by Ed Bethune
Marlene did a good job. We were impressed with a young black man named Leroy Williams. He was an honor student at Hall High School, and all his teachers and friends gave him strong recommendations. I nominated Leroy and the committee selected him. He entered the page program in Washington, D.C., and we got good reports from the managers of the program, at least for the first few months.
Then, in a shock to everyone that knew him, Leroy suddenly became unstable and alleged that a number of members of Congress were making homosexual advances to pages. It was national news for a few days until Leroy recanted his personal claims and admitted that he was lying about what he had alleged. Nevertheless, the speaker of the House launched a major investigation of the page program and it was a good thing that he did. The lead investigator, Joe Califano, quickly confirmed that Leroy’s allegations were false but his investigation did reveal abuses. Gerry Studds, a Democrat of Massachusetts admitted having sexual relations with a seventeen-year-old male page and Dan Crane, a Republican of Indiana, admitted having sexual relations with a seventeen-year-old female page. The House of Representatives voted to censure both members. Speaker Tip O’Neil called them to the well of the House and read the censures. Dan Crane faced the speaker and apologized. He was defeated in the next election. Gerry Studds turned his back to the speaker and refused to apologize. His constituents re-elected him.
I was done with the page program.
36
CHINA THEN, CHINA NOW
The man who removes a mountain begins by
carrying away small stones.
Chinese proverb
When I was a little boy, everyone said China was our friend and that Chiang Kai-shek was a good leader but after World War II a revolution ousted the generalissimo, the country converted to communism and China—led by a hard-liner, Mao Zedong—began a dalliance with Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union.
Just five years later, a new war in Korea—euphemistically called a police action—was not going well for the United States. The Chinese, our allies during World War II, had intervened in support of our enemy, North Korea. On November 1, 1950 hordes of bugle-blowing Chinese infantry swarmed around the flanks and over the defensive positions of United Nations forces, mainly troops of the U. S. Army and the U. S. Marine Corps. Our troops fought extreme cold and isolation, barely avoiding disasters at Chongchon River and the Chosin Reservoir. There was talk of using atomic weapons to regain the offensive and on April 10, 1951, President Harry Truman—after a rancorous public disagreement over how best to proceed—relieved General Douglas MacArthur from his position as commander of all United Nations forces.
Truman’s curt dismissal of the long-time military leader—a hero to most Americans—created a storm of controversy that led to a rare invitation for the old general to appear before a Joint Session of Congress to explain his side of things.
I was fifteen years old on April 19, 1951, the day my homeroom teacher herded our class into the school auditorium at Little Rock Senior High School to hear a radio broadcast of MacArthur’s speech. The general outlined the need for a global strategy to fight communism and cautioned us not to appease Red China, but the main thing everyone remembers is his famous closing line, “Old soldiers never die—they just fade away.”
Two years later, on July 27, 1953, the opposing forces in Korea signed an armistice creating a Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea. The tension in Korea subsided and things were relatively quiet when I boarded a troopship to go there in December of 1954, but the fear of international communist expansion—The Domino Theory—had taken deep root in America.
In 1972—the year I ran for attorney general—President Richard Nixon, a strong anti-communist made an out-of-character visit to China, met with Chairman Mao and began the process of normalizing relations. However, China did not shake off the constraints of communism and begin its ascendancy as a world economic power until Mao died in 1976 and Deng Xiaoping became the de facto leader of the country in 1978.
Deng opened up China to capitalist ideas, planting the seeds for a run of prosperity that continues to this day. He fought off opposition to his capitalist ideas with an old proverb from his native Sichuan: ‘’It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.’’
Five years after Deng took power, in March of 1983, Lana and I were part of a congressional delegation to the mainland of China. We made two stops in communist controlled territory—Shanghai and Bejing—and ended our trip with a visit to capitalist Hong Kong when it was still under British control.
It was a rare opportunity—almost laboratory conditions—to compare communism to capitalism. Deng’s reforms were just getting started, but he was confidently predicting better things to come: “When our thousands of Chinese students abroad return home, you will see how China will transform itself.”
Lana recorded the stark differences of the two systems in a letter she wrote to my mother in April of 1983.
Dear Grandmother:
… when we landed in Shanghai there were only three airplanes at the airport … there were only buses, bicycles and walkers on the streets … we saw pull-carts piled high with cabbages and fresh vegetables and all the people were wearing dull grey, blue, or green Mao jackets and pants. Our stay at the hotel, the run-down Jing Jang, was as if stepping back in time—worn-out overstuffed sofas and chairs with lace shawls over them, and frazzled Chinese rugs on the floor. Even so, the hotel was upscale compared to the living conditions afforded to most Chinese … no heat, no running water or toilet facilities, only a porcelain pot … bamboo poles hanging out of windows strung with the laundry. … It is rare to see foreigners … the faces of the people tell a story of a hard life … the lines in the old faces show sadness … it was the same in Bejing and on the road to and from the Great Wall of China …
After the dismal sites of Shanghai and Bejing, we arrived in Hong Kong … what a contrast! We saw what the Chinese people can do when the yoke of communism is taken off … bustling enterprise and colorful signs … a hubbub of commerce from street vendors … new buildings … heavy car, truck, and bus traffic … people going in and out of haute couture stores that were making and selling the latest western fashions. Everywhere we looked there seemed to be an endless array of fancy hotels and restaurants. Some Chinese were in traditional attire, but most were in Western dress….
When we left Hong Kong, Lana and I agreed that the entire mainland could be like Hong Kong if China continued Deng Xiaoping’s reforms.
The China story—just from the time I was a child—shows how quickly things can change on the world stage. My recitation of the last sixty years is by no means complete, but it does hit the high spots. The once impoverished Chinese, subjugated for years by the Japanese, then by the heavy hand of communism, are now on the rise. They have serious issues resulting from their rapid growth and from the continued oppression of their people, but many experts predict China will surpass the United States as an economic power by the year 2020. It is instructive to note that as I write this memoir, the United States of America is nearly $14 trillion in debt, and China holds twenty percent of that.
Those who doubt the miraculous transformation should compare China’s recent history with the most watched show in the history of the Olympics—the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Bejing. More than 15,000 proud Chinese participated in a four-hour ceremony that captivated the world. Various commentators called it “spectacular … spellbinding … a grand, unprecedented success.” The rich display of Chinese culture began with the intense beating of Fao drums. A seemingly endless parade of Chinese in dazzling costumes followed the drummers and the ceremony ended with a famous Chinese gymnast, suspended by an intricate system of wires, making a full lap of the stadium high in the air.
There are excellent videos at http://en.beijing2008.cn/ceremonies.
From time to time, I pull out the photos that I took on our visit to Bejing and Shanghai in 1983 and compare them
with what is going on now. Two of my old photos are worth a thousand words. One shows a Chinese peasant riding a beat-up tri-cycle that he had converted into a street-sweeper. The contraption had a rotating brush and a homemade catchment device, and it seemed to do the job. The other shows a very wide street with no cars but hundreds of people walking and riding bikes, a common scene throughout Bejing and Shanghai in 1983.
The very latest street-sweeping equipment. Bejing, March 1983.
37
BLUE WATER DREAM REALIZED
God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them.
Anonymous
In May of 1983, I borrowed two items from fellow sailors for our first blue water sailing trip. Congressman Stan Parris of Virginia loaned us an inflatable life raft, and Congressman Jim Martin of North Carolina loaned us his Loran receiver, a pre-GPS navigational device.
I was suffering from head and chest congestion, a persistent condition that was not responding to medication, but we were determined to get underway as soon as we had a free week. Our plan was to sail to the north end of the Chesapeake, traverse the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, and sail down the Delaware Bay to Cape May, New Jersey where we would enter the Atlantic Ocean.
We provisioned Salute, mounted the life raft, rigged up the Loran, and departed in early June. We got to Cape May on the second day, but it was late at night because Delaware Bay was choppy and the wind was on our nose. The first leg of our trip was rough, but the fresh salt air did what the medicines had failed to do. My head and chest were clear of congestion, another reason to go sailing. We dropped the anchor and got a few hours sleep.
Our big moment came with the sunrise. We headed out of Cape May inlet into the Atlantic Ocean bound for Rhode Island. Our track would take us northeast across the busy shipping lanes that lead in and out of New York Harbor. The weather forecast was good. Our little boat was slow, but with fair winds, we could make landfall in a couple of days. Everything went according to plan until midday when the wind lay down and the waves flattened out. Salute was pulsing up and down on a sea as slick as glass. It was stifling hot and we could do nothing about it. We were becalmed, prisoners to the odd rhythms of a sea without wind. We took down our sails and waited, and waited. Soon we saw a number of black fins slowly cutting a meandering path around our boat. The distinctive fin shape was unmistakable. It was an eerie experience but it did not frighten us. We felt safe on Salute. Nevertheless, we double-checked the lashings on our life raft.
It is one thing to be becalmed on the Chesapeake when you know you are only a few miles from land, but it is quite another to sit well offshore not knowing when the wind will pick up. Eventually, the sun went down so we decided to enjoy a nice dinner and go to bed.
The calm lasted all night and I awoke to a humming sound that was getting louder by the minute. I poked my head out of the hatch and saw a huge transport loaded with stacks of containers steam by us at full speed. The noise that woke me was the propeller of the transport; it came that close to us. The wake of the vessel was the next thing to hit Salute, and that woke Lana. We made a new resolution: When in or anywhere near the shipping lanes, someone must stay awake to keep watch.
It was late morning before the wind piped up. Waves replaced the glassy surface and the shark fins disappeared, or at least were out of sight. We hoisted the sails and got underway. It was obvious, due to the time we were becalmed, that we would have to spend another night, perhaps two more nights at sea.
The waters between Cape May and Rhode Island are heavily trafficked, but we saw only two other vessels before nightfall. One was a motor yacht heading south, and the other was what appeared to be a garbage scow headed out to sea.
Our second night at sea brought another new experience, lightning, lots of lightning. It was scary at first, but realizing there was nothing we could do about it, we enjoyed it as we would enjoy a fireworks display. When the lightning storm ended, the night was pitch-dark and there was no wind. We decided we needed to make up some time so we started up our little fifteen-horsepower Lister diesel engine. I was a little woozy so Lana took the helm and steered a course of 040°. I went below to get some sleep, and absolutely lost track of time. When I woke up five hours later, there was Lana hovered over the tiller steering 040°. I was slightly ashamed that I had left the hard work to her, but I was extremely proud of her for toughing it out. Sailing is hard work anytime, but it is doubly hard when you are on the ocean because there is no let up and you are on your own.
With daylight and a fresh breeze, we raised the sails and kept our northeast heading. The Loran was showing that we would soon reach Block Island, but at our slow pace it would be well after dark before we got there. We had hoped to make our land-fall in daylight, but after two rough nights, we were eager to finish our first blue water trip. Everything was going well. When it got dark we were still twenty miles southwest of Block Island, the patch of land that guards the water between Long Island Sound and the Narragansett Bay leading into Newport, Rhode Island.
Our short trip into blue water had already taught us about tanker traffic, sharks, and lightning. Now we were about to experience the scariest hazard of all, and we were unprepared for it.
In early summer when the temperature of the sea is still cold, warm land air may move over the cold sea causing fog to form. Before we knew it, we were in fog, thick fog. The wind was gone again and there we were, in the dark, blinded, and still fifteen miles southwest of Block Island.
Salute was not equipped with radar and we had no experience sailing in fog, but we did have a radar reflector mounted on the top of the mast and we had a loud electric foghorn.
We could barely see the navigation lights on the bow of our little boat; the fog was that thick. We could do nothing but pray, turn on the foghorn, and forge ahead. I monitored the Loran and our chart every five minutes to verify our course line.
We had a scary moment as we entered the high traffic area between Montauk Point and Block Island, about five miles from the inlet to Salt Pond, the shallow protected place where we hoped to anchor. We heard the foghorn of another vessel, but we could not see a thing. The horn got louder and louder and it was impossible to tell from which direction the sound was coming. At one moment it seemed to be behind us and seconds later we were certain it was dead ahead. Finally, we thought we heard the sound of engines—maybe it was our imagination—and suddenly the foghorn seemed farther away. We turned our attention to finding the inlet with the aid of the Loran. We still could not see beyond the bow of our boat so the Loran would have to guide us to the inlet. We seemed to be on course but the figures on the Loran showed us to be only fifty yards from the inlet. We began to get nervous—where were the lights marking the entry to Salt Pond? Our depth meter indicated we were getting into shallow water, but we still could not see the lights. Were we on course? Were we about to hit bottom? Was the Loran accurate? We were about to go nuts when we saw the lights, the red was 90° to starboard and the green was 90° to port. That meant we were actually in the inlet before we saw the entrance lights on the breakwaters.
We were safe. We continued into Salt Pond and carefully maneuvered our way around and between scores of boats already at anchor. It was midnight when we found a spot and dropped our anchor. Within minutes, we were in the bunk sound asleep.
The next day we launched our dinghy and went ashore to explore Block Island. Our first blue water voyage was behind us. We had made many mistakes and were lucky to survive the hazards we encountered, but we were proud of what we had accomplished. That evening at sunset, we were sitting in a restaurant overlooking the Atlantic and I said to Lana, “You know I have been in the Marine Corps, the FBI, and Congress and I have done a number of adventurous things with men-friends, but this has been the greatest adventure of my life, and I shared it with you.” We both tuned up a little bit. It was a great moment.
We spent one more night in Salt Pond and the next day we headed to nearby Newport, where we met a friend fro
m Arkansas, Don Mehlburger, who had a thirty-eight-foot Swan sloop-rigged sailboat that he kept there. We stayed a couple of days in Newport and then we moved Salute to Buzzards Bay and left her on a mooring near the entry to the Cape Cod Canal. It was time to head back to Washington and a full schedule of work for the next six weeks.
The Congress takes off in August. It had been my practice to spend all that time at home tending to the needs of my constituents, but I had not taken a serious vacation since my election to Congress in 1978 and we needed a break. I decided to devote the entire month of August 1983 to a blue water exploration of the New England states. We would sail to Maine. Our daughter, Paige, decided to go with us, so as soon as Congress adjourned, the three of us headed to Buzzards Bay.
We spent a day provisioning Salute and checking all our systems, and then we dropped the mooring line and headed north where the top of Buzzards Bay narrows and feeds into the Cape Cod Canal, which leads to Cape Cod Bay. When we entered the canal, we had our first serious lesson with tidal currents. The tidal range and currents in the Chesapeake Bay are modest, and through sheer luck, we did not have much trouble with currents on our trip down the Delaware Bay. Our trip through Cape Cod Canal was different. The two greatest dangers facing boaters in the canal are swift currents and the high volume of recreational and large commercial traffic. The current can reach a velocity of six knots, and it changes direction every six hours. Our little fifteen horsepower engine would give us about five knots per hour in no current, but that was the best we could get her to do. It is theoretically possible for an underpowered boat to go backwards in such a current. A seasoned mariner would have checked the tide and current tables and waited for a favorable current. Had we done that, the ten-mile trip through the Canal could have been a piece of cake, but we picked a bad time. When we entered the canal, the tidal current was running against us, and it took us a little over three hours to go ten miles, the length of the canal. Ignorance is bliss; our transit of the canal could have gotten ugly, but we finally made it to the Cape Cod Bay. It was a fortunate beginning to the second leg of our blue water cruise to Maine.