No end to conflicts and potential hot spots, this February 23rd in 1975. Southeast Asia eruptions were continuing with the Mekon river blockade now effectively cutting off Phnom Penh and rebel fighting throughout Cambodia. Likewise in South Vietnam where terrorist attacks were inching closer to Saigon. All this activity triggered calls from President Ford to send military aid to the region. Congress wasn't thrilled. We'd been there. We'd done that. We got the bloodstains to prove it. Still, there were some such as Strom Thurmond who thought we should pour nothing but money into the region in exchange for their oil, if and when they found some.

Elsewhere in the Lovely Neighborhood - Secretary of State Henry Kissinger returned from a tour of the Middle East, saying he was "optimistic" that talks-about-talks-about-talks were looking up. Senator Ted Kennedy introduced legislation asking for a cut-off of military aid to the oil producing Persian Gulf nations, saying instability in the region begged for a hold-off on ordinance for at least six months. His crystal ball, it appears, was in much better shape than a lot of his colleagues.

Ethiopia was asking the U.S. for arms in the wake of increased tensions coming from the northern province of Eritrea and the separatist movement gathering steam there. New tensions in Cyprus between Greek and Turkish elements were springing up. Spain, despite a law prohibiting strikes handed down by the somewhat creaky Franco regime, went on strike over dissatisfaction with the decades-old authoritarian rule.

And back home - Judge Sirica handed down sentences for convicted Watergate figures. It went like this: Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman all got 2 1/2 years in jail and Robert Mardian got 10 months.

All that and a lot more for news ending the week of February 23rd, 1973 as reported on CBS Radio's The World This Week.

Feel better about your day now?

News for this first day of Autumn in 1948 consisted of a lot of Cold War saber rattling, though done more with diplomatic wrangling than movement of armored columns. Still, things were tense as evidenced by Ernest Bevin's pledge that the U.S., France and Great Britain were bound together in an alliance against Communist aggression over the crisis in Berlin. Meanwhile, the planes kept flying in supplies.

The 1948 Presidential Campaign season got rolling in earnest with Republican challenger Thomas Dewey addressing a crowd in Albuquerque, New Mexico and President Truman addressing a crowd in Rena Nevada. Both rolled out a laundry list of ills the country was going through and pointing fingers at the other for the reason of those ills. William Green of the AF of L blasted Republican vice-Presidential candidate Robert Taft, saying he was at the forefront of an anti-Union movement, bent on the turning the clock back. And the horse race was off.

In Louisiana, Governor Earl Long called an emergency session of he Legislature to reinstate the names of Truman and Barkley on the ballot in that state. Seems the Dixiecrats/States Rights Party managed to oust the Democratic candidates in favor of the name name of Strom Thurmond and Long wanted it put back the way it was.

And it wouldn't be 1948 without the continuing HUAC Hearings, this time it was Attorney General Tom Clark firing back at the Committees allegations that the government, and even the Hotels, were overflowing with Communist spies. He challenged the Committee to come up with the name of one Communist in the Executive branch of Government, to which the Committee had been unable. And so it went.

And in Soviet Satellite Yugoslavia, it was learned the government under Marshal Tito had declared all Pork production and all raisng of Pigs to be done by the State and that anyone found harboring or raising a Pig would be arrested. No doubt that move had members of the Politburo in Moscow scratching their heads.

And so it went.

(We would be very sad indeed)

With the latest imbroglio developing over a statement by Harry Reid, and how the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond controversy has been called to mind. I thought it would be a good idea to run the clip in question from that 100th birthday dinner honoring Strom Thurmond where Trent Lott offered praise for Thurmond's 1948 Presidential bid.

Trent Lott: “When Strom Thurmond ran for President we voted for him. We’re proud of him! And if the rest of the country had followed our lead we wouldn’t had all these problems over all these years either.”

I don't really think you can put Reid's comments and Lott's comments anywhere near the same league, despite desperately idiotic attempts to the contrary.