Saturday, February 10, 1962: U-2 incident: Spy swap

Excerpts from The Associated Press:

American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was freed from a Russian prison and traded dramatically today for master Soviet spy Rudolph Abel in an early morning exchange at the middle of a bridge between East Germany and West Berlin.

Announcement of the trade was made at the White House at 3:19 a.m. to a corp of newsmen routed out of bed.

President Kennedy had gotten the word only a few minutes before in the White House quarters.

Powers had been in Russian custody since his high-altitude camera plane was downed on Soviet soil in May 1960.

After a spectacular public trial in which Powers pleaded guilty to espionage charges, he was sentenced to 10 years.

Abel had been described as Russia's chief spy in the United States when he was arrested in Manhattan June 21, 1957.

The exchange went off with cloak and dagger secrecy.

The dark-haired Powers and the gaunt Abel were escorted simultaneously onto Glienicker Bridge, connecting Potsdam with Wannsee in the US sector of Berlin.

The walk to freedom on the bridge for Powers ended weeks of Soviet-US negotiations.

From the Soviet Union's TASS news agency:

The announced decision of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium to pardon Francis Powers in the interests of improving Soviet-U.S. relations managed to get into the late editions of U.S. morning papers, which published it under enormous banner headlines. An AP correspondent reports from Moscow that Powers left his place of imprisonment with the following words: "I will never fly over Soviet Russia again."

Photo from Deutsche Presse-Agentur, taken on the day of the exchange.

* "Powers Is Freed By Soviet In An Exchange for Abel; U-2 Pilot On Way To U.S." (New York Times, February 10): @

* "U-2 Pilot Powers Goes Free In Dramatic Trade With Reds" (Ocala Star-Banner, February 11): @

* "The Abel for Powers Exchange" (newsreel): @

* "The Great Spy Swap ... An Album of Intrigue" (Life magazine, February 16): @
* "Inside Story of a Lawyer's Adventure" (Life magazine, February 23): @

* "Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War" (book by Giles Whittell): @

-- Rudolph Abel

* Short biography of Abel (from Counterintelligence Briefing Center, U.S. Department of Energy): @

* "Top-Ranking Russian Spy Chief Captured" (newsreel, 1957): @

* "The Hollow Coin" (Department of Defense film about Abel case, 1958): @

* Summary of Abel case (from www.fbi.gov): @

-- Previous blog entries

* U-2 incident (May 1, 1960): @

* U-2 evidence (May 7, 1960): @

* Powers' indictment (July 9, 1960): @

* Powers' trial (August 17-19, 1960): @

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Wednesday, February 7, 1962: Project Blue Book

In response to a request by the Mutual Broadcasting Company, the U.S. Air Force issues a statement on unidentified flying objects. It reads, in part, "there has been nothing in the way of evidence or other data to indicate that these unidentified sightings were extraterrestrial vehicles under intelligent control." The day before, the Air Force had released a fact sheet summarizing the first several years of Project Blue Book, the military's investigation into UFOs.

The photo shows the cover of the 1952 status report.

* Air Force statement (February 7): @

* Air Force fact sheet (February 6): @

* "Flying Saucers? AF Says You're Seeing Things" (Miami News, February 7): @

* Project Blue Book Archive: @

* Project Blue Book summary (from the National Archives): @

* Earlier post on Betty and Barney Hill (September 19-20): @

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February 1962: Cuba trade embargo

The United States enacts a trade embargo against Cuba "in light of the subversive offensive of Sino-Soviet Communism with which the Government of Cuba is publicly aligned." The White House statement says that "on humanitarian grounds exports of certain foodstuffs, medicines and medical supplies ... would be excepted from this embargo." The order, signed by President Kennedy on February 3, goes into effect on February 7.

* Full text of order: @

* White House statement: @

* Earlier post on partial embargo (October 19, 1960): @

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February 1962: Broadside magazine

The tiny, influential magazine is first published. From the "Music of Social Change" project at Emory University: "Broadside was founded in 1962 by Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friessen in the wake of McCarthyism. It emerged as a creative outlet for composers who were writing 'topical songs,' or music that comments on current issues, and provided a rare forum through which these songwriters could publicize and circulate their materials. Based in New York City, the publication largely featured protest and 'agit-prop' (agitation-propaganda) songs, including many compositions written in the response to the increasingly violent scenes of the civil rights movement. Broadside was published with an old mimeograph machine, lending it a homespun appearance that belies its power influence on American music."

The first issue included the words to "Talking John Birch" by Bob Dylan; the song is better known as "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues."

The magazine's mission statement, also from the first issue:

Topical songs have been an important part of America's music since early Colonial days. Many people throughout the country today are writing topical songs, and the only way to find out if a song is good is to give it wide circulation and let the singers and listeners decide for themselves. BROADSIDE's aim is not so much to select and decide as to circulate as many songs as possible and get them out as quickly as possible. Our schedule calls for twice-a-month publication -- this will depend mainly on the contributing songwriters. BROADSIDE may never publish a song that could be called a "folk song." But let us remember that many of our best folk songs were topical songs at their inception. Few would deny the beauty and lasting value of some of Woody Guthrie's songs. Old or new, "a good song can only do good."

* Magazine's website: @

* First issue: @

* Back issues: @
* Index of artists: @

* Radio episode of "Sounds to Grow On" (from Smithsonian Folkways; click on Program #8): @

* "The Best of Broadside 1962-1998: Anthems of the American Underground from the Pages of Broadside Magazine" (2000 album): @

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Sunday, February 4, 1962: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Founded by entertainer Danny Thomas, the hospital opens in Memphis, Tennessee. The hospital specializes in treatment of and research into pediatric cancer. Years earlier, Thomas had prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of hopeless causes, and pledged to build a shrine to the saint if he could "help me find my way in life."

* Hospital website: @

* Hospital profile (from National Comprehensive Cancer Network): @

* Slideshow (from Memphis Commercial Appeal): @

* "St. Jude Opens Fulfilling Comic's Vow" (Youngstown Vindicator, February 5): @

* Danny Thomas biography (from The Museum of Broadcast Communications): @

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February 1962: "Spacewar!"

Created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology starting in 1961, the "Spacewar!" video game was in full working mode by the following February. It quickly proved popular among computer enthusiasts and helped lay the foundation for video game development. In the game, two players steer spaceships and try to destroy the other, all set against a background of stars.

* Play the game: @ and @

* Entry from MIT Museum: @

* Entry from Computer History Museum: @

* Entry from www.1up.com: @

* "Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums" (Rolling Stone, 1972): @

* "Space War! A Computer Game Today, Reality Tomorrow?" (Saga, 1972): @

* "The Origin of Spacewar" (Creative Computing, 1981): @

* "Seminal video game Spacewar lives again" (CNET.com, 2011): @

* "Spacewar!, the first 2d top-down shooter, turns 50" (Ars Technica, 2011): @

* "The first 'electronic' game ever made?" (from pongmuseum.com): @

* Video of "Spacewar!" in action: @

* Interview with Steve Russell, one of the game's creators: @

* "Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction" (book): @

* "Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution" (book): @

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Wednesday, February 1, 1962: 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'

The novel by Ken Kesey is published by Viking Press. The New York Times wrote on February 4: "What Mr. Kesey has done in his unusual novel is to transform the plight of a ward of inmates in a mental institution into a glittering parable of good and evil. ... The catastrophic terminus of this novel is a bit obvious. But the route traversed is so brilliantly illuminated that it is reward enough."

Time magazine wrote in 2005, in listing it among the top 100 English-language novels since 1923 (the year Time was founded): "When Kesey decided to take on the hypocrisy, cruelty and enforced conformity of modern life, he dug into his own experiences as a test subject in a mental hospital. In Cuckoo's Nest the irrepressible inmate Randle McMurphy does battle with the icy, power-mad Nurse Ratched to liberate, or at least breathe a little life into, the crushed and cowed patients she lords it over, while the book's stonily silent narrator Chief Bromden looks on. Both an allegory of individualism and a heart-tearing psychological drama, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest manages to be uplifting without giving an inch to the seductions of sentimality."

* More about Kesey (from The Beat Page): @

* Kesey tribute site: @

* Website of Kesey's son, Zane: @

* Actor Christopher Lloyd reads from the book: @

* "The Parts That Were Left Out" (from www.redhousebooks.com): @

* "Insanity as Redemption in Contemporary American Fiction: Inmates Running the Asylum" (book by Barbara Tepa Lupack): @

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Tuesday, January 30, 1962: Laughter epidemic

Excerpted from "Humoring the Gerontologists" (from the website www.damninteresting.com):

... In the small village of Kashasha, Tanganyika (modern Tanzania), students at a girls' boarding school began to laugh following some remark or event which is now lost to history. ... The laughter was abnormallly infectious, and soon the greater part of the student body was incapacitated with the convulsions. In an effort to quell the outbreak, administrators closed the school and sent the students home, but this allowed the epidemic to spread ... (it) propagated to thousands of people, including other schools, workplaces a neighboring village. The episodes became unpleasant for the sufferers, leading to abdominal pain, fainting, respiratory problems, rashes and uncomfortable weeping. ... Reports vary regarding the duration of the epidemic -- anywhere from six to eighteen months -- but over time it faded. ... Most historians and scientists attribute the bizarre incident to mass hysteria (specifically, mass psychogenic illness). The nation had won its independence from Great Britain only months prior, and the resulting increase in expectations among the citizenry was said to have produced unusually high levels of stress.

* "An epidemic of laughing in the Bukoba district of Tanganyika" (from Central African Journal of Medicine, May 1963): @

* "Examining 1962's 'laughter epidemic' " (Chicago Tribune, July 2003): @

* "Contagious Laughter" (2008 broadcast from radiolab.org): @

* "Laughter" (American Scientist, January-February 1996): @

* International Society for Humor Studies: @

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January 1962: Vietnam

Thursday, January 11

In his State of the Union speech, President John F. Kennedy says:

We support the independence of those newer or weaker states whose history, geography, economy or lack of power impels them to remain outside "entangling alliances" -- as we did ourselves for so many years. For the independence of nations is a bar to the communists' "grand design" -- it is the basis of our own.

In the past year, for example, we have urged a neutral and independent Laos -- regained there a common policy with our major allies -- and insisted that a cease-fire precede negotiations. While a workable formula for supervising its independence is still to be achieved, both the spread of war and a communist occupation thus far have been prevented.

A satisfactory settlement in Laos would also help to achieve and safeguard the peace in Viet Nam -- where the foe is increasing his tactics of terror -- where our own efforts have been stepped up -- and where the local government has initiated new programs and reforms to broaden the base of resistance.

The systematic aggression now bleeding that country is not a "war of liberation" -- for Viet Nam is already free. It is a war of attempted subjugation -- and it will be resisted.

* Text of speech (from American Presidency Project): @

Friday, January 12

From pbs.org:

In Operation Chopper (part of Operation Farm Gate), helicopters flown by U.S. Army pilots ferry 1,000 South Vietnamese soldiers to sweep a NLF (National Liberation Front) stronghold near Saigon. It marks America's first combat missions against the Viet Cong.

1962 photo from Life.com, precise date and location uncertain; caption reads, "Vietnamese troops waiting to be picked up."

* "Operation Farm Gate" (from "The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War"): @

* More about H-21 Shawnee helicopters (from www.globalsecurity.org): @

Saturday, January 13

Operation Ranch Hand -- an effort to flush out North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops by destroying ground cover through the aerial spraying of herbicides -- formally gets under way.

* Earlier post on Operation Ranch Hand (August 10, 1961): @

* "Operation Ranch Hand: Herbicides in Southeast Asia" (by William A. Buckingham Jr., who also wrote a longer history for the Office of Air Force History, linked to in earlier post): @

Monday, January 15

From a news conference held by President Kennedy:

Q: Mr. President, are American troops now in combat in Vietnam?

A: No.

From "Vietnam War Almanac": This is technically correct, but U.S. are serving as combat advisers with the South Vietnamese army, and U.S. pilots are flying missions with the South Vietnamese air force.

Transcript of news conference (from JFK Library): @

Saturday, January 27

From "Vietnam War Almanac":

Secretary of Defense McNamara forwards a memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President Kennedy that urges the deployment of "suitable" U.S. forces to Vietnam, saying that it is clear that the South Vietnamese cannot handle the insurgency alone. The Joint Chiefs of Staff asserts that failure to deploy forces at this time "will merely extend the date when such action must be taken and will make our ultimate task proportionally more difficult."

From the memorandum, titled "The Strategic Importance of the Southeast Asia Mainland" (dated January 13):

The military objective, therefore, must be to take expeditiously all actions necessary to defeat communist aggression in South Vietnam. The immediate strategic importance of Southeast Asia lies in the political value that can accrue to the Free World through a successful stand in that area. Of equal importance is the psychological impact that a firm position by the United States will have on the countries of the world -- both free and communist. On the negative side, a United States political and/or military withdrawal from the Southeast Asian area would have an adverse psychological impact of even greater proportion, and one from which recovery would be both difficult and costly. It must be recognized that the fall of South Vietnam to communist control would mean the eventual communist domination of all of the Southeast Asian mainland.

Note: McNamara does not agree with the assessment. He adds this comment to the report in passing it to Kennedy: "The memorandum requires no action by you at this time. I am not prepared to endorse the views of the Chiefs until we have had more experience with our present program in South Vietnam."

* Text of memorandum: @

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Tuesday, January 24, 1962: The Beatles get a manager

The Beatles -- John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best -- sign a management contract with Brian Epstein, who ran a family-owned record shop in Liverpool, England. It's a "contract" in name only; Epstein himself doesn't sign it; he later explained that he wanted to get the group a recording contract first (the group, billed as The Beat Brothers, had backed up Tony Sheridan on "My Bonnie" and other songs in June 1961, and had unsuccessfully auditioned for Decca Records on January 1, 1962). Also, since Paul and George were both under 21, their signatures should have been witnessed by their fathers. A proper contract would be signed, Epstein included, on October 1. By that time, Ringo Starr had replaced Best as the group's drummer. (Stu Sutcliffe had left the band in mid-1961, staying in Hamburg, Germany, to pursue his artwork.)

Photo from The Daily Mirror newspaper.

* brianepstein.com: @

* Track listing for January 1 audition (from www.beatlesource.com): @

* More about Epstein, from the book "The Beatles," by Hunter Davies: @

* Earlier post -- The Beatles at the Cavern Club (February 9, 1961): @

* Earlier post -- The Beatles in Litherland (December 27, 1960): @

* Earlier post -- The Beatles (August 17, 1960): @

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Undated: A change in crayon colors

The Crayola crayon color "flesh" is changed to "peach." From the Crayola website: "Name voluntarily changed to 'peach' in 1962, partially as a result of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement." The website crayoncollecting.com adds a bit of background, stating that the color had in fact gone from "flesh tint" (1903) to "flesh" (1949) to "pink beige" (1956-57) to "flesh" (1958) to "peach" (1962).

* Crayola chronology of colors: @

* Crayola history: @

* Entry from www.crayoncollecting.com: @

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Undated: 'Music From Mathematics'

From the November 17, 1962, issue of Billboard magazine (the article uses the spelling "computor"):

"Decca Records introduces two new artists in its 'Music From Mathematics' LP this week when the IBM 7090 computor and the Digital to Sound Transducer make their disk debuts. The electronic duo are the stars of the new Decca album and the results of their rapid and unerring calculations make the music heard on this disk.

"The process of composing music for the computor is described by the label as 'outlining musical sounds by ascribing to them mathematical sequences of numbers. The numerical descriptions are the equivalent of musical sounds.' These numerical sequences are punched up on IBM cards and, upon instructions from the composer, the cards are fed into the machine which transfers them into sounds which are amplified and recorded on to the usual tape recording console.

"Decca notes that the composer is still the controlling factor and, in so many words, without the man, the machines can't go. So far this kind of music has been produced instrumentally, but it is also known that the Bell Laboratories have a produced a singing voice through electronic manipulation. It shouldn't be too long before card-feeding composers create tomorrow's singing idol."

The album features otherworldly sounds alongside musical renditions of the well-known songs "Frere Jacques" and "Joy to the World." But the most memorable piece by far is "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)," with the computer singing the last verse. From the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress: "This recording, made at Bell Laboratories on an IBM 704 mainframe computer, is the earliest known recording of a computer-synthesized voice singing a song. The recording was created by John L. Kelly Jr. and Carol Lochbaum and featured musical accompaniment written by Max Mathews." (The song was later used in the 1968 movie "2001: A Space Odyssey"; the computer known as HAL sings "Daisy" while in its death throes.)

Notes on "Daisy":

The reason this post is listed as "undated" is that there's a bit of discrepancy as to when "Daisy" was actually completed. A different version of "Music From Mathematics" was released as a 10-inch album in 1961 by Bell Telephone Labs, but the track listing does not include "Daisy." (Click here for the entry from discogs.com.)

However, United Press International's year in review for 1961 includes the song. (Click here to read transcript and listen.) The National Recording Registry also puts the year as 1961.

"Daisy" also appears on a magazine insert called "Synthesized Speech" from June 1962. (Click here for details, and here to listen.)

I emailed Max Mathews in 2011 to try to pin down the date. His reply, dated March 28, reads as follows: "The best date I have is sometime in 1962. The piece was made in two parts. Kelly and Lochbaum made the singing voice first with a singing voice synthesis program they wrote. I made the accompaniment later using my Music 3 program." (Mathews died on April 21, 2011.) Bell Labs also says it was recorded in 1962. (Click here for summary.)

* Listen to album (from Computer History Museum): @ and @

* Album liner notes: @

* Back cover: @

* Max Mathews obituary (New York Times, April 2011): @

* "The First Computer Musician" (New York Times, June 2011): @

* "Max Mathews Makes Music" (from Computer History Museum): @

* "The Computer Music Tutorial" (book by Curtis Roads): @

* "HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality" (from MIT Press): @

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Saturday, January 13, 1962: 'The Connoisseur'

Norman Rockwell's illustration for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, unlike many of his other works, is open to interpretation; namely, "What is the man thinking?" or "What is Rockwell saying about modern art?" The abstract painting is done in the style of Jackson Pollock.

From the biography "Norman Rockwell: A Life": "The Pollock imitation is considered by most experts to be competently executed; certainly the intent is to represent the art respectfully, not to mock it. ... It is impossible to appreciate the significance of Rockwell's story on this January cover, however, without taking seriously the rueful statements he made to others about his place in the art world. ... The illustrator had swallowed his unhappiness at being taken out of the category of 'artist' long ago ... "

* Norman Rockwell Museum (click on "Rockwell" and then "Timeline" for more about the cover): @

* Earlier post on a Rockwell work (1964's "The Problem We All Live With," about school integration): @

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Saturday, January 13, 1962: 'The Twist' back at No. 1

More than a year after its first reached No. 1 (September 19, 1960), Chubby Checker's "The Twist" returns to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 music charts. The reason for the resurgence: the dance's popularity among adults as well as teenagers. In New York, the place for celebrities to be -- and to be seen -- was the Peppermint Lounge. (Joey Dee and the Starliters' "Peppermint Twist," a tribute to the nightclub, would itself go to No. 1 after Checker's two-week run).

Photo from Corbis Images dated October 28, 1961. Caption reads, "Patrons and limousines line up in front of the Pepprermint Lounge, home of the dance craze the 'Twist' in New York, New York."

The photo below, of first lady Jackie Kennedy doing the Twist with fashion designer Oleg Cassini, was taken at her sister Lee's home in London in the spring of 1962 (photo from www.digigraphie.com). The New York Times wrote in February, "It was Mr. Cassini who introduced the twist to the White House at a dinner dance last fall for Mrs. Kennedy's sister..."

* "Let's Twist Again" (The Guardian newspaper, June 2011): @

* "A Pulsating, Gyrating, Hip-Swinging Mania Sweeps the U.S. and Europe / And Now Everybody is Doing It; The Twist" (Life magazine, November 24, 1961): @

* Entry from "The Billboard Book of No. 1 Hits": @

* Earlier blog post on "The Twist" (August 6, 1960): @

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January 1962: 'Are Writers Made or Born?'

"On The Road" author Jack Kerouac pens a piece for the January 1962 edition of Writer's Digest. It ends with the oft-quoted line:

But it ain't whatcha write, it's the way atcha write it.

That's actually a variation of a line earlier in the article: "It ain't whatcha do," Sy Oliver and James Young said, "It's the way atcha do it." Kerouac is referencing the jazz song " 'Tain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)," written by Oliver and Young and recorded by Ella Fitzgerland, among others.

* Text of article (from a posting in the forum section on www.bobdylan.com, of all places; I've emailed the site to find out whether it's the piece in its entirety, as it is the only place I've found it on the Internet): @

* www.kerouac.com (website of The Beat Museum): @

* Short biography of Kerouac (from American Museum of Beat Art): @

* More Kerouac links (from Open Directory Project): @

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