Review of The Fifties by David Halberstam

title: The Fifties
author: David Halberstam
publisher: Fawcett Columbine [hardcover], Ballantine Books [paperback]
year of publication: 1993
reviewed date: June 25, 2008
The Fifties at Amazon

David Halberstam's The Fifties is not a standard history. It does not start in January 1950 and end in December 1959. It does not dryly narrate wars and treaties and acts of Congress. Instead it tells historical stories that give insight into the events, politics, and culture of the 1950's. Many of the stories start in the 1940's or trail into the 1960's. Often the stories are deftly woven together, as when a story about a business turns into a story about politics.

I enjoyed reading about Estes Kefauver, the maverick Democrat who earned the party's wrath by investigating the party's close relationship with organized crime. I found the story of the creation of Holiday Inn by Kemmons Wilson quite enlightening, because it showed how people's lifestyles were changing. I don't like the McDonald's restaurant chain, but the story of its creation from a single drive-in restaurant in southern California was fascinating.

Then there are the choice quotations, including this from Stewart Alsop on the possibility of a Republican electoral victory in 1952: "We shall have a first-class fascist party in the United States if the Republicans don't win. The real need for a change in this country arises, not from the decay of the Democrats, but from the need to give the Republicans the sobering experience of responsibility."

Of course there is quite a bit too of famous political characters such as Harry Truman, "Ike" Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and the Kennedy brothers. There is much about Fidel Castro and a bit about Vietnam, stories that would become more important in the 1950's. Of course Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare are covered in some detail. The progress of the civil rights movement reminds us that the Republican Party was far more important to African-Americans obtaining civil rights than was the Democratic Party, at least until roughly 1965.

There is also a great deal about movie stars, particularly Marilyn Monroe. To me the story of Grace Metaliou, author of Peyton Place, was more compelling. The culture of the 1950's was much about facade. Peyton Place, more so than Elvis or On the Road or any other Beatnik fare, showed the sexuality that lurked beneath the surface of the American dream of suburbs, big cars, and well paid union jobs for all.

The prosperity of the 1950's was built on two pillars: unionization of the workforce and lack of international industrial competition. By forcing the manufacturers to share the wealth, the unions increased the wealth. Domestic consumption fueled demand, which fueled full employment, which made more profits for the rich to share. But World War II had destroyed most of the world's factories outside the United States. Eventually the dream would come to an end; but there was no end in sight (if you except the possibility of nuclear war) on December 31, 1959. No wonder everyone liked Ike.

The Fifties is an excellent book that should interest not just those who lived through the period, but everyone who has lived in its wake.

The Big Trees Revisited

Last night I watched The Big Trees starring Kirk Douglas. The movie was set in 1900, but I felt I was in a time warp back to the late 1980's.

In The Big Trees we quickly learn that the Kirk Douglas character, Jim Fallon, is not an honest businessman. He does not pay his timber workers; he cons the investors who advance him money. With any number of people about to gun him down in Wisconsin, he decides it is time to go cut down trees in California. He has learned that a new law is stripping some settlers of their land and allowing anyone to buy 40 acre sections for a $150 filing fee.

He transports his unpaid timber workers to California where each will get 40 acres of old growth coastal redwood trees to log for him. The land is being taken from a Quaker colony that has kept most of these huge and ancient trees. There is a beautiful heroine, of course, Alicia (Eve Miller).

The plot gets complicated because a local timber baron is also seeking to get the land and cut the trees. There are excuses for fights and double-crosses, plus, of course, a Hollywood ending that certainly did not occur in reality.

Keep in mind that this movie was made in 1952 with Felix Feist directing. Of course there were already environmentalists and parks and such. John Muir had worked to save the redwoods. John Steinbeck has written of there being two kinds of Californians, the ones who revered redwoods and the kind that cut them down. But Alicia actually sets fire to the local court house in order to slow down the granting of land - and is treated like a hero. Don't try this tactic today - the FBI will label you and everyone you know as a terrorist.

In the late 1980's and 1990's this whole situation replayed, but with a guy known as Charles Hurwitz. Briefly, former investors and customers had accused him of using fraud to build his fortune, but his lawyers always kept him one or two steps ahead of the lynch mobs [For the full story see my article Charles Hurwitz's Money].

Mr. Hurwitz bought a company called Pacific Lumber, which had been slowly liquidating the redwoods, ancient and re-grown, on it vast land holding. Charlie sped up the rate of cutting and targeted old growth groves. Earth First!, which was made up mainly of people local to Humboldt and Mendocino County, organized people to stop the slaughter. Eventually some redwoods got protection, notably the Headwaters Grove, but for the most part every tree worth cutting in Mendocino and Humboldt was cut. Then, with insufficient trees, the mills (most of them) were closed down. Oh sure, the trees will grow back. You can get a pretty decent sized redwood in 60 years under optimal conditions. At 400 years the trees take on old-growth characteristics.

So today most big redwoods are on small private holdings or in parks. It's a shame reality did not have a Hollywood ending.

The Big Trees is a triple blast from three pasts (1900, 1952, and 1989) and well worth seeing.

Korea: Brotherhood of War Review

Speaking of quagmires (in Iraq), most people forget we (United States citizens) are still bogged down in Korea. We've been in that bog since 1946. Even though South Korea is one of the richest nations in the world and has taken many jobs away from American workers, we still pay a small fortune in taxes each year to keep American troops stationed there. How did this come about, and is change possible?

Most Americans have seen films set in the Korean War. U.S. Soldiers are the good guys, communist North Koreans or Chinese are the bad guys. Some films of this genre are Pork Chop Hill, The Bridge at Toko Ri, Retreat Hell, Men in War and Mash. The historical context is simple: bad people (communists) attacked good people (South Koreans) and the U.S. cavalry rode in to the rescue, with much heroic sacrifice.

I have been studying Korean history lately, and find it fascinating. The Korean film industry makes first class films these days, and one of the best I have seen so far is Brotherhood of War (Tae Guk Gi). We see the war through the eyes of two brothers in South Korea who are "drafted" when the war breaks out (they are captured and forced to fight the North Koreans). They are apolitical; their concerns were about the economic survival of their family. As they fight and fellow soldiers are blown to bits around them (beware, it is hyper-real, along the line of Private Ryan) the older brother becomes a vehement anti-communist. The younger brother toughens up into a good soldier, but loses it after watching his squad murder POWs in cold blood.

What is only slightly unbelievable is that such animosity between the north and south Koreans would have existed in 1950, only four years after an occupation by allies Russia and the U.S. ended a five-decade long occupation by Japan. In 1945 most Koreans were united in opposing the Japanese and believing that if Japan lost the war Korea would be "free at last." The brutal occupation and political suppression (the U.S. had communists, socialists, nationalists, and anarchists suppressed in the south; the Russians promoted communists, who quickly put the screws on everyone else in the north) of 1946 probably pleased very few Koreans.

I thought the war was going to be just another propaganda film, glorifying the South and denouncing the North, but it grew more complex as the plot unravelled. By the end it was hard to sympathise with anyone but the dead.

The acting was top-notch, as was the directing. The pace good and I had only occasional difficulty keeping track of the characters. Brotherhood of War can be watched by war movie enthusiasts, but mostly it illustrates the old adage that war is hell.

I think Korea could be reunited. I believe North Korea has no foreign troops helping it. South Korea is a rich country. It should defend itself until reunification.

For more information on Korea see my Korea page.

For more of my film reviews see my Film page.