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(1960 ended up like just about every other year before and since: Crisis)

It's getting about that time of year when the long glances back start. For C&L and just about every other blog it will be a look at 2009; what went on, what didn't go on, what crisis did we land in or avert. How did life as we know it change this particular year.

Since Newstalgia is mostly knee-deep in the past,I thought I would kick off the roundup of year-enders with a look at 1960 and how the world changed during that particular 12 months, and how a lot of it has remained the same.

1960 saw the election of a new President and the Cold War entering new and uncharted territory. It saw Africa emerging as a continent of newly independent nations, the Middle East contemplating Israel as a nuclear neighbor. Latin America was deemed the next hot spot in East-West relationships and Germany struggling with its divided status.

On December 28, 1960 CBS News ran a one-hour round table discussion between Edward R. Murrow, Howard K. Smith, David Schoenbrun, Daniel Schorr and other notable CBS News reporters, weighing the issues that made 1960 a memorable year.

Howard K. Smith: “Well, I think our change is about as drastic a change as you can have under constitutional government. I’ve emphasized the fact that the Presidents and their intents differ drastically. But the men around them differ too. The emphasis in the previous administration was on businessmen. At present I think scholars probably have a plurality. It’s said that if all the appointees made by Kennedy so far were to walk down the hall together there would be a deafening jangle of Phi Beta Kappa keys. And there are three Rhodes Scholars among them. Many of them are famed for some very useful and active ideas, but the main thing that induces me to believe this will be an active administration is the fact there has seldom been, since the Civil War, such an accumulation of crises and merely problems as there is now and we have to act or there will be disaster.”

Always the threat of disaster and some crisis. No matter when.

1960 or 2009 - it doesn't really change.

. . .and neither does the cost of keeping blogs together.

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(Caryl Chessman - then as now, controversy over the Death Penalty)

On March 2,1960 the question of the Death Penalty came roaring into the headlines with the death by gas chamber of Caryl Chessman. The case had been going on since 1948 and the sentence brought a wave of criticism from both sides of the argument over whether death by State was humane or justified. On April 28th of that year CBS Radio, in a documentary narrated by Howard K. Smith, examined the ramifications of the death penalty and the debate over its use.

It still rages on. Even though most states have abandoned the practice, the recent events in Texas have brought the controversy in full view, particularly this time when questions of the condemned persons innocence came to light and the seeming ambivalence of the Texas governor to review the new evidence made it abundantly clear the practice needs a serious review.

But then it's Texas and they want to secede anyway, so . . .

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(Jack Kerouac - the endless quest for something resembling truth)

The Beat Generation (a label some people cringe hearing) has become something of a quaint artifact of late, mostly caricatured and marginalized, relegated to stereotypes of an approximated past.

In the 1950's and early 60's it didn't fare that much better. Mainstream media wasn't sure what to make of it. Entire talk shows were devoted to asking the question "what is it these people want?". Discussions went on endlessly over the anthropological importance of "the beats" and magazines bent over backwards with articles posing the question "where did we go wrong?"

Truth was, it was all part of the great upheaval in society as we once knew it. One that wouldn't really blossom until the 60's, but whose groundwork was solidly laid down in the 50's, when questioning the status quo brought perplexed stares and hostile reactions. Cold War fear and a general unease were putting cracks in the facade. And maybe that split-level bungalow ranch-style just wasn't that important in the bigger scheme of things.

And so on April 5, 1960 CBS Radio, as part of their "Hidden Revolution" series narrated by Howard K. Smith, sought to bring to light the real issues behind the discontent by way of a documentary on The Cool Rebellion.

Some of the interviews are awkward, self-conscious and self-serving. But the basic gist is, something was going on - people were changing their ideas about the world and their place in it.

Like all great movements in society, it starts with being misunderstood.

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(Khrushchev: Exercising the Righteous Indignation Clause)

1960 started off rather hopeful. In 1959 a noticeable thaw was taking place in the Cold War. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made a visit to the U.S., cultural exchange programs were going full force and all was looking optimistic that maybe we all could get along after all. May 17th was slated to be the day the first major summit conference between the NATO powers and The Soviet Union would begin.

And then came the U-2 spy plane incident. The U.S. had been sending regular reconnaissance missions over Soviet territory, taking pictures of military installations. On May 1st, the Russians shot down one of the planes, announcing to the world on May 5th they had captured the pilot Francis Gary Powers.

At first, the State Department denied the plane was on a spy mission, saying Powers was flying over Turkey and had become unconscious, sending the plane in auto-pilot over Soviet air space and all was an unfortunate accident. But later, the story was recanted and officials conceded Powers was really on a spy mission.

With last minute negotiations via British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan as go-between, Eisenhower agreed to suspend future flights, but refused to apologize for the incident.

Khrushchev promptly pulled the plug on the much hoped-for summit conference on May 17th and issued a stinging three-hour denunciation of the West at the Press Conference in Paris on May 18th.

Whether it was a calculated move on Khrushchev's part, knuckling to pressure from the hawkish elements of the Politburo (that would cost him his job in 1964) or it was a supreme blunder on the part of the Eisenhower administration has been a topic of dispute for years.

In any event - on this day in 1960, the Cold War got a whole lot colder.

(Mussorgsky: Baba-Yaga and The Great Gate of Kiev from "Pictures At An Exhibition" - Broadcast of March 20, 1960)

Okay, I confess . . I'm addicted to Classical Music. It was the first thing I heard coming out of the womb and it's been with me ever since. My guilty pleasure is hearing it live, my guiltier pleasure is hearing it live from decades ago. I grew up listening to The New York Philharmonic on the radio as a kid and nothing on earth sounded as wonderful as that orchestra did in the 1950's and 1960's, with names like Bruno Walter, Guido Cantelli, Artur Rodzinski, Leonard Bernstein and Fritz Reiner stood at the podium and made magic in Carnegie Hall.

So here's a sample, a small sample, but a taste of what that wonderful band sounded like in March of 1960, when Fritz Reiner guest conducted and the concert was broadcast. I still picture a nine year-old trying to climb into the speaker to get a better listen.

I still try to do that.