And the Wall Came Tumbling Down

Sovietback Saturday puts aside the works of dead cartoonists this week to dredge up my own stuff from the momentous year 1989. That fall, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded in ousting three opponents of his glasnost and perestroika policies from the politburo, and even authorized a new degree of freedom for the state-run press.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee, Wis., October 19, 1989

All the same, eyebrows were raised around the world when the Soviet news agency TASS reported, in all seriousness, that a three-eyed space alien clad in silver overalls and bronze boots landed in Voronezh and shot a 16-year-old boy with a device that made him disappear for a few minutes. Nor was it the only such story in Soviet media; Komsomolskaya Pravda reported finding a landing field for flying saucers near Perm, and printed a psychic interview with an extraterrestrial from the red star of the constellation of Libra.

Erich Honecker, head of state of East Germany since 1971, had been the communist official in charge of building the Berlin Wall in 1961. As protests in East Germany mounted and refugees from his regime found an escape route through Hungary and Czechoslovakia around his fortified East-West German border, Gorbachev rejected Honecker's pleas for Soviet help crushing dissidents. The 77-year-old Honecker was forced to resign on October 18.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers, Wis., October 26, 1989

The George H.W. Bush administration faced challenges in its own hemisphere: an attempted coup with U.S. backing in Panama failed to overthrow Manuel Noriega, who had voided the results of a fraud-riddled presidential elections in May rather than admit that his candidate had lost.

Through his rise from the Panamanian army, and head of intelligence, to becoming the country's military leader, Noriega had been on the CIA payroll since 1971. He helped fund the right-wing Contras in their civil war against the Nicaraguan government; U.S. intelligence agencies were well aware that drug trafficking was key to Noriega's financial assistance. When U.S. funding of the Contras came to an end after Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, the Contra insurgency came to an end and so did Noriega's usefulness to the CIA. He was suspected, furthermore, of passing intelligence on to the communist government of Cuba, the Medellin drug cartel, and anyone else who greased his palms.

in UW-M Post, November 9, 1989

The seas would prove no calmer —literally — during the U.S.-U.S.S.R. cruise summit in December.

Earlier posts have dealt with on the Polish situation, but I've given short shrift to what was going on in Hungary, the first country to go communist after World War I and the first country to be invaded by Russia after World War II. Fast forward to 1989, and Hungarian acting President Matyas Szuros publicly described the 1956 uprising as a "national independence movement" and declared that his nation was no longer a "People's Republic," which would certainly have gotten him hauled off to Moscow in chains 33 years earlier. Crowds on the streets jeered at Russian soldiers to go home, yet cheered Moscow's new leader with shouts of "Gorby! Gorby!"

in UW-M Post,  November 14, 1989

Then, in late October, Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Edvard Schevardnadze announced the eventual dismantling of the Warsaw Pact and the end of the Brezhnev doctrine — the U.S.S.R. policy that "when forces hostile to socialism seek to reverse the development of any socialist country whatsoever," the Soviet military would invade and impose the Kremlin's will. In the words of Soviet spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov, "You know the Frank Sinatra song My Way? Hungary and Poland are doing it their way. We now have the Sinatra doctrine."

And on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, November 16, 1989

I grew up in a world that had the freedom-loving democratic countries of Anglo America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand on the one side; and the rigid authoritarian communist countries on the other; and a whole lot of other countries stuck in a tug-of-war between them. There was an eternal state of Cold War, a precarious balancing act which could tumble into instant global annihilation at the slightest misstep anywhere.

As of November 9, 1989, all that changed. We saw a new age of peace and cooperation forged from the remnants of the Iron Curtain. There was talk of the "end of history," whatever that meant. If people in Russia and Eastern Europe had the power to triumph over their oppressive governments, perhaps people everywhere could find that same power.

in UW-M Post, November 30, 1989

P.S.: Speaking of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Tienanmen, and all that, there's a 1991 cartoon of mine on page 368 of this rather formidable tome hot off the presses at Harper Collins in London:

...and in the soon-to-be published German translation from Random House GmbH. (It has been in this blog before, and no doubt will show up again two years hence.)

Fake News, 1918 Edition

Seditionback Saturday hearkens once again to the thrilling days of yestercentury, where we find the First Amendment under fire... from the press.

"A Convenient Perch" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, ca. May, 1918

Now that The Masses had been shut down, there were few publications willing to tolerate any dissent about United States participation in Europe's Great War. German peace overtures had to be dismissed out of hand lest one's patriotism be called into question. And hanging onto one's cultural heritage had become suspect; who knew whether the fellows babbling in some foreign tongue might be plotting to blow up the town armory? (Or forcing Aaron  Schlossberg to pay for their welfare 100 years later?)

"Have You a Little Gas Mask" by Cy Hungerford in Pittsburgh Sun, c. May, 1918

This next cartoon of a row of Deutsche Zeitung readers was drawn to illustrate a column by Frederick Boyd Stevenson for the Brooklyn Eagle headlined "Who Has Kept Kaiserism in German Newspapers?: ...

"Is This Somewhere in Germany or Somewhere in America?" by Beaumont Fairbank in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 5, 1918 

"... How the American Defense Society Took Up the Task of Getting the Patriotic Proprietors of Newsstands to Ban All Newspapers and Periodicals Printed in the German Language and How the Spirit of America Is Doing the Rest — Twelve German Language Newspapers In This Country Quit Publications in Two Weeks and More Are Ready to Follow."

(I've omitted half of the subhead, but you get the idea.)

"Torpedoed" by Sidney Greene in New York Evening Telegram, May 27, 1918

Stevenson's column started out praising German-Americans who served the Union in the Civil War, but then launched into a paragraph of leading questions suspicious of the German-language press in America. "Do you or anyone else know how many of these German-language newspapers printed in this country denounced the crime of Germany? Do any of you know how many of these German-language newspapers defended the sinking of the Lusitania?" And so on.

Well, of course you didn't, if you didn't read German. And, in true Fox News style, Stevenson never quite got around to telling you, either.

"Breath of the Hun" by W.A. Rogers in New York World, ca. May, 1918

Stevenson continued:

"Today many [German-Americans] are still reading in German, talking in German, thinking in German. Many of them have made themselves obnoxious to Americans in their public organizations and their private clubs.
"And who is responsible for this un-Americanism?
"The German-language press of America."

Stevenson praised the efforts of the American Defense Society and other citizens "chafing under sight of German-language newspapers waving before them like the flag of Germany" to push for official censorship of German-language newspapers as well as to pressure newspaper vendors not to sell them and publishing companies not to print them.

"The Kaiser's Shadow" by Harry Tuthill in St. Louis Star, May or June, 1918

The ADS, Stevenson reported, had backed an amendment to the 1917 Espionage Act by Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) stating, "The use of the mails should not be permitted to any newspaper, magazine, periodical, circulars or pamphlets which are printed in whole or in part in the German language." While that amendment had failed to be included in the final bill, the the ADS had claimed victory in getting local officials to ban German-language newspapers in several cities in New Jersey and Long Island.

The twelve German-language papers cited in the column's subhead included "the formerly very influential" Texas Deutsche Zeitung of Houston, and the 77-year-old Deutsche Korrespondent of Baltimore. The Socialist New Yorker Volkszeitung also planned to suspend publication and repurpose itself as an English-only newspaper.

Downtown, the New York Evening Telegram, which regularly printed full pages in Italian for its espatriati readership, repeatedly ran the following box editorial demanding that German newspapers be shut down:

Box editorial appearing in New York Evening Telegram, May, 1918

But there was more to worry about than those sneaky Deutschsprechenders.

"Know Them?" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 13, 1918

In Congress, there remained criticism of the Wilson administration, alleging that the U.S. was still unprepared for the war, and that Secretary of War Newton Baker was not up to the task. It hadn't helped that Baker's first statement to reporters upon his appointment in 1916 was "I am an innocent. I do not know anything about this job."

"Synchronizer" by Jay "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, ca. May 7, 1918

There was plenty of ammunition for critics of American readiness. The Aircraft Board was forced to admit that plans for an air fleet were still being designed and re-designed on the drawing board — it was, after all, a fledgling industry.

"End of the First Chapter" by Milton Halladay in Providence Journal, ca. May, 1918

In more established industries, the American outlook was more positive.

"Catching Up" by Archibald Chapin in St. Louis Republic, ca. May, 1918

On the other side of the trenches, German cartoonists worked to reassure their readers that worrisome talk of America's entry into the war with all its fresh materiel wasn't really so serious a threat to the Vaterland.

"Mister Barnums Hilfe" by E. Schilling in Simplicissimus, Munich, May 21, 1918

Speaking of enemies the Germans weren't supposed to worry about, and as long as we happened to discuss Nicaragua last week: Gustav Brandt here offered his view of "the latest war announcements." Guatemala and Nicaragua declared war against Germany on April 23 and May 18 respectively.

"Guatemala and Nicaragua" by Gustav Brandt in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, May 26, 1918

I've given a literal translation of the dialogue below the cartoon, which is a near-quotation from Friedrich Schiller's Don Carlos. An English translation by R. D. Boyan paraphrases the original passage as

"Thus, arm-in-arm with thee, I dare defy
   The universal world into the lists."

...which is hardly any clearer. The line comes at the end of Act I, as the Marquis of Posa and young Don Carlos, Prince of Spain, profess their undying love for each other, as equals. Clearly, Brandt sees the relationship between Uncle Sam and the centroamericanos differently. U.S. marines had occupied Nicaragua since 1912, and the Guatemalan government was more or less a subsidiary of United Fruit Company.

Stop Me If You've Heard This

History, it is said, repeats itself. Or at least it rhymes. Or exhibits recurring themes and leitmotifs. Or wanders in circles. Or suffers flashbacks.

In the past week or so, the NRA elected itself a new leader best known for illegal arms sales; a foreign enemy released three American prisoners; Donald Joffrey Trump abrogated a treaty with Iran; and the White House complained that a criminal investigation was getting too close to the president had dragged on too long.

Where have I heard this song before? Doesn't that tree look familar?

When the Reagan administration's secret arms deal with Iran first came to light in 1986, it was immediately associated with the release of one of the hostages who were being held by various factions in Lebanon's civil war. Iran was backing Hezbollah there, while also in the sixth year of war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

I drew a connection with Nicaragua, whose socialist government had just arrested Eugene Hasenfus, an ex-marine from Marinette, Wisconsin. Hasenfus had been shot down while flying arms to right-wing rebels known as the Contras. I wasn't making the right connection, but I was in the right ballpark.

When the true Iran-Contra connection came to light, the Reagan administration line was that aid to the Nicaraguan guerillas was all the work of one U.S. Marines Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.

It was a complicated scheme, involving North's funneling $10,000 from the Sultan of Brunei to a Swiss bank account (to the wrong account as it happened), and enlisting the aid of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega against the Nicaraguan government. (Overthrowing Noriega would become a priority of the George H.W. Bush administration.)

Since President Reagan had no idea what was going on, he was obliged to appoint former Senator John Tower (whom we discussed a couple weeks ago) to lead a commission tasked with investigating the Iran-Contra affair. The Tower Commission presented its findings to the president in March, 1987.

But that didn't bring an end to the matter. Attorney General Ed Meese named New York attorney Lawrence Walsh special counsel to determine whether to charge anyone with any crimes. Congress also held hearings into the Iran-Contra affair; Lt. Col. Ollie North was a star witness. He defended his having lied to Congress because he believed aiding the Contras through illegal arms sales was a "neat idea."

You never saw future NRA head honcho Ollie North on TV except in full military uniform, badges and all.

On March 16, 1988, a grand jury handed down a 23-count indictment against top administration officials, including future NRA top gun Ollie North. By the time any of the court trials got underway, Ronald Reagan was out of office. He was also exhibiting signs of senile dementia, although those closest to him were doing their best to conceal the problem and to pass it off as his usual aw-shucks folksy demeanor.

Walsh had concluded that Reagan had not himself broken the law, so popular speculation immediately after his presidency centered on whether he would be called upon to testify at the trials of his subordinates. Of more pressing concern to the first of these was paneling a jury that could be impartial in weighing the fate of future NRA don Ollie North.

But a jury was finally seated. In May, 1989, North was found guilty of three out of 16 federal charges: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and ordering the destruction of documents.

Appellate courts would ultimately set aside North's conviction, as well as those of Reagan's National Security Adviser Adm. James Poindexter and nine others. Five others — including former State Department official Elliott Abrams and former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger — were preëmptively pardoned by lame duck President George H.W. Bush on Christmas Eve 1992.

There was no investigation of Walsh's investigation, of course. Bush's successor would have to endure a totally unrelated interminable investigation which was supposed to be about some Arkansas land deal in which Bill and Hillary Clinton had lost money. But it ended up being about extramarital affairs and —

I'm positive we passed that tree before!

New to My Comic Book Collection

Today's installment of Sketchback Saturday takes the form of a book report.

A few months ago, I pre-ordered Bill Sanders's forthcoming retrospective of his editorial cartooning career. I have both of the books published while he was the cartoonist for The Milwaukee Journal. Head for the Oval Room deals primarily the Nixon administration, some of which is also repeated in The Sanders Book. The latter book includes cartoons not only about the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, but about Wisconsin and Milwaukee issues as well.

I'm looking forward to receiving the new book, which promises cartoons from his retiree years, but also examples of Sanders's early career with Stars and Stripes, The Greensboro Daily News, and The Kansas City Star. Given how different in style his Milwaukee cartoons are from his earlier work, it should be interesting to see how that evolution took place.

"How Much Are We Really Involved Here" by Bill Sanders in Greensboro Daily News, ca. March, 1962

When I pre-ordered Against the Grain, I browsed around amazon.com to see if there was anything else I'd be interested in, finding Jim Morin's 2016 collection from his 40+ years with The Miami Herald. I've long been fascinated by his distinctive cross-hatch style, which I'd describe as David Levine meets "Ding" Darling.

One of the more intriguing facets of Morin's book is how its date of publication influenced his choice of cartoons. In particular, there are a handful of cartoons about Donald Trump's brief campaign in 1999 for the presidential nomination of H. Ross Perot's Reform Party. Editorial cartoon books take up two and a half shelves of my bookcase, and although three or four of those books deal specifically with the year 1999, Jim Morin's World is the first book I've seen to devote any ink to Trump's short-lived flirtation with presidential politics that year.

I have to say that I barely took any notice of Candidate Trump at the time, myself; my editors at Q Syndicate, the Milwaukee Business Journal, and the Racine Journal Times probably wouldn't have been interested in cartoons about him anyway. Had Jim Morin published his book a year earlier, I suspect none of his Donald Trump cartoons would have made the cut for this book, so it's fortuitous that he had a chance to dig up his material about a nearly forgotten episode from when the current president first dipped his toes into political waters.

"Looks Like His Last Trip to Moscow Just Backfired" by Jim Morin in Miami Herald, June, 1985.

As another example of how the date of publication influences choice of material, the above cartoon is not in Morin's book. I'm not advocating for this particular cartoon, merely noting that it might have been included if this were a book about the Reagan years, since Nicaragua was a BFD in the 1980s. The Iran-Contra scandal, which hinged in part on a White House scheme to circumvent Congress to send arms to right-wing guerrillas in the Central American country, threatened to bring down the Reagan administration, but rates only two cartoons in this book. Nowadays, we only hear about Nicaragua when it gets hit by an earthquake or hurricane, so it's of less interest today.

Besides, there was so much else going on in the 1980s, even without a president tweeting all his brain farts every morning. If anyone is still publishing editorial cartoon memoirs thirty years from now, there will be an awful lot that seems of tremendous import today that will end up on the cutting room floor tomorrow.

Another cartooning memoir recent to my collection is The First and Only Book of Sack (only available from the Star Tribune and currently only on back order) by Steve Sack, featuring the best of his cartoons for the Minneapolis Star Tribune from 1981 to 2017. It's too bad that he didn't also include his older cartoons for The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, such as the one below. Mr. Sack is not a packrat, however, and it's extremely unlikely that foraging through his Indiana cartoons would have turned up any early drawings of Mike Pence, who, after all, was still in college at the time.

"Jump!" by Steve Sack in Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, August, 1980

From a cartoonist's standpoint, one of the joys of this book is to watch how Sack has adapted his style to evolving technologies. Sack has been an early adopter of computerized drawing techniques, ditching the extensive pen and ink crosshatching of his early work in favor of a succession of various media: charcoal, sharpie, watercolor, digital tablet, and iPad. Through it all remains a distinctive touch unlike that of anyone else in the biz.

Due to its publication date, Sack's book includes a handful of cartoons about Senator Al Franken (who also wrote the first of the book's four forewords) and one of Garrison Keillor, but none which reflect either man's #TimesUp fall from grace. The Keillor cartoon is especially unintentionally ironic, depicting the Prairie Home Companion host hiding out from a horde of sex-crazed women. The original context of the cartoon was that Keillor had been named one of Playgirl's Sexiest Men Alive in 1986. (Sack observes that one of the other men on that year's list was Donald Trump).

Such is the risk in any collection of topical writing; editorial cartoons almost always have an ephemeral quality to them. (Just check out any cartoon about Herbert Hoover before October, 1929.) I don't imagine that Sack's book is on back order because he's slipping in some hasty updates, because he'd just have to do it again in a matter of months.

We'll just have to wait until The First and Only Book's sequel.

R.C. Bowman's 1900 Cartoons for Mpls. Tribune, part VII

Here are some cartoons on a variety of world issues by R.C. Bowman, cartoonist for the Minneapolis Tribune in 1900.

Uncle Sam to the Senator: "Ho there! Take that bill in hand, will you? That other fellow seems to be too reckless."
There were two competing ideas on where to build a canal through Central America at this point in history. A rival to the Panama Canal route would have gone through Nicaragua from Bahia de Punta Gorda in the east, to Lake Nicaragua and out to the Pacific.

John Bull: "Heavy? Of course it's heavy. But think of the glory."
Great Britain was in the middle of the Boer War in South Africa at this time.

Looking for his Thanksgiving dinner."
The United States sent warships to occupy Izmir (Smyrna) in order to collect indemnities against Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) for "outrages committed against missionaries." Here's a New York Times article. Keep in mind, this turkey pun was a bit younger back then.

The World: "You know, uncle, it's getting so I do almost all my trading here, now!"
Uncle Sam: "I'm glad to hear it; and to be candid, I'd sooner have your trade than that of any other planet I know of."