Okay, who said the following?
“Let me tell you about the greatest victory in the history of
the United States. We won World War III without firing a shot. Do
you realize that? World War III had been raging for 45 years. We
called it the Cold War, and we won it without firing a single shot.
Who deserves credit for that? The credit belongs to a man who has
been abused by the press. A president who is much greater than
history is willing to portray him, because he was not their kind of
guy….Ronald Reagan…
“Well, back to the war we won. Back to the winning of World War
III, without firing a shot. President Reagan did it, by
establishing something that he has been denounced for. Criticized
for. Castigated for.
“Star Wars.
“Star Wars was not established to shoot down incoming Soviet
missiles. That was what we said we were going to do with it. That
was the purpose that we announced. But that wasn’t the real
purpose. We had discovered that the Soviet Union was near economic
collapse. We knew that we had a stronger economy; that we could
out-spend them, and we knew that they were crazy enough to continue
to try to keep up with us, so we started Star Wars for the purpose
of crashing the Soviet economy. And we succeeded. The Soviet Union
came crashing down.”
Who said that? Bill Buckley? Jesse Helms? Rush Limbaugh? Nah,
that was columnist Jack Anderson in a speech at Utah State
University in 1999. Yes, the same Anderson who was on the Enemies
List famously compiled by Richard Nixon’s staff during his
Presidency.
Jack Anderson died Saturday at age 83. He was one of the great
columnists this country has ever produced, not noteworthy for his
prose but for his “relentless pursuit of the truth,” to borrow Mr.
Limbaugh’s phrase. So much so that, much to my consternation, I
have to share an observation that I prefer to reserve for cocktail
parties with lots of beautiful and famous people listening.
It always amuses me to hear people, especially conservatives,
speculating about the transition from the hard-bitten cynical
reporters of The Front Page to the young, idealistic journalists
who think they can change the world. People attribute it to the
Vietnam War, to Watergate, but the truth is that it had already
begun a decade or so before that with Drew Pearson and Murrow and
Sevareid and some of their buddies. The real influence that created
the modern American (and from here, it has spread across the world)
crusading journalist was Superman.
Yes, Superman the comic book and television hero. During the day
he was mild-mannered Clark Kent, a reporter on the Daily Planet. He
was much beset by imperious editor Perry White and he was too shy
to profess his love for fellow reporter Lois Lane. But when he was
sent out to a story and he discovered that there was a crisis in
progress that was unlikely to be amenable to conventional
solutions, he would slip off to a private cranny somewhere and
change into his Superman costume. Then Superman would magically
come swooping out of the sky to save the day.
This comic book and television show was a dominant force in the
culture of the 1940s and 1950s. I grew up in the 1960s, when the
show was on TV in reruns, and most of my friends watched every
episode numerous times. My home had no television, so I felt very
left out when my classmates in Hebrew School would have
competitions to see who remembered the most lines. More than one
literally knew every line by heart. And even I read every single
issue of Superman Comics from 1964 through about 1972.
The idea that was reinforced was simple: a reporter could
actually insert himself into the story and influence its outcome.
All he had to do was reach down deep within himself and find the
superhuman spirit that can overcome all obstacles.
This model has created a great deal of mischief, if only because
it calls for a presumption that the reporter can anticipate the
best policy for every predicament. But Jack did it the right way.
He was the ultimate mild-mannered reporter, an unassuming family
man, a Mormon and a realist. Yet he believed that if the truth kept
coming out, if the back-room machinations were exposed to the light
of day, mostly good things would happen.
On his first day as a reporter, he asked Senator Lyndon Johnson
when the Senate would adjourn. Lyndon told him: “Homer Capeheart
has a pain in his bowel and he thinks it’s an idea. We’ll be
awhile.” Before he was done, Jack gave plenty of Washington power
brokers pains in their bowels, and he gave us an idea.
