Congratulations to Seabrook Police Detective Donny Chase, who was recently recognized by Chief Michael Gallagher and the Seabrook Board of Selectmen upon his retirement after thirty years of service to the people of Seabrook. Thank you Detective Chase for a great career.
Muhammad Ali has passed. As a boxer his achievements were staggering, but his force of personality and personal charisma brought him status that far exceeded boxing, making him a worldwide icon. Although Ali today is beloved it was not always so, as he stood up for what he believed, and became one of the flash points of change in American society, refusing to be inducted into the U.S. Armed Forces due to his religious beliefs, splitting American public opinion over his cause and beliefs. That split was reflective of the changes occurring in the United States in the politically charged Vietnam era, and it spilled over into the boxing ring.
Ali, known then as Cassius Clay, took on a fearsome champion, Charles “Sonny” Liston in 1964 for the heavyweight championship. Ali was 22, and Liston was one of the heaviest punchers ever seen in the division. Ali’s combination of foot and hand speed befuddled Liston, who would not get off his stool to start the seventh round. The very next day Ali announced his conversion to Islam, starting a personal and boxing journey that left a huge footprint, in America and the world.
When Ali refused induction into the U.S. Armed Forces as a conscientious objector he was stripped of his title and refused a boxing license. His absence of 3.5 years, in the prime of his career, not only robbed us of watching a man at the peak of his abilities but caused him financial hardship, and brought into question whether his boxing skills would still be there if and when he returned. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, unanimously, in Ali’s favor on the draft question he readied a return. When he entered the ring against undefeated champion Joe Frazier it was two undefeated champions facing off for the first time. That fight, billed as “the fight of the century” was so much more than a boxing match. Fans split along racial and political lines in choosing who to root for, with the more “conservative’ folks lining up with Frazier, with pre-fight discussions on the relative merits of the fighters often spilling into other non-boxing areas. Ali, as always, created a firestorm with his anti-Frazier tirades, building gate and interest, but creating scars on Frazier that never quite healed. Despite administering to Frazier one of the worst beatings I have ever seen in a boxing ring Ali lost the fight, as Frazier would just not stop coming, knocking Ali down in the 15th round with a savage left hook. Ali got right up, but both men left a little piece of themselves in the ring that night.
Ali regained his title with a shocking KO of George Foreman in Zaire, Africa, deploying some of the same verbal tactics against Foreman that he used on Frazier. And he fought an epic third battle with Frazier, the “Thrilla in Manila” in which both men were totally spent by the end of the fight, an Ali victory by TKO. Both men, at that point, were effectively finished as boxers, having left every last bit of themselves in that ring in Manila. Ali and Frazier, in a boxing sense, will be forever linked. They both showed heart and courage beyond any reasonable expectation.
Ali left boxing, but he never left the worldwide stage, even with Parkinson’s disease. And as we say goodbye to him it is fair to say that for some of us the world will never be the same without him. He stood up when it would have been so much easier to sit down. He entertained, but he also taught. He left a footprint so large that it cannot be forgotten, as an athlete, and as a man. RIP Muhammad Ali.
The Seabrook Fire Department cut the ribbon on a brand new state of the art dispatch center this past week. Our thanks to Todd Williams of TCS Communications, the lead contractor on this job. Our thanks to the Seabrook IT Department for all of their work on the project, and an especially big thank you to the voters of Seabrook, who authorized this purchase through a warrant article. Our professional firefighters and EMT’s will be able to better serve the residents of Seabrook through this very important procurement.
The Seabrook Memorial Day Remembrance and Parade was held on May 29, 2016. My thanks to the American Legion, to our Recreation Director Katie Duffey, to our Board of Selectmen for their support and participation, and especially to our veterans, who have served and sacrificed to make our way of life possible.
On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller by Richard Norton Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Such a terrific book on a political giant, who played an enormous role in American politics, and whose name and philosophy came to represent a major point of divide in the Republican Party. Author Richard Norton Smith immediately entices you by opening with Rockefeller getting booed off the stage at the 1964 GOP Convention, crystalizing the split in the GOP that continues to exist today. (A shout out to “Before the Storm” by Rick Perlstein, who covers the rise of Goldwater and the conservative takeover of the GOP)
In reading another review of this book I found a criticism that struck me as essentially correct: there is so much to write about that even at 800 plus pages a multi-volume effort would have allowed a more detailed look at some truly fascinating pieces of Rockefeller’s life. As I started I hoped for additional detail on the Rockefeller/Robert Moses relationship, although it is covered. (Of course the Caro masterpiece “The Power Broker” gives plenty of detail)
Smith gives us a good overview of the personality and politics, with the major flaws not hidden, but balanced by much of the good parts of the overall record. He covers the family, Rockefeller’s love and devotion to art, and of course the politics. For those that love the politics this is an area that could have used more, but what is there is just terrific. Rockefeller’s stop and start effort to secure the 1960 GOP nomination showed the personal political flaws that were to remain with him in every one of his efforts to secure the Republican presidential nomination (1960, 1964, 1968). My own view is that 1968 could have been the year where the greatest potential existed for Rockefeller, but he was out-flanked and out thought by Nixon, starting in 1964, when Nixon campaigned tirelessly for the doomed Goldwater candidacy, and Rockefeller refused to do so. Nixon played the long game, and Rockefeller got caught up in the deep Party split that happened to the GOP in 1964. He never recovered his national footing, and his failure to achieve his life goal of being President weighed on him later in life, leading to some introspection and self criticism as he neared the end. The “mutation” that occurred in the GOP came just in time to derail Rockefeller on the national scene.
Looking at Rockefeller’s efforts in 1960 the Goldwater wave of 1964 was just forming.
“The incident was nevertheless revealing of a top-down mentality driving the Rockefeller campaign to pursue Republican kingmakers, many of them barely able to stomach Theodore, much less Franklin, Roosevelt. At the time, his chilly reception was attributed to inferior organization and hardball tactics employed by Len Hall and other Nixon strategists. This overlooked something much larger, a mutation occurring within Republican ranks, as the party’s center of gravity shifted right and the polarizing emotions of the sixties evicted Eisenhower-style moderation.”
And yes, there are similarities between yesterday and today. As that Goldwater wave started to become visible after the election of JFK, Kennedy observed: “….President Kennedy, in a Los Angeles visit coinciding with Rockefeller’s heartbreaking trip to New Guinea, to decry “those on the fringes of our society who have sought to escape their own responsibility by finding a simple solution, an appealing slogan, or a convenient scapegoat.”
As Rockefeller looked to 1964 the wave hit, and the description rendered in this book, once again, shows the similarities to today.
“Nothing better illustrated the Rockefeller campaign’s outmoded approach toward winning Republican minds, let alone hearts. In many a boardroom and country club, 1964 boiled down to an unequal contest between Goldwater passion and Rockefeller prestige. So while Hinman cultivated his peers in the GOP hierarchy, below the radar, in precinct meetings and district conventions, an entirely new Republican electorate swarmed the barricades. It wasn’t the Eastern Establishment alone targeted for elimination by Clif White’s army; it was the Republican Establishment personified by all those lawyers and bankers and oil barons whose loyalty to their class, and to the social and cultural status quo, rendered them ideologically suspect to the emerging conservative movement.”
Despite Rockefeller’s failures at the national level Smith shows what a successful political Governor Rockefeller was in New York. As time wore on Rockefeller had major problems, which were covered, including the debacle at Attica. Rockefeller’s move to the right is chronicled, and the internal contradictions that manifested themselves are shown expertly by the author. The author does not shy away from Rockefeller’s womanizing, giving an unvarnished view of his personal foibles in this area, including coverage of his death.
Rockefeller served as Vice President to Gerald Ford, and that painful chapter is covered in detail, including his great animus towards a pair of Ford staffers named Cheney and Rumsfeld. Rockefeller’s personal political failures as a national politician come through loud and clear, leading his friend President Ford to dump him from the ticket in favor of Bob Dole in 1976. That ignominious end brought the curtain down on Rockefeller’s political career, and left him embittered. Much of the blame for his problems, despite the hostility of Cheney and Rumsfeld, belonged to Rockefeller, who could just not be a second banana.
I highly recommend this book, which is integral to understanding the political period that shaped much of what America is today. Rockefeller may not have succeeded in his ultimate goal, but he can be remembered as one of the giants of his era.
The Seabrook Library will present an author presentation and signing of the book, “Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist” on Thursday, April 28, 2016, at 6:30 pm at the Seabrook Library, 25 Liberty Lane in Seabrook.
The author, Stephen Kurkjian, is one of the most acclaimed investigative reporters in the country. A forty-year veteran of the Boston Globe, he is the paper’s former Washington bureau chief and a founding member of its investigative Spotlight Team. Kurkjian has won more than twenty-five national and regional awards, including the Pulitzer Prize on three occasions. He is a graduate of Suffolk Law School and lives in Boston.
This program is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
Congratulations to newly sworn in Seabrook Police Deputy Brett Walker and Police Sergeant Kevin Gelineau. My thanks to the Seabrook Board of Selectmen for their strong leadership, and to Police Chief Michael Gallagher.
It has been somewhat fashionable to kick the stuffing out of Emerson, Lake & Palmer these days, but I have to admit that I still count myself as a fan. With the news of the death of Keith Emerson a true keyboard maestro has passed from the scene. I saw them twice, once in Springfield, and once in Hartford, and they really did put on a terrific show. Emerson was indeed the musical driving force behind ELP, and has left behind some really spectacular work. One of my favorites, from Brain Salad Surgery, is below. RIP, Keith Emerson.
I read the first of the three Rick Perlstein books back in 2014. In this election cycle featuring the rise of Trumpism, and the seeming disintegration of the national GOP it might be time to take another look at this outstanding work. I left the below review over at Goodreads.
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A pretty fine book. I am not sure that folks that are not enamored of politics would be of the same view, as it adds a level of detail that might not be for everyone. The book shows us the roots of the modern American conservative movement, which grew out of the ashes of the Barry Goldwater campaign for President in 1964. This is not a campaign book on 1964, but rather a look at how conservatives managed to begin to assume control of the GOP Party apparatus after the Nixon defeat in 1960. This is where the book shines, showing us the real split in the GOP between the “moderates” led by Nelson Rockefeller, and the hard conservative right, which produced Goldwater. That split reverberates today in so many different ways:
Helping to move both Parties in a more ideological direction, starting the geographic movement of the formerly Democratic South to the Republican Party as the Conservative movement rejected federal Civil Rights legislation, starting the great alienation of African-American voters from the Republican Party based on the conservative rejection of civil rights and not so secret alignment with the forces of racism that had prior resided in the Democratic Party.
Todays fight between the Tea Party and Republican “regulars” looks very similar to the fight between the young conservative movement (with prominent participation by the John Birch Society) and the Rockefeller/Scranton wing of the GOP back then. I read another review of the book that highlighted what I consider to be a major turning point in American politics that occurred here, to wit that the “other side” (Democrats) were looking to “destroy America” and that they were not just political adversaries but enemies to be demonized as communists, communist sympathizers, heathens looking to extinguish religion from American life, etc…..
Perlstein manages to get the point across that the LBJ landslide of 1964 managed to mask the strength that the conservative movement was accumulating, with some measure of that strength based on the changes happening in the country in the area of race, and “white backlash” to “change”. (Boston’s Louise Day Hicks is mentioned several times as evidence of that backlash extending to northern voters.) Why the electoral slaughter then? Perlstein correctly indicts the Goldwater campaign team for their ineptitude, borne out of both incompetence and a desire for ideological purity. The candidate is not spared in that area either. LBJ is shown to be a political pro who is more than willing to exploit the missteps of the Goldwater campaign, doing so ruthlessly while the Goldwater campaign misses the opportunities left to them by the few mistakes made by the Johnson team.
Of course there are some important historical figures dealt with in this book. Goldwater’s campaign produced some real national attention for a rising conservative star, who by all accounts out-performed the candidate on the stump, by the name of Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s success on the stump would eventually produce the roadmap for a conservative victory. Richard Nixon is a not so major figure in the book but an important one nonetheless. He is shown somewhat clumsily probing for support in the run-up to 1964, and after the Goldwater nomination being written off by both factions of the GOP. But Nixon was far shrewder than his enemies in the GOP, working tirelessly for GOP candidates throughout the country, including Goldwater, while others held their noses and stayed away. Nixon was collecting chits for 1968, and he was willing to do the groundwork that others disdained. A good entrée into Perlstein’s next book in this trilogy, “Nixonland”. Phyllis Schafly, William Buckley Jr., the John Birch Society, Nelson Rockefeller, William Scranton, Henry Cabot Lodge and many others you may recognize play prominent roles in this book.
We can see the outlines of the two modern Parties taking shape from this process, with much of the current rhetoric from the right not changing substantially in tone from what the Goldwater acolytes were producing. Richard Nixon is credited with creating the “southern strategy” that produced Republican victories in 1968 and 1972, but the groundwork for that strategy was laid by the decisions and choices made by Barry Goldwater and his campaign in 1964. The modern political era started here. This book gives a detailed accounting of how we started down the road we remain on today.
Right after I read this and posted my review on Goodreads Mayor Buddy Cianci passed away. I have placed the review here, as well as a video of Mayor Cianci talking about the book on WGBH. Good stuff from a very interesting man, who had a very impactful political career in Providence.
Politics and Pasta: How I Prosecuted Mobsters, Rebuilt a Dying City, Dined with Sinatra, Spent Five Years in a Federally Funded Gated Community, and Lived to Tell the Tale by Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A pretty entertaining book by the Prince of Providence, former Mayor Buddy Cianci. Mayor Cianci gives an broad brush overview of his colorful career in politics, and takes a couple of get even shots at some of his principal tormenters. You can see the culture clash in this book, as the refined blue bloods of Rhode Island politics (Lincoln and John Chaffee, Lincoln Almond, etc) collectively hold their nose while dealing with the over the top ethnic Mayor of Providence. In the end the establishment got their man, putting Cianci in jail on a RICO charge.
We get the Buddy side of the story, but we also do get an unvarnished view of how his “philosophy” of municipal management was translated into action. There is no question that Providence, under his stewardship, accomplished some significant things that changed the City for the better. Buddy was a broad stroke Mayor, and some of those broad strokes created great and positive change for the City. But not knowing the details, as he ruefully acknowledges, was one of his great weaknesses, and ultimately brought him down.
I do not believe they will be teaching the Buddy Cianci methodology of management at any schools in the near future. Having said that he was undeniably a beloved figure in the City, and can correctly point to some transformative accomplishments. Kicking the fossilized blue blood establishment in the shins has to be worth a few gold stars as well. I never tried the Marinara Sauce Mayor Cianci put out, but the book was entertaining for sure.
