European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 20, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse Cage 16 the stars and stripes William f. Buckley Friday May 20, 1977 Frost s go with Nixon too much not enough really the Nixon Frost production i High television. Ii absolutely demonstrates the indispensability of the medium. The program was to a considerable extent a visual experience Reading the transcript is not enough. Nixon is. As Garry wills wrote utmost 10 years ago. Probably the most interest ing Man to have entered Public life mind Ivan the terrible was in also hut it continues to come out and nut. Extruded by David Frost with a columns comments sense of an Infinity of Supply. You gel the feeling that like Niagara Falls the Cataract could continue indefinitely a profusion of history half history cunning self service histrionics poignancy jabber Wocky. And. Cod save. Us. Even a Trace of Many hours did Frost spend on Nixon and Mao tse Tung but imagine coming away from Nixon on Mao with practically the whole of the conversation devoted to the incomparable humor of Mao tse Tung. That is on the order of he Lois recalling on television about Abelard Only that he ate grape Nuu for breakfast. And truly the infatuation Between Nixon and Mao is a fascinating thing. There was the film clip. Nixon and Pat visiting Mao in the Winter of 1976. Plucked out from the Iso lation of san Clemontz. Like Cinderella for one Day in the chinese limelight. Nixon grasping Mao with both hands. Mao was treating Nixon with such affection As is shown to him in America Only by Robert Abplanalp and Bebe Rebozo. So we Are told that Mao s sense of humor is absolutely Devilish and As evidence of the Wisdom of Mao. We Are Given this from the chairman s collected thoughts nothing is hard if one dares to scale the Edgar guest would have been embarrassed by that. In China it will fuel a whole cultural revolution. Nothing much about Taiwan. Why Divitt Frost push him on the subject All Nixon would say was that the chinese gave no express assurances that they would Deal peaceably with Taiwan. But we knew that. What we needed to know was what Nixon told Mao we would do about it if the chinese moved against Taiwan. All we got from Nixon was that it was his opinion the chinese Don t want to be involved be cause of internal but people representing the Carter administration arc going around saying that Nixon agreed to normalize after the 1972 elections and that this meant withdrawing from Taiwan. Kissinger is saying that s not True. Why was t Nixon asked or if he was. Why was that Section of the tape Cut will the bal Ance of what was filmed be shown any where at the smithsonian if so. Please advise. The human rights business. Nixon said that if he had gone about making Abig grandstand play about the right of the jews to emigrate to Israel he would have accomplished nothing. This was the Princi pal Sally of the evening at president Carter. Frost might have observed that by All accounts repression in the soviet Union has increased during the past few years which As it happened Are the years of de Tente. The High Point of liberalism in the soviet Union was reached in 1956, which As it happened was the High Point of the cold War. There is no necessary Correla Tion in either direction. Frost should have dragged this out of Nixon and let us hear directly from his lips whether he disapproves Carter s statement that the rus sians ought to live up to their Helsinki obligations. First rate stuff the characterizations of the russian leaders. Amoral too and in a sense that is As it should be. But Nixon charged into the meaning of detente and by the Lime he was through defining it it was left Wilhour any meaning Al All. He said Del Cnoc is an thai it is knowing each other thai it is settling before the Well what s new about that Eisenhower had an inter relationship had conversations did t get us into War but there was never any question in the Public mind about his feel Ings about the communists. Nixon said about Brezhnev it Al. They want a. Communist but he said nothing Al All about How they propose to achieve the communist world nothing about the rela Tive strength of the soviet Union vis a vis american strength on the Day he left office compared to the Day he took office. Then there was the charming Blooper. Nixon s polish liberation. I m an old Navy he said to validate his authority for describing the Bow 1 of a boat As its rear end. No wonder he has trouble defining detente. C Wathington Star George Vul egg roue docs Lindbergh gave magic to world in 1926 a Young poet expressed her and the Days yearning for something magi Cal even thing today has been heavy and Brown bring me a Unicorn to ride about the next year the poet and the world met Charles Lindbergh. The poet would soon be Anne Morrow Lindbergh. It is 50 years since the Day May 21, 1927 the Silvery spirit of St. Louis landed in Paris. 33 hours from Long Island s Muddy Roosevelt Field. Lindbergh s flight is a still a snapshot in the memory of a passing generation. Nostalgia is a distorting Lens and the 1920s Are bathed in the soft glow of remembered radiance. But the decade has a hard unlovely dimension. Frederick Lewis Allen called the period the Ballyhoo years Given to crazes for the Charleston crossword puzzles. Florida real sitting and Marathon dances. And news became entertainment. In 1925 Floyd Collins trapped in a Ken Tucky Cave took 18 Days to die. By the time he did. There was a tent City of journalists at the Mouth of the Cave churning out copy for a mesmerized world. That summer millions of words poured through the transatlantic Cable from Dayton term., scene of the Scopes s flight was the first elevating spectacle of the wired mos Fame is an artefact a perishable consumer product. Lindbergh s Fame was different because he was a Day when a senator Charles Curtis a Kan could endorse Lucky strike cigarettes. Lindbergh did nol Commil Les Limo Nials or movies. He was a craftsman whose Craft aviation was an end in itself. Twas a vocation in a Sci religious sense ant inc do Saint Exupero. Author of wind. Sand and stars and night flight disappeared during a flight in 1944. He has been called the Joseph Conrad of the Conrad used ships and the sea for voyages through the inner Man Saint Exupero. Like another Brilliant writer on aviation. Lindbergh was moved to mysticism by Access to the sky. But one striking thing about the Wilera Jib for Hysaw flft"15wfllhaveunisextoilets \ p6aycs. And they we become shave our sterile and never have Turc of the air is that there is so Little of it compared with the literature of the sea. It was Over in a blink of an Eye that moment when aviation stirred the Modem imagination. Aviation was transformed from recklessness to routine in Lindbergh s lifetime. The marvels of science have made Sci ence seem less marvelous. And As Man kind s capacity for Awe contracts Mankind is diminished. Consider one of the most remarkable features of the Public mind today the vanishing interest in space exploration. The average american is so jaded thai he is unmoved by the idea of exploring beyond the thin atmosphere of this tiny cinder that orbits in a Corner of a solar system in the whirl of the universe. Lindbergh was born in 1902, two years before Kitty Hawk. As a child in Minnesota automobiles were less familiar to him than were his grandmother s recollections of the Sioux uprising of 1862. Having experienced the compression of Lime and having come to question the Pace and direction of change. Lindbergh became a student of Man s pro history flying to primitive regions in advanced planes. A schoolmate asked one of Lind Bergh s children did l your father Dis cover America Well no he did a exactly. Bui he was a catalyst of the a lion s rediscovery in a frivolous decade of old Virtues in Duding bravery solitary discipline and applied knowledge. Linda Crogh died in 1974. He is buried in a grave Cul from Rock in Maui. Hawaii. His a staph reads. If i Lake the winds of the morning and dwell in the uttermost Partnof Nesea. Maui is about As far away As americ gels from Roosevell Field which is now a shopping Center. In Brendan Gill s new illustrated essay Lindbergh the last photograph Isa stunning snapshot of Young Charles alone on a raft probably on the Minnesota headwaters of the Mississippi. Several Hundred Miles South the father of Waters Hows past Hannibal to. There another boy and the american imagination Sel Outon a raft. Thai image of american adventure is recurrent and thus imperishable
