|
January 12
a huge Red Army push into Poland
& the Germans were bootheeled
Hit-vom rushed troops to Hungary
&
by February the Soviets were 40 miles from Berlin
January 20
The haggard Franklin Roosevelt gave
his 4th inaugural speech
He always stood to talk
but
his hands trembled
&
he was having chest pains
weakening
on the road to Yalta
January 27
The Soviets liberated Auschwitz
in
Poland
with
its hideous Arbeit Macht Frei
portal
5,000 Jewish victims were left alive
by the Nazis,
stare-eyed and starving
Yalta Conference
February
To Yalta in the Crimea came Roosevelt,
Churchill and Stalin
for
the 2nd, final time
to
plan the postwar future of Europe
Churchill
recited Byron's "Childe Harold"
to Roosevelt's
daughter Sara
on
the drive from the airport
Germany was to be divided into occupied
zones
They decided on voting procedures
in the UN Security Council
The First UN meeting was set for San
Francisco
In
a secret deal negotiated 'tween Stalin & Roosevelt
Russia
agreed to join the war against Japan
90
days after Germany's surrender
The
Joint Chiefs wanted the Red Army
on the Pacific front
-the
Chiefs thought the breaking of Japan
would
take 18 months after the crushing of Germany
&
of course the bomb had not been tested
&
the Russians would save thousands
of
American lives
(Some
have suggested that the dropping
of
the A-bomb was rushed
in
order to end the Japanese war
before the 90 days were over)
Korea
was to be divided in two along the
38th
Parallel
Poland was a big issue-
the Russians now occupied it
and a Communist government was snugly
in place, as they say.
Stalin pointed out that Napoleon,
then Hitler
had
invaded through Poland
&
he wasn't going to let this
happen again.
Roosevelt
& Churchill
in Churchill words, wanted
"the
Poles to have a home in Europe
& to be free to live their own lives there.
This is what we went to war against Germany for...."
Stalin agreed to bring into in the
Warsaw gov't
some of the Polish exile government
in London
& to hold free elections
soon.
Sure, Josef, sure. Soon.
Three
Fates were singing- one with a map
one
with an anger pill, one with a nuke
A
worn out Roosevelt
lashed
by the devil of war
boated
back to the US
Three
Fates were singing- one with a map
one
with an anger pill, one with a nuke
Dresden
Bombing
February 15-17
Churchill
insisted on
destroying
Dresden, the "Florence of Germany"
ostensibly
to prevent transfer of German troops to the Soviet front,
up
to 130,000 civilians were killed,
and
its "historic centre" destroyed
Why not have bombed
the
tracks to the remaining camps?
Why
not bomb
the crematoria or the Gestapo barracks?
Why
not, Franklin?
Why
not, Winston?
Why
not, o State Department?
Vonnegut
A
prisoner of war named Kurt Vonnegut
witnessed
the Dresden bombing
He
was disgusted with the bombing of civilians
and
became a pacifist
It inspired his novel Slaughterhouse Five
Iwo Jima
February 19
The assault on Iwo Jima began
Iwo was halfway tween Tokyo and the
US base in Saipan
in
th' Marianas
The US needed Iwo Jima
so as
to begin bombardment of the Japanese mainland
In caves
and deep pits 40 feet down
the
Japs fought fiercely
&
only 200 survived out of 20,700
Perhaps
thousands killed themselves
and
some sizzle-leaped into the Suribachi volcano
to escape the shame.
The fierceness revealed to the US
command structure
that the war against the Japanese
mainland
might
stretch for 100s of days.
On February
23
an
image for the ages
as
the American flag was raised
on
Mt. Suribachi by
Lt.
Harold Shrier
&
caught on film by Joe Rosenthal
of
the Associated Press
It
was a Moment for America
March 3
Manila was taken by the U.S.A.!
Anne
Frank
March 12
She
was fourteen
unconscious
from fever
&
so weak from hunger
she
rolled from her bunk bed to the floor
at
Bergen-Belsen
and passed away
Lucy
in the Countryside
March 12
There was a visit with old flame Lucy
Mercer
unknown to Eleanor
They drove through the Virginia country
followed
by Secret Service agents
then dinner in the White House
The next night Mercer and FDR were
alone
in his study for an hour
before
he went to bed
It's possible that Wednesday, March
14
they
slept together maybe even overnight
in
his room in the White House
Time does not trace touching.
Briefing
Roosevelt on the Current Status
of the Bomb
March 15
Secretary of War Henry Stimson
met with the President
to
brief him on the atomic bomb
It was
during the gore of Iwo Jima
and fresh fierce memories of the death-willing Japanese
There
were apparently rumors
-you
know how lemony chat-prone bureaucracies are-
that
the Bomb was a lemon
so Stimson
reassured the President that
the
bomb wd be ready for testing in summer's middle.
Tank
cars of ink have been pressed on paper
to
analyze Roosevelt's thinking
on
the use of the bomb.
Speaking
with economist Arthur Sachs
the
previous December (1944) Roosevelt allegedly
agreed
with Sachs
that
the method would be
a
demonstration of the bomb
with
notice to Japan they'd get it next
if
they didn't surrender
The
demonstration would be before a team of
respected
scientists
The
next step would be a warning
where
the bomb would be dropped
so
civilians could split
(With
Vannevar Bush, the head of the
Office
of Scientific Research and Development,
the
President had a conversation
questioning
whether the bomb should actually
be
dropped or thrust upon the Japanese
as
a threat.
Whichever
decision was to come
awaited the building of the bomb)
Roosevelt
made no decision
in
the meeting with the Secretary of War
March 24
the US won Iwo Jima after more than
a month of horrible battle
and 27,499 US casualties
Another Einstein Letter to FDR
March 25
Albert
Einstein sent a another letter to FDR
as a
cover letter for a memo by
leading
a-bomb physicist Leo Szilard
urging
the President not to drop the bomb on Japan
FDR
never got it,
and he was dead just a few days ahead
March 29
the Soviets crossed into Austria
The Taking of Okinawa
April 1-June 22
1,300 ships convened near Okinawa
south
of Formosa
&
500 miles from the Japanese heartland
The Japs again sent 700 Kamikaze Divine
Wind
planes
down upon the decks & smokestacks
of
the allied fleet
The US Marines & Army troops went
ashore and took Okinawa
with
49,000 US casualties
-at the time it was thought Okinawa
would
be the "springboard"
for
an invasion of Japan
A Final Vacation
March
29
Franklin
Delano Roosevelt left DC
for a 2-week rest in Warm Springs
He packed
his stamp collection
for
a few days of leisure
Lucy
Rutherford
was
scheduled to come in the second week
I like
to think of him
during
those final nights
still
undecided on whether or not to use the atomic bomb,
rearranging
his stamps, lifting them lovingly with tweezers
in the
war-forgetting consolation, not of philosophy,
but of collecting!
April 9, 1945
It was a Monday
Lucy
and the painter Elizabeth Shoumatoff
arrived
in Warm Springs
(Roosevelt
met them in an open car
in
front of a drugstore where
he
was sipping a Coca Cola)
April 11
the president was working on his Jefferson
Day speech
hands shaking
losing weight
&
having trouble gaining it back
yet rising in vigor in the hours with
long-flame Mercer
Roosevelt's Stroke
April 12
His final moments were
just before lunch
laughing
& smiling w/
Lucy
Mercer,
Laura Delano, and Margaret Suckley
(both of whom were FDR's cousins)
Elizabeth Shoumatoff was working on
a painting of him
at an easel in the room. It was 1
pm.
"I have
a terrible pain
in
the back of my head"
then
he collapsed
with a cerebral hemorrhage
Roosevelt was scheduled to go on April 20
to San
Francisco for the opening of the UN
Roosevelt was scheduled to decide whether
or not to have a demonstration of
the a-bomb
to warn Japan
Roosevelt was scheduled to go to London, Holland & Paris in
May
Roosevelt was scheduled.........
Just
before 3:30 no breathing
then
a shot of adrenaline
in the heart
Nothing.
Silence. Thanatos.
Lucy Mercer and Elizabeth Shoumatoff
hurriedly
tossed their stuff
into
suitcases
and
split.
Two
months later Lucy Mercer
burned all of FDR's letters to her.
War
I wore out Wilson
War
II Roosevelt
Eruptum
Spiritus
In Missouri, my mother came up the
steps to my room
She was trembling & weeping
She
took us down to the front terrace
at
the foot of Cemetery Hill
and
all of us cried together
at
the passing of the people's hero
My aunt Hiram told the story
of Roosevelt's pet Scottie Fala
barking
and running up a hill
as if it were racing after a Spirit.
Ahh,
what a disaster for
history
was
Roosevelt's early death!
as
•
the bomb
•
the Cold War
•
the surge of the right
ravaged forward
in
the
Big Gulf
The Gulf
And
what a gulf it was!
Harry
Truman had never been to the White House map room
where Roosevelt ran the war
He'd
never been told about the a-bomb
and
into the gulf
where
the vim and creativity
of
FDR had presided
swirled
the War Caste as described by
Richard
Barnet in his book Rockets' Red Glare:
"The
investment bankers and corporate lawyers
Roosevelt
had brought in to manage the war effort
now
became the core of a new and enduring
national
security Establishment
and
the architects of a new American foreign policy."
No chorus
in Euripides could have wailed
the
oi & the ai & the ee the passing of Roosevelt commanded
April 13
Belsen and Buchenwald
were
liberated by US and British troops
an experience no diary no photo no image
could fully compare.
Edward R. Murrow, broadcasting to
the Nation from the spot, said,
"I pray you believe what I have said
about Buchenwald."
Truman
April 13
Truman,
on the way to his first workday as Leader said,
"There
have been few men in all history the equal
of
the man into whose shoes I am stepping.
I
pray God I can measure up to the task."
April 25-June 26
51 nations signed the Charter
at
the UN founding conference in San Francisco
Russian
& American Troops Party on the Elbe
April
25
Along the east side of the Elbe River
south of Berlin
the same day as the UN conference
began in S.F.
Russian
troops who had driven
ever
westward since the saving of Stalingrad
met
American soldiers who came from West
for
jubilation, vodka and beer!
Too bad the comity didn't last
They Tell Truman about the Bomb
April 25
Secretary of War Henry Stimson
was alone that afternoon in Truman's
office
Stimson was 77
and
a "leading member" of
the
New York Republican establishment
He'd been asked into the cabinet by
Roosevelt
in
July of '40
to
help prepare the nation for war
In the other room, unbeknownst to
Truman
was General Leslie Groves
head
of the Manhattan Project
a project about which Truman knew
zero
Stimson handed Truman a two-page memo
he'd written.
"Beginning in four months," it read,
"we shall in all probability have
completed
the most terrible weapon ever known
to human history, one bomb of
which could destroy a whole city....."
Then General Groves was brought to
Truman.
He was carrying a 25 page report
on
the status of the Manhattan Project.
They wanted Truman to read it and
ask questions on the spot.
It wasn't going to be able to be tested
till July,
said the General.
Stimson wanted to use it on Japan
as soon as possible.
Ditto for the military man.
Stimson
suggested that an Interim Committee be set
up to
make recommendations on the A-bomb.
Truman
agreed
&
a few days later the Committee began to meet
though
no one with power who really
opposed
using the bomb at once
was allowed aboard
Mussolini Beyonded
April 28
Benito Mussolini was captured and
shot on the shore of Lake Como
while trying to escape to Switzerland.
His body was taken to Milan and hung
by the heels
and
his mistress Claretta Petacci also
in the Piazzale Loreto
to the hate and kicks of the public
It was the same day that Hitler drew
up his will and he and Eva Braun
were married.
April 29
Dachau was liberated by US soldiers
horror oculorum
Liberation
of Camps
Over
100 were liberated
Treblinka, Majdanek, Auschwitz, with
its entrance sign:
Arbeit
Macht Frei
&
barracks with five tier bunks
life-forms
barely alive
There were many that never really
made the headlines
such as Ohrdruf, Esterwegen, Natzweiler-Struthof
The Allies had ignored years of Jewish
leaders' imprecations
to bomb the gas chambers
Hitler Dies
April 30
In
the ruins of Berlin
in
his bunker
Adolf
shot himself
pistol
in mouth
bang
&
Eva took cyanide
Their
bodies were doused with gas
and
burned in the garden
along
with piles of documents
then
May 2
Berlin fell to the Soviets
May 3
two partisans, one with a machinegun,
knocked
at Ezra Pound's door
in Rapallo
"Come
with us, traitor"
(Sequici,
traditore!)
one of them said
Unconditional
Surrender
May 7
Near
Reims, northeast of Paris
General
Eisenhower
and
other officers
watched
General Alfred Jodl sign
unconditional surrender
Party
Time in the USA
May
8 was VE Day
a
huge celebration in the US of A
There
was a model of the Statue of Liberty
in
Times Square
Never
were there so many nods of relief,
hugging,
dancing, & shouting for joy
and
almost everyone
was
kissed by someone
May 9
VE Day in the USSR
The
Rise of Labour
May
23
During the war the Labour Party made
big advances
Churchill wanted to keep together
the coalition gov't
-Tories, Labour, Liberal-
till the end of the battle with Japan
but Labour wanted to end the coalition
at Halloween '45
so Churchill resigned this day
to "force" a general election called
for July
Truman "Like a Little Boy on a Toboggan"
June 1
The
Interim Committee that Truman had set up
to
recommend what to do with the A-bomb
met
a number of times in May & issued
its
predetermined suggestions on June 1
General
Leslie Groves later said
that
President Truman "was
like
a little boy on a toboggan
who
had never had an opportunity to say yes.
All
he could have said was no."
The
9-man Committee was freighted with plutocrats
No
one from more modest realms
had a voice
In addition to the Secretary of War
Henry Stimson from Wall Street
there were three college presidents
James
Conant of Harvard, Karl Compton of MIT
Vannevar
Bush of the Carnegie Institute in DC
plus Chicago financier Ralph Bard
international trade specialist William
Clayton,
president of New York Life George
Harrison
& Truman's Sec of State Jimmy
Byrnes
a very conservative Democrat
At the
Committee's first meeting
Secretary
of War Stimson said, "Gentlemen, it is our responsibility
to recommend
action that may turn the course of civilization."
Toboggan
In the
final sessions, four physicists were brought
to
the meetings: Enrico Fermi
&
Arthur Compton of U of Chi, Ernest O. Lawrence from the
UC Berkeley
Radiation Laboratory, and J. Robert Oppenheimer,
the
head of the Los Alamos Laboratory
where the bomb was being built
Oppenheimer
in
photos of the time looked
haunted,
emaciated & scorched
On
June 1 the Committee and the four scientists
agreed
that "the bomb should be used against Japan
as
soon as possible"
and
that
"it should be used without warning."
wheee!
June was the month
Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes premiered
in London
June 26
Fifty countries signed the United
Nations charter in SF
July 3
US, British, French & Soviets
occupied
zones in Berlin
The
First A-Bomb
July
16
On
a hundred foot tower at 5:30 AM
the
first A-bomb blasted the sand
at
Alamogordo, New Mexico
230
miles from Los Alamos
&
ground zero fused to glass
The
light of it could be seen 180 miles away
Witnesses
wore strips of dark glass for eye protection
-so dark they turned the sun green
then,
a huge ball of fire
&
a quickly ascending mushroom
lifted upward
In a
bunker six miles from Zero
J. Robert
Oppenheimer
recalled
a line from the Bhagavad Gita
"I
am become Death,
the Shatterer of worlds...."
which
as near as I can tell is Chapter XI line 32
"kalo
'smi lokasayakrt pravrddho...."
The
Grand Alliance Conference
July 17-August 2
In
Potsdam near Berlin
the victors met
where
for the 1st few days
Mr.
Churchill represented Britain
&
very much did not want Mr. Truman
alone with Stalin
(perhaps
he was frightened that Harry might
come under the sway of Josef's
hypno-nationalizing commie-vibes).
Truman
had delayed the summit
till
the a-bomb had successfully fired
Though
Churchill was fully informed about Trinity
Truman only hinted at it to Stalin
as
when one evening he mentioned that
the
US had "a new weapon of unusual destructive force"
&
Stalin replied he hoped that Truman would make
good use of it 'gainst Japan.
There
was a general agreement to
treat
the defeated Germany
as
"one economic whole"
(which
was not to be)
From
Potsdam
Japan
was warned of "prompt and utter destruction"
unless
it surrendered unconditionally
Japan said no.
On
July 25
early
in the morning
Truman
met with Lord Mountbatten and General Marshall
after
which Truman jotted in his diary:
"We
have discovered the most terrible bomb
in
the history of the world."
Then
he mentioned the successful test in New Mexico,
with
the fire-storm words:
"This
weapon is to be used against Japan
between
now and August 10th.
I have
told the Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it
so that
military objectives
and soldiers and sailors are the target
and
not women and children."
One
of the bigger questions is this:
Would
Franklin Roosevelt have fired off the bomb?
In
an interview a year after the dropping
Einstein
said, "a great majority of scientists
were
opposed to the sudden employment of
the bomb"
He
didn't think Roosevelt would have allowed it.
This
bard doesn't either.
Kyoto
General Leslie Groves was given the right
to supervise the choice of a-bomb targets
Groves headed up something called
the
"Target Committee"
which met in Oppenheimer's office in Los Alamos
Groves wanted to a-bomb Kyoto
with
its raked-sand monasteries
such
as Daitoku-ji
(Hiroshima was the second choice)
Secretary of War Stimson demanded to be shown
the
list of targets
He vetoed Kyoto
In Potsdam in July Gen. Groves made
a
final attempt to persuade Stimson
to
allow him to nuke Kyoto
No no no responded Stimson
"Aware
of no factors to change my decision."
&
Truman backed him up
Labour
Wins Big in England
July 26
There
was a huge yearning in Britain
toward
the end of the war
for a Better World
for
the war had mixed into a single strata
the
"class and occupational barriers" of England
like an earthquake at an archeological dig.
All
humans had value & there was a feeling
that
all men and women were equal.
This
had a very powerful
impact
on England's future.
Labour
presented to the voters the
Let
Us Face the Future manifesto
with
a proposal for public ownership and social reform
more
detailed than ever presented
&
the nation voted yes
as the
Labour Party won in a landslide
&
Churchill's Conservative government was out
Labour
now held 393 seats in Parliament
to the
Conservatives' 199
-an
unsung moment in
most of the published time-tracks.
Thus
began a kind of glory:
the
national health service, full employment,
a
British welfare state
&
a huge program to build housing
It
was a moment for the world
Stalin
apparently thought the Tories would win by eighty votes
(&
that the USA was in for a post-war Depression!)
Suprise, Josef!
Clement
Attlee formed a Labour ministry
&
brought a new delegation to Potsdam
The
Toboggan >>>>>>> Hiroshima
The
U.S. had built three a-bombs
One
it had already exploded
in New Mexico
&
now it was time.
It's often said that millions of Americans
might have perished in a Total Surrender
invasion of Japan
especially if the Japanese
fought for every cave & rock-ledge
isle
'pon isle
house
after house
as they had done, say, on Saipan
in a Total Resistance Divine Wind
theory of war
Many have wondered what would have
happened
if the U.S. had blown up an a-bomb
somewhere
to
show the Japanese
what
it portended
but Truman & the military voted
otherwise.
But why Hiroshima? Why not Tokyo?
Probably because Tokyo was already
almost totally destroyed by "regular"
bomb-runs
In the vast fire bombing of Tokyo
of March 9 and 10
some of the bomber crews
caught
wafts of burning flesh.
Secretary
of War Henry
Stimson
told Truman he was worried
there was so much damage
to Japan
that
there would not be enough unbombed turf
for the a-bomb to make its mark.
Basically
Truman was prevented from
hearing
the full arguments against use of the bomb.
The
last minute plea by physicist Leo Szilard
and
supported by many scientists
was
never given to Truman.
Hiroshima
August 6
The
B29 named the Enola Gay
lifted
off from the island of Tinian
&
headed toward Hiroshima
carrying
the 400 lb a-bomb known as Little Boy
On
the way they armed it then
dropped
it above the city
&
twisted into a steep turn
to
get away.
The
bomb fell 53 seconds
and
the plane had made its quick turn and
leveled
out
when
the bomb-blast shook it hard
The
pilot, Colonel Tibbets, decided to
"go back & take a look."
The
sun was up on a clear day
&
they could see the cloud
roiling
upward above 33,000 feet
"rolling
and boiling," as he later wrote.
He
looked down for signs of Hiroshima
but
it was nothing but a "black boiling debris"
4.4
square miles of total destruction
melted
eyeballs
shadows
photo-etched on sidewalks
100,000
dead at once
August 8
The US was the first country to sign
the UN Charter
The same day, the USSR declared
war on Japan & invaded Manchuria
Nagasaki
August 9
A
second bomb was ready
a
much bigger one
they
called the Fat Man
-named
after Churchill
This
one was different from Hiroshima's-
it
was a plutonium bomb
whereas
Hiroshima had been uranium
The
B-29 named Bock's Car took off from Tinian
with
several targets
both
on the island of Kyushu
in
southern Japan
The
first was the city of Kokura,
but Japanese planes appeared
so
Bock's Car headed to the second target, Nagasaki.
The
sky was overcast
but
suddenly the mists opened wide
and the plute-bomb plopped from the sky
at 11:02 AM
with 40,000 killed
A
Ghastly Experiment?
As
Howard Zinn points out,
the
second bomb on Nagasaki
"seems
to have been scheduled in advance"
It
might have been an experiment
"Were the dead and irradiated of Nagasaki
victims of a
scientific
experiment?"
he
asks,
"No
one has been able to explain why it was dropped."
Troops Happy
No one
of course told the lowly soldiers
who
had lost so many friends while
sweeping the caves of the Pacific
who
expected ghastly death
on
the Japanese mainland
who
after th' evil battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, say,
believed
that the Japanese would never surrender
-to
the last beating heart-
No one
told them that the bombardment (before the nukes)
was
wiping away Japan
no one
told them that the Russians were on the way
no one
told them
of the peace feelers from Japan
or that it would have been over soon.
They
were merely happy
that
the a-bombs seemed
to
end it quick
Whew!
Szilard
Threatened with Espionage Charge
for Proposing Debate on A-Bomb
Meanwhile
the military-industrial-surrealists would not allow
atomic
scientists to engage in any kind of public debate
Keep
your shoulders in the labs little creeps!
grrrred the mil-ind-surr's
For
instance, before the attack on Japan
a-bomb
physicist Leo Szilard sent a petition
to Truman
signed by 68 Chicago scientists
not
to a-bomb Japan without explicit warning.
General
Groves had refused to let Harry Truman see it
&
ordered the petition marked "secret"
Thanks,
Grovesie
After
Nagasaki Szilard wrote the White House
to get
the petition freed
He wanted
to publish it in Science
whereupon
the
military threatened to have Szilard fired from his job
&
prosecuted under the Espionage Act
Thanks
mil-ind-surr's
August 13
The World Zionist Congress
demanded that 1,000,000 Jews be admitted
to Palestine
August 15
the rationing of gas and fuel oil
in the USA ended
and Truman ended wartime censorship
except for strict and spank-spankish
controls
on
writing about radiation or
the
true effects on Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
The nuclear war-caste was fearful
of
adverse word on radiation sickness
leaking to the masses
MacArthur arrived in Yokohama to take
charge on August 30
with a censoring mind. He said that
no
reporter could
go to Hir or Nag
Australian war correspondent Wilfred
Burchett
hungry for a scoop
stealthed
from Tokyo to Hiroshima September 2
describing
the bomb zone as a "death-stricken alien planet"
w/ a
sulphurous smell & white masks on scurrying people
People
he saw in a hospital were "dying," he wrote,
"mysteriously
& horrible"
though seemingly uninjured by the a-blast
-a sickness
Burchett called the "atomic plague"
in a
story he eased past censors
onto
the front page of the London Daily Express.
In early
September a "junket" of reporters came to Hiroshima
MacArthur
was steamed
and
banned the use of gasoline for all flights
that
might wend Hiroshima-ward
The
Surrender
September 2
Japan formally surrendered on the
USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay
World War II Mortalities
USSR
18 million
Poland
5.8 million
Yugoslavia
1.5 million
France
563,000
England
& Commonwealth 466,000
USA
298,000
Germany
4.2 million
Italy
395,000
Japan
1.97 million
Indochina
in the fall of 1945
During the war
more than 2 million Vietnamese had
died of starvation
under the evil furnace of Japan.
and then on September 2
Ho Chi Minh proclaimed an independent
Democratic
Republic of Vietnam
(though
the French refused to recognize it)
There
was a huge celebration
of
a million people
in
Hanoi late that year
when
the revolutionaries issued a Declaration of Independence
with
the language, "The whole Vietnamese people,
animated
by a common purpose, are determined to fight
to the
bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists
to reconquer
their country."
And
so it would be.
England had taken the south of Indochina
and returned it to the French
The US persuaded Chiang Kai-shek whose
forces owned the northern
portion
of Indochina to give it also to the French
&
less than a year later, in November of '46
the
French bombarded Haiphong
and the eight-year war 'tween the Vietminh
and
the French
over 'Nam
began.
Korea
September 6
Japan had controlled Korea for 35
years
and after WW2 it was divided into
two
North
& South along the 38th parallel
in
a decision made at Potsdam
the
North was under Soviet sway
&
the South a right wing dictatorship
swayed by America
The Korean People's Republic was announced
on September 6
while on the 8th US troops landed
and set up a "military administration"
refusing to recognize the Republic.
The
Fair Deal
September 6
President Truman came up with a
a
21 point proposal
which
called, for instance, for guaranteed
full
employment
Of course
the right wing of his own party
&
the conservative class structure
worked
against it
so that
by the time the Full Employment Act of '46 was
signed
on February 20, '46
Full
Employment
was
not even mentioned
Things are Fine at Trinity
September 9
a
gurgle-gaggle of US reporters
in canvas over-
shoes
'gainst
rad-burns
were
driven to the Trinity Site
to
click a basic message of
"Hiroshima,
Mon Amour"
to the nation
General
Leslie Groves escorted the reporters-
his
driver was Patrick Stout, age 29
who
posed for photos down in the Trinity blast crater
Hi,
world.
22
years later Stout was slugged with leukemia
-
that was 1967
&
he passed away in '69
o
MacArthur
shat down a harsh censorship on Japan
till
1949
Even
John Hersey's Hiroshima
was
delayed for two years in Japan
till
the Authors League of America's complaints
freed
it to press
September 20
The All India Congress Committee under
Gandhi and Nehru
said no to British proposals for self gov't
and
called upon Britain to "quit India."
September 26
the great Bélà Bártok
passed away of leukemia
He been
5 years in exile in NYC
working
at Columbia U
transcribing
Yugoslavian folk tunes
October 11
A breakdown of talks 'tween Mao and
Chiang Kai-shek
& fighting began 'tween Nationalists
and Communists
in
northern China
for
control of Manchuria
October 20
Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon formed
the Arab League
announcing that a Jewish state in
Palestine would lead to war
Swing
to the Left in France
October 21
The
French voters
opted
for national sharing
Commies
148 seats
Socialists
134
Conservatives
62
The
French Gov't soon nationalized the Bank of France
and
other private banks, Air France
and
Renault auto!
* Editor's
Note: Some of the graphics in this poem were lost in translation,
prompting the Corpse to come up with alternative solutions.
For example, in the section called "Roosevelt's Stroke,"
images of Roosevelt were replaced by the word "Roosevelt."
Also, in another situation, the symbols ">>>>>>>"
were used in place of an arrow. The Kyoto section also involved
an imagistic sacrifice.
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