Tick-tock, tick-tock
Herb Block's "Mr. Atom" personification of "the
bomb" in many cartoons has reminded readers of the threat of
nuclear annihilation. Here, a new international "atomic clock"
developed by using atomic waves to provide a world standard of measurement
gives its own reminder, as the great powers fail to reach agreement
on the control of atomic energy.
Tick-tock,
tick-tock, January 11, 1949
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Published in the Washington Post (20)
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"It's the same thing without mechanical problems"
Through the Marshall Plan, the U.S. poured money into rebuilding
Western Europe after the ravages of war. Soviet dictator Joseph
Stalin refused to allow the Eastern European nations to join the
Marshall Plan and announced in its place a Council for Economic
Mutual Assistance. The Soviet Union had no intention of underwriting
the costs of recovery, and the plan existed primarily as a propaganda
device.
"It's the
same thing without mechanical problems," January
26, 1949
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Published in the Washington Post (21)
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"We've been using more of a roundish one"
President Harry Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his
Far Eastern command for publicly undercutting the president's Korean
War policies, and the general returned to Washington, where he and
Defense Secretary George Marshall provided conflicting testimonies
to congressional committees. MacArthur continued to propose more
aggressive tactics against communist China. Marshall argued that
MacArthur's tactics would draw the United States into a third world
war.
"We've
been using more of a roundish one,"
May 7, 1951
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Published in the Washington Post (30)
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Albert Einstein lived here
Herb Block pays tribute to scientist Albert Einstein, possibly
the greatest man of the twentieth century. With the rise of Adolf
Hitler and Nazism, Einstein left Germany in 1932 to move to America
where he took part in the Institute for Advanced Studies of Princeton.
He became a U.S. citizen in 1940. Einstein's theories, especially
the Special Theory of Relativity, expanded the scope of thinking,
revolutionized scientific ideas, and provided the basis for the
development and use of nuclear energy. On the basis of urgent appeals
and information from fellow scientists in Europe who knew that the
Nazis were working on the development of nuclear fission, Einstein
wrote a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that resulted
in the U.S. project to build "the bomb." The cartoon appeared
on news of Einstein's death on April 18, 1955.
Albert Einstein
lived here, April 19, 1955
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Published in the Washington Post (37)
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"However, we've been pretty successful in keeping American newspapermen
out of China"
The Suez Crisis of 1954 raised the specter of increased Soviet
interest in the oil-rich Middle East. On January 5, 1955, President
Dwight Eisenhower asked Congress for authority to provide economic
and military assistance to contain communism in the Middle East.
Some months earlier, Eisenhower's State Department, under John Foster
Dulles, banned travel by United States citizens into Communist China
despite China's offer of visas to American newsmen. Walter Lippmann
wrote: "by what right, and on what principle, does he claim
to have the power to decide how much information it is desirable'
for the American people to have?"
"However,
we've been pretty successful in keeping American newspapermen out
of China," January 6, 1957
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Published in the Washington Post (41)
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"How about one more try?"
In spring 1962, President John F. Kennedy, British Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan, and Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union were
wrestling with a formula for a nuclear test ban agreement. Kennedy
told a press conference that if an accord were not reached soon,
"the genie [might be] out of the bottle." On May 29, the
Washington Post reported that thirty-four senators
led by Senator Hubert Humphrey and Senator Thomas J. Dodd, had proposed
a ban on atmospheric and underwater testing. A limited Test Ban
Treaty was finally ratified in September 1963, the first limitation
on the production of nuclear weapons.
"How about
one more try?" May 29, 1963
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Published in the Washington Post (52)
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"All are gone, the old familiar fasces"
By 1962, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and many other military
dictators of the first part of the twentieth century had died or
been driven from power. Still grasping the reins was their ally,
General Francisco Franco whose Fascist government ruled Spain. In
the title, Herb Block modifies a Charles Lamb line, replacing "faces"
with "fasces," the word for an ax tied into a bundle of
rods that was the ancient Roman symbol for authority and later the
source for the term "fascism."
"All are
gone, the old familiar fasces," July 5, 1962
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Published in the Washington Post (50)
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Mushrooming cloud
Communist China exploded its first atomic bomb in October 1964,
and the State Department warned in February 1965 that the Chinese,
under Mao Zedong, were preparing another nuclear test. Although
the Soviet Union insisted that the Chinese tests did not pose a
threat, Herb Block's menacing, blossoming caricature of leader Mao
Zedong suggests that China's emergence as an unbridled nuclear power
was, and continues to be, a world-wide concern.
Mushrooming
cloud, April 1, 1965
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Published in the Washington Post (59)
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