(For reasons best known to AOL we can’t just drop the carefully assembeled picture in this place. Instead, we must attach it with digits from someplace else).

Big morning here in DC! Which we are not in, or at least not exactly, the Patio being on the Western side of the Potomac. We are still alert, since we know that when Congress is in session anything can happen. Apparently, the members are prepared to act on the latest Emergency. There are so many we understand we may not be on the same sheet of music for what that actually is driving this bout of hysteria.

This Emergency is huge. It is so big the Congress had to take the usual August-long recess to raise money to return to their offices. The issue? We run out of money to fund government operations! That means the small majority in the House has made their statement to the equally thin and opposing margin of the Senate. What could it mean? One of the impacts would be 8% cuts to domestic spending (except military, veterans, and disaster relief).

That would mean a 1% cut overall to the Federal Budget for 2024. Sounds small, but we are talking about all the money in the world, you know?

Other details? Sure! We have got a bunch but they are buried deeper in the Bill. The disaster at the Border? We will boldly require the use of DHS’s ‘e-verify program’ for employees! The minority party did not include funding for Ukraine or additional disaster relief in places like Hawaii or Ohio, which is one coin with a dozen faces of crisis.

In fact, there is an air of hysteria out there. It is naturally artificial, partially organized around the collapse of one of the two major political parties that run what had traditionally- if briefly- been the Worlds Sole Super-power. We have seen some sad manifestations of the end of the Cold War, something of which we personally have been proud due to our small participation.

We recall those few moments of Peace after the Saltwater Summit on the island state of Malta in 1990. The Russians decided to no longer be called “The Soviet Union,” and all the rubles they spent on advanced weaponry and information warfare were for naught. What we didn’t know was that victory also had come with astronomical expenses that continued into an indeterminate future.

“Indeterminate” was not what we called it at the time. In the budget world where some of us worked, the operative term was an indeterminate thing called “The Peace Dividend.” You would have to have been there to understand the definitional context of that, which was to quit spending money on one thing in order to fund something(s) else.

Dwight Eisenhower is one of our heroes from yesteryear. We could celebrate the interstate highway system as a great accomplishment and that would sum up this Tuesday morning. It was, after all, the social-industrial accomplishment that fashioned the framework on which our lives were constructed. His farewell remarks were delivered on January 17, 1961. He warned against the establishment of a “military-industrial complex” that lurked in the military need for readiness against a formidable foe.

His speech lasted less than a dime in common time: 10 minutes, uttered from the Oval Office by television on January 17, 1961. His gravitas as a leader was unquestioned as was the result of his command of troops in Europe in the Really Big War. His command of the justice system here at home in his days as POTUS may have exceeded the impact of his management of Troops in War and Highways in Peace.

The expectation was that “Ike” would depart office with a nostalgic, “old soldier” speech like Gen. Douglas MacArthur did. There was surprise in the media at his strong warnings about the dangers of the “military-industrial complex.” That is a term that described the complex relationship between American industry and a vast Draft-support military machine.

During his two terms, Ike had slowed the push for increased defense spending. He thought this growth was justified to counter the influence of an expanding Soviet Union, but eventually considered it “a necessary evil.” He included creation of another one of those new and powerful interest groups. Unlike the DoD-Industrial alliance, this one was established without much discussion, but its impact was similar in scope. It was the Government-Academic Complex. That was the one with distinct parallels to the Military-Industrial segment in American life.

The process in that one was similar. Scientific research was funded by Government grant. Results of the research were intended only partially to discover new truths that agreed with established Government policy. Our recent and continuing adventure in Climate Doom is perhaps the most prominent exercise in this remarkable process.

We include this morning an image that isn’t exactly in either camp. Former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson died this week. He was our favorite Congressman at one point, and we had a rare opportunity to interact with him in the 103rd and 104th Congress. Bill liked to travel and he liked to provide answered to tough problems presented to the Clinton Administration.

One of them was the Vietnam War. Our decision to deploy hundreds of thousands of troops to the conflict was abruptly cancelled in 1973 and the Draft to support it ended. Saigon fell to the Northerners in 1975 and was re-named to honor the man who led them to victory: “Ho Chi Minh City.”

Of the several world problems Bill wanted to fix, the Vietnam issue was a painful one. He asked me to take charge of organizing a trip to a variety of former trouble spots. In that long list were places like Taipei in the Republic of China. Rangoon in Myanmar, the reconstituted name for Burma. China, of course, since that was the only way to get to North Korea. We will be pestering you with stories about that account of Official Travel with the publication of “A Little Traveling Music.”

That book is intended to demonstrate how things work. Bill did not awake one morning, thinking he wanted to go and end the Vietnam War before lunch or drinks. Instead, we crafted a list of issues that could be addressed in at least a cursory fashion in a few days. In the case of 1975, that would include the POW-MIA discussion, expanded across the Asian region. In case you missed it, we still have thousands of Missing-in-Action service members. There is a military Command out in Hawaii with a mission of finding them.

The places our Missing might be? The second of the World Wars still has most of them. Korea beckons with those who fell in the “Police Action” of the early 1950s. Vietnam still hung out with unresolved issues. Our missing were not the sole points of discussion, since Burma had placed a Nobel Laureate under house arrest, there were attempted military coups right there and a recent one in the Republic of Korea. So, with notice of a couple weeks, we put something together.

The picture attached shows you some of the dimensions of the agenda. As noted, it dates to 1995 and the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. The timing of that is what drove the timing of the trip. There were other Americans in town working to account for the Missing, and the desire to celebrate the anniversary of their military triumph over the forces of the United States seemed to be something that could be leveraged into something else entirely.

There is a framed item in the Chairman’s anteroom. It is a partial brick, the inscription embossed on what had been the top side of a structural component of The Hanoi Hilton. The Vietnamese were ripping it down in order to support the re-construction of the city. In their minds, it was long past the end of the war. That is the message Bill wanted to take back to Washington and the stop in Hanoi (Hotel Metropole, queen mattresses) was to add gravity to the brief stop.

It turned out to have almost as many unresolved issues this week as it did the time we escorted Bill Richardson there. The G20 Economic Summit on Bali was the reason the American President happened to be in mid-air over Vietnam. He decided to land the giant jet, on Monday in order to visit the “memorial” for late Senator John McCain. According to the reporting, the President walked up to the stone structure surrounded by greenery. He touched a wreath of red, white, and blue flowers that had been placed there, and bowed in what could be characterized as a position of prayer, bowing his head.

“I miss him. He was a good friend,” Mr. Biden said. Then he dropped something on the pavement that could have been a coin and saluted the stone.

The President was there for the same reason we had been. Senator McCain had been a Navy pilot. Despite the current messaging, the sculpture was not erected to have anything to do with John McCain except his capture. It was actually to honor the gunners who shot him down. It was a powerful theme back then, and McCain was a prisoner of war for five and a half years, 1967-73. In the background is the Trúc Bạch Lake where he landed after being shot down.

The President said: “It was important to me” on Monday. Nearby were Secretary of State Blinken and Climate Czar Kerry, who actually fought in the conflict himself, or at least said he did. The President and Senator McCain served in the Senate together for three decades.

There is no sculpture on the Hill to commemorate that period of time. Maybe someday they will throw one up. It would be a lot easier to visit than the one in Hanoi.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com