Some Thoughts After Alabama

I'm an old white guy from Mississippi.

I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two.

Last night I was excited to watch MSNBC interview Patricia Gaines, a white volunteer for Doug Jones on Tuesday who had been a child in Selma in 1961.

The last Time she had been in Selma was the night her family fled in the middle of the night because they had been threatened by the Klan. Her father had been pastor of a white church in Selma who announced that he would welcome black worshipers. In 1961 threats by the Klan were not to be lightly dismissed.

It was exciting to watch how thrilled she was to attend Doug Jones' victory celebration Tuesday night and to celebrate what a good man Alabama has elected. My wife and I shared her excitement.

In 1957, we were students at the University of Mississippi. I was president of the state Methodist Student Movement. We had tried to arrange a social event with an African American choir from a nearby black college who was performing at our church. It was absolutely prohibited by both church and university officials. I know the forces at work and was as thrilled as Patricia Gaines at what just happened.

I knew many courageous students and ministers who spoke up after Brown vs Board of education. Students from all of the major denominations led in examining racial issues. In fact, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission complained that the students who headed each of the religious groups at Ole Miss were integrationists. It was at least true that student religious activists wrestled mightily with the important issues of the day and mostly rejected white supremacy.

Student Christians seem to be freshly addressing these issues. Good.

The Strange Case Of Michael Flynn

For anyone who has been following the Mueller investigation, The recent guilty plea by Retired General Michael Flynn was no surprise.

What was a surprise is the lack of professional integrity exhibited by General Flynn.

For that matter, he didn't seem too bright.

How can he not have known that his telephone calls to Russian Ambassador Kislyak would be monitored?

How can he not have recognized Russian efforts to recruit him to their cause?

He was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency?

Inconceivable!

To give him the benefit of the doubt, he seems to have had little or no awareness of Russian intelligence methods.

Note to our intelligence officers: Russia is not our friend.

And Putin despises democracy.

Beware!

Haley Barbour's Prophecy

My eyes have been glued to the TV screen watching the returns for Alabama's special election to fill the senate seat vacated by US Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.

With over 70% of the vote in earlier in the evening the race remained too close to call. It was exciting to follow the count. I am delighted with the result.

I have never lived in Alabama, so I am not qualified to draw a lot of conclusions about tonight's senate election. But I know Mississippi well. And I want to call attention to a forgotten prophecy.

In 1993, Haley Barbour of Yazoo City, Mississippi became chair of the Republican National Committee. Washington's journalists found this a surprising development. "Doesn't it seem strange," they asked, "that you, from a state in the solid democratic South, have become chair of the Republican Party?"

Barbour, exhibiting his normal aplomb, replied "why, not at all. Where Mississippi has been is where the country is going."

Haley Barbour's prophecy was not good news, especially for those from Mississippi.

I know where Mississippi has been, and I don't believe the country really wants to go there. Even the people of Alabama welcomed having Mississippi next door as an example that things could be worse.

I know where Mississippi has been, because I watched it go there since 1940.

I never met Haley Barbour, but I know his home town well. My father was born there in 1915, my grandparents were born there in 1880, and my brother was born there in 1941. One of my great uncles was owner, editor and publisher of the Yazoo City Herald.

In 1940 Mississippi, elections were for white people.  So were sidewalks.  In those days, political parties were deemed to be private organizations who could determine their own membership. Across the South, the Democratic Party only allowed white members. This scheme was abolished by the US Supreme Court in 1944.

Jim Crow remained alive and well. Education for black children was optional, and the facilities were abominable.

Black lives really didn't matter. I learned this in 1945 when I overheard adults talking about a lack man who was "shot while trying to escape. They found 29 bullets in his body.

I didn't believe the "shot trying to escape" story.

I entered first grade in Greenwood, MS in 1943. I graduated from Ole Miss in 1958.

I have stories to tell.

Mostly I don't want the United States to go where Mississippi has been.

I fear our present leaders want to take us there. Bad idea.

Kennedy Assassination - Personal Recollections - Conspiracy?

"Where were you the day President Kennedy was assassinated?"

There was a time when this was a nearly ubiquitous question. Like "where were you on December 7, 1941?"

Such questions place your personal history in a national context.

Too often as I grow older, I hear the answer "I wasn't born yet."

I was disappointed last month that the president delayed release of documents about the assassination. The longer the delay, the more persistent and inventive are the rumors of conspiracy and cover up.

Even so, I recently recalled some memories that need to be put in the mix.

On Friday, November 22, 1963, I was a twenty-six year old navy lieutenant attending a six-month course in Newport, Rhode Island training to be a department head of a US Navy destroyer. That Friday marked the completion of the first period of our training. We were to be examined the following week.

Vice Admiral W.R. Smedberg III, Chief of Naval Personnel spoke that morning to the graduating class of the US Naval Officer Candidate School.

Admiral Smedberg ordered that all officer students at the several schools on the Newport Naval Station gather at the main auditorium at 1:30 to hear a speech by the Admiral.

Over the lunch hour, students at the Destroyer School heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. We wondered if the Admiral would deliver the speech.

When we entered the auditorium, Admiral Smedberg approached the podium and began speaking as if nothing had happened. Worse than that, the speech turned out to be an attack on the defense policies of the Kennedy administration.

After about 20 minutes, the admiral's aide walked out and handed Admiral Smedberg a note. The admiral read the note and put it in his jacket pocket.  Then he looked up from his notes and announced that President Kennedy had died. He then continued his speech.

We were stunned. After the admiral left, we student officers had to return to our classes to hear the lectures scheduled for that afternoon.

It was a bad weekend for study and preparation for exams.

None of us suspected Admiral Smedberg of involvement in a conspiracy ala Seven Days in May. That movie didn't come out until the following year.