The Smart Aleck's Guide to American History

by Adam Selzer

  This was probably the first time punk died. It would die and be reborn several times over the next few decades.

  REAGAN:

  FINALLY, A PRESIDENT WHO CAN HOLD HIS OWN ON-SCREEN AGAINST A CHIMP!

  Ronald Reagan, a former actor known for such movies as Bedtime for Bonzo, which co-starred a chimpanzee, became governor of California in 1966. The idea of “President Reagan” instantly became a joke made by every comedian on television. Reagan did run for president in 1968 and 1976 but couldn’t make it past the primaries. Then, in 1980, he won the Republican nomination and the election.

  Right from the beginning, people loved Reagan. There was just something really likable about the guy. When he was shot in a failed assassination attempt early in his term, he famously told his wife, Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” It may not be as inspiring a thing to say as “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” but really—how charming can you get?

  Reagan was known by the press as the Teflon president, because no bit of bad news seemed to stick to the guy. His administration was plagued by all sorts of scandals, but he remained popular. When it turned out that his administration had been illegally selling arms to Iran in the mid-1980s, he came up with an excuse that would become very popular with politicians: he claimed not to have known about the deals. Later he tried to suggest that he simply didn’t remember making them. The excuse that he hadn’t broken the law himself, he was just incapable of managing his staff, didn’t work that well even for him. It began to look like he was going to be impeached; his approval rating dropped twenty points in the course of about a month. But, being the Teflon president, he soon bounced right back. By the time of his death in 2004, he was one of the most beloved figures in America again.

  The Reagans, Ronald and Nancy. Nancy promoted the bold idea that people could “just say no” to drugs, which, apparently, she didn’t think would occur to them otherwise. For reasons not entirely clear, Reagan often called his wife Mommy.

  The economy did improve a bit under Reagan. It had been in very bad shape under Ford and Carter (the presidents who came after Johnson), but things started to pick up somewhat in the 1980s, though many felt that Reagan’s policies helped the rich a lot more than they helped anyone else. All over the country, factories were closing down (as chronicled in Billy Joel’s song “Allentown”).

  One reason for Reagan’s enduring popularity, of course, is that it was during his administration that the Cold War finally came to an end. Early in his term, he had called the USSR an evil empire, but during a visit to Russia in 1988, he said that he was referring to “another time, another era.” In 1987, on a trip to Berlin, which was still divided into East and West Berlin by the infamous Berlin Wall, Reagan sensed how unpopular the wall was with citizens on both sides and made a particularly famous speech in which he addressed the president of the USSR, saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

  That same year, the Russians let Billy Joel into the country to play a series of concerts. He closed his set by singing Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” an act that probably would have gotten him arrested by secret police just a few years earlier. Clearly, things were changing.

  Two years later, the Berlin Wall was torn down. People from the two sides got together for a party that lasted for days, and America and the Soviet Union began to get friendly just in time for the Soviet Union to fall apart, which it officially did in 1991. The Soviet bloc countries began the long, long process of reinventing themselves as capitalist countries.

  Some credit Ronald Reagan with finally bringing about the end of the Soviet Union, but others say its decline was inevitable. Still others say that it would have lasted much longer, but the Communists turned out to be quitters who did not give 110 percent.

  The Berlin Wall is torn down. Thank you, Billy Joel!

  A small minority, believe it or not, credit rock ’n’ roll with tearing down the Iron Curtain. Soviet youth’s affection for the Western culture that their government had banned made them into doubters. Czech film director Milos Forman, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, has always been quite open about saying that it was the Beatles (at least partly) who brought Communism down. “Suddenly the (Communist) ideologues are telling you these four (the Beatles) [are] apes escaping from the jungle,” he said in 2001. “And I thought, ‘I’m not such an idiot, and I love this music.’ All of a sudden, the ideologues were strangers.” By the late 1960s, Soviet youth were stealing parts from pay phones to turn acoustic guitars into electric ones and making copies of records using an ingenious method involving discarded X-ray plates. The thrill of rebellion that came with rock music had worn off in the States, but to be a rock fan in the Soviet Union was truly subversive.

  Months after the Berlin Wall fell, Communism also fell in Czechoslovakia after what came to be called the Velvet Revolution. Václav Havel, who became the new Czech president, has been known to claim that it was named after the band the Velvet Underground. Even the U.S. Congress knew that music could be a weapon for freedom; it broadcast rock music over the Soviet airwaves through its Radio Free Europe program. Keith Richards of the band the Rolling Stones72 summed up the whole idea by saying, “After those billions of dollars and living under the threat of doom, what brought it down? Blue jeans and rock ’n’ roll.”

  In reality, music probably wasn’t the only thing that brought the Soviet Union down—but it was certainly one of the first, and most obvious, cracks in the wall.

  A WHOLE SERIES OF DOWNERS

  The final verse of the song, the one that mentions Reagan, seems to indicate that Billy Joel, too, thought that the end of civilization was at hand. The last verse is mostly bad news; get your hankies ready.

  Begin (sounds like he’s singing “bacon,” but it’s “Begin”): Menachem Begin became prime minister of Israel in 1977. Not exactly bad news, but things start to go downhill in the song soon.

  Palestine: The Palestine Liberation Organization, a group dedicated to destroying Israel, was in the news.

  Terror on the airline: There were numerous aircraft hijackings.

  Ayatollah’s in Iran: In 1979, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led a revolution that took over Iran. Until then, the country had been led by the shah as a constitutional monarchy, but the revolution turned it into an Islamic republic. The shah’s regime was pretty brutal, but, as sometimes happens with revolutions, the new regime turned out to be just about as oppressive as the old one.

  Russians in Afghanistan: In the late seventies, the Soviets launched a ten-year war with Afghanistan that sort of became their Vietnam—a long, unwinnable war.

  Wheel of Fortune: Why Billy Joel thought mentioning a game show was important here in the middle of all this gloom and despair is anyone’s guess. Maybe he really hates Pat Sajak, the host.

  Sally Ride: The first American woman in space, another bit of good news amid the gloom of the last verse.

  Foreign debts: In the 1980s, the amount of money the United States owed to foreign countries skyrocketed.

  Homeless vets: Many Vietnam veterans were unable to get the care they needed for mental and physical ailments suffered in the war. A great many ended up homeless on the streets by the 1980s.

  AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome): The AIDS virus first became known to researchers in the early 1980s and became one of the greatest health problems of the twentieth century.

  Crack: Cocaine was a very popular drug among the rich. Crack cocaine, a cheaper, deadlier version of it, became popular, particularly in poor areas, in the mid-1980s.

  Bernie (Bernard) Goetz: A New Yorker who shot four people on the subway when he thought they were attacking him. The young men approached him to ask for five bucks, and he shot three of them, then shot the fourth in the spine while the boy lay on the ground. Whether Goetz had acted in self-defense became a big subject of controversy.

  Hypodermics on the shore: For years, loose environmental laws had allowed pretty much anyone to dump
pretty much anything into the ocean. This began to change when dangerous medical waste started washing up on the shore in New Jersey. Dumping it in the ocean was already illegal, but stuff like this helped wake people up to the idea that environmentalism was a real issue. The same guys Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex went right to work convincing people it wasn’t, and that the environment was just fine, so they could keep dumping garbage wherever they pleased.

  HEAVY-METAL SUICIDE

  In the mid-eighties, several heavy-metal bands were taken to court over charges that their music caused kids to worship Satan and commit suicide. Would you have let a guy in spandex and a whole lot of mascara convince you to switch religions? Legions of parents were convinced that their children were, in fact, just about that stupid.73 Never mind the fact that it didn’t make much sense for singers to want their fans to kill themselves—if their fans were dead, who would buy their records, T-shirts, and other products? Maybe we should go ask the tobacco companies, who seem to have figured that one out.

  China’s under martial law: In 1989, students rallied for democracy in China’s Tiananmen Square. China declared martial law so that it could send in tanks to remove them by force.

  Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s vice president, who had to resign after it turned out he’d been cheating on his taxes.

  Rock ’n’ roller cola wars: Throughout the eighties, Coca-Cola and Pepsi tried to outdo each other by hiring musicians to endorse their products. Coke had been the number-one soft drink in the country for decades, but Pepsi began to really cut into their market share. Coke initially tried to shake things up by changing their formula to New Coke, which tasted more like Pepsi. This is widely seen as the biggest flop since the Edsel, and they quickly scrapped New Coke and went back to the original formula. They began to recruit celebrities like Paula Abdul and Elton John to endorse Coke, while Pepsi hired Michael Jackson.

  Given just how grim the last verse of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is, it seems odd that it was the rock ’n’ roller cola wars that prompted Billy Joel to declare “I can’t take it anymore!” but, well, there you are. Other people saw the end coming due to the end of slavery, women voting, or jazz. We all have our breaking points!

  THE STUFF WE—ER?… BILLY JOEL MISSED

  MTV: The music-themed TV channel premiered August 1, 1981. Brian Eddlebeck of the Smart Aleck Staff became the first person ever to say, “MTV used to be cool, but now it sucks,” on August 2.

  The Daisy Ad: A commercial for Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign that showed a little girl plucking the petals from a daisy, followed by a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. It only aired once, but the message was clear: Vote for Johnson or the little girl gets it.

  Live Aid: A giant rock concert for charity in 1985 that did not feature Billy Joel.

  Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard shot thirteen students at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four of them, when they protested Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia in 1970. People still argue about exactly why the Guard fired on the students.

  The Exxon Valdez oil spill: A 1989 oil tanker spill that became a huge environmental disaster. The effects from it are still seen today—and as of this writing, the Exxon Valdez is still sailing.

  M.A.S.H.: A TV show about the Korean War that lasted way longer than the actual Korean War. The last episode was the highest-rated TV show ever, and will probably remain so, now that network TV shows have so many other cable channels to compete with.

  The Iran Hostage Crisis: Fifty-two U.S. citizens were held hostage for 444 days from 1979 to 1981 after Iranian students took over the U.S. embassy during the Iranian Revolution.

  PRESIDENTS BILLY JOEL MISSED!

  There were two presidents besides LBJ whom Billy Joel didn’t mention in “We Didn’t Start the Fire”:

  No one ever voted for Gerald Ford. He became vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned and took over the presidency when Nixon resigned. One of his first acts was to grant Nixon a full pardon, saving Nixon from going on trial and saving the public from having to deal with Nixon anymore. Coming from an athletic background, Ford is the only president ever to have tackled a Heisman trophy winner. He also became the only president to survive an assassination attempt by anyone known by the name Squeaky, after Lynnette “Squeaky” Fromme, a disciple of murderer Charles Manson, pointed a gun at him in 1975. The economy went down the toilet (as it tends to do from time to time) during Ford’s term, though, and his attempt to win a full term failed.

  Gerald Ford.

  Ford was the first president to be parodied on Saturday Night Live, which was a brand-new show at the time. Chevy Chase, who looked nothing like Ford, played him as a buffoon who tended to fall down a lot, which is how many people ended up remembering Ford in the years that followed.

  Jimmy Carter.

  In 1976, people were, quite understandably, sick of political “insiders,” and ended up electing Jimmy Carter, a former peanut farmer from Georgia. As president, he urged the nation to make sacrifices for the economy (he was even said to have ordered his staff to drive their own cars) and to work to save energy. At the time, the country was in the middle of an energy crisis as people realized that the supply of fossil fuels wasn’t going to last forever. Carter himself wore sweaters around the White House to stay warm and had solar heating panels installed in the White House roof. However, the economy didn’t seem to be getting any better, and Ronald Reagan beat him in a landslide in the 1980 election. Carter went on to work for human rights around the world, and spent time building houses for the Habitat for Humanity charity. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. As for the energy crisis … well, thank goodness that’s over, huh?

  Jimmy Carter claimed to have been attacked by a mysterious swimming rabbit once while he was fishing. No one believed him until this picture turned up.

  END-OF-CHAPTER QUESTIONS

  MULTIPLE CHOICE

  1. The story of Richard Nixon was

  A tragedy.

  A farce.

  A romantic comedy.

  Both a and b.

  (ANSWER: WE’RE GOING WITH D.)

  2. Air-raid drills in school:

  Represented time that could have been spent on long division.

  At least made people feel like they were doing something to keep kids safe.

  Were excellent chances to check out the butt of the person sitting in front of you.

  All of the above.

  (ANSWER: D.)

  3. Who killed President Kennedy?

  Lee Harvey Oswald.

  The Mafia.

  The CIA.

  The KKK.

  You and me.

  (ANSWER: WE’RE GONNA GO WITH E, BECAUSE MICK JAGGER SAID SO IN “SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL,” AND WHEN MICK TALKS, WE LISTEN. ALSO, THIS ANSWER PROBABLY WON’T GET US ANY HATE MAIL.)

  4. Why was Ronald Reagan called the Teflon president?

  Because nothing could stick to him.

  Because he loved to cook.

  Because he was made from three kinds of fluorine-containing polymers and was a copyrighted brand name of the DuPont company.

  Because he was so inspirational that he was even able to inspire a nickname for Prime Minister Tony Blair of England, who was known as Teflon Tony, years before Blair even took office.

  (ANSWER: A.)

  ESSAY

  Would Robert Kennedy have won the nomination in 1968 if he had lived? Why or why not?

  Was the moon landing a good use of money or a big waste? Should we go back to the moon? How about a trip to Mars?

  How did we get past the energy crisis?

  RESEARCH

  Still another Billy Joel song, “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway),” is a sort of science fiction song about the banks foreclosing on the bankrupt city of New York, shipping all the residents down to Florida, and blowing up Manhattan. One line is “They burned the churches up in Harlem, like in that Spanish Civil War.” Were churches in the s
ection of New York known as Spanish Harlem burned during the Spanish Civil War, or is Billy just referring to how churches in Spain were burned?

  55Grandpa Carl.

  56 The lesson here: Fool around, get pregnant. We have to throw in morals like this somewhere if we want to sell any copies of this book!

  57 For the record, almost every single person who thinks this is white.

  58 We often say that it’s unfair to judge people from the past on things like race and religion according to today’s standards, but it certainly seems like Thurmond should have known better by 1948. He did have a change of heart in his later years (and he had a lot of later years. He was still in the Senate on his hundredth birthday in 2002) and made many apologies for his earlier views.

  59 If you’re following along with the Billy Joel song, you’ll notice that the line about Eisenhower actually comes later than this. We’re going a bit out of sequence, and are sooo sorry.

  60 This is a term Communists love to throw around. Pronounced boor-zhwah-ZEE, it means, loosely, “middle-class people.”