Politics, music, and fashion
by Victoria Lucas
No.
No, no, no, no. no. I don’t believe it, can’t believe it, am not going to believe it.
Paul McCartney
Continue reading [May 24, 1970] Let It Be (The Beatles break up)
Tune in tonight at 7PM Pacific for a very funny and excellent episode of Science Fiction Theater!
by Erica Frank
Timothy Leary's exhortations to "turn on, tune in, drop out" have found their limits:
You can't turn on if your every breath is filled with poison.
You can't tune in if you are surrounded by industrial cacophony.
You can't drop out of living on Earth: Science fiction plans notwithstanding, it's the only planet we have.
Before we can live in harmony with nature and each other, we need to address the damage we have done and undo the harms to the land, the sea, the sky that sustain us.
That's what Earth Day is about: A day of protest against industrial waste and environmental toxins. A day of celebration of the world we share and the peace we hope to build in the future. A day of education and cooperation, of hard truths and hopeful plans, of turning fear and anger into new relationships and useful actions.
Smog is also not healthy for children and other living things. Part of the goal of Earth Day is to bring the energy of anti-war protests to protecting our environment.
Image by Another Mother for Peace (AMP), an anti-war activist group.
Continue reading [April 24, 1970] Save Our Ailing Planet (Earth Day: April 22)
by Gideon Marcus
A little over half a century ago, the actions of two ships changed the entire course of human events.
SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau bombarding Phillipeville on the French-Algerian coast (W. Malchin, 1915)
In 1912, two warships of the German Kriegsmarine were stationed in the Mediterranean. The battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau, in the event of war, were to raid French shipping between Africa and Europa. When war broke out between Austria-Hungary and Serbia on July 28, 1914, the vessels were in the Adriatic port of Pola. Admiral Souchon, commander of the German duo, decided he didn't want to be bottled up, so he took his ships to the central Mediterranean and waited for orders.
They arrived: head east for the Aegean Sea and ultimately the Dardanelles, the strait on which Turkish Istanbul was situated. There, Souchon was to offer the two modern vessels to the aging and inefficient Ottomans. In return, the Sultan would bring Turkey into The Great War on the side of the Central Powers.
Thus ensued a grand chase, which the British lost. The rest is history.
But what if Souchon had been given different orders? What if the British had had different priorities? Such are the What Ifs that compelling parallel universes are made of—and the subject of the newest game to arrive in the magazine Strategy & Tactics.
The Game
Continue reading [April 4, 1970] Twixt Scylla and Charybdis (S&T's The Flight of the Goeben)
by David Levinson
Counting coups
March saw not one, but two attempts to overthrow the established government in smaller countries. One failed, but the other looks like it may have succeeded.
Cyprus is the island south of Turkey, west of Syria, north of Egypt
Cyprus is a troubled nation. The populace is divided between those of Greek and Turkish decent, and the long-running hostility between Greece and Turkey spilled over to Cyprus. When the island sought independence from the United Kingdom, Greek Cypriots hoped for eventual union with Greece, which was not acceptable to Turkish Cypriots. The British were able to block annexation (or enosis, as it is called in Cyprus) as a condition for independence, but relationships within the island are so rocky that UN peacekeepers had to be brought in to keep the two populations from each other’s throats.
A major figure in the independence movement was Orthodox Archbishop Makarios III, who has led the country ever since. Before independence, he was a strong supporter of enosis, but was persuaded to accept that it would have to be put off as a hoped for future event. Makarios isn’t terribly popular with western leaders; he’s been a major voice in the Non-aligned Movement. Some in Washington have taken to calling him “the Castro of the Mediterranean.” In the last few years, he’s made himself unpopular at home as well. He’s taken away guarantees of Turkish representation in government and has also moved away from the idea of enosis. His justification is the Greek military coup of 1967, stating that joining Cyprus to Greece under a dictatorship would be a disservice to all Cypriots.
Archbishop Makarios III visiting the Greek royal family in exile in Rome earlier this year.
On March 8th, somebody tried to kill Makarios. His helicopter was brought down by withering, high-powered fire. Makarios was uninjured, but the pilot was severely wounded. Fortunately, nobody else was on board. At least 11 people have been arrested, all of Greek heritage and strong supporters of enosis. Given the military nature of the weapons used, some are also accusing the Greek Junta of involvement.
Meanwhile in south-east Asia, Prince Norodom Sihanouk is out as the leader of Cambodia. Like Makarios, he hasn’t been popular in the west, due to his cozy relations with both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. He’s also allowed Cambodian ports to be used for bringing in supplies for the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong, while also ignoring the use of Cambodian territory as part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Sihanouk was out of the country when anti-North Vietnamese riots erupted both in the east of the country and in Phnom Penh. Things quickly got out of hand, with the North Vietnamese embassy being sacked. By the 12th, the government canceled trade agreements with North Vietnam, closed the port of Sihanoukville to them, and issued an ultimatum that all North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces were to leave the country within 72 hours. When the demand wasn’t met, 30,000 protesters rallied outside the National Assembly against the Vietnamese.
On the 18th, The Assembly met and voted unanimously (except for one member who walked out in protest) to depose Sihanouk as the head of state. Prime Minister Lon Nol has assumed the head-of-state powers on an emergency basis. On the 23rd, Sihanouk, speaking by radio from Peking, called for an uprising against Lon Nol, and large demonstrations followed. A few days later, two National Assembly deputies were killed by the protesters. The demonstrations were then put down with extreme violence.
l: Prince Sihanouk in Paris shortly before his ouster. R: Prime Minister Lon Nol.
Where this will lead is anybody’s guess. The new government (it should be noted that the removal of Sihanouk appears to have been completely legal) has clearly abandoned the policy of neutrality and threatened North Vietnam with military action. Hanoi isn’t going to take that lying down; if the war spreads to Cambodia, will the Nixon administration expand American involvement? Add in Sihanouk urging resistance to Lon Nol and the deep reverence for the royal family held by many Cambodians, and it all looks like a recipe for chaos.
What is man
Some of the stories in this month’s IF deal directly or tangentially with what it is that makes humans human. The front cover also raises a question that we don’t have an answer to. We’ll get to that at the end; let’s look at the issue first.
Suggested by Troubleshooter. Art by Gaughan
Continue reading [April 2, 1970] Being Human (May-June 1970 IF)
by Gwyn Conaway
It’s spring of 1970, and already I feel like the winds are fierce, pushing us apart along generational and political divides. In these uncertain times, I take comfort in one universal truth: the artists will always pave the way.
The Fool, Mama Cass, and the cast of HAIR at the Aquarius Theater in Los Angeles celebrating the completion of their exterior mural.
Continue reading [March 22, 1970] Fashion: The Mystical is Going Mainstream
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
by Gideon Marcus
There ain't no Justice
It was only a few months that President Dicky tried to ram a conservative Supreme Court justice pick through the Senate to replace the seat left open by the retirement of the much laureled Chief Justice Earl Warren. Clement Haynworth's candidacy went down to defeat in the Senate on November 21 of last year.
Now up is G. Harrold Carswell, until last year, the Chief Justice of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. He was elevated to the Fifth Circuit Appellate Court last June. To all accounts, he is no less conservative than his predecessor, and he's a (former?) segregationist to boot. His jurisprudence is also lacking: 40% of his rulings were overturned on appeal! As Senator McGovern observed, "I find his record to be distinguished largely by two qualities: racism and mediocrity." Nebraska's Senator Hruska damned with faint praise in his reply, to the effect saying, "Sure he's mediocre…but don't the mediocre warrant representation, too?"
G. Harrold Carswell
But as LIFE and other outlets are noting, Nixon's soothing rhetoric thinly veils a deeply conservative agenda, cutting social programs, withdrawing from world affairs, and trying to stack the Court with allies. Carswell's nomination passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 16 of this year. We'll see if the Senate as a whole can stomach him for the Court proper.
Plus ça change
Galaxy's editor Eljer Jakobsson is like Richard Nixon (well, perhaps this is a stretch, but indulge me—I need some sort of transition here!) He is trying all of the styles at his disposal in this new decade of the 1970s and seeing what sticks. The result remains inconsistent, but not unworthy.
cover by Jack Gaughan
by Gideon Marcus
Turbulent times
Unless you've been living under a rock the past two years, you know the shockwaves from The 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago are still reverberating. The open fighting on the convention floor, the fascist polemic of Mayor Daley, the protests, the baby blue and olive drab helmets, and the crippled candidacy of the man tasked to thwart Dick Nixon from taking the White House.
Aside from the shambolic shuffle toward further embroilment in southeast Asia, two other phenomena have kept the convention in the public eye. The first is last year's neck-clutch of a movie, Medium Cool. Half drama, half documentary, Haskell Wexler's film follows a jaded Chicago news cameraman in the weeks leading up to the crisis point. Indeed (and I didn't realize this at the time), the footage of Robert Forster and Verna Bloom in and around the convention hall during the clashes, hippie vs. fuzz, Dixiecrat vs. DFL, was all shot live.
Verna Bloom, playing an emigrant from West Virginia, searches Grant Park for her lost son
If you haven't caught the film, check your local listings. It may still be running in your local cinema. Be warned: it will take you back. If you're not ready for it, you will be overwhelmed.
Robert Forster is the news man. You'll recognize Marianna Hill (Forster's girlfriend) as a guest star in Star Trek's "Dagger of the Mind"
As for the other reminder, for the past two years, the papers have kept us apprised on the trials of the "Chicago Eight", charged by the United States Department of Justice with conspiracy, crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot. They included Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale.
(in the midst of his trial, Abbie Hoffman jumped on the stage at Woodstock during the performance of The Who to protest the incarceration of White Panther poet and musician, John Sinclair—it was a trippy scene)
Abbie Hoffman: "I think this is a pile of shit! While John Sinclair rots in prison…"
Pete Townsend: "Fuck off! Get off my fucking stage!"
Pete Townsend, just after recovering the stage
The verdicts came down on February 18, a mixed bag of positive and negative news for the accused. Apparently, four folks on the jury held out until the bitter end, but eventually went with guilty for some of the charges. The verdicts were:
Davis, Dellinger, Hayden, Hoffman, and Rubin were charged with and convicted of crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot. All of the defendants were charged with and acquitted of conspiracy; Froines and Weiner were charged with teaching demonstrators how to construct incendiary devices and acquitted of those charges. Bobby Seale had already skated when his case ended in mistrial.
Six of the "Seven": (l. to r.) Abbie Hoffman, John Froines, Lee Weiner, Jerry Rubin, Rennie Davis, and Tom Hayden
So, it's jail time for five of the eight while their cases go to appeal. You can bet that these results aren't going to lessen the flames of discontent in this country, at least for the vocal minority.
From page 3 of my local paper on the 24th
Steady and staid
You wouldn't be aware of any of this turmoil if you lived under a rock and did nothing but read Analog Science Fiction. It remains a relic and deliberate artifact of a halcyon past as envisioned by editor John Campbell. The latest issue is a representative example.
by Kelly Freas
Continue reading [February 28, 1970] Revolutionaries… (March 1970 Analog)
[New to the Journey? Read this for a brief introduction!]
by Gideon Marcus
When you talk about destruction…
Two months ago, Jim Dunnigan started a revolution. He took over the wargame fanzine, Strategy and Tactics, and not only worked to revitalize it, he started the novel practice of releasing a new wargame in it every issue! Avalon Hill, the previous, undisputed king of the wargame publishers, comes out with one or two new games a year, whereas S&T plans to put out six to twelve (there are two in the current issue) of these magazine inserts in the same time—plus a whole line of regular releases. In fact, a number of them are already out as limited series test prototypes, which some of my friends are playing. Once they get through this round of testing, we should see some or all of them in a more finished form on our hobby store shelves.
Wow!
Last issue's wargame was Crete, which I was well pleased with. The two games in this issue are Bastogne, which looks very cumbersome, and a cutey called Anzio Beachhead, which we've had a lot of fun with. Let's take a look.
Reconnaissance
If the name strikes a chord, it's because we've already played a game with "Anzio" in the title—namely Anzio, which billed itself as "A Realistic Strategy Game of Forces in Italy… 1944"!
Which is funny because the game actually covers from the Salerno landings in September 1943. Anzio is a strategic game that covers the entire Italian campaign in WW2, with invasions treated very abstractly. The invasion of Anzio in January 1944 was planned as a flank of the Germany "Gustav Line", against which the Allies had stalled. The hope was that the Allies could pierce through at a weak point and destabilize the German front. Instead, the Allies were bottled up for four long months. The front didn't move again until the Allies bashed headlong into the Gustav Line, and General Mark Clark took the Anzio forces to Rome, claiming the Italian capital concurrently with the invasion of Normandy.
(This was the wrong move, strategically—by going for glory instead of providing an anvil for the Allied hammer, against which the retreating Germans would be smashed, it meant that the Italian campaign remained an agonizing meatgrinder until the end of the war.)
But that's neither here nor there. Anzio Beachhead depicts the landings and initial expansion at an operational level, covering the early part of the campaign. In fact, it's by the same fellow who designed Anzio, Dave Williams. Here's what Jim Dunnigan has to say about it:
"Anzio Beachhead was seen as another situation like the Bulge, where the attacker had a rapidly declining edge. The original American commander was not bold, and lost. So the idea with Anzio Beachhead was to explore the what if's. At that time, I had been working on designing games for about eight years (since I first discovered the Avalon Hill games.) Before that, I was always interested in the details of history, and how they were connected. Avalon Hill wargames were the first time I saw someone else thinking the same way, and doing it in a novel way. I was always building on that."
"I had been designing a similar game, called Italy, which incorporated the rest of the Italian theater, with a smaller scale map of the Anzio area (ie, two interrelated games, one strategic and the other operational). But when Dave's game came in I thought it did a better job of the Anzio section. We had come up with some of the same solutions, and his game was more compact and suitable for the magazine."
Vital Statistics
Continue reading [February 4, 1970] To Rome, with love (SPI's wargame, Anzio Beachhead)
by David Levinson
Back in 1967, a radio producer by the name of Murray Woroner came up with the idea of using a computer to work out who the best heavyweight fighter of all time is. He polled 250 boxing writers and came up with a list of 16. He then worked closely with a programmer to input everything that could be determined about each boxer into a computer.
Match-ups were set up as a single-elimination tournament to be broadcast as a series of radio plays. Each fight was run through an NCR 315 computer the night before broadcast to create a blow-by-blow account of the fight. Woroner and boxing announcer Guy LeBow would then “call” the fight as if it were really happening. In the end, Rocky Marciano beat Jack Dempsey and was awarded a championship belt worth $10,000.
The arbiter, an NCR 315.
Ali was not happy. The computer had him losing in the quarter finals to Jim Jeffries, a boxer he has little respect for. He sued for defamation of character, asking for $1 million. They settled when Ali agreed to take part in a filmed version of a computerized fight between him and Marciano in return for $10,000 and a cut of the box office.
Last year, Ali and Marciano got together and sparred for over 70 rounds, filming a few different versions of events that the computer might predict. Marciano dropped 50 pounds and wore a toupee so he’d look more like he did in his prime. Ali probably had to get back in shape too, since he’s been banned from boxing for refusing induction into the army. Instinct seems to have taken over for both men. Ali bloodied Marciano’s nose and opened cuts over his eyes (Rocky always bled easily); at one point, Ali was so exhausted he refused to go back into the ring (until he got another $2,000) and could barely raise his arms enough to eat breakfast the next day. Filming ended just three weeks before Marciano was killed in a plane crash last Labor Day.
Armed with hours of footage and the top secret computer result, Woroner and his team put together a film they dubbed The Super Fight. On January 20th, it aired in 1,500 theaters in the US, Canada, and Europe via closed-circuit television, with viewers paying a whopping $5.00 a head.
How did it turn out? Ali is not happy. The computer had him knocked out in the 13th round. He’s talking about another defamation suit. Maybe he’ll change his mind when he finds out that was only in the US and Canada. European viewers saw Ali win by TKO. The producers are also talking about destroying all the prints.
Movie poster for the event. That “LIVE!” is a little deceptive, which is something else Ali is complaining about.
It’s a rather science-fictional concept we’ve seen in other guises. Maybe Murray Woroner got his original idea from the Star Trek episode “A Taste of Armageddon.” Of course, any statistician will tell you that a single simulation doesn’t really say anything. Rolling a die once doesn’t tell you if it’s fair; it takes hundreds or thousands of repetitions to determine that. But when the computer needs 45 minutes to determine the events of one match, this is the best that can be expected. For now.
Not what it looks like
Authors like to counter readers’ expectations. It’s a good way to evoke a response, particularly in a genre that has a fair number of cliches and formulas. Sometimes, the surprise comes from the author doing something that’s not what you expect that particular writer to do or say. This month’s IF offers some of both.
Art actually for “SOS,” rather than just suggested by. Maybe because it’s by Mike Gilbert, not the overworked Jack Gaughan.
Continue reading [February 2, 1970] Deceptive Appearances (March 1970 IF)
by David Levinson
A less perfect union
Unions have been a positive for workers. They’re why we have the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, paid time off, why blue collar workers are able to buy a house, not to mention not owing their soul to the company store; I’m old enough to remember when none of those things were a given. Of course, as human institutions, they are also flawed, and where money and power flows, those flaws can turn to worse things. That’s what gives many politicians—and the editor of a certain science fiction magazine—a pretext to rail against them.
One of the most important unions this century has been the United Mine Workers of America. Much of that stems from the four decades of leadership by John L. Lewis, who died last June. Lewis took a well-earned retirement in 1960 and was replaced by his vice president Thomas Kennedy. Old and in poor health, Kennedy was largely a caretaker and was soon followed by Lewis’ chosen successor, W.A. “Tough Tony” Boyle.
Lewis ran the UMWA with an iron fist, ignoring demands by the rank-and-file for a greater say in the union. He maintained his power through skill, charisma, and reputation. Boyle has run things with a similar style, but lacks most of what kept Lewis in charge. There’s even a feeling among the membership that he tends to favor the interests of the mine owners over the workers.
Enter Joseph “Jock” Yablonski. He was one of the leading figures in the opposition to Boyle’s policies. He had also been the president of the UMW’s District 5 until Boyle unilaterally stripped him of office in 1965. Last May, Yablonski announced he would challenge Boyle for the UMW presidency in the December election and was formally nominated in September. Boyle won the election on December 9th by an almost 2-to-1 margin, and Yablonski conceded. However after seeing the detailed election results, Yablonski promptly asked the Department of Labor to investigate the election. On the 18th, he also filed five civil lawsuits in federal court against the UMW over a variety of irregularities.
On January 5th, Yablonski’s older son, Kenneth, discovered the bodies of Yablonski, his wife Margaret, and their 25-year-old daughter Charlotte in their home in Clarksville, Pennsylvania. The next day 20,000 miners in West Virginia staged a one-day wildcat strike in protest against Tony Boyle, who they believe is responsible for the murders. Hours after the Yablonskis were buried, several of his supporters met with his attorney to plan further actions to reform the union.
As I write, the police have no leads. A $60,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction. I don’t want to point any fingers without evidence, but an awful lot of people close to Yablonski are looking hard at Tony Boyle and the acrimony surrounding last month’s election.
Corrupt institutions
Most of this month’s Venture is given over to the new Keith Laumer novel, which spends quite a while with miners. But it and the other stories in the issue deal with corruption, both institutional and personal.
A not very representational image for Laumer’s new story. Art by Bert Tanner
Continue reading [January 14, 1970] Root Rot (February 1970 Venture)
![[May 24, 1970] Let It Be (The Beatles break up)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Beatles_-_Abbey_Road.jpg)
![[April 24, 1970] Save Our Ailing Planet (Earth Day: April 22)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/700424_3-EarthDayPoster-672x372.jpg)
![[April 4, 1970] Twixt Scylla and Charybdis (S&T's <i>The Flight of the Goeben</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/700404goeben-672x243.jpg)
![[April 2, 1970] Being Human (May-June 1970 <i>IF</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/IF-1970-05-Cover-472x372.jpg)
![[March 22, 1970] Fashion: The Mystical is Going Mainstream](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Mama-Cass-the-Fool-HAIR-party-1-672x372.png)
![[March 8, 1970] They say that it's the institution… (April 1970 <i>Galaxy</i> and the incomplete Court)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/700308galaxycover-412x372.jpg)
![[February 28, 1970] Revolutionaries… (March 1970 <i>Analog</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/700228analogcover-665x372.jpg)
![[February 4, 1970] To Rome, with love (SPI's wargame, <i>Anzio Beachhead</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/700204art-672x372.jpg)
![[February 2, 1970] Deceptive Appearances (March 1970 <i>IF</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/IF-1970-03-Cover-479x372.jpg)
![[January 14, 1970] Root Rot (February 1970 <i>Venture</i>)](https://galacticjourney.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Venture-1970-02-Cover-483x372.jpg)