Come Join Our Cleanup!

April 22 is Lenin’s Birthday—how about a

Subbotnik? (Субботник)

How about April 26????

  

      V.I. Lenin (1870-1924) 

Sunday, April 22, is Lenin's Birthday.  He'd be 144.   It is also Earth Day, and it is not a coincidence.  It's regrettable that the Communists of the world seem to think that they are champions of preservation of the earth, because in the USSR they were very sloppy stewards. However, every year, even today, long after the USSR is gone, Russians observe his birthday with volunteer clean-up events.

     

Lenin's Subbotnik, cleaning up the Kremlin grounds, 1920

            The Soviets celebrated Lenin's Birthday with Subbotniks all over the country.  A Subbotnik is usually on a Saturday (Subbota, in Russian) and it's a day when good Soviet citizens are expected to get out and clean up a park or a neighborhood, and they offer their labor for free.
             We lived in the Soviet Union when Leonid Brezhnev was General Secretary.  It was 1981 when we arrived, and 1983 when we left.  The Soviet Union at that time was seedy and threadbare, from Riga to Khabarovsk, across 11 time zones.   It was a country nearly on life support, struggling to fight a war in Afghanistan.

            Yet, seedy or not, we all knew that the USSR had a vast array of nuclear weapons, and they could blow us to kingdom come.

            It must have been a subtle thing when, I understand, a group at Stanford University started Earth Day, and set the day for April 22.  In the USSR the big Subbotnik fell on the Saturday nearest to Lenin’s Birthday. 

            We celebrate Earth Day in Rockport this year on Saturday, April 26.  I have a healthy lack of respect for communism and all its trappings, but this time of year does seem like a good time for us to get together and do some cleanup in our Millbrook Meadow here in Rockport. 

            Our winter seemed particularly long, cold, with enough snow. Here we appreciate spring far more than people in more temperate climates.  And it can really feel good to whack and cut tree branches and vines that had all grown together to practically dam up the little brook that runs through our Meadow. 

           Please join us, from 10 a.m. to noontime on Saturday, April 26 to help clean up your Meadow!

 Millbrook Meadow Earth Day Cleanup, April 2012:  Shown here are, left to right, Charmaine and Riley Blanchard , Allen Stanish, Beverly Robbins, Maura Wadlinger and Gaynelle Weiss.

[An earlier version of this material was posted April 21, 2012.]

Rockport's Millbrook Meadow

Millbrook Meadow

Rockport’s  “Magic Place”

          Lura Hall Phillips just contributed over $100,000 to Rockport’s Millbrook Meadow.

Lura, died in 1994, at the age of 94. 

For over 40 years she fought to preserve Rockport’s Millbrook Meadow.  She left no stone unturned to collect donations—all to make improvements in what she called “Rockport’s ‘Magic Place’”.

            Lura was always working to make the Meadow better.  Although she lived a very frugal life, she managed to save up money to leave a sizeable donation for the preservation of the Meadow. 

When the new dam was completed in 2013, it became glaringly obvious that major improvements were needed in the Mill Pond and the little park that runs from the Mill Dam to Front Beach.

The Pond has been filling with sediment for years, and each year loses areas of clear water to the masses of invasive aquatic plants.  The Meadow drains poorly, resulting in times each spring when part of it is underwater.  The Mill Brook is cluttered with stones that have come loose and block the flow of water to the sea.  Finally, several of the large trees in the Meadow have reached the end of their lives, and need to be replaced.

Lura left a Trust fund of over $160,000.  Gunilla Caulfield, the trustee of that fund, arranged to give Rockport’s Millbrook Meadow and Mill Pond $60,000 in 2013, and that began the restoration project that is now under way.

With that first $60,000 in hand, Millbrook Meadow Committee initiated a request for another $60,000 from Town Meeting last year, and Rockporters voted to approve that last spring.  Last fall, Town Meeting approved another $100,000 from Community Preservation funds.

Now, Gunilla has closed Lura’s Trust Fund and sent the check for over $102,500 to the Town.  The Board of Selectmen are expected to approve this gift for Restoration of the Meadow and Pond.

Lura Phillips and Gunilla Caulfield, ca. 1988

          Rockport’s Department of Public Works and the Millbrook Meadow Committee have hired Milone & MacBroom of Springfield, MA to begin the task of studying the length and breadth of the Pond and Meadow, to draw up plans for just what needs to be done to revive the area.

            Rockport has formed the Rockport Millbrook Meadow Conservancy to conduct a public fund drive.  At present, the money required to complete this project is $690,000.

 May Day in Millbrook Meadow, 1989

            But—let us return to Lura, who died 20 years ago this year.  Who was she?

Lura Hall Phillips

(1900-1994)

           

Lura Hall Phillips, ca. 1991

              Lura Phillips was the lady who, back in 1951, went head-to-head with businessmen who wanted to convert the Meadow into a parking lot.  She was a one-woman bulldozer, raising funds for Millbrook Meadow.

           

“Whenever I go into the meadow,” she said, “I realize what a magic place it is. It doesn’t matter how I feel when I arrive. But once I get inside, I feel the magic and everything changes.”

           With Lura’s leadership, this “Magic Place” flourished.  She organized fairs and festivals, pet shows, art auctions, Maypole dances and much more, to raise funds for the beautification and preservation of Millbrook Meadow.

            She ran a drive to raise funds to build a bridge across the Mill Brook in the Meadow, and more funds to build a beautiful winding stone stairway from King Street down to the Meadow.

 Lura raised the money to build this stairway

 into the Meadow in 1992.

            Lura loved that Meadow, and protected it, and raised funds to keep it up. 

            Lura left money in a trust, and now we are using that as seed money to start our restoration of the Meadow.

            All during Lura’s later years, she saved her money. When she died in 1994 she left money to the Lura Hall Phillips Trust, for the improvement of her beloved Millbrook Meadow.             

            Lura loved Rockport, and she loved the Meadow.  Now, her money can be used to help restore the Meadow and the Pond, to make it the Magic Place for future generations.

            For more information see the Conservancy website at www.millbrookmeadow.org

For more information contact Sam Coulbourn, Chair, Millbrook Meadow Committee (978-546-7138) or Shannon Mason, Vice-Chair (214-686-9272).

A Modern-day Soviet Union

Eurasiastan

 SELÇUK DEMIREL FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Americans are worried about a modern-day Soviet Union?

In his discussion about Vladimir Putin’s recent actions and words, Leon Neyfakh of the Boston Globe brings up an idea that is getting a lot of airing lately.

The collapse of the old Soviet Union in 1991 was an event that we in the West welcomed with great joy.

But, for an old KGB hand like Vladimir Putin, it is not surprising that he views it as

“the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

Neyfakh reports that the prospect of a new union of old Soviet states causes great uneasiness in Washington. 

Since the USSR imploded in 1991 we Americans have been the world’s lone superpower.

            It’s been lonesome.  Like one hand clapping.  Newton’s Third Law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Our world has thrived on balance—action and reaction.  USA vs. USSR…. Capitalism vs. Communism.   It’s been lonesome in the superpower suite.

For ten years, we remained distant from conflict in the world, distant even from the meltdown in old Yugoslavia, when the Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and all tried to kill each other.

            Then came the Arabs and the terrorists who highjacked four U.S. airliners, drove two into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, and initiated what President George W. Bush called the “War on Terror”.  That brought on our invasion of Afghanistan, and Iran. 

            But fighting embedded Arabs and other assorted Islamic fanatics has not been a contest between two very powerful adversaries. Our opponent has been one nasty, murderous group of throwbacks from an earlier century, thoroughly filled with hatred for America, the West, and for our freedom, our values, and perhaps our success.  Many Americans have died in the conflict since 1991, but this has never been a contest between two world powers.

            During the days of U.S.-Soviet confrontation, the Soviets backed the Arabs in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Egypt, supported them in their opposition to Israel and the West.  We sided with Pakistan, they sided with India.  We each had allies in Africa and the rest of the world.  The Chinese had their favorites, and they weren’t always the same as those of the USSR.  But this tension between east and west enabled small nations to play between the superpowers for special attention.  All this kept down the temperature in the Middle East, so it took the angry Arabs ten years to lash out on September 11, 2001.

            Now Mr. Putin wants to create the 21^st Century Version of the USSR—a Eurasian Union of nations combining their market power for trade, and more.  Of course, Putin is for “more” and we’ll hear more of his disdain for America, for our slackness, our loss of moral values, perhaps our great loss of military strength. 

            And we hear that the “Eurasian Union” causes great uneasiness in Washington. 

            If you believe in Newton’s Third Law, you might just think that the formation of a strong Eurasian Union might be the best thing for the world today.

            It might jerk Americans into realizing that we have gotten a little soft these past few decades.  Certainly our national morality has relaxed. Our competitive spirit is questionable.  And now we are talking about vastly reducing our armed forces.

            Our President seems fixated upon providing more and better government services, more and better health care. More and more, but perhaps reducing our capability to back up our words with actions when dealing with leaders like Mr. Putin. 

            What kind of man or woman do we need for our next President?

            These are interesting times.

--Sam Coulbourn

scoulbourn1@verizon.net

From the Boston Globe, Sunday, March 9, 2014:

Putin’s long game? Meet the Eurasian Union

It starts in 2015 and sounds like a scheme to rebuild the USSR, but its history is quite different — and troubling for the West

By Leon Neyfakh

WHAT IS Vladimir Putin up to? The crisis in Ukraine, brought to a boil when Russia’s president sent troops into the Crimean peninsula, has created almost a cottage industry of guessing at the autocratic leader’s intentions from one day to the next.

When it comes to Putin’s long-term strategy, however, there is at least one concrete plan that offers some insight, and one specific date that Russia observers are looking ahead to. That date, Jan. 1, 2015, is expected to mark the birth of an important new organization linking Russia with an as-yet-undetermined constellation of its neighboring countries—an alliance Putin has dubbed the Eurasian Union.  [For Neyfakh's story see:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/03/09/putin-long-game-meet-eurasian-union/1eKLXEC3TJfzqK54elX5fL/story.html   ]

Leon Neyfakh is the staff writer for Ideas. E-mail leon.neyfakh@globe.com.

Was there really a Cold War?

Russia today and yesterday…. 

Pres. Obama in Oval Office, on phone with Vladimir Putin March 1, 2014 (White House photo)

            The Cold War is over, and besides, it was just a 47-year-old tennis match between two old fuddy-duddies. 

            It’s easy for bright young people today to dismiss the Cold War as something that happened after World War II and before the Islamic terrorists decided that it was their time for history. 

            When I was slogging through the snow along Schmidt’s Bank in Leningrad, USSR, doing my job as a naval attaché in the Soviet Union (1983), young Columbia student Barack Obama wrote a long article for the school magazine placing the blame for U.S.-Soviet tensions largely on America's "war mentality" and the "twisted logic" of the Cold War. President Reagan's defense buildup, according to Obama, contributed to the "silent spread of militarism" and reflected our "distorted national priorities" rather than what should be our goal: a "nuclear free world." (Jonah Goldberg: Obama in denial on Russia, USA Today, Mar 3, 2014.)

  

            I hear that sort of thing a lot.  It’s as if all those years of Korea, and Viet Nam, and the Berlin Blockade, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the Truman Doctrine, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Francis Gary Powers, the Hungarian Uprising, Prague Spring, the downing of KAL007, Congo, Angola, the Arab-Israeli wars, the Suez Crisis and all the rest were just a time of innocent jostling.

School Bomb Drill, 1950s

            Most people born since the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989 cannot possibly understand the real fear that Americans faced when Khrushchev was caught sneaking missiles into Cuba, and President Kennedy declared a Quarantine.  The prospect of nuclear weapons devastating our cities, and America dissolving into a cloud of radioactive dust were very real in 1962.  After all, that was just 17 years after World War II.

            Those of us old enough to remember, and who were a part of all that confrontation between Communists and Americans and our allies realize that this was nearly a half-century of often deadly confrontation. 

            Mr. Obama faulted President Reagan for his defense buildup, but Obama could not have imagined the USSR that we saw in 1981. The Soviet defense establishment was all they had going for them.  Their economy was hollowed out.  Competing with the U.S. was a killer for them.

            It’s quite true that if one had the luxury of doing all that over again, we might have done it all better.  We now operate from the smug knowledge that indeed the world did NOT blow up, even with all those nuclear weapons.  Communism, which swallowed up country after country as World War II ended, did not go on to swallow up the world.  We stood our ground, and our way of life and our economy turned out to be solid after all.  And communism folded like a cheap umbrella, its hollowness, hypocrisy and evil exposed for all to see.

            Now, along comes Vladimir Putin, and, 22 years after the USSR collapsed, and fresh from his triumph at the Sochi Olympics, he finds himself wishing for the good old days of the Hammer and Sickle. 

Stalin hosted Roosevelt and Churchill in Yalta,  Crimea, in 1945.

            The competition and conflict between Ukrainians and Russians is centuries old.  The story of Crimea and Russia is also very old, and when Khrushchev gave the Black Sea peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954, how was he to know that one day the Ukraine would be a separate country?

            As the current leader of what was the central part of Union of Socialist Republics, Putin is not about to accept secondary status for his nation.  He is not going to sit still while Ukrainians fight amongst themselves just to the south. He also has the Chechens and other angry people in the old Soviet sphere to deal with. And he is definitely not going to listen to lectures from those busybody Americans.

            And then there is President Obama.  He may have learned some history since 1983, but he thinks he is “the leader of the free world” and the “leader of the last superpower standing” and entitled to advise and warn Putin. 

            If I were Obama, I think I would be very circumspect about handing out advice or warnings.  If he warns, he must back up his warnings with action that the U.S. and our allies will take. If he offers advice, he must convey that this is the advice not of a nice guy from Chicago, but the advice of the leader of a country which is ready to back up that advice with concrete action.

            We are the same Americans who saved Stalin and the USSR in World War II;

             The same ones who forced Khrushchev to back down in Cuba in 1962.

            And if Obama is conversing with Putin, or even just talking to the press about this business, he must get across the fact that he knows much more about Russian-American relations than he thought he knew in 1983. 

            What can the U.S. and its allies do or threaten to do, in order to get the Russians to moderate their warlike stance in Ukraine?

Of course, we can enact sanctions.

We and our allies can seek to isolate Russia, such as by excluding them from international economic conferences, as several Republican senators have suggested.

We can freeze bank accounts and restrict trade deals and privileges granted to Russians. 

Putin cares very much about Russia’s image in the world, or he wouldn’t have invested so much in money and effort in Sochi.  Obama understands public relations.  He can study the best way to suggest that Putin is screwing himself and his country with his actions.  Obama can look for ways to help Putin stay in charge, and act statesmanlike in dealing with Ukraine, while still recognizing that there are benefits from “playing nice” in the world today.

Sam Coulbourn

scoulbourn1@verizon.net

Americans Bad, Indians Good

Americans bad,

Indians good? 

Rockport History Book Club

Rockport Public Library

Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014

Topic: American Indians from 1620 to 1776

Richter, Daniel K., Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America; 2001; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

            Here is a book that puts the moccasin on the other foot.  When we normally think and write about the Indians that white men encountered when they first arrived on these shores several hundred years, it’s from the point of view of “looking west” at these red men, staring at European faces as our forefathers made their first contact with this continent.

            Daniel Richter begins “Facing East” by telling of a visit he made to St. Louis, Missouri, which, before the arrival of Europeans, was the site of the largest city in North America north of Mexico.  It was Cahokia, near present-day East St. Louis, and here, Indians had created a large city for the living and the deceased.  There were burial mounds and ceremonial platforms, a “woodhenge” of logs arranged in a circle to track the movements of the sun, moon and stars, and room for many to live.

            At the time that Columbus and his men were “discovered” by Indians in the Caribbean, some two million Native Americans inhabited the country east of the Mississippi. Tribes speaking Moskogean languages occupied the southeast, Sioan the Piedmont areas of the east; Iroquoian from the Great Lakes eastward and down into the Carolinas; and Algonquian from the Chesapeake up the coast.  For centuries the Indians had moved about the county on the great rivers. 

            For some 10,000 years these people had lived in an environment unconnected with other humans, so the first Europeans, who were the Darwinian survivors of all the diseases of their homelands, brought diseases which cut like a knife through Indian tribes. By the start of the Revolution, only some 200,000 Indians lived in that huge area.

            Richter personalized his story by picking out three notable Indians because their stories area well-known to many:

Pocahontas saving John Smith

            Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, who was a young Indian maiden first seen at Jamestown in 1607, had a relationship with John Smith and then married another Englishman, John Rolfe.  She went to England in 1616, where she died. 

            Kateri Tekakwitha was a Mohawk Iroquois born in 1656.  She was discovered by Jesuit missionaries, who converted her to Christianity.  Her short life was one of ascetism and sacrifice; before she died in 1680 she led many others to Christianity.  She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980.

            Metacom, the Wampanoag called King Philip, waged bitter war against colonists.  Yet, centuries after he had lived, in the 19^th century he was revered as an Indian hero of our country.

            In recent years, perhaps even going back to the time of President Andrew Jackson, the story of the Indians of America is a tragic tale.  Once proud men of the woods and plains bundled together and marched westward, made to settle in ever-shrinking reservations.  That is a true picture, of course, but there is much more, and Richter tries to explain that to the reader.  In the early parts of the book his narrative is fascinating, but as he goes forward, up to the time of the American Revolution, his narrative gets enormously detailed and complicated.    

            One of the problems one has in writing about the history of the Indians in America is that there are no written records—only records written by Europeans as they reacted to their encounters with Indians.  Then, explorers would take Indians back to Europe to show them off, perhaps use them as slaves, often to train them so that they could return as interpreters for future European ventures.  Bit by bit, these people were able to explain parts of their oral history and way of life to people who did record the information, and this is what Richter gratefully includes in his history. 

            In short, this is the discovery of these ugly bearded men on floating islands that appeared in various locations on the coast of present-day Canada and America.  These strange creatures sometimes began the encounter by attacking the Indians with these hard sticks that made a loud noise.  Often they brought pretty colored beads, and sometimes they performed strange rituals and offered the Indians hard biscuits and a red drink.  [The early Christian missionaries were offering the Indians communion.]

            The early explorers were looking for a quick scheme to enrich themselves with gold and gems.  The Spaniards had gathered up such riches in South America and they looked for it here, as well.  When they didn’t find it, they pressed further and further inland.  Early reports that went back to Europe were discouraging for the get-rich-quick people.  However soon, often with help from the Indians, they discovered furs, deerskins, tobacco, and all kinds of vegetables, as well as rich catches of fish.  

            Richter does a good job of letting us view these explorers through the eyes of Indians, as he describes their religious and spiritual outlook, and the world view they had as these strangers appeared. 

            As time went on, Indians got to look forward to the material things that the Europeans brought in their ships, like kettles and axes and knives and cloth, and over generations they grew to depend upon these things, which they purchased with furs and skins and whatever else the Europeans valued.

            Americans today are often quick to condemn our forefathers in the way they treated the Indians.  One must be scrupulously careful to try to understand the environment that early settlers saw.  Each encounter, from those by Cartier and Champlain in the north, to those by DeSoto in the south, had its own villains and victims.  Many of our forefathers really wanted to make a new life for themselves, but they brought cattle, and wanted to plant farms, and that was enough to upset the Indians.  You can understand that to Indians, planting fields, raising domesticated livestock, putting in fences --- were all things that they could not tolerate. 

Before you condemn our forefathers, first learn all you can about the world that they were living in.  It makes little sense to evaluate them by 2014 standards.  The men and women who arrived on America’s shores in 1620 and afterward were making a huge jump for a new life.  In many cases their lives back in Europe were miserable.  And when they arrived here, in some cases their very presence was a threat to the Indians. 

Try to study their lives, and try to understand the lives of the Indians, and think how you would have done it better. 

Comments?  Contact scoulbourn1@verizon.net

Birthday trip to Sochi

How I Spent My Birthday

on the Black Sea

 View of Sochi, Russia from the Black Sea

            When Marty and I hear about Sochi these days—rooms with two toilets next together, (both disconnected), or rooms with no furniture, and guests issued a key and a mattress--- we smile and understand.  Some things just don’t change.  The Soviet Union in 1983 was a fascinating but infuriating place.  Wonderful people, but in many ways, still stuck in the early 20^th century.  It looks as if modern Sochi and the Winter Olympics are a real success!

            Black Sea Cruise with the KGB*. It was February (1983) in Moscow, which is quite a bit colder and more miserable than February in Boston.  My wife and I were assigned to travel down to the Black Sea with our General and his wife, Jane, for a week’s cruise.  As always, this was an intelligence collection trip, this time to photograph and observe warships in the Black Sea ports of Odessa, Batumi, and Sochi, and to observe whatever else. 

            My boss was Air Force Brigadier General Charlie Hamm, a former Thunderbird pilot. 

            When the KGB heard we were taking this cruise, I envisioned the scene down at headquarters to be one of lining up all the agents who were due for a week in the warm climate, and picking out the likely candidates. 

            The flight from Vnukovo Airport in Moscow to Odessa was typical Soviet.  As soon as you stepped into the cabin, you could smell the delightful aroma of unwashed armpits, hydraulic oil, stale bread, garlic, and vents from toilet tanks whose filters hadn’t been changed.  My wife, Marty, sat in a seat and it was wet.  She complained to the stewardess, a muscular big bleach blond.  The stewardess simply reached down and grabbed a little man in the seat ahead of Marty, pulled him up by his coat and, at the same time asking Marty to move aside, plunked him down in the wet seat. Then she ordered Marty into the dry seat.

            On Aeroflot, if you’re flying on Election Day, Soviet citizens vote in-flight.  

            And the food—the food on Aeroflot was unique.  Sausages in heavy cellophane casings, served with lumpy mashed potatoes and green peas as hard as marbles.  But the butter (each pat stamped with a hammer & sickle) was good.

            The stewardess delivered a speech before we arrived at each city, about its “hero” status, how they fought valiantly in the Great Patriotic War, and how many factories, theatres and schools it has.  On the flight to Odessa we flew over Kiev, and they even gave us the speech on that Hero City.

            When we boarded our Soviet cruise ship, we counted 24 agents of all sizes, shapes and both sexes, on the cruise ship. They even had a male and female agent team posing as a newly-wed couple on their honeymoon. Our first clue as to their real status was when the groom kept pretending that he was shooting photographs of his beloved bride, but shooting us, instead. 

 Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Josef Stalin at Yalta

            We landed at Yevpatoriya, Ukraine, on the Crimean Peninsula. Breakfast on the Soviet cruise ship was macaroni and meat sauce, cheese cakes with sour cream, grape jam, cheese, and bread.  An Intourist Guide turned us over to a driver with a fur hat and a wild look in his eyes.  He said his name was “Jesus”.  We soon saw why. Away we went on a lightning fast, but picturesque drive along the peninsula to Livadia, where the Czars had gone to get away from the frozen city of St. Petersburg.

“Jesus” took us on a tour of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 monuments, lurching from one to the next at breakneck speed, so that it gave us all a stomach ache.  The KGB were following us for the first two monuments, but then they lost interest. We figured this guy got his name because the way he drove made you want to invoke the name of our Savior.

We toured Livadia Palace, where the Yalta conference was held with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in February 1945, just two months before FDR died.  We saw drab little old men with medals, and large women with fluffy sweaters touring the palace.

            One thing we discovered was that, the farther from Moscow you got, the more the KGB resembled Keystone Kops. 

            On our cruise, we visited several Black Sea ports, and we’d go ashore and see the sights.  The agents would follow us, or be stationed to watch us before we went ashore. The obvious head of our surveillance, whom we called “The Main Man,” was always standing somewhere, watching us.   In Yevpatoriya we passed under this large old boat up on blocks.  As we looked up at the boat above us, there was a little agent up there, busily photographing us. 

Black Sea

            Some agents would follow us, dodging from palm tree to palm tree behind us.  Then, just as they must have been taught in spy school, they’d go swap disguises.  You’d actually see these men switching caps or wigs, or changing coats, when they thought we couldn’t see. 

            After Yevpatoriya and Yalta we continued east along the Black Sea Coast and stopped at Tuapse.  Tuapse is in the Russian resort district with Sochi, just down the coast. Although it is called a “resort” town, it was mostly an oil terminal--- grubby and plain. During the Crimean War the Ottomans seized the town and held it for two years (1857-1859). It was badly damaged by the Germans in World War II. Only the Soviets could think of this town as a “resort”!

            Next we sailed further down the Black Sea Coast to Sochi.  This has been Russia’s primary resort town for a long time.  Stalin built a dacha here, and many neoclassical buildings and two opulent sanatoria sprang up during his reign. Russia’s current leader, Vladimir Putin, certainly admires this city, having spent over $50 billion  building a site for the 2014 Winter Olympics. 

            It was in Sochi on February 13, 1983 that I celebrated my birthday, still aboard the Soviet cruise ship.  I was 49 years old, and General Hamm toasted me and said, “You S.O.B. —I can’t believe you talked me into this ‘cruise’!”  After we had drinks we strolled into the ship’s dining room and had dinner. 

Soviet Army Colonel lectures USAF Brigadier General Charlie Hamm and wife Jane.

            After dinner the entertainment was a puppet theatre from Novorossisk.  The other passengers, actually KGB, all sat like bumps and never laughed.  When the show ended, the orchestra played, and dancing started. Perhaps because it was my birthday, a pretty young girl from Barnaul, in Siberia came over and asked me to dance.  The “Main Man”, watching from the sidelines, gave me a conspiratorial thumbs-up signal, as if he expected I was about to fall into the familiar “honey trap” that has caught so many attachés.  (A “honey trap” is when an attractive Soviet female manages to lure a foreign agent or attaché into a compromising position.  Then flash bulbs go off, and blackmail or other coercion starts.)

            On the ship other nights we’d have dinner together and then go to the lounge and have a Soviet brandy and listen to the orchestra play, and maybe dance.  One night, Jane suggested to Marty that we skip the lounge scene and just get to bed early. 

We knew that there were microphones, with agents listening in on us all the time. 

            As it turned out, after dinner, Jane and Marty changed their minds and suggested we go to the lounge for a nightcap. 

            This was a surprise for the KGB.  Usually there was an orchestra playing away for us, and for all the agents who were masquerading as happy passengers. 

            There was no one but us in the lounge.  Soon a waiter appeared to take our order. 

            Then, a few moments later, looking as if they had been roused out of a sound sleep, came the orchestra, and started playing.  Then, a few minutes later, came the “passengers.” 

            I hear that Black Sea cruises aboard Russian ships are now greatly improved.

* For those who didn't grow up hearing about the evil "KGB", it stood for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, or Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union.  Although I may describe some of their less memorable activities, no one should forget that the KGB, and its predecessors, the Cheka, OGPU, NKVD and MGB, murdered many thousands, and caused many millions to be imprisoned in Siberia and elsewhere.  For us, serving in the USSR, we always took the KGB extremely seriously. --- SWC.

Now, here are some books and papers for you…..

Balaklava

This famous 19th Century War took place right where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met in 1945.

Crimean War: Memoirs of the Brave: A Brief Account of the Battles of the Alma, Balaklava, and Inkerman with Biographies of the Killed and a List of the Wounded, by James Gibson, Late of Sidney Sussex College 1855 London, England: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange. This little book about Crimean War is dedicated to Rt. Hon. Sidney Herbert, M.P., Secretary at War. This edition includes letter from "our Most Gracious Queen" noting accounts of Miss Nightingale and Mrs. Bracebridge, and expressing her sympathy to families of those lost and wounded. Letter is dated Christmas, 1854, from Windsor. Brief accounts of battles of Alma, first Allied victory; Balaklava, second victory  with great disaster to British troops; and Inkerman, called "the soldier's battle". Memoirs of officers killed include Major-General Henry William Adams; Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir George Cathcart; Lieutenant-Colonel Edward William Pakenham (nephew of Sir Edward Pakenham who fell before New Orleans); Memoirs of some 200 officers killed provide excellent biographical data and relate units men belonged to, family connection, peerage, and more. Also list of officers wounded; chronology of incidents of the war. 148 pp. 8.2 x 12.3 cm. 16mo. Attractive purple moiré silk on board with crest and crossed flags of France and Great Britain, and title. Covers warped, cloth missing from spine, edges frayed, dampstain on end papers. Gilt-edged pages. Fair. (7293) $150.00. History/Biography

 Dutch Royal Wedding, 1937

Dutch Royal Wedding: Oranje Album. Het Huwelijk van Prinses Juliana met Prins Bernhard, 1937 [Souvenir book of pictures of wedding, in Dutch] 1937 Amsterdam, NL: Uitgave van de N.V. Handelsdrukkerij Holdert & Co. Herinnerings-Album waarin zijn vastgelegd de voornaamste gebeurtenissen gedurende den Verlovingstijd, den Ondertrouw en bij het Huwelijkvan Prinses Juliana en Prins Bernhard 8 September 1936 - 7 Januari 1937.  Two color portraits of Princess Juliana (b. 1909, d. 2004) and one of Prince Bernhard (b. 1911, d. 2004), and 60+ pages of photos of events surrounding the Royal Wedding on 7 January 1937. 64 pp.       32 x 25 cm. Paper booklet with Orange cover, text block loose from cover. Slight moisture damage to lower right corners of pages, does not affect pictures or text. Good. (6846) $45.00. History

Aroostook War: Disturbance in Maine (to accompany bill H.R. 1176) February 28, 1839; Report (no. 314)  on the Disturbances relating to claims of Great Britain upon the northern part of the State of Maineby Mr. Howard, U.S. Congressman 1839 Washington, DC: United States Congress. Report from Congressman Howard of the Committee on Foreign Affairs relating to disputed territory on the border between New Brunswick,territory of Great Britain, and Maine, of the United States. Canadian and American Lumberjacks ventured into the disputed territory, and in February 1839 some 10,000 men of the Maine Militia marched to the area and the disturbance grew into "The Aroostook War", also called "The Pork and Beans War". This report describes a bill giving to the President of theUnited States additional powers for the defense of the United States. On March 2, 1839, just two days after this report, Congress debated this issue, and the dispute was finally settled by the signing of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. 7 pp. 16 x 24 cm. Paper booklet, worn, fair. (7797) $25.00. History/American History

Bassett: An Oration Delivered on Monday, the Fifth of July, 1824, in Commemoration of American Independence Before the Supreme Executive of the Commonwealth, and the City Council and Inhabitants of the City of Boston  by Bassett, Francis 1824 Boston, MA: Wells and Lilly, Court Street. Francis Bassett (1786-1875) delivered this address in Boston on the 48th anniversary of the American Independence.  Bassett, an 1810 graduate of Harvard, was from Yarmouth, near Dennis, on Cape Cod.  He practiced law in Boston as a contemporary of Webster,  served in the Massachusetts legislature for many years, and was a designated orator in the City of Boston.  In this oration on page 23 he refers to "an American Congress, the Greeks have found an advocate whose eloquence 'may give them courage and spirit, teach them that they are not wholly forgotten by the civilized world...'". And Bassett notes in handwritten mark below "Webster".  It was Webster's eloquent support for Greek independence at this time to which the orator refers.  American support for Greece became diffused later in 1824 by adoption of the Monroe Doctrine, but the support of Webster and Henry Clay, our "Great Philhellenes" is admired in Greece today.  This copy is inscribed by Mr. Bassett: "Hon. Timothy Fuller from his Obed't Servant, F. Bassett".  Fuller was another Boston orator at the time, noted for his anti-Masonic rhetoric. 24 pp. 13.8 x 21.6 cm. Disbound paper pamphlet, inscription by author on title page. Fair. (7934) $65.00. History/American

Cambridge of 1776, The; Theatrum Majorum;  an Account of the Town, with which is incorporated the Diary of Dorothy Dudley, now first published; together with historical sketch, poems, etc. Adorned with Cuts and a Map Dorothy Dudley.  Diary by Greely, Mary Williams. 1876 Cambridge, MA: Ladies Centennial Committee by A.G. 123 pp. + adv. 14 x 21 cm. Miss Greely has concocted "Dorothy Dudley" to tell the story of Cambridge a century ago (1775-76) and W.D. Howells includes a poem to the "Fair maiden, whom a hundred summers keep forever seventeen.."  "History of Cambridge from 1631 to 1776" by David Greene Haskins, Jr.  "Influence of Cambridge in the Formation of the Nation" by Andrew P. Peabody. D.D. "The Guests at Head-Quarters" by H.E. Scudder.  Light brown cloth on board finely decorated with gilt picture of the Washington Elm, blindstamped image on back cover. Tape label on spine, two or three pencil notations in margin of text, else very neat and a very good condition. (2739) $37.00. History

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