January 2017 – Page 2 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Pendulum Seems to Be Swinging Back to a Dangerous World

Many in the United States argued a sick President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the 1945 Yalta Conference conceded too much in return for assistance in the Pacific.

By Jim O’Neal

In the 21st century, the issue of nuclear threats primarily focuses on non-state actors, loosely defined as terrorist organizations. The prevailing theory is that too many loose nukes could result in a “suitcase bomb” detonated in New York, London or Paris. Nations would not risk the instant retaliation that would follow. This gradually evolved after WW2 and there was little doubt which nation would become America’s next adversary.

During the war, the United States and Soviet Union shared a mutual objective of defeating Germany and this blurred the stark differences in politics and culture. Among the most indelible images are photographs of American soldiers and their Russian counterparts meeting at the Elbe River, signaling the war’s triumphant end.

However, once the glow of victory ebbed (and it faded fast), Russian soldiers brutally raped their way through a defeated Germany, and communications between the two sides devolved into intense suspicion. For Americans, the situation seemed clear. The Soviets were basically an evil nation, intent on spreading their godless theology … especially in crippled Europe, Turkey and the oil-rich land of Iran.

To the leaders in Moscow, the Americans were the new imperialists, eager to deny Russia the spoils of war that had extracted a significant price from the Russian people. They also suspected we were intent on preventing them from building a buffer defense zone against another invasion of their western border. Just as America had balked at Versailles, we would now prevent them from acquiring the war treasure they deserved.

American negotiators pleaded for democratic principles to reorganize the ravaged nations of Europe. But the Russians were adamant about holding those lands where the Russian army stood, plus gaining ground adjacent. Many in the United States blamed the negotiations at the 1945 Yalta Conference, where a sick President Franklin D. Roosevelt had conceded too much in return for assistance in the Pacific. In the end, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin simply solidified Russian control throughout Eastern Europe, beginning a pattern of deportations, intimidation and corruption. This led to the “People’s Democracies” (fiercely loyal to the Soviet Union) in Poland, Hungary, Romania, East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

As others obtained nuclear capability and the Cold War intensified, the world somehow managed to fight wars in China, Korea, Vietnam and dozens of other places despite 60 years of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). The “Doctor Strangelove” scenario never came to pass as nations were always acutely sensitive to the assurance of immediate annihilation.

Today, acts of terrorism have become routine and, surprisingly, another Cold War is heating up via rebuilding nuclear stockpiles, cyber threats and rogue nations like North Korea and Iran openly talking of death and destruction. It seems like the worst-case scenario is in full bloom. Who would have predicted a more dangerous world than the one we lived through in the 50 years preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumbling of the Evil Empire?

Sigh.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

St. Louis World’s Fair Striking in its Arrogance of America’s Place in Humanity

This 1904 St. Louis Summer Olympics gold medal, awarded to four-mile men’s relay winner George B. Underwood, sold for $38,837.50 at a May 2013 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

America in 1900 was a provincial society of 76 million citizens. It is hard to contemplate a place of such innocence … a nation of dirt roads and horse-drawn carriages, of tight corsets and Victorian pretensions, of kerosene lamps and outhouses, of top hats and bowlers, McGuffey Readers and The Ladies’ Home Journal.

Cities were crowded with smoke-filled men’s clubs and ornate-paneled bars, while country towns were still home to 60 percent of the population, villages of stark simplicity and virtue. The average American had but five years of schooling and the nation only recently had made dramatic strides in improving literacy. Yet even in the absence of sophistication, most people were convinced America and its people were God’s chosen few.

The St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 (the Louisiana Purchase Exposition), commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase (a year late), was striking in its arrogance of America’s place in humanity. In addition to the ice cream cone, hamburger/hot dog, and iced tea – all introduced here – the fair featured an anthropology exhibition to explain human progress via the general increase in the size of the human cranium, the principle of “cephalization.”

Anthropologist W.J. McGee designed a display of pygmies from Africa, Patagonian giants from Argentina, and Native Americans in ethnological settings – purportedly to demonstrate the peak of upward human development from savagery to barbarism to civilization. The implicit message was the distinctive American alchemy that had transformed people to a higher state of being.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a furious competition between scientists and pseudoscientists around the world to discover evolution’s “missing link.” All of them turned out to be bogus. The 1868 discovery in Albany, N.Y., of the Cardiff Giant turned out to be a gypsum statue aged with an acid bath. Then P.T. Barnum constructed his own Cardiff Giant, which he exhibited at his circus (a hoax of a hoax).

In perhaps the most celebrated of discoveries, Britain’s Piltdown Man, “unearthed in 1912,” established England as the cradle of civilization for 40 years. Then it was declared a phony, a mixture of orangutan bones assembled by an amateur paleontologist eager for fame.

Today, we still don’t know exactly how life began, but we do know, finally, how we got from there to here. One thing is certain: The path went through that 1904 fair in St. Louis – and I wish I had been there to attend the first Olympic Games held in the United States, eat a hot dog and end up in one of those bars with a mug of cold beer.

Watergate Scandal Perhaps Permanently Eroded Public Trust in Government

A photo signed by each member of the Congressional Watergate Committee, which investigated whether sufficient grounds existed to impeach Richard M. Nixon, realized $5,497 at an October 2006 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The Washington Post account of the break-in appeared on the front page of its Sunday edition. The New York Times carried 13 inches (inside) with the headline “Five Charged with Burglary at Democratic Headquarters.” Most other editors played it down even more. Still, it captured the attention of high officers of the U.S. government and the Republican Party. Among them: H.R. Haldeman, John Mitchell, Maurice Stans, Jeb Magruder, John Dean and probably the president of the United States.

A year later during the hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (chaired by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina), Magruder was asked when this glittering array of outlaws had decided to cover its tracks. He answered in a puzzled tone: “I don’t think there was ever any discussion that there would NOT be a cover-up.”

Among the other people who were in on the lies was Martha Mitchell, wife of Attorney General John Mitchell. She had tried to tell the truth, but a special bodyguard had yanked the phone wires out of the wall when she was telling a UPI reporter, “They don’t want me to talk.” She later said he held her down while another man injected a sedative into her buttocks. But there was no way to keep Martha Mitchell quiet and three days later she called the reporter again, saying, “I’m not going to stand for all these dirty things going on.” It made a good story, but Martha’s credibility was low and most Americans accepted the official line.

Ron Ziegler, the former ad man who served as President Nixon’s press secretary, spelled it out. In a scornful tone, he declined to even rebut Martha’s rants. “I am not going to comment from the White House on a third-rate burglary attempt,” Ziegler announced. However, when a few Post reporters continued to ask questions, Ziegler did comment from the WH: “I don’t respect the type of journalism, the shabby journalism, that is being practiced by The Washington Post.” (John Mitchell added, “[Washington Post publisher] Katie Graham is going to get her teat caught in a big fat wringer!”)

On Monday, July 16, via live TV, chief minority counsel Fred (Law & Order) Dalton Thompson got White House assistant Alexander Butterfield to disclose there was an automatic recording system in the White House. Apparently, all conversations in the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and even President Nixon’s private office were taped.

Once this bombshell exploded, it was only a short trip to forcing the administration to turn over all recordings. This would inexorably lead to the indictment of 69 people (with 48 found guilty) and the first presidential resignation. When asked much later why he didn’t simply burn the tapes, Nixon calmly replied he wanted to preserve his legacy for posterity. (Mission accomplished!)

All of this was captured brilliantly 40 years ago in the film All the President’s Men with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in the roles of Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. The movie won four Oscars, with Jason Robards snagging best supporting actor for his portrayal of editor Ben Bradlee. It is a must-see movie and the Bernstein-Woodward book is equally entertaining.

Coming on top of the Pentagon Papers and the Vietnam War, the entire Watergate scandal eroded public trust in government, perhaps permanently. Even today, the cover-up is generally worse than the crime.

In Wartime, Leaders Made Sure Nation’s Treasures Remained Safe

An exact copy of the Declaration of Independence, commissioned by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in 1820, sold for $597,500 at an April 2012 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Dwight Eisenhower was a five-star general in the U.S. Army and was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On June 6, 1944, he directed the largest amphibious invasion in history by establishing a beachhead on Normandy on the northern coast of France.

Operation Overlord started with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive naval bombardments and air attacks … followed by amphibious landings on five beaches. They were code named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword. Then, the remaining elements of the airborne divisions landed.

The successful operation is now commonly called D-Day.

There was an elaborate plan formulated to convince the Germans that Normandy was not the focal point of the invasion and, despite several unfortunate leaks, it was generally successful. The use of code names helped to disguise the actual location and even extended to officers who had knowledge of real D-Day plans. None of them were to be deployed to areas where there was the slightest chance of being captured. They were given the security classification code name of BIGOTs, and if any were unaccounted for or captured, the invasion was to be canceled. In a little-known incident on April 27, 10 BIGOTs were missing after German E-boats attacked several American LSTs. But all 10 bodies were recovered and no changes had to be made.

Three months later, on Sept. 19 at 3:35 p.m., the Provost Marshall of Fort Knox, Ky. – Major W.C. Hatfield – ordered a heavily armed convoy to “move out” from the U.S. Bullion Depository. As the vehicles started rolling, there was a large truck in the middle. Inside were containers holding the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Gettysburg Address. They were going home!

President Roosevelt, the Joint Chiefs and the War Department had decided that bombings or sabotage on the U.S. mainland were now unlikely. It was time for these most precious documents to return to Washington. The Librarian of Congress – Archibald MacLeish – wrote, “They see no need to keep materials of this kind in the woods and hills any longer.”

The convoy headed to Louisville, Ky., and agents placed the cases aboard a Pullman sleeper car – No. 42 – on the 5:30 p.m. B&O train to Washington, D.C. When they arrived at the Library of Congress via armored truck (with extra guards), MacLeish personally supervised their transfer to the vault. Safe at last!

MacLeish resigned shortly after an ailing President Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented fourth term in 1944, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York. However, FDR persuaded MacLeish to stay on as assistant Secretary of State for cultural and public affairs. His first assignment was to convince the American people that a United Nations was needed to ensure a lasting peace.

He did keep our most valuable treasures safe during the war, but lasting peace was more elusive. He died in 1982, just shy of his 90th birthday.

Clash of Democracy and Oligarchy Dates to Ancient Times

persia-under-alexander-mazaeus-as-satrap-of-babylon — This double-daric gold coin, provisionally dated to the years Alexander the Great was King of Persia, sold for $70,500 at a September 2013 Heritage auction.

“Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.” – Plato

By Jim O’Neal

During the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.), Athens was ultimately defeated by the Spartans. Athenian democracy was twice suspended. In 411 and 404 B.C., Athenian oligarchs claimed that Athens’ weak position was due to democracy and led a counter-revolution to replace democratic rule with an extreme oligarchy. In both cases, democratic rule was restored within one year.

Democracy flourished for the next eight decades. However, after the Macedonian conquest of Athens under Phillip II and his son Alexander (later Alexander the Great) in 332 B.C., Athenian democracy was abolished. It was intermittently restored in the Hellenistic age in the 1st and 2nd centuries B.C., but the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 B.C. effectively killed it off.

Although democratic rule had been quashed, Athenian science and philosophy lived on. The renown and influence of Plato and Aristotle endured through the ages that followed and much of their work continues to influence Western thought to this day.

It is ironic that Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great at age 16 since throughout antiquity, Alexander was widely viewed as the most remarkable man who ever lived. When his father was assassinated in 336 B.C., he secured the Macedonian throne by destroying his rivals, forcing the Greek city/states to accept his authority in 334 B.C. and then marching into Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) at the head of an army of 43,000 foot soldiers and a cavalry of 5,500. At its heart lay the Macedonian phalanx, a well-drilled corps of 15,000 men armed with the sarissa, a double-pointed 23-foot pike. They were simply invincible.

He then defeated the Persian emperors, subdued Greece, drove his troops across mountains, deserts and rivers into Afghanistan, Central Asia and on to the Indian Punjab, ruthlessly crushing all resistance. Alexander was now king of a vast and ethnically diverse empire that included 70 newly founded cities. It is said that he sat down and cried when he ran out of new places to conquer. He died in 323 B.C., having been history’s most successful military commander.

Not bad for a 32-year-old.

Hitler’s Seduction of German People was Sudden, Complete

lfqjctp798 — Adolf Hitler is among the figures featured in Gum Inc.’s 1938 “Horrors of War” trading card series. A complete set (288 cards) sold for $2,390 at a November 2011 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The same winter President Roosevelt came to power in the United States, another leader in Europe assumed his country’s highest office. Over the next 12 years, until their deaths just two weeks apart in 1945, the lives of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler would grow increasingly intertwined … drawn together as archenemies in a conflict that was the 20th century’s most grotesque and widespread event.

Even all these years later, the rise of Hitler still baffles. His seduction of the German people was so sudden and complete, his assumption of power so total, that he defies comparison with history’s other evil conquerors. One German philosopher called him an “error” in history, as if the Fates had been distracted while a deadly mutant virus took hold.

Both FDR and Hitler’s journey to power was propelled by a world economic collapse.

Along with America and most of Europe, Germany suffered a Great Depression, with unemployment reaching 25 percent. If it had been hunger alone, the people may have followed a very different kind of leader. But Hitler’s enormous popularity was also a product of Germany’s lingering desire for revenge.

Despite Germany’s surrender in 1918 (an armistice arranged by the Reichstag, not the Army), few accepted the fact that they had been defeated in World War I. Hitler was from Bavaria, a haven for right-wing nationalists, and he railed against the forces of Judaism and Bolshevism, while mocking the fragile Weimar government as “November Criminals” for acceptance of the armistice.

After the complete breakdown of the economy in 1930, the passion of resentment and revenge gained momentum to include students, professors and businessmen. Hitler’s anti-Semitic message resonated with a deep suspicion of money cartels and the perceived unjust punishment from the Versailles agreement. The campaign moved with the speed of a plague.

The Nazi bible was Mein Kampf, a two-volume treatise started by Hitler while in prison for the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, a bungled attempt to control Bavaria. As the movement gained in favor, Mein Kampf (My Struggle) became a best-seller and provided Hitler with a cloak of legitimacy. Still, it was Hitler’s voice, not his pen, that fueled the emotional appeal of the Nazi movement. In a brilliant insight, he grasped that the pain of the German people could be harnessed in a unique way. They had been victimized by the depression, humiliated by Versailles, robbed by chronic inflation and their spirit had devolved into despair, fear and resentment.

Hitler’s extraordinary oratory provided a powerful reassurance that they were a great people, their suffering unjust and he promised an improved life while those who were responsible for their pain would be punished. His two-hour speeches could hold a crowd of half-a-million people spellbound. It mattered not what he said, but how he said it. They were thrilled by the pageantry, the sense of historical inevitability and blind faith that Germany would rise again. It was only a short journey from here to another war of conflagration with even greater magnitude than the last.

The people were eager to get it started and so it came.

Even with United Nations, War and Terrorism Persist

charter-of-the-united-nations-and-statute-of-the-international-court-of-justice — This 1945 copy of *Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice*, signed by John F. Kennedy, Henry Cabot Lodge and Adlai E. Stevenson, sold for $2,375 at an April 2014 auction.

“… To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war …” — From the United Nations Charter

By Jim O’Neal

Edward Stettinius, chair of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations conference in San Francisco, signed the U.N. Charter in 1945. President Harry Truman was in attendance and later signed the document by which he ratified the charter of the United Nations.

The charter established the structure of the United Nations and outlined its guiding principles to prevent war, affirm fundamental human rights, facilitate international peace and security, promote improved living standards, and support social progress and economic advancements (whew!).

The United States, Britain and the USSR were the primary designers of the decision-making structure. The General Assembly consisted of all member countries. The Security Council, which was responsible for international peace and security, originally had 11 members, six of which were elected to two-year terms. Five – the United States, Britain, USSR, France and China – were permanent members, and each had veto power on Security Council resolutions.

Disagreements based on national interests plagued the discussions at the April conference, but they did not prevent the formal U.N. formation. There was also considerable debate about the voting process and veto provisions. Finally, on June 25, the delegates unanimously adopted the charter and the next day they all signed the document.

After the permanent members of the Security Council and most other members ratified the charter, the United Nations was officially established on Oct. 24, 1945. The world had entered a new period of international collaboration determined to avoid a repeat of the two wars that had caused so much devastation in the first half of the 20th century.

Alas, these lofty aims did not last long as the Cold War soon started, followed by major conflicts in Korea, Vietnam (twice), Afghanistan, etc. When we look around the world today, it’s estimated that the United States has Special Forces in over 70 countries (at least) and ad hoc terrorism is a routine, daily occurrence in many places. A new Cold War is gradually taking shape and even nuclear proliferation is back in the news.

Maybe conflict is in our DNA.

One thing is certain. Assuming the United Nations survives, they will have plenty to do for a long time.