Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

The Day Reagan Almost Died

25 years ago today, President Ronald Reagan -- in office just over two months -- was shot outside the Washington Hilton by John Hinckley.

Here's how Time began its first article of six, "A Sense of Where We Are" by Roger Rosenblatt. They described their extensive coverage as "reflections on a week of anxiety, sadness and outrage."

It took a week to get the picture. First came the gasps and "not agains"; then the nation assumed its old too familiar position before the tube, reluctant pros in this business by now, ready to take in the slow-motion replays, the testimony of experts, the edgy reporters, a bloody head, a shot-up limousine, another blank-faced gunman.

There was a jumble to sort out. The President was O.K. But then he wasn't. They took him to the White House. No, to a hospital. Was it serious? Not very. Yes, very. Maybe ... And so on through the long Monday afternoon, the emotions buffeted by every bulletin—sinking at the report of White House Press Secretary James Brady's death; rising warily when the report is denied; a freeze at news that the President is undergoing surgery; a thaw when someone repeats a Reagan joke. Who was that fool who asked if the operation was going to be filmed?

More questions still—the public's tensions not at all alleviated by the figure of Alexander Haig claiming "I am in control here," in a voice full of jelly.

Put your politics aside -- whether you were one of the Democrats who thought of Reagan as evil and stupid (he turned out to be neither, in my opinion) or one of the Republicans who thought he was their Franklin Roosevelt. Imagine how close our democracy came to losing another president to gunfire. At that time, it had only been 17-years since President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas.

I remember that, in my own life, I was just starting a job as an investigative reporter at the PBS affiliate in Los Angeles, KCET. My fellow journalists were a pretty hard core liberal bunch and I remember wondering why none of them seemed moved by this at all. It was like their attitude was, "Well, he's an arch conservative, he deserves whatever happens to him." They hated President Reagan with the same passion that a lot of people on the left now reserve for President Bush. That's so not how I see it. When somebody shoots at the elected President, they're taking a shot at our democracy.

In any case, the nation got through it quickly and moved on. Reagan joked with the doctors, showed wonderful spirit and won a lot of friends. When his wife, Nancy, showed up at the hospital, he quipped, "Honey, I forgot to duck." (He took the line from Jack Dempsey, but it will always be remembered as his.) Time noted some examples of the Reagan humor which I reprint here because they show clearly why people liked the guy.

> To surgeons, as he entered the operating room: "Please tell me you're Republicans."

> In a written note, upon coming out of anesthesia in the recovery room (paraphrasing Comedian W.C. Fields): "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."

> In another note, recalling a Winston Churchill observation: "There's no more exhilarating feeling than being shot at without result."

> In a third note: "Send me to L.A., where I can see the air I'm breathing."

> In yet another note written while surrounded by medical staff: "If I had this much attention in Hollywood, I'd have stayed there."

> Complimented by a doctor for being a good patient: "I have to be. My father-in-law is a doctor."

> To an attentive nurse: "Does Nancy know about us?"

> To a nurse who told him to "keep up the good work" of his recovery: "You mean this may happen several more times?"

> To Daughter Maureen: The attempted assassination "ruined one of my best suits."

> Greeting White House aides the morning after surgery: "Hi, fellas. I knew it would be too much to hope that we could skip a staff meeting."

> When told by Aide Lyn Nofziger that the Government was running normally: "What makes you think I'd be happy about that?"

But we know now that he almost died. That would have put President George Herbert Walker Bush in office eight years earlier. Assuming he would only have made one term as he did in our timeline, then it's possible that in 1984 Walter Mondale would have defeated him. Whether or not that happened, 1988 would not have been the first term of a Bush dynasty. Someone else would have taken office. Clinton wasn't quite ready. Bob Dole? Joe Biden? The mind boggles...

To read more of these historical posts, based on coverage from Time or Newsweek, please CLICK HERE to visit the Instant History blog.

President's Day: On JFK's First Day on the Job

45 years ago, newly elected President John Kennedy spoke those famous words we still remember.

"Ask not what your country can do for you..."  We've heard this so many times, we can finish JFK's words in our sleep.  That speech, delivered on a brutally cold January day in 1961 where a blizzard threatened to shut down the entire affair, still goes down as the best inauguration speech, probably ever, certainly of the 20th century.

The Inauguration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
January 27, 1961

This is actually my favorite newsmagazine cover -- the day that John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency.  It's a color photograph that Time's editors had decided two weeks earlier should be taken at the precise moment when he raised his right hand and took the oath as the nation's 35th President.  Just possibly this was the last inauguration where Americans were absolutely filled to the brim with the possibilities that life would be getting much, much better.

Time -- with coverage coming from 17 correspondents -- led with the speech itself -- definitely getting right that it would become the classic speech, the one by which all others have been measured.

A blizzard threatened to turn the whole momentous occasion into a farce -- but President John Kennedy, delivering his inaugural address, more than saved the day.  Kennedy's inauguration speech went beyond mere rhetoric derived from the U.S. past; it has profound meaning for the U.S. future.  In lean, lucid phrases the nation's new President pledged to the U.S. to remain faithful to its friends, firm against its enemies but always willing to bring an end to the cold war impasse.

Sometimes, like the JFK coverage, they got the story just right.  That's the fun of the Instant History blog.  There will be other times where the writing of the moment was swayed by being too inside the story to see clearly.  And there will be other times still where you will see that issues of political correctness and other bias have twisted the honest reporting of the moment into something that the original journalists would never agree with.

Reaction to the speech was immediate.  From all shades of political outlook, from people who had voted for Kennedy in November and people who had voted against him, came a surge of praise and congratulation. Even so partisan a Republican as Senate Minority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen described it as "inspiring" and as "a very compact message of hope."

The Time reporters here got the speech just right.  Who knew when President Kennedy delivered that address that he and his presidency would end in such a tragic manner that it would affect Americans' sense of trust in their own government and that, as the years passed, he would be revealed to have had such huge personal flaws in terms of his risk-taking behavior?

One thing that impressed me in re-reading this article was how close we came to never hearing that speech delivered in the stirring way it was given.  Snow had started to fall the night before and kept falling. 

By nightfall on inaugural eve, confusion was complete.  At least 10,000 cars were stalled and abandoned.  Airplanes stacked up over the airport, then flew away; Herbert Hoover, winging up from Miami, had to turn back, never got to the inaugural.  It took Pat Nixon 2 1/2 hours to get from her Wesley Heights home to the Senate Office Building, where her husband was holding a farewell party for his staff. . . At the White House, 30 members of President Eisenhower's staff were snowbound for the night.  Determined partygoers struggled through the storm, some of the men in white ties and parkas, some of the women wearing leotards under their gowns.

Eventually, though, on that terribly cold day, the story was all about hope... a time when a leader could challenge us to "...ask what you can do for your country" without getting in a big political debate.

For those of you too young to remember, or those who do but would like a refresher, you can read the entire draft of that speech here.

Happy President's Day to all...

On Leadership...

As Ariel Sharon's time on the world stage draws to a close, the nature of leadership is on our minds. There's an excellent review of his career posted on Salon magazine today.

Ariel Sharon's critical illness marks the end of an era in Israel's leadership, and the beginning of a new chapter in the Jewish state's history. Throughout a unique military and political career, spanning over six decades, Sharon has been one of the most influential figures on Israel's national security, physical landscape and political map. Alternately viewed as a hero and a villain in his many public capacities, he exits Israel's political stage as an admired father figure, the most popular prime minister Israelis have had in a generation.

Only because the calendar says it's so, and not to stretch to make any overt comparison, it was 65 years ago today that Time picked Winston Churchill as its "Man of the Year."

We face tough and uncertain times today -- Sharon, with a nearly nuclear Iran threatening Israel, certainly did -- but recall that as this magazine about Churchill was going to the presses, America was not yet in the war, Hitler had pummeled London with a sustained aerial attack in the "Battle of Britain" and as Churchill took office countries fell like bowling pins: Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, France.

Man of the Year
January 6, 1941

Time chose to begin its coverage of Churchill with the first speech he delivered to the British House of Commons on May 13, 1940 as Prime Minister.  You know the one -- where he declared: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."  He said more, much more.  Listen to it again, and think of it in the context of the global War on Terror.

"You ask, what is our policy?  I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air -- war with all our might and with all the strength God has given us -- and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime.  That is our policy.  You ask, what is our aim?  I can answer in one word.  It is victory.  Victory at all costs.  Victory in spite of all terrors.  Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."       

Sharon was never the speaker that Churchill was, but in his younger years he was no less passionate and resolute in his belief that standing up to the armies that surrounded Israel required equal courage and commitment. Sharon had the courage to make war and, in his final time, the courage to make peace. Regardless of how his own personal battle for survival now goes, he is inevitably removed from political life. He'll be missed.

McCartney's First Tour in 1976

Although Paul McCartney ended his 2005 tour here in Los Angeles last night, he's toured enough recently that seeing him has become almost familiar. It wasn't always like that. Back in 1976, McCartney took his band, Wings, on tour and it was his first tour since the Beatles had played their last "live" song together in the late summer of 1966 at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.

Time, May 31, 1976
Cover by Peter Max

Time noted that, with this tour, McCartney was "bucking Elton John as Pop's top gun." His 21 city tour sold out everywhere and in Los Angeles and New York the tickets were snapped up within four hours in a time before Ticketmaster and ticket brokers.

His bounteous melodic gifts seemed to be reflected in the brightness of his step, the openness of his smile. His impishness, and his considerable charm, always had an ironic undercurrent of worldliness and assurance. Even now, in performance or in conversation, he has the surprised sophistication of a gremline who has just been caught under the drawbridge compromising the fairy princess. It is not for any of this that Paul is popular, however. It is for the music he is making, the flowing Pop that typifies, even defines, the snug place much contemporary rock has found... McCartney is tempering the revolution he helped to create.

The article spends considerble space on the McCartney/Beatles story, praising him and slamming him at the same time. Noting that he is "bucking hard for Pop's Top Gun", it includes this unattributed quote under a concert photo: "If you're a young, vital person who goes to discos, maybe the music's just fine." Ouch. There's the requisite description of Paul and his wife, Linda, as a family that keeps close together by traveling together and, of course, the necessary dissection of the end of the Beatles.

McCartney's roughtest critic over the years was also his best friend. "He sounds like Englebert Humperdink," said John Lennon of McCartney's first solo efforts. Later, in Lennon's remarkable album Imagine, he put it directly to Paul in "How Do You Sleep?", a fierce song full of anger and injury...The song was less spiteful than revealing, fueled by the kind of fury that can only come out of friendship, injured perhaps irreparably, that refuses to disintegrate completely or to mend. Wounds went deep, and they stayed open for a while. McCartney says now: "It's a decision you make, that's all. Otherwise I would have ended up thinking John was the most evil person on this earth...saying all that."

The article closed with the persistant rumors of a potential Beatle's re-union, including the $50-million for one concert offer that was currently on the table. But it quoted a 17-year-old fan who answered that question maybe even better than John or Paul: "...I don't want them to get back together. It would be a super-letdown. They could never produce the music they once did. It's a different era, and they've changed in different ways."

Actually, Paul said it even better. In his spare style, he got it down to three words.  Let It Be.

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Instant History is all about the "first draft" of history.  For over seven decades, both Time and Newsweek have provided a weekly snapshot of our lives -- sometimes profoundly insightful and other times woefully inadequate but, in all cases, before conventional wisdom has time to set in.  Like today's blogs... To check out the full collection of these posts, please click here.

Flashback 1963: The Week Before Kennedy Died

At the moment that the sniper's bullet claimed the life of John F. Kennedy, it changed forever how he would be viewed by us. He became a martyr and, with his youthful energy, also a man frozen in time. But what was going on with John Kennedy immediately before that tragedy, and what was the attitude of the nation towards the president? This Time magazine is actually dated November 22, 1963 and was the issue on the newstands the day JFK was hot.

Washington Hostesses: Nicole Alphand
November 22, 1963

The cover features Washington hostess Nicole Alphand, wife of then French ambassador to the U.S. Herve' Alphand. It details the capitol's social whirl, saying that from September to May there are roughly 200 official parties a month in Washinton, perhaps 20 times as many private ones, and that Alphand was among the best of the dozens of hostesses keeping the champagne pouring and the canapes circulating. It's hard to imagine the French ambassador and his wife being the toast of Washington these days, isn't it?

What is arresting about this issue, however, is the political talk and the reporting that mentions President Kennedy. It's easy to look back now and think that Kennedy was a shoo-in for re-election but this issue starts out with its "Nation" section devoted to Republicans who seem to be falling over themselves for a chance to take him on.

In the late fall of 1963 the basic Republican Party facts are these: Only a year ago Nelson Rockefeller seemed to have his party nomination wrapped up, and only a month ago that same nomination appeared to be Goldwater's for the asking. But, unless it has an incumbent President seeking re-election, no party can afford to concede its highest prize so far in advance.

The big article, then, was about whether or not Richard Nixon is going to try to get the nomination from Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. But New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller is also a factor (and would have been the front-runner if he hadn't divorced his wife and gotten re-married a year earlier). Also honorably mentioned as possible candidates were Michigan Governor George Romney and Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton. What's quite interesting, though, is the interview Time has with Nixon.

"...it's because there is a disillusionment with Kennedy. The election results in the major cities are a storm signal. So there is the possibility that Kennedy could be beaten, and this is an increasing possibility. As this possibility increases, so does the interest in getting a Republican who can win. I find there is a correlation between Kennedy's failures and interest in me. As he goes down, the stock of any potential Republican candidate goes up."

In that same interview, former vice-president Nixon (and 1960 nominee) speaks about Vietnam, especially the U.S. endorsed military coup in South Viet Nam that he thought could render Kennedy vulnerable.

"If this Viet war goes sour, Viet Nam could be a hot issue next year. If it goes well, it won't be. It's strange to me, when we are fawning over Tito, catering to Kadar, accommodating Khrushchev, we don't have the decency to express our sympathy to a family which was a real foe of Communism."

Next up in the magazine was their section called "The Presidency" which included a round-up of Kennedy's week. It starts by pointing out that the normally upbeat Kennedy had been in "ill humor" at his last press conference (the one that would be the last of his presidency) over the failure of Congress to move on his tax cut proposal (see, George Bush wasn't the only tax-cutter!) and his various civil rights bills. Kennedy, by the way, wanted to cut $11-billion in taxes in 1960 dollars.

Kennedy had also visited Arlington National Cemetery that week, the place that would become his final resting place, and had taken his 2 1/2 year old son, John Jr. or "John-John." The shocker in this article, however, detailed a trip to New York taken by Kennedy. Check this out.

Near week's end, Kennedy flew into Manhattan, aged his Secret Service detail ten years by forgoing the usual motorcycle escort into the city. At one of ten midtown traffic lights that stopped the presidential limousine, an ambitious female camera bug rushed up and fired a flashbulb at Kennedy's side of the car. Moaned a New York police official: "She might well have been an assassin." (italics mine) As for the purpose of the President's stop-and-go entrance into New York, the official explanation was that he wanted no "fuss and feathers."

Another item that goes against the post-assassination perception grain was later in the magazine, under the "Education" section in an article that tried to describe college students of 1963. It calls them "The Personalists" -- people who stress self-development -- and discusses their disillusionment with, of all people, John Kennedy. Chatham College's Edward Eddy cites "youth's decreasing identification with the Kennedy Administration," tracing it to "the shock and the terror" that hit collegians during last fall's Cuban crisis.

Campus disenchantment with President Kennedy now spreads far and wide. At conservative Georgia Tech, the complaint is that "he's interfering with my personal life" through Big Government. At liberal Reed, where "he doesn't inspire respect as Stevenson did," the gripe is Kennedy's caution on the civil rights bill. At exuberant Wisconsin, "he's liked in a negative way," faulted for lack of political conviction. "We're sick of him," say dissidents at Jesuit Georgetown.

How much of this is truly representative and how much is wishful TimeTime in this issue, would come together in Dallas and write a powerful final chapter. thinking preparing the battlefield for a presidential election less than a year away is debatable. It's clear, however, that a week before he died, President John F. Kennedy had already established a habit of lax security on his travels and presided over a country where he still had a lot of enemies. Those two issues, brought out by brought out by Time in this issue, would come together in Dallas and write a powerful final chapter.

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Instant History is all about the "first draft" of history.  For over seven decades, both Time and Newsweek have provided a weekly snapshot of our lives -- sometimes profoundly insightful and other times woefully inadequate but, in all cases, before conventional wisdom has time to set in.  Like today's blogs... To check out the full collection of these posts, please click here.

Edward R. Murrow: the Original Cigarette-Smoking Man

Edward R. Murrow, the broadcast giant who took on Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954, is back in the news thanks to George Clooney's new film, Good Night, and Good Luck. That film focuses on Murrow's famous series of broadcasts in March/April of 1954 where he took on (and some say, ended) Senator Joseph McCarthy and his campaign to rid the government of Communists. Check out the Movie Smackdown review of Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) -vs- All the President's Men (1976).

TV'S EDWARD R. MURROW
Time, September 30, 1957

At the moment Time published this cover article you see above, TV's most explosive telecast was 3 1/2 years past. It was in that broadcast that Murrow indicted Joe McCarthy out of his own mouth by using film clips of McCarthy in action. Here's how Time referred to the 1954 show in 1957:

"He did not bother to clear the show in advance with CBS, and in turn CBS decided retroactively that it had lent Murrow the network's right to editorialize. The network lists him only as one of its hired hands, but Murrow is something of a power unto himself, with his own generously financed domain and the strong personal loyalty of key CBS News staffers. His unique status stems from 1) his close friendship with Board Chairman William S. Paley, with whom he deals directly, 2) his onetime role as a major architect of its news staff and policy, and 3) the hard fact that if CBS ever loses him, it will be NBC's gain."

Notice that today's hard-charging ABC was barely even considered a network at the time this article was written (it was, but only technically).  Murrow, by the way, was making over $300,000 a year which was a lot of coin back in 1957 dollars.

If you've seen Good Night, and Good Luck, you know that the 1954 heart of the film is book-ended by a speech that Murrow gave in 1958 about the state of TV journalism. That topic is exactly how Time chose to end its article about Murrow a year earlier.

"The fact that nothing new or exciting is in view to take Murrow's place is explained in great part by the nature of television. It is primarily an adman's medium conceived in escapism and dedicated to the proposition. Its role in communicating information plays second fiddle to the canned comedies, saddle-soap operas and variety shows. In its daily efforts to cover the news, television has not really made up its mind what it is trying to do. TV men are exhilirated by their technological power to reach at one instant into almost every living room in the U.S., yet timid about using it to edify. So far, for all the earnest thought and energy that is devoted to it, electronic journalism has illuminated with bright flashes but few steady beams of light. Perhaps that is the best it is destined to do."

A year later, in his famous speech, Murrow would say that if TV didn't attempt to do more with its power it would only be "wires and light in a box." To which, of course, he could have added, "Good night, and good luck."

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Instant History is all about the "first draft" of history.  For over seven decades, both Time and Newsweek have provided a weekly snapshot of our lives -- sometimes profoundly insightful and other times woefully inadequate but, in all cases, before conventional wisdom has time to set in.  Like today's blogs... To check out the full collection of these posts, please click here.

The O.J. Verdict: Where Were You?

Hard to believe, but it's been ten years this week since the verdict came down in the O.J. Simpson double-murder case here in Los Angeles. As far as newsmagazine coverage of this case is concerned, it began with controversy, prompting the only pulled-back cover in Time's history, probably created more cover-stories than any other single news story short of 9/11 related coverage.

O.J. Simpson Verdict: Special Report
Time - October 16, 1995

Time led its "Special Report" with an extended essay from Roger Rosenblatt that was titled, perhaps way too optimistically, "A Nation of Pained Hearts: Americans, black and white, may be able to use the O.J. verdict as a chance to embark on a pilgrimage toward and candor and charity."

"At least there was one moment of visible black-and-white unity last week. It occurred on Tuesday, shortly after 10 a.m. Pacific time, when crowds of citizens, gathered together in the streets like extras in a War of the Worlds movie of the 1950s, stood staring up at outdoor television screens, waiting for the word. They were united, briefly, in an anxious silence of the heart. As soon as the verdict was read, however, they split apart; they could watch themselves do it on the split screens. On one side jubilation, on the other dismay. Afterward it was said that America should have seen it coming, that the division of the races cut so deep, it ought to have been obvious that two nations had always been hiding in one."

Like JFK's death, the moon landing and 9/11, many of us have a memory of how we heard the news and what it meant. I was in pre-production on the pilot for what would become an NBC TV series, Dark Skies, and we had offices at the Lantana business park in Santa Monica. When the word went out that they were about to read the verdict, people pored out of their offices into the building lobby where there was a big-screen television. I'm talking something like fifty people, probably a dozen of them African-American. When the words "not guilty" were read, I think everybody in the room was shocked and surprised. Without exception every white person recoiled and, simultaneously, every single African-American began to applaud and cheer. Keep in mind that we were all co-workers and that everybody was well-educated and employed. The difference between everybody in the room was race and nothing else.

Please do leave your own story about hearing the news in the comment section. I'm sure readers of this blog would be interested to read them.

Back to that issue of Time. The actual coverage began after the essay, and showed us that famous photo of O.J. with the very strange smile on his face being hugged by Johnnie Cochran as Kardashian and Bailey, his other (white) attorneys, continued to listen to the verdict.

"A mug shot, two gravestones, a smile. The trial can be reduced to these emblems. Or to entries in a specialized gazetteer: Rockingham, Bundy, Brentwood. A bestiary: barking dog, white Bronco, blond Kato. Names on a list: Marcia and Johnnie, Darden and Shapiro, Fung, Lee, Scheck, Ito, Fuhrman. A weird alphabet: DNA, O.J., A.C., LAPD, the N word. All were signposts to a greater geography, one uneasily contained on the premises of the California Superior Court. Television viewers saw the proceedings and were captured by the legal dramatics; and yet there were always hints of unseen details and untold tales."

One of the things I found most interesting in this coverage is how the defense felt about Judge Lance Ito. Apparently, they disliked him about as much as the prosecution did.

"Says defense attorney Peter Neufeld: 'I was very disappointed with Judge Ito, the fact that he was so concerned with his status as a celebrity, his willingness to entertain personalities in chambers, to show the lawyers little videotapes of skits on television.' One day, says Neufeld, Ito brought all the lawyers into chambers to show them a clip of the 'Dancing Itos' from Jay Leno's Tonight Show. 'You may find that amusing on a personal level, but I can assure that on a professional level it is so unacceptable, for a judge who is presiding over a murder where two people lost their lives in the most gruesome and horrible fashion, and where a third person has his life on the line, to bring the lawyers into chambers to show them comic revues.' Ito even told the lawyers Simpson jokes he had heard. Says Neufeld: 'As someone who has tried cases for twenty years, I found it deplorable and I was shocked.'"

O.J., by the way, is supposed to be out in Los Angeles right now autographing footballs for $95 each. Are the buyers looking to own a souvenir from a sports hero or the murderer who got away? Maybe that depends on race, too. It's sad if it does because no race should have to bear the burden of defending a murderer. But that's America these days.

O.J., of course, has had ten years to continue searching for "the real killer" as he so famously promised and, so far, has not turned anyone up. Maybe his break with reality has been so complete that he doesn't realize he's looking right at him every day he shaves.

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 Instant History is all about the "first draft" of history.  For over seven decades, both Time and Newsweek have provided a weekly snapshot of our lives -- sometimes profoundly insightful and other times woefully inadequate but, in all cases, before conventional wisdom has time to set in.  Like today's blogs...

• To check out a full selection of these postings, click here.

Time Predicts New Orleans Disaster in 2000

New Orleans has always had a complicated relationship with the water surrounding it. Everyone told the first settlers it was the wrong place to build a city. And Time -- in a July 2000 cover article about "Life on the Mississippi" -- pretty much nailed what was going to happen in New Orleans. The inside article was called "The Big Easy on the Brink" and sub-titled, presciently, "If it doesn't act fast, the city could become the next Atlantis." 

The article gets right to the point and gets that point right-on. It opens like this:

"If a flood of biblical proportions were to lay waste to New Orleans, Joe Suhayda has a good idea how it could happen. A Category 5 hurricane would come barreling out of the Gulf of Mexico. It would cause Lake Pontchartrain, north of New Orleans, to overflow, pouring down millions of gallons of water into the city. Then things would really get ugly. Evacuation routes would be blocked. Buildings would collapse. Chemicals and hazardous waste would dissolve, turning the floodwaters into a lethal soup. In the end, what was left of the city might not be worth saving. 'There's concern it would essentially destroy New Orleans,' says Suhayda."

The man quoted -- Suhayda -- a water-resources expert at Louisiana State University, had concluded that New Orleans might not even exist as a city by the end of the century. His prediction, in light of recent events, even raises questions about whether or not the city should be re-built (although for political reasons it almost certainly will). Remember, this is a city that, in the old days, after a heavy rain, bodies actually washed out of the cemeteries. The article makes the point that what is threatening New Orleans is a combination of two man-made problems: more levees and fewer wetlands.

"The levees installed along the Mississippi to protect the city from water surges have had a perverse effect: they have actually made it more vulnerable to flooding. That's because New Orleans has been kept in place by the precarious balance of two opposing forces. Because the city is constructed on 100 feet of soft silt, sand and clay, it naturally "subsides" or sinks, several feet a century. Historically, that subsidence has been counteracted by sedimentation: new silts, sand and clay that are deposited when the river floods. But since the levees went up -- mostly after the great flood of 1927 -- the river has not been flooding, and sedimentation has stopped."

You've read the upshot. The city has been and continues sink about three feet a century, bad news for a city already eight feet below sea level. Factor in global warming that may be raising the sea as much as three feet a century. Then there was the wetlands issues. The Louisiana coast, according to Time, was losing 16,000 acres a year, mostly as a result of population expansion into once pristine areas, destructive oil and gas drilling, pollution and land loss through lack of sedimentation.

"As it turns out, barrier islands aren't just nice to look at; they are also a key natural barrier to hurricanes. (Every 2.7 miles of wetland absorbs a foot of storm surge.) As the wetlands go, the chance of a hurricane blowing the city away grows."

The article makes clear that engineers were frantically trying to come up with solutions, but that the big sticking point was money. The price tage for a complete solution would have been as much as $14-billion in federal and state money. (Of course, if we re-build, that may look like a bargain.) Here is the article's conclusion:

"So far, little has been done. Part of the problem, of course, is that excessive worrying and planning are radically at odds with the spirit of the Big Easy... New Orleans is still a place where the primary meaning of hurricane is a fruity rum drink the law lets you carry openly as you carouse in the French Quarter."

Not anymore. You can read Adam Cohen's entire article by clicking here.

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 Instant History is all about the "first draft" of history.  For over seven decades, both Time and Newsweek have provided a weekly snapshot of our lives -- sometimes profoundly insightful and other times woefully inadequate but, in all cases, before conventional wisdom has time to set in.  Like today's blogs...

Bryce Zabel is a working screenwriter/producer whose current credits include The Poseidon Adventure and Blackbeard.   He was chairman of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences from 2001-2003.  He maintains two other blogs:  his flagship News! -- Views! -- & Schmooze! and Movies-Squared.

Juice Stop: O.J.'s Last Run

We're coming up on the tenth anniversary this fall of the verdict in the O.J. Simpson case.  This means that, incredibly, over a decade has passed since that slow-speed chase in the white Bronco where we all held our breaths wondering if O.J. was going to blow his own brains out on live TV.  I remember watching it in the Calabasas Sagebrush Cantina -- the Bronco was on one screen, and the Lakers play-off was on the other.  Nobody could take their eyes off either.

The racial controversy over O.J. Simpson began, of course, with the alleged homicide of a white woman and a white man by a black suspect, but it was seen visually the minute the issues of Time and Newsweek first came out.  It triggered a pull-back of a cover, an unprecedented action in the publishing history of news magazines.  Here's what their initial June 27, 1994 issues first looked like:

June 27, 1994

Here's where it got interesting.  Almost immediately after hitting the stands, TimeTime did something it had never done before and has never done since.  They issued a second cover and pulled the first one.  Essentially this meant that only mail subscribers ever saw the first cover.  Here they are side-by-side for your own inspection.
was accused of racism for its photographic alteration of the famous O.J. arrest photo.  The editors defended their choice by saying that they had taken that creative license to show the shadow that had descended on his reputation that week.  Enough readers, however, said that they saw the white man stacking the deck by "demonizing" the black man, that

Most of us are very familiar with the story of O.J. Simpson -- the famous athlete a criminal jury said didn't do it only to have a civil jury say he did just over a year later.  Like the Los Angeles riots which preceded the arrest of O.J. by two years, this story said as much about the state of race relations in America as they did about the guilt or innocence of the accused.  Before the racial overtone set in, however, coverage in these initial issues had a lot to do with the actual slow-speed chase.  Here's the way Time started in both versions:

When asked how they could have let one of the most famous double-murder suspects in history slip away under their noses, the angry police commander and the tight-faced lawyer and the whole choir of commentators all said the same thing, without a trace of irony:  "We never thought he would run."

Maybe people condense into their essential selves in crisis, and O.J. was one of the best runners in American football.  Here's how Newsweek began their story:

The end, last week, was off-camera.  After the bloody steps, the heart-rending funerals, the surreal chase through the twilight of Los Angeles, O.J. Simpson surrendered himself into the darkness his life has become.  He was in the back seat of his best friend's Bronco, communing quietly with his cellular phone, his blue steel revolver and a picture of his children.  As the police stood back, the shadows lengthened.

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Instant History (Classic Newsmagazine Covers) is a companion blog to News Views & Schmooze. 

To see more of these posts based on classic news coverage from Time and Newsweek, please click here.