Three Men in October

            During a week in October of 1964, three men became linked forever in time. Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize on 14 October. Nikita Khrushchev was ousted as Premier of the Soviet Union on 16 October. Herbert Hoover died on 21 October. How about an old high school English  assignment: contrast and compare?

            ML King was the undisputed leader in breaking down segregation in the South. He was tireless in his non-violent protest of the treatment of blacks. In 1964, it had been 10 years since Brown v Board of Education declared separate but equal was no longer good law. But, things were moving very slowly from the equality front.

             I remember vividly an antidote concerning the situation while visiting Charlotte, NC, in 1961. My brother had recently moved there for employment in the aerospace industry after graduation from Penn State. We were shopping at a local department store and I approached a drinking fountain that had a placard over it stating “Colored”. I thought it was colored water! I did not realize different colors of folks drank from different fountains. I had to be taught.

            King ultimately lost his life over his attempts to rid the nation of segregation in all areas of life. His life was not free of controversy, but no one can deny his powerful influence over the changes that have occurred since he began his crusade to overcome racism. Not that it has been overcome, but it certainly is a giant step forward to elect the first Afro-American President last year forty years after ML King was murdered.

            Khrushchev, you will remember, was responsible for the first important shoe incident in history. The second, being the shoe hurled at GW Bush in Iraq at a press conference. At the 902^nd Plenary Session of the UN General Assembly on 12 October 1960, Khrushchev removed his shoe and banged it on the table in protest to the Philipino Delegation berating the Soviets for colonialism. With his bald head and gap toothed smile he was the sinister embodiment of the USSR. He was credited with beginning de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union. However, he was the head of an empire that sought to rule the world by force. He was the architect of the missile race and space exploration. Just one day after his tirade, the Soviets returned safely a 3 man space vehicle from a 24 hour space flight. By all accounts, the USA was at least two years behind in the space race in 1964.

              He did not bury the West militarily as he hoped but was deposed 4 years after his shoe pounding, in October of 1964. He was the antithesis of the non-violent King. He was the head of a régime that used intimidation and death itself to remain in power and control its satellite states. His object was not equality but subjugation through might and power. He was quite a contrast to rev. King. They seemed not to inhabit the same universe.

            Herbert Hoover was neither like King or Khrushchev. He was an academic, a mining engineer and author. He held the cabinet position of Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s. His first elected office was the Presidency in 1928. He was not a charismatic leader like King or a political operative like Khrushchev. He is best known for the Depression following the 1929 Stock Market Crash in October. At the beginning of the crisis he kept the government out of the recovery. However, later, he tired to move the government into ambitious programs that lead Roosevelt to claim Hoover’s policies were leading the country into socialism. Of course, when in office Roosevelt redefined the idea of socialism in the US.

            His biggest blunder may have been signing into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in June of 1930. It was designed to make American goods more productive by placing high tariffs on imports. It only exacerbated the problem, helping make the Depression a world wide problem by starting a trade war. When 1932 came around he was turned out of office with less than 40% of the vote. He was the most hated man in America and his inability to correct matters lead to the beginning of “bigger government” that only has become bigger over the years. Unlike King and Khrushchev, the Baby Boomers understanding of Hoover is not experiential but historical, mediated by written accounts and passions, prejudices and experiences of family that lived through the Depression.

            In October 1964, right when fall school activities are in high gear, news broke concerning 3 very different men who affected the Class of ’65 and the world they live in. Nikita Khrushchev forced the US to spend billions on nuclear weapons and the space race, expenditures that could have been used for positive domestic programs or not at all resulting in less revenue required by the government from the governed.  Martin Luther King, through non-violent means, required the US to face the fact that fact of racial discrimination. That, of course, led to the Civil Rights Act of the same year. Herbert Hoover who was an agent, either intentionally, unintentionally or both, of change in way government became involved in the economy of the country that continues to be debated to this very day.