(Also from this 1962 issue, see ads and cartoons featuring the crisp, new custom look of the Chrysler ’63 and Christmas gifts for the home.)

These days, it seems, a growing number of people are encouraged to attribute their parents as the source of their problems.

However, the blame game was well under way 50 years ago when Dr. Vincent Lathbury wrote “Don’t Blame Your Parents” (November 17, 1962) for the Post. His concerns sound surprisingly modern.

Read an excerpt below, or get the full story here.

Excerpted from “Don’t Blame Your Parents” by Dr. Vincent Lathbury:

It is a popular delusion that whatever disasters we make of our lives, our parents are ultimately to blame.

We live today in a restless period where there is little time to establish responsibility, especially our own responsibility. Our political and sociological structures have been established to “do things” for us, to relieve us of responsibility. We want to be cared for, and we want to be secure in the knowledge that our emotional malfunctioning is not of our own making.

While no sinister motivation lies in the modern concept of socialistic paternalism, with all its split-level generosity and wall-to-wall emotional harmony, the fact is that we are being offered a mirage, because responsibility cannot be abdicated. Yet the temptation to blame our parents or society or the Government for our own failures is almost irresistible.

A popular comedian, talking about marriage, exhorts the men in his audience to get married. “Every man needs a wife,” he thunders, “because a lot of things go wrong that can’t be blamed on the Government.” It doesn’t really matter where the blame falls, as long as it falls on someone else.

If an adult does not like the way he feels his parents have made him, then he should make himself over in a more acceptable image; and if he isn’t willing to make the necessary effort, then he should cease blaming his parents.

Regardless of how well or badly our parents prepared us for life, the chances are that they did the best they knew how. Although a reversal of the roles is difficult to imagine, remember that parents were once children too. And they weren’t perfect ones either.

Which calls to mind that quote from Mark Twain: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.”

Ads and Cartoons Published 50 Years Ago

From the crisp, new custom look of the Chrysler ’63 to Christmas gifts for the home. (Click gallery images to enlarge.)

50 Years Ago: ‘Don’t Blame Your Parents’ The Saturday Evening Post

]]> http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/11/17/archives/november-17-1962.html/feed 0 http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/11/10/archives/november-10-1962.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=november-10-1962 http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/11/10/archives/november-10-1962.html#comments Sat, 10 Nov 2012 13:00:29 +0000 Jeff Nilsson http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=76151 James Meredith writes about the challenge of being the first black American enrolled at the University of Mississippi.

50 Years Ago: November 10, 1962 The Saturday Evening Post

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(Also from this 1962 issue, see ads and cartoons featuring the ultimate in compact TV and the latest in telephones.)

The cover story this week was James Meredith’s “I’ll Know Victory or Defeat.” It tells of his admission to the University of Mississippi that year, his experiences with the federal marshals who escorted him to his classes, and the ordeal of living as the focus of high racial tension.

Robert K. Massie, a contributing editor for the Post, wrote of the rioting that left two dead and scores of students and bystanders injured. William Faulkner’s brother, John, who lived in the university town of Oxford Mississippi, wrote of “The Hate Here Now.”

The issue also included the second installment of “Eichmann And His Trial,” written by Gideon Hausner, Israel’s Attorney General. Hausner directed the prosecution of former Nazi and Holocaust engineer, Adolf Eichmann, and obtained the conviction that led to Eichmann’s execution earlier that year.

 

Excerpted from “I’ll Know Victory or Defeat” by James Meredith:

Click image to read full text.

The Federal officers told me we were going that Sunday …

When [our plane] landed in Oxford it was almost dark. We got in a car and I remember seeing a truckload of marshals in front of us and one behind. I went straight to the university and was taken to my rooms—an apartment, I guess you could call it. Since they knew some Government men would be staying with me, I had two bedrooms and a living room and a bathroom. The first thing I did was make my bed.

When the trouble started, I couldn’t see or hear very much of it. Most of it was at the other end of the campus, and besides I didn’t look out the window. I think I read a newspaper and went to bed around 10 o’clock. I was awakened several times in the night by the noise and shooting outside, but it wasn’t near me, and I had no way of knowing what was going on. Some of the students in my dormitory banged their doors for a while and threw some bottles in the halls, but I slept pretty well all night.

I woke up about six-thirty in the morning and looked out and saw the troops. There was a slight smell of tear gas in my room, but I still didn’t know what had gone on during the night, and I didn’t find out until some marshals came and told me how many people were hurt and killed. I had gotten to know these marshals pretty well in recent weeks, and I was so sorry about this.

Some supposedly responsible newspapermen asked me if I thought attending the university was worth all this death and destruction. That really annoyed me. Of course I was sorry! I didn’t want that sort of thing. I believe it could have been prevented by responsible political leaders. I understand the President and the attorney general were up most of the night. They had all the intelligence at their disposal, and I believe they handled it to the best of their knowledge and ability. I think it would have been much worse if we had waited any longer. Social change is a painful thing, but it depends on the people at the top. Here they were totally opposed—the state against the Federal Government. There was bound to be trouble, and there was trouble.

Monday morning at eight o’clock I registered, and at nine I went to a class in Colonial American History. I was a few minutes late, and I took a seat at the back of the room. The professor was lecturing on the background in England, conditions there at the time of the colonization of America, and he paid no special attention when I entered. I think there were about a dozen students in the class. One said hello to me, and the others were silent. I remember a girl—the only girl there, I think—and she was crying, but it might have been from the tear gas in the room. I was crying from it myself.

I was sure that if I were harmed or killed, somebody else would take my place one day. I would hate to think another Negro would have to go through that ordeal, but I would hate worse to think there wouldn’t be another who would do it.

One of the biggest things in my life is that I have always felt I was never able to develop my talents. I have felt many times that, given the opportunity, I could develop into practically anything. Many times I have been angry at the world for not giving me an opportunity to develop. I am sure this has been a strong motivating force with me, and I’m sure it is with many Negroes. Since then I’ve always tried to see myself in relation to the whole society. Too many Negroes see themselves only in relation to other Negroes. But that’s not good enough. We have to see ourselves in the whole society. If America isn’t for everybody, it isn’t America.

Ads and Cartoons Published 50 Years Ago

From the ultimate in compact TV to the latest in telephones. (Click gallery images to enlarge.)

50 Years Ago: November 10, 1962 The Saturday Evening Post

]]> http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/11/10/archives/november-10-1962.html/feed 0 http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/10/18/archives/cuban-missile-crisis-timeline.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cuban-missile-crisis-timeline http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/10/18/archives/cuban-missile-crisis-timeline.html#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:00:56 +0000 Jeff Nilsson http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=74416 Would Kennedy stand up to Khrushchev's aggression?

Blow-by-Blow Reporting on the Cuban Missile Crisis The Saturday Evening Post

]]> Many Americans were caught by surprise when they heard President Kennedy order a military quarantine around Cuba. They were just as surprised to learn that Russia was building missile sites in Cuba, within range of the United States, and how Russia and America were challenging the other to back down or face war.

The showdown had been coming ever since Fidel Castro and his communist rebels overthrew the government of Cuba. The U.S. had strongly opposed the new regime and, in 1961, had backed an invasion of Cuba by anticommunist exiles. The invasion at the Bay of Pigs ended in complete failure. Khrushchev saw this defeat as proof of America’s inherent weakness and was emboldened to build missile bases on the island to keep the U.S. permanently on the defensive.

 

The Soviets parade one of their long-range missiles during the annual May Day parade in Red Square

In August 1962, a team of Soviet engineers arrived in Cuba and began hurriedly constructing launchpads that would enable the Soviets to drop a thermonuclear warhead almost anywhere in the U.S. If Khrushchev could get the missile sites working quickly, the U.S. would not be able to remove them without risking nuclear attack. Khrushchev planned to repeat the operation in Europe to force Americans from their outpost in West Berlin.

A Russian ship carrying missile-launching systems on its way to Cuba.

Round 1
On October 20, President Kennedy took action, announcing the U.S. would block any Soviet ships from reaching Cuba, beginning at 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, October 24.

On that morning, the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm) began its long watch for the USSR’s response. As Alsop and Bartlett address, “Reports came in which indicated that some of the Soviet ships appeared to have changed course, and that others had gone dead in the ocean. No one recalls a precise and jubilant moment when it became apparent that Khrushchev’s ships were not going to challenge the American blockade after all.” Secretary of State Dean Rusk nudged an aide and murmured “We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.”

A Navy reconnaissance plane shadows a Russian freighter approaching the quarantine line set by the U.S.

Round 2
Khrushchev might have hesitated, but he was still determined. On Friday night, he sent a letter to Kennedy that contained threats but also an appeal to be reasonable. The following day, spy planes over Cuba showed launchpad construction proceeding at full speed. In a Moscow broadcast, Khrushchev demanded that the U.S. dismantle its missiles in Turkey, which were pointed at the Soviet Union. Later that day, a U.S. spy plane was shot down with a Soviet surface-to-air missile—the first one fired from Cuba.

Khrushchev appeared to be stalling until the missiles were operational. “The next Tuesday, only three days away, was fixed as the [last] date for destroying Khrushchev’s missile and antiaircraft rockets with an air strike,” Alsop and Bartlett wrote, “clearly the next rung on the ladder to nuclear war.”

President Kennedy consults with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

It was Robert Kennedy who came up with a way to move beyond the standoff. He suggested that the president publicly interpret Khrushchev’s Friday letter as a proposal to negotiate. President Kennedy agreed and immediately replied, explaining that the U.S. would take no action against Cuba and would end the blockade if the USSR removed its missiles.

What Alsop doesn’t report, and perhaps didn’t know at the time, was Kennedy’s secret offer to remove U.S. missile bases across the border in Turkey. With the message sent, ExComm’s meeting broke up and everyone went home that Saturday night not knowing whether the following morning would bring peace or—as millions of Americans feared—nuclear attack.

On Sunday, to everyone’s immense relief, Khrushchev agreed to the terms of Kennedy’s offer. In a Post article, written the following month, Stewart Alsop said, “This was, of course, the final, unmistakable blink. It proved once and for all that Khrushchev was not ready to go to nuclear war over Cuba.”

It was clear that war had been averted. The missiles would be dismantled. There would be no new threats to West Berlin. The threat of nuclear holocaust, which had been so close, had passed.

The entire crisis was covered in depth in the 1962 Post article “In Time of Crisis” (December 18, 1962) by Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett. Read the full story here.

 

Blow-by-Blow Reporting on the Cuban Missile Crisis The Saturday Evening Post

]]> http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/10/18/archives/cuban-missile-crisis-timeline.html/feed 0 http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/10/18/archives/post-perspective/cuban-missile-crisis.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cuban-missile-crisis http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/10/18/archives/post-perspective/cuban-missile-crisis.html#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:00:02 +0000 Jeff Nilsson http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=73437 How would the Russians respond to President Kennedy's ultimatum? Would they recall the ships carrying missiles to Cuba? Or would they start a nuclear war?

Nuclear Showdown: The Cuban Missile Crisis 50 Years Later The Saturday Evening Post

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From October 24-28, 1962, the world held its breath and waited for the news that the Soviet Union and the United States had launched nuclear weapons at each other. This was no media-manufactured event; the Cuban missile crisis had people glued to their television sets, crowding into churches, and pondering how they’d like to spend their last minutes on earth.

If Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev had not backed down from President Kennedy’s blockade of Cuba, the two countries would probably have launched their nuclear weaponry at each other—and half of you wouldn’t be alive to read this. (According to one study, the fatalities of a nuclear war in 1962 could have reached 100 million, more than half of the country’s population.)

President Kennedy and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara confer in the White House Rose Garden.

For those not old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis, it’s hard to believe how close the world came to Armageddon during those few tense days.

The entire crisis was covered in depth in a November 1962 Post article by Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett. The story, “In Time of Crisis” (December 18, 1962), recounts the long deliberations by Kennedy’s ExComm (Executive Committee of the National Security Council), which worked long, tense days from the start of the crisis to the first steps toward its resolution.

As the authors explained, when ExComm first learned the Soviets were building missile sites in Cuba, they weighed every option: invasion, bombing, and negotiation. Eventually they chose a strategy that was muscular enough to counter the perception that Kennedy was weak on foreign policy, but appeared reasonable enough to avoid immediate war. They would block Soviet ships from bringing the missiles to Cuba. “The option of destroying the missiles, and even of invading Cuba, would definitely be maintained,” Alsop and Bartlett wrote. “If the blockade did not cause Khrushchev to back down, then the missiles could and would be destroyed before they became operational.”

Reconnaissance photo of a missile site under construction in Cuba.

It was a risky move. The Soviet Union had a reputation for pushing its luck and rarely backing down. Very likely, it would consider the blockade reason enough to launch nuclear weapons toward America. Attorney General Robert Kennedy said, “We all agreed in the end that if the Russians were ready to go to nuclear war over Cuba, they were ready to go to nuclear war, and that was that. So we might as well have the showdown then as six months later.”

It might have been easy for Robert Kennedy to sound so certain a month after the crisis. At the time, the members of ExComm were anything but resigned to war. For five, nerve-wracking days, they sat with the president, trying out one idea after another, considering every possible move that would keep up the pressure without pushing the Russians too far.

Alone in his office, the president makes the final, fateful decisions.

In the end, to their unimaginable relief, Khrushchev backed down. He accepted a deal from Kennedy that would enable him to present the dismantling of the Cuban missile sites as a constructive move.

Alsop also recalls the evening after the crisis had passed that an elated and relieved John F. Kennedy chatted with his brother Robert. Savoring the moment of achieving peace, he was reminded of Abraham Lincoln’s brief enjoyment of victory between the end of the Civil War and his assassination. “Perhaps,” he quipped, “this is the night I should go to the theater.”

To read the full story, including the details of the weapons buildup and Khrushchev’s ultimate capitulation of the U.S., click here.

Also, check out our timeline of events—how the missile crisis started, and how President Kennedy brought it to a successful conclusion.

Nuclear Showdown: The Cuban Missile Crisis 50 Years Later The Saturday Evening Post

]]> http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/10/18/archives/post-perspective/cuban-missile-crisis.html/feed 3 http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/06/04/blogs/jeff-nilsson/weeks-cover-50-75-100-years-ago-2.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=weeks-cover-50-75-100-years-ago-2 http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/06/04/blogs/jeff-nilsson/weeks-cover-50-75-100-years-ago-2.html#comments Mon, 04 Jun 2012 20:31:06 +0000 Jeff Nilsson http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=60180 100 Years Ago: 75 Years Ago: 50 Years Ago:

This week’s Cover–50, 75, and 100 Years Ago The Saturday Evening Post

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100 Years Ago:

75 Years Ago:

50 Years Ago:

This week’s Cover–50, 75, and 100 Years Ago The Saturday Evening Post

Artist Richard “Dick” Sargent created 47 Post covers in the ’50s and early ’60s. As shown in this March 31, 1962, cover illustration, Sargent’s framing technique turns humorous snippets of everyday life—warts and all—into a compelling story. Will the harried husband ever find his pants and escape the cluttered closet?

Also, be sure to check out Todd Pitock’s story, Conquer Clutter and view more of our Clutter Covers.

50 Years Ago: Dick Sargent The Saturday Evening Post