In 1962, I was twelve. My step-father was a Major in the Air Force, stationed at a Strategic Air Command base outside Syracuse, NY. When the Cuban Missile Crises hit that October, except for coming home to pick up clean uniforms, we didn’t see him for 13 long days. Planes were flying crucial reconnaissance missions over Cuba. Our bombers were armed and ready. SAC forces were on a DEFCON (Defense condition) 2 posture, the highest level of US force readiness short of a decision to go to war.
Thanks to an Air Force U-2 Spy Plane, the United States government had proof that the Soviet Union had constructed medium-range (SS-4) and intermediate-range (R-14) ballistic missile facilities in Cuba, ninety miles from the US mainland.
In response, President Kennedy ordered a military blockade of Cuba. The world’s two nuclear Super Powers were on the brink of nuclear war.
There was no internet in those days. No cable news. As in so many homes, our television was on constantly, waiting for the next Bulletin. For over a week the country held its breath, wondering if we’d ever again exhale. For those of us not in the military or government, normal life was surreal: the hours at school or work were interspersed with wondering if this moment would be when missiles started raining down.
Then. after tense negotiations between President Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, it was over.
Sanity had prevailed and the world stepped back from the brink of destruction.
Those 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crises were long intense ones.
Other times of shock, fear, and grief followed.
President Kennedy’s assassination. Peaceful Civil Rights marchers being set upon by Police wielding dogs and night sticks in Selma and Birmingham. The murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Protests against the Vietnam War filling the streets in Washington, DC, New York, and across the country. And then in 1972, the beginning of the Watergate Scandal that led to the resignation of President Nixon.
I was living in Georgetown, Washington DC, during those years. A twenty-something young person.
Now I’m in my sixties and nothing, not even 9/11, has left me so worried for the foundational principles upon which our Republic stands — the rule of law, the sacredness of our elections, and justice.
In 1962, we were facing annihilation from a Foreign Power.
In 2017, we are facing the destruction of our Republic from forces within and without.
There is no doubt that Putin’s Russia launched an attack on our 2016 election, and thereby, our Democracy. We’re at War, just a different kind — the kind that subverts and attacks from within our own borders.
But unlike 1962, in 2017 we have in the White House a man who lies like breathing, has no grasp of the world’s complexities, and whose favorite choice of responses to any perceived insult to his ego are insults and threats. We have in the White House a man who would never ask, “what can I do for my country?” Instead he uses the Presidency as his personal piggy bank and ego stroker, while demanding absolute loyalty.
Unlike 1972, in 2017 we have Congressional Republicans who apparently lack all fealty to the Nation, the rule of law, and democratic norms.
No outrage by the current occupant of the White House is enough to make them act out of anything other than self interest. Like the President, they lie and misdirect.
Unlike 1972, there is no Charles Wiggins, Elliot Richardson, or William Ruckelshaus.
On the merits, this era’s Republican president has done far more to justify investigation than Richard Nixon did. Yet this era’s Republican senators and members of congress have, cravenly, done far less. A few have grumbled about “concerns” and so on, but they have stuck with Trump where it counts, in votes, and since Comey’s firing they have been stunning in their silence.
Today’s party lineup in the Senate is of course 52–48, in favor of the Republicans. Thus a total of three Republican senators have it within their power to change history, by insisting on an honest, independent investigation of what the Russians have been up do and how the mechanics of American democracy can best defend themselves. (To spell it out, three Republicans could join the 48 Democrats and Independents already calling for investigations, and constitute a Senate majority to empower a genuinely independent inquiry.) So far they have fallen in line with their party’s leader, Mitch McConnell, who will be known in history for favoring party above all else.
If this country is to be saved as a Nation we recognize, there must be.
Thus far in the years-long days of Trump’s Presidency, I’m not seeing any moral or patriotic courage from Republican Leadership. They seem more than content to let the country burn as long as they hold on to power. That frightens and infuriates me more than anything else.
GOP members of Congress’ dereliction of duty to the oaths they have sworn grows larger with each day that goes by. It’s an utter abdication of responsibility to the Country and the American people.
All of our rights are at risk, our Nation is at risk, because of GOP moral bankruptcy. There is no one with the moral and patriotic courage of Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith in today’s GOP.
Neither McConnell or Ryan will rise against what has befallen our Nation and say —
Mr. President:
I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership in either the Legislative Branch or the Executive Branch of our Government.
That leadership is so lacking that serious and responsible proposals are being made that national advisory commissions be appointed to provide such critically needed leadership.
I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as briefly as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart
I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American…
...I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some soul-searching -- for us to weigh our consciences -- on the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America -- on the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges...”
The above quote is but a portion of what a Freshman Senator from Maine said in 1950 during her speech — “ Declaration of Conscience.” Smith spoke out against Republican Senator Joe McCarthy’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations actions that, in its anti-communist zeal, targeted the Voice of America, the Army, and countless individuals inside and outside of government. Lives were destroyed. America itself put at risk.
It took a courageous junior Senator to save the country. It took Joseph Nye Welch, the army's chief legal representative, who famously asked of Sen. McCarthy —
"Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness ..." When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
They were joined by others who finally put an end to McCarthy’s carnage of due process and American lives.
During McCarthy’s years of promoting a Red Scare, he attacked our military and government agencies.
In 2017, the occupant of the White House has attacked our Intelligence Community, Free Press, and insulted our allies, all in an attempt to invalidate or deny Russia’s sabotaging of our electoral process.
Where are our Margaret Chase Smith and Joseph Welch? Where are our Charles Wiggins, Elliot Richardson, and William Ruckelshaus? Where is the GOP leader or Freshman Senator who will state their own Declaration of Conscience?
Instead there is craven, self serving, silence. Instead, we have those in power who seem to have no conscience at all.
In 2018, we must ensure that they are voted from office. Our nation’s future, our futures, and that of generations to come depends upon it. Our democratic norms, our very elections and rules of law, are under attack from forces within and without. It’s that simple and that horrifying.
It must be stopped.