“Proclamation Of The Irish Republic” by Michael MacLiammoir.
Declan O’Rourke Children of 16
Uprising
Once the Irish uprising began on 24 April 1916, Easter morning, no one on Dublin’s streets was safe. The British imposed a curfew and the rebels themselves wanted no looting, but for the poor, and there was an abundance of them, their lives of scrounging for Dublin’s leftovers had to continue.
These poor were among the many killed during the failed uprising. No burial services were held. No graves marked. In fact most were interred in a mass grave in Glasnevin cemetery.
From the Irish Times: Broadcaster Joe Duffy…spent his spare time in the last year trawling records and has documented the deaths of 40 people under 17 among the 374 civilians who were killed during the Easter Rising.
Declan O’Rourke Children of 16
Declan O’Rourke
The Irish singer Declan O’Rourke composed a song in memory of those young: Children of 16.
Nostalgically remembering the 1960s and the protest music that came out of those turbulent years, many aging Boomers complain that today’s singers lack that sensibility.
Those Boomers are wrong. They need to look around and listen. I have put the lyrics to O’Rourke’s song before the video. Both are amazing.
Stephen Mogerley made the film at the GPO on O’Connell St in Dublin.
O’Rourke stands at the spot where Padraig Pearse read out the proclamation of the Irish Republic on Easter Monday, 1916.
Declan O’Rourke Children of 16
Children of 16
In Dublin town one Easter morn a hundred years ago The Rebels led a rising from the city’s GPO Brave heroes and their enemies fell, civilians in between And among the dead and fallen were the Children of ’16
Those children of the tenement slums who daily with their pals A brazen wild brigade sprang up between the two canals With their handcarts over cobblestone they rattled, skid, and tore Barefooted as they scavenged through the crossfire and the gore
A war zone of the capital the bombs and shelling made And snipers’ bullets pierced and whipped the sulphured April haze There was fighting from the union to the mill above the green And it made a great excitement for the Children of ’16
Six days have bid the Rebels pay a grave and bloody toll But through their blood and martyrdom Republic soon was born High aloft its streets and buildings now their names can e’er be seen But still missing from the pages are the Children of ’16.
Nor Pearse, nor Clarke, McDonagh nor the Connolly we know Would rest were they remembered on a pedestal alone And are they not the Fathers of our nation proud and free And our sisters and our brothers then the Children of ’16.
Thank you Declan O’Rourke for keeping alive the memory of actually important historic events.
On January 24, 1964 Clay took an Army evaluation test for the draft. On March 3, after having defeating Sonny Liston on February 25 and winning the world heavyweight championship, The Louisville Courier‐Journal published a story that Clay had failed by a slight margin to pass the psychological portions of that evaluation test.
Clay, commenting on the report, said, “Do they think I’m crazy?”
On March 13, Clay, now Muhammad Ali, took a second test and on March 20, the Department issued the following statement about Ali’s draft status: “The Department of the Army has completed a review of Cassius Clay’s second pre-induction examination and has determined he is not qualified for induction into the Army under applicable standards.”
Ali’s response was, “I just said I’m the greatest. I never said I was the smartest.”
Passion of Muhammad Ali
Joe Namath
On September 15, 1965 Joe Namath took his Army physical and on December 9 that year the Army classified Namath 4-F, ineligible to be drafted. It was determined that Namath’s knees were in too poor condition for the Army to take care of, though the National Football League and Namath found that Namath’s knees were fine to play.
Passion of Muhammad Ali
Reclassified
On February 12, 1966,the Louisville, KY draft board re-classified Muhammad Ali as 1-A. Ali challenged the reclassification as politically motivated and questioned why other athletes, such as Namath, quarterback for the NY Jets, weren’t being drafted as well.
On April 17, 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court barred Muhammad Ali’s request to be blocked from induction into the U.S. Army and on April 28, the US Justice Department denied Ali’s claim. The Department found that his objections were political, not religious. Ali reported for induction ceremony, but refused to step forward when called.
Passion of Muhammad Ali
Guilty
On June 20, 1967 Ali was found guilty of refusing induction into the armed forces. He was sentenced to five years in prison and fined $10,000—the maximum penalties. He was stripped of his title by the boxing association and effectively banned from boxing.
Passion of Muhammad Ali
Esquire cover
Nine months later, George Lois’s cover picture of Ali on Esquire magazine’s April 1968 edition portrayed him as a martyr akin to St Sebastian. Kurt Andersen, host of NPR’s Studio 360, stated that “George Lois’s covers for Esquire in the 60s are classic. His April 1968 image of Muhammad Ali to dramatize the boxer’s persecution for his personal beliefs, is the greatest magazine cover ever created, making a political statement without being grim or stupid or predicable.”
Ali’s legal fight continued until June 28, 1971 when the Supreme Court reversed Muhammad Ali’s conviction for refusing induction by unanimous decision in Clay v. United States.
Passion of Muhammad Ali
Reclaims title
MORE THAN THREE years later, on October 30, 1974 Ali fought the reigning champion George Foreman in an outdoor arena in Kinshasa, Zaire, The fight is known as the “Rumble in the Jungle.” Using his novel “rope-a-dope” strategy, Ali defeated Foreman and after seven years, reclaimed the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World.
Newly-elected Presidents inherit their predecessors’ successes and failures. Even though a new President must approve any continuances, once underway, plans and policies, carry a bureaucratic momentum.
In April 1960, the Central Intelligence Agency had recruited 1,400 members of the Frente Revolucionario Democratico (FRD), an active group of Cuban exiles who had fled Cuba when Castro took power.
The group formed the Brigade 2506 and on April 17, 1961, more than 1,000 CIA-trained Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs on the southern coast of Cuba intending to overthrow Fidel Castro’s recently established government.
The plan failed completely and the negative long-term impact is still part of Cuban-American relations.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Background
17 March 1960: President Eisenhower approved a document at a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC). The stated first objective of the plan (“A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime”) began as follows: Objective: The purpose of the program outlined herein is to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the true interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention.(my emphasis)
18 August 1960: President Eisenhower approved a budget of $13 million for the operation.
By 31 October 1960: most guerrilla infiltrations and supply drops directed by the CIA into Cuba had failed, and plans to mount an amphibious assault replaced further developments of guerrilla strategies.
18 November 1960: CIA Director Allen Dulles and CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell first briefed President-elect John Kennedy on the plans. Dulles was confident that the CIA was capable of overthrowing the Cuban government.
29 November 1960: President Eisenhower met with the chiefs of the CIA, Defense, State, and Treasury departments to discuss the idea of an invasion. Those present expressed no objections and Eisenhower approved the plans. He hoped to persuade Kennedy of the plan’s merit.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Pre-Invasion Issues
One of President Kennedy’s main concerns, was that the operation remain covert not just to Castro but disassociated from the United States.
Not surprisingly, a number of Castro’s agents were among the Brigade and they shared the intelligence that they collected on the upcoming invasion.
The planned invasion site was the town of Trinidad. It offered a US-friendly population, a good port, and nearby mountains to escape to if necessary.
As the invasion date grew near, Kennedy grew nervous about the site. It was too associated with the United States making it difficult to deny US culpability. He demanded a change.
A month before the invasion, the CIA decided on Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs). Unfortunately, this was a place Castro knew well and whose population loved Castro.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Phase One–Air Attacks
The plan had three phases and early in the morning of April 15 six Cuban-piloted B-26 bombers struck two airfields, three military bases, and Antonio Maceo Airport in an attempt to destroy the Cuban air force.
This phase was successful: the attack destroyed most of Castro’s combat aircraft.
Castro raised complaints to the UN. The US denied all.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Phase Two–Second Air Attacks
April 16 was Phase Two: a second bombing of targets. But the UN attention to the initial attack worried Kennedy and he cancelled Phase Two.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Phase Three–Land Invasion
April 17. The landing did not go well. Many men lost their equipment because of the rough approach to the shoreline.
From an article at the CIA site: Once ashore, they were met instantly by Cuban armed forces who outnumbered them. The salvaged and undamaged Cuban planes that had survived the April 15 strikes, the very planes that should have been destroyed that morning had Kennedy not canceled the planned strike, were now flying overhead wreaking mayhem on the Brigade.
The invasion did not go as planned, and the exiles soon found themselves outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered and outplanned by Castro’s troops.
From there things got worse. Rescue attempts went poorly. A few from the Brigade escaped, but Cuban forces captured most of the Brigade.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
JFK Shows Some of his Cards
April 24, 1961: President Kennedy accepted “sole responsibility” for the invasion, but on November 30 he authorized an aggressive covert operations (code name Operation Mongoose) against Fidel Castro in Cuba. Air Force General Edward Lansdale led the operation.
Operation Mongoose was to remove communists from power, including Castro and it aimed “for a revolt which can take place in Cuba by October 1962”.
US policy makers also wanted to see “a new government with which the United States can live in peace”.
April 14, 1962: a Cuban military tribunal convicted 1,179 Bay of Pigs attackers.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
James Donovan
President Kennedy tapped James Donovan to negotiate the release of the prisoners. This the same James Donovan who had just successfully negotiated the release of Gary Powers from the U2 incident on February 10, 1962.
Donovan made several trips to Cuba and Castro. Their relationship was a good one
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Cuban Missile Crisis
but the far more historic and nearly apocalyptic Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 intervened their negotiations.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Back to Donovan
Due to Donovan’s personality, the negotiations continued following the crisis.
While playing cards with the President of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Donovan continued to think about what would succeed with Castro and the idea of exchanging the prisoners for much-needed medicine and food might work.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
It did
On December 21, 1962, Castro and Donovan signed an agreement to exchange the 1,113 prisoners of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion for $53 million in food and medicine and on December 23, Cuba released the participants in the Bay of Pigs.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Review
Jim Rasenberger summed up the invasion and its aftermath in his well-received book, The Brilliant Disaster:
In the early hours of April 17, 1961, some fourteen hundred men, most of them Cuban exiles, attempted to invade their homeland and overthrow Fidel Castro. The invasion at the Bahia de Cochinos — the Bay of Pigs — quickly unraveled. Three days after landing, the exile force was routed and sent fleeing to the sea or the swamps, where the survivors were soon captured by Castro’s army. Despite the Kennedy administration’s initial insistence that the United States had nothing to do with the invasion, the world immediately understood that the entire operation had been organized and funded by the U.S. government. The invaders had been trained by CIA officers and supplied with American equipment, and the plan had been approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the president of the United States. In short, the Bay of Pigs had been a U.S. operation, and its failure — “a perfect failure,” historian Theodore Draper called it — was a distinctly American embarrassment. Bad enough the government had been caught bullying and prevaricating; much worse, the United States had allowed itself to be humiliated by a nation of 7 million inhabitants (compared to the United States’ 180 million) and smaller than the state of Pennsylvania. The greatest American defeat since the War of 1812, one American general called it. Others were less generous. Everyone agreed on this: it was a mistake Americans would never repeat and a lesson they would never forget.
Apparently we did. Several more times. And still are.
