A few weeks ago -- November 22, 2013 -- marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, to the very day, Friday, in fact, and unless one's tether to civilization had been severed, launching him (or her) into a gravity-less free fall through outer space (I haven't seen the movie, by the way, only the trailer), a sixty-hour media blitz guaranteed little likelihood that it would pass unnoticed.
It was a curious dual commemoration. Not only did the reportage plumb the depths of the tragic demise of the nation's youthful, vigorous leader struck down in the prime of life, of our collective, wistful mourning for what "might have been," and of the cult-like mythical greatness that forever after came to be associated with his name, it reminded all of us of requisite age how indelibly is the fateful day etched in our consciousness. If the current generation doubted the relevance of the universal refrain trumpeted by news writers and studio hosts -- "Where were you?" -- the simple truth is that none of us will ever forget.
Memory is a mysterious and elusive concept. As one who has, on this web site, occasionally attempted to recapture and record a handful of significant events from his past -- which has necessitated, frankly, considerable embellishment, if not pure fictionalization -- I am amazed by the retrospective powers exhibited in memoirs like Katherine Graham's Personal History, J. H. Moehringer's The Tender Bar, and our current president's Dreams from My Father -- all of which I enthusiastically recommend as superior examples of the genre. Either the authors initiated meticulous journals as soon as they could grasp a pencil, and dutifully maintained them until publication, or their brains function like digital cameras with unlimited gigabytes, storing reams of chronological images ready for regurgitation at the click of a mouse.
For the vast majority of mere mortals, however, an autobiography does not unwind like a linear length of twine; rather it is revealed in isolated moments in time, which, because of the joy, sadness, humor, anger, satisfaction, or frustration they evoked, have been preserved in a grab-bag of backward-looking tarot cards, to be extracted intermittently for the entertainment or edification of friends and acquaintances or for our own contemplation.
Only a precious few -- at least for me -- of these moments can be deemed truly "unforgettable," in the sense that the details of place and activity remain so pure, crystalline, and three-dimensional that we almost re-experience them, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, whenever they seize our attention. Obviously, there are some "days of our lives" -- like the Kennedy assassination -- whose global impact alone accounts for their palpable clarity, and others -- like the birth of a child or the death of a parent -- which endure because they are so deeply personal. And then there are those curious scenarios where public occurrences intersect with private situations in such a way as to freeze both in recurring synergistic tableaux.
It took no more thought than the mere conceiving of this exercise for five such moments to spring to mind, and only five, odd not only in that respect but also in their alignment with categories one and three above; while family life transitions are certainly memorable, their ceremonial nature, at least for me, relegates them to a secondary tier of recall.
In 1963, I was a fifteen-year-old junior -- I had skipped the fifth grade -- at E. C. Glass High School. Without referring to a cheat sheet, like the annual yearbook, the Crest, four editions of which are safely ensconced in my basement, I can only guess at the subjects I was taking -- English, Latin, French, for sure, Physics maybe, either Government or History of an unknown period -- nor can I name with certainty any of my teachers (Although who could forget the imperious, irrepressible classicist Ms. Lucille Cox?), except for those coincident with 1:00 PM on November 22.
It's Ms. Franklin's Analytical Geometry class -- we took Trigonometry second semester -- and I am anchored to the second or third desk from the front in the far right hand row, directly facing the door; the room itself occupies a corner on the first floor, only a few paces down the hall from administrative headquarters.
Although shorter, stouter, and somewhat more nimble, like Ms. Cox, Ms. Franklin is a stern, commanding presence who brooks no foolishness as she parades before the blackboard elucidating the finer points of her esoteric field -- which makes it all the more surprising that she would countenance anyone disrupting her regimen, even if he wears the familiar face of the assistant principal.
Mr. Milam -- tall and lean, with an angular, furrowed visage obviously chiseled from the same hard blocks of concrete that frame the building's towering portico -- strikes fear into the heart of every student, even one as meekly obedient and rule-abiding as I am. Naturally, one's first thought as the enforcer ambles across the threshold is for the safety and sanity of the unsuspecting delinquent (who could even be himself) about to be snatched from his seat and subjected to the most excruciating inquisition.
On this placid afternoon a quizzical expression has replaced Milam's perpetual scowl. He holds what looks like a baseball aloft in his right hand, as if about to pitch it to one of us wary spectators. It's not rawhide, however, but plastic, and from a hidden speaker a scratchy sound filters through the pregnant hush that has abruptly terminated all mathematical inquiry. (Is it possible, we speculate, that Milam is a closet Yankee fan, and listens to games in the seclusion of his office when he's supposed to be ferreting out malefactors -- although the season ended weeks ago?)
"Have you heard this?" he asks, in his incongruous high-pitched voice -- a rather absurd question, I think to myself, since you, Milam, don't allow us to carry radios around in our hip pockets, and if you did, Ms. Franklin wouldn't permit our listening to them.
At this point, the details evaporate. Does Milam tell us Kennedy has been shot, or do we hear the announcer ourselves? Milam himself is nonplussed; perhaps mindful of Orson Welles's panic-inducing broadcast of War of the Worlds, although he may have been too young to appreciate it in 1938, he muses out loud, "Is this some kind of joke?" before quietly leaving us in suspense in order to investigate further.
Within minutes the stunning news is validated, but what happens next? With two hours remaining, is school canceled? Is a restless student body called into assembly so that Principal McCue and others can attempt to allay its fears? One telling incident speaks volumes: as we swarm the exits, an obnoxious beady-eyed classmate named Scott manages to make himself heard above the din with the gleeful cry, "Kennedy is dead! Kennedy is dead!"
The slain president's posthumous martyrdom tends to obscure the controversial aspects of his career, which, to a white, Jewish, southern teenager could be dazzling, detestable, and confusing. Kennedy's precipitous alliance with a jailed Martin Luther King during the 1960 campaign landed him squarely in the pro-Civil Rights camp, and made him anathema to a region of staunch segregationists; concurrently, since the courts were mandating the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education, a few hardy trailblazers were breaching the racial barricades, including four at our own formerly unsullied institution.
The assassination, of course, accelerated the movement, as Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, orchestrated the passage of sweeping anti-discrimination legislation within one hundred days. And even more irony lay beneath the shooter's motivation. Back in those days, liberalism was synonymous not with the Democratic Party -- the driving force, after all, behind Massive Resistance -- but with the era's Evil Empire, Communism. And though John Kennedy may have been branded as such for his social conscience, it was his determined anti-Communism -- his abortive overthrow of Castro, his missile confrontation with Khrushchev -- that made him the target of Soviet sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald.
And like millions of others who stayed glued to their television screens throughout that surreal weekend, sitting in the den where I live now, I too ingested a double dose of weirdness, as Oswald himself fell to the bullets fired by Jack Ruby, and right before our very eyes.
John Kennedy made possibly the last unbroken presidential promise when, not long after his inauguration, he stated, in words better chosen than those of the incumbent regarding individual health insurance policies, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth."
On July 20, 1969, at 4:17 PM EDT, five months shy of that deadline, while the world watched and waited with bated breath, an ungainly four-legged contraption bearing more resemblance to a scorpion than its "Eagle" namesake touched down softly on the barren lunar landscape; within hours its two human passengers would become the first ever to set foot on a foreign celestial body.
BDF, or "the Bee," as he was affectionately labeled by our fraternity scribe RAM -- a nickname he despised, by the way, since it prompted upon his approach a chorus of rising "buzzes" followed by a series of resounding "swats" -- was very much my mirror-image; he was Jewish, a southerner, an English major, cerebral, scholarly, and never without his glasses. If there was any difference between the two of us, it was in our politics; although I considered myself a progressive, independent thinker, "the Bee" had witnessed the Birmingham riots and often berated me for not more enthusiastically espousing the cause of the oppressed black man and denouncing the folly of the Vietnam War.
Content to defer to "the Bee" as my guide, I'm amazed at how much sightseeing and culture (including a Shakespearian play and an Italian opera) he manages to cram into the the three or four days allotted to each of our destinations -- the specifics of which long ago faded into oblivion -- and at the quality of the local and imported cuisine we are able to enjoy on our modest budgets. Some days we even have enough coins left over to mitigate the summer heat with a Coca-Cola or a glace.
But by the time we get to Rome, our tightly-wound friendship has begun to fray around the edges. He relentlessly shepherds me to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel, out the Appian Way to the Catacombs, through the massive arches of the Colosseum, and up the steep incline of the Palatine Hill, from which, under the cooling shade of the scattered foliage, we survey with wonder the ruins of the Roman Forum. It was a scene I tried to recreate years later upon my return to the spot -- somewhat to the irritation of my wife, since, as I described it, standing between "the Bee" and me is a pleasing coed named Anne who either in Vienna or Florence hooked up with us and reconfigured our collegial twosome into a complicated triangle. Because both of us are infatuated with her.
Not that any lustful dreams are consummated -- unless "the Bee" is more surreptitiously seductive than my naivete gives him credit for, since, in a rather comedic pas de deux, neither of us will let the other out of his sight.
If the landing eluded us -- either from sheer exhaustion or our persistent, fruitless pursuit of Anne -- "the Bee," who aspires to a career in journalism, is determined that the subsequent moon walk must not be missed, even though it will occur at 5:56 AM, Rome time. There are no alarms or wake-up calls in these primitive quarters, but somehow he manages to arise at that uncivilized hour and throw on his well-worn jeans and tee shirt. He's almost out the door when he turns back to his semi-conscious roommate and exclaims with unequivocal exasperation, "Come on, Marc. Get up. This is a special moment in history." (As for Anne, I can only assume that she is peacefully asleep in her own pensione.)
He's right, I realize, as I rouse myself and, semi-dressed, stumble down the narrow stairway in his wake. He leads me to a smoke-filled bar -- perhaps staked out ahead of time -- which may or may not be on the ground floor of the same apartment building. A few grizzled natives are sitting or standing at the counter, probably drinking their breakfast wine; they gaze skyward, not at the heavens but at a grainy black-and-white twelve-inch television set perched on a shelf, on which is being broadcast the legendary "one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind."
My imagination -- more than my memory -- tells me I saw and heard it all. But the picture was so small and indistinct, the fuzzy dialogue so reminiscent of Milam's baseball radio, the incomprehensible conversation swirling around me so distracting that I can only be certain of "Where I was."
In a recently-published novel of the same name by Richard North Patterson, the author draws a parallel between the narrator's Loss of Innocence during her college graduation summer of 1968, which is precipitated by some startling discoveries about herself and her family, and the nation's, which is reflected in the assassination of Robert Kennedy and the violence that surrounded the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Maybe every one's college graduation signals a loss of innocence -- as he bids farewell to the insulated, artificial, idyllic environment of academia and wades into the working world. And if I lost mine during the summer of 1969 when I returned from my European junket and found a draft notice staring me in the face (which I evaded by abandoning my fellowship to Columbia University and securing a high school teaching position), the Moon Landing symbolized its own kind of loss as an indisputable triumph never to be repeated. With defeat in Vietnam looming on the horizon, no matter how politicians might parse it otherwise, the myths that America was invincible and that its power, wealth, and ingenuity guaranteed its accomplishing anything it set its mind to were subsequently forever shattered.
Indeed, on January 28, 1986, one more haunting, tragic exhibition of ill-advised hubris would sear itself into our brain cells, when, seventy-three seconds after liftoff, at 11:38 AM, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart off the coast of central Florida, killing all seven crew members.
Although six moon landings and twenty-four Space Shuttle flights had anesthetized the public to such a degree that most of its attention was still focused on the two-days-old Super Bowl, in which the Shufflin' Chicago Bears had mauled the New England Patriots 46-10, the presence on board of Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher in space, drew an unusually large number of viewers to the live launch. Immediately afterward, however, all major networks except CNN cut away to their regular programming; those who claimed to have seen the disaster as it occurred were most likely recalling a taped replay. Regardless, so extensive was the media coverage that, according to one survey, eighty-five percent of Americans learned of the accident within one hour.
Even in this era before pocket cell phones, news, especially of the tragic variety, travels fast, often by the simplest means -- word of mouth. Which must be how I hear it, since I am not in my home, office, or car, but walking the streets of Richmond, Virginia, engaged in my own exploratory mission.
Schewel Furniture Company is at a crossroads. For thirty years its stock has been divided fifty-fifty between the families of Ben and Abe Schewel. Ben's only son, BRS, has been active in the business all his life; his two sons, JBS and myself, are currently employed there; and his daughter DSC will join them shortly. Of Abe's three children, only one, ESS, has worked for the company, and none of his three children nor his one surviving nephew has any interest. Since ESS is in the midst of his second six-year term as a State Senator (he will be reelected for a third in 1988) and he and his siblings are now in their sixties, it's understandable that his family is seeking an exit strategy -- and a golden one.
If maximizing their investment is their objective, my own family's is unclear. My brother and I are thirty-eight and twenty-eight respectively, and are anticipating extended careers owning, operating, and growing this business, not only for the financial rewards but also for the psychological satisfaction inherent in proprietorship. My father, who is sixty-six and, unbeknownst to us, soon to be diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, salivates at the thought of one hundred percent ownership of the enterprise which permeates every fiber of his being. The multimillion dollar question is, at what cost, since all of us are averse to assuming a debt burden which recapitalization will most certainly entail and which, for ninety years, the company has been able to avoid.
My father floats the idea of an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan), but it founders under the weight of a less than optimal cash out. Then my cousin, ESS's nephew, EMH, urges us to consider the public option.
Schewel Furniture a publicly-traded company? Isn't that like living in a glass house, with all one's flaws, foibles, and most precious secrets exposed to neighbors and peeping toms? It's true we run a nice, medium-size family business, but I'm not sure we want to be held accountable to anonymous shareholders, investment analysts, bureaucratic regulators, and short-term results. And if our partners are looking forward to a windfall, my father cautions that they will most likely have to wait until the secondary stock offering.
EMH is a Wharton MBA who has accumulated a substantial portfolio as a real estate entrepreneur based in Charlottesville, and insists I give this opportunity a fair look. I agree to meet him in Richmond, where he has arranged a couple of interviews to help me understand the process and appreciate the advantages.
I only remember one -- and whether it occurs before or after our learning of the Challenger event, I cannot say. But it is with a man whose business history presented some notable similarities to ours and whose future would reveal some interesting lessons.
Stuart Siegel is Chairman of the Board of S and K Famous Brands, the men's clothier founded as a reseller of department store overstocks by his father and uncle out of the trunk of a Cadillac in 1967. Succeeding to the presidency in 1972, he began opening stores at a rapid pace, until by 1983 the company was operating twenty-three locations in Virginia and North Carolina, generating revenues of $18.3 million, and realizing profits of $2 million. That year it sold thirty percent of its common stock to the public for $5.5 million, distributing two-thirds of the proceeds to current shareholders and retaining one-third for investment purposes.
S and K Famous Brands, which will grow to 219 stores by 2008, will make Stuart Siegel a wealthy man and one of Richmond's most admired citizens and philanthropists. He will donate a multimillion lead gift to Virginia Commonwealth University's 190,000 square-foot athletic and entertainment facility which will open in 1999 and be named in his honor. But in 2009, victimized by mounting losses, unrelenting pressure to expand, a negative balance sheet, a revolutionary casual trend in men's fashion, and a sinking economy, S and K will declare bankruptcy, and shutter its doors.
Stuart Siegel made the correct decision for himself and his company, and maybe I would have been wiser to score a quick hit rather than take the long route. Because he fails to convince me. On December 31, 1986, after weeks of contentious negotiation, which involves our rejecting a lucrative offer from a venture capitalist firm, my father, brother, and I redeem our partners' stock at a valuation in excess of fifteen times earnings and twice book value -- exorbitant in our minds, insufficient in theirs -- a debt-financed buyout that will require twenty-five years to extinguish.
As for the Challenger, impatience and a failure on the part of NASA officials to heed warnings of a possibly catastrophic problem contributed to a tragedy that should have been prevented. As early as 1977 tests had shown that combustion gases could erode the rubber O-rings that sealed the field joints linking sections of the two solid rocket boosters, releasing a flame path and causing a burn-through of the rocket's casing. Engineers at Morton Thiokol, the system contractor, also believed that the rubberized material would be further compromised at temperatures below 50 degrees. With forecasts calling for an unusually cold morning on January 28, they suggested postponement, only to be told by Marshall Space Center managers George Hardy and Lawrence Mulloy, respectively, "I am appalled by your recommendation," and "My God, when do you want me to launch -- next April?"
As it turned out, thirty-two months would pass before the Space Shuttle program would resume.
Like S and K, Schewel Furniture will add more outlets to its chain throughout the next decade, although, at the modest rate of about one a year, hardly with the same ambitious fervor. With merchandise readily available in a recently-constructed 100,000 square foot distribution center, the formula is a simple one: drive to a small town within two hundred miles of Lynchburg; spy an empty building or shopping center space the landlord is desperate to lease; paint the front, carpet the floor, and put up a sign; fill it with sofas, bedroom suites, and dinette sets; hire a manager, credit manager, two salespeople, and two truck drivers; and advertise the first of many sales. With a dedicated stage crew doing all the heavy lifting, I merely show up for the last act, which for these shows, is the curtain-raising.
The premieres themselves have their own template, and run together like race horses bunched at the far turn -- until one flashy thoroughbred bursts from the pack, its colors imprinted with the date October 3, 1995.
Despite their scripted nature, Grand Openings stir the emotional pot. Pride in the pristine displays and the freshness of the premises; excitement at the start of a new venture; optimism for its forthcoming success (not always fulfilled) -- are all manifest in the facial expressions and body language of the management, staff, vendors, guests, and customers gathered for the occasion. If the latter sightings are a little sparse at 10:00 AM, I herd everyone else outside to form a critical mass, deliver a few thank-yous and introductions, and cut the ribbon.
Today we are in Salem, Virginia, sharing one-half of a former Lowe's with another building supply firm. We're a few miles off the main highway, but our proximity to two other furniture stores (which will eventually close) will help draw traffic. Our usual cosmetic (and frugal) enhancements have transformed a naked shell into an inviting showroom fully stocked with home furnishings value and style; naturally, I would think so, since I selected most of it. As the morning progresses, a steady flow of shoppers circulates through the aisles, persistent salespeople close a few orders, and terms writers finalize contracts. Meanwhile, suited dignitaries engage each other in quiet chitchat.
A bank of televisions lines a wall opposite the entrance, and suddenly, from all corners of the field, like hungry linemen converging on a fumble, a crowd gravitates that way. "Wait a minute," I think to myself. "What's going on here? This is a furniture store, not a sports bar. And besides, what game is being played on Tuesday at 1:00 PM?"
Actually, a very intriguing one. Because at that moment the jury is announcing its verdict in the murder trial of O. J. Simpson.
The thirty or so individuals who find themselves glued to those screens are not alone. An estimated 100 million people worldwide stop what they are doing to watch or listen. Long distance telephone calls drop 58%; trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange falls 41%. Government officials postpone meetings, and congressmen cancel press conferences; says one to a journalist, "You wouldn't be there, nor would I." Domino's Pizza reports that "not a single pizza is ordered in the United States between 1:00 and 1:05." The amount of lost productivity incurred by work stoppage is pegged at $480 million.
For perhaps the first time in the entire proceedings, Judge Lance Ito starts precisely on schedule. The jurors file in expressionless as always, looking vacantly ahead. When Ito instructs Simpson to stand and face the jury, Johnnie Cochrane and the rest of the defense team rise with him. As Clerk Deidre Robertson reads the words "not guilty," Simpson exhales and gives a sort of half smile. Cochrane pumps his fist quickly, and, grabbing Simpson's shoulder, touches it with his cheek. (Toobin, p. 430)
Jeffrey Toobin, who covered the trial for The New Yorker and ABC News, captured succinctly my own feelings, and the feelings, I suspect, of most of my small cohort, when he wrote afterward: "I was sitting . . . in the second row. Numb with shock, I stared at Simpson and had a single thought: He's going home. There is no red tape after an acquittal. The handcuffs come off, and you're on your way." (Toobin, p. 431)
Not only did we think O. J. was guilty and that the evidence against him was conclusive, we also believed that, in spite of the defense's brilliant strategy to portray him as the victim of a racially-motivated frame-up, his conviction was a certainty. That is, if we were white. Because, as Toobin writes, "in the days immediately after the end of the court case, [as] televised images of the verdict itself yielded to images of people watching the verdict," white viewers were shown immobilized in stunned, appalled silence, while black viewers were shown cheering and applauding. (Toobin, p. 434) In a 2004 poll, 87% of whites sampled said Simpson was guilty compared to 27% of blacks.
The fellows around me are more vocal and animated, erupting with denials of "No way," "I don't believe it," and "How could they?" It's a function of the herd mentality, where all of us are professing the same opinion, are bonded by the unique camaraderie of the moment, and are assured of affirmation. Initially, I believe, our reaction is one of "justice thwarted." But it won't take long for the charge of racial solidarity to be assessed against a jury which was comprised of one Latino, two whites, and nine blacks, one of whom, Carrie Bess, was heard to utter upon retiring from the courtroom, "We've got to protect our own." (Toobin, p. 431)
Solidarity of other sorts will underscore, in the words of Don DeLillo, "the defining event of our time," Tuesday, September 11, 2001 -- the solidarity of a great city, the most heterogeneous in the world, responding with courage and compassion to a wave of unprovoked terror; the solidarity of a nation confronted by the unthinkable: a breaching of its impregnable borders, and by means of civilian weaponry symbolic of its industrial supremacy; and, yes, the solidarity of fifteen al-Qaeda hijackers, whose own deaths are preordained the moment they board their four transcontinental jetliners.
Once again, I'm on the road, not for a Grand Opening, but a for a routine store visit, to Henderson, North Carolina. I know I spend the night there, but, strangely enough, I'm unclear as to where I was the previous day. My best guess is that I was at the Blockade Runner Hotel in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina for a Board Meeting of the Southern Home Furnishings Association. The date fits -- a Sunday-Monday in early September; around that time I definitely attended a function at that resort; and Henderson is a natural layover on the way home.
I'm staying at the Comfort Inn, and, after an invigorating five-mile run through the typical downtown blight on this glorious morning, I shower, pack, and head to the lobby for the free breakfast. Of course there's a television in the room, which I normally ignore, since dual multitasking -- scarfing down Raisin Bran, a banana, and a bagel while analyzing the box scores in USA Today (it's still baseball season) -- is my fifty-year-old limit.
My timeline for the next thirty minutes is somewhat hazy. American Airlines Flight 11 strikes the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 AM. Within six minutes all major networks are on the air with live footage. Turning toward the television, I am hearing that a small, private plan has strayed off course -- way off course -- and crashed into the building on the screen, causing an eruption of billowing, black smoke into the otherwise cloudless blue sky.
"It's nothing serious," I muse. After all, who would do something crazy like that intentionally? I'm already checked out, so I grab my bag, settle into my trusty silver Taurus, and motor across town (it takes less than ten minutes) to the store.
Do I get there by 9:03, and see live United Airlines Flight 175 strike the South Tower? I can't say, but it hardly matters, since the instant replays are coming fast and furiously. Parked in a room setting adjacent to the front door is a television, to which I immediately turn my attention, mesmerized and mystified, like millions of others, including the commentators, by what is happening. Exercising commendable restraint (or maybe because the boss has appeared), the employees are going about their daily business in the office and the warehouse. The three salespeople -- Jay, Nancy, and Clyde, all of whom are still there, by the way -- wander by in turn, their curiosity piqued.
I'm feeling guilty, just standing there. I need to get to work, walk the floor, check the merchandise, prepare a plan of action for primping the display. I take a brief tour, but within minutes I'm back, drawn to the static, polluted cityscape as if it's a magnetic field. I know I see one tower collapse, maybe both, at 9:59 and 10:28. My eyes bulge; my jaw drops. The same words escape me that are being simultaneously repeated across the country: "Oh my God! Look at that! This is like a movie; only it's real."
And then, with jarring finality, it's over -- at least for those of us in the hinterlands, hundreds of miles from New York City and the Pentagon. Of course, the news coverage continues, but how many times can we watch this science fiction horror show, although, frankly, it never ceases to amaze? A return to normalcy seems the best therapy. I make a halfhearted effort to tidy the place up a bit before leaving around 3:00 PM. During my two-and-a-half hour drive home, there's plenty of 9/11 chatter to keep me on edge: George Bush, Osama bin Laden, boxcutters, Rudy Giuliani, War on Terror, travel lock down (which, by the way, infuriates my wife, whose flight out of town tomorrow has been canceled), and so on.
What no one has the fortitude to mention -- as a grieving and frightened public rallies around its political leadership -- is that what we have just witnessed represents a massive and inexcusable failure of intelligence. With all the dollars, bodies, brainpower, and technological wizardry at the beck and call of the CIA and the FBI, I find it inconceivable that a handful of third-world refugees marked as potential saboteurs could evade detection and apprehension.
If Osama bin Laden's aim was to inflict irreparable structural, financial, and psychological harm on American society, I would say he succeeded. It's true that our resilient economy and the devastated site recovered quickly from the attack, but beyond that 9/11 engendered radical changes in foreign and domestic policy -- embroiling the country in protracted, costly misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan; compelling it to squander billions more on a homeland security shadow government that is bloated, intrusive, demeaning, and theatrical; convincing its citizens to acquiesce to the erosion of its constitutional freedoms, all in the name of a misplaced patriotism; and sacrificing its future prosperity on the altar of unsustainable sovereign debt.
Sadly, it's a day in our lives whose memory and consequences will never die.
REFERENCE
Toobin, Jeffrey. The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson. New York: Touchstone Books, 1996, 1997.
