VINTAGE LEADERSHIP FROM MID-CENTURY MODERN LEADERS

Today would be a good day for vintage leadership from the 50’s and 60’s.

The problem is that the reading I’ve done for the post comes across as a Nixon slam.

Nixon was Vice President for Eisenhower in the 1950’s when everything was calm and serene, compared to the 1940’s.

He was working during the big hits back then

From Google AI:

 

The U.S. has been involved in overthrowing governments in various countries, including Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954.

 

Mid-century modern leaders were more than Nixon, but he’s a common thread in it all.

 

 

What history shows is the same over-throw tactics used successfully in one country doesn’t work in all countries.

 

Eisenhower authorized the CIA to organize “Operation Success,” a plan for the armed overthrow of Arbenz, which took place in June 1954.

The agency selected Guatemalan colonel Carlos Castillo Armas to lead the coup, it financed and trained Castillo’s rebels in Somoza’s Nicaragua, and it backed up the invasion with CIA-piloted planes.

 

The Bay of Pigs invasion force trained in Guatemala before their deployment disaster seven years later.

One Cuban’s account:

 

When I arrived in the US in 1960 I already knew that other exiles were being trained by the CIA in Guatemala to invade Cuba. I made my way over there a few days later.

 

From 1955 To 2025

After seventy years down the road we know one side from another.

We do, don’t we? Just in case, let’s get refreshed.

While no one needs some random baby boomer blogger spewing online nonsense, I’ll try and keep it down.

And low. Here’s the downlow:

Here in America we celebrate the biggest, the best, the loudest, the most colorful in most everything.

We’re the big land with big bodies cheering big achievements.

This writer is a booster who believes in education, history, and learning more.

Part of my learning curve came from joining the Army.

I had my ‘I’m so special’ status tested.

As a veteran I’m still special, and I like to spread that special around.

 

I’ve heard some people say, and maybe you have too on social media like Facebook and twitter, that our age of exceptionalism, American exceptionalism, is coming to an end.

From who I know and respect, individual exceptionalism is alive and well.

But there are cracks.

The so-sensitive-it-hurts among us feel the weight of what appears to be a bad deal.

And they’re not wrong.

Getting pulled over and jerked from the car by dudes who wear masks? That’s a bad deal in any era.

This is worse:

 

 

Guatemala’s brief experiment with democracy was over. For the next four decades, its people suffered from government terror without equal in the modern history of Latin America.

As one American observer described it:

In Guatemala City, unlicensed vans full of heavily armed men pull to a stop and in broad daylight kidnap another death squad victim.

Mutilated bodies are dropped from helicopters on crowded stadiums to keep the population terrified . . . those who dare ask about ‘disappeared’ loved ones have their tongues cut out.

 

Did I say bad deal? That sounds awful.

Are people feeling it?

I’m feeling something reading about people today slipping and falling from ten story parking garages and apartments.

From The Moscow Times after listing eighteen examples of falling deaths:

 

Dear readers,

We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has designated The Moscow Times as an “undesirable” organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a “foreign agent.”

These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia.

 

Seventy Years From Now

It takes time for writers to gather enough information and courage to produce work that won’t harm their reputation.

When it comes to Nixon some twenty-five years after his death, something changed.

 

 

Unbeknownst to most people even now, the election of 1968 placed the patron saint of the Mafia in the White House.

In other words, Richard Nixon would go on to not only lead a criminal presidency; he would be totally indebted to our nation’s top mobsters.

By 1969, thanks in large part to his long-time campaign manager and political advisor Murray Chotiner, a lawyer who specialized in representing mobsters, Nixon had participated in secret criminal dealings for more than 20 years with sketchy figures such as Mickey Cohen, Mob financial guru Meyer Lansky, Teamsters union chief Jimmy Hoffa, and New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello.

And with Chotiner as one of his key behind-the-scenes advisors in the White House, Nixon’s ties to the Mafia didn’t end there. The Mafia’s President reveals a mind-blowing litany of favors Nixon exchanged with these sinister characters over decades, ranging from springing Jimmy Hoffa from prison to banning the federal government from using the terms “Mafia” and “La Cosa Nostra.” 

Drawing on newly released government tapes, documents, and other fresh information, The Mafia’s President by Don Fulsom offers a carefully reported, deeply researched account of Richard Nixon’s secret connections to America’s top crime lords.

 

 

What will change seventy years from now with this president?

 

PS: All of the dirt will be released to complete a full picture?

 

PSS: There’s always more to know.