Realizing just how much the world changes in a period of fifteen years, the world of 1957 was considerably different than the world of 1942 on this day. In 1942 Russia was an ally against Germany and the Axis plague eager to dominate Europe. In 1957 a divided Germany was now our ally against the "evil empire" of Russia and the Soviet Union.

So in 1957, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer visited Washington in an effort of seek continued support from the Eisenhower administration and to bolster Adenauer's position with the West during the upcoming elections in West Germany. Facing a bitter election fight at home, Adenauer was keen on receiving assurances from Washington that support, economically as well as militarily would continue and increase. And also some sign, however small, that the possibility of reunification of the two Germany's would become a possibility.

Commenting on the meeting as well as an observation over the upcoming British Elections was Cedric Foster, a regular newscaster/commentator for the Mutual Broadcasting System on May 31st, 1957.

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The news on this morning in April of 1945 was about the eventual collapse of Germany and the end of the War in Europe. With news reports coming in, and bulletins being reported one on top of the other, news of the Fall of Berlin was being reported. Soviet troops had succeeded in occupying the center of the city, while defacto head of the German government, Heinrich Himmler was busy hammering out surrender terms. The latest communique had Himmler attempting to reach a surrender with the Allies without including the Russians. Needless to say, it was rejected. And despite some rumors to the contrary, no Surrender had been arrived at. Allied forces were systematically taking over and occupying every other German city, with news that Munich had fallen while this broadcast was on the air. Also reported was news that the Allies had liberated the Dachau Conentration camp, and news of that discovery would be coming in time. During the course of the morning news broadcast, an address by Gen. Spaatz of the Allied Air Forces announced confirmation that the German Luftwaffe had been completely obliterated and subsequently, the Allied Air Force would changed its role over to tactical support of ground forces during these final hours/days.

Meanwhile, the War in the Pacific was still far from over. With news reports of a Kamikaze attack on an Allied Hospital ship near Okinawa brought outrage from the Allied High Command and fighting was still intense.

And that was the news for this April 30, 1945, as presented in two morning Newscasts over NBC. One, the Morning Roundup and the later Alka-Seltzer News Of The World.

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A curious mix of optimism and pessimism for this week, ending on April 26th in 1964.

On the optimistic side - President Johnson announced to the world that the U.S. would make substantial reductions in Nuclear Weapons and Uranium enrichment production. Simultaneously, it was announced by Nikita Khruschev via Radio Moscow, that the Soviet Union would do the same thing. The news was greeted with a sense of relief and UN General Secretary U Thant offered an evaluation on what was deemed a hopeful sign towards an easing of Cold War tensions.

On the Pessimistic side - tensions were brewing between the U.S. and Cuba as Cuban Premier Fidel Castro vowed to down any U.S. Reconnaissance planes flying over Cuban territory as it had been doing since 1962.

On the optimistic side - Sec. of State Dean Rusk returned from a fact-finding mission to Saigon and offered an upbeat assessment of the situation in Vietnam, saying the South Vietnamese Army could handle themselves nicely.

On the Pessimistic side - Defense Secretary Robert McNamara conceded it will "take time" for any progress to be made in Vietnam and that the South Vietnamese Army is running a defensive strategy rather than an offensive one. Oh well.

Meanwhile - the four year long negotiations between the Railroads and the Unions was finally at the settlement stage. And just in the nick of time, as the settlement averted a threatened strike.

President Johnson went on a brief tour of the Appalachia region, hitting the towns and cities worst hit by poverty and unemployment, touting his War on Poverty legislation. He was greeted with waves of enthusiasm.

Not so enthusiastic were reports from Capitol Hill saying the 1964 Civil Rights Bill was at a standstill, making the future unclear for passage of the Legislation.

And the much publicized "Stall-ins", threatened for Opening day of the New York Worlds Fair on April 22nd, didn't materialize. But that didn't stop some 300 Civil Rights demonstrators from being arrested from the Fair opening anyway.

All this in one week, ending on April 26th 1964, as reported on the ABC Radio Voices In The Headlines program.

1979 was not a watershed year for the Jimmy Carter Presidency. A lot was going wrong and a lot that had gone right just the year prior was in danger of sliding off the rails.

Iran was proving to be a bigger problem than originally thought with signals the Soviet Union were contemplating an overture or two towards Tehran. Our presence in the world was not on the best of terms. Embassy's in Iran and Afghanistan were attacked. Our Middle East policy, pointed with such optimism and accomplishment via the Camp David Peace Accords only a year earlier, was in danger of being derailed. The SALT II Treaty with the Soviet Union was on shaky ground if the Senate had anything to say about it and our agreement with The People's Republic Of China at the cost of our relationship with Taiwan had many in and out of government wondering if damage control would do any good.

And so Walter Cronkite, the Most Trusted Man In America, weighed in on the issue of our Foreign Policy and where we stood in the midst of all this. Here is his commentary for February 20, 1979 as broadcast by CBS Radio.

It's interesting that, as we talk about the age-old subject of Defense Spending, and phrases like "Military-Industrial Complex" chime in, you often wonder where all this amped up spending got started.

I think it's a safe bet to say our increased Military spending came as the direct result of the Cold War. However, sixty+ years later, it hasn't changed at all - even though the landscape of our superpowers has changed and the nature of military engagement has changed significantly since even the Vietnam War period. The spending has, if anything, increased dramatically.

On April 10, 1948 the question was asked as part of a weekend panel show which ran on CBS Radio called Cross Section: USA. The question for this week was "How Much Defense Does The USA Need Now?". Answering the question were representatives of the AF of L, The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce, The International Association of Machinists and The Grange. Without much doubt, and with no argument, the universal answer was "spend as much as is necessary". Certainly a reaction to the threat of the Cold War.

But you can't help but wonder that the blank check handed the Defense Department laid the groundwork for what President Eisenhower would call some twelve years later the "Military-Industrial Complex".

War, it was discovered, was good for the economy.

Listening to the United Nations meeting yesterday over the request to grant the Palestinian territory Nationhood, I was reminded of a similar situation with regards to the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, and how our Foreign Policy in the Middle East has always been one of inconsistency.

In 1948 a lot of what the U.S. did in the area of Foreign Affairs was predicated on aspects of the Cold War - always the threat of undue influence in any region from Moscow was of primary importance. And it shaped our relations with the rest of the world, and many times not with the best outcomes (Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia). Since the end of the era of the Soviet Union, it's become the threat of Islamic Extremists and another whole set of new and complicated fears.

But as much debate as there is going on now over the Palestinian question, there was going on with the Israeli question, sixty-three years earlier.

Here is a Sunday featuring the noted NBC newsman and commentator Clifton Utley from May of 1948, where Utley discusses the role of the U.S. in the Middle East and the newly declared nation of Israel in the United Nations.

The period just after World War 2 has always been fascinating, not only to see the wave of emerging nations from former colonial rule, but also the shaping of the Cold War atmosphere that would be such a part of life for decades after. A pivotal period of time, to be sure.

While the ink on the Surrender documents was still drying, a Conference was held in Moscow by the former Allies to start hammering out a plan for the post-war world. Needless to say, it wasn't terribly successful, but Secretary of State James F. Byrnes did come back with some interesting proposals, which of course never saw fruition, including one for Korea.

Sec. of State James F. Byrnes: “The Administration of Korea has been a trying problem since the surrender of Japan. For purposes of Military operations the occupation of Korea was divided North and South of latitude 38 into Soviet and American areas. The continuation of this division after the surrender has been very unsatisfactory. The movement of persons and goods and the functioning of public services on a nationwide scale has been greatly hampered. Under our agreement at Moscow the two military commands are to form a joint Soviet-American Commission to solve immediate economic and administrative problems. They will make recommendations to the governments of The United States, The Soviet Union, Great Britain and China for the formation of a Korean Provisional Democratic government. They will also make proposals to these governments regarding a four power trusteeship to prepare Korea for its independence within five years.”

Nice words but . . .it didn't happen. In fact the shooting war got started just around the time the proposed Independence time frame was supposed to have taken place.

There's something about looking at history from the viewpoint of "what could've happened, what should've happened and what did happen" that makes it interesting and frustrating at the same time.

And then there's that hindsight thing. . . .

Here is Secretary of State James F. Byrnes' address on the outcome of the Moscow Conference which he delivered on December 30, 1945.

Back in the day when you could blame everything on the Russians, the 1950's were a simmering pot of nothing but paranoia and fear. So much so, that on April 4, 1954 President Eisenhower made a radio address to the nation seeking to allay those fears. Well . . .sort of.

President Eisenhower: “ Sometimes you feel almost as if we could be excused for getting a little bit hysterical, because these dangers come from so many angles and there’s such different kinds. And no matter what we do, they still seem to exist. But underlying all of these dangers is this one thing; the threat we have from without, the great threat imposed upon us by aggressive Communism. The Atheistic doctrine that believes in Stateism as against our conception of the dignity of man is a quality before the law; that is the struggle of the ages.”

One of the many double messages rampant in the 1950's. And it's no wonder the Tranquilizer became so popular. I often wondered if they named it Miltown as an homage to Milhouse (vice-President Richard Nixon's middle name) rather than the borough in New Jersey. Coincidence? Perhaps.

Still . . . .

I remember just how much of a panic people got into when the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated to this point on October 23rd. We had all become too familiar with the "pending atomic attack" from the Soviet Union over the years. And how, as a kid living in Los Angeles, reading an article in the L.A. Times with accompanying graphic of just how much of L.A. would be reduced to dust if such an event occurred. As best as I could tell, our house was destined to be boiling ash and it created no end to the amount of sleepless nights in the days and months to come.

In retrospect, it probably explains a lot of what we eventually grew into and the choices we'd make because, let's face it, we were convinced we'd be radioactive waste at any given moment.

But I think it was the cool detachment of the media when this crisis hit the boiling point that is so fascinating in hindsight. And this broadcast from 7:00 pm Eastern on the evening of the 23rd perfectly exemplifies that.

Ray Scherer (NBC News): “The most significant moment of this perhaps historic day came at seven minutes after seven tonight when the President took up a pen and put his name to the Quarantine Proclamation, a two page document titled ‘Interdiction Of Delivery Of Offensive Weapons To Cuba’. Here is the list of prohibited materials: Surface to Surface Missiles, Bombers, Bombs, Air-To-Surface Rockets and Guided Missiles, Electronic Equipment To Support Them. After 10:00 tomorrow morning, any ships carrying such materials will be turned back. If there is resistance, force shall be used, says the document, to the extent necessary.”

It's interesting to consider (and I certainly didn't at the time), that no doubt there was a family somewhere in Moscow with a 12 year old kid who was probably just as freaked out about the possibilities of being reduced to radioactive waste as I was. The threat of war is just like that.

Harold Stassen is a name from the deep-deep recesses of political memory. The former Republican Senator and Governor from Minnesota, he was regarded as the "Perennial Candidate" for his unsuccessful runs for the Presidency and other offices from 1948-2000, and something of an original loose cannon. Stassen grabbed headlines in 1950 when he decided to write an unsolicited letter to the Kremlin, personally addressed to Joesph Stalin, marked with an RSVP. With his somewhat naive hope of triggering peace settlements, Stassen's stunt was blasted by Pravda as a"self-seeking, self-advertising trick" and pretty much created an air of embarrassment for the U.S. and not the "come to Jesus" moment he had hoped for.

He was questioned by a panel on Meet The Press shortly after the Pravda response, on October 29, 1950.

Frank McNaughton (Time Magazine): “Governor Stassen, did you confer with any officials of this government before you wrote the letter?

Gov. Harold Stassen: “ No I did not, not on myself, no.

McNaughton: “Why not?”

Stassen: “Because clearly, this had to be an action of the . .of an individual of the opposition party and not official action of the government.”

McNaughton: “Well, did it occur to you Governor, that in doing this you might jeopardize or defeat some vital plans that this government might have made .. .based on intelligence or diplomatic reports which you didn’t know about?”

Stassen: “No, it was very clear to us that it would in fact move the government in the right direction and that’s what’s happened. See, we’ve kept in close touch to what the government has been doing, and as a matter of fact, I sat in the Asiatic Conference a year ago on policy, and the dangerous moves of our own government were equally clear. So in our rights of leadership, as a private citizen, as a member of the opposing party, we hit very directly at the root of the whole situation in this letter to Premier Stalin. Perhaps I could best describe my position this way: Clearly we’re in a tragic world picture. Here we are with young men going back into uniform throughout the world. We have an armaments race on. We have fighting going on. And we’re only five years from the end, a victorious end, of a world war. Now how could this tragic situation arise so soon? I think it has arisen through two things; One – the evil and deceptive policies of Premier Stalin and his government and Two – the weak and confused policies of President Truman and his administration. And so I’ve been doing everything I can in the cause of world peace to change the policies of both governments for the sake of mankind.”

It's no wonder that, after a while, Stassen's runs for various offices, including the Presidency were met with increasing derision.