POSTING #56

International Affairs Conference at West Point, 1959

President Obama's visit to West Point last fall to deliver a speech on Afghanistan reminded me of a conference I attended there in 1959.

Queen's had been invited to send two representatives to a conference on international relations to be held at West Point in March, 1959. The Politics Department selected me and the History Department chose, Dave Sinclair, a friend of mine.

We travelled by train to New York, then to West Point and stayed at the Hotel Thayer, on the campus of the military academy.

I have four major memories of that trip.

First, much of the conference took place deep underground. We were told that the Academy, faced with the need for increased classrooms and offices, had decided to preserve its low skyline. Instead of building multi-story towers they had decided to go down.

I think they had at least ten floors underground with corridors, offices, and classrooms. It was odd to get in an elevator, press a floor number and then feel the car going down.

(I was going to check on Google for more information on the exact number of underground floors but decided that, given the current international environment, that it might not be wise to be seen to be asking questions about structures at West Point.)

Although the nominal reason for going into the ground was concern for the skyline, I wonder whether there was another reason. In the 1950s, the US and Canadian governments were encouraging people to build fall out shelters in their basements or backyards because of the danger of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.

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The second memory is of how disciplined and hardworking the West Point students were. We were told that they had a test every week in every course they were taking. If they failed a single test, they could be asked to leave.

It was hard for my friend and me to get our heads around such a regime. We would routinely let one or two courses slide while we completed an essay or got involved in extra-curricular activities, and then do 'all-nighters' to catch up on the ignored courses before the exams.

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The third memory was of a speech given by a senior official from the US State Department. It was a wonderfully comprehensive and clear exposition of the situation in the Middle East. He described the different parties, factions, cliques, tribes and families and their shifting alliances. I had spent 6 weeks the previous summer at the Institute of World Affairs Foreign Student Seminar at Twin Lakes, Connecticut and thought I had a pretty good understanding of Middle Eastern politics but he made everything a great deal clearer.

After going through this description of the situation in the Middle East he concluded by telling us the advice the State Department routinely gave to Ambassadors leaving for the region:

"Stay in with the ins,
Stay in with the outs,
And don't stand between a dog and a lamp post."

Good advice, for many situations in life!

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The final memory is of a speech by an academic and sometime government official.

He started off by saying that it was easy to be terrified by the challenges facing the world in 1959. The Soviets had the hydrogen bomb and had intercontinental ballistic missiles pointed at North America. The Soviet Union was also winning the international space race, having launched the first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957. The Communists had taken over China in 1949 and were consolidating their position. Fidel Castro had overthrown the government of Cuba in January 1959. The US marines had had to intervene in Lebanon in 1958. And on and on.

The speaker then said that it was necessary to keep an historical perspective.

He then took us back in time, century by century.

In 1859, John Brown and a group of 21 abolitionists had attacked Fort Sumter, making the Civil War all but inevitable.

In 1759, Britain and France were engaged in war in North America.

In 1659, Britain was engaged in a fierce civil war.

Back and back he went to the birth of Christ, listing the wars, plagues, fires and other disasters people had to face.

His message was that every age has its problems.

A simple message but one worth remembering, perhaps, as we cope with two wars, a severe recession, global warming, HiNi and on and on.

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See you next Sunday for Posting #57 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.