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Finding Fatalism and Overconfidence in a Cruel Port (by Ian Olivo Read)

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Finding Fatalism and Overconfidence in a Cruel Port: The Bubonic Plague’s First Appearance in Brazil

By Ian Olivo Read, Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies, Soka University of America

Published by Stanford University Press on January 25, 2012

On October 18, 1899, Brazilian health officials declared that bubonic plague had arrived. Bacteriologists identified the bacteria in samples taken from sick patients in Santos, a port city that had grown rapidly due to Brazil’s coffee boom. For much of history, people reacted to the news of plague with panic, flight and violence. When plague struck Santos, however, the town did not empty of its residents, international ships were not quarantined outside the port, and authorities or militias did not form “rifle cordons” at roads leading out of town. In fact, according to one report, “the news that bubonic plague had broken out in Santos seems to have made an impression everywhere but here. Santistas are, as a rule, of a somewhat skeptic frame of mind and reports about sickness and epidemics do not frighten them unduly.”

Source: Latin American Newspapers, 1805-1922

This was Brazil’s first recorded outbreak of plague, but it was only one of a chain of epidemics that had occurred since 1894 when plague had escaped from its natural reservoirs among rodents in the Himalayas. The Yersinias pestis pathogen spread eastward, facilitated by busy colonial networks and the quickening pace of globalization. For the next 50 years it struck various port cities and coastal areas of nearly every continent. When the third bubonic plague pandemic crossed the Atlantic to reach South America in 1899, its victims suffered no differently than elsewhere. In its first stages, the infected developed painful and swollen lymph glands, fever and aches. As bacteria overwhelmed the immune system, fever turned to shock, organ failure and, for about 50 percent of those who contracted the disease, death. Not only did the third pandemic spread plague among humans throughout the world, it also introduced the Yersinias pestis to other species of rodents on multiple continents, where the bacteria persist today in these relatively new natural reservoirs.

Bubonic plague has long been a fearsome disease, and is described as such in biblical writings. This was its first appearance in a deeply Catholic country, where many more people understood its propagation divinely rather than pathogenically. Yet why did Santos residents react with nonchalance? First, plague in this locality, or any other for that matter, cannot be understood without the larger epidemiological context. By the end of the nineteenth century, Santos had developed an international reputation as a dirty and dangerous place due to its unshakable pestilence. American mariners called Santos the “cemetery to the world.” For John Masefield, the English poet, “it’s a cruel port is Santos, and a hungry land.” Of biggest blame was yellow fever, a virus that had seen very little place in Brazil before 1849, but developed as fierce epidemics with nearly annual appearances in the 1850s, 1870s and 1890s. So many foreign mariners died, in fact, that even when the city built a large new cemetery in 1854, bones had to be dug up and the holes filled with fresh corpses less than every two years. After decades of attempts to eliminate “effluvia,” drain swamps and initiate sweeping public health reforms, many Santistas saw epidemics as an intractable part of their daily life and town character.

The second reason why Santos residents reacted so coolly was that many did not think it would become a serious problem. Literate Brazilians had tracked the disease through newspaper reports from its first Asian outbreaks in 1894 to its movement to the Middle East and Europe in 1899. Early epidemics, such as those in Hong Kong and Bombay, prompted concern because of high death tolls. But these were distant lands, with little connection to South America. Furthermore, few believed it could spread beyond Asia. They were proven wrong, of course, as the disease leapt continents over the next five years. Geographically it broadened in scope, but in virulence it appeared to diminish. Brazilian newspapers reported that after its arrival to Egypt and Portugal bubonic plague did not develop into frightening proportions. These reports also lent confidence to exciting new developments in bacteriology that allowed doctors to identify Yersinias pestis in a microscope. Additionally, the millenniums-old mystery on why swarms of dead rats foretold outbreaks of plague was explained by a communicable germ. In 1895, Alexandre Yersin at the Pasteur Institute in France developed the first anti-plague serum, but Brazilian newspapers of the day spent more time discussing how local health authorities could acquire or manufacture the serum than how trials of Yersin’s serum in Canton and Bombay had largely failed.

In sum, it was a combination of fatalism among some, and overconfidence in medicine’s ability to limit the epidemic’s effects among others that allowed the town to largely escape panic when a new deadly disease knocked on its backdoor. Nonchalance was not shared nationally, nor did it diminish a serious public health reaction. Soon after, federal and state governments created institutions that eventually acquired world renown, such as the Butantan and Oswaldo Cruz Institutes. These organizations helped fight plague, which took root and slowly persisted in Brazil, but never became epidemic. Finally, bubonic plague arrived at the end of a five-decade period of unusual epidemiological activity that had profound, yet still unknown, consequences on the country’s society and economy.

In the detailed account of the outbreak of plague in Santos, or the larger story of the changing epidemiological environment and its consequences in Brazil, there are new digital history tools at our disposal, including Latin American Newspapers, 1805-1922. In the last decade historians have witnessed a revolution in digitizing and OCR technology. This has allowed millions of pages of old newspapers to be digitized, converted to machine readable text, placed within database programs and made accessible on the Internet. As a result, the proverbial needle in the haystack can be now found by typing “needle” into a search bar. In many respects these tools are still too new to have all their problems solved. Digitized newspaper quality is sometimes subpar, humans still do much better than OCR programs in deciphering low quality text, and the website interfaces that direct searches to information can be cumbersome or slow. Despite these limitations, these new tools give historians much more power in separating the informational wheat from what was previously an overwhelming amount of chaff.

For more information on this research, please visit http://eraofepidemics.squarespace.com/

About the Author

Ian Olivo Read, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies at Soka University of America, in southern Orange County, California. Read previously taught at Stanford University, University of Puget Sound and the University of California, Berkeley. He has written on the history of the United Fruit Company, elite networks in Brazil and Mexico, and the health and medical treatment of Brazilian slaves. His new book, The Hierarchies of Slavery in Santos, Brazil, 1822-1888, was published by Stanford University Press on January 25, 2012. Linda Lewin, University of California, Berkeley, says Read’s book “offers the most comprehensive view of a discrete, urban Brazilian slave population yet to be produced and is a very important contribution to the history of slavery, not only in Brazil but also in comparative perspective.” The article above first appeared in the April 2011 issue of The Readex Report.

Sources

Myron J. Echenberg, “Pestis Redux: The Initial Years of the Third Bubonic Plague Pandemic, 1894-1901,” Journal of World History, Vol. 13, No. 2, Fall 2002, 429-449; Myron J. Echenberg, Plague Ports: The Global Urban Impact of Bubon Plague, 1894-1901, New York: New York University Press, 2007; Jornal do Commercio¸ (Rio de Janeiro), 1894-99; O Estado do São Paulo (São Paulo), 1894-99; and Brazilian Review (Rio de Janeiro), 1899.

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The Real War Horses of America

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

Michael Morpurgo’s fictional story “War Horse” has gone from a beloved children’s book to successful stage production to bestselling Hollywood movie directed by Steven Spielberg. But who were the real war horses of America?

American Red Star poster. Credit: www.usmilitariaforum.com

Between 1914 and 1918, the United States sent almost one million horses to the European forces, particularly the British. When America entered the war, another 182,000 horses were taken overseas by the American Expeditionary Forces. Only 200 horses returned to the U.S., and 60,000 were killed outright.1 As the nation’s equine population and trained cavalry mounts became seriously depleted, many wild horses, including American Mustangs, were utilized. Supplying war horses was considered a patriotic act, and Americans were proud of their contribution.

In 1916 the Idaho Daily Statesmen declared about the Mustang: “The little western pony may not be up to cavalry standards, but he is a good little Ford, and will get you there and be up and about the next morning, and if cactus is the only food, he will take it and smile, leaving the regulation Packard waiting for the oats to catch up.”2 The quality of Allied war horses was seen as a key differentiator in the war. As the Duluth News Tribune asserted in 1918: “When the enemy finally begins its big retreat, it is the Allies’ horses that will keep the Germans on the run.”3

Horses were mainly used for transport, not only of solders but also for hauling artillery, ambulances and supply wagons. They were better suited than vehicles to traveling through deep mud and over rough terrain. They were also helpful in raising soldier morale. The bond between soldier and horse was well documented in the newspapers at the time.

In a feature on how farm horses were trained to become war horses, a Kansas City Star reporter wrote in 1917: “A private will tell how some particular horse will follow him about the lot. ‘Somebody’s pet,’ he explains. ‘I’ve taken a fancy to the darn little cuss.”4 

All the men feel that way about horses, explained the Star’s reporter: “A young lieutenant has a pony with a coffee pot brand on him. He calls him ‘Coffee’ and talk to him as if he were a human.”5

News reports of horses’ heroism, loyalty to their soldiers, and grief when they were lost were common. Typical headlines read: “Charger stood beside Dead Master between Firing Lines for Two Days” and “Faithful Horse Returns to Master.” The Kansas City Star published the photograph above in 1916 with the headine “Faithful Horse Awaits Master in Vain.”6

Not surprisingly, individual horses also became heroes during World War I. One example was Kidron, the war horse ridden by General John J. (“Black Jack”) Pershing, leader of the American Expeditionary Forces. A striking dark bay horse with two white hind socks, Kidron captured the imagination of the American people because he was often used by Pershing in victory parades and seen in ceremonial photos. He became a symbol of all that was noble about the war, despite huge losses of equine and human alike. The news of Kidron’s release from quarantine and his safe entry into the United States in 1920 made headlines across the country.

Unfortunately, most horses did not make it back. They were killed by artillery fire, suffered from skin disorders and disease, and were injured by poison gas. An article published in the Aberdeen Daily News in 1915 estimated that twenty days was the war horse’s average existence at the front.7

Moved to action by the plight of war horses, Americans appealed to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker to help equines overseas. On May 22, 1916, Baker asked the American Humane Association to establish a welfare service for horses and mules in the U.S. Army. This organization became the American Red Star Relief, which still exists today as part of the American Humane Association’s emergency services.

After the war, relief societies sprung up across the U.S. to help bring the horses home and to provide care for them after the war. On October 15, 1921, a plaque commissioned by the American Red Star was unveiled in the War Department in memory of the equine suffering during World War I. It reads:

This tablet commemorates the service and sufferings of the 243,135 mules and horses employed by the American Expeditionary Forces overseas during the Great World War, which terminated November 11, 1918, and which resulted in the death of 68,682 of those animals. What they suffered is beyond words to describe. A fitting tribute to their important services has been given by the commander-in-chief of the American Expeditionary Forces, General John J. Pershing, who has written: “The army horses and mules proved of inestimable value in prosecuting the war to a successful conclusion. They were found in all the theaters of preparation and operation doing their silent but faithful work without the faculty for hoping for any reward or compensation.”8

For more remarkable stories in America’s Historical Newspapers, search “war horse,” “war horse relief,” “American Red Star” or “American Red Star Animal Relief.”

Notes

1 International Museum of the Horse (The Horse in Transition: The Horse in World War I, 1914-1918). Retrieved 1-3-2012).

2 “American War Horse,” Idaho Daily Statesman, June 21, 1916, p. 4).

3 “War Horse Gets Full Education,” Duluth News Tribune, (Aug. 30, 1918, p. 2).

4 “When the Plough Horse Changes to a War Horse,” Kansas City Star (Nov. 25, 1917, p. 1).

5 Ibid

6 “Faithful Horse Awaits Master in Vain,” Kansas City Star, (Dec. 28, 1916, p. 4).

7 “War Horses’ Brief Life,” Aberdeen Daily News (Feb. 4, 1915, p. 3).

8 Spielberg’s War Horse: Animal Heroes of the Great War (Part 1).   Accessed  Jan 3, 2012.

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Amundsen, Scott and Their Race to the South Pole

Monday, December 12th, 2011

The Morning Oregonian (Aug. 23, 1908)

It was 100 years ago this month that Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, reached the South Pole. For the first time, two expeditions were making attempts to get there in the same summer season. Amundsen had been a member of an earlier expedition to Antarctica and had led expeditions in the Arctic. Robert F. Scott had led an earlier British expedition to Antarctica, and he was back to make another attempt to reach the pole. Their expeditions and their leadership styles continue to fascinate us.

Here’s how a new business book excerpted by Fortune Magazine (Oct. 17, 2011), Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen, compares them:

Cleveland Plain Dealer (June 2, 1901)

“It’s a near-perfect matched pair. Here we have two expedition leaders—Roald Amundsen, the winner, and Robert Falcon Scott, the loser—of similar ages (39 and 43) and with comparable experience. Amundsen and Scott started their respective journeys for the Pole within days of each other, both facing a roundtrip of more than 1,400 miles into an uncertain and unforgiving environment, where temperatures could easily reach 20° below zero even during the summer, made worse by gale-force winds. And keep in mind, this was 1911. They had no means of modern communication to call back to base camp—no radio, no cellphones, no satellite links—and a rescue would have been highly improbable at the South Pole if they screwed up. One leader led his team to victory and safety. The other led his team to defeat and death.”

Macon Telegraph (July 14, 1903)

Here are some other differences: Amundsen had raised all his money and obtained his ship, the Fram, by saying he was going to the North Pole. Competing claims by two Americans to have reached the North Pole first changed his mind. Scott had publicized his expedition to the South in advance. Amundsen stopped along the way to send a brief telegraph to Scott, telling him that he too was heading south. This was seen as bad sportsmanship by many—it being Scott’s turn on the ice. Scott had been angry when a former subordinate, Ernest Shackleton, had started an expedition from a part of Antarctica that Scott considered “his.” Amundsen was also starting from that region.

Dallas Morning News (Oct. 3, 1910)

Amundsen had no scientists with him. Scott had a party of 38 men, many doing research. Amundsen barely took any photographs of his expedition. Scott had along a professional photographer. Amundsen had a single goal and achieved it. Scott’s group had many goals and succeeded in many of them. He only failed at the biggest one, as viewed at that time.

Yes, Amundsen took the Pole. Scott’s body wouldn’t be found until the following spring. Discovered with his remains were his diary and other final writings, which upon publication would move the English-speaking world. More importantly, found with his body was a fossil Scott had collected on his failed return from the Pole. This ancient specimen demonstrated that Antarctica had been part of a supercontinent, as comparable fossils were found in South America and Africa. Who can call that a failure?

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (May 7, 1911)

Grand Rapids Evening Press (Feb. 2, 1913)

It’s not surprising that students of leadership would try to glean lessons from these two expeditions, for all the reasons Collins and Hansen list. It is also not surprising that the reputations of each have ebbed and flowed over time. Ernest Shackleton, who launched an expedition in 1914 to cross Antarctica, is another explorer whose leadership skills are examined. Shackleton’s boat got trapped in the ice and was eventually crushed. He and the ship’s captain were able to get all the men to Elephant Island in small boats; then, with a smaller crew, sailed to South Georgia Island, landed on the uninhabited side and pioneered a new route across the mountain chain that formed the island’s spine. They were able to rescue all they had left behind.

Ernest Shackleton died at the beginning of a post-war return to Antarctica. He is buried on South Georgia Island. Roald Amundsen was on an airship lost during a rescue attempt in the North Polar region, and his body never found. It was estimated in 2001 that Robert Scott and his companion’s bodies now lie under 75 feet of ice.

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Pearl Harbor: As Reported the Day After

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

Today is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Here’s how four American newspapers reported it the next day on their front pages.  

 

For more information about American Newspaper Archives, or to request a free trial, please contact readexmarketing@readex.com.

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A uniquely valuable archive of translated foreign materials

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

 

Discover Joint Publications Research Service Reports

China has emerged as a global power. We can all recite the formidable facts: most populous state on earth. Second largest global economy. World’s largest military. But what do we really know about a culture half a world away, the machinations of the country’s ruling party, or the day-to-day lives of its citizens? Where can one find authentic accounts that provide unfiltered insight into a nation’s socioeconomic, political, environmental, military, religious, and scientific issues and events-including those that reveal the naked truth about China’s inexorable rise?

Enter Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports, 1957-1994, the ideal resource for developing a holistic understanding of cultures across the globe. This digital collection features English-language translations of foreign-language monographs, reports, serials, journals and newspapers from regions throughout the world—four million pages from 130,000+ reports, all told. Much of the information is quite rare; in fact, few libraries or institutions outside of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Library of Congress hold a complete collection. With an emphasis on communist and developing countries, this fully searchable resource is an essential tool for students and scholars at academic institutions worldwide.

The comprehensive Readex digital edition of JPRS Reports, 1957-1994, is now available by request for live preview. It features an intuitive interface that includes digital full-text searching, metadata search assistance and an individual bibliographic record for each JPRS Report. In addition, JPRS Reports, 1957-1994, will be cross-searchable with the Readex digital edition of Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports, 1941-1996.

For more information or to arrange a product trial, contact Readex at 800.762.8182, sales@readex.com or use this form.

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World Newspaper Archive: A uniquely comprehensive collection spanning the globe

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

The World Newspaper Archive represents the largest searchable collection of historical newspapers from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Providing new opportunities for fresh insight across wide-ranging academic disciplines, this collection was created in partnership with the Center for Research Libraries (CRL)—one of the world’s largest and most important newspaper repositories.

Every historical newspaper in the World Newspaper Archive has been carefully selected by CRL and its expert advisory boards. In addition, the World Newspaper Archive may be searched with America’s Historical Newspapers for unprecedented coverage of local, national and global issues as well as daily life on four continents in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

African Newspapers, 1800-1922

Explore the issues and events that shaped the continent and its peoples

Overview – Title List – Request Trial

 

Latin American Newspapers, 1805-1922

From Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and elsewhere

Overview – Title List – Request Trial

Coming soon! Latin American Newspapers, Series 2, 1822-1922

 

South Asian Newspapers, 1864-1922

Spanning colonial rule and the struggle for independence in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka

Overview – Title List – Request Trial

 

Using the World Newspaper Archive, researchers can compare perspectives and track topics related to repercussions of the Atlantic slave trade; the Zulu Wars; colonial rule in Africa and the Indian subcontinent; Hindu-Muslim conflicts; beginning of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent resistance movement; the Mexican Revolution; independence movements in Argentina, Venezuela and neighboring countries; and much more.

For more information or to arrange a product trial at your institution, please contact Readex at 800.762.8182, sales@readex.com or use this form.

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Hello, Comrade Philby

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Kim Philby on USSR commemorative stamp

In “Just Browsing: Cool Items from the Past,” I shared several unexpected items I recently stumbled upon in America’s Historical Newspapers.

I don’t however expect to find such wonderful things in Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Reports. What’s cool there comes more from the benefits of hindsight than sheer surprise. And that backward look lets the propagandistic nature of some of the documents shine through.

One I recently read is the somewhat hagiographic interview with Kim Philby, the former high-ranking member of British intelligence agent who spied for and later defected to the Soviet Union. The interview, first published in the Russian daily newspaper Izvestiya on Dec. 19, 1967, was translated into English for publication in FBIS supplement “MATERIALS ON 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF SOVIET STATE SECURITY ORGANS, FBIS-FRB-68-007-S on 1968-01-10. Supplement number 2”

Titled “Hello, Comrade Philby,” the article starts with a street scene in chilly Moscow:

Click to open page 1 in PDF.

“It was on a frosty morning, and the haze of the night had not yet departed from the snow-covered streets. The trees on Gogol Avenue were covered with hoarfrost. Muskovites rubbing their cheeks and stamping their feet stood in a queue at a trolleybus stop. A new day began with all its worries and fuss. Cars were also in a hurry, one outrunning the other.

“A man of medium height, no longer young, but still strong, leisurely strolls over the sidewalk inhaling the frozen air. He wears a warm, fur-lined overcoat and a fur cap. The man sincerely enjoys this morning, the frost, and the rapid stream of pedestrians. Sometimes people bump into him. ‘Pardon me,’ they say in a hurry. ‘Never mind,’ he replies, speaking with a light accent. He looks with interest at the little boys with rucksacks on their backs who are throwing snowballs at each other on the avenue. He always smiles, this man with a kind and frank face.

“Who is he? Why does he smile? What unusual thing has he discovered on the avenue, in the frost-covered trees, on that ordinary Moscow morning? The little children on the avenue, the passers-by on the sidewalk, the fashionable girls — to which of them would it occur that the person smiling at them this morning has had a most amazing life history? He used to be called a puzzle of a man, and his life was called a rebus. There were many years, whole dozens of years, 30 years of endless puzzles, a life as intricate as a labyrinth.”

It then segues into a description of a 1951 meeting in Washington, D.C., at which Allen Dulles, Frank Wisner and other American intelligence leaders awaited an important British guest. Arriving exactly on schedule, Philby took his place at their table. He listened carefully to the outline of a major operation in which dissidents would infiltrate an Eastern European country, and he offered suggestions to help polish the plan. The article explains that this top-secret operation failed because Dulles:

“…even in his most nightmarish dreams […] would not have imagined that on that August morning a cadre worker of the Soviet intelligence service was sitting at the table opposite him in the office. The Soviet intelligence agent had accomplished another task of the Center.

“And now it was our turn to sit at a table with Kim Philby,” the article continues, providing a further description of the Soviet spy:

“He is very calm and slow[,] his large grey head with hair parted in the middle rests on strong shoulders, his masculine, weatherbeaten face is softened by bright, slightly twinkled eyes. When he smiles, wrinkles run from the corners of his eyes to the temples, giving his face an even warmer expression.”

The interview, with copious direct quotes from Kim Philby, follows. Where he was born, his education, his career before recruitment in the Soviet and then the British intelligence services are covered.

“It was in my work in the Soviet intelligence service that I found the form of this struggle. I thought at that time, and still think, that in this work I served my own British people, too.”

He tells the following from his days as a reporter during the Spanish Civil War, at which point his coverage was favorable to Franco.

“At that time I lived in Bilbao. Once, an officer from Franco’s staff came to me, seated me in his car, and drove me to the fascist headquarters in Burgos. They showed me into a hall in which there was a group of ridiculously bombastic generals. In the center was the ‘Generalissimo’ himself. I noticed at that time that all of them, including Franco himself, were rather short men. I was introduced. After a couple of minutes, the ‘caudillo’ extraordinarily solemnly presented this very same, cross to me. It later came in very handy for my work: of all Western journalists, I was one of the few awarded with this exotic order. When joining the British ‘intelligence service,’ the cross, too, played its role.”

Philby also discusses his pre-World War II activities in Germany and his wartime rise in the British service. After the war he was sent to Turkey, where his life was hectic. It’s busy when you’re working both sides of the street.

“It was much easier for James Bond in the novels of my old friend Ian Fleming; he still managed to find time for merry holidays and love affairs,” joked Philby.

I love the next question the interviewer poses: “You mean you knew Fleming also?”

“Of course, since he also worked in the secret service as deputy director of naval intelligence. Also employed in intelligence was Graham Greene, who was also a colleague of mine at that time. Today he is a truly great and respected writer.”

A quick discussion of Philby’s taste in literature follows, and then it’s back to his career. When asked about American intelligence elite, he gives dismissive estimates of two CIA directors—Allen Dulles (“considerate in dealing with people, but essentially showed a haughty attitude toward them”) and Richard Helms (“more politician than a specialist in his business”). Philby continues:

“But one person who really made an indelible impression on me,” he continued, “was [FBI Director J. Edgar] Hoover’s deputy, Mr. Ladd. This astoundingly dull person was quite seriously trying to convince me that Franklin Roosevelt, the former president, had been a Komintern agent!”

The interview concludes with this ringing statement:

“We congratulate him with all our hearts on the occasion of the coming jubilee, the 50th anniversary of the VCHK-KGB organs, the holiday of the Soviet Cheka members. This is his holiday too, after all.”

The rest of the FBIS Supplement is cool, too. The articles come from Pravda, Red Star, Soviet Union, Trud as well as Izvestiya—all packaged together to let U.S. government readers see a wide degree of coverage of the anniversary. It opens with a speech to KGB personnel by KGB director Yuri Andropov, who would become leader of the U.S.S.R. fifteen years later:

“Remarkable Chekist cadres, inspired by the ideals of October, grew up and were tempered in the struggle against the enemies of Soviet power. The image of the Chekist as a passionate revolutionary, a man of crystal-clear honesty and vast personal courage, relentless in the struggle against the enemies, stern in his duty, but human and ready to sacrifice himself for the people’s cause to which he has devoted his life—an image which prevails among the people—is associated precisely with the activity of these men.”

Andropov’s style makes the Philby article read as if it came out of movie fan magazine.

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Just Browsing: Cool Items from the Past

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

One of the joys of browsing American historical newspapers is discovering the unexpected from around the world. Take this photograph, for example, of a car being dragged across a Siberian river during the Peking-to-Paris race in 1907:

Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer; Date: Aug. 18, 1907; Page: 29

Or this photo of European ostrich racing in the 1920s:

Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer, Date: Sept. 28, 1924; Page 76

And then this picture of the same race in a different newspaper, which notes that these jockeys couldn’t get their birds to go!

Source: Springfield Republican; Date: Oct. 1, 1924; Page: 18

While you expect to see photos of the stars of stage and screen in the newspapers, this staged image of Elsie Janis is quite amusing.

Source: Boston Journal; Date: Dec. 6, 1906; Page: 7

Source: Farmer's Cabinet; Date: Jan. 31, 1856

Finally, consider this story, reprinted in the Farmer’s Cabinet of Amherst, New Hampshire on January 31, 1856. Credited at the bottom to Bayard Taylor’s Letters, it’s a first-person narrative of the dinnertime entertainment provided to Mr. Taylor and a companion during a “sojourn” in India:

“We were dining together in his bungalow, when a wandering Hindoo minstrel came along with his mandolin, and requested permission to sit upon the verandah and play for us.

“I was desirous of hearing some of the Indian airs, and my host therefore ordered him to perform during dinner. He tuned the wires of his mandolin, extemporized a prelude which had some very familiar passages, and to my complete astonishment began singing “Get out of the way, Old Dan Tucker!” The old man seemed to enjoy my surprise and followed up his performance with “Oh, Susannah,” “Buffalo Gals,” and other choice Ethiopian melodies, all of which he sang with admirable spirit and correctness.”

That’s cultural diffusion!

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The Bomarc Missile Plutonium Spill Crisis: Exercises in Propaganda and Containment in 1960 and Beyond

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

According to the Boeing Corporation’s history of its Bomarc missile,

Source: Boeing.com

“…the supersonic Bomarc missiles (IM-99A and IM-99B) were the world’s first long-range anti-aircraft missiles, and the first missiles that Boeing mass produced. The program also represented the first time Boeing designed and built launch facilities. It used analog computers, some of which were built by Boeing and had been developed for GAPA [Ground-to-Air Pilotless Aircraft] experiments during World War II. Authorized by the Air Force in 1949, the F-99 Bomarc prototype was the result of coordinated research between Boeing (Bo) and the University of Michigan Aeronautical Research Center (marc) [hence the portmanteau name ‘Bomarc’]. 

“The missiles were housed on a constant combat-ready basis in individual launch shelters in remote areas. The alert signal could fire the missiles around the country in 30 seconds. The Model A had a range of 200 miles, and the B, which followed, could fly 400 miles. The production IM-99A first flew on Feb. 24, 1955. Boeing built 700 Bomarc missiles between 1957 and 1964, as well as 420 launch systems. Bomarc was retired from active service during the early 1970s.”

And here is how the Wikipedia article continues the Bomarc story leading to one near nuclear catastrophe:

“The operational IM-99A missiles were based horizontally in semi-hardened shelters (‘coffins’). After the launch order, the shelter’s roof would slide open, and the missile raised to the vertical. After the missile was supplied with fuel for the booster rocket, it would be launched by the Aerojet General LR59-AJ-13 booster. After supersonic speed was reached, the Marquardt RJ43-MA-3 ramjets would ignite and propel the missile to its cruise speed and altitude of Mach 2.8 at 20000 m (65000 ft). Within a year of becoming operational, a Bomarc-A with a nuclear warhead caught fire at McGuire AFB on 7 June 1960 following the explosive rupture of its onboard helium tank. While the missile’s explosives didn’t detonate, the heat melted the warhead, releasing plutonium which the fire crews then spread around. The Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission cleaned up the site and covered it with concrete.”

News of the Bomarc fire spread like wildfire around the United States and around the world. First, here is an account from the June 8, 1960 issue of the Trenton Evening Times, Trenton being only 18 miles south of McGuire Air Force Base, the site of the melting warhead.

Click to open in PDF.

As far away as Washington state, the Seattle Daily Times on that same day reported New York was calm despite the radiation fear.

Click to open in PDF.

Also on June 8, the Springfield (Massachussetts) Union printed a number of stories about the Bomarc incident, including the following one meant to reassure the public. It surely represents the Air Force’s official view that there was no danger of further radioactive contamination at that time.

Click to open in PDF.

The next day, June 9, the Dallas Morning News claimed the cause of the fire was not announced, if it was even known.

Click to open in PDF.

Also on June 9, however, the East German radio transmission Deutschlandsender tried to turn the late-breaking Bomarc story to its own advantage in its cold war against its rival, the Federal Republic of Germany, by focusing on the inherent risks posed by atomic weapons. Only the facts?

Click to read full item in PDF.

The Soviet propaganda machine also moved quickly on June 9 to capitalize on the Bomarc story with a response to it by commentator Leonid Vetrov:

Click to read full item in PDF.

And on June 11, 1960 the Soviets claimed a New York City evacuation had occurred or at least many inhabitants had fled the city!

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The New Orleans Times Picayune for its June 13, 1960 edition picked up an item from Izvestia, an open letter by long-standing Soviet commentator V. Kudryatsev  to America on the explosion at the Bomarc site. It is perhaps interesting to wonder why this item was not picked up by FBIS, or was it not printed in the FBIS Daily Report because it was an AP story?

Click to open in PDF.

The Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle of June 24, 1960 printed an Associated Press story from Washington, D.C., which attributed the cause of the fire to a bursting helium gas bottle.

Click to open in PDF.

Nor was that the end of the Bomarc fiasco. After 40 years the contamination, though perhaps contained, had not vanished away. Here from the year 2000 is an investigative account published almost eleven years ago on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer (source: NewsBank):

Plutonium Spill Neither Gone Nor Forgotten, 40 Years Later

On June 7, 1960, a nuclear-tipped missile burst into flames on its launcher at an Air Force base nestled in the heart of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, triggering sirens that shattered the afternoon stillness and sent a brief, nervous shock through the region.

Airmen poured water on the burning BOMARC missile and put the fire out within an hour.

With international tensions high over the downing of Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union the month before, the incident seemed minor in comparison, and attention shifted elsewhere.

But 40 years later, an estimated 300 grams, or 101/2 ounces, of plutonium from the melted warhead remain in the sandy soil, entombed in asphalt and concrete—a radioactive relic of the Cold War and just one of the toxic hot spots from the era that dot the nation.

The Air Force has allocated $6 million to clean up the site on the eastern edge of the Fort Dix Military Reservation, but the plans to cart away 10,000 cubic yards of soil, concrete and steel have stalled because surrounding communities do not want radioactive waste shipped through them.

And one radiation expert wonders if it should be moved at all, saying that stirring up the site during an intrusive cleanup might pose a greater risk.

The Air Force calls the site RW-01, or Radioactive Waste-01, and its history offers a window to a time when trust in the government was high and a nuclear accident was easily forgotten.

BOMARC stands for Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center—a collaboration between Boeing and the University of Michigan, which developed the missile for the Air Force.

The first models of the weapon had a range of 230 miles and were armed with 10-kiloton warheads that were supposed to knock Soviet bombers out of the sky with a blast half as powerful as that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, said Donald Bender, a Cold War military historian. The missiles flew at altitudes of up to 70,000 feet with speeds approaching 3,000 m.p.h.

Ten BOMARC bases were set up throughout the United States and Canada. The first opened on 75 acres of Fort Dix just east of Route 539 in Plumsted Township, Ocean County, under the command of the 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron at McGuire Air Force Base.

The base had 56 missiles, each stored under its own concrete shelter with a movable roof. Each 45-foot-long rocket – called a “pilotless interceptor” – was kept on its launcher for quick firing.

On June 7, 1960, a high-pressure helium tank inside Shelter No. 204 exploded and ruptured the BOMARC’s liquid-fuel tank, sparking a fire.

Sirens sounded, and emergency warnings rippled outward. In the initial confusion, the state police thought a nuclear warhead had exploded. Officials in Philadelphia ordered tests for radioactive fallout in the air or water. None was detected.

Although the flames were extinguished within an hour, airmen poured water on the smoldering rocket for 15 hours, spreading plutonium in a plume extending more than 120 yards from the missile shelter.

It was, by most accounts, one of the worst publicly acknowledged nuclear accidents up to that time.

The story generated banner headlines in The Inquirer on June 8, but in New York, the Times played it below articles on a subway fire and the defeat of two Tammany Hall politicians in a primary election.

The stories reported that a “small amount” of radioactive material “was scattered in the immediate area of the shelter,” and that there was no threat to the public. There was no mention of plutonium 239, which can cause cancer if particles are ingested.

By June 10, the story had disappeared from the front pages. The 1961 Evening Bulletin Almanac did not even note the incident in its month-by-month summary of the top events of 1960.

The Air Force capped the contaminated soil with concrete and asphalt, and the fire at the base became a footnote in the history of the Cold War.

Bertram Gratz, 62, of Evesham, still recalls June 7, 1960.

Gratz, then an Army reservist at Fort Dix for advanced infantry training, was returning from the machine-gun range with his squad when “all hell broke loose” as they hiked past the missile base.

“We were tired and all sweaty and dirty,” said Gratz, a 1959 graduate of Villanova University originally from Collegeville. “We saw this puff of black smoke come up. . . . There were sirens going off all over the place.”

Gratz, who was the squad leader, had read about the BOMARC missile – the Air Force had publicized the addition of the weapon to its arsenal – and feared the men were in harm’s way.

“This thing, I believe, had a bursting radius of 1,000 yards. The fireball would have engulfed us if we stayed where we were. I said, ‘Drop that stuff [machine guns, ammunition and tripods] and let’s get the hell out of here.’ “

They ran to the protection of a sand berm.

Gratz said one of the men tuned a transistor radio to WIBG-AM, a Philadelphia rock station. The station reported an alert at McGuire Air Force Base.

“And here we were looking at the smoke go up,” said Gratz, now a salesman of gas-powered appliances and fireplaces.

Katherine Sibley, associate professor of history at St. Joseph’s University and author of The Cold War, said the fire occurred at a time of profound international tensions.

Not only had Gary Powers been shot down in May, but the fear of nuclear attack was real. Schools still were conducting “duck and cover” air-raid drills, and Americans could buy prefab fallout shelters for $1,195.

“People were less likely to question what their government told them,” Sibley said. “People were so afraid of a Soviet attack, the last thing they were going to do was question their country’s defense.”

The BOMARC missile was part of that defense.

Because damage was limited and no casualties resulted from the fire, the story faded in the midst of the presidential-election campaign that pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard M. Nixon, concerns about Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe-pounding performance at the United Nations.

As Sibley noted, the public distrust generated by Vietnam and Watergate, the environmental consciousness embodied in Earth Day, and the fear of domestic nuclear accidents that was realized in Three Mile Island were all in the future.

“Back then, it was no big thing,” said David Gray, 52, who was 12 when the fire occurred and still lives near the base. “I never really gave it much thought.”

The base closed in 1972.

The story came alive briefly in 1985, when Gov. Tom Kean and his environmental commissioner, Robert Hughey, voiced concern after learning about the base and what had happened there.

Although the fire was no secret, the nature of the contamination had been concealed until 1973, and military reports on monitoring of the base never percolated to the upper levels of state government. Instead, Kean and Hughey learned about it when federal officials suggested using the base as a storage site for radon-contaminated soil from North Jersey.

Military reports maintained that the plutonium had been contained, and that radiation levels were safe. But one 1977 Army study – disputed in a 1981 Air Force report but acknowledged in the base cleanup plan – said some of the plutonium apparently had “migrated” on surface water across Route 539.

Of particular concern was the fact that the base sits on top of the Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer, but federal officials have said tests show that the plutonium has not affected the groundwater, 50 feet below the surface in that area.

“They test our water every year to make sure it doesn’t get into our wells,” said George Mostrangeli, who lives two miles away on Route 539. “We don’t drink the water out here anyway. We prefer the bottled stuff.”

The state Department of Environmental Protection in 1985 said it wanted to check the health records of Air Force personnel who served at the base. But Lorretta O’Donnell, an agency spokeswoman, said the agency had not received anything from the Air Force.

Janice Carlson, a spokeswoman for the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, said health surveys had been done of 46th Squadron veterans, but the exact nature of the surveys was not clear. Her office was trying to gather information about the surveys, but it was not available by last night, two weeks after The Inquirer requested it.

Under the current cleanup plan, Chem-Nuclear Systems LLC of Columbia, S.C., is to put contaminated soil and other debris into containers that are to be sealed and trucked to a still-undetermined railhead.

The containers, which can hold 10 cubic yards or 12 tons of material, are then to be loaded into gondola cars and hauled to a disposal site for low-level radiation in the Utah desert 80 miles west of Salt Lake City.

If current estimates hold, about 150 gondola cars will be needed to take away the waste holding what once amounted to enough plutonium to fill a golf ball or even half a shot glass.

The biggest problem has been finding a railhead where the containers can be loaded onto the train cars.
The Air Force had hoped to use the Conrail line in Lakehurst Borough, about 10 miles away by road, but Mayor Stephen F. Childers said no in February because of concerns the plutonium could become airborne.

A closer, but older, rail line at the Heritage Mineral tract in Manchester Township also was considered, but Mayor Michael Fressola rejected the plan last month.

Carlson said no start date had been set for the work while military officials consider options that might meet the approval of local officials.

But Fressola said he believed it was safer to leave the plutonium alone.

That view was shared by Andrew Karmar, the radiation safety officer at the University of Rochester in New York, who said that there are other toxic substances more dangerous than plutonium, and that removing it posed a greater risk than leaving it where it is.

“It’s probably as safe as it’s going to be,” said Karmar, a recognized radiation expert.

He said the money for the project would provide a greater social benefit if used for immunizations or highway-safety measures.

And finally, this June 8, 2010 article from New Jersey’s Burlington County Times reports that the Bomarc cleanup was almost finished some 50 years after the fact (source: NewsBank):

Environmental disaster – Fifty years ago, a fire at a missile base in the Pinelands released plutonium across the 75-acre site. The cleanup is expected to be declared complete later this year.

Fifty years ago, a missile base located deep in the Pine Barrens on Fort Dix was considered a key part of the nation’s defense against a Soviet nuclear strike.

The base was called the Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center (BOMARC), but research was not its primary mission. In the event of a Soviet attack, the base was expected to launch dozens of nuclear-tipped missiles that would travel at supersonic speed to destroy whole squadrons of enemy bombers before they reached U.S. shores.

But disaster struck on the afternoon of June 7, 1960, when, just a few months after the base opened, a fire started in one of the missile launchers, melting the missile’s warhead and releasing plutonium into the air and across much of the 75-acre site.

At first the world believed a nuclear firestorm had erupted in the Pine Barrens, not far from the border between Burlington and Ocean counties.

The panic subsided quickly as the military insisted the radioactive release was contained and of no danger to the surrounding populace.

Five decades later, the fire is little more than a footnote in the region’s history and the base a mere reminder of the bygone Cold War era when nuclear attack seemed possible.

The missiles are long gone, and the shelters and buildings that made up the base are rust-covered and vacant since the site closed in 1972.

Most of the radioactive material also has been removed, thanks to a multimillion-dollar cleanup undertaken by the military in 2002 to excavate most of the contaminated soil and debris and ship it by rail to a disposal site in Utah.

Low levels of radiation still remain but pose little to no risk to the environment, according to military assessments.

In fact, the biggest concern about the site is no longer radiation, but trichloroethylene (TCE) and other volatile organic compounds that have seeped into the ground. The compounds are believed to have come from cleaning solvents used at the missile base during its brief period of operation.

The contamination is not considered a health risk because there are no drinking water wells nearby, but the military has been monitoring the plume for several years and is considering its options for a possible cleanup, according to Mike Tamn, a Pemberton Township resident who chairs the Restoration Advisory Board that acts as a liaison between what is now the Joint Base McGuire -Dix-Lakehurst and surrounding communities.

“The TCE has spread considerably. There’s a process under consideration that could possibly stop it (from spreading further), but it’s not exactly cheap,” Tamn said.

By comparison, he said the military’s initial response to the 1960 incident was simply to pour cement over the area where the missile fire occurred.

“The standards and theory concerning radiation were a lot different then. At the time, the established theory was that you could wash it away,” he said.

Tamn, who began working as a civilian employee on McGuire Air Force Base about a week after the fire, recalled a lot of secrecy about the missile base.

“You couldn’t worry about it because you couldn’t discuss it,” he said. “It was still the Cold War, which was very hot at the time. There were parts of the base that were closed and you couldn’t even ask about them.”

Newspaper reports at the time described the initial panic when word spread that a nuclear missile had detonated in the Pines.

The June 9 edition of the Mount Holly Herald described how residents in Burlington and Ocean counties were alarmed by reports of “an atomic warhead explosion with scattered radioactive debris” in the area of the BOMARC base, which is about 8 miles east of the border in Plumsted Township, Ocean County.

The paper described “a deluge of Civil Defense, Health Department and military officials and reporters” descending on the evacuated base as state police tried to set up roadblocks in an 8-mile radius around the site.

“Geiger counters clicked and air filtering devices whirred as calls from as far away as London, England, swamped the McGuire Information Services Office requesting information on the atomic explosion,” the paper reported.

But the fear and interest in the story quickly died down and the fire largely was forgotten until 1985, when Gov. Tom Kean called for a cleanup after learning about a proposal to ship radon-contaminated soil from North Jersey communities to the BOMARC site.

Tamn said the restoration board continued the push through May 2002, when the cleanup began. About 22,000 cubic yards of radioactive soil were removed, costing $23.2 million. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is expected to declare the cleanup complete and adequate later this year, according to public affairs officials at the joint base.

Tamn said the restoration advisory board largely was pleased with the cleanup, noting that it would be impossible to remove all the contamination from the fire.

Richard Bizub, director of water programs for the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, said the advocacy group is still concerned about the groundwater contamination.

“It is a threat because the plume is moving toward the Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area (in Ocean County),” Bizub said. “We would have liked that cleaned up in a more efficient manner.”

Public affairs officials at the joint base said the TCE plume is expected to be addressed in a feasibility study being developed by the base and state DEP. The study is expected to offer “various remedial alternatives.” The proposed remedy will be made available for public review and comment.

Bizub said the fire was one of the largest environmental disasters in the environmentally sensitive Pinelands, which did not become federally protected until 1978.

“The whole program predated the Pinelands process by about 19 years,” he said.

Tamn agreed that the fire was unprecedented.

“That was the only situation I know of like it, which is probably one reason why there was so much confusion. It had never occurred before, so nobody knew how to handle it,” he said.

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Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

In our new issue, you’ll find the deliciously rich history of chocolate; cavalier attitudes toward a deadly plague in a Brazilian port; forgotten battles of the Revolutionary War; and the intriguing rise and demise of the advertising card.

Chocolate: A Readex Sampler

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Author of Battlegrounds of Freedom and The Guide to the American Revolutionary War in Canada and New England

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19th-century advertising card expert and author of Clipper Ship Sailing Cards (2007) and Mechanical Bank Trade Cards (2008)

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