Spotlight on the Secret Service
“The chief responsibility of the U.S. Secret Service is to guard the life of the President… In Dallas, on November […]
The United States News
Articles from The United States News
‘The Strange War the U.S. Is Not Winning”
(United States News, 1963)
It’s a dirty, vicious war that Americans are [waging] in the swamps of South Vietnam. Men forget about the politics of Saigon when they stand gun to gun with the Communist guerrillas…
Results of the Economic Boom On The Home Front
(United States News, 1943)
After suffering eleven years of the squalor brought on by the Great Depression, many Americans were in shock to find their pockets fully lined with cash and their days spent in gainful employment when W.W. II came along (in 1943, the U.S. unemployment rate stood at 1.9%). The bars and restaurants that were situated around defense plants found that for the first time in years they were fully booked with paying customers. This article points out that this new economic boom on the home front was not without complications: absenteeism. As more factory workers discovered the joy of compensated labor, the more frequent they would skip work – which was seen as a nuisance for an industrial nation at war.
Many workers, not just youngsters, are making more money than they ever made before in their lives.
The New Normal
(United States News, 1942)
This was an important article for its time. It seems hard to believe, but it took the Federal Government the full six months after Pearl Harbor to figure out how the home front would be governed and what would be rationed. This article heralds that new day and clarified how the war would affect their salaries, savings, education, shopping, clothing, taxes, leisure time, transportation and their general manner of living:
In 1944, a class of sixth graders wrote General Eisenhower and asked him how they can help in the war effort; click here to read his response…
Click here food rationing at U.S. POW camps.
King’s March in Washington
(United States News, 1963)
Although the attached article is indeed about the famous civil rights march on Washington that took place in August of 1963, the journalist made his primary concern the political gains and losses that remained after all was said and done.
Does Smoking Really Cause Cancer?
(United States News, 1953)
Some time ago we posted an article from 1921 about legislation that the U.S. Congress was considering concerning the prohibition of cigarettes (Click here to read about that) we thought that the cat was out of the bag at that time as to the fact concerning the connection of smoking and cancer. But we were wrong. The 1953 article attached herein concerns four doctors who appeared before Congress in an appeal for federal funding for cancer research. They made it clear that research was indicating that there was a clear link between smoking and cancer, but more exploration was needed.
In 1921 there was talk in Congress of outlawing cigarettes – you can read about it here
Click here to read about one of the greatest innovations by 20th Century chemists: plastic.
Harry Hopkins – FDR’s Right Hand
(United States News, 1944)
This article makes it quite clear that Harry Hopkins (1890 – 1946) wore many hats in the administration of FDR.
During the first five years of the New Deal he had the unique title Special Assistant to the President, he not only wrote speeches for FDR – Hopkins also oversaw the goings-on at the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Between the years 1938 through 1940, he served as Secretary of Commerce and when the war came he supervised the Lend-Lease program, the Chairman of the Munitions Assignment Board and traveled frequently as the President’s representative to Moscow and London.
When the U.S.S.R. collapsed, it was discovered that one of his additional duties was being a Soviet agent.
Click here to read about another member of the New Deal Brain-Trust…
American Resolve Made Manifest
(U.S. News & World Report, 1965)
This article was published six weeks after 32,000 military personnel landed at Danang and the big unit war began:
A showdown with Communists in Asia is approaching fast. The U.S. offer of peace just got a short shrift from the Reds. Talk is not of peace , but a bigger war. The U.S. is determined to stand firm, no matter what. The strategy is to put more pressure on the enemy – making the cost unbearable. The hope is that the Reds will back off, but top U.S. officials are getting ready for the worst.
The Returning Army
(United States News, 1944)
The young man going into the Army has a course in orientation to fit him for fighting. He has to be shown what kind of people his enemies are. He has to be told why it is necessary to fight. In the same manner, the Army is finding that the men returning from war have to be fitted for civilian life. They bring back resentment against men and women who have known little privation and less hardship.
The Congressional Hearings Regarding the Pearl Harbor Attack
(United States News, 1945)
The Navy’s own story of the events that led up to Pearl Harbor now can be drawn from top-secret documents placed before the Pearl Harbor Committee. These documents show that misunderstanding, inadequate co-ordination and other factors helped the Japanese surprise attack, even though the Navy was almost certain a Pacific war was coming.
With The War Came New Opportunities
(United States News, 1942)
The government, endeavoring to meet the problem by raising the economic stature of the Negro, create committees, change regulations. The Army admits Negro candidates for officer training to the same schools as whites. It is training Negro pilots for the Air Corps. Negro officers will command Negro troops. The Navy opens new types of service for the Negro in the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, inshore establishments, Navy yards and construction crews.
The Difficulties of This War
(United States News, 1963)
A highly quotable article from 1963 that articulates precisely how highly organized the Communist guerrillas were in the Vietnam War.
The Reds fight a fluid war that may last for years. They do not make the mistake of saying the war will be won in three, five or ten years.
U.S. Army Casualties: 1941 – 1944
(United States News, 1944)
Here are the U.S. Army casualty figures from December, 1941 through November, 1944. The provided graph points out the following major events that ushered in the larger numbers:
• The Philippine collapse
• The American landings in North Africa
• The Battle of Kasserine Pass
• The Sicily Landings
• Anzio
• D-Day
Shortly after this article appeared on the newsstands the Germans launched their winter counter-offensive in the Ardennes. The editors of this magazine anticipated the American losses for 1945 to be the highest yet.
Click here to read General Marshall’s end-of-war remarks about American casualty figures.
A G.I. Rememberance of the ETO dead…
1963: A Pivotal Year
(United States News, 1963)
The 1963 struggle in Vietnam was important for a number of reasons: as the year began the world saw the first major defeat for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam at the hands of the Viet Cong guerrillas at Ap Bac. Five months later Buddhist clergymen revealed their deep distaste for the war effort which quickly resulted in the Diem administration putting numerous Buddhist pagodas to the torch. Ngo Dinh Diem himself would be put to the torch in November when he and his brother would be overthrown in an American-backed coup. Historians have long maintained that by meddling in the internal political affairs of South Vietnam, JFK had unwittingly doomed any chance for their self-reliance; following the November coup, that country became more and more reliant upon the United States – and when the U.S. abandoned the cause of a free and independent South Vietnam, their fate was sealed.
What To Do About Diem?
(United States News, 1963)
Here is an article by a respected American journalist who was dispatched to South Vietnam in order that he might see for himself what the problems were as to why the Republic of Vietnam seemed so incapable of maintaining military dominance in the field. Everywhere he went he got the same answer:
A highly respected professor at Saigon University [remarked]:
‘If you have to make a choice between supporting the Ngo family
and withdrawing from South Vietnam, you might as well pull out.
You cannot win with the family.’
Allied Overoptimism
(United States News, 1944)
The surprise that was Hitler’s December Offensive made many people think that the Allies were losing their edge and relying more on air power than infantry; Allies rather than our own divisions. The Battle of the Bulge shook all Americans out of their complacency.
More on the Battle of the Bulge can be read here…
German and Italian P.o.W.s in America
(United States News, 1945)
By the end of 1944 the P.o.W. population within the U.S. stood somewhere in the neighborhood of 340,000 and was growing at a rate between 25,000 to 30,000 each month. The vast majority of them (300,000) were from the German Army and 51,000 were Italians:
There are reports that these prisoners often are pampered, that they are getting cigarettes when American civilians cannot get them, that they are being served in their camps by American soldiers, that they are often not working at a time when war workers are scarce. The general complaint is that the 46,000 American prisoners in Germany are not faring as well as 3000,000 Germans in this country.
Read about the escaped German POWs who the FBI never found…
The First Two Weeks of the Battle of the Bulge
(United States News, 1944)
The American magazines that appeared on newsstands during late November and early December of 1944 are often found to have articles anticipating life in the post-war world or tips on how to welcome your returning husband home from the battle fronts. This line of thinking was put on hold in late December when the Germans launched their brutal counter offensive through the Ardennes Forrest in what has been nicknamed the Battle of the Bulge.