http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/opinion/21sat4.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
August 20, 2010
‘A Little Bugging!’
President Richard Nixon stage-directed White House aides on how to deny the conspiracy to undermine the 1972 presidential election. “Just say this is a comedy of errors, without getting into it,” he insisted with his signature mordancy, a year before he resigned in disgrace. Nearly 40 years later and the loyalists are still determined to block a full accounting of Nixon’s central role in the Watergate scandal.
The National Archives, long the redoubtable vessel of American history’s original documents, planned to open an unfettered airing of the Watergate story this summer at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California. The installation has been delayed by a group of Nixon supporters. Congress took away their control of the library in 2007, but they still serve as an advisory panel, and they are demanding to first vet the exhibit for their version of historical accuracy.
The professionals at the archives are polite, determined and nonpartisan when it comes to respecting facts. In no case should history be chiseled to fit the contention posed by Bob Bostock, a former Nixon aide working for the advisory panel. He insists that anything Nixon did wrong “did not reach the level of offenses for which he could be impeached and convicted.”
History plainly shows Nixon opted to resign as his staff co-conspirators fell afoul of the law, his West Wing taping system was discovered, and Republican Congressional leaders told him impeachment was at hand and conviction a near certainty. It is all a rich and educational story. We can’t wait for the National Archives’ forthright telling of it, right down to Nixon’s instruction to his team: “Play it tough.”
Bikini Atoll adopted as a world heritage site
Euronews
http://www.euronews.net/2010/08/01/bikini-atoll-adopted-as-a-world-heritage-site/
The world culture body UNESCO has added 15 sites to its top heritage list.
Two European cities have made the grade. Amsterdam for its historic urban ensemble of canals in concentric arches that enabled the creation of an inland port at the turn of the 17th Century. A massive feat of engineering for its time. On the banks of the Tarn river in south-west France the old episcopal city of Albi is recognised for its abiding age and beauty dating back as it does to the 10th Century.
Germany edged onto the honours list with its Upper Harz Water Management system… designed by Cistercian monks in the Middle Ages and developed over an 800 year period to extract ore for non-ferrous metal production.
In China , the historical monuments of Dengfeng claim their rightful place in the pecking order of world wonders. At the foot of Mount Songshang they include some of the best examples of ancient Chinese architecture.
And then there is Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands , a Pacific archipelago: perhaps the most surprising addition… after the removal of the inhabitants, between 1946 and 1958, 67 nuclear tests were carried out there including the detonation of the first hydrogen bomb.
Sunken ships sent to the bottom by the blast are a testament to the awesome power unleashed by a nuclear explosion and, says UNESCO, the atoll symbolises the dawn of the nuclear age.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company
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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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