2013-05-24T00:20:56-04:00 Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=murray-fromson Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Murray Fromson Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2808270 2013-03-04T20:10:24-05:00 2013-05-04T05:12:01-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/
Take the anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., to which I as an eyewitness as a CBS News correspondent in 1965. I have been reading about the anniversary of that historic event; that is, the showdown at the Edmund Pettus Bridge where the Alabama police attacked the marchers and nearly killed my old friend. Representative John Lewis, the noble Civil Rights leader, by beating him senseless. My late colleague, Nelson Benton, got on the air with the event, and I followed shortly thereafter. Sometime before, an angry bunch of rednecks came up to me and my cameraman, Wendell Hoffman, and spit in his camera lens. We had it carried live on the air to show the disgusting attitude of some Selma residents who opposed the demands of citizens to win passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that President Lyndon Johnson eventually signed into law. That law has stood for 49 years.

Having joined with my colleague, the late Dallas Townsend, in the joint nationwide radio broadcast of the march from Selma, I walked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at that time and never forgot his ringing declaration as the marchers passed the state capitol building. Governor George Wallace looked out of his office and listened. I find myself disgusted by the southerners and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia who continue to nit-pick at the legitimacy of the historic legislation that ensures African Americans the right to vote. Those malcontents still can't get it. The Civil War is over. The law stands proud and mighty as testimony that there are certain moments in the life of the nation when the law remains as it was intended to stand. That's what the distinguished panel of federal judges had in mind when they upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That's when we mourned the death of Viola Liuzzo, the volunteer worker from Detroit whose murder I covered by a racist gang on Highway 80. I still grieve for the dedicated people who marched for greater freedom -- people like John Lewis and the late Martin Luther King Jr. I pity those who have forgotten that legacy and the giants who urged the nation toward greater acts of dignity.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2806941 2013-03-04T14:34:26-05:00 2013-05-04T05:12:01-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/
Take the anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to which I was an eyewitness as a CBS News correspondent in 1965. I have been reading about the anniversary of that historic event; that is, the showdown at the Edmund Pettus Bridge where the Alabama police attacked the marchers and nearly killed my old friend, Representative John Lewis, the noble Civil Rights leader, by beating him senseless.

My late colleague, Nelson Benton, got on the air with the event, and I followed shortly thereafter. Sometime before, an angry bunch of rednecks came up to me and my cameraman, Wendell Hoffman, and spit in his camera lens. We had it carried live on the air to show the disgusting attitude of some Selma residents who opposed the demands of citizens to win passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that President Lyndon Johnson eventually signed into law. That law has stood for 49 years. Having joined with my colleague, the late Dallas Townsend, in the joint nationwide radio broadcast of the march from Selma, I walked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at that time and never forgot his ringing declaration as the marchers passed the state capitol building. Governor George Wallace looked out of his office and listened.

I find myself disgusted by the southerners and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia who continue to nitpick at the legitimacy of the historic legislation that ensures African Americans the right to vote. Those malcontents still can't get it. The Civil War is over. The law stands proud and mighty as testimony that there are certain moments in the life of the nation when the law remains as it was intended to stand. That's what the distinguished panel of Federal Judges had in mind when they upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That's when we mourned the death of Viola Liuzzo, the volunteer worker from Detroit whose murder I covered by a racist gang on Highway 80. I still grieve for the dedicated people who marched for greater freedom -- people like John Lewis and the late Martin Luther King Jr. I pity those who have forgotten that legacy and the giants who urged the nation toward greater acts of dignity.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2755702 2013-02-24T19:13:45-05:00 2013-04-26T05:12:01-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/ Lincoln AND Ben Affleck's Argo. Granted that has never happened before, but neither in my memory has there been a year in which two such outstanding films have been put before the judges of the Academy.

If the Academy's voters weigh the impact of their decision, in my opinion they would have to consider the measure each film will have had on public opinion. Has Spielberg, the giant of film makers in the past two decades, decided to strike a responsive chord in an election year when the recognition of presidential leadership was paramount in the public's mind? Undoubtedly, no sophisticated judges can ignore Daniel Day Lewis' magnificent portrayal after watching Spielberg's artistic depiction of Lincoln leading his battered army of Union troops across the Civil War battlefield. Moreover, at a time when the nation was calling for decisive leadership, Spielberg has lifted the determined but agonizing aspects of Lincoln's decision from Doris Kearns Goodwin's magnificent history book, Team of Rivals and hammered home the impact it had on the 16th President's decision. For a vast viewing audience that may be somewhat rusty on its grasp of Lincoln's legacy and what it meant to the life of the nation.

All of this is not to diminish the powerful impact of Ben Affleck's Argo, which clearly should remain above the ashes, that is to say all the other Oscar-nominated films that were promoted, praised and compared above the competition of all the other contenders. But where Lincoln aroused American awareness about a turning point in American history, Affleck's film is merely a gripping adventure story that fails to explain to viewers the tragic impact of the American collaboration with the British in overthrowing the popular government of Iran's leader, Mohammad Mossadegh.

Affleck legitimately depicts the angry crowds outside the American Embassy in Teheran in 1953 which I remember clearly in my years as a foreign correspondent. But he does not dwell on the substance of that anger which has been singularly responsible for perpetuating the religious rule of Ayatolla Khomeni and the mullahs who succeeded him. In imposing their values, enhancing their hatred of the United States and of Israel. Affleck stands out as a heroic figure throughout the film and perhaps is even Lincolnesque in leading his diminished herd of trapped Embassy employees to freedom. But Argo does not cause Americans today to understand why the United States is still embroiled in a Near East mess from which there has so far not been an escape.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2225362 2012-12-02T09:05:10-05:00 2013-02-01T05:12:01-05:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/
While I do not know her personally, I am familiar with her education, her professional skills and performance in Africa, as the U.S. ambassador at the United Nations, a member of the Brookings Institute and the National Security Council.

Based on my experience of more than two decades as a foreign correspondent, covering more than a dozen wars, I had a close familiarity with dozens of U.S. ambassadors and their support staffs in Asia, South Asia and Latin America. As a result, I came to recognize the skills and professionalism of those men and women diplomats. Susan Rice strikes me as a real deal. With graduate degrees from Stanford University and a Rhodes Scholarship from Oxford she has not suffered fools easily. You might describe her as blunt or outspoken when she encounters some of the games being played at the United Nations or in Washington.

Let's add some perspective to this controversy that seems to tittilate the press corps in the nation's capitol. On Friday, the Washington Post focused on Ms. Rice's lack of tact in dealing, both with her colleagues at the United Nations and by insinuations, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham.

This duo of a "truth squad" seems determined to block President Obama's nomination of Rice as the incoming successor to Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. But it conveniently ignores what happened when the previous Rice, that is the unrelated Condoleeza, the deputy National Security advisor under President George Bush, broadly declared that Sadaam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, possessed "weapons of mass destruction," implying he had nuclear weapons.

George Tenet, the CIA director, supported her by claiming that the evidence "was a slam dunk"-- in other words, a certainty. Not only was the so-called evidence exposed as a lie or a fraud. it was used by Bush to justify a war againt Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 5,000 American soldiers. Now which is more grevious--the lies of Condoleeza or the candor of Susan Rice? Case closed.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2176546 2012-11-26T08:26:34-05:00 2013-01-26T05:12:01-05:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/ lowest in his graduating class of 1958. Ambassador Rice, a graduate of Stanford University and Oxford, is a scholar of enormous ability, who has served the United States with great distinction in Africa, Washington and at the United Nations.

It is about time to shine the light on those who would dare to praise McCain's judgment and reputation as a foreign policy expert, which is not true. It is undeserving and stems from his years as a tortured prisoner of war in North Vietnam after being shot down having bombed targets in the greater Hanoi area. Dozens of Vietnamese civilians reportedly were killed while he was attacking military targets in the region which may account for the film of angry Vietnamese attacking him and other captured American pilots as they were marched through the streets of Hanoi en route to their imprisonment. McCain clearly was the victim of mistreatment, having been denied necessary medical care to relieve him of the painful wounds and injuries he suffered when his U.S. Navy Skyraider jet was shot out of the skies by North Vietnamese anti-aircraft.

The fact that the senator's father was Admiral John S. McCain, an outspoken advocate of U.S. policy during the Vietnam War when he was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is almost beside the point. But it is worth noting that the McCains have been always identified with the hawkish views of American policy makers. Nothing suggests that Senator McCain is any different, but that does not qualify him to be regarded as a foreign policy expert.

Moreover, consider the Senator's judgment in having selected Sarah Palin as his running mate in the campaign for the presidency in 2000.

What McCain and the horde of GOP critics of Ambassador Rice, including Senator Lindsay Graham (R-South Carolina) and his colleagues in the House and Senate demonstrate is their ignorance of the nation's demographic changes and more maturing attitudes toward African Americans and women of distinction. They owe a nationwide apology for their insults of an honorable representative of the United States.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2046810 2012-10-30T20:31:39-04:00 2012-12-30T05:12:01-05:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/
But neither the Commission on Presidential Debates, the television networks or the political parties have had an interest in changing the tone of the questions.

Let's be done with the "gotcha" possibility that pits one candidate against the other. Let's put politics back in the politics of debates. Strip the television moderators of the power to select questions that might be of headline value, but not necessarily of any substance. Instead, it should be the Commission's responsibility to single out knowledgeable historians or political scholars at our major universities to shape the questions to be asked of the candidates. They also should monitor the accuracy of the candidates' answers. We should not have to wait until after the conclusion of each debate for network fact-checkers to validate assertions by the candidates. The moderator also should be empowered to shut off the microphones when one candidate attempts to interfere with the opposing candidate's response. That is what is called for in traditional debating procedures.

It is factual or timely information or assertions by the candidates that should emerge. But in none of the three televised presidential debates recently concluded was Governor Romney challenged to cite examples of the jobs he said he would create for tens of thousands of unemployed workers in America, if he is elected to be president. Neither was he asked to his plan to increase tens of millions of dollars in defense spending while the Pentagon was precisely proposing exactly the opposite in recent years.

Nor, faced with criticism for a lapse of security at the time of the attack in Benghazi and the death of four Americans, President Obama should have but did not respond with a reference to how the Republican-controlled House had made severe reductions of the State Department's budget for national security.

At each of the televised debates, Romney's hostility toward bedrock programs like Social Security, medical care and financial regulatory reforms that would undermine the economic stability of middle-class Americans, went unchallenged either by the moderators or President Obama.

These issues account for the existing causes of unemployment and the sluggish economy that have been largely responsible for the close nature of the presidential race.

But the president did not help himself. He might have used the influence of his office as a bully pulpit to remind television viewers of how times have changed that justified the military draft, a massive arms buildup, prohibitive defense budget and a remarkable expenditure to land a man on the moon, all of which created jobs that have vanished, making improvements or calling for greater expenditures more difficult in the immediate future.

Unfortunately, neither candidate in these debates seems willing to call for patience from an indifferent, impatient population with little knowledge or interest in the past.

It's the reality that makes the televised debates seem so unreal. Perhaps it is time for an alternative during the next presidential election.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1156036 2011-12-18T18:37:30-05:00 2012-02-17T05:12:01-05:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/
Consider the opinions of Gingrich on the Belgian Congo; on race relations in the U.S.; about immigration from across the border; or how to treat underprivileged, hungry people. The inference is fairly clear. Gingrich has never been challenged by his all-white panelists on the CNN election platform. None of the presidential candidates who cluttered cable television last week were ready to respond to tough questions. The panel overall was as meek as mice.

After an airing of the past revelations uttered by Gingrich, it is impossible to imagine how many African-American or Latino voters will cast a ballot for him as president. Gingrich is an uncontrollable motor mouth. Yet, despite such flaws, many of his supporters still believe him fit to be a president or world leader..

As Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist of the New York Times said of Gingrich recently "He is a glib speaker, even when he has no idea of what he is talking about." Krugman went on to say "My sense is that he's very good at double think -- that even when he knows what he's said isn't true while he's saying it.

To any reporter who has covered politics from the highest to the lowest level -- and I've covered many including the ill-fated Goldwater campaign in 1964 -- it's clear that Gingrich is tempted to say anything in public once he has access to a microphone or platform. Careless ideas simply roll off his tongue. So outrageous, often times he can shock anyone within hearing distance. Gingrich has disdain for many Americans; not only poor ones, but blacks, gays, Arabs, or welfare recipients for starters. His analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian issue is so absurd and over-simplified you would have to worry if he were elected president.

But Gingrich is not the sole champion of negative thinking in Republican ranks. The tactic may easily come back to haunt him on Election Day, if he gets that far. Having covered enough national politics, instinct tells me that a persistent negative campaign could sink the GOP. On the other hand, I would not be surprised by an Obama victory next November, providing he makes a slight indent in the unemployment and inflation figures. My hunch then is the President could win re-election next year and even by a substantial margin.

The problem for the GOP is that it is devoid of real solutions to cope with the economic doldrums gripping the nation. Moreover, it is trapped in a campaign with such implicit racist implications, it's a miracle that so many of its political experts act as if it they didn't exist.

From election day on, the Republicans have focused on getting Obama out of the White House, no matter the cost. But the president has been savvy enough politically to avoid turning it into a food fight. While every Republican office-holder or candidate seems determined since Day One to defeat Obama; no matter what the president says or stands for; regardless of what positive social policy he proposes and no matter how dedicated he is to reducing the number of American soldiers in Iraq, the Republicans say no.

They act as if they are deaf or blind to the latest polls that show 77 percent of the American people support the president. John McCain, Lindsay Graham and other prominent Republican legislators truck out every absurd excuse for keeping American troops on the ground in a war that literally ended months ago. You could ask how many of their own sons have ever served in Iraq or Afghanistan? But the answer would be insignificant. Having covered wars all over the world and seen body bags ad nauseum, the notion of reporting the number of American families that have sacrificed their sons or loved ones for vague objectives is painful for me.

Aggravating the nightly political discourse, the artificial debates staged by the cable networks are a waste of time. They are tailored to provoke outrageous arguments, so much so that anyone skilled in broadcasting should be demanding that more producers be hired to exercise control over the nonsense. Viewers are never told how difficult it is to win passage of any legislation in a divided Congress. Consequently, the American people have a negative view of government.

While Barack Obama exercises leadership abroad, the Republicans are pursuing worn out ideas that continue to harp on government spending, waste in Washington and the need for unregulated tax cuts for the rich. That's not what everyday shoppers at Wal-mart or Costco are talking about.

As Krugman said of Gingrich, "He's very good at double think -- even when he knows that what he's said isn't true while he's saying it."

It's enough to encourage serious voters to move to Iceland.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1137710 2011-12-09T07:54:37-05:00 2012-02-08T05:12:01-05:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/
We had no reason to doubt that the plotters behind the sneak attack were led by a buck-toothed Japanese admiral named Isoroku Yamamoto. That's because the government told us so. His image as a cunning enemy appeared in innumerable newspapers across the country. Time Magazine published a cartoon of Yamamoto as an arch villain, a personification of "Oriental treachery." Allegedly, he was said to have boasted that he would dictate surrender peace terms in the White House. All of this and more was spelled out by a U.S. Naval historian named Ian W. Toll in an op-ed article that appeared in the New York Times on Wednesday.

At the outset, Yamamoto was portrayed as a fire-breathing war-monger who plotted the sneak attack on the U.S. But Toll has set the record straight. The supposed villain claimed all along that victory over the United States was impossible. Toll described Yamamoto as one of the most colorful, charismatic and broad-minded naval officers in the Imperial Navy. He graduated from the Japanese Naval Academy. He traveled widely in the United States before the war, spoke adequate enough English as a student at Harvard University for two years, read American history voraciously after World War I, including several biographies about Abraham Lincoln; none of which has ever appeared in the American press.

According to Toll, the naval historian, Yamamoto despised the Japanese Army. He was known for his anti-war views, arguing there was "no chance of winning the war with the United States." In August 1939, he was named commander in chief of the highest sea-going command in the Japanese Navy, and while he opposed war with the U.S., he actually planned the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. But despite his temperate views, Yamamoto was not a great strategist. He was responsible for the Japanese defeat in the Battle of Midway and the campaign to re-capture the island of Guadalcanal. But while Yamamoto's naval strategy was faulty, he was a major factor in setting the ground for the anti-war temperament that helped Japan to emerge from the shattering defeat in World War II. Surprising as these revelations are, so too are the questions about U.S. veracity when it goes to war.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.910313 2011-07-28T10:47:35-04:00 2011-09-27T05:12:01-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/
After three hours of watching television Monday evening that began with another of your polite and reasonable appeals to the nation, it's clear that the talk, the debates, the interviews about the financial crisis engulfing most Americans assuredly is doing nothing to excite your supporters and in fact is making most of us feel brain dead.

The Republicans who want to replace you, along with those silly little women from Minnesota and Alaska who have the audacity to believe they can defeat you. But neither has a prayer of winning enough primaries to matter. Cable television and National Public Radio gives them unwarranted air time, but that does not legitimize their candidacy. The game is all about is ratings, getting politicians to scream at each other. The Republicans will do anything they can to defeat your re-election bid. One of their principal spokesmen, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has been saying all along that your defeat is his obsession. But to hear the Republicans claim to know what the American people want would cause you eye strain trying to find any credible African Americans, Latinos or working-class or unemployed Americans among the mostly all-white GOP leadership when it appears on the top of Capitol Hill to make their case to the television cameras.

What truly concerns Americans is getting back to work. Jobs are what grate most unemployed Americans. Lack of them affects the ownership of their homes, the amount of food they can put on the table, the lives they once were accustomed to living, the quality of the schools where they can send their children. It means being able to hold their heads high. Nobody, but nobody wants to stand in line at an unemployment office. Most of the unemployed worry about the medical bills for their families. How many of those glib members of Congress have ever had to cope with that problem?

Everyone talks jobs, but neither the politicians nor civic leaders offer any specificity. Serious people may agree with the notion to construct a nationwide rail system powered by electricity. It would go a long way toward solving our unemployment crisis. But especially as long as the nation is trapped in a troubled economy.

Most Americans always admire a fighter. They want you to do battle with your opponents the way you did when you were seeking the presidential nomination three years ago. A dose of candor might cause the public opinion polls to jump like you might never before have imagined.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.903744 2011-07-19T16:20:42-04:00 2011-09-18T05:12:01-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/ Times of London back in the early 1960s, he published a book (GoodTimes, Bad Times) about his tenure at the newspaper that described his years with Rupert Murdoch as the publisher. In reviewing that book, I was struck by one anecdote he included in his memoir that described the day Murdoch came into his office and thumbed through the pages of the Times. Observing the coverage by one of his correspondents sent to Warsaw during a periodic Polish crisis, Murdoch said rather sarcastically, "I see you have the story on page one." Evans acknowledged the story's treatment, which prompted Murdoch to reply wryly, "Do you know where I would have placed the story?" Roughly speaking as I remember the review, Evans said no and Murdoch turned to page 72 or thereabouts. "That's where I would have put it."

The anecdote seemed to be a signal that Evans knew he was on his way out as editor of the Times, then Britain's most distinguished newspaper. My conclusion was that Evans would gloat some day when his judgment of Murdoch would be vindicated. Well, Sir Harold, congratulations!

Anyone with half a brain knew all about Murdoch from the time he invaded all of journalism with his purchase of dozens of newspapers in the U.S. and Britain, but also television stations. It was inevitable because Murdoch has repeatedly demonstrated an absence of ethics, decency and integrity wherever his money has allowed him to make his presence felt. Moreover, it is a terrible irony that his grandfather, Sir Keith Murdoch, was one of Australia's most distinguished journalists. His coverage of the battle for Gallipoli in 1915 ended with the dismissal of the British commander of troops there and brought Sir Keith international recognition and his elevation to become one of the most powerful journalists in the land down under as editor and/or publisher of the Melbourne Age.

Rupert Murdoch's tenure in contemporary journalism may never be what it has been in the past several decades. But the nagging issue that has only been brushed over by journalists charged with reporting the Murdoch scandal is how he and his family never seemed to care about the qualifications of those people they hired, including Rebekah Brooks, who were handed the power and influence to render the boneheaded and embarrassing decisions that have been disclosed in recent days. A journalism major could not have earned a university degree or gotten a job with those credentials. At least I hope so.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.900823 2011-07-17T16:50:34-04:00 2011-09-16T05:12:01-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/ reported in the New York Times on the back page. It was not considered major news outside his country. But to me, as a journalist at the time reporting on the bizarre and bloody politics of his country traceable to the ruling military junta that Villagran served as vice-president, it was.

International human rights organizations thoroughly misunderstood his motive and in 1997, they helped to block an appointment he so wanted as a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He actually was a distinguished citizen and a lawyer, not a general. He truly was hopeful that his presence inside the government would serve as a brake on those who denied Guatemala the democracy he cherished. He failed though for many years.he served his country with distinction, helping to defend the rights of the working class population.

The atmosphere in his otherwise beautiful country was overshadowed by the violence that characterized the nature of life under most dictatorships in Central America. As a freelance columnist for a political newsletter, I accepted an invitation to visit the country from an organization in Guatemala identified as the Freedom Forum. A public relations agency, representing it in Los Angeles, Deaver and Hannaford, arranged for the press tour. Its major work was in behalf of Governor Ronald Reagan. Believing that Reagan was a likely victor over President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 U.S. election, I wanted to determine the likelihood of American foreign policy toward Guatemala and other military regimes in Latin America.

It did not take long to confirm my suspicion. Our hosts met us in Guatemala City at the airport dining room, all wearing political lapel buttons that read: DOWN WITH JIMMY CASTRO!, an intentional dig at Reagan's target, President Jimmy Carter. The next evening, four blocks from the hotel, six civilians known to be critics of the military junta were murdered in cold blood. The following morning, a schoolteacher, who was a member of a labor union, was shot down, walking to her automobile. Both of her breasts were cut off. The president of Francisco Marroquin University drove me and a half dozen other American reporters to his campus in an armored vehicle preceded by a sapper squad, checking for potential land mines in its path. Inside the wagon, accompanying us, were four armed men with sub-machine guns.

It did not take long to get the idea of the atmosphere that engulfed us. Paranoia about a threat from Communists was rampant.

Later that afternoon, we were tipped off about a protest rally by the student union at San Carlos University. It was interrupted by what appeared were two policemen who made no secret of their identity. Several students were shot by the armed men who were seized by the angry students. One was lynched, and the other doused with gasoline and set on fire. The wounded students were rushed to a nearby hospital that soon after was torched by a group of soldiers.

That brought me to the home of Vice-President Villagran who had recently taken a leave of absence from his vice-presidency. Coincidentally, he was living under self-imposed house arrest in a home adjoining the hospital, angered as he was by the mounting violence toward critics of the junta. Coincidentally, I was tipped off by a group of students who told me Villagran occupied an adjoining home.

I walked over and rang the doorbell and shortly thereafter, a maid appeared at the door with Villagran, a distinguished man in his late 40s. I identified myself and showed him my passport. I explained that I was an American journalist and would like to interview him. He smiled and said in good English that "this is not the appropriate time." But he indicated that if he had a telephone number, he would call me some day soon, almost as if he knew a time would come. I gave him a card and left..

Several months later, I received a surprise telephone call in Los Angeles from a woman in suburban Virginia who identified herself as Maria Eugenia Villagran. She said her father had been secreted out of Guatemala by friendly National Guardsmen, that her father had my phone number and would like to talk to me, because he had promised me some day that would happen. Villagran and I had a friendly conversation over the phone. I recalled that since our last brief meeting, Reagan had been elected as the next U.S. president and I wondered how the Guatemalan junta would react with a fellow conservative in the White House. Villagran laughed. "Sr. Fromson, the difference is that in your country, conservatives are reasonable men. In ours, they are cavemen."

The following afternoon, he held a news conference in Washington D.C. to announce his resignation as vice president.of Guatemala.

Villagran died at the age of 84 last Tuesday. His son was the former Guatemalan ambassador to the United States, and his daughter is the president of the Supreme Electoral College.

(My article, describing some of the central figures likely to emerge in a Reagan Administration, predicted how they might influence a hard line policy in Latin America. Editors of California commissioned my report, but then decided against publishing it and remunerated me with a "kill" fee after an internal debate over how it might be regarded by incoming members of a new leadership.)]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.888971 2011-07-02T11:12:48-04:00 2011-09-01T05:12:01-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/
Of course, there always will be missing legislators to alibi that their absence from Washington is necessitated by the urgent need to visit their families or otherwise keep in touch with their contributors in an approaching election year. It used to be called milking the cow.

This year, the Republicans, who aren't running for president, are pre-occupied with finding ways to rail against Medicare and other social programs. That prompted the president to sarcastically challenge the Republicans to stop protecting their fat cats' tax privileges. He ticked off owners of corporate jets, who pocket an estimated three billion dollars over 10 years, and hedge fund managers whose oil and gas tax credits net $21 billion. More than a week ago when he unveiled plans for a defense budget build-down that's been on many arms control experts' minds for more than a year.

Professor Gordon Adams, a veteran scholar who has studied defense budgets and arms control for a generation at American University in Washington D.C., wrote recently in the Washington Post that the president's proposal is to "reduce the projected [U.S. national security] budget by $400 billion over the next 12 years."

As Adams explained it, the reduction "is being driven by concerns over deficits, debt and a declining interest in having the United States act as a global cop." That's what Americans want to hear in an era of hard times: Halting the outflow of U.S. dollars before more of the U.S. treasury is sucked dry in part by the idealistic notion of subsidizing democracies in parts of the world that clearly demonstrate they do not have the stomach, the experience or the will for it.

Faced with devastating unemployment, saddled with bills to pay, bankruptcies or mortgages to cope with and medical bills or illnesses to confront, it does not take much brain power to realize that the country is being exhausted, demoralized, and its national spirit sapped by deficit spending.

Americans are desperate for change. They hunger for their imagination to be aroused and their can-do energy to find its way back into the country's bloodstream. If anyone can do that, it would seem to be Barack Obama in much the same way as he demonstrated it in Chicago's Lincoln Park and at the Democratic National Convention Center three years ago when he inspired the nation and accepted the nomination for President.

But he needs to bark or campaign once again, to call the nation to rally to his side, and it can't be done when so many Americans have been jobless for more than a year, when families are being forced from their homes and unfortunate children are facing the pressures of starvation and homelessness. Is this America? Of course not. At least it's not the America I remember from my days of growing up in three different foster homes during the Great Depression.

There's little doubt that the challenge is up to the president. He has it in his will and
capacity to energize the Democrats and independents by demanding that the Republicans abandon their gospel of tax cuts for the rich and hard times for everyone else. The GOP reveres them like the Holy Grail, which has to be put to rest once and for all. Otherwise, it will come down to class warfare which is nothing less than an obscenity.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.848448 2011-04-13T10:56:56-04:00 2011-06-13T05:12:01-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/ described the Emperor and Empress of Japan and their visit to victims of the tragedy that struck their country, I received an informative response from a Japanese friend; a widely-published writer.

My initial impression as a GI during the U.S. occupation of Japan was that until the end of World War II, the American public largely believed that Emperor Hirohito, the ruler of Japan, was to be regarded as a war criminal and should have been hanged for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But the successor to Hirohito, his son Akihito, and wife, the Empress Michiko, proceeded to behave themselves, not only as much more modern than his father but more open to democratic ideas. It illustrated Japan as a burgeoning democracy and noted that the royal couple was symbolic of the change.

It turns out that I was somewhat behind the times in my blog. My friend explained that the Emperor and his wife had visited shelters for the victims of other natural calamities more than ten times, first in 1991. The royal couple had been enthroned in 1989. Michiko is a commoner and a college graduate. Japan, I was told, apparently is so susceptible to earthquakes that it does not receive the kind of foreign news coverage that it did in the recent disaster when an earthquake, a tsunami and dangerous radiation leaks emerged from one of the nearby damaged nuclear power plants not far from the quake's epicenter.

According to Fumiko Mori Halloran, the Emperor and Empress visited shelters on March 30 and April 8th and the Imperial Household Agency announced that the royal couple plans to visit as many shelters as possible without hindering relief efforts. Not only has the couple been briefed in detail, but their children, Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife, Masako and his younger brother, Prince Akishino and his wife Kiko have also begun to visit shelters.

At the height of the crisis, the Emperor and Empress opened their hospital to those in need of medical emergency. They also opened their hot bath facilities in their summer palace to a nearby shelter and they sent food "such as thousands of eggs, butter, cheese, other meats and vegetables to nearby shelters. To save electricity, they ordered electricity at the palace be turned off for a few hours every day. They sometimes had dinner under flashlights or candles."

I could go on with details Ms. Halloran said has come from the newspaper, Sankei Shimbun's daily online homepage in Japanese that also reports the imperial family's daily schedule in English. On March 16, the emperor broadcast a video message to appeal to the nation to be united and overcome the national crisis. The newspaper reported that during their visits to shelters the current Crown Prince dressed informally, sat on mats on the floor and talked informally to make the victims feel comfortable.

This remarkable humanitarian effort is a contrast to the image of confusion and indifference by the Japanese government that has permeated some of the foreign reporting throughout the current crisis.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.843734 2011-04-01T15:31:09-04:00 2011-06-01T05:12:01-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/ New York Times and Los Angeles Times that showed Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko consoling evacuees from the debacle that struck Japan last month.

Prior to the ascendancy to the Royal throne after the death of Akihito's father, Emperor Hirohito, the notion that commoners would ever have had a view of the Japanese ruler, let alone sit with him and his wife 60 years later and have a conversation with the God-like figure would have been unthinkable. Throughout the Second World War, Hirohito was regarded by millions of Americans as a war criminal, responsible for the conflict that followed the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. His image appeared in photographs and editorial cartoons that mocked him. There even were demands in America for Hirohito to be hanged.

But times began to change once the U.S. Occupation took hold and General Douglas MacArthur served as commander in chief of American governance of the defeated Japanese. He decided to treat Hirohito with a peaceful reverence. Hirohito was allowed to retain his position as Emperor and he and his wife lived in isolated Imperial splendor in their palace across the moat, directly in front of the Dai Ichi bank building which had become MacArthur's headquarters. No question was left about who was in charge. It was no longer the Japanese military or the Emperor.

In 1951, I was a GI in Tokyo for the Armed Forces newspaper, Pacific Stars and Stripes, when Hirohito's son, Akihito, then a teenager, passed me and lines of Japanese on the street, en route to the Imperial Palace where he would formally be invested as Crown Prince and immediate heir to the throne in the event of his father's death. Having been introduced to a wealthy commoner named Michiko Shoda at a tennis match, Akihito was reportedly smitten immediately. According to published reports later, the Crown Prince said that he had hit the ball to Michiko and she hit it back repeatedly. He "immediately lost to her persistence."

Nonetheless, no one ever took their friendship seriously because it would have been unthinkable to have a commoner placed on or near the throne. In fact, the Imperial Household Agency had submitted a list of more than 800 suitable ladies of Imperial nobility who could be considered as the future Empress of Japan and Michiko Shoda was not on the list.

Nonetheless, she was a woman of considerable means and more than that, she was college-educated in Japan who also enrolled in classes at Harvard and Oxford. She understood what it meant to surrender her independence. But in November 1958, she accepted Akihito's marriage proposal and to the chagrin of his parents and the Imperial household, Michiko was ordained as Crown Princess. Her influence on Akihito was striking. She insisted on raising their own children and she gave birth to three of them. The independent streak had gradually invaded the home of Imperial rule and it was symptomatic of democratic ideas that eventually began to take hold in all of Japan.

That's what made Thursday's photograph of the Emperor and Empress so striking to me. But the history behind that picture was totally ignored by American newspapers that published it, probably because most of the editors were either too young or just totally oblivious to the changes that gradually were underway in all of Japan more than a half century ago. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.811550 2011-01-20T10:47:35-05:00 2011-05-25T18:25:24-04:00

Murray Fromson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/murray-fromson/ occurred on the grounds of Gardena High School, southwest of the central city.

Police helicopters flew overhead. Detectives swarmed onto the school grounds, Several kids were handcuffed for questioning. It was like a scene from NYPD Blue, only this one was not in Hollywood. It was set by a 17-year-old boy, carrying a loaded 9mm Baretta handgun in his backpack. From what eyewitnesses said, he had placed his backpack down on a desk and a gun inside accidentally went off. Two 15-year-olds -- a boy and a girl -- were wounded. The girl was rushed to a nearby hospital where she underwent lengthy surgery, suffering from a skull fracture and brain trauma. The boy had been grazed in the neck by the same bullet. They were lucky. Unlike the nine-year-old girl in Arizona, they will survive. The names of the wounded students, as well as the boy with the gun, were momentarily withheld. Everyone involved claimed the shooting was an accident.

It occurred in mid-morning that several students described as a climate of fear. Everyone, it seems, was afraid of the persistent gang violence that has been present on the school grounds for some time. But why then did school authorities not deal with the problem forcefully and immediately? If the boy with the gun apparently was both afraid and angry, why didn't his parents detect his fear and, moreover, how did the boy obtain the gun and from whom? Unanswered questions for sure.

The following day a school security guard was shot point blank in the chest near a campus across town -- in the San Fernando Valley. The bullet knocked the guard down and though a protective vest prevented the bullet from entering his body, the gunman got away. Nine schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District -- the largest district in the country -- were on lockdown for much of the day until the suspect was captured.

After reading accounts of these incidents, I endured the chills and a flashback of memory on the day after one commemorating the birthday of a man of peace; an apostle of non-violence who himself was destined to die some 50 years later. My thoughts went back to 1965 when I walked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King as a reporter on the March from Selma, Alabama.

What few people knew, including we reporters, was that a funeral hearse trailed behind the marchers, so fearful, his aides believed, that Dr. King could be the target of a would-be assassin. Understanding that I had just returned from an assignment in Vietnam for CBS News, he questioned me intensely about the effect of the war on individual soldiers, especially black GIs. His angst came full bore in 1967 when I was back in Vietnam and King chose to go public about his opposition to the war in a remarkable sermon he delivered at the Riverside Church in Manhattan. Many of his close advisers urged him to withhold criticism of the war, fearing it would divert attention from the civil rights campaign. Worse yet, the sermon, delivered on April 4, 1967, indeed did rupture his relationship with President Johnson and closed King's access to the White House. Ironically, it was exactly a year to the day before James Earl Ray assassinated him in Memphis with a weapon he purchased in a gun shop.

While more than a week has passed since the slaughter in Tucson, it struck me that on the anniversary of King's birthday that remembers both his birth and death, Americans have tolerated for generations the mistaken belief that the Constitution guaranteed them the right to pack a gun. That was not so originally. At the time of its writing, the Second Amendment stipulated that "in the absence of a well-regulated militia" the people had the right to bear arms when the country was virtually defenseless. Today, our law enforcement apparatus in both the civilian and military aspects of our society. is enormous and well-defended. Most of the crimes that occur in the United States are committed by individuals who have a gun illegally.

The gun may be a protector in time of an emergency, but historically, because of its dramatic and illegal use, it has become a curse on American society. It needs to be regulated the way our cars and drivers' licenses are -- to obtain one requires several tests. In order to purchase many medications, prescriptions first must be written by a licensed physician. But thanks to a steady and heavily financed campaign by the National Rifle Association, strict legislation is impossible. The use of the gun is accepted almost philosophically by presidents and politicians on Capitol Hill as well as office holders in state, county and city offices. Fear causes their timidity; fear that they will be the target of some gun nut or fear that it will cost them re-election when voters go to the polls.

Many Americans flock to our nation's gun shows to salivate over the latest weapons they can take home "to protect" themselves. They accept the fraudulent notion that the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to carry a gun. Mind you, we are no longer talking about ordinary pistols, but killer guns like the Glock 19 that spew out dozens of bullets that on impact cause the kind of bodily damage that no television station, cable network or news will dare to show its viewers.

The political power structure and the media have danced all around the issues that have made it possible for Jared Loughner to kill and nearly end the lives of a cross-section of innocents who had come to meet Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Unfortunately, ours is a country besieged by violence but engrossed as well by artificial violence. The central figures appearing in motion pictures and televised movies feature gun-wielding heroes and villains in which the winners take all. Movie trailers are laced with bang-bang to lure audiences into the following week's screenings. Electronic games with the emphasis on violence are the most popular form of entertainment for our children and young adults.

In the wake of the Tucson tragedy, every expert on gun violence has been contacted by journalists from newspapers, television and radio stations, or cable talk show hosts to dissect Loughner's motivation.

Perhaps we have been so desensitized by violence that the war in Afghanistan has lost its meaning, despite the fact that American lives are at stake every day. The notion has been remote or distant to the majority of Americans. Like the wars -- first in Vietnam and then Iraq -- both of which were undeclared, the news coverage of day-to-day violence on the battlefield has been carefully sanitized on the 6:30 news, which rarely shows the gore of war.

During the Vietnam War, I remember a kind of quiet self-censorship that was applied by editors at CBS News, and I'm sure the other national news networks. The rule of thumb was "use the wide shot, skip the tight shot."

More recently Americans have gotten a detached view of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In our gun culture, the notion persists that the owners would know how to use a gun if indeed they had one. A whole lot of "cowboys" reinforce the myth. Under normal circumstances, widespread statistics indicate that in the eventuality of a robbery, a holdup of homes or businesses or an otherwise serious threat to their well-being, most gun owners would not have easy access to a weapon in their possession or easy access to one.

From personal experience, I would venture a guess that an overwhelming majority of Americans, from gun owners to ordinary homeowners or Arizona cowboys are clueless about the impact of the weapons in their hands or pockets.

Guns, guns and more guns is the crazy legacy for those who have fallen in Tucson.

I remember a particularly ghastly incident in Vietnam when U.S. Marines suffered heavy casualties because a battalion confronted by well-armed North Vietnamese had not been given instructions in how to clean the dust covers of their newly-arrived M-16 rifles. Dozens of Marines were killed because dust jammed their weapons.

The old myths are the legacy of those who have fallen in Tucson.]]>