Greg Mitchell's Blog

Didn't know Bruce did virtually my favorite Clash song on recent tour...with Morello.

Bruce Springsteen's memoir coming out later this month, as further competition for my upcoming book (ha, ha), and they've just released an interesting trailer, see below.  Included are some images from his career--including one from the first major piece ever about him from Crawdaddy in January 1972, created by, ahem, yours truly, helping out Peter Knobler.    Of course, I am a tad bit interested in how Bruce will picture those early days.  (And he wrote the preface for my book on Iraq war, So Wrong for So Long.)  Below the trailer, see my own little video from a few years back on how we met "Brucie" in...Sing Sing Prison.  Plus, my recent post on how Bruce helped bring down the Berlin Wall.

Van Morrison--or more properly, these days, Sir George Ivan Morrison--turned 21 today.  There are those of us--Greil Marcus may be another--who think Van Morrison's cult classic Veedon Fleece, released exactly 40 years ago, might be his greatest album.  Here's just one "highlight."  Ain't it lonely, livin' with a gun?  And then one of his all-time greats, "Streets of Arklow."

The NYT has posted its coming Sunday Magazine piece on the making of the Oliver Stone movie about Edward Snowden.  Ollie wants a "hit."  Edward wanted "approval."  And so on. 

 According to Wizner, Snowden met with Stone only to make sure that the film told an accurate story. “It’s been us walking this tightrope between clearly not having any formal connection to the project — not deriving any benefit from it — and also not wanting to just be completely helpless and, you know, see what Oliver Stone comes up with,” Wizner said. Despite some initial discomfort, he was tentatively optimistic. “Maybe it’ll be good,” Wizner added. “You know, Oliver Stone wrote ‘Scarface.’ ”

Just a reminder that Crown has launched a cool site devoted to my upcoming book The Tunnels, and I have been blogging there, related to that, while continuing on other subjects here.  It includes videos, photos, excerpts from the book and posts derived from it (including U2 and Springsteen and an MGM drama), and naturally the latest early acclaim for the book and blurbs from well-known writers.  Thanks for checking it out, right here.

Early reviews keep pouring in--based on galleys of book some have received.  Thirteen very positive now up at Amazon, but perhaps my favorite--because written by someone in Berlin the day the Wall went up--just posted at Library Thing.
*

I was pleased when I received a pre-publication review copy of Greg Mitchell's book "The Tunnels: Escapes under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill" for very personal reasons: I arrived in Berlin from the eastern Idaho family farm as a nineteen year old missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) on July 6, 1961, a month and a week before the Wall went up.

On Sunday morning, August 13, 1961, I and my companion spent the day riding our bikes along the perimeter of East Berlin, watching with amazement and consternation as the Wall of Shame was being built. We ended the day at the Brandenburger Tor and witnessed the anger, the frustration, the bewilderment of the citizens of West Berlin as they demonstrated in front of the Tor, screaming at the VoPos, the water cannons, the gun implacements on top of the Tor beneath the Quadrigga -- and yes, at the lack of action by the Allies.

I left Berlin on December 21, 1963, having witnessed the impact of the Cuban Missle Crisis on West Berlin, the famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech given by President Kennedy in front of the Shoeneberger Rathaus, and the sorrow of West Berlin when Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963.

In reading Mitchell's book, it all came back to me in a rush. Mitchell's focus was on the tunnels under the Wall during the first two or three years after the Wall was built, with specific details about what he refers to as the CBS Tunnel and the NBC Tunnel. But he adds to the narrative a richness of detail, much historical background and insightful character sketches of the main players in such a way that the reader can't help but feel he is reliving a human tragedy. Wall of Shame it was indeed!

The shame is also on the side of the Allies of the time - the British, the French and, most especially, the Americans. After Kennedy made significant changes in the plan to invade Cuba, developed under the Eisenhower administration, and thus guaranteeing its total failure, and then being spanked by Russia in the Vienna conference, he allowed Khruschchev to rightly guess that Kennedy, the liberal idealist, would not know how to, nor have the desire to, play hard ball in the Cold War.  Sabre rattling, threats, then the Wall, then the Cuban Missile Crisis -- all were invited by Kennedy's weak foreign policy. Granted, he has received much praise for bringing the Cuban Missile Crisis to an end without war and without sacrificing West Berlin, but long after the American People learned of the secret side deal Kennedy had made to accomplish this - the removal of nuclear arms from Turkey. Mitchell brings all of this into play and demonstrates how it all had an effect on West Berlin.

And all the while, a few brave and determined Fluchthelfer were devoting their lives to bringing freedom seekers from East Berlin and East Germany to the West through tunnels, in automobiles, across the Wall in broad daylight - any way that seemed possilbe. And MItchell captures it all well in his new book. ( )

Just a reminder that Crown has launched a cool site devoted to my upcoming book The Tunnels, and I have been blogging there, related to that, while continuing on mainly other subjects here.  It includes videos, photos, excerpts from the book and posts derived from it (including U2 and Springsteen and an MGM drama), and naturally the latest early acclaim for the book.  Thanks for checking it out, right here.

Lucinda Williams, whose new double-lp is great, does Neil Young's "Rockin in the Free World" live.   Then another one of my favorite songs, from the late Chris Whitley.  (Now has well-known daughter Trixie.)

As I've noted in many previous posts--and in my book Atomic Cover-up --the U.S. after dropping the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki was confronted with a worldwide publicity (not to mention,  moral) problem:  reports from Japan of a mysterious new disease afflicting survivors of the twin blasts.  Some there were already dubbing it "radiation disease," which was what our bomb-makers and policy-makers expected--but still, officials and most in media in U.S. mocked the idea.  No one from the West had yet reached either city.

Seventy-one years ago this week one of the most remarkable conversation of the nuclear took place. (See partial transcript.)

Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project (with J. Robert Oppenheimer, above), had received a telex the day before from Los Alamos, as scientists asked for information on those reports from Japan. Groves responded that they were nothing but "a hoax" or "propaganda."  The top radiation expert at Los Alamos also used the word "hoax."  Knowing that the press would be seeking his official response, Groves called Lt. Col. Charles Rea, a doctor at Oak Ridge hospital (part of the bomb project).  According to the official transcript, Rea called the reports of death-by-radiation "kind of crazy" and Groves joked, "Of course, it's crazy--a doctor like me can tell that."

But Groves knew it wasn't crazy and he grew agitated as he read passages from the Japanese reports.  He even asked if there was "any difference between Japanese blood and others."  Both men ultimately seized on the idea that everything was attributable to burns--or "good thermal burns," as Rea put it.  Groves replied, "Of course we are getting a good dose of propaganda"--and blamed some of our scientists and our media for some of that.  Groves revealed, "We are not bothered a bit, excepting for --what they are trying to do is create sympathy."

But Rea surely knew they were merely denying reality, admitting finally, "Of course, those Jap scientists over there aren't so dumb either."  Still, in a second conversation that day with Groves, Rea advised: "I think you had better get the anti-propagandists out."  One of the great quotes of our time. 

Five days later, on a visit to Oak Ridge, Groves labelled the reports from Japan propaganda and added, "The atomic bomb is not an inhuman weapon."

Groves' top aide, Kenneth D. Nichols, would admit in his 1987 memoirs that "we knew that there would be many deaths and injuries caused by the radiation..."  Much more on the decades-long cover-up, including film footage, in my book (and see below).

Yes, it's coming, and his recent biographer Sylvie Simmons got one of the first copies, and claims on Facebook that it is "magnificent."  Nothing has leaked yet except cover, which shows Leonard, who said he would resume smoking when he turned 80 (two years ago), with a cigarette in hand--but, gentleman that he is, holding it outside a window (or picture frame, it's hard to tell).  Anyway, here's a part of the cover song, which was used on the recent season of Peaky Blinders series.

After about ten visits to the Lenox, Ma., area in recent years--for Tanglewood, for theater, for museums, or just to get away (note, Hampton Terrace place to stay)--we finally stopped by the Naumkeag estate, on the way home, no less, this past Friday.  I don't think we had even heard about it until last month.  Anyway:  ended up staying 2 1/2 hours and getting full tour of house.   Wealthy family, obviously, but Mabel Choate was fascinating woman, and early advocate and funder of women's education.  A few of my photos below, including BB in wonderful Chinese temple site.