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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:13:15 GMT

James Carroll

The rusting and fall of the Iron Curtain

‘YOU KNOW what’s been going on in Berlin,’’ my father said to me. It was a night in the summer of 1961. I was an ROTC-obsessed student at Georgetown University. Dad was a general on the Air Staff at the Pentagon, where he had worked late. He had let his driver go home early, which meant that I could pick him up in the Lincoln - a thrill. Now we were cruising across Washington toward Generals’ Row at Bolling Air Base, where our next-door neighbor was General Curtis LeMay.

“Yes, sir,’’ I said. Berlin was the flashpoint of a confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. Western sectors in the city were an escape hatch for East Germans and others behind the Iron Curtain, thousands of whom fled to the West every week. Nikita Khrushchev was desperate to stop that, and threatened war. President Kennedy had just gone on television to respond, “We shall not surrender.’’ He announced a high alert, with bombers in the air, a new draft, fallout shelters. I could guess what was going on inside the Pentagon.

My father said, “I may not come home one of these nights. . . . I’m going to depend on you to take my place with Mom and the boys . . . get everybody in the car . . . drive south.’’ Away from ground zero. I sensed my father’s cold certainty that the catastrophic war was coming - maybe soon. What I didn’t know was that LeMay and other top brass were urging Kennedy to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against Moscow. Nuclear war with the Soviet Union was inevitable in any case - so hit them now! That summer we still had a “first strike’’ advantage that would be lost as Moscow’s arsenal grew. My father, I would later learn, opposed LeMay. That night he showed me his fear of the coming war, and asked me to do something about it. “Yes, sir,’’ I said again. The rest of my life followed from that moment - even if differently from Dad’s. I’ve written of it before.

Kennedy said no to the generals in 1961, laying the groundwork for his refusal to order an attack over Cuba 14 months later. The Berlin crisis was resolved that August when Khrushchev ordered the construction of the Berlin Wall. The escapes stopped. Kennedy protested the wall, but secretly considered it a godsend, avoiding war. Moscow soon achieved nuclear parity with Washington, making any preemptive strike impossible. Mutual assured destruction. But the national security establishment, including generals and the “totalitarian school’’ of Kremlinologists, continued to regard the Cold War standoff as permanent high noon, hair trigger forever. That is why the mad accumulation of nukes continued for another quarter-century. The core doctrine of “realist’’ orthodoxy was that the Soviet Union could only be defeated by war.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the event that proved the realists wrong. When joyous citizens breached the Berlin Wall with rock music and dancing instead of guns and tanks, the Cold War was over. Against every prediction, the Soviet Union dismantled itself nonviolently. A number of factors made that happen, including the multidecade restraint of military men like my father, the internal collapse of the Soviet economy, and the steadfast arms control regime, which began with Kennedy and Khrushchev, and climaxed with Ronald Reagan’s embrace of Mikhail Gorbachev’s astonishing proposals at Geneva and Reykjavik, Iceland.

But Gorbachev and Reagan were both responding to something else - the pressures from below of grass-roots movements for peace on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Unimagined by realists, unforeseen by the CIA, a nonviolent democracy movement, beginning with Lech Walesa’s Solidarity in Poland, and spreading through the satellite nations into Russia itself, culminated in the refusal of communist soldiers to obey orders to shoot demonstrators. In the West, a mass movement against nuclear weapons, reflected even in Hollywood movies, coalesced around the simple call for a “Freeze!’’ that was initiated by an MIT graduate student named Randy Forsberg.

Gorbachev and Reagan deserve full credit for ending the nuclear standoff nonviolently, but they could not have done it without the “naive’’ determination of their respective populations to reject war. Nov. 9, 1989, redefined realism to mean, Give peace a chance. The greatest date of our lifetimes.

James Carroll’s column appears regularly in the Globe.

Friday, November 06, 2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:12:12 GMT

Singapore, 1938.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 06:56:25 GMT

“What defines a best friend? What are the requirements to be a good best friend? How many hours a week does it entail? Stupid questions that have no answers. A best friend is not defined by how many times they talk on the phone, or how many hours they hang out together. It is not defined by how many sleepovers they gossip at, or how many inside jokes they have. There are no requirements or laws that state that a good best friend must hang out with them every weekend, or tell each other every little detail. A best friend is a matter of opinion. It is the person who has been there for you through everything, not just through the fun things, or the little things. It is the person that you call when you are at your absolute worst, it is the person who saves you when you didn’t even notice that you needed saving, mostly it is the person who accepts you for who you are, and the person that you are becoming."

- Unknown

To my best friends (you know who you are): Thank you. I love you all x

Monday, October 05, 2009

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 01:29:45 GMT

So I'm taking Ming's advice and starting a book of Five Good Things.
Ever so often we forget what we are grateful for, what makes us laugh, what makes us smile..we forget the little things in life that just happened to make our day.
So here it begins, my little book of five good things.

1. Lovely Sunday brunch with Caroline and the girls
2. Claire's facebook message (and the tennis girls)
"If ever there is tomorrow that we're not together, there is something you must always remember: you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you."
:) Just think of each other and we'll get by.
3. S'mores by the fire
4. Biking back to Stone-D through the mist
5. For friends like Ming who give some damned good advice.

Love,
Jiezhen

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:47:19 GMT

WELLESLEY ♥

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:54:48 GMT

Summer's almost over.
This time next week, I'll be in New York.
Time does fly by, especially when you've been having a ton of fun.
It's been a great summer.
Lots of traveling, volunteering, catching up with old friends, making new ones, and spending quality time with loved ones.
But between the running around, endless nights and laughter, I'm glad I took some time off for myself.
It's been a crazily packed but restful summer.
But now it's time to move on.
Au Revoir Hotchkiss, France, and Singapore:
WELLESLEY, HERE I COME (:

We've come a long way since kindergarten, haven't we?(:

Friday, July 31, 2009

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:59:53 GMT

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

- George Carlin

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:53:54 GMT

In Sydney with friends (:

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:02:08 GMT

OOOOOOOH
BIRTHDAY TIMEEEEE

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:40:28 GMT

This is beautiful.