April 2017 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

Our Wishes, Passions Cannot Alter the State of Facts

“The Big Three” – Churchill, FDR and Stalin – at the Yalta Conference, Feb. 4, 1945.

By Jim O’Neal

In February 1945, with the war in Europe winding down, the time had come for President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin to decide the continent’s postwar fate. They agreed to meet at the Black Sea port of Yalta to discuss the plan.

Each man arrived on Feb. 4, along with an entourage of diplomats, military officers, soldiers and personal aides. Among those attending for Great Britain were Alexander Cadogan, under-secretary for foreign affairs, and Anthony Eden, Britain’s foreign secretary. Stalin was accompanied by his minister of foreign affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, and the Soviet ambassador to the United States. Roosevelt brought Secretary of State Edward Stettinius and Averell Harriman, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Roosevelt, recently elected to a fourth term, also brought along daughter Anna as his personal assistant, instead of wife Eleanor.

Aside from agreeing to the unconditional surrender of Germany, their agendas could not have been more different. While Stalin was firmly committed to expanding the USSR, Roosevelt and Churchill focused on the war in the Pacific. They hoped Stalin would declare war on Japan once Germany surrendered. Unbeknownst to Churchill, Roosevelt secretly secured the Soviet dictator’s cooperation by agreeing to grant the Soviets a sphere of influence in Manchuria once Japan capitulated.

The Allied leaders also discussed dividing Germany into zones of occupation. Each of the three nations, as well as France, would control one zone. Churchill and Roosevelt also agreed that all future governments in Eastern Europe would be “friendly” to the Soviet Union. Stalin agreed to allow free elections in each of the liberated Eastern European countries.

There was also a great deal of debate over Poland, but it was all a series of empty, almost laughable promises from Stalin in return for consenting to help with the establishment of the United Nations, which Roosevelt desperately wanted to create. He sincerely believed this new organization would step in when future conflicts arose and help countries settle their disputes peacefully.

The initial reaction to the Yalta agreements was one of celebration, especially in the United States. It appeared that the Western Allies and the Soviets would continue their wartime cooperation into the postwar period. Some historians continue to debate the impact of the conference. However, the facts are crystal clear. By spring, hopes of any continued cooperation had evaporated. After Yalta, Stalin quickly reneged on his promises concerning Eastern Europe, especially the agreement to allow free elections in countries liberated from Nazi control.

The USSR created an Iron Curtain and installed governments dominated by the Soviet Union. The one-time pseudo Allies found themselves on a more treacherous and dangerous path to another more ideologically driven one – the aptly named Cold War. Was FDR too tired and sick? He died two months after Yalta on April 12, 1945, at age 63. Was Churchill out of the loop or drinking heavily (or both)?

Seventy-plus years later, we are still consumed with Russian aggression in Crimea, Ukraine, Syria and the Baltics.

“Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence,” said lawyer and future president John Adams in 1770, while defending British soldiers in the Boston Massacre trial.

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].

Maybe the Island of Niue Can Teach the World a Few Things

The first European to sight Niue was Captain James Cook in 1774.

By Jim O’Neal

After recently analyzing foreign travel statistics, I saw that 157 people traveled from the United States to the South Pacific island of Niue in 2015 (latest census data).

This seemed high to me as I recall one of Captain James Cook’s logs had indicated he tried three times to visit Niue in 1774, but eventually gave up. The inhabitants of this small island were painted as “savages” (hence Savage Island) and had a red substance on their teeth that resembled blood. It was later determined that it was from eating hulahula, an innocuous red banana.

Sensing that things had changed in the 240-plus intervening years, I was more than surprised by the following data:

In 1889, they petitioned Queen Victoria to “stretch out towards us your mighty hand, that Niue may hide herself in it and be safe.” The ploy eventually must have worked since the Niue Constitution Act vests executive authority in Her Majesty the Queen in the Right of New Zealand. On my numerous trips to New Zealand, Niue had a reputation for a great whale-watching spot (something I regret missing).
In 2003, Niue became the first country in the world to offer free wireless internet to all inhabitants.
They are reputedly close to becoming the world’s first fully organic nation.
As a leader in green energy, they are in transition to 100 percent solar power.
In 2008, Niue became the first country in the world to provide laptop computers to all students. I suspect they have upgraded to smartphones and tablets by now.
Elections are held every three years. Since they do not allow political parties (everyone is an independent), term limits are not needed. This preserves the institutional memory.

In 2004, Niue was hit by a cyclone that disrupted the Niue Integrated Strategic Plan (NISP). The good news is that they still managed to pay off their national debt and are finally “debt free” – something the U.S. managed to accomplish in the administration of Andrew Jackson.

They have zero population growth so issues like unfunded pensions (e.g. SSA) or long-term healthcare liabilities should not be an issue for the next generation – something our Millennials will eventually find out about. “What?! You spent all our money and left us bankrupt?”

Rumor has it the people of Niue are puzzled by the inability of most modern nations to simply spend less than they make, and by the partisan rancor that causes so much gridlock and divisiveness. As you might recall, even our first president, George Washington, warned about the dangers of political parties.

Go Niue!

American Forces Quickly Rallied to Face German Aggression

Tom Lovell’s *World War I Soldiers on Horseback*, painted for a magazine story illustration, sold for $8,750 at a March 2012 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

At the start of 1917, only four months before the United States declared war on the German Empire, the U.S. army totaled 107,641 men. Sixteen other nations had larger armies. Another major weakness was the lack of recent experience in large-scale military operations. It had been a full 51 years since the armistice at Appomattox had ended the Civil War and many things had become rusty in the interim.

Also, somewhat remarkably, there was no modern military equipment heavier than medium-size machine guns!

Even the National Guard was larger (132,000 men), but this part-time militia was dispersed among the 48 states, generally poorly trained, and any federal oversight was unusually lax. One sparkling exception was the U.S. Marine Corps, over 15,000 first-class troops. However, they were scattered throughout the Western Hemisphere in America’s possessions and in Central American republics, acting as police in the aftermath of the 1898 Spanish-American War.

Despite this bleak situation, and because the Germans had committed far too many acts of war, on April 2, President Woodrow Wilson requested a joint session of Congress. On April 6, the U.S. Congress voted overwhelmingly to go to war. The vote in the Senate was 82-6 in favor (with eight abstentions) and 373-50 in the House, with Jeannette Rankin of Montana in the minority. In 1941, she would become the only member of Congress to vote against declaring war on Japan after Pearl Harbor.

Yet, by June 1917, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force, General John J. Pershing, had arrived in France and on July 4, American Independence Day, elements of his 1st Division paraded in the streets of Paris. Throughout the following months, fresh units of an Army designed to reach a strength of 80 divisions – nearly 3 million men – continued to arrive. By March 1918, 318,000 men had reached France, the vanguard of 1.3 million to be deployed, and not a single one had been lost to enemy action in oceanic transport.

Rare are the times in great wars when the fortunes of one side are transformed by the sudden accretion of reinforcements. Napoleon’s enemies in 1813 when the Russian army joined Britain/Austria … the North in our Civil War when the adoption of conscription added millions versus the South’s hundreds of thousands … 1941 when Adolf Hitler’s stupid declaration of war on the United States, followed by Japan’s ill-advised action, saved an isolated Britain and an almost defeated Soviet Union.

This was another of those times, when Germany had declared unrestricted war in the Atlantic in the flawed calculation that the war would be over in Europe before the United States could mobilize.

As philosopher George Santayana so wisely observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” and “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Shortly After His Inauguration, Wilson Pivoted and Entered World War I

This World War I Tank Corps recruitment poster, issued by the U.S. government in 1917, sold for $8,962.50 at a July 2014 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On Jan. 31, 1917, Germany’s Navy Admiral Eduard von Capelle assured his nation’s parliament, Americans “will not even come, because our submarines will sink them. Thus America from a military point of view means nothing, and again nothing and for a third time nothing.”

American President Woodrow Wilson had been re-elected just months earlier on a campaign slogan of, “He kept us out of war.” Although the Germans were regularly sinking American ships in the Atlantic, Wilson had consistently declared, “America is too proud to fight.” However, a month after his inauguration, he led Congress to vote to enter World War I.

The 1916 presidential election was almost as bizarre as the one we suffered through in 2016. In this case, an incumbent president (Wilson) was running against Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate. Wilson’s win was the first time a Democratic Party candidate had won two consecutive presidential elections since Andrew Jackson (1832).

But before the election, Democrats were so uncertain about their chances that they developed a radical plan to avoid leaving a potential four-month, lame-duck vacuum with war raging in Europe. It consisted of appointing president-elect Hughes (if he had won) as Secretary of State, followed by the resignation of Wilson’s vice president, Thomas Marshall. This would allow the new president to take residence in the WH immediately and avoid the gap until the scheduled March 1917 inauguration.

The Progressive Republicans had already essentially forfeited their chances by selecting Teddy Roosevelt for president and he had sent a telegram refusing their offer. The vice presidential candidate had already decided to support Hughes so that was out as well.

Admiral Capelle’s “they will never come” statement became one of history’s worst declarations when on May 29, the Allies launched a three-hour barrage of fire that exceeded what both sides fired during the entire four-year Civil War. The $180 million equated to $1 million of ordnance every 60 seconds. I suspect the folks in Afghanistan recently experienced something similar.

You can never tell about these American presidents.

People of South Carolina were Eager, Even Jubilant, to Start an All-Out War

This Confederate albumen photograph of Fort Sumter, taken two days after Union Major Robert Anderson surrendered, sold for $1,875 at a June 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Fort Sumter, S.C. – site of the first battle of the Civil War – was located on an artificial island inside the entrance to Charleston Harbor. A pentagon with block walls 300 feet long, 40 feet high and up to 12 feet thick was still under construction in late 1860.

On Dec. 26, U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson moved his troops from Fort Moultrie, at the edge of the harbor entrance, to Fort Sumter to reduce their exposure to an attack. Just days earlier, South Carolina had declared their state an independent republic and they resented the “foreign” U.S. flag. They considered Anderson’s transfer of troops an act of aggression.

They considered it another hostile act when the lame-duck James Buchanan administration sent an unarmed merchant ship with reinforcements in January 1861. As the ship approached Charleston Harbor, shore batteries opened fire and forced it to turn back.

Apparently, few recognized how eager (perhaps more than just eager) the people of South Carolina were to start an all-out war against what they considered the oppression of the North. Some even prayed for it to start.

On Feb. 15, 1861, the Confederate Provisional Congress in Montgomery secretly resolved that “immediate steps should be taken to obtain possession of both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens … either by negotiation or force.” Confederate President Jefferson Davis then dispatched three commissioners to Washington to try diplomatic negotiations. However, he also ordered P.G.T. Beauregard (full name Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard) to take command of the harbor and start formal preparations for the use of force.

General Beauregard (one of only eight full generals in the Confederacy … ever) proceeded to extend and enlarge the batteries, targeting the fort. His preparations nearly complete, he advised President Davis on March 27 that expulsion of the Union troops “ought now to be decided in a few days.” Davis replied that Anderson should not be allowed to buy provisions in Charleston.

Want to start a war? Surround a fort with canons … cut off any reinforcements … and restrict its provisions. Then get a match and prepare to light the fuse.

On April 10, Beauregard was ordered to demand an evacuation of Fort Sumter, and if refused, to “reduce it.”

On April 12, 1861, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds on an ill-equipped Fort Sumter. They surrendered after 34 hours. Two days later, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to quell the “insurrection.” The president was not willing to start a war over the slavery issue, but the taking of federal property was leading to disunion, something the president was not going to allow, even if it meant all-out war.

The U.S. flag would not be raised over Fort Sumter again until April 14, 1865, exactly four years after the surrender. Who would have guessed? Obviously, few if any of the people who were so jubilant when the war started and so utterly demoralized when it ended.

The Great Bobby Jones Achieved a Sports Record that Will Never Be Broken

Bobby Jones’ 1937 personal Augusta Green Jacket sold for $310,700 at an August 2011 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Only two Americans have been made an Honorary Burgess of the Borough by the people of St. Andrews. One was Ben Franklin and the other was amateur golfer Bobby Jones. When golfers evaluate each other, it is not about their swing, iron play or prize money. The question is: “How many Majors have they won?” The modern-day Majors comprise four tournaments: the U.S. Open, PGA Championship, the Open Championship (British), and the Masters Golf Tournament.

This unique criterion is the yardstick to measure greatness and the current all-time leader is Jack Nicklaus, with a career total of 18 wins. Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods is No. 2 with 14, and there is growing skepticism about his chances to tie or surpass Nicklaus (my bet is no).

Usually ranked No. 3 on the all-time greatest list (which typically includes Arnold Palmer, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead) is a remarkable man by the name of Robert Tyre Jones Jr. (aka Bobby Jones). With childhood health issues, Jones wasn’t expected to live past his fifth birthday, but he became the greatest sports legend of the first half of the 20th century. He is golf’s consummate icon, the measuring stick against which all aspiring champions will be measured. In a sport where so many compete so regularly, no player has ever dominated the way Jones did between 1920 and 1930.

During that 10-year stretch, Jones competed in 45 events, winning 21 and finishing in second place seven times. From the tender age of 19 until he was 28, he won 13 Major Championships and set records that lasted for more than 60 years. He is also the only man to win all four of his era’s Majors in one year: the British Open, British Amateur, the U.S. Open, and U.S. Amateur. Since no other amateur has won the U.S. Open since the 1930s, this is a cinch to be the only sports record that will never be broken or tied … as long as the game of golf is played.

Jones also was the embodiment of sportsmanship. At one point during the 1925 U.S. Open, he penalized himself a stroke for a slight ball movement that no one noticed. Everyone congratulated him profusely on his honesty, but he simply replied, “You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.”

After Jones set this precedent for self-policing, golfers are still trying to match his uncompromising integrity. Golf is the only professional sport that really doesn’t need referees or umpires, since players usually call all the penalties. It’s an astonishing situation when compared to cycling, gymnasts or track stars (doping), or professional soccer, where players conspire to fix games. Or baseball, basketball or football, where players and coaches are routinely ejected for complaining about adverse rulings.

However, a truly remarkable thing happened in 1930 when Bobby Jones won golf’s Grand Slam at age 28 … he retired from competitive golf to focus on his law career. This is analogous to Joe DiMaggio retiring in 1941 after hitting in 56 straight games, Babe Ruth in 1927 after his 60 home runs, or Roger Bannister hanging up his running shoes on May 6, 1954, after becoming the first man in history to run the mile in under 4 minutes.

The next phase of Jones’ life included transforming 365 acres of land in Augusta, Ga., into a golf course that is revered by golfers worldwide: the Augusta National Golf Club. This is arguably the planet’s No. 1 golf course and venerable site of the greatest tournament in the history of the game: the Masters. The just-completed 2017 Masters was the 81st time the world’s best golfers played for the coveted Green Jacket.

Play is strictly by invitation-only, as is membership in Augusta National. Condoleezza Rice was one of the first two women invited to join (2012). I have been patiently waiting a long time and only recently adopted Groucho Marx’s philosophy: “I would never join a club that would have me as a member!”

P.S. To whoever decides on members …. just kidding.

Kennedy’s Court Appointments Kept World of Judiciary at Peace

This copy of *PT 109*, signed by John F. Kennedy, author Robert J. Donovan and surviving crew members, sold for $13,750 at a December 2016 Heritage auction. The book tells the story of one of the most important episodes in Kennedy’s life.

By Jim O’Neal

When war broke out in 1939, all the Rhodes Scholars in England were sent home and this included Byron “Whizzer” White. He went back to Yale and graduated from its law school with honors. Then, in 1942, he enlisted in the Navy, as so many others did. He was serving in the Solomon Islands as PT boat squadron skipper and intelligence officer when John F. Kennedy was a PT boat officer. It was White who personally wrote the official account of the battle events that were later portrayed in the book and movie PT 109.

Flash forward 20 years and there was a famous photo of a smiling Kennedy, now president of the United States, pointing at the front-page headline of the New York Herald Tribune – “WHIZZER WHITE TO SUPREME COURT – LAWYER, NAVAL OFFICER, FOOTBALL STAR.” It was JFK’s first appointment to the Supreme Court.

In August 1962, President Kennedy got a second bite at the same apple. Justice Felix Frankfurter, once styled as “the most important single figure in our whole judicial system,” bowed to the effects of a stroke and announced his retirement. The president acceded to his request and called a press conference to announce he had chosen Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg as the replacement.

This was not a great surprise, since the 54-year-old labor expert was well-qualified and eager to join the court. The only slight reluctance was his close personal relationship to the president and the loss of a highly valued cabinet position. However, both Chief Justice Earl Warren and Frankfurter himself supported the decision and it was made.

The nation’s reaction was universally favorable and the Senate Judiciary Committee was in total agreement. Goldberg was confirmed by the full Senate, with only Senator Strom Thurmond recording his opposition. Thus the new justice was able to take his seat on the court in time for the October 1962 term. The world of the judiciary was at peace, even after the tragic events in Dallas in November 1963 and the Warren Commission investigation that followed.

However, after a mere three years on the Supreme Court, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided that Justice Goldberg should resign from the court and become ambassador to the United Nations, succeeding Adlai Stevenson. It now seems clear that LBJ’s motive was the naive hope that someway Goldberg might be able to negotiate an end to the nightmare in Vietnam. Goldberg was strongly opposed to the move, but as he explained to a confidant, “Have you ever had your arm twisted by LBJ?”

Supposedly, there was also a clearly implied understanding of an ultimate return to the court, which obviously never materialized. Neither did an LBJ suggestion that Goldberg might be a candidate for the 1968 vice-president slot – another false hope that was mooted by LBJ’s decision not to seek reelection.

Lost in all of this was the fact that Goldberg’s intended replacement on the court, Abe Fortas, had repeatedly declined LBJ’s offers to be a Supreme Court justice. In fact, poor Abe Fortas never said yes. The president simply invited him to the Oval Office and informed him that he was about to go to the East Wing “to announce his nomination to the Supreme Court” and that he could stay in the office or accompany him.

Fortas decided to accompany the president, but to the assembled reporters he appeared only slightly less disenchanted than the grim-faced Goldberg, with his tearful wife and son by his side. Goldberg had reluctantly agreed to become ambassador to the United Nations and commented to the assembled group, “I shall not, Mr. President, conceal the pain with which I leave the court.”

It was a veritable funereal ceremony – except for a broadly smiling LBJ, who had once again worked his will on others, irrespective of their feelings. The man certainly did know how to twist arms – and I suspect necks and other body parts – until he achieved his objectives.

He was sooo good at domestic politics, it seems sad he had to also deal with foreign affairs, where a different skill set was needed.

Public Intrigued by Private Lives of Nixon Daughters

This signed family portrait of the Nixons, showing the first daughters and their husbands, sold for nearly $200 at an April 2012 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

By most accounts, Patricia “Tricia” Nixon was the most beautiful of all White House brides. She was featured alone as the cover story on Life magazine not once but twice. By January 1971, the public was fascinated by her romance with Edward Finch Cox, a young Harvard Law student who had once worked with consumer activist Ralph Nader and written for the liberal New Republic.

Tricia and Ed came from opposite social and political poles. The young Mr. Cox could trace his lineage to a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His parents both had social pedigrees and spent their summers at the Long Island estate that had been in the family for six generations.

Richard Nixon was already a lightning rod for an increasingly adversarial media and traveled in much different circles. He had earlier defended himself from using a private fund for personal use by showcasing his modest lifestyle. He bragged that his wife could not boast of a mink coat, but owned a “respectable Republican cloth coat.”

Ed accompanied Tricia to the International Debutante Ball and discovered they had a lot in common. He was “aloof and private,” and she often avoided White House events and was called the “Howard Hughes of the WH” by her popular younger sister Julie. In fact, when Julie married Dwight David Eisenhower II in 1968, it was a small, private ceremony performed by minister and bestselling author Norman Vincent Peale. This alliance of the Nixon-Eisenhower dynasties was intriguing to the public, which naturally assumed Tricia was sure to follow in a more understated manner.

Surprisingly, the private Tricia chose a large White House wedding with a guest list of 400. First Lady Pat Nixon suggested a Rose Garden event and, after a long debate over the risk of rain, the date was set for June 12, 1971. Priscilla Kidder, the “doyenne of bridal outfitting,” designed the dress, and WH pastry chef Heinz Bender produced a 350-pound cantilevered cake that was dissed by some pompous food critics as a “lemony, sweetish non-entity” (tough crowd!).

There was intermittent rain in the morning, but the sun broke through right on schedule. Eighty-seven-year-old Alice Roosevelt was on hand, complaining that her seat was wet. Talking about the Nixon girls, Alice would offer one of her patented biting comments: “I like Julie better than Tricia. I’ve never been able to get on with Tricia. She seems rather pathetic, doesn’t she? I wonder what’s wrong with her?”

It has been pointed out that there were deep reasons and issues behind the famous quips of Alice Roosevelt. Sitting in her damp seat in the Rose Garden, her own glorious moment long forgotten and her famous father now covered over by multiple layers of important personalities and issues, Alice Roosevelt may have been lashing out at the only White House bride whose beauty transcended her own. Pure jealousy is a powerful emotion that takes a long time to dissipate.

The day after the wedding, Ed and Tricia were off to Camp David for their honeymoon. The New York Times broke some story about some “Pentagon Papers” from a little-known military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation. Few probably suspected that this would lead to an even more complex situation that would eventually jar the entire nation.

Fate seems to be indifferent to the emotions of mere mortals.

Taft Waited Patiently to Fulfill a Dream Beyond the Presidency

An oil portrait of William Howard Taft as chief justice, by Emily Burling Waite (1887-1980), realized $3,883 at a May 2010 auction. The painting originated from the collection of the American Red Cross.

By Jim O’Neal

The election of 1920 brought to the presidency a man universally regarded as less than mediocre: Warren Gamaliel Harding of Marion, Ohio.

He was clearly not up to the job and his scandal-ridden administration was perhaps the worst. It was widely known that he soon became disenchanted. “My God,” he told renowned editor William Allen White, “this is a hell of a job! … My friends, my damn friends, they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!” And in a moment of retrospection, he admitted to Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, “I am not fit for this office and never should have been here.”

His associates, dubbed the “Ohio Gang,” and his senate colleagues had chosen Harding, a “presidential-looking man,” possibly because they sensed opportunity. Yet Harding’s public embrace of a “return to normalcy” had widespread popular support and it had been a long eight years since Republicans controlled the White House. But still, the evidence of financial scandals penetrating his administration could hardly be ignored. Although some of the worst, such as the Teapot Dome Scandal (which involved his departments of Interior, Justice and the Navy), did not break until after his demise, he was far from unpopular.

One man who was delighted with Harding’s election was ex-President William Howard Taft, who was obsessed with joining the Supreme Court and had been patiently waiting for another Republican president. However, he made it abundantly clear that it had to be as chief justice and not a mere associate. The sitting chief justice – Edward Douglass White – had been elevated by Taft in 1910, and had purposely delayed his retirement pending a Republican in the WH. He even conveniently died on May 19, 1921, just three months after Harding’s inauguration.

The public was expecting an instant appointment. But President Harding procrastinated and the 63-year-old Taft, filled with anxiety and anticipation, used intermediaries to lobby the president vigorously. Finally, Harding concurred and in June 1921, Taft was confirmed 61-4 as chief justice on the same day he was nominated … without even a committee meeting. In a first, the chief justice was succeeded by the president who had nominated him.

New Chief Justice Taft exulted: “I love judges. I love courts. They are my ideas on earth of what we shall meet afterwards in heaven under a just God.” The greatest aspiration of his life had been fulfilled at last!

Few worked as hard on the court, and his dedication and affection for the court are unparalleled. During his time, he wrote 20 percent of the opinions and provided administrative and technical leadership second to none. His orchestration of consensus, of amassing the court into a majority, was often spectacular. He proved to be a superb judicial leader, even in the face of a seriously divided, backlogged, contentious court – skills rarely displayed for many years.

William Howard Taft served in his beloved center chair until acute circulatory ailments resulted in a series of crippling strokes. The result was a grief-stricken resignation on Feb. 3, 1930. He died one month later and became the first president and the first Supreme Court justice to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

The fat gentleman finally got to sing – and then it was over.

Nixon Was Firmly in Control … Until Dark Clouds Began Forming

A signed Richard Nixon photograph sold for $657.25 in February 2006.

By Jim O’Neal

By the time 1972 rolled around, the presidential campaign was really a story about President Nixon’s growing invincibility. In the summer, every poll gave him about 60 percent of the vote and even his tremendous financial advantage – $60 million vs. $25 million for the Dems – had little to do with the probable outcome.

Nixon was elected four years earlier on a tide of protest against the Vietnam War, but ending it seemed to be taking an eternity. 17,000 more Americans had been killed while he was trying, but by the beginning of 1972, he had reduced U.S. troop levels from 550,000 to 139,000. Importantly, the Pentagon’s weekly casualty list of 300 had dropped to zero by Sept. 21, 1972.

The sum of Nixon’s skills was a united party, led by a nominee who was now identified as the candidate of peace and détente. He had two superfluous opponents for the GOP nomination and one, Paul “Pete” McClosky from California, became an arcane trivia answer by winning 1 delegate while Nixon swept up all the rest … 1,347.

The convention stagecraft was awesome and Nixon had eliminated all the suspense by announcing his intention to keep Spiro Agnew on the ticket as his VP. (Agnew won 1,345 votes vs. one for TV journalist David Brinkley; NBC staffers quickly started wearing “Brinkley for Vice President” buttons as a joke.)

This marked the fifth time Nixon had been on the ballot – in 1952 and 1956 for VP, and in 1960, 1968 and 1972 for president. This tied FDR, who had one VP (1920) and four straight as president (1932-1944). Ronald Reagan chaired the convention and Nelson Rockefeller put Nixon’s name in nomination. GOP speakers touted their unity and hammered at the disarray on the other side.

In 1972, campaign material included George Wallace license plates.

The Democrats were still absorbed in savage internecine feuds and the battle to head the party was a melee. George McGovern very adroitly managed to make himself a dark horse to keep the glaring national spotlight off his nascent campaign. In the Florida primary, facing 11 presidential candidates, George Wallace was the big winner as a surprise candidate. He loudly crowed, “We beat all the face cards in the Democratic deck!”

By the middle of May, Edmund Muskie was out of it and the marathon was narrowing to a three-way contest between Wallace, McGovern and Hubert Humphrey. Then in May 1972 while in Maryland, Wallace was hit by a brick in Frederick, eggs in Hagerstown and six bullets in Laurel. He won both Michigan and Maryland, but for him, wounded and paralyzed, it was all over.

Then Humphrey proceeded to destroy McGovern’s chances by pointing out his quixotic stands on Israel, defense spending, welfare, labor law, unemployment compensation, taxation and even Vietnam. In three bruising debates, Humphrey obliterated any chances of McGovern to mount even a mild challenge to Nixon. The election was a blowout, with Nixon winning 49 states and nearly 62 percent of the popular vote.

McGovern rationalized his defeat by saying, “I want every one of you to remember that if we pushed the day of peace just one day closer, then every minute and every hour and every bone-crushing effort in this campaign was worth the entire effort.” I suspect he died on Oct. 21, 2012, still believing these self-delusional words.

At about the same time, the seeds of Watergate had been planted. A small unobtrusive dark cloud was forming somewhere in the atmosphere, and it would end up unraveling the entire Nixon presidency and legacy. The arc of fate is long and never-ending.