7 posts
RN 1970: A photograph by portraitist Merrett Smith. On the night of 6 February 1969 RN was preparing for an interview with TIME and LIFE columnist Hugh Sidey. He wrote three pages of thoughts and resolutions regarding the responsibilities and opportunities of a President. Compassionate, Bold, Courageous,… Zest for the job (not lonely but awesome).…
As the first streaks of dawn quietly announced the arrival of morning on Sunday, November 16, 1969, a 35-year old preacher from Ohio named Harold Rawlings had already been awake for a while after a fitful night of what-could-barely-be-called sleep in a room at Washington, D.C.’s storied Mayflower Hotel. He would in a few hours…
1 December 2009 and 3 November 1969: the desire to contain a vocal minority and the determination to mobilize a silent majority. I’ve looked at a lot of the coverage of the President’s speech at West Point last night, and, so far at least, no one seems to have noticed the precedent and example that…
The Beauty in the Beast: The Daily Beast‘s choice of illustrations hints at the hatchet job that follows in the excerpt from Sally Denton’s new book about the 1950 California Senate Race between Richard Nixon and Helen Gahagan Douglas. The Daily Beast is offering an exclusive excerpt from The Pink Lady: The Many Lives of…
A tasteless joke – one that saw earlier popularity during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – has resurfaced across America. It is being told in whispers, emails, and even bumper stickers. During Mr. Clinton’s administration it even found its way into some Sunday church bulletins. And it is really beneath contempt…
Sometime after the transition in January of 1969, President Richard Nixon asked his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, how it felt the moment he knew he wasn’t president anymore. LBJ replied: I don’t know whether you’ll understand this now or not, but you certainly will later. I sat there on that platform and waited for you to…
On 24 July 1969, RN was in mid-Pacific welcoming the Apollo 11 crew home from the moon. Like the rest of the mission, everything had gone almost flawlessly. After traveling 240,000 miles, the capsule —named Columbia— splashed down less than two miles from the target. (RN requested that the band play “Columbia, Gem of the…