BRILLIANT DIPLOMAT The recent passing of Henry Kissinger (1923-2023) reminds us that America’s arguably most brilliant modern diplomatic mind provoked as much criticism as praise. Genius or villain, Henry Kissinger well understood and eclipsed both support and opposition. In other words, he transcended the traditional American foreign policy debate between …
ESSENTIAL, CONTROVERSIAL AND MELANCHOLY No history of the past century would be complete without recognizing Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, who has now passed into history. Moreover, he was the last of the prominent world leaders who responsibly guided the profound, remarkable and historic transition that ended the Cold War, Soviet Union …
AMERICA ENDS WORLD WAR II JAPAN DEFIANT By August 1945, America was poised to achieve total victory in World War II. As described in my preceding article Downfall, following the August 6, 1945, atomic attack on Hiroshima, it was evident that the Potsdam Declaration was no bluff. American broadcasts and …
AUGUST 6, 1945 EXCEPTIONAL DEVELOPMENT On August 6, 1945, America effectively ended World War II by triggering the downfall of Imperial Japan. Firstly, as described in my previous post Trinity, with the unprecedented and exceptional project code-named Manhattan, the United States had harnessed nuclear energy. Secondly, we successfully tested the …
RESOLVE AND RESTRAINT We remember Korea as an example of American resolve and restraint. Firstly, seventy years ago, in January 1950, U. S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson implied that the Korean Peninsula lay outside the defense perimeter of the United States. Then, on Sunday July 25, 1950, at 4:00 …