whenever you quote Adorno or Hofstadter, a few things happen to me. the first thing is that feeling we all got as kids when, at the end of the western, the good guy wins the gunfight. the second thing is that I wonder how many fewer living people have any idea who those guys are. but on top of that, STEVENSON! his name in my house was…
whenever you quote Adorno or Hofstadter, a few things happen to me. the first thing is that feeling we all got as kids when, at the end of the western, the good guy wins the gunfight. the second thing is that I wonder how many fewer living people have any idea who those guys are. but on top of that, STEVENSON! his name in my house was a little bit like a dead god's. dead, but still a god.
yeah, scumbags being scumbags. but so TRANSPARENTLY scumbags....no shame gene at all.
Millions of Americans were glued to their television sets on that fateful day in October 1962 as Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he had "one simple question" for his Soviet counterpart: "Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed, and is placing, medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no -- don't wait for the translation -- yes or no?"
Valerian A. Zorin, the poker-faced Soviet ambassador, squirmed in his chair. The Kremlin had failed to inform him about the deployment of Soviet missiles to Cuba. He had no instructions from Moscow. Trying to wiggle out of the trap that Stevenson had set for him, Zorin equivocated. "I am not in an American courtroom, sir. . . . You will have your answer in due course."
Stevenson, an intellectual politician who usually shied away from confrontation, twisted the knife. "I am prepared to wait for an answer until Hell freezes over, if that is your decision. I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room." After waiting for the laughter over Zorin's discomfiture to subside, Stevenson proceeded to unveil a series of poster-size black-and-white photographs putting the lie to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's claim that the Soviet Union did not have offensive weapons deployed in Cuba.
"Terrific," President John F. Kennedy murmured to his aides in the Oval Office as he watched the live broadcast. "I didn't know that Adlai had it in him."
I remember that exchange very well. it shocked people (even, obviously, JFK, who's never been one of my favorite politicians at all) because they'd all thought Adlai was "too much a gentleman" or something. but he was a third-generation Illinois political animal, which would have indicated to me that he knew how to fight, if he had to.
Or was it that they saw Stevenson as more of an intellectual than politician. While we don't know the answer to that, perhaps, a bit of each and stronger than JFK on both fronts.
TC, The Democrats are rarely with the people. Howard Dean tried to get the Dems to go local big time. Grow Dems where they are. It's been their greatest failure. Biden does feel us. He has got COVID again. So much of the country is out of it. The people have been through so much, many truly cannot see straight. Logistics, TC, … through this nightmare.
In terms of racial equality, Stevenson was hardly a bright light.
During the 1956 presidential campaign, Democratic Party candidate Adlai Stevenson attempted to win this black vote by voicing support for the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing segregated schools, a ruling incumbent President Dwight D. Eisenhower had refused to approve. Stevenson’s appeal to black voters, however, was muted by his opposition to using Federal funds or troops to enforce desegregation, a position he adopted to avoid alienating southern voters. In addition, in the 1952 race, Stevenson had selected as his running mate a segregationist Senator from Alabama, John Sparkman. In October, African-American Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., announced his support of the President, and on election day, more than 60 percent of black voters also chose Eisenhower. This marked a shift in party allegiance by blacks who had voted overwhelmingly Democratic since the 1930s, when many changed from the party of Lincoln to support Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although Eisenhower’s rout of Stevenson was attributed more to foreign affairs than domestic, the black vote continued to be a major factor in national politics. (Theodore H. White, The Making of the President)
Democrats had a long way to go in learning to deal with The Solid South more realistically. Stevenson had followed "the common knowledge" of the time - FDR had never thought of any of his VPs as being more than a "place filler." Like John Nance Garner said after FDR dropped him in 1936, the vice presidency wasn't worth "a bucket of warm spit."
You've delivered more than a historic footnote, TC, along with having a spectacular memory.
'In more than four years as the nation's chief spokesman at the United Nations, he gained the same sort of admiration from the world statesmen for his ready tongue, his sharp mind and his patience in dealing with the grave issues that confronted the world organization.'
'As chief United States delegate, with the rank of Ambassador, Mr. Stevenson was in the thick of debate and negotiations during the Bay of Pigs and Cuban missile crises, disarmament talks, upheavals in the Congo, the war in South Vietnam and the revolt in Santa Domingo.'
'One of Mr. Stevenson's greatest satisfactions was the signing in 1963 of the treaty banning all but underground testing of nuclear devices. He was a member of the United States delegation that traveled to Moscow to sign the document.' (NYTimes)
whenever you quote Adorno or Hofstadter, a few things happen to me. the first thing is that feeling we all got as kids when, at the end of the western, the good guy wins the gunfight. the second thing is that I wonder how many fewer living people have any idea who those guys are. but on top of that, STEVENSON! his name in my house was a little bit like a dead god's. dead, but still a god.
yeah, scumbags being scumbags. but so TRANSPARENTLY scumbags....no shame gene at all.
“I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them”
― Adlai E. Stevenson II
The event I always remember him for:
Millions of Americans were glued to their television sets on that fateful day in October 1962 as Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said he had "one simple question" for his Soviet counterpart: "Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed, and is placing, medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no -- don't wait for the translation -- yes or no?"
Valerian A. Zorin, the poker-faced Soviet ambassador, squirmed in his chair. The Kremlin had failed to inform him about the deployment of Soviet missiles to Cuba. He had no instructions from Moscow. Trying to wiggle out of the trap that Stevenson had set for him, Zorin equivocated. "I am not in an American courtroom, sir. . . . You will have your answer in due course."
Stevenson, an intellectual politician who usually shied away from confrontation, twisted the knife. "I am prepared to wait for an answer until Hell freezes over, if that is your decision. I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room." After waiting for the laughter over Zorin's discomfiture to subside, Stevenson proceeded to unveil a series of poster-size black-and-white photographs putting the lie to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's claim that the Soviet Union did not have offensive weapons deployed in Cuba.
"Terrific," President John F. Kennedy murmured to his aides in the Oval Office as he watched the live broadcast. "I didn't know that Adlai had it in him."
I remember that exchange very well. it shocked people (even, obviously, JFK, who's never been one of my favorite politicians at all) because they'd all thought Adlai was "too much a gentleman" or something. but he was a third-generation Illinois political animal, which would have indicated to me that he knew how to fight, if he had to.
Or was it that they saw Stevenson as more of an intellectual than politician. While we don't know the answer to that, perhaps, a bit of each and stronger than JFK on both fronts.
Yes indeed.
TC, The Democrats are rarely with the people. Howard Dean tried to get the Dems to go local big time. Grow Dems where they are. It's been their greatest failure. Biden does feel us. He has got COVID again. So much of the country is out of it. The people have been through so much, many truly cannot see straight. Logistics, TC, … through this nightmare.
In terms of racial equality, Stevenson was hardly a bright light.
During the 1956 presidential campaign, Democratic Party candidate Adlai Stevenson attempted to win this black vote by voicing support for the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing segregated schools, a ruling incumbent President Dwight D. Eisenhower had refused to approve. Stevenson’s appeal to black voters, however, was muted by his opposition to using Federal funds or troops to enforce desegregation, a position he adopted to avoid alienating southern voters. In addition, in the 1952 race, Stevenson had selected as his running mate a segregationist Senator from Alabama, John Sparkman. In October, African-American Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., announced his support of the President, and on election day, more than 60 percent of black voters also chose Eisenhower. This marked a shift in party allegiance by blacks who had voted overwhelmingly Democratic since the 1930s, when many changed from the party of Lincoln to support Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although Eisenhower’s rout of Stevenson was attributed more to foreign affairs than domestic, the black vote continued to be a major factor in national politics. (Theodore H. White, The Making of the President)
Democrats had a long way to go in learning to deal with The Solid South more realistically. Stevenson had followed "the common knowledge" of the time - FDR had never thought of any of his VPs as being more than a "place filler." Like John Nance Garner said after FDR dropped him in 1936, the vice presidency wasn't worth "a bucket of warm spit."
You've delivered more than a historic footnote, TC, along with having a spectacular memory.
'In more than four years as the nation's chief spokesman at the United Nations, he gained the same sort of admiration from the world statesmen for his ready tongue, his sharp mind and his patience in dealing with the grave issues that confronted the world organization.'
'As chief United States delegate, with the rank of Ambassador, Mr. Stevenson was in the thick of debate and negotiations during the Bay of Pigs and Cuban missile crises, disarmament talks, upheavals in the Congo, the war in South Vietnam and the revolt in Santa Domingo.'
'One of Mr. Stevenson's greatest satisfactions was the signing in 1963 of the treaty banning all but underground testing of nuclear devices. He was a member of the United States delegation that traveled to Moscow to sign the document.' (NYTimes)
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