Foreign Interference In Elections? Never!

Since November, the United States has been consumed with the idea that Russia tried to influence the recent presidential election.  How dare they?  Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of democracy.  Only occasionally has the press whispered hints about an awful secret:  Why shouldn’t our enemies do what we have been doing for years? 

Yes, America has been hip deep in the political process of other countries.  We have funded and endorsed candidates, denounced political parties, and sent electoral advisors all over the globe.  James Carville, the campaign manager for Bill Clinton, has worked—often on the suggestion of President Clinton—in political campaigns in England, Israel, Canada, Bolivia, Colombia, Afghanistan, Brazil, and Argentina. 

There are dozens of elections all over the world that American has tried to sway, but let’s just look at two in depth.

Don’t Cry for Ballots, Argentina

During World War II, America began to see democracy as synonymous with freedom and that the Allied victory would validate the American way of life.  The idea that other governments might also see the victory as validation of their way of life evidently escaped our leaders.  This thinking certainly colored our relationship with Latin America.

In 1946, as Juan Peron ran for the presidency of Argentina, the American Ambassador to Argentina, Spruille Braden, became obsessed with the idea that Peron was trying to build a Fourth Reich and start a third world war.  Braden, the former ambassador to Colombia and Cuba, was employed by, or was a major stockholder in, some of the more notorious international corporations doing business in Latin America.  These included the Braden Copper Company, Anaconda Copper, United Fruit Company, and Standard Oil.  Not for nothing was the very first act of President Somoza his conferring of Nicaragua’s highest decoration on the ultra-conservative diplomat.

Leaving Argentina to become the new Assistant Secretary of State, Braden stepped up his activities against Juan Peron.  Just days before the election, the United States released the 130-page “Blue Book” about Peron’s alleged ties to Nazis and his plans for a fascist South America.  Ambassadors from all over Latin America were given special copies of the book bound with blue covers, and the entire book was published in the pages of a Buenos Aires newspaper.

Undeterred, Peron published his own 130-page book, the “Blue and White Book”.  The name not only mocks the American “Blue Book”, but references the colors of the Argentine flag.  From its very first paragraph, Peron's book attacks the United States as having “intervened in our domestic policy”.  Argentine citizens were outraged by the American attempt to influence their election.

Peron, who ran on a slogan of “Braden or Peron”, won the election by 350,000 votes.  Several Argentine historians have suggested that Peron would have lost the election without Braden.

After the election, Braden soon left the State Department.  Working for United Fruit, he was the point man for the CIA overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala and eventually  went on to be one of the founders of the John Birch Society.

Free Elections, Vietnamese Style

In the early 1950s, as the French began advancing in an alternate direction—one that would take them out of Southeast Asia—America began slowly taking their place there.  At the 1954 Geneva conference, it was agreed to divide Vietnam in half at the 17^th parallel.  The communists would go north while the French and their allies would go south until free elections could be held in two years.

Now the US had no intention of allowing those free elections to take place for the simple reason that the side we supported—and this meant anybody but the Communists—would have lost.  In the meantime, we proposed that the South be ruled by the hereditary leader—Emperor Bao Dai—with Ngo Dinh Diem, as his Prime Minister.

For America, Diem may well have been the worst possible choice to lead South Vietnam.  A Roman Catholic and a former minister in the French Colonial Government, he was hated by the Vietnamese people, who saw him as corrupt and ruthless.  Though the French warned the Eisenhower government that the man could not be trusted, we decided to back Diem.  (To be fair, Eisenhower, with his extensive European experience, can be forgiven for rejecting any French advice not involving cheese or wine.)

Since America knew that the scheduled 1956 election would almost certainly result in a victory for the Communists in the North, we held an early election in 1955, in which only those in South Vietnam were allowed to choose between Bao Dai and Diem.  The CIA’s Colonel Edward Lansdale helped organize the election.  Since a lot of the voters were illiterate, colored ballots were used.  Red ballots were for Diem and green ballots were for Bao Dai.

The fact that the superstitious Vietnamese believed that red signified good luck while green forecast bad luck was not a coincidence.  The red ballots showed a smiling Diem in modern dress standing with young people while the green ballots showed a confused Bao Dai wearing old style robes.

The CIA really didn’t need to bother, since Diem controlled the ballot counting.  Despite warnings from Washington, Diem reported that he received 98.2% of the total vote, with an astounding 133% of the votes from Saigon.  Lansdale, who had cautioned Diem to pick a plausible number somewhere  between 60—70%, left Vietnam in disgust.  (He promptly became involved in the ridiculous Operation Mongoose—the absurd attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro with exploding cigars.)

Within days of the election—on November 1, 1955—the United States established MAAG (the Military Assistance Advisory Group) to train the South Vietnamese Army and that date is now recognized as the beginning of the Vietnam War.

The choice of Diem quickly proved to be a mistake.  At times the staunch Roman Catholic seemed to be more at war with his country’s Buddhists than with the Vietminh.   Despite the US's giving Diem $200 million a year, Diem could not seem to bring reforms to South Vietnam.  (This was probably because he spent his time putting over 100,000 of his own people in prison camps, some of whom were children convicted for the horrendous crime of writing anti-Diem graffiti.)

Eventually, President Kennedy commissioned a study on how to handle the Diem problem.  The report, called for the introduction of large scale military intervention, more money, and “advisers” to help stabilize the Diem government.  Unfortunately, it was probably too late. 

On June 11, 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a sixty-six year old Buddhist monk, sat down in the middle of a busy Saigon road. He was then surrounded by a group of Buddhist monks and nuns who poured gasoline over his head and then set fire to him.  One eyewitness later commented:  "As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him."  While Thich Quang Duc was burning to death, the monks and nuns gave out leaflets calling for Diem's government to show "charity and compassion " to all religions.

The government's response to this suicide was to arrest thousands of Buddhist monks. Many of those jailed were never seen again.  By August another five monks had committed suicide by setting fire to themselves.  One member of the South Vietnamese government responded to these self-immolations by telling a newspaper reporter: "Let them burn and we shall clap our hands."  Another offered to supply Buddhists who wanted to commit suicide with the necessary gasoline.

In 1963, Diem was assassinated (with the approval of the CIA).  This probably would have caused a lot of Americans to wonder just what the hell was going on in Vietnam, if President Kennedy had not been assassinated just three weeks later.

There are more examples of US "participation" in foreign elections, but you get the idea.  If the United States really wants to stop foreign intervention in elections, perhaps we should lead by example.

A Message to Garcia

Several times this week, the conversation has turned to the difficulty of young people seeking employment.  It is summer time, and suddenly students with free time are getting on the nerves of their parents, who collectively turn to their offspring and say, “Why don’t you get a summer job?” 

I remember this well.  I was young with endless time, a yen for adventure, and absolutely no funds or transportation.  So, I got a job, bought a car, and discovered I had no time for adventure.  This condition lasted for about five decades until I discovered retirement, at which point I discovered that time was the adventure.

it was much easier to find employment when I was a teenager:  the pay was lower, the taxes for the employer were lower, and frankly, teenagers of fifty years ago were more productive and had a better work ethic.  Yesterday, I watched what we used to call a “bag boy” at the grocery store and he bore more resemblance to a stalagmite than an actual employee.  I discovered that if I held perfectly still and watched carefully, he actually moved—about as fast as the minute hand on a watch.

Not that long ago, every teenager was familiar with a small essay titled, A Message to Garcia.  When I graduated from high school, every student was given a copy.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I also got two books from the John Birch Society:  J. Edgar Hoover's Masters of Deceit and Phyllis Schafly’s A Strike from Space.  Both are horrible crimes committed against trees.  I have yet to find that Commie hiding under my bed.)

A Message to Garcia was written by Elbert Hubbard in 1899 describing the efforts of Lieutenant Rowan to carry a communication from President McKinley to the Cuban revolutionary leader, General Calixto Garcia.  America was on the brink of war with Spain over its brutal colonial rule of the island, and McKinley desperately needed information about the ongoing revolutionary war in Cuba.

The problem lay in how to contact the general.  Cuba was still firmly in the hands of the Spanish forces and no one knew exactly how to find a revolutionary leader hidden in the mountains and jungles of Cuba.  How would a messenger find the elusive general?  How did you get to the island without the consent of the Spanish?  The mission seemed impossible—even James Bond gets better instructions from M.

Lieutenant Rowan didn’t ask questions, he didn’t demand explanations, he simply set out to fulfill his orders.  He used initiative, did his own research, worked hard, and accomplished his mission.  The trip took the young officer roughly three weeks, but he not only delivered the message, but returned from Cuba with five experts General Garcia had sent to advise the president.  For his actions, Lieutenant was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Hubbard’s essay points out the shortage of employees who can successfully carry a message to anyone without close supervision.  Writing almost 120 years ago, Hubbard says the average employee is more concerned about the clock than about  accomplishing his job.  Furthermore, Hubbard pointedly explains that the only way to correct this thinking is with the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.  (This method does work:  ask my sons, What’s-His-Name and the The-Other-One.)

If you haven't read this essay, click HERE.

I have no idea why we no longer give students this essay.  They certainly have not stopped needing it.  A manager of a local retail establishment recently told me about terminating a young man who couldn’t believe he was fired after he showed up late for work 25 times in just the previous two months.  Such an employee could not be trusted answer a phone call.

After the piece was published in Philistine Magazine, it was reprinted.  Suddenly the magazine was beset for additional copies of the publication.  First in the dozens of copies, then hundreds, and finally an order for an additional thousand copies.  Finally, the President of the New York Central Railroad requested permission to print the essay in pamphlet form to distribute to employees.  Eventually, the pamphlet was printed at half million copies in each of three production runs. 

When a visiting Russian railroad executive read the piece, he had it translated into Russian and a copy was given to every railroad employee in Russia.  By that time, World War I had begun and the Czar ordered that every single soldier in his army be given a copy.  When the Japanese began finding a copy in the personal belongings of Russian prisoners, the piece was translated into Japanese.  A copy was given to every employee of the Imperial Government, civilian or military.

By now, the piece has been printed more than 40 million times, in 37 languages.  it has been made into two movies, the first by Thomas Edison and the second, starring Barbara Stanwyck.  For decades, the phrase “carrying a message to Garcia” was synonymous with showing initiative. 

Elbert Hubbard was a prolific writer whose works have sadly passed from the public eye.  Even his most commonly used creation, the adage “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” is usually credited in error to Dale Carnegie.  He also wrote a clever essay claiming that politically, at least, Jesus was an anarchist.

In 1912, after the sinking of the RMS Titanic, Hubbard wrote another popular piece, where he praised the love and devotion of Mr. and Mrs. Strauss.  When Isidor Strauss was offered a space in lifeboat No. 8 due to his advanced age, he refused until every woman and child on the doomed liner was safe.  His wife, Ida, refused to enter without her husband, saying, “We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go.”

Hubbard wrote,"Mr. and Mrs. Strauss, I envy you that legacy of love and loyalty left to your children and grandchildren. The calm courage that was yours all your long and useful career was your possession in death. Happy lovers, both. In life they were never separated and in death they are not divided.”

Three years later, Alice and Elbert Hubbard were aboard the RMS Lusitania when a German submarine fired two torpedoes, sinking the ship.  The couple was last seen calmly entering a cabin and shutting the door behind them.

The Remington Nylon 66

Anyone who has raised children knows the three standard answers your offspring will come up with in response to almost any question:

     1.   I didn't do it.

     2.   He did it first.

     3.   That? That's been in the toy box a long time.

The third answer is a corollary of the first two, and is used by children of all ages.  This includes my wife, The Doc, who I suspect uses the line on me regularly when I suddenly notice a new piece of jewelry. 

"This ring/necklace/earrings?  Don't you remember?  You gave me these years ago.  They've been in the jewelry box a long time."

I don't really care if she buys the stuff, I would just prefer to accrue the benefit that comes from actually giving her the jewelry—it being a well-known fact that jewelry is technically known as 'female Viagra'.  Besides, I have my own toy box, the gun safe, and I am fairly sure that everything in it looks identical to my wife.  As I write this, I am suffering a little rifle envy after a friend purchased a very nice vintage buffalo gun.  I don't have a buffalo gun, and in case of attack by a rampaging herd of bison, how can I be sure my neighbor will protect me?  It would seem only prudent to have the means at hand to protect my family.

Cleaning the guns in the safe (and planning where to put a rifle that will soon have been there a long time), I came across a rifle that I had almost forgotten about--a Remington Nylon 66.  I have an excuse for forgetting about it, it's not my rifle.  It belongs to The Doc, and it has indeed been in the safe a long time. 

Back when Nixon was still in his first term, we were dating, and I decided to teach my girlfriend how to shoot a rifle.  At the time, I owned nothing of a small enough caliber suitable for a neophyte, and since she had an approaching birthday, I decided to gift her with a new .22 rifle.  Giving your girlfriend a rifle is the perfect gift, as not only does it give you an excuse to take her to the gun range, but you get to shoot it, too.

It turned out The Doc is a pretty good shot.  She had no preconceived ideas of how to shoot, so when I told her not to flinch and to keep both eyes open, she did.  it was a little disconcerting that she learned to shoot that well, that quickly. 

Target practice used to be cheap:  for most of my life, shooting a .22 cost only pennies since a box of fifty rounds always cost less than a six pack of Cokes.  For some reason, in the last ten years, the price has become exorbitant.  It now costs roughly a six pack of beer; this is the true measure of inflation.

Purchasing the rifle was easy since I worked for Peden Iron and Steel, a hardware distributor, and we sold the rifles wholesale to stores across Texas.  As an employee, I was able to buy the rifle at a discount, 10% less than the wholesale price.  If I remember correctly, if cost me $34.00.  It was a Remington Nylon 66, the first mass produced rifle with a nylon stock and receiver.  Remington had something of schizophrenic moment, calling the material, "Zytel" even as they admitted the true identity of the material in the gun's name.

Note.  When I told my sons, What’s-His-Name and The-Other-One, how little I had paid for the rifle, they immediately demanded to know why I had not purchased many, many more such bargains.  Just as fast, I thought of the time my father had pointed out a former meadow in San Antonio where a huge mall was located.  Then he explained that when he had been stationed in San Antonio during WWII, he could have bought the entire meadow for fifty cents an acre.

“Why didn’t you?” I demanded.

“Hell, son.  I didn’t even know somebody with fifty cents.”

Introduced back in 1959, the semi-automatic rifle held 14 rounds, and supposedly had bearings that needed no lubrication.  And though I have never tested it, supposedly the rifle floats barrel up if dropped in water.  Making guns out of "plastic" was a risk for Remington, but it proved successful.  The gun worked well, but at first, the market was a little hesitant.  Shooters were used to wooden stocks, and somehow a "plastic gun" just didn't seem right.  Remember, this was before the M-16 or Glocks became commonplace.

Firearm companies have a long history of hiring shootists to help market guns.  Annie Oakley and her husband, Frank Butler, endorsed the Union Metallic Cartridge Company (destined after a merger to be known as Remington).  The Texan, Adolf Toepperwein—perhaps the greatest trick shot artist in history—worked for Winchester and set a record that lasted for over fifty years.  In December, 1907, at the San Antonio Fair, out of 72,500 hand tossed 2 1/4" wooden blocks and at a distance of 30 feet, Toepperwein missed only nine.  He might have shot more, but he had exhausted the town's supply of ammunition.  (He also exhausted his supply of block-tosses!)

In 1959, Tom Frye worked for Remington, and was looking for a way to publicize the reliability of the Nylon 66.  Using three rifles over 13 consecutive days, Frye shot at 100,010 hand-tossed blocks--an average of 1,000 shots an hour (or a shot every four seconds).  As the smoke cleared, and everyone's ears stopped ringing, it was seen that Frye had missed only six times.  Though the three guns had been cleaned only five times each during the ordeal, there were no malfunctions.

Suddenly, Remington could not manufacture the rifles fast enough.  Over their 30-year run, slightly more than a million of them were sold, including (of course) the one that I gave to The Doc.

It was easy to forget the rifle standing quietly in the back corner of the gun safe, since it is still in the rather nondescript box it originally came in.  About the only thing distinctive is the small wooden block, with a small hole in it, that came with it.  The first 100,004 purchasers of the rifle got proof of the gun's reliability.  I have no idea what the other 900,000 owners got in their boxes.  I bet they paid more, too.

More than the Beast

Previously, I have written about the Presidential railroad cars.  For those of us old enough to remember the Kennedy assassination, we already know more than we wish we did about recent Presidential cars.

That’s the problem:  all the articles I have read lately were about recent cars, all of which were large muscle-bound pseudo-trucks with little character and not much historical interest.  The current presidential limousine is so large that the Secret Service calls it "The Beast”.  Since about the only information that has been released is that it weighs more than seven tons, the name is probably apt.

We are not likely to learn much more about these cars as the Secret Service has announced that when the current limousines are retired, they will either be exhibited—with the doors firmly locked—in presidential libraries or will be blown up with explosives to keep the vehicles from revealing their secrets.  And that is okay with me since I’m not really interested in armored cars disguised to look like  giant Chevy's, but the older cars—the ones you never hear about—have much more character.

The first president to ride in an automobile was President McKinley, in 1901.  Horseless carriages were still new, and McKinley rode in a Stanley Steamer—and hated it.  The Stanley twins (pictured at left) had recently sold their glass photographic plate business to George Eastman (the founder of Kodak) and then used the funds to start manufacturing steam-powered cars.  Loud, noisy, and smelly—the early models burned gasoline to heat the boiler—McKinley, who personally handled the reins of his horse drawn carriage, was absolutely sure that these contraptions would never replace the horse as primary modes of transportation. 

McKinley was right:  At least here in New Mexico, horses still outnumber steam-powered cars.

The first car used at the White House, a White Motor Company steam car, was actually purchased by the Secret Service to follow the horse-drawn coach of Teddy Roosevelt.  The president, who was known as a cowboy and horseman, had decided that riding in an automobile would damage his image.  Unfortunately, he later changed his mind. 

While campaigning in Milwaukee in 1912, the former president had just entered his open air automobile and, as he turned to wave to the crowd, was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin.  While his heavy coat, folded speech, and glasses case slowed the bullet, it lodged in his chest, where it would remain for the rest of his life.  Undaunted, Roosevelt continued to the lecture hall and spoke for 90 minutes while his shirt slowly turned crimson with blood.  His physical recovery stopped his campaign for weeks just before the election.  The wound so irritated Roosevelt that he abandoned his usual daily exercise program and quickly became obese. 

If he had kept to horses, he might not have been shot, and he might have been reelected president, and the US would have entered World War I in 1914 as he wanted, bringing an earlier end to a war that devastated Europe… And if my Aunt Gertrude had wheels, she would have been a tea cart.  If you start playing these “what if” games, you will go mad.  And probably start writing a blog. 

When President Taft came to the White House, he quickly introduced automobiles.  (When you consider that at times, his weight ballooned up to 350 pounds, perhaps this is not surprising.  I can just picture Taft riding a Clydesdale.)  The White House stables were torn down and replaced with a four-car garage, which Taft filled with two gasoline powered Pierce-Arrows, a Baker Electric car, and a White Model M steam car (pictured at right).  The White—the last steam car owned by the White House—was Taft’s favorite after he learned that well-timed releases of steam would keep photographers at bay. 

The early Baker electric car was replaced by a 1912 Baker Victoria.  While the two-seater was too small for President Taft, it was used by five First Ladies: Helen Taft, Ellen Wilson, Edith Wilson, Florence Harding and Grace Coolidge.  Edith Wilson was the first First Lady to drive the car personally, and according to her husband, she had a lead foot (Of course the car's top speed was only 14 mph!).  She may have driven the car "fast", but it survived and can still be seen at the Henry Ford Museum. 

You will note that up to this point, the White House was fairly green.  While the official fleet was growing, they had two steam powered cars and two electric cars.  After Taft, however, the cars had ever larger gas guzzling internal combustion engines.  

By this time, automobiles were common.  President Woodrow Wilson loved the White House cars so much, that he purchased one of the Pierce-Arrows from the federal government for $3000.  His successor, Warren G. Harding was the first president who knew how to drive, and was the first to be driven to his inauguration. 

President Hoover purchased one of the largest presidential cars, a huge 1932 Cadillac V-16 Fleetwood Imperial.  While the car might have been practical for the president (who needed a large car for protection), the depression had just started and the president was ridiculed for the extravagance.  Only months after the purchase, Hoover was voted out of office.

While President Franklin Roosevelt owned a Ford coupe equipped with hand controls, he was normally only able to use the vehicle while visiting his Hyde Park home as it is against Secret Service rules for a sitting president to sit behind the wheel of a car.  His best-known car however was the Sunshine Special, the first presidential car built to Secret Service specifications. 

The car, nicknamed Sunshine Special by the press due to the vehicle’s sliding roof, is a 1939 Lincoln K-series equipped with backward opening doors and extended running boards for the Secret Service.  Roosevelt loved the large ten-passenger four-door car, since he could meet the public and make speeches without exiting the vehicle.   While the car was custom-built, it was not armored despite the fact that an assassination attempt had been made on the president while sitting in an open Buick in 1933—an event eerily similar to the assassination attempt on his cousin, Theodore Roosevelt's life.

After Pearl Harbor, the Secret Service decided to modify the Sunshine Special, adding armor, compartments for machine-guns, and a police radio.  Until the presidential limo could be returned, the Secret Service used the strangest presidential limo in history.

The US Treasury had already confiscated a 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan that was perfect for President Roosevelt.  It already had a ton and a half of armor plating, bullet-proof windows, a siren, and a police radio.  Special flashing lights were hidden behind the front grill.  The luxurious and beautiful car, pictured at right was already equipped with running boards for bodyguards.  Roosevelt used the car exclusively until the Sunshine Special’s modifications were finished.

How had the US Treasury come to own such a vehicle?  They had confiscated it to recover unpaid income taxes.  The previous owner?  Al Capone.

Note.  Like a lot of other stories, this one has a few problems.  While some historians have expressed doubts, this is the story that Michael F. Reilly, one of FDR’s Secret Service agents told in his 1947 autobiography, “Reilly of the White House”.  Who are we to doubt a G-Man?  Secret Service records do show a confiscated car from Capone, but indicate it was a 1939 Packard.  In the end, who cares?  Never let facts ruin a good story.