Washington’s Christmas Gift

The Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, which lit the fuse on the American Revolution, were followed by General George Washington’s successful siege of Boston in March the following year. (See my April 19, 2010 blog, "That memory may their deed redeem.") After that, however, the events of 1776 went mostly downhill for Washington and his Continental Army.

New York – at the time not more than a village on the southern tip of Manhattan Island – would be the next logical target of attack, Washington correctly surmised, so he moved his army and began fortifications to withstand the British assault. Some of the Army remained on Manhattan Island and in the village of New York. However, Washington sent some of the Army across the East River to fortify Brooklyn Heights on Long Island, thereby dividing his forces – a strategic blunder in military terms.

In July the British began arriving under the command of General William Howe and the stage was set for the Battle of Brooklyn Heights. It would cost the Americans 1,400 casualties that they could ill afford to lose – as badly outnumbered as the Continental Army was. Before the battle, Washington told his troops:

“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them.

“The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.”

Helped by local Tories on Long Island, the British were guided through an unguarded pass that allowed them to get into the rear of the Americans defending Brooklyn Heights. This they did while feigning a frontal attack that fooled the American forces into thinking they were holding the real British attack at bay. When it became apparent that the Americans were about to be surrounded, Washington was aided by sympathetic locals, who furnished him with every kind of available boat so that he could ferry the survivors across the East River to safety in New York throughout the night. He was helped by providentially calm waters and a fog which covered the retreat of the last soldiers, including Washington, just as day dawned.

The Continental Congress ordered Washington to hold New York City. But he was concerned that his army may have escaped one British trap on Brooklyn Heights for another trap on Manhattan. He kept his escape route open to upper Manhattan Island by once again splitting his forces, with 5,000 left in New York and the rest in Harlem Heights.

In September 1776 General Howe began landing 12,000 men on Manhattan Island and took control of New York. The Americans left rear guards at Fort Washington and Fort Lee, but withdrew the rest to Harlem where Howe tried to surround them. Washington then moved his army to White Plains, fought the British in a brief battle there, and continued moving farther north.

Howe gave up the chase. Instead, he returned to Manhattan and captured Fort Washington and its 3,000 Americans in mid November. Many were killed after surrendering. A few days later he captured Fort Lee, located across the Hudson River from Fort Washington and additional Americans.

Now on the run, Washington got the remainder of his army across the Hudson River and into the New Jersey countryside. But with British General Charles Lord Cornwallis in hot pursuit, he was forced to continue across the Delaware River and into Pennsylvania in early December. Of the 30,000 soldiers he had at his army’s peak, Washington now had only 3,000.

The battles around New York and the loss of the city were the worst period of the Revolutionary War. Morale was collapsing and entire regiments were deserting the revolution. Washington's army was also shrinking because enlistments were expiring. To save themselves from the pursuing Cornwallis, the army had destroyed boats or moved those remaining to the western shore for miles in both directions of where they had crossed the Delaware River north of Trenton, New Jersey.

In the 18th century, armies went into winter quarters rather than fight in harsh winter weather. Cornwallis returned to Manhattan leaving only a small detachment of Hessian troops in Trenton for the winter. Washington could hardly believe his army had been spared pursuit and destruction.

The army encamped near McKonkey's Ferry, not far from the crossing site. Of the men Washington had, 1,700 were unfit for duty and needed hospital care. Valuable supplies had been lost in the hasty retreat across New Jersey. Lost also was contact with General Gates and General Charles Lee and their divisions of Washington’s army. Both were ordered to join the encampment along the Delaware, but snow prevented Gates and Lee was likely insubordinate, because of the low regard with which he held Washington, his commander.

However, on December 20, 2,000 of Lee’s men arrived under the command of General John Sullivan. Lee had been captured by the British on the 12th, allegedly in search of more comfortable lodgings, but since he was captured in a Peekskill New York tavern in his nightshirt, it was rumored that he had spent the night with the tavern’s owner – the “widow” White. An aide escaped to alert Sullivan, who took command. Later that day, Gates arrived with his division reduced to 600 due to expired commissions. Another 1,000 militia men from Philadelphia under Colonel John Cadwalader joined Washington after Gates arrived.

These reinforcements plus volunteers from the local area, raised Washington’s troop strength to 6,000 – enough for a small campaign. Orders were issued to bring supplies to the camp. Men were sent into the surrounding area to recruit new soldiers, producing more volunteers. The Hessians did their cause no good by mistreating the local residents, which helped raise militia troops in surrounding New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The low morale and expiring enlistments were problematic for Washington in those soulful days of 1776. But the first of a series of pamphlets under the general title of The American Crisis was published in the Pennsylvania Journal by Thomas Paine on December 19. Its soaring rhetoric gave a spiritual boost to those in arms by reminding them why they were fighting:

“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

Washington ordered that the pamphlet be read to his troops on December 23rd. But he knew something more than stirring words was needed to hold off the anticipated losses of soldiers when enlistments expired at the end of the year. Washington decided to commit his army to a bold winter action and announced to his staff that they would attack the Hessians stationed at Trenton before daybreak on the day following Christmas. Because the Hessians were German troops, they could be expected to celebrate Christmas by excessive drinking and feasting, leaving them vulnerable to the surprise of a dawn attack.

Preparations began immediately. The attack plan called for crossings of the Delaware in three places, including the one that Washington would lead near McKonkey's Ferry. Boats were assembled to carry 2,400 men, many of whom lacked shoes despite the snow and most of whom could not swim. The boats must also shuttle 50 to 75 horses and 18 cannons across the river in the evening of Christmas Day 1776. Only experienced men were allowed to operate the boats – seamen from the Boston harbor area, dock workers, and ferrymen who knew the Delaware River well.

Washington ordered three days’ food rations to be carried and new flints were issued for all muskets. Except for senior officers, everyone was told only that as soon as it became dark they would embark on an unspecified secret mission. As they prepared, the weather worsened, turning from rain to sleet and snow. One soldier wrote in his diary that it “blew a hurricane.”

Washington appointed his portly chief of artillery, Henry Knox, to be in charge of the logistics of the crossing. Knox later wrote in his diary that the crossing was accomplished "with almost infinite difficulty", and that its most significant danger was "floating ice in the river". Another diarist wrote that the whole operation might well have failed "but for the stentorian lungs of Colonel Knox".

Washington was among the first to cross, commanding that a cordon be thrown around the little beachhead for security. No local was to pass through. His men were given as a password “Victory or Death.”

Only Washington’s group would make it across the Delaware to launch the attack. The foul weather prevented one of the other two groups from crossing; and the third group could not get their artillery pieces over the river and therefore ordered the men back into Pennsylvania.

Among Washington’s officers that night were young men who would later play important roles in the new Republic: future President but then Lieutenant James Monroe, future Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall, and Alexander Hamilton, future Secretary of the Treasury.

The crossing was complete at 4 a.m., several hours behind plan and losing the cover of darkness for the attack. It was a nine-mile march to Trenton in a driving snowstorm. At 6 a.m. Washington divided his men into two attack columns – one under Green’s command and the other under Sullivan. The columns arrived on the outskirts of Trenton at 8 a.m. and started the attack at two points. The Hessian garrison was caught asleep and still partially drunk. American artillery cannons were quickly wheeled into a position where they could sweep the area into which the roused Hessians poured. When their commander was mortally wounded, 900 of them gave up and only a few made good an escape to the south. Only two Americans were killed versus 22 Hessians killed and 83 wounded. Everything went so well for Washington’s rag-tag army, the fight was over in less than a half hour.

Washington's victory was complete but his situation remained precarious. The horrendous winter storm continued and he had to re-cross the river, this time with all of his prisoners.

When the news of victory in the Battle of Trenton became known, it reinvigorated the flagging spirit of revolution, steeled the will of the Continental Congress, and for the first time, gave hope to the colonies that freedom from the British might just be possible. England was shocked by the American victory, and potential allies in France, Holland, and Spain believed the revolution might be a force to be reckoned with.

Almost five years would pass before General Charles Lord Cornwallis would surrender the British Army in 1781 at Yorktown to General Washington. But he would concede that the war was lost on the heights above the Delaware that day after Christmas in 1776.

The Rest of the Story

For more than a half century, 18 million listeners a day on 1,200 radio stations would tune into their favorite news program, which began with a booming voice announcing:

HELLO AMERICANS! THIS IS PAUL HARVEY …
STAAAAND BYYYY … FOR NEEEWS!!

I was one of those 18 million, having “discovered” Paul Harvey during my college years as I drove to classes. I was particularly captivated by his delivery with its distinctive pauses and his signature sign off – “Paul Harvey … (pause) … Gooood Day!”

By his own admission, Paul Harvey fell in love with words and ran away to join radio in 1933. He rolled those words across the airwaves without a slur, taking special care to pronounce “nee-euws” instead of “nooze” and reck-ord” instead of “reckerd.” When two consonants abutted in multi-syllable words, as in webpage, Harvey made sure that one consonant ended before the other began by inserting an “a” as in “web-a-page.”

Notwithstanding his elocution, Harvey’s audience was down home Middle America and he spoke to it as if it were drawn up at his feet, intently listening. Unlike any other news program, Paul Harvey reported news that was largely out of the mainstream. His stories were G-rated, devoid of salacious and shocking reports of violence and tragedy – the fodder that fuels most news programs. A news story about the war in the Middle East might be followed by one about a bear cub who got stuck in a suburban garbage can, requiring its rescuers to devise a way to extricate the critter without being seriously clawed.

Over time a unique format developed which he called “Paul Harvey’s News & Comment” and it was broadcast twice a day – usually a 15-minute segment in the morning drive time and a longer 30-minute version at noon. A feature of the noon broadcast was his bumper before commercials – “And now … Page One,” later followed by Page Two and so on up to Page Four. I’ve been known to keep lunch guests waiting while Uncle Paul got to Page Four on my car radio.

Following the sign-on for News & Comment, the news never came first; the sponsor did. “I am fiercely loyal to those who are willing to put their money where my mouth is,” Harvey often said. Predictably some of his sponsors stayed with him for more than 30 years. All of the products and services he advertised he personally tested and used, and he personally interviewed every sponsor. Commercials were delivered live, most of them by Harvey himself, and almost all were ad-libbed so they had the honest ring of a trusted person referring the product to a friend. Here’s an example of Harvey’s folksy sales pitch:

"If the father in your family owns a truck," he would tell his audience, "have I got a Father's Day gift for you!!!," he continued with uncontained enthusiasm. “Get him a load handler. A LOOOAD HANNNDLER. I know; I've got one down on our farm in the Missouri Ozarks!"

All news had to pass the “Aunt Betty” test – so-called for his sister-in-law, an "old-fashioned housewife" who lived in Missouri. If he thought a story was too hard for Aunt Betty to grasp or too offbeat to interest her, Harvey would rewrite it or delete it from his news script.

His producer for almost 70 years was also his partner in life – Lynne Cooper. In 1939 she was a Tulsa school teacher who had come to do a program on KXOK where Harvey broadcasted. He asked her to dinner and proposed marriage during the meal. She turned him down, but they married the next year. Thereafter, he referred to her as “Angel Harvey.”

Paul Harvey was a channel for news that interested an audience whom he understood better than anyone, He once told Larry King, "I don't think of myself as a profound journalist. I think of myself as a professional parade watcher who can't wait to get out of bed every morning and rush down to the teletypes and pan for gold."

Their work day began at 3:30 a.m. in the ABC offices of "Paul Harvey News" on Paul Harvey Drive in the heart of Chicago. Unlike radio personalities today who wear shorts, blue jeans, and flip flops to do their broadcasts, Harvey always wore a starched shirt and tie to work. When broadcasting, he removed his suit or sports jacket and donned a starched blue lab cost with an ABC logo on the pocket. Angel would dress in a business suit and heels with her hair done as if she were going to a formal affair.

As soon as they entered their office, they began scouring the news feed teletypes, looking for stories they could mold into the day’s program. Harvey banged out the daily copy script on an IBM Selectric, rather than a PC, which he called “The Confuser,” that sat idle in another room.

The news was delivered live in a small broadcast studio in the office. After the noon broadcast, Harvey and Angel ritually lunched at the Tavern Club, located on top of the building from which he broadcasted. After lunch, they would return to the office for a final meeting of the day with their assistant, then they called their driver and would be home by 2 p.m. There might be a round of afternoon golf, but after a little early evening television, they would turn in at nightfall because the alarm went off at 3 a.m. the next morning.

Over the years, Harvey developed homilies that often found their way into his scripts: “In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these." If a program contained a news item in which someone had done something outrageous or offensive, Harvey would pay the offender the ultimate snub, saying, "He would want us to mention his name," followed by a period of silence, then he would start the next news item.

Paul Harvey used language like no other, introducing an unusual story with a phrase like, “Oh my, here’s a strange …” Words that he invented, like “bumpersnicker” and “guesstimate,” became part of the American vernacular.

He could report stories in a way that portrayed him as surprised as his listeners: "Doctors have removed a kidney stone from a woman that is the size of a coconut … seven inches across! Seven inches???!!!"

His style of delivery was his hallmark. Characterized by long, almost painful pauses, a listener might think the program had dropped off the air, until Harvey would come back and complete the thought or sentence. His programs included quirky stories like the nude sunbather who lay down on a hotel roof … unknowingly on the dining room skylight … or the Virginia fire department whose new colorful, scuff-proof, adjustable-size helmets were wonderful in every way except … they melted near heat.

People who had been married for many years held a special fascination, if not reverence, for Harvey. A regular segment of each news program was introduced as: “This day's news of most lasting significance …" and sometimes would be followed by, "Agnes and John Caroline in Lavalette, N.J., are 71 years along the way to forever together." The Harveys were married 68 years before Angel died.

The last item of a broadcast, which was often a funny story, would usually be preceded by the introduction, "For what it's worth …" No one could tell a story like Paul Harvey – teasing out the details with pauses so the listener created a mental picture of what was happening:

"For what it's worth, Mark Hatterer of York, Pennsylvania, gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dog. I said, Mr. Hatterer gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation … to a dog … after the dog had nearly drowned … in a septic tank. The dog was drowning in a septic tank when Mr. Hatterer rescued it. After a veterinary doctor pronounced the Scottish terrier out of danger, Mr. Hatterer said, `You know … I … I hope I don't ever have to do that again.'... Paaaul Harvey........ Gooood-DAY!"

In 2000, ABC Radio awarded Harvey, then 82, a 10-year, $100 million contract to stay with the network. A 10-year contract with an 82-year old man was a tribute not only to Harvey’s enormous listening audience – about 22 million people – but also to his uncommon ability to inspire so much trust in his listeners that the products he advertised were assumed good values because Paul Harvey said they were. At the time that his contract was announced, I couldn’t help but remember George Burns, who at 95 signed a contract to perform in London in celebration of his 100th birthday.

On May 17, 2007, Harvey told his radio audience that Angel had developed leukemia. She died a year later at age 92. She was, one observer noted, what Colonel Parker was to Elvis Presley. Angel Harvey put Paul Harvey on track to have the phenomenal career that his became.

Harvey was forced to leave the air for several months in 2001 because of a virus that weakened a vocal cord. But he returned to work and continued working as hard as ever despite his age and gradually declining health. He was 89 when Angel died, and while the light seemed to have dimmed in his life after she was gone, he continued to broadcast even after a bout with pneumonia. At age 90, with his workload reduced to a few broadcasts per week, guest broadcasters were needed to fill it. Some suggested it might be time to think about retiring. "Retiring," he scoffed, "is just practicing up to be dead. That doesn't take any practice." He was still broadcasting the week before he died, which came less than a year after Angel’s death.

Paul Harvey was the descendent of five generations of fundamental Baptist preachers. He was socially conservative, and religion shaped his daily life. Beginning in 1965 he broadcasted a special program every year on Christmas Day that became a tradition. Whatever I was doing on that day, I made time to listen to it. I can’t think of a better way to end this week’s blog than with Paul Harvey’s annual Christmas Story, since Christmas is a few days down the week.

It is hard to capture the intonations of his spoken words with written words, particularly his notable pauses, which I’ve attempted to replicate with dots (…). Even with the limitations of telling Harvey’s story in written form, it is a message for the ages.

Today I am going to tell you a modern parable and the man I’m going to describe was not a scrooge … he was not a scrooge … he was a kind, decent, mostly good man; generous to his family, upright in his dealings with others.

But he just didn’t believe all of that “incarnation” stuff that the churches proclaim at Christmas time. It just didn’t make sense to him, and he was too honest to pretend otherwise.

He could not swallow the “Jesus story” about God coming to earth as man. Why would God want to do anything like that?

“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you and the family to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite; that he would much rather stay home, but that he would wait up for them.

So he stayed, and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall and he went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier. Then he went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper.

Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. And then another … and then another. At first he thought someone must have been throwing snowballs against his living room window.

But when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They had been caught in the storm, and in a desperate search for shelter, they had tried to fly through his large landscape window!

Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter – if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on his coat and galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn, opened the door wide, and turned on a light.

But the birds did not come in.

He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow lighted, wide open doorway of the stable.

And yet to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow.

He tried catching them, he tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms, but instead they scattered in every direction … every direction except into the warm, lighted barn.

Then he realized they were afraid of him. Of course they were! To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature, if only I could think of some way to let them know they can trust me, that I’m not trying to hurt them, I’m trying to help them.

But how? Any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led, they would not be shooed into the barn because they feared him.

“If only I could be a bird myself for a few moments,” he thought to himself. “If only I could be one of them and mingle with them and speak their language and tell … and tell them not to be afraid … and show them … and show them the way to the safe warm barn. But I’d have to be one of them, so they could see … and hear … and understand.”

At that moment, the church bells began to ring.

The sound of them reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells … Adeste Fideles … listening to the bells pealing the glad tiding of Christmas …

And he sank to his knees in the snow …

“Now I understand,” he whispered. “Now I see why you had to come.”

Merry Christmas to all of my blog readers!

Christmas in Bastogne

After landing troops on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the American, British, and Canadian Allies pushed east toward their objective: the German heartland. By November, the advance had slowed to a crawl due to German resistance and the logistics of supporting the Allies’ battle line, which extended north and south from Holland to Switzerland for 100 miles.

While the Germans were fighting the Russians on a broad front in the east, they possessed an advantage on the western front in the winter of 1944 – they were no longer defending all of Western Europe. Their front lines in the west had considerably shortened and were much closer to the German heartland. As the German army fell back, their logistics grew less complex, despite the fact that the Allies controlled the air. Additionally, their extensive homeland telephone and telegraph network meant that radios were less needed for communications, which reduced the volume of ULTRA intercepts –.the Allies access to German coded radio traffic.

Notwithstanding the imbalance in fighting strength – the Allies had 96 divisions at or near the front while the Germans had 55 – after a September briefing on the status of the western front, Hitler decided that Germany would launch an ambitious winter counteroffensive in the Ardennes – the vast Belgian forest that separated the American and German lines. It was so dense that a person could easily become lost and vehicles could not operate in it. This forced traffic onto the few roads that traversed the Ardennes, making them and the villages through which roads ran strategic objectives in Hitler’s counteroffensive. Therefore, anyone who could read a map quickly recognized the strategic importance of two Belgian towns currently in the hands of the Americans. St. Vith, which sat at the intersection of six roads, and Bastogne, at the intersection of eight roads.

The offensive would crash through the Ardennes, as was done in 1940 when the German army surprised and defeated France in days. In 1940, however, German troops had passed through the Ardennes in three days before engaging the enemy, but the 1944 plan called for a battle in the forest. The coup de main was to advance westward to the Meuse River, then turn northwest for Antwerp and Brussels. The close terrain of the Ardennes would make rapid movement difficult, though open ground beyond the Meuse offered the prospect of a successful dash to the coast.

For the offensive to be successful, four criteria were critical: (i) the attack had to be a complete surprise; (ii) the weather conditions had to be poor to neutralize Allied air superiority and the damage it could inflict on the German offensive and its supply lines; (iii) the progress had to be rapid – the Meuse River, halfway to Antwerp, had to be reached by D +4; and (iv) allied fuel supplies would have to be captured intact along the way because the Wehrmacht was short on fuel. The German General Staff estimated they only had enough fuel to cover one-third to one-half of the ground to Antwerp in heavy combat conditions.

Hitler laid out a plan to attack the Allied lines in Belgium with 38 divisions. Despite major misgivings from his senior commanders, Hitler would not yield on his plan and the jump-off date was set at December 16, 1944. It would be an unexpected stroke against the Allies.

Allied commanders considered the Ardennes area to be unsuitable for a large-scale German attack because of its almost impenetrable terrain, and certainly no surprise attack through this hostile region was thought likely given the current horrendous weather conditions – rain, snow, sleet and ice – which would later prove to be the worst weather in recorded history. Moreover, none of the ULTRA intelligence reports suggested that combat-ready German divisions were stationed in the area; only those in need of rest and refitting were believed to be facing the Ardennes. What little intelligence they had led the Allies to believe precisely what the Germans wanted them to believe – that the German preparations being carried out were only for defensive, not offensive operations. Bastogne, therefore, was only defended by a US Army division that had seen continuous fighting almost since D-Day and was assigned to this sector of the battle line because it was unlikely to see action. Mixed in were various other units whose troops and officers had seen no combat thus far in the war.

At 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, December 16, 1944, the Germans began the assault with a massive, 90-minute artillery barrage using 1,600 artillery pieces across an 80 miles front on the Allied troops facing the Sixth SS Panzer Army. History would remember this as the Battle of the Bulge. The temperature in Bastogne on that day was 14 degrees Fahrenheit. Poorly equipped American forces would suffer greatly while German forces, drawing on years of experience of fighting the Russians, were equipped with warm and practical clothing.

Heavy snowstorms engulfed parts of the Ardennes area. While having the desired effect of keeping the Allied aircraft grounded, the weather also proved nettlesome for the Germans because poor road conditions hampered their advance. Ineffective traffic management and snow drifts several feet deep led to massive traffic jams, and fuel shortages plagued the forward German units.

American soldiers found their rifles jammed constantly in the frozen air. They had to urinate on them to free their mechanisms. A biting wind sliced through their wet uniforms. Many suffered frostbite. A heavy fog hung over much of the Ardennes region. Tanks moved at a crawl and half-tracks ground to a halt in the thick mud. On that December in 1944 American combat troops were not dreaming of a white Christmas; they got the real thing and hated it.

Eisenhower and his principal commanders quickly realized that the ferocity of the German attack signaled a major offensive, not a local counterattack, so they ordered vast reinforcements into the breakout area. Within a week, 250,000 Allied troops streamed to the front. Eisenhower personally ordered the 101st to the Bastogne crossroads with instructions to hold at all cost. Advance elements of the 101st rushed to Bastogne and began entering the town in trucks on the morning of the 19th. Hitler’s troops would have to dislodge them or face a counterattack and a likely defeat. Still, the early prospects were daunting for the Americans.

In 1944 Bastogne was a market town located on a 1,600-foot plateau overlooking the surrounding Ardennes. Its wartime population was a bit over 4,000 – dwarfed by the 10,000 American soldiers now deployed in the village and the several surrounding outposts in nearby hamlets. Major General Troy Middleton was the VIII Corps commander in charge of the battle sector that included Bastogne. “Now don’t get yourself surrounded,” Middleton had warned Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, the acting commander of the 101st.

On the Saturday of the German breakout, things were normal in Bastogne – the shops and markets were open on the Grand Rue and they were doing a bustling business. The next day, Sunday, refugees began streaming in from the east indicating that something unusual was afoot. Around noon, the electricity went out all over town – not an unusual occurrence for the town. But on the morning of the third day, Monday December 18th, artillery could be heard off in the eastern distance and American stragglers began entering the town. By midday, civilians were leaving, pushing carts heaped high with possessions. Those who stayed moved into their cellars for safety from the bombardment they expected would come. One of those who stayed was Renée Lemaire, a beautiful 30-year old with blue eyes and a cascade of brown hair. Renée had trained for four years at a hospital in Brussels to become a nurse. She would be invaluable in the days ahead.

On the evening of Tuesday, December 19, German reconnaissance units began colliding with the American outposts surrounding Bastogne. Furious fire fights broke out but the outposts, supported by other units of the 101st in Bastogne, continued to hold, forcing the Panzer columns to swing past them on the north and south, and move around to the west. The Germans succeeded in closing a ring of steel around Bastogne on Wednesday the 20th, completely cutting off the town from the American battle line.

Over the next several days the Germans threw everything they could at the American pocket of resistance, hoping to puncture it. On December 21 the German unit Kampfgruppe Kunkel launched a fierce assault against an outpost in a hamlet west of Bastogne but was repulsed. The Germans tried again four times on the following day, Friday the 22nd, to no avail. Withstanding similar attacks on outposts south of town, the 101st held, supported by the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions that barely made it into Bastogne before it was surrounded. Attacks on the village caused its situation to deteriorate quickly as ammunition dwindled, gasoline ran low, and medical supplies ran out. Food was scarce, and by December 22 artillery ammunition had to be restricted to 10 rounds per gun per day. Temperatures fell below zero, and overcast skies prevented supplies from being dropped into the city and prevented fighters from attacking German positions. But morale remained high, and the perimeter around Bastogne still held.

By nightfall on the 22nd, the rough outline of a fighting perimeter had formed, and Bastogne became a “hole in the doughnut” as one officer called it. All aid stations had been converted to hospitals since evacuation of the wounded was impossible. Exhausted army surgeons shook their heads in frustration as men died who would otherwise have been saved with better care and facilities. Renée Lemaire pitched in to help as a nurse, caring for over a hundred patients, many of whom had no beds and lay on blankets on the floor.

The Germans had clearly underestimated the American resolve. Around noon on the 22nd, therefore, two German officers and two enlisted men walked up a snow-covered road under a white flag of truce to an astonished Army check point. The Germans carried an ultimatum from their commander in the sector, General von Luttwitz. It insisted that there “was only one possibility to save the encircled American troops from total annihilation: that is, the honorable surrender of the encircled town.” It gave their commander two hours to consent or German guns would “annihilate” the US forces and level Bastogne.

An American officer delivered the note to General McAuliffe and his chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Ned Moore, who read it out loud. McAuliffe’s first reaction was to utter, in sheer disgust, “Aw, nuts.” After discussing the situation with his staff, everyone agreed that McAuliffe’s initial outburst was the ideal response to the German demand, and the general wrote out a formal reply. In words that have since become legendary. The note said, “To the German Commander: NUTS! From the American Commander.”

A regimental commander visiting McAuliffe’s headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Harper, insisted on taking the reply personally to the Germans. Even though the German Lieutenant representing General von Luttwitz had spent years in the import business and spoke fluent English, he could only translate the reply literally to the other officer in the party. “Nuts” perplexed both. “Is the reply negative or affirmative?” the Lieutenant politely asked. LTC Harper, trenchantly translated the colloquialism for the Germans: in plain English. “The reply is decidedly not affirmative, and if you continue this foolish attack, your losses will be tremendous.”

"If you don’t understand what ‘Nuts’ means,” continued Harper, “it is the same as ‘Go to Hell!’ and I will tell you something else; if you continue to attack, we will kill every goddamned German that tries to break into this city.” The German officers snapped to attention, saluted, and said, “We will kill many Americans. This is war.”

“On your way, Bud,” snorted Harper.

Over the next several days in the face of unrelenting German assaults, the Americans held on often by their frostbitten finger tips. But the sky cleared on December 24, allowing air drops of ammunition, food and medical equipment. Christmas in Bastogne had arrived a day early in the form of more than 150 American cargo planes that flew the drop missions, dipping and diving to evade anti-aircraft fire from the German batteries, with several crash-landing inside the American zone.

General McAuliffe’s message to his troops on Christmas Eve is recorded in many accounts of the battle:

“What’s merry about all this, you ask? Just this: We have stopped cold everything that has been thrown at us from the North, East, South and West. We have identifications from four German Panzer divisions and one German parachute division. The Germans surround us, their radios blare our doom. Their commander demanded our surrender, and received the following reply…‘NUTS!’ We are giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy Christmas present, and, being privileged to take part in this gallant feat of arms, are truly making for ourselves a Merry Christmas.”

The men at the front were not as upbeat as McAuliffe. They had cold white beans for their Christmas Eve dinner. Captain Dick Winters, who became somewhat famous as a result of the Band of Brothers television series, remembered that “dinner that night consisted of five white beans and a cup of cold broth.” Out on icy line, Sergeant Robert Rader and Private Don Hoobler, both from the same town in the Midwest, sat in their frigid foxholes. Rader said, “As the night wore on we talked of our homes, our families, and how they were spending their Christmas Eve. Hoobler felt sure all of them were in church praying for us.” They probably were, and that was a good thing. The Luftwaffe viciously bombed Bastogne that night, causing extensive damage and killing numerous civilians and American soldiers. A German bomb fell through the roof of an aid station and exploded inside killing 30 people. One of them was Renée Lemaire.

There was no let up on Christmas Day. Hitler had demanded that the town be taken immediately. The Germans let loose several armored attacks against the Bastogne pocket. Once again they were driven back, with heavy losses. Inside the town some soldiers attended religious services. Others tended to the wounded, or buried the dead. Most were outside, holding the perimeter.

On December 19, Eisenhower had met with his key commanders in Verdun. Knowing the plight of the 101st in Bastogne, he asked if anyone could get up there and relieve them. Patton said he could attack with three divisions. “When can you start?” Ike asked. “In 36 hours,” Patton replied.

Christmas in Bastogne arrived on December 26, when an armored column from Patton’s 3rd Army pierced the German cordon around the city. The next day it rolled up into the center of Bastogne. It had traveled over 150 miles in six days, fighting pitched battles and tank engagements along the way.

With the arrival of Patton’s armored divisions, the Bastogne siege was over. On December 29 troops of the 101st Airborne Division unleashed a counterattack against the Germans on the edge of town.

The failure to take Bastogne essentially ended the Battle of the Bulge. It had been the bloodiest of the battles the US forces experienced in World War II; one in which the 19,000 American dead were unsurpassed by those of any other engagement. A total of 17 Medals of Honor were awarded, seven of them posthumously.

The official casualty figures for the campaign from German High Command were 84,834, although unofficial estimates range between 60,000 and 100,000. German losses in the battle were critical in several other respects. The last of the German reserves were now gone, the Luftwaffe had been shattered, and the remaining German forces in the West were being pushed back to the defenses of the Siegfried Line.

This was the last Christmas of the war.

On April 30, 1945 Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker.

General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, signed the Allies’ unconditional surrender documents for all German forces on May 7, 1945.

The Day of Infamy

At 30 minutes past noon on December 8, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt began an address to a Joint Session on Congress:

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

A Japanese task force of six aircraft carriers had slipped its moorings in the home islands on November 26, 1941 and sailed to an attack staging point northwest of Hawaii. The attack employed 360 planes in two waves – the first wave focused on the American fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor while the second destroyed parked aircraft to prevent their mounting a retaliatory attack.

At 7:53 a.m. Hawaii Time the slow torpedo bombers arrived over target and commenced the attack on Battleship Row anchored at Ford Island.

The USS Raleigh was the first ship hit. After receiving six torpedo hits, the USS West Virginia quickly sank.

The Utah, an ancient battleship converted to a target ship, was bombed and torpedoed. Rolling over, she snapped her mooring lines and settled on her outboard side. Sailors trapped inside began banging on the hull, and many who had escaped the Utah went back to rescue them. Since the trapped sailors were in an air pocket near the keel, a welder had to sit on the bottom of the hull under Japanese strafing fire to burn two escape holes.

On the other side of Ford Island, the Oklahoma, bombed and torpedoed, heeled over and sank.

At 8:10 a.m. an armor-piercing bomb fell between the No. 1 and No. 2 turrets of the Arizona, exploding the forward magazine. The explosion ripped open the ship like a tin can igniting a fire that swept the entire ship, cremating many of its sailors. Within minutes the Arizona sank to the bottom taking 1,300 lives with her.

Dive bombers and fighters tore up Hickam Field and Wheeler Field, the main air bases on Oahu. The 171 planes in the second wave attacked Bellows Field near Kaneohe on the windward side of the island, and went on to attack Ford Island.

Ninety minutes after the attack began, it was over. The toll was staggering – 2,386 Americans were killed, including 55 civilians who died from unexploded American anti-aircraft shells landing in civilian areas. Among the wounded were 1,139 civilians.

Eighteen ships, including five battleships, were sunk or run aground in their escape.

Of 402 American aircraft in Hawaii, 188 were destroyed and 159 damaged, 155 of which never got off the ground. Almost no aircraft were in a state of readiness that would have allowed them to take off and defend the base. Twenty-four out of 33 PBYs were destroyed, and six others were damaged beyond repair. Panicky friendly fire on the ground shot down some airborne American planes, among them five inbound from the carrier Enterprise which was at sea with the carriers Lexington and Saratoga.

Troops caught in barracks and bunks were mostly killed by Japanese fighter aircraft.

Only 55 Japanese airmen and nine submariners were killed in the action. One Japanese submariner was captured. Of Japan's 414 planes engaged in the attack, only 29 were lost during the battle.

The American servicemen who distinguished themselves in the attack on Pearl Harbor received 16 Medals of Honor, 51 Navy Crosses, 53 Silver Crosses, four Navy and Marine Corps Medals, one Distinguished Flying Cross, four Distinguished Service Crosses, one Distinguished Service Medal, and three Bronze Stars – a measure of the valor shown that day.

Work began immediately on ships that could be refloated and repaired, a task that required 20,000 hours of underwater work by divers. Within six months, five battleships and two cruisers were patched well enough to tow them to mainland shipyards for extensive repair.

The Oklahoma was raised but never repaired. The Utah and Arizona were so badly damaged that they were left where they sank and are visible today. The Arizona would become a permanent memorial and the tomb of the sailors who died on it that day. It remains a ship of the line and its flag is raised every day, but only to half-mast.

It would be May 17, 1942 before the West Virginia would be pumped out. During its repairs, the bodies of 70 crewmen were found as well as a calendar that had days scratched off. The last date scratched off was December 23 1941 – 16 days after the attack.

As bad as things were, they could have been worse.

America’s three aircraft carriers – the Lexington, Saratoga, and Enterprise – were untouched by the Japanese attack because they were at sea and the attackers did not look for them. Had they been taken out of action, the Pacific Fleet's ability to conduct offensive operations against the Japanese would have been crippled for at least a year.

Since the attack had taken the battleships out of action for some time – the intent of the Japanese was to destroy them – the US Navy had no choice but to change strategy and emphasize carriers and submarines over battleships, something it had not done in its pre-war planning. Navy doctrine heretofore had been heavily influenced by the theories of Captain (later Admiral) Alfred Mahan who lived before the era of carriers. He contended that the decisive battles in war would be won at sea by battleships. Battleships, therefore, became the capital ships of the American Navy and consequently were the targets of the Japanese attack. The attackers had also read Captain Mahan’s writings.

Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor?

War between Japan and the US had been considered a possibility since the 1920s, although real tension did not begin until the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. During the decade that followed, Japan expanded into China, leading to all out war between the two countries in 1937. In 1940 Japan pushed forward and invaded French Indochina (modern day Vietnam). The attack on the American installations at Pearl Harbor was part of the Japanese grand strategy to block the US Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl from taking action against Japan’s next conquest into Southeast Asia against Britain, the Netherlands, and the US presence in the Philippines.

Planning for the attack began early in 1941 by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander in chief of Japan's combined fleet. It was Yamamoto's duty to carry out Japan’s plan to rule the Pacific. He did not believe that Japan could win a sustained war with the US, but if it could knock out the strength of the US fleet, the balance of power in the Pacific would shift.

The true genius behind the strategy for the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, was Commander Minuru Genda. He may have been the most brilliant officer, Japanese or American, that took part in the Pacific Campaign. Genda believed the task would be "difficult, but not impossible" and began working on the details of a plan that employed six Japanese carriers in an overpowering air strike.

Captain Mitsuo Fuchida was responsible for the coordination of the entire aerial attack. He led the first wave to its targets. Once the operation was underway, Fuchida and Genda became the subordinate officers of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the senior commander of the attack fleet.

Yamamoto insisted on compliance with the conventions of war and demanded that Japan declare war on the US at least 30 minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor commenced. Japanese diplomats tried to uphold these conventions, but the attack nevertheless began before the notice was delivered. The reason? Tokyo had cabled a 5,000-word notification to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, but transcribing the message took too long for the Japanese Ambassador to deliver in time. In fact, US code breakers had already deciphered and translated most of the message hours before the Japanese Ambassador was scheduled to deliver it.

Because of the delay in notifying the American government, the Pearl Harbor attack became a strategic blunder in Yamamo’s mind, even though both he and Genda wanted a surprise attack. While his staff members were celebrating its victory, Yamamoto spent the day after Pearl Harbor "sunk in apparent depression." Upset that the bungling of the Japanese Foreign Ministry allowed the attack to happen while their countries were technically at peace, Yamamoto quickly realized American citizens would be enraged and said prophetically, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

With considerable accuracy, American war planners had assessed how the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor, but they believed war would be declared first before any attack was launched. There was, however, a general sentiment that the Japanese would be foolish to attack an American territory and certainly "the most impregnable fortress in the world" – Pearl Harbor.

The American counterparts of the Japanese commanders were Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, the commander of the US Pacific fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, and Lt. General Walter C. Short, the commander of the army base charged with the protection of Oahu. If one were to look at the training the Japanese troops underwent in preparation for Pearl Harbor supervised by Genda, Fuchido, and Nagumo, and the training that took place under Kimmel and Short, knowing as they did how high the tensions between the US and Japan were, one would find the American commanders severely lacking.

Kimmel and Short, however, were ignorant of vital intelligence that might have made a difference in their preparation. Fearing that it could reveal that cryptographers had broken the Japanese code and were routinely reading their cable traffic, Washington did not pass on information to Kimmel and Short that there was a strong likelihood of an imminent attack.

During a later naval inquiry of the attack in 1944, a cryptographer testified that:

“On December 1, we had definite information from three independent sources that Japan was going to attack Britain and the United States ...”

“On December 4, 1941, we received definite information from two more independent sources that Japan would attack the United States and … at 9:00 p.m. December 6, 1941, we received positive information that Japan would declare war against the United States, at a time to be specified thereafter. This information was positive and unmistakable and was made available to Military [US Army] Intelligence at this same time. Finally at 10:15 a.m. (Washington time), December 7, 1941 [about 5:00 a.m. Hawaii time], we received positive information ... that the Japanese declaration of war would be presented to the Secretary of State at 1:00 p.m. (Washington time) that date.”

All decoded messages, the cryptographer testified, were promptly passed on to the President and other key civilian and military personnel. Yet both Kimmel and Short were kept in the dark about the most pertinent of these messages.

Blame for the Pearl Harbor disaster, therefore, can be laid everywhere from Washington to the Hawaiian department. The Roberts Commission put most of the blame on Kimmel and Short, citing dereliction of duty and errors in judgment on their part. Both officers got their day in court, but it did not go well for them. While all blame for Pearl Harbor could not be squarely placed on their shoulders, none would be placed on Washington.

Admiral Kimmel lost one of his four stars and was relieved of command. Until his death in 1968, he worked to clear his name, an effort taken up by others after his death, including his son and grandson. Attempts to restore his rank as a four-star Admiral were rejected by Presidents Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.

General Short also lost a star, retired from the Army 14 months after Pearl Harbor, and took a job at a Ford Motor Company plant in Dallas, Texas. He lived to see the end of the war but died in 1949 of a chronic heart ailment.

The results the Japanese later achieved in the Philippines were essentially the same as they achieved at Pearl Harbor, although General Douglas MacArthur, the commander in the Philippines, had been given almost nine hours’ warning that the Japanese had attacked Pearl, and he was given specific orders to prepare before a follow up attack could strike his command. MacArthur did nothing. His inaction resulted in the loss of US air power in the western Pacific, forcing the complete withdrawal of the US fleet from Philippine waters and allowing the Japanese invasion of the mainland. He was never censured, relieved of command, or reduced in rank.

In order to boost morale following the Japanese defeat at Guadalcanal, Admiral Yamamoto decided to make an inspection tour of Japanese defense bases throughout the southwestern Pacific. On April 14, 1943, US naval intelligence decrypted a message containing Yamamoto’s specific itinerary – complete with arrival and departure times and locations – as well as the number and types of planes that would transport and protect him. Yamamoto was killed on the morning of April 18, 1943 near Bougainville when his aircraft was shot down in an ambush by American P-38 fighter planes. His death was a major blow to Japanese military and homeland morale.

After leading the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nagumo went on to lead it in the Battle of Midway where his luck ran out. American code-breakers enabled his Midway attack to be ambushed. He lost four carriers and most of their air crews. It would prove to be the turning point of the Pacific Campaign. When it was apparent that his defense of Saipan against the American attack was doomed, Nagumo committed suicide on July 6, 1944.

The military career of Yamamoto’s brilliant subordinate, Minuru Genda, who had planned the Pearl Harbor attack, came to an end when the Imperial Japanese Navy was dissolved. He returned to active duty in 1954 as a member of the newly-established Japan Air Self-Defense Force, eventually rising to the rank of general and later the chief of staff. After retiring from the postwar military in 1962, he was elected to the upper house of Japan's legislature. Genda died on August 15, 1989, exactly 44 years to the day after the Japanese surrender in World War II, and just one day short of his 85th birthday

Mitsuo Fuchida, the leader of the air attack on Pearl Harbor, became a Christian and an evangelist preacher after the war. Among several books that he wrote in the postwar years was From Pearl Harbor to Calvary, the biographical story of his conversion. In 1960, he became an American citizen. Fuchida died in 1976.

This week, Tuesday December 7 will pass almost unnoticed by the current generation of Americans, as it usually does. It will be the 69th anniversary of the Day of Infamy.


Post script: After 30 years of researching the Pearl Harbor attack and interviewing the principal survivors, Gordon W. Prange published the seminal work on the event: At Dawn We Slept. From it was produced the 1970 film Tora! Tora Tora!, whose title comes from the code-words used by the Japanese to indicate that complete surprise was achieved. Tora means tiger in Japanese.

Thanksgiving through the Years

In early September of 1620, 104 men, women, and children crowded aboard a leaky ship that was about 90 feet long and 26 feet wide amidships and set sail for the New World. The ship, named the Mayflower, would be at sea for 66 days before making landfall on the point of the fish hook we call Cape Cod, where it anchored near the location that would become Provincetown. It was well north of its intended destination of Virginia and therefore the passengers had no patent from the English crown to settle in this place.

The passengers continued living on board for a month while a few men first explored the Cape area. Finding curious mounds, the explorers punched holes in several revealing some to be granaries for corn and beans but others to be graves whose desecration didn’t endear the trespassers to the natives. A boat was built to explore the leeward shoreline of Cape Cod, and finding the natural harbor at modern day Plymouth and a defensible hill above it, they decided to make their settlement there. With winter approaching, shelter had to be built before the majority of passengers could disembark.

The long ocean crossing and the additional month crammed aboard ship had done little to improve the disposition of the passengers, which was compounded by the fact that 44 of them were religious dissenters from the Church of England while 66 made the voyage as a business venture. The dissenters called themselves the “Saints” and called the others “Strangers” – hardly a good way to create unity. Despite having more differences than similarities, their survival depended on cooperation, of which there was little on board the ship. Therefore, William Bradford, who had emerged as the informal leader, recommended that before disembarking every passenger should sign an agreement that set forth rules for self-government, which later came to be called the Mayflower Compact.

The first winter was ghastly. Now calling themselves Pilgrims, over half of them died in three months. They were buried at night, fearing that the surrounding Indians would learn that their number was dwindling which might encourage an attack. Unlike the Indians encountered on the Cape, however, the Pilgrims had settled among the peaceful Wampanoags. And in March the tribal chief, Massasoit, sent Samoset as his ambassador to the settlers because Samoset spoke English which he had providentially learned from sailors who had fished the coast and briefly lived on land nearby. After his first encounter with the Pilgrims, Samoset returned with Tisquantum, known in history as Squanto, an Indian who had been kidnapped in 1614 by an English slave raider and sold in Málaga, Spain. There he had learned English from local friars, escaped slavery, and found his way back on an expedition ship headed to the New England coast in 1619 – the year before the Pilgrims arrived.

Since Squanto spoke better English than Samoset, he became the technical advisor to the Pilgrims, teaching them how to raise corn, where and how to catch fish, and how to make things needed for working and hunting. He showed them plants they could eat and others the Indians used for medicinal purposes. Squanto was the reason that the settlement survived during its first two years.

The first year the Pilgrims farmed communally and nearly starved. However, William Bradford’s diary tells us that it was decided thereafter that each man should farm for his own family’s food needs instead of communal farming. "This had very good success," Bradford wrote, "for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many." The Pilgrims’ experiment in socialism was a valuable lesson.

After taking in an abundant harvest in the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims invited Squanto, Samoset, Massasoit, and ninety other Wampanoag men to join them in a three-day celebration of their success, which consisted of games and feasting – and a not-so-subtle display of Pilgrim musketry just in case the natives became unfriendly in the future. This celebration is recorded in history as the first Thanksgiving – which it wasn’t.

In fact, two years earlier on December 4, 1619, a group of 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred, part of the Virginia Colony, in an area then known as Charles Cittie (sic), It was located about 20 miles upstream from Jamestown, the first permanent settlement of the Virginia Colony, which had been established in 1607. The Berkley settlers celebrated the first known Thanksgiving in the New World. Their charter required that the day of arrival should be observed yearly as a "day of thanksgiving" to God. On that first Thanksgiving day, December 4, Captain John Woodleaf presided over the service. The charter specified the thanksgiving service: "Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."

But not for long. Nine of the Berkley settlers were killed in the Indian Massacre of 1622 which also wiped out a third of the population of the Virginia Colony. Therefore, Berkeley and other outlying settlements were abandoned as the colonists moved back to Jamestown and other more secure points and Thanksgiving was forgotten.

The first national celebration of Thanksgiving occurred in 1777. This was a one-time only Thanksgiving in which the 13 colonies, rather than celebrating food and God’s providence, celebrated the defeat of the British at Saratoga in October by Washington’s Continental Army.

In 1789 President George Washington made the first presidential proclamation declaring Thanksgiving a national event. Under this proclamation it was to occur later that year on November 26. Some were opposed to it, particularly those in the south, who felt the hardships of a few Pilgrims did not warrant a national holiday and besides, such proclamations were excessively Yankee and Federalist – so they thought.

John Adams, the second president, issued a Thanksgiving proclamation in 1798 enlisting the help of the Almighty not only in cosmic struggles but also in the more pedestrian battles of his administration. He seemed to be asking God to side with the Federalists against his struggles with the Jeffersonians. When he later revealed that the proclamation had been recommended by a Presbyterian assembly, it set off a firestorm that Adams, a devout Unitarian, was leading a movement to establish the Presbyterian Church as the national religion. Adams became the first one-term president – a fact that he attributed to his proclamation.

In 1779, as Governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson decreed a day of “Public and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God.” But as the third president, he opposed national Thanksgiving proclamations. Writing to a Reverend Samuel Miller, Jefferson said, “I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises …”

In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday. Each state celebrated it on a different day, however, and the South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition. Therefore, for almost 60 years following Jefferson’s presidency, Thanksgiving remained a non-event on the national scene with no advocate until Sarah Josepha Hale.

Hale was no nationalist shrinking violet. She raised $30,000 for the construction of the Bunker Hill monument in Boston and started the movement to preserve Washington’s Mount Vernon home for future generations. She was a fervent believer in God and the American Union, as well as being a fierce abolitionist. Hale had made it her business to advocate and get action on symbols that celebrated America and what today is known as American exceptionalism.

Hale had more than 15 minutes of fame. She authored the words to “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and was the editor for two prominent women’s magazines of her day. Since 1846 she had written editorials calling for a uniform national celebration of Thanksgiving, writing four presidents and dozens of congressmen to push her cause. In October 1863, America was embroiled in the American Civil War where the concept of "Union" was very much at issue. Hale tried again, this time writing to her fifth president, Abraham Lincoln.

Hale’s proposal found a place in the Lincoln psyche – perhaps because the battle of Gettysburg had been fought three months earlier and he would travel to the battlefield the following month to dedicate a military cemetery with a 278-word dedicatory address that would become his most famous utterance.

Touched by Hale’s pleas, Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation on October 3, 1863 setting its observance on the last Thursday of November.

After Lincoln’s assassination, his successor, Andrew Johnson, ever the contrarian, issued an 1865 Proclamation to “observe the first Thursday of December next as a day of national thanksgiving to the Creator of the Universe …” Yet the next three proclamations of the quirky tailor from Greeneville Tennessee returned Thanksgiving to the last Thursday in November.

Notwithstanding the presidential proclamations, the states were free to go their own ways, and Southern governors often opted for idiosyncratic observances or none at all. Oran Milo Roberts, governor of Texas in the late 1880s refused to observe Thanksgiving in the Lone Star State, snorting, “It’s a damned Yankee institution anyway.” But the South, too, eventually succumbed.

Then along came Franklin D. Roosevelt whose finagling with the date of Thanksgiving created a national uproar.

In 1939 there were five Thursdays in November and the last one was the 30th, leaving only three weeks and change before Christmas. This wadded the boxers of the presidents for Gimbel Brothers, Lord & Taylor, and other retailers concerned less with tradition than sales in the waning years of the Great Depression. They asked Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving to the 23rd allowing an additional week for shopping. Although I’ve never understood why Christmas shopping couldn’t start before Thanksgiving, when Roosevelt acceded, the country went ballistic.

Polls showed that 60% of the public opposed the change in date. Republicans in Congress were affronted that Roosevelt, a Democrat, would change the precedent of Lincoln, a Republican.

In New England, from which the Thanksgiving tradition sprang, resistance was particularly intense. The selectmen of Plymouth, Massachusetts informed Roosevelt in no uncertain words, “It is a religious holiday and [you] have no right to change it for commercial reasons.” Massachusetts Governor Leverett Saltonstall harrumphed that “Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks to the Almighty and not for the inauguration of Christmas shopping.”

Methodist minister Norman Vincent Peal was outraged, calling it "...questionable thinking and contrary to the meaning of Thanksgiving for the president of this great nation to tinker with the sacred religious day with the specious excuse that it will help Christmas sales. The next thing we may expect is Christmas to be shifted to May first to help the New York World’s Fair of 1940."

Nor did all merchants favor the presidential rejiggering of the Thanksgiving date. One shopkeeper hung a sign in his window reading, “Do your shopping now. Who knows, tomorrow may be Christmas.”

Usually the states followed the federal government’s lead on Thanksgiving, but they never relinquished their right to set their state’s date for the holiday. Predictably 48 battles erupted. As usual, New Deal Republicans had all the wit, if not the votes. Republican Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire urged the President to abolish winter. The Republican mayor of Atlantic City recommended that Franklin Roosevelt’s holiday be renamed "Franksgiving," while the Republican Attorney General of Oregon came up with this bit of doggerel:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one.
Until we hear from Washington.

Twenty-three states celebrated Thanksgiving 1939 on November 23, and another 23 stood fast with November 30. Two states, Colorado and Texas, shrugged their shoulders and celebrated both days—Texas did so to avoid having to move the Texas versus Texas A&M football game. The 30th was labeled as the Republican Thanksgiving, while the 23rd became the Democrat Thanksgiving.

Roosevelt’s experiment in moving the Thanksgiving date to improve Christmas sales continued for two more years, although 1940 and 1941 had four-Thursday Novembers. But the evidence was against the assumptions – more shopping days did not increase sales. Roosevelt conceded and agreed to move Thanksgiving back to the last Thursday in November.

Under public pressure, the US House of Representatives passed a joint resolution in October 1941 to put Thanksgiving on the traditional last Thursday beginning in 1942. However, when the resolution reached the Senate in December, the Senate converted the resolution to law and changed one word: “last” was amended to “fourth” so never again would Thanksgiving fall on the 29th or 30th of November. The states followed suit, although Texas held on to the last Thursday until 1956.

So on this Thanksgiving, and all the future ones, let’s raise a drumstick in salute to Sarah Josepha Hale, who instituted its observance, and to Franklin Roosevelt, who went on to convince Americans that he could “save” daylight by moving an hour from the morning to the afternoon.

The Boomers’ Last Hurrah

The first of the 78 million baby boomers will reach 65 years of age in just six weeks – a milestone that will be celebrated again and again over the next 20 years by the remaining boomers.

Boomers are the cohort of people born between 1946 and 1964. Their parents endured the Great Depression and fought World War II either in uniform or on the industrial front. The war put their lives on hold, and when it ended in 1945, one in eight Americans – 16 million in all – was in uniform and half of them were in 55 combat theaters around the world. Their goal at war’s end was to resume a normal life as soon as possible. Among other things, that meant getting married and starting a family. They succeeded at both more than any previous generation.

In the depression decade prior to the war, families produced an average of two children. But in the years following the war, family sizes jumped almost immediately to three and peaked at 3.8 children in the late 1950s. Average family size would not settle back to the pre-war level until the early 1970s. US population increased 44% during the 20-year span of the baby boom.

The baby boom became a veritable “pig in the python” as it has moved through the various life stages of society to the present. When the firstborn boomers reached school age, it started a school building boom. About 45% of all public schools were built between 1950, when the oldest boomer was four, and 1969, when the oldest boomer was graduating from college and the youngest was entering kindergarten.

Up through the years of WW II, only 5% of the population aged 25 or older had a college degree or higher and only 25% had graduated from high school. By 1980, high school graduation rates were 67% and 27% of boomers had college degrees or higher. Baby boomers enjoy a higher level of education than any generation before them.

Boomers began entering the workforce from the mid-1960s through the late 1980s. Mostly well-educated, they created a boom in white collar jobs, fed the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy, and with the advent of the PC in the 1980s, boomers virtually eliminated middle managers using PC networks to access business knowledge and facilitate intra-organizational communications – the functions once provided by middle management.

Baby boomers represent about 28% of the population but about 45% of the workforce. The good news is that their Social Security payments enabled the program to take in considerably more than it has paid out during the boomers’ working years. The bad news is that politicians used the Social Security Ponzi scheme to spend surplus funds on unrelated government excesses in the true spirit of Bernie Madoff. The boomers have substantially supported the expansion of the New Deal-era Social Security, which has paid their parents’ retirement, and the Great Society-era Medicare, which has provided them healthcare.

As the “pig in the python” approaches 65, what’s next? Retirement? Don’t count on it.

The age of 65 as the milestone age for retirement was conceived by Otto von Bismarck of Germany in the late 1800s when old Otto was conniving to find a way to combat the German Socialist Party. He created a social security system to appeal to his country’s working class but being the ethically-challenged politician that he was, Bismarck knew his program would cost very little. The average German worker of that time never lived to age 65, and the few Germans who did only lived a year or two beyond.

One of Bismarck’s most ardent American fans, Franklin D. Roosevelt, saw the gimmickry in the German social security system and thought, “That’ll work,” when he fobbed off the Social Security Act of 1935 on Americans whose life expectancy was then 61 years. In the America of 1900, life expectancy was about 50. Recently it’s about 78. Either Roosevelt couldn’t conceive of people living well beyond 65 – the upward trend of life expectancy during the century notwithstanding – or he got it and decided it was a problem for a future generation of politicians to wrestle with. We don’t know.

But life expectancy has exceeded 65 since the end of WW II (ironically helped by WW II) and people will shortly be living 15 or more years beyond that age. Centenarians now constitute the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, increasing in number from 3,700 in 1940 to roughly 61,000 today. The Census Bureau projects that one in every nine baby boomers (nine million of the 78 million people born between 1946 and 1964) will survive into their late 90s, and that one in 26 (or three million) will reach 100. And Census projects life expectancy to rise to 86 by 2075 and to 88 by the end of the century.

Since Roosevelt set by fiat the retirement age at 65, that age has gotten younger with each generation for three primary reasons: improved public healthcare delivery, less dangerous and debilitating working environments, and healthier lifestyles.

The killer diseases of children and young adults, for example, have been all but defeated. Non-invasive scanning has eliminated exploratory surgery and helped detect disease before it becomes unmanageable. Drugs control cholesterol and hypertension. That Americans have the best healthcare delivery in the world is an unimpeachable fact. It has contributed to longevity more than any other factor.

As work shifted from manufacturing to services and knowledge – from the shop floor to the offices – jobs became safer. They also caused less “wear and tear” on the body during a person’s work career, so people weren’t compelled to retire around the age of 65 because their bodies were broken down as happened to earlier generations.

The third contributor to longevity – lifestyle – has a bright and dark side. The bright side is that we know unhealthy lifestyle practices – smoking, excessive alcohol, diet, and inactivity – contribute to increased morbidity and shorter life spans. The darker side is, while smoking, and to a lesser extent alcohol consumption, have been on the wane, exercise and diet management in recent times have been going in the wrong direction. Obesity is becoming a major health problem, especially among the older cohorts of Americans who are less inclined to exercise regularly. Unless exercise and weight management begin moving in a positive direction, the gains in longevity will slow down.

Most of the advances in longevity have been due to preventing premature causes of death. There’s little evidence that maximum lifespan has been increased because no one knows what it is. (The bible suggests in Genesis 6 that it’s 120 years.) As the causes of premature death are eliminated, the health status of older people will improve, shortening the duration of morbidity near the end of life. In other words, instead of a long descent of chronic bad health prior to death, punctuated by episodes of acute crises, people will live (more or less healthily) until they die.

It seems safe to say, therefore, that 65 is no longer the demarcation of a major change in a person’s life. Nor does a longer lifespan mean an extended period of life lived in diapers, dependent on three shifts of caregivers to push us around in wheelchairs while warehoused in a nursing home inhabited by zombies. Boomers were a rebellious bunch in their teen years, and I predict they won’t go quietly into retirement. If anything, they will reinvent what retirement means.

For one thing, many people will choose to work past 65 and indeed into their 70s. If you enjoy what you do, why would you stop doing it, assuming that you’re physically able to continue? Conversely, why would a person spend a career doing something that they can’t wait to stop doing so they can do something else?

The more educated people are and the more successful their careers are, the more likely they will continue working for many years beyond 65. After a career with one company, some people leave to start a second career in volunteer work, or consulting, or to start their own business. Colonel Harland Sanders, at age 65, used $105 of his Social Security check to finance the launch of his franchise venture for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The notion of a golden age of leisure following a career of work is heavily glossed by the values of society in the mid-20th century when work was physically demanding and often as intellectually stimulating as reading the Manhattan telephone directory. In the late 1950s, a third of the jobs were in manufacturing and one-third of those jobs required union membership. But unions won guaranteed pensions and Social Security pitched in a tranche on top of those pensions, making retirement at 65 or earlier an economic no-brainer. The work was awful but the retirement was great.

Research into the post-retirement years, however, paints a darker picture. Today’s retirees held good jobs in service industries and knowledge work. Usually those jobs carried considerable responsibility and were important to the success of their companies. In retirement, these same people watch a mind-numbing 43 hours of television each week. One-third of those recently retired return to some kind of work within two years citing sheer boredom. Health status often declines after retirement due to idleness, loneliness, depression, alcohol consumption, weight gain, and marital stress. The suicide rate spikes among the newly retired. On balance, the golden age has been grossly oversold.

The Genesis story of mankind’s creation has them made in the image of God and put in a garden with instructions to care for it by working in it. From the beginning mankind was made to work and create. He was not created to relax and be served. And because mankind was made in God’s image, it must be God’s nature to work. Indeed, the Genesis story has God resting after He has worked.

The thing that makes vacations and travel and weekend homes fun is that they aren’t the norm. They are exceptions – a break from a routine to which we will return. When the exception becomes the norm it’s no longer an exception. Retirement into perennial vacations and constant travel and permanent stays at weekend homes causes them to lose the attraction they are intended to have.

The baby boomers have changed every institution in society that they’ve touched. I expect them to do the same with retirement by redefining how to live it.

That will be their last hurrah.

The 11th Hour on the 11th Day of the 11th Month

Ninety-two years ago this past Thursday at the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month, the guns fell silent along what was then known as the Western Front of World War I. In a railway carriage secretly parked on a siding in the Compiegne Forest of France, the Allies and Germany signed an armistice after more than 1,500 days of fighting to stop “The War to End All Wars” on November 11, 1918.

World War I was without precedent. Never before had so many nations taken up arms to fight on so large a battlefield and inflict so many casualties. Sixty million soldiers from all sides of the conflict – mostly Europeans – took up arms and killed nine million of each other, including 50,000 Americans, wounding 20 million more and causing the collateral deaths of 12 million civilians.

Because trench warfare became the method of fighting World War I, enemies spent months if not years several hundred yards apart instead of maneuvering as military units did in subsequent wars. As stationary targets, each side was able to inflict ghastly casualties on the other using machine guns, artillery, and the most notorious weapon – poisonous gas. Predictably, stationary warfare made battles costly beyond comprehension in lives lost and wounded.

The first and second Battles of the Marne, for example, claimed 500,000 lives in 30 days, the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest, claimed 1.5 million in less than 20 weeks – the British had 57,000 killed in one day – and in the First Battle of Ypres, four months of heavy fighting produced casualties of 750,000 on the German side and 995,000 on the French side. The four battles which collectively made up the 17-day Second Battle of Ypres saw the first use of lethal gas warfare in which the French suffered 70,000 casualties and the Germans, 35,000.

The Battle of Verdun, the longest battle and one of the most destructive of the war, cost 250,000 French and German lives and 500,000 wounded. Gallipoli cost 43,000. Chateau-Thierry/Belleau Wood had the single bloodiest day in Marine Corps history — until Tarawa in 1943 — 9,777 casualties in a single day, of which 1,811 were fatal.

It’s hard to believe that this carnage arose out of the assassination of a relatively minor political figure in Sarajevo, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. But German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had predicted, “If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans.” Indeed it did.

The assassination on June 28, 1914 triggered the network of military alliances formed during the prior decades so that within weeks the major powers of Europe were at war and their colonies around the world joined in the conflict, reaching far into Africa and what would become the modern Middle East.

These interlocking treaties ensured that once one power went to war, all of Europe would quickly follow. Events happened so quickly that the war they produced was likely not what any one of the treaty signatories expected. The allies — chiefly Russia, France and Britain — were pitted against the Central Powers — primarily Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Eventually, the war spread beyond Europe as the warring continent turned to its colonies and friends for help. This included the United States, which joined the war effort in Europe in 1917 as President Woodrow Wilson called on Americans to "make the world safe for democracy."

In fact, the event that brought America into the war had nothing to do with making the world safe for democracy. America’s entry was triggered by an intercepted telegraph, famously known as the Zimmerman Telegram, which was decoded by British cryptographers and later turned over President Wilson. The telegram was dispatched by the German Empire’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, on January 16, 1917 to the German ambassador in Washington, D.C.

It instructed the German Minister to Mexico that if the United States appeared likely to enter the war, he was to approach the Mexican government with a proposal for a military alliance with Germany. He should offer Mexico Germany’s help in reclaiming territory lost during the Mexican-American War and the Gadsden Purchase, specifically the American states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. At the time American popular sentiment was anti-Mexican because General John Pershing had long been in pursuit of the revolutionary Pancho Villa, who had carried out several cross-border raids.

The Zimmerman Telegram was released to the American press on March 1, and on April 6 the United States declared war against Germany and its allies.

The insanity of World War I becomes even more bizarre when it is realized that most of the heads of Europe who were fighting each other were related by blood. The British monarch George V's predecessor, Edward VII, was the German Kaiser's uncle and, via his wife's sister, uncle of the Russian Tsar as well. His niece, Alexandra, was the Tsar's wife. Edward's daughter, Maud, was the Norwegian Queen, and his niece, Ena, was Queen of Spain. Marie, another niece, was to become Queen of Romania.

When Edward VII died on the eve of the war, nine Kings attended his funeral. But despite these familial relations, European politics was all about power and influence and the protection of territorial possessions. In a sense, World War I was a family quarrel which cost some family members their countries and others – the Tsar and his family – their lives.

The Tsarist Imperial army threw itself into the fight against the Austro-Hungarian army along the eastern front. However, with the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917, the Russian Empire collapsed, the Tsar and Tsarina and all of their children were executed, and Russia was pulled out of the war. By the end of hostilities, the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires had been militarily and politically defeated.

The Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires ceased to exist as countries. The Allies dismembered the Ottoman Empire and created the modern Middle East from it. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the surviving relic of the millennia-old Holy Roman Empire, ceased to exist, as did the relatively new German Empire. Maps of Eastern Europe and the Middle East were redrawn in a manner which still causes conflict. The centuries-old Russian Empire was replaced with a socialist system and later the Stalinist system which led to the death of millions.

The peace settlement of World War I remains a controversial topic. The international order created by this settlement lasted barely twenty years. The 1919 Versailles settlement failed to establish a stable international order, illustrating that winning a war does not always mean winning the peace. In the aftermath of the war, major geopolitical changes occurred. The center of wealth moved from Europe to the United States, the political map of Europe was significantly redrawn, and Germany was left in financial shambles, its people driven to the brink of starvation – a situation that helped create the rise of Adolf Hitler and, ultimately, World War II.

The Versailles treaty’s declaration that Germany was entirely to blame for the war was a blatant untruth that humiliated the German people. Furthermore, the treaty imposed steep war reparations payments on Germany – the equivalent of $400 billion today – meant to force the country to bear the entire financial burden of the war.

The principal representative of the British Treasury at the Paris Peace Conference, John Maynard Keynes, resigned in 1919 in protest at the scale of the reparation demands, warning correctly that it was stoking the fires for another war in the future.

When Wall Street crashed in 1929, the Weimar Republic spiraled into debt. Germany had to print money to pay off the war debt, triggering inflation in the country to the point where ten billion marks would not even buy a loaf of bread.

It has taken 92 years for Germany to repay its World War I debt, but remarkably the last $93.8 million installment was paid just six weeks ago on Sunday, October 3, 2010.

In historical retrospect, it’s hard to imagine that the political leaders in 1914 really understood the savage killing machine they had turned loose on themselves. Like the beginning of many armed conflicts, the citizens and leaders of that time believed this one would be over by Christmas 1914. But by the end of the first year, it became apparent that a new kind of war emerged on the battlefield like none that anyone had ever been seen before – or thankfully repeated since. This was total war – horribly stuck in a stalemate.

Even in the most gruesome human experiences there are those who can see glimpses of beauty. Lt. Col. John McCrae, a Canadian surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade was just such a person. In civilian life he had authored several medical texts but also a growing collection of poetry.

With the 1st Field Artillery, McCrae spent 17 days treating injured men – Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient. It was an ordeal he hardly thought could be survived as he later wrote:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of those seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly disturbed McCrae. A young friend and former student, 22-year old Lieutenant Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, was killed by a shell burst on May 2, 1915. He was buried later that day in a little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of a chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station in Flanders, McCrae could see a profusion of wild poppies growing in the torn up earth of the Ypres battlefield and its improvised cemeteries. There, as he mourned Helmer’s death and the deaths of all the soldiers, he scribbled in his notebook the poem that elementary school students in my generation were required to memorize and recite each year on November 11 – In Flanders Fields.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Two years later while serving as the command surgeon of the No. 3 Canadian General Hospital at Boulogne, Belgium, McCrae contracted pneumonia. It became complicated by pneumococcal meningitis and quickly led to a brain hemorrhage.

John McCrae died on January 28, 1918,

He was only 45 years old.

The 2012 Election

When the polls opened this past Tuesday, the 2012 election began. It might have been called the 2010 midterm election, but it was really Round One in the 2012 election and it’s in nowise over.

While one Senate seat has not been determined (AK) by the election returns, six seats left the Democrats Tuesday and went over to the Republicans. The Republicans, by contrast, didn’t lose a single Senate seat. Republicans will have at least 47 seats going into 2012 – not a majority, but enough to filibuster and enough to force Reid into tough compromises.

Eight House seats have yet to be settled by the election, but at least 64 switched from Democrat to Republican. Only three seats switched from Republican to Democrat. The Republicans will have at least 240 seats (55%) next year.

Moreover, the Wicked Witch is dead. Pelosi’s Kool-Aid rule is over – forever. Usually, a Speaker who loses the House retires (the political equivalent of hari-kari). This one has decided she is so indispensable to the Democrat party that she wants to run for Minority Leader now. Maybe she can help them lose the 2012 election.

One governorship (IL) remains undecided by the election, but the Democrats so far have lost 11 gubernatorial seats versus the Republican loss of five – one of which went to a Republican-turned-Independent, Lincoln Chafee. The Republicans will have at least 28 governorships (54%) going into 2012, which along with state legislatures, will allow them to tear up state electoral maps across the country.

Republicans now control 54 state legislative chambers – taking control of at least 18 state chambers from Democrats – a net gain of at least 680 seats in state legislatures. Republican governors and state legislatures will redistrict electoral maps in their states next year to assure that they add between 15 and 25 Republican House seats through the redistricting process. Four chambers are still in play, but even if Republicans lose them all, the party will hold more state legislative seats until 2012 than it has filled since 1928.

That’s Round One. For a president seeking to mount a second term election, it’s hard to imagine a more difficult starting point. But Truman, Reagan, and Clinton saw disastrous midterm elections and came back for second terms. This midterm, however, seems different. The Republicans didn’t win; the Democrats lost – big time. As P.J. O’Rourke observed, this wasn’t an election; it was a restraining order.

At no time in the history of this country has the people’s government shown such utter contempt for them as in the last two years. Massive interventions in healthcare and “stimulus” spending ignored howls of opposition. American politics is always played to the left and right of midfield – never in the red zone as Obama and friends have done since his election. The election results were, therefore, the people’s verdict on two years’ of arrogant governance.

This election drove a stake in the heart of Obama’s leftist agenda to transform America into a European clone. His agenda can never be revived. Knowing better than ever that they must always face a local election, no future Congress will again ignore its constituents and rush over the cliff lemming-like in obedience to its congressional leaders. This instinct will be patent in the elections of 2012.

In 2012, Democrats will have to defend 23 additional seats in the Senate’s three-year staggered election cycle. Should they be worried? Eight of those seats are in trouble with constituents because of their shenanigans in the last two years: Bill Nelson (FL), McCaskill (MO), Tester (MT), Ben Nelson (NB), Conrad (ND), Brown (OH), Cantwell (WA), and Webb (VA). If they had been up for reelection this cycle against credible opponents, they would have likely lost – and they know it. Look for them to get busy with some serious fence-mending over the next two years.

To these eight can be added newly elected Joe Manchin (WV) who is only a placeholder for the seat of Robert Byrd until Byrd’s reelection cycle would have come up in 2012 had he lived. In the 2010 campaign, Manchin was often trailing his Republican challenger, despite his popularity as the now ex-governor, and he had to engage in lots of anti-Obama electioneering to convince the gun and bible-totin’ West Virginia hillbillies that he would be one of them in Washington. Obama’s “cap and trade” would put WV into bankruptcy, so Manchin’s electoral theatrics included shooting a rifle bullet through a copy of it.

We could add to that list of nine the four seats of Stabenow (MI), Klobuchar (MN), Menendez (NJ) and Bingaman (NM) who saw the other senatorial seat in their states shift to the Republicans last Tuesday. And then there is Herb Kohl (WI) who watched Russ Feingold get trounced and may decide at age 77 that he doesn’t need that grief and will therefore choose to retire.

Question: what happens when Reid comes skulking around in the search for votes on an issue opposed by the 14 states these senators represent? After the 2010 bloodletting, is he likely to get those votes? I don’t think soooooo. Having seen what happens to kamikazes, Reid will have a hard time imposing discipline on his caucus.

In contrast, McConnell need only remind Republicans who want to get along with Democrats by going along with their agenda that Bob Bennett and Mike Castle were punished in their primaries for straying too far into bipartisanland. There are ten Republicans who are up for reelection in 2012. RINOs (Republicans in name only) could find a Tea Party challenger in their 2012 primaries. So McConnell should find lots of votes from moderate 2012 Republicans and scared 2012 Democrats that give him majorities during the next two years. For example, if the House eviscerates ObamaCare, as it’s likely to do, and sends a bill to the Senate for reconciliation, the Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2012 might say, “Ah, you know what? Let Obama go on record by vetoing this so I can tell my constituents that I voted for it.” Round Two of the 2012 election has begun. McConnell will have more influence over the endangered Democrats than Reid will have.

Obama is going to have to face a new reality in legislating during the next two years. During his first two, he had absolute majorities in both houses and consequently an easy time of it. Vetoes weren’t necessary. Now he has two formidable opposition leaders in the House and Senate, and he is going to have to find a way to work with them. Neither McConnell nor Boehner is an exciting guy, so Obama’s proclivity for arrogance and talking down to people he feels intellectually superior to could be a real handicap in their working relationship.

If the White House thinks that this midterm is a replay of the 1994 midterm, which brought Gingrich and the Contract with America into conflict with Clinton, it will be mistake. Obama is no Clinton. He lacks Clinton’s political shrewdness and his ability to craft win/win deals. Obama understands only win/loss deals. Remember his classic comment at the disastrous Blair House summit last year – “I won” – meaning he didn’t have to negotiate.

Likewise Boehner is no Gingrich. He lacks Gingrich’s bright mind. But Boehner is also not as gaff-prone or self-destructive as Gingrich and therefore will be more difficult for Obama to maneuver into a corner. Boehner will stay on task, count votes, and raise money for the party – the mundane stuff of House leadership. He understands the mistakes of the Gingrich regime and won’t repeat them. Don’t look for him to threaten to shut down government or to let it happen. His message after Tuesday’s election lacked the messianic zeal of a Gingrich: "The new majority here in Congress will be the voice of the American people," Boehner said. "This is a time for us to roll up our sleeves and go to work on the people's priorities: creating jobs, cutting spending and reforming the way Congress does its business." Not a message that would bring a crowd to its feet, but ploddingly practical.

However, look for Boehner and McConnell to get the Democrats and Obama on the record on the hot button issues of the election – spending, taxes, healthcare, and government regulations. They will make a good tag team in forcing votes repeatedly in anticipation of the 2012 elections. The healthcare piñata will get swung at more than once during the next two years in order to force endangered Democrats to campaign on their votes against its repeal. If the Senate defers to Obama’s veto, then the president must campaign on his vote against reforming his hated healthcare law.

“We can’t expect the president to sign [healthcare repeal],” McConnell said this week. “We’ll also have to work in the House on denying funds for implementation, and, in the Senate, on votes against its most egregious provisions.”

On tax cuts, if Republicans hold firm on cutting them for everybody (actually they only have to leave the rates where they are), they can force Obama and Senate Democrats facing re-election in 2012 to oppose an extension of tax rates for the middle class in order to punish the rich. Given the Hobson's choice, it’s likely that the Democrats will fold.

Spending bills originate in the House, and with their new majority, Republicans will find more maneuvering room to cut spending. Obama will be trapped in his “tax and spend” liberal image unless he works with the Republicans going into the 2012 election to scrub his awful spending record. Boehner doesn’t deserve to be Speaker if he can’t leverage Obama’s reelection aspirations into spending concessions to get outlays back to at least 2008 levels. If he does this, Boehner will renew the traditional Republican image of fiscal conservatism, which was tarnished mightily during the Bush years.

To that end Boehner must do two things to signal to conservative stakeholders that Republicans have learned from the errors of their ways during the Bush years. First, he must come down hard on the profligate spending that has afflicted Republicans in recent years. He should clean house on the Republican side of the House Appropriations Committee as a demonstration of his commitment to a new beginning on spending, appointing one of the “Young Guns” as the Chairman. This would show the Tea Party Republicans that the 112th Congress won’t be “business as usual.”

Second, Boehner pledged in a Friday Wall Street Journal editorial “no more earmarks.” Hallelujah! Voters showed their wrath and disgust with the Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Purchase during the healthcare debate. “Bringing home the bacon” was raised to a new art form by Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Ted Stevens (R-AK). It is wasteful, silly, and out of touch with where the voters are with this spendthrift administration. Eric Cantor, one of the “Young Guns” and the presumptive House Majority Leader when Boehner becomes the Speaker, is passionately opposed to earmarks. Boehner could show his earmark resolve by appointing an earmark hawk like him to first or second chair in Appropriations.

Don’t expect Obama to fall into step with the Republicans in some new-found spirit of cooperation. Last week he said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. “Now that progress has been made,” Obama continued, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta’ have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta’ sit in back."

Strange that a man whose race suffered the indignities of sitting in the back of buses would use it to put down Republicans, unless doing so has a Freudian implication. What is really objectionable, the racial putdown notwithstanding, is Obama’s obvious ignorance of what elections are all about. Even if he dislikes having people disagree with him, which Obama obviously does (I won), he doesn’t get to say who can sit where on the public’s metaphorical bus; the people of the United States determine that. I predict, therefore, that Obama will struggle trying to find the right blend of conciliation and confrontation to assert his authority with this Congress on one hand, and yet navigate the congressional Scylla and Charybdis to avoid defeat in 2012 on the other.

Likewise, after four years in the wilderness, Republican leaders will not find it easy to resist flaunting their new-found power in a Congress dominated for the past four years by Reid-Pelosi’s congressional version of the Nine Circles of Hell. Last week McConnell said:

“Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office. But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill, to end the bailouts, cut spending, and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday’s election. But we can’t plan on it.”

In addition to pledging a stop to earmarks, Boehner pledged in his Wall Street Journal editorial to post all bills online for three days before they are voted on (where have we heard that before?) but more importantly to include a clause in every bill citing where in the Constitution Congress is given the power to pass it. Bills that can't pass this test, Boehner said, shouldn't get a vote. Amen, brother, say on!

Boehner’s editorial further promised to “put an end to so-called comprehensive bills with thousands of pages of legislative text that make it easy to hide spending projects and job-killing policies.” The American people, he observed, are not well-served by "comprehensive" bills; the Speaker should insist on smaller, more focused legislation that is properly scrutinized by Congress and the public, constitutionally sound, and consistent with Americans' demand for a less-costly, less-intrusive government. I’m there!

Have I heard words like these from the conservative side of Congress before? Sho nuff, I have! I’m willing to give Boehner and McConnell the first six months of 2011 to prove they are selling a pony not the poop. After two years of the 111th Congress, that’s more time than I expect the American people will give them.

Going forward, I expect elections to be more about voting against actions – the seen – than voting for promises – the unseen. The leaders and the conservative members of Congress had best understand then that, no matter how popular they think their program is now, they are one election away from a humiliating defeat. Just look at where the Democrats are today versus two years ago. And – (big “and”) – no matter how badly a political party seems defeated today, it is one election away from an historical recall. Just look at where the Republicans are today versus two years ago.

Forewarned is forearmed.