Also check out Lewis Beale’s feature “Bond. James Bond.” and vote for your favorite James Bond film.

James Bond Turns 50

Bond. James Bond.

The first time a 32-year-old Scottish actor uttered those words was in a small film that opened in London 50 years ago. Based on a popular pulp novel by Ian Fleming, Dr. No cost slightly over $1 million and featured a group of not-yet stars including Sean Connery, Jack Lord (“Hawaii Five-O”), and Ursula Andress alongside an established character actor, Joseph Wiseman, as the movie’s villain.

It was a film that debuted with no expectations whatsoever. Months later, when Dr. No opened in the U.S., The New York Times called it “lively” and “amusing,” a “spoof of science fiction and sex.” Translation: a cute, entertaining trifle.

Yet, lo and behold, Dr. No grossed nearly $60 million worldwide—fantastic box office for that time—and spawned a film franchise that has produced 22 feature films (the 23rd, Skyfall, is due out in October) with global earnings of more than $5 billion.

In an era when big budget extravaganzas such as Lawrence of Arabia and The Longest Day attracted the largest audiences, Dr. No’s success seemed to come out of nowhere. Yet the reasons why it succeeded were easily discernable. “The formula was simple,” says film critic and author Irv Slifkin of moviefanfare.com. “A good-looking guy who was lethal yet likable, gorgeous women, nasty villains, nifty gadgets, nice locations, and cool music—all presented in first class fashion with a dollop of violence and sex and, in some cases, politics.”

“Bond tapped into a full range of male fantasies and desires that were simultaneously being exploited by popular media and international advertising at the height of post-war consumerism,” adds Christoph Lindner, editor of The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader. “There is a great study of the interrelations—both commercial and artistic—between Bond and Playboy magazine in the early 1960s, showing that both developments shared many values and perspectives, not just on sex and women, but also on conspicuous consumption and the fetishism of technology.”

In other words, gorgeous women and cool gadgets—not to mention Cold War paranoia and wackadoodle plot lines far removed from the dour and more realistic spy flicks of the era—were some of the keys to the films’ success. And if you were female, well, you might not have liked the casual sexism of the Bond series, but there was always Sean Connery, about as studly as they come, to satisfy your fantasies. As Slifkin puts it: “The women came for James, and the men came for everything else.” [Not everyone was buying 007. For a contemporary, critical view of Bond and his movies, read William K. Zinsser’s 1965 article “The Big Bond Bonanza” —ed.]

Sean Connery on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post
Sean Connery graces the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.

And they kept coming back for more. When Sean Connery bowed out of the series, they came for George Lazenby, and then Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and now Daniel Craig. The villains changed, the women came and went, the plots sometimes became utterly ridiculous—like in 1979’s Moonraker, which involved a master race, a plot to exterminate all human life, and a battle on a space station—but none of that seemed to matter. Bond was part of the culture. Which meant it became hard to find people who didn’t know who Q, M, and Miss Moneypenny were; who weren’t familiar with Odd Job and Jaws; and who didn’t know that Bond liked his martinis “shaken, not stirred.”

In fact, this familiarity worked in the series’ favor. One of the reasons 007 managed to survive from the Cold War era into the post-9/11 world is that the more things changed, the more Bond tended to stay the same. According to Glenn Yeffeth, editor of James Bond in the 21st Century, Bond is “good at what he does, and he is an openly heterosexual male, unashamed of his own manhood. Those characteristics seem to be as relevant as they ever were. If you look at Jack Bauer in the TV show “24,” I think what people like about that character are the same characteristics.”

There’s also Bond’s relationship with his bosses, which remains highly volatile. 007 is an insider who acts like an outsider, and that tension has been constant throughout the series. “At one level he represents a fantasy of government control in a geopolitical world that has lost its grip on western security,” says Lindner, “but at another level he also represents a fantasy of escape from the excessive authority and surveillance of government. This tension between control and escape is an important part of Bond’s success over the decades.”

And then there’s the most obvious way in which the series stays current—when it comes to enemies, Bond is always after the villain du jour. “The films have always reflected the times in which they were made,” says Yefeth. “In the ’60s, it was Cold War espionage and the beginnings of the sexual revolution. In the ’70s and ’80s, they became more comedic and fantastical in the era of overindulgence. But the fundamental principles of Bond haven’t changed. He is intent on trying to preserve world order. For each era, Bond has found his way.”

Which means that in the latest reboot of the series, Daniel Craig’s 007 has been fighting a gaggle of very contemporary bad seeds who finance international terrorism (Casino Royale) or are out to control an entire nation’s water supply (Quantum of Solace).

And there is one more significant way in which Bond has kept up with the times. Even though he’s as tough as ever, he has become more emotionally open. “Fleming’s original Bond from the novels was a deeply flawed and emotionally damaged character,” says Lindner. “Over the years, the films gradually turned Bond into a teflon spy. But now, in the post-9/11 era—and thanks in part to other spy franchises like the Jason Bourne trilogy—Bond has rediscovered his emotions and his imperfections.”

So what’s not to like? He’s macho. He’s emotional. He’s even become, if the most recent films are any indication, almost—but not quite—monogamous. And in a world that seems even more chaotic and dangerous than the one in which he first appeared, we all know that when evil rears its ugly head, there’s one secret agent we can always count on.

Bond. James Bond.


Best of Bond
There have been 22 Bond films so far. In chronological order, here are my picks for the five best. —L.B.

From Russia With Love (1963)

Daniela Bianchi and Sean Connery in From Russia with Love
Daniela Bianchi and Sean Connery. © Bettmann/CORBIS

Why It’s Great: A Cold War spy caper with superbad villains intent on world domination. Bonus: A top-notch supporting cast including Robert Shaw and Lotte Lenya.
Main Villain: Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the consummately evil head of SPECTRE shown only from the neck down as he strokes his white cat. Equally freaky and fearsome—Rosa Klebb (Lenya), the killer with poison-tipped blades concealed in the toes of her shoes.
Bond Babe: Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi), Russian agent turned Bond ally.
Cool Gadget: A special briefcase including a rifle and ammunition plus 50 gold sovereigns, a knife, and a tear gas cartridge disguised as talcum powder.
Memorable Dialogue: Tatiana, trying on dresses – “I will wear this one in Picadilly.” Bond – “You won’t. They’ve just passed some new laws there. ”

Goldfinger (1964)

Honor Blackman and Sean Connery in Goldfinger.
Shirley Eaton and Sean Connery. © Sunset Boulevard/Corbis

Why It’s Great: A daring robbery plan, nasty supervillain, and that smiling henchman Oddjob (Harold Sakata). Mix that with a female flying corps, one of the best Bond title songs (sung by Shirley Bassey), and a terrific final action sequence and you get perhaps the greatest Bond ever.
Main Villain: Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe), master criminal who wants to rob Fort Knox.
Bond Babe: Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), Bond enemy turned ally.
Cool Gadget: Awesome Aston Martin with passenger ejection seat, forward machine guns, hubcaps doubling as tire slashers, and other goodies.
Memorable Dialogue: Stewardess – “Can I do anything for you?” Bond – “Just a drink. A martini, shaken, not stirred.”

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)

Diana Rigg and George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diana Rigg and George Lazenby. MGM.

Why It’s Great: George Lazenby is no Sean Connery, but he’s okay as Bond, and the film is tight, smart, and extremely well directed with killer action sequences. Bonus: We find 007 in love.
Main Villain: Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas), doing some strange allergy research involving beautiful women.
Bond Babe: Teresa di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), who marries Bond, but is murdered on their wedding day.
Cool Gadget: Radioactive lint, which acts as a homing device.
Memorable Dialogue: Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti) – “My apologies for the way you were brought here. I wasn’t sure you’d accept a ‘formal’ invitation.” Bond – “There’s always something formal about the point of a pistol.”

Licence To Kill (1989)

Timothy Dalton and Carey Lowell in Licence to Kill
Timothy Dalton and Carey Lowell. Columbia Pictures.

Why It’s Great: Criminally underrated at the time, this is an exciting action film with Timothy Dalton as a nasty, driven Bond out to stop a drug lord and avenge a near-fatal attack on his friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison).
Main Villain: Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi), South American drug kingpin based on Pablo Escobar.
Bond Babe: Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell), CIA informant posing as a drug courier who falls for Bond.
Cool Gadget: A camera that can be converted into a rifle and programmed so only one person can fire it.
Memorable Dialogue: Bond, when asked to cut a wedding cake – “I’ll do anything for a woman with a knife.”

Casino Royale (2006)

Why It’s Great:Grade A reboot of the series featuring a macho but sensitive Daniel Craig as 007 and smashing action sequences.

Casino Royale
Eva Green and Daniel Craig. PhotoFest.

Main Villain: Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a banker for terrorist organizations.
Bond Babe: Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), double agent supposedly monitoring Bond’s expenses but also working for a terrorist organization. She soon falls for our hero.
Cool Gadgets: Film is low on futuristic gadgetry because it is about the start of Bond’s career as a “00.” Still, his Aston Martin has a glove compartment with antidotes to various poisons and a portable defibrillator. Most laughable is his Sony Ericsson cellphone with (get this!) GPS and a 3.2 megapixel digital camera!
Memorable Dialogue: Lynd – “It doesn’t bother you? Killing all those people?” Bond – “Well, I wouldn’t be very good at my job if it did.”

What’s your favorite Bond movie?

A War Horse Earns Her Sergeant’s Stripes: 1953

When armored tanks first appeared on the battlefield in World War One, military planners expected the horse would be retired from combat. Motorized vehicles, they assumed, would move all their soldiers and weapons. Yet the horse remained in combat throughout World War II— partly because of a shortage of motor vehicles and partly because horses weren’t stopped by deep snow, mud, and steep hills that were impassible to vehicles.

The War Horse, Model 2011: U.S. Special Forces on horseback in Afghanistan.

The horse was also conscripted during the Korean War. A war horse named Reckless served the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Marines on the Bunker Hill-Panmunjom line with such distinction that she earned the rank of sergeant.

Her story, written for the Post by Col. Andy Geer U.S.M.C.R., began when a Marine raiding force was nearly cut off by Chinese troops as it fought its way back into Allied lines. To cover the incoming marines, the battalion created a ‘fire curtain’ using recoilless rifles — called “Reckless Rifles.”

Ammunition carriers ran over hills and across paddies in an exhausting race against time and space. It was a killing job, man-packing the 75-mm. artillery shells to the firing positions. The fire of the recoilless weapons was slowing to an intermittent cough when the last of the raiders married up with the main body.

The battle convinced 2d Lt. Eric Pedersen a horse was required to supply his portable artillery pieces… The next day, though suffering from leg, hip and face wounds, Pedersen hooked a trailer to his jeep and took the rough road south.

His destination was a race track in Seoul, where all racing had been canceled for the duration of the war. There he met breeders eager to sell the horses they could no longer race. Pedersen found a promising young Mongolian mare and paid $250 of his own money for her. Her name had been ‘Flame of the Morning,’ but the Marines soon rechristened her ‘Reckless.’

T/Sgt. Joseph Latham put the recruit through ” hoof ” camp. Long hours were spent in the hills, teaching the little sorrel to become accustomed to a friendly firing and not to bolt when the recoilless rifles back-blasted their horrendous pathway of destruction.

Latham taught her how to cross over communication and barbed wire and to move into a tent or bunker without invitation. Although the marines had built her an open-faced bunker, Reckless roamed the camp, and when it began to rain she walked into the nearest tent. Upon her appearance, a marine would say, “Here’s Reckless,” while the rest simply pulled up their legs or shifted a sleeping bag or two to make room.

By the end of her training, Reckless was routinely carrying ten rounds of 75mm shells: 220 pounds in all. Then, in July, the Chinese launched an all-out attack on four Marine outposts.

The savagery of the battle for the so-called Nevada complex had never been equaled in Marine Corps history.

A 75 mm. recoilless rifle in use during the Korean War.

Reno [had been] lost with all hands aboard. Vegas was lost with heavy casualties. Elko and Carson held tenuously.

Orders came from higher command to recapture Vegas. The second battalion, 5th Marines, was ordered in for the counter-attack, with Reckless and her rifles in close support.

The fury of the battle reached such heights that veterans of the first and middle wars are unable to compare it with previous engagements. Enemy in-coming artillery and mortar shells were judged to be at the rate of 500 rounds a minute.

Losses were staggering. Capt. John Melvin’s D Company of the second battalion (over 600 men) was shot away from a full complement to sixteen men in less than two hours. E Company of the same battalion suffered nearly as badly.

It was under these brutal conditions that the Marine’s war horse showed her indomitable spirit, following her orders without supervision or even guidance.

To supply the guns that were supporting the assault units, the little sorrel had to carry

Reckless and her combat trainer, Sgt. Joseph Latham.

her load of 75-mm. shells across a paddy and into the hills. The distance to the firing positions of the rifles was over 1800 yards. Each yard was passage through a shower of explosives. The final climb to the firing positions was at a nearly forty-five-degree angle.

Because of the steepness of the climb, Latham loaded her with only six rounds.

On the first few trips Latham or Pfc. Gary Craig or Monroe Coleman — particular friends of hers— led her from to the front lines. After the fourth or fifth trip she returned from the forward position to the dump alone.

Upon being loaded, she took off across the paddy without order or direction. Thereafter she marched the fiery gauntlet alone.

Fifty-one times Reckless delivered her load of explosives. All three weapons were kept in action; one fired so fast the barrel crystallized.

Vegas was retaken and held against murderous counterattacks. The violence of battle ebbed, Vegas was secure (until Turkish forces from the U.N.) relieved the marines.

When the fighing was over the battalion’s gratitude toward Reckless was only exceeded by their pride their war horse.

When the 5th Marines held a regimental parade honoring the heroes of the Vegas battle, Reckless passed in review with her unit. She had become a celebrated marine. Generals and colonels came to call on her; newspapermen interviewed her and she appeared on television.

None of this, however, can be said to have affected the distance between her ears. She was content to do her job, live on marine chow and, of a hot day, have a beer before turning in.

The battalion was still on the front line when the Korean cease-fire was signed. The entire unit, plus its war horse, was assembled for a final parade before returning state-side.

At a ceremony as formal as could be arranged on a wind-swept Korean field, Reckless

Reckless welcomed at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. Lt. Eric Pedersen is shown on right.

was cited for her bravery. Maj. Gen. Randolph Pate, division commander, pinned sergeant’s chevrons to her shiny new red-and-gold silk blanket. It was Sergeant Reckless now.

Her farewell citation said, “Disregard for her own safety and conduct under fire were an inspiration to the troops and in keeping with the highest traditions of the Naval Service. Reckless’ attention and devotion to duty make her well qualified for promotion to the rank of sergeant. Her absolute dependability while on missions under fire contributed materially to the success of many battles.”

The Marines refused to leave Reckless behind in Korea. Thanks to considerable string-pulling, favor-cashing, and public support stirred by Reckless’ story in the Post, she was eventually brought to California. She spent the rest of her life as the 1st Marine Division’s mascot at Camp Pendelton. In 1957, the Post offered this one final postscript to the Reckless’ story.

Combat experience is the best preparation for motherhood: Reckless and Fearless in 1957.

Last month Andy Geer got a phone call from Camp Pendleton, California, where Reckless had been pastured with other horses, announcing that the Sergeant, who is lady, had that day foaled a son, named Fearless.

Go to www.sgtreckless.com to learn more about this remarkable war horse, and how you can help build her a memorial monument.

Rockwell in the 1960s – Part II

"In Fellowship Lies Friendship"– August 27, 1960

The man with his pipe makes a cameo appearance.

 

We’re continuing our tour of Rockwell by decades with Part Two of his 1960s illustrations, featuring covers that don’t exactly look like “Rockwells.”

“In Fellowship Lies Friendship”– August 27, 1960

"In Fellowship Lies Friendship" from August 27, 1960

“In Fellowship Lies Friendship”
from August 27, 1960

 

This rather daunting edifice is the University Club of New York. The club’s motto was “In Fellowship Lies Friendship,” and the fellows inside seem to be interested in the “friendship” developing outside.

Also interested in the tall sailor chatting up the shapely blonde are a few bystanders. Two of those rather non-pedestrian pedestrians are in the lower left corner—Mr. Rockwell, we presume, walking alongside his daughter-in-law, Gail.

What appears to be a simple scene is actually quite detailed. I for one am amazed at the “texture” in the stone. The birds flying by are easy to miss, and leave it to Rockwell to be faithful to the Italian Renaissance details, including the unusual keystones above the windows. The building is still an architectural landmark today.

“Well!” (Jack Benny) –March 2, 1963

“Well!” (Jack Benny) from March 2, 1963

“Well!”
(Jack Benny)
from March 2, 1963

Well! What else can one say about Jack Benny? Okay, for you younger readers, the delightful Jack Benny had a way of saying, “Well!” that…well, you just had to be there. This painting could also be called, “I’m thinking, I’m thinking!” as in his standard response to the line “Your money or your life!” Really, this stuff wasn’t that corny at the time…

As we saw in the previous feature, Rockwell painted world figures in far-flung places, but, interestingly, he was nervous about meeting the beloved comedian. He called Bill Davidson of the Post and told him, “I’m really nervous about meeting this Benny fellow. Would you be good enough to help me over the hurdle?” Ironically, about a half an hour earlier, Benny, who was beloved by millions and the friend of presidents and kings, called Davidson with the same request. He was nervous about meeting the great Norman Rockwell. So Davidson was there for the meeting. Hey, world leaders come and go. Benny and Rockwell were classics!

“The Golden Rule”– April 1, 1961

"The Golden Rule" from April 1, 1961

“The Golden Rule”
from April 1, 1961

 

Norman Rockwell, whose first Saturday Evening Post cover appeared in 1916, was still painting classics 45 years later in 1961. Taking a serious turn, he created “The Golden Rule,” which is, of course, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Oddly enough, the models who depicted the humanity of many nations, all came from the general area of Rockwell’s studio. Rockwell had a passion for costumes and had collected many from his travels abroad. Of the rabbi, the artist chuckled, “he’s Mr. Lawless, our retired postmaster. I put whiskers on him, and I think he fits the part quite well, even if he is a Catholic.” Barely visible in the upper right corner is a face painted by memory: Rockwell’s late wife, holding their first grandson, a child she hadn’t lived to know.

Rockwell received the Interfaith Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews for this cover.

“Stained Glass Artistry”– April 16, 1960

“Stained Glass Artistry”
from April 16, 1960

 

Among our Rockwells that don’t look like Rockwells, we have this Easter 1960 cover. The idea came from a trip Norman took to Westminster Abbey in London, where a craftsman was high on a scaffold repairing a stained glass window.

Oh how the artist toiled to capture that luminosity of the backlit stained glass. He just couldn’t do it. Finally, he found stained glass designers Rowan and Irene LeCompet of New York and they traveled to Rockwell’s studio bearing detailed plans of a window they had designed for a Washington church. That’s Rowan LeCompet up on the scaffold repairing a break. Rockwell studied church window after church window, inside and out, before he finally captured that radiant quality.

“Midnight Snack”– November 3, 1962

"Midnight Snack" from November 3, 1962

“Midnight Snack”
from November 3, 1962

 

This cover is another example of Rockwell’s attention to minute detail, and an example of his wild sense of humor. The scene takes place at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, which must be a fascinating place to visit. The knight in shining armor atop the horse was a display that caught Rockwell’s fancy. The detail in the tapestry is wonderful. Not part of the collection, but a figment of Norman’s imagination, is the guard having a midnight snack. And we really, really hope the disapproving glare of the horse was part of Norman’s fancy, too!

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