Oct. 22, 1962: Kennedy imposes a naval blockade of Cuba, Oct. 22, 1962. On this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy imposed a U.S. naval blockade of Cuba after U.S. spy planes found Soviet missile sites on the Communist-ruled island. October 23, 1962: This special report reviews the day's developments in the Cuban missile crisis. Walter Cronkite announces the signing of the formal proclamation of the quarantine of Cuba. The report continues with a clip of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's press conference at the Pentagon, and a clip of an exchange between U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson and Soviet U.N. Ambassador V.A. Zorin. Cronkite displays aerial photographs of missile sites followed by a report on a military build-up in Key West; Neil Strawser reports on the build-up at the American naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba; George Herman reports on the crisis' meaning for the Kennedy administration, and Roger Mudd reports on an aerial reconnaissance of Cuba. (Politico)
In the movie “The Way We Were,” Barbara Streisand, murmured, sweetly, lyrics from a song with one line that remains tattooed to the synapsis’ of those nooks and crannies of true memories, or glorified granules of cemented over cracks needing some recall and rumination. The lyrics were Can it be that it was all so simple then Or has time rewritten every line If we had the chance to do it all again Tell me, would we? Could we? (The Way We Were/Alan& Marilyn Bergman)
Our very small row house, upon which you immediately entered the living room, to find two couches, an overly used but comfy as hell green chair, with the sheen of overuse, and small crumbs of chocolate cake embedded there perhaps for eternities, all facing a modern combination stereophonic/black and white TV Consul wrapped and defined by a faux wooden cabinet. The TV was a gift from a wealthy relative, and for us, this was REAL middle-class living. But on this day of October 22, 1962, on a more than usual grayish Pittsburgh evening, illuminated with shadows of gray hues so weirdly dangling from the sky, and for the paranoid American, of which my family had become, the odor or some rank stench, waiting in the wings to not only suffocate, but smother you in a long arduous manner, we as a family, something unheard of in the Buncher home, when it came to viewing the news, sat. Walter Cronkite, the man for whom trust, compassion, honesty and even worse the TRUTH TELLER, was, slowly, surely and precisely laying out the aspects of the beginning of a Third World War, not like any other (as if any war is like another,) but one with the dire dread of atomic bombs, and nuclear fallout. In our house news was never more than the half-hour before some comedy show, but on this evening, it was to be a matter of a future of fear or a tomorrow of hope. And reading my father’s usual poker face, which tonight only demonstrated he not a winning hand, our family became frightened!
On Monday, November 11, 2019…live and with all the imperfections recent politics and the politicians, sometimes acting like caged animals of crazed anomalies of intelligence, the networks will present TRUMP/THE IMPEACHMENT! There will be, I am certain, some kind of ominous theme music and large red banners with HUGE letters stating, “BREAKING NEWS,” but this time, I am also certain, I will have not my father to turn to for truth, nor Walter Cronkite to offer me reason, rhyme and rational. Mr. Cronkite would end his newscast by saying “…and that’s the way it is…” AND I AM SCARED…terrible so!
