Friends, I believe I’ve told this story in Impromptus before, but let me tell it again. It has a current relevance, I promise you.

When I was a freshman in college, I was in a diplomatic-history class, taught by a very distinguished historian. On the last day, he said approximately the following:

“The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the big hand of its doomsday clock a minute or two closer to midnight. Ronald Reagan is a dangerous nuclear cowboy, who has turned his back on détente. He threatens to blow up the world. I can’t be optimistic that you will grow into full adulthood.”

Frankly, I think he was more dire — more certain — than that. He did not think much of President Reagan, as you might surmise. I’m 90 percent sure he had greater respect for Brezhnev.

Anyway, I thought of that freshman-year class when receiving a notice in my inbox last week:

“The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will move the minute hand of the ‘Doomsday Clock’ on January 17, 2007, the first such change to the Clock since February 2002.”

I loved that capital letter on “Clock.” Anyway, to continue:

The major new step reflects growing concerns about a “Second Nuclear Age” marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing “launch-ready” status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

As you may have done, I winced at the mention of launch-ready nukes held by the U.S. — whatever is imperiling the world, it is not America. But, given Iran in particular, I find the Bulletin’s moving-of-the-minute-hand justifiable. Certainly understandable. These people contend that we’re in the “most perilous period since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” You could certainly make an argument . . .

. . . and a sounder argument than my professor made, when he said that Reagan would be the death of us all.

‐It may have been a while since you heard the dread name of Mengistu — he was the Marxist-Leninist dictator of Ethiopia, from 1974 to 1991. His trial in Addis Ababa just concluded, and he was given a life sentence. Of course, he was tried in absentia.

That’s because he is living comfortably under the protection of his friend Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Isn’t that cozy?

Mengistu’s trial took an amazingly long twelve years. As this report tells us,

the trial, a rare case of an African strongman being held to account by his own country, focused on Mengistu’s alleged involvement in the killing of nearly 2,000 people during a 1977-78 campaign known as the Red Terror. Mengistu’s charge sheet and evidence list was 8,000 pages long. Human Rights Watch has described the Red Terror as “one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed in Africa.”

Which is saying something, unfortunately.

‐For the next New Criterion — that is, the February issue of The New Criterion — I have reviewed the recent Library of America volumes entitled American Speeches. (Amazon sells the first volume here, and the second here.) In the course of my labors, I rediscovered a speech delivered by President Kennedy. It is not in the Library of America volumes; you can find it on the Net, here.

It is the speech he gave to the American Newspaper Publishers Association, on April 27, 1961. And, re-reading it, I was amazed at its burning relevance for our own time. You will want to read the whole speech, trust me. But I thought I would provide some excerpts in this column.

Kennedy says,

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

And yet some secrecy, of course, is necessary in such circumstances as the Cold War. (Or a Terror War?)

. . . I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country’s peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort, based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy.

Boy, have times changed. To be sure,

today no war has been declared — and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.
If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of “clear and present danger,” then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

This different type of war

requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions — by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence — on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day.

And get this:

For the facts of the matter are that this nation’s foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery, or espionage; that details of this nation’s covert preparations to counter the enemy’s covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location, and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.

The president intends no McCarthyism:

The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible, and well-meaning. Had we been engaged in open warfare, they undoubtedly would not have published such items. But in the absence of open warfare, they recognized only the tests of journalism and not the tests of national security. And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted.

Kennedy notes,

On many earlier occasions, I have said — and your newspapers have constantly said — that these are times that appeal to every citizen’s sense of sacrifice and self-discipline. They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good. I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal. . . .
. . . I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger, and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.
Every newspaper now asks itself, with respect to every story: “Is it news?” All I suggest is that you add the question: “Is it in the interest of the national security?”

Of course, if a president talked that way in this decade, he would be laughed out of school — laughed to scorn. And yet most of the press today, I believe, admires John Kennedy (or what they think of as Kennedy).

You certainly need no further commentary from me. Each reader can ponder all this for himself.

‐A news story highlighted by Drudge reminded me of what I have called the strangest art song in all the literature. It is “Die Löwenbraut” (“The Lion’s Bride”), by Schumann. Do you know it? The poem is by Adelbert von Chamisso, and it concerns a girl who’s the daughter of a watchman at the zoo. She has a special relationship with the lion.

One day, when she’s all grown up, she goes to see him, to bid him farewell: She’s going to get married. The lion doesn’t take the news especially well. Both of them end up dead.

It is a freaky, freaky poem, and a freaky, freaky song — a splendid one, too.

In any case, this is that news story from the other day. It is headlined, “African Lion Kisses, Hugs Woman Who Saved It: People Shocked To See Affection Between Pair.”

Uh-huh. She just better watch out, is all I have to say.

‐Were we talking about music? Have a couple of reviews from the New York Sun. For a review of the Met Orchestra, conducted by James Levine, with the violinist Christian Tetzlaff, guest soloist, please go here. And for a recordings roundup, go here. Under consideration: the young Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin; the young Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti (yes, Scottish); and an a cappella singing group called stile antico. Yeah, they like those lower cases.

‐A reader pens a most interesting letter:

Dear Jay:
I’m anxiously awaiting the eventual election of Hillary Clinton to see if the hysteria about global warming continues in her term. I have a sneaking suspicion that it will be one of those issues that just mysteriously drop off the radar screen once a liberal Democrat is in, only to reappear when the next Republican is elected.

Another reader pens a most clever and amusing one:

So, an unusually mild day in New York City is evidence of global warming? I guess that’s a case of “Think locally, act globally.”

‐A reader penned this little paean to Wal-Mart:

At 3:30 this morning, on my way to work, I purchased three boxes of herbal tea, a spill-proof mug for the tea, a little bottle of honey in the shape of a bear (also for the tea), two packages of baby wipes, two DVDs, an Eagles Greatest Hits two-CD collection, a pair of socks, a bag of cough drops, a bottle of Pepsi, a can of compressed air for cleaning computers, and ten 40-pound bags of salt pellets for my water softener, all for under $130. I was welcomed when I went in, even at that hour, I was thanked three times for shopping at Wal-Mart, and I was wished a “very nice day” as I left.
Thank God for Wal-Mart.

A-frickin’-men.

A different reader contributed this:

For the past few weeks, when I’ve been shopping at my local Wal-Mart, they’ve been playing Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth nonstop back in the A/V department. I wonder how Al would feel to know that many people are being exposed to his documentary by the dastardly Wal-Mart.

An excellent question. But his polling might tell him: Keep demonizing Wal-Mart (at least through the Democratic primaries).

‐Some fun with bumper stickers?

Jay,
I have to tell you about an anti-Bush sticker. It says, “Somewhere, a village is missing it’s idiot.” Sadly, I saw this on my own sister’s car. I told her that, while she may think GWB an idiot, he’s probably smart enough to take the apostrophe out of “its” in that case.

Have another:

Jay,
Since you’re on the topic of clueless cognitive dissonances made public via bumper stickers . . .
Up here in the land of elderly flowerchildren (Vermont), I saw a sticker on a granola-mobile (rusty old Subaru) that said, “Corn, Not Cars.” This was a bumper sticker. On a car.

I feel your pain.

‐Finally, some language:

Dear Mr. Nordlinger:
I have a language question for you — something about which my longsuffering, very patient wife and I disagree: If today is Tuesday and I say to you, “Let’s have lunch next Friday,” to which Friday am I referring? The Friday three days away or the Friday ten days hence?

That is always a tough one. I’m afraid I’d skirt the issue. If I were talking about the Friday three days away, I’d say “this Friday,” or “on Friday”: “Let’s have lunch this Friday,” or, “Let’s have lunch on Friday.”

If I meant ten days away, I’d say, “Let’s have lunch on Friday next week,” or, “Let’s have lunch a week from this Friday.”

I know I’ve dodged. But the “next” question is always confusing. We have this problem here at NR, too: Which issue is the “next issue”? The one we’re currently working on, or the one that will follow the one we’re working on?

With that . . .

See you!

‐Oh, forgot to tell you something kinda cool: The man who sent that language letter signed it, “A dissident in the People’s Republic of Public Education.” May there be ever more such dissidents.