Dark Invasion

Times have certainly changed. Even Kings, Queens and Presidents had less security than a corporate CEO today.  Lincoln, although it was 50 years earlier, walked around D.C. during the Civil War with little or no protection.  This laxity did finally catch up with him. 

By the way, as I recall, J.P. Morgan left an estate of something like US$40 million. When (I believe) Andrew Carnegie heard this he was amazed and said something like, "He actually wasn't a rich man." Again, times have changed. 

It used to be that anyone could just walk into the White House (people's house) and ask to see the president and up until the murder of Lincoln, by a democrat, thousands of people did just pop in to say hi. Security gradually increased in the last part of the 19th century but it was still possible to get in and see the president.

Theodore Roosevelt was his own best security as he often carried a weapon in the WH. He once said to his daughter Alice discussing JP Morgan. Alice asked her father if he liked JP. TR replied that he did. Alice asked why because JP was his enemy. TR said that the road to greatness is a lonely one and is peopled with other great men, some of whom are your enemies, but it is the only luxury you get. 

There's an interesting quote in the book about the Secret Service in the context of who was going to be able to get to the bottom of these bombings. Note that Artler (in fact, all of us, I believe) have recommended the dissolution of the FBI. Put this in the category of "nothing new under the sun":



Granted, it appears that the crooks in Congress didn't like the idea of anyone noting their lawlessness. Still, the principle of restricting or eliminating agencies is sound. Perhaps the FBI should be restricted to investigating misconduct by Hunter Biden. Narrow their scope a bit. They could also oversee prosecution of those who tear the warning labels off of their mattress.

Yes, I would agree with that. Perhaps what has changed is reflected in the case of the Highland Park shooter. They apparently have all sorts of "red flag" laws in Illinois but nary a flag was waved or thrown. As noted here and by someone else in the news, spotting a "red flag" person of interesting is complicated by the fact the weirdo-ism has gone quite mainstream.

I'm guessing back in the day that weirdos were quickly spotted and dealt with if they ranged out of their natural habitat, thus the weirdos tended to stay more to themselves.

But now we "celebrate diversity" which (note the Starbucks article I posted recently) means that "hell in a hand-basket" is now called "progress." We have inched our way to mainstreaming perversity and lawlessness and it is fast catching up to us.

I would be happy if they first simply closed Homeland Security and Education then cut the Justice Dept. (excluding the FBI, which should be disbanded) to 1/3rd of its present size. They should chase everyone out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building with scourges, bulldoze the place and salt the ground. 

I finished this book tonight. I give a strong recommend.

It peters out just slightly at the end. But that might not be the fault of the book as much as the fact that some of the stuff that happened (such as the explosion at Black Tom weapons storage pier in New Jersey) wasn't technically uncovered as German sabotage until years later, although Tom Tunney at the time knew it had to be the work of the Krauts. And it was.

It's hard to fault a man for not rushing into war, although I thoroughly dislike Woodrow Wilson. That said, this book (that was very kind to him) showed him to be an ideological putz. Wilson's naivete regarding the Germans could be summed up by that line from Henry L. Stimson: "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail."

Wilson did not seem to believe that civilized countries could behave in the fashion that Germany was behaving toward America (germ warfare, sinking of neutral ships, sabotage on a somewhat grand scale). Granted, he faced some of the same political realities that FDR did. It might be difficult to go to war (even if you should) if the nation isn't behind you.

Wilson's dreamy ideology is said to have turned in degrees (very slow degrees) to a steely resolve. This more or less coincided with the general public who (often thanks to the British intercepting and decoding German communications) had eventually witnessed one outrage too many. Wilson was so dead-set against fomenting hatred against the Germans that he often would squelch important intelligence. It eventually got to the point where many in the high end of the bureaucracy would do an end run around him and simply release some damning evidence against the Germans directly to the newspapers because they new that Wilson likely would simply squelch it.

The Germans were surprisingly effective in sabotaging ships with supplies bound for the Allies. Of course, you and everyone else knew (as did those high in the German hierarchy) that they were playing with fire. To bring America into the war against them was suicide. But the Germans, being German, just seemingly could not resist their barbaric and warlike nature. That's certainly how it reads, anyway.

The book ends with some notes from the author about some of his research, including being allowed to sit in once on the weekly (or twice as week?) briefing with the New York City police commissioner regarding threats to New York. What Tom Tunney and his crew were doing back in 1916 regarding the Germans is the same function and routine that is now steered toward the Religion of Peace.

Sounds like an interesting book.