United Nations

The United Nations, already six decades old, has traversed a long, strife-formed cold war. Not a superstate above the states, it collectively approaches issues of war, peace, development, and justice, and has sufficient transforming potentials to create a new, better world order.

Since the end of the cold war, it has acquired new dynamism, but at the same time it has to be restructured to cope with an emerging complex world of nation-states, various movements, and unforeseen challenges like terrorism.

The United Nations, founded in the aftermath of World War II, was established at the San Francisco Conference in 1945 on the principle of collective security. It was the successor to the League of Nations, which had been established after World War I but failed to organize world order on the principles of universality.

The United Nations, therefore, took care to avoid the mistakes of its predecessor, and five major powers were given special power and responsibility through the mechanism of "veto" power in the most important organ of the United Nations—the Security Council.


The goals of the United Nations were enshrined in the Charter: to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations, to achieve international cooperation, and to work as a harmonizer among nations. Security was the principal goal of the United Nations.

Unlike in the league, however, security was not narrowly conceived in the United Nations but was broadened to include socioeconomic justice, human rights, and development. Like the league, the United Nations was based on the principles of collective security.

The new principle on which the league and the United Nations were based does not consider security as the individual affair of states or regions but as a collective affair of all states, and aggression against one state is considered aggression against all others. All states are obliged to take collective action against the aggressor.

From The League

The UN Charter provided for six major organs, four of which evolved out of the League of Nations. The General Assembly was based on the democratic principle of "one country, one vote", irrespective of size and power, and was essentially a deliberative organ.

The countries of the Third World used the body for organizing themselves and took up issues of colonialism and racialism. The Charter provided for some supervisory functions of the General Assembly. The council and assembly had joint functions as well.

The Security Council, the most important organ of the United Nations, reflected the reality of power. The United States, the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, and China were the five permanent members with veto power and had special responsibility to maintain world peace and security.

However, veto became a mechanism of obstruction, and the Soviet Union frequently used it; while the United States did not use it in earlier years, the frequency of veto increased after 1970. The Security Council was based on the assumption that the major powers would agree on issues of war and peace, but the onset of the cold war around 1945 made the United Nations a helpless spectator.

The Charter provided for a mechanism of maintaining peace, whereby the council may call upon members states to apply sanctions against the aggressor and may form a Military Staff Committee consisting of the chief of staff of permanent members of the Security Council.

The enforcement of peace was possible in the Korean War, and a united command was formed under the United States. It placed an embargo on the export of strategic materials to China and North Korea. Subsequently the provision could not be replicated for a long time.

It was only after the closing stages of the cold war that the Security Council became effective again; consultations and coordination among the major powers in the council have been frequent, as in the Persian Gulf crisis and more recently over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

For about five decades of the cold war, the United Nations never appeared to play the role envisaged at San Francisco in the realm of peace and security; it was bypassed in major flash points across the globe, such as the Panama Canal crisis, Hungary, the Berlin blockade, the Cuban missile crisis, Arab-Israeli conflicts, the India-China border war, Vietnam and Indochina, and the Sino-Soviet border war.

The United Nations was a passive bystander as major powers professed to settle scores outside the United Nations. When the United Nations was hamstrung due to the use of veto, the General Assembly sought a way out through the Uniting for Peace Resolution to consider measures in a situation of breach of peace.

After the end of the cold war, the United Nations became more active again, although in the process it acquired new functions, in line with but not envisaged in the Charter. During the turn of the 21st century this function, known as peacekeeping—traditionally denoting acting as a buffer between contending parties or monitoring ceasefire agreements—expanded to other areas.

Now peacekeeping also means the provision of humanitarian relief, removal of mines, repatriation of refugees, and reconstruction of national infrastructure in devasted areas, such as Afghanistan.

The costs of all of these functions have been enormous, especially in recent peacekeeping operations: South Africa, Rwanda, Iraq-Kuwait, Mozambique, Somalia, Haiti, and Liberia. Sometimes the United Nations has drawn flak; the UN troops have also been targeted, as in Somalia and Bosnia.

Cooperation

Unlike during the cold war years, however, the United Nations finds cooperation among major powers to repulse aggression. In the First Gulf War, Moscow supported U.S. efforts to impose sanctions against Iraq, which had annexed Kuwait.

The machinery of the United Nations was used. Other major powers contributed troops, particularly France and Britain. Japan and Germany too accepted new security roles.

Besides war and peace, the United Nations has been instrumental in various humanitarian efforts. A large amount of credit must go to the United Nations for ending apartheid in South Africa, improving life expectancy in Africa, helping children suffering from malnutrition, and fighting diseases. It has not been as successful in the removal of global poverty, but it has launched efforts in that direction.

Now the United Nations finds itself playing a new role against international terrorism. It has not been as successful, and the United States acted unilaterally in 1998 when al-Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies in East Africa.

Subsequently, following September 11, 2001, the United States took drastic steps, and the United Nations was more involved than before; terrorism became a key issue of international and United Nations concern.

The United Nations has been moving into new, uncharted areas. In a world where millions of children die days after they are born, the issue of human rights has become a major arena of international attention.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, has been enshrined in constitutions of states. Now the United Nations has also been a force in expanding the frontiers of democracy worldwide, believing that democracy fosters world peace.

While the United Nations is engaged in redefining issues of war, peace, development, and freedom, reforming the world body has become a burning issue since the end of the cold war, and more particularly since 1998, when 185 states met to celebrate 50 years of the United Nations.

There is also demand to restructure the Security Council and to add new permanent members—with or without veto power. Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, and some African countries are key candidates demanding permanent places on the Security Council.

The major powers with vetos—the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France—themselves differ about who should be permanent members in a reformed council. Reforms are, however, necessary to make the United Nations more in tune with the changes of the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

The NATO alliance is dedicated to the maintenance of the democratic freedoms and territorial integrity of its 26 European and North American member countries through collective defense.

This alliance has been the dominant structure of European defense and security since its founding in 1949 and continues to serve as the most formal symbol of the United States’ commitment to defend Europe against aggression. Following the end of the cold war, the organization also took on a peacekeeping and stabilizing role within Eurasia.

NATO was founded with the Washington Treaty of April 4, 1949, which was signed by Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Great Britain, and the United States.


The 12 founding members were later joined by 14 others, including Greece and Turkey, which allowed the alliance to secure the Mediterranean. From the outset, NATO was intended to deter Soviet expansion into central and western Europe.

The Washington Treaty reflected the will of the signatories to further democratic values and economic cooperation, to share the obligations of defense individually and collectively, to consult together in the face of threats, to regard an attack against one member as an attack against all members, and to collectively and individually assist the victims of an attack.

The treaty also delineated the geographic boundaries of the alliance, created the North Atlantic Council to implement the treaty, made provisions for new members to join, governed ratification according to constitutional processes, and made provisions for review of the treaty.

NATO’s civil and military organization materialized during 1949–95. The basic structures developed during this period remained into the 21st century. The civilian headquarters for the North Atlantic Council (NAC), which maintains effective political authority and powers of decision in NATO, is located in Brussels, Belgium.

NATO’s secretary-general chairs the NAC and oversees the work of the International Staff (IS). Member countries maintain permanent representatives. The council serves as a forum for frank and open diplomatic consultation and the coordination of strategic, defense, and foreign policy among the alliance members.

Action is agreed upon on the basis of common consensus rather than majority vote. Twice a year the defense ministers of the member countries meet at the NAC, and summit meetings involving the heads of state of each member country occur, during which major decisions over grand strategy or policy must be made.

After the end of the cold war, the NAC was supplemented by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) as well as the NATO-Russia Joint Council. These newer bodies facilitate peaceful coordination and cooperation between NATO and the Russian Federation and other former members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact alliance.

The secretary-general of NATO also chairs the Defence Planning Committee (DPC), which is tasked with planning for the collective defense of the member countries. The DPC provides guidance to the alliance’s military authorities to improve common measures of collective defense and military integration. The DPC consists of the permanent representatives; like the NAC, the DPC also serves as a forum for meetings between the defense ministers of the member states twice a year.

The senior military representatives of the member states form the Military Committee. The Military Committee is subordinate to the NAC and consists of the chiefs of staff of the member nations, who advise the NAC on all military matters and who oversee the implementation of the measures necessary for the collective defense of the North Atlantic area.

The committee is supported by the International Military Staff (IMS), which meets twice a year at chiefs of staff level and more often at the national military representatives level. Until 2003 operational control of military forces operating under the NATO flag fell to Allied Command Europe and Allied Command Atlantic.

In 2003 NATO undertook a major restructuring of its military commands. The Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) became the Headquarters of Allied Command Operations (ACO). ACT is tasked with driving transformation in NATO and establishing future capabilities, while ACO is responsible for current operations.

Throughout the cold war NATO faced a powerful counter-alliance in the Warsaw Pact and turmoil within the organization itself. Indeed, in 1949 the alliance members could only marshal 14 divisions of military personnel against an estimated 175 Soviet divisions.

At the NAC meeting in 1952, the members established a goal of fielding 50 divisions backed up by several thousand aircraft by the end of the year and 96 divisions by 1955. Also in 1952 the alliance introduced a new strategic concept: mass conventional defense of Europe coupled with long-range nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact members.

However, the cost of raising the 96 divisions required to implement this strategy proved too great, and it was quickly abandoned. In 1953 Dwight Eisenhower put forward a new strategy, which focused more on nuclear deterrence.

The new strategy came to be known as "massive retaliation" and would have involved extensive use of nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union and eastern Europe if their forces had broken through NATO’s conventional defenses in central Europe.

Nuclear crises over Berlin and Cuba in the late 1950s and early 1960s suggested a need for a more gradual strategy than massive retaliation. President John F. Kennedy endorsed a strategy of "flexible response" in 1961–63, which favored deploying more conventional forces in central and northern Europe from both the United States and the other NATO members.

Disagreement over this new strategy led France to withdraw from NATO’s integrated military command structure in 1967. NATO adopted a new doctrine in December 1967, which endorsed a flexible conventional and nuclear response to Soviet aggression. At the same time, the NAC adopted a new grand strategy favoring stable and peaceful relations with the Warsaw Pact countries.

NATO was further challenged in the mid-1970s when the Soviet Union deployed large numbers of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe that were capable of striking all of the European NATO allies.

In response the members agreed to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in West Germany, the United Kingdom, the Low Countries, and Italy. However, a more cordial relationship between the alliance and the Warsaw Pact during the 1980s led to the dismantling of these intermediate weapons at the end of that decade.

After the end of the cold war, NATO retained several important formal and informal functions. First, it serves as a permanent and institutionalized link between the United States and an ever-growing number of European allies. In addition, it prevents the renationalization of European defense policies.

Moreover, NATO allows an institutionalized relationship with Russia and several of the former Warsaw Pact countries that have yet to join the alliance. Finally, it serves peacekeeping and stability functions in Europe and Asia.

NATO invoked article 5 of the Washington Treaty for the first time following the September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States. Many NATO countries participated in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Space Exploration

the first satellite, the Russian Sputnik, launched by rocket on October 4, 1957

Humankind’s exploration of space began in the 1950s, with the first satellite, the Russian Sputnik, launched by rocket on October 4, 1957. It was followed on November 3 by another, carrying a dog named Laika.

The United States moved into space exploration on February 1, 1958, with Explorer I. A stream of similar robotic craft followed from both countries, carrying instruments that made various important discoveries.

Early space pioneering efforts built on the works of pre–World War II inventors such as the Russian schoolmaster Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, whose writings set out the basic principles for rocket propulsion, suggested multistage vehicles, and proposed liquid hydrogen as a fuel.


In the United States, Professor Robert Goddard suggested a method for reaching the moon. Goddard built rockets too, and in 1935 successfully launched one that reached a height of two kilometers.

Rocketry in World War II saw the invention of the V2 missile, with a range of around 300 kilometers, a top speed of 6,000 KPH, and a payload of over a ton. Following the war many German rocket engineers, including Wernher von Braun, were brought to the United States, while Soviet forces captured personnel and equipment from the V2 launching site of Peenemunde.

On April 12, 1961, the Soviets again led the way with the launch of Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, into space to become the first human to leave Earth. His mission lasted 1 hour and 48 minutes; he made a single orbit of the planet. The United States countered with a Mercury space capsule carrying Alan B. Shepard on May 5.

The effects of space travel on humans were of course largely unknown. The early manned missions resulted in considerable study of the physical damage of g-force, radiation, and weightlessness.

Rapid developments in hundreds of areas followed, as spacesuits, living quarters, and methodologies for delivering food were all pioneered, along with rapid improvements in the speed, range, and payload of rockets.

The first ever man made thing to be sent to the Moon was the USSR’s Luna 2 in 1959

Meanwhile, robot explorers were recovering more data to inform manned missions. The first probe to journey to the Moon was launched on September 12, 1959, by the Soviet Union. Luna 2 reached its destination in 34 hours. The U.S. probes in the main were spurred by President John F. Kennedy’s address to the U.S. Congress on May 25, 1961.

The Ranger probes explored the Moon’s surface, photographing it before crashing into it; the probe therefore provided transmitted data that resolved images of around half a meter across, in contrast to the best telescopes of the time, which could only resolve to around 500 meters.

There was much debate on what the surface of the Moon actually looked like and whether it could support the landing of a heavy manned craft. Was the surface so rough no spacecraft could touch down without damage? Was the Moon dust so thick that any spacecraft would sink into huge drifts?

The Lunar Orbiter series of probes were designed to map the surface of the Moon so the best sites for exploration could be chosen. By the end of the five missions, 99 percent of the moon had been photographed to a resolution of 66 meters or better, and smaller areas had been photographed to within one meter.

The space race saw the Americans and the Russians competing as to who could reach the moon first; the dual projects were underscored by the cold war and the military implications of mastering space flight. In the end, the Russians never put a man onto the surface of the Moon but instead landed several robot explorers.

Lift-off of the Saturn V rocket.

Both sides were, by the mid-1960s, progressing further down the road of manned spacecraft that could carry more than one astronaut. The rockets to launch the progressively heavier spacecraft began to increase in size, with the eventual development of the Saturn series, which still remain some of the most powerful lifting devices ever built.

In the United States, the Mercury one-person spacecraft was followed by the two-person Gemini craft. The three-person Apollo vehicles were developed, a two-part craft that included a lunar lander as well as a command section that would stay in orbit while the lander descended to the Moon’s surface.

The Russian jadwal saw many achievements. The first female in space was Valentina Tereshkova, who completed 48 orbits in the Soviet Union’s Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. The first space walk—a weightless venture outside a capsule—was achieved by Aleksei Leonov on March 18, 1965. The walk lasted for 10 minutes.

However, the Soviet Union’s space jadwal was not without human cost: On April 23, 1967, the landing parachutes of the Soyuz 1 space capsule failed and cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed. On January 27, 1967, the new U.S. Apollo jadwal experienced tragedy when a fire broke out in the command module during a launch of the first piloted flight, designated AS-204.

Three astronauts died: Mercury and Gemini mission veteran Virgil Grissom; Edward White; and Roger Chaffee, an astronaut preparing for his first spaceflight. The subsequent investigation and report saw substantial improvements to mission safety. The AS-204 mission craft was renamed Apollo 1 in honor of the crew.

Powered by the enormous Saturn V three-stage rockets, the Apollo missions grew in their ability to take the astronauts further from the surface of Earth. On October 11, 1968, the first manned Apollo mission flew successfully; around the same time Russian spacecraft carrying live animals were successfully orbiting the Moon before returning to Earth.

Apollo 8 made the first human-manned circumnavigation of the Moon in December 1968. Apollo 10 was a "full dress rehearsal" of the proposed landing and carried out all of the proposed operations short of an actual descent to the lunar surface, although it descended to within nine miles of the Moon in the detached lunar module.

On July 20, 1969, after a four-day trip, Apollo 11’s lander separated from the main spacecraft with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin on board, while Michael Collins remained in orbit. The lunar module, named Eagle, successfully touched down, and, shortly afterward, filmed by the remotely controlled camera attached to the outside of the spacecraft, Armstrong emerged to back down the short ladder to the surface.

His steps were watched by millions of people via a television signal beamed back to Earth, with many millions more listening via radio. As Armstrong’s foot touched the surface of the Moon, he spoke the words, "That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". Mankind had reached another world.

Neil Armstrong becomes the first astronaut to step onto
the lunar surface, July 20, 1969.

A total of seven lunar landings were made, with significant achievements made on each mission. Some 381.6 kilograms of lunar rocks were brought back to Earth, and each successive landing after Apollo 11 left behind an automated surface laboratory. The last three missions carried extremely sophisticated mapping cameras, and other instruments measured magnetic fields, chemical composition, and radioactivity.

Craft Failure

Apollo 13’s mission was aborted due to craft failure. An oxygen tank on the spacecraft had blown up and the normal supply of electricity, light, and water to the craft was lost around 200,000 miles from Earth.

A unique and innovative jadwal of rigged repairs and procedure invention followed, resulting in the eventual safe return of the three astronauts to Earth. Apollo missions continued until December 1972, with different sites visited and a wheeled lunar rover successfully deployed to carry astronauts further from the spacecraft.

The missions increased the duration of time spent on the surface from hours to days. Twelve astronauts walked on the lunar surface. The last astronaut to leave the Moon was scientist Jack Schmitt.

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

Further space exploration programs commenced with Skylab, a section of a Saturn V rocket that was successfully placed in orbit and visited on several occasions by teams of astronaut/scientists who stayed in residence for ever-lengthening periods to conduct experiments. The jadwal terminated in 1979.

A Soviet-American rendezvous in space, the Apollo-Soyuz mission, took place in 1975. The development of the space shuttle, a reusable craft capable of returning in a glide to Earth’s surface, began in 1970, centering around the idea of a cheaper alternative to previous craft.

The jadwal used these spacecraft from their first flight in 1981 until the present. The shuttle fleet can each carry a payload of 30,000 kilograms to orbit. Mission loads have consisted of satellites, experiments, and materials for the International Space Station.

The Russian Space Station MIR

The Soviets also pursued a permanent presence in space. A series of space stations called Salyut were launched, using Soyuz spacecraft on ferry missions. In 1986 Salyut was followed by the modular space station Mir.

Following improved relations between Russia and other nations at the end of the cold war, Russian cosmonauts joined with the other countries contributing to, and working within, the International Space Station.

Stark Reminder

Space flight is not without its hazards, as was discovered in the early days of space exploration with the loss of the Soyuz 1 and Apollo 1 crews. Improvements in safety through redesign and development of spacecraft and propulsion systems have greatly reduced risk of catastrophic failure.

Nevertheless, the severe stresses placed on spacecraft and their systems, together with the risk associated with the application of cutting-edge technology, continue to make manned spaceflight inherently dangerous. Stark reminders of this were the loss of the spacecraft and crew of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia.

Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope is the largest astronomical telescope ever sent into space. Launched in 1990 by a space shuttle, the telescope’s placement outside Earth’s atmosphere gives it a unique view of the universe.

Hubble Space Telescope

Built by the Lockheed Missiles and space company, the space telescope has a length of 13.3 meters, or 43 feet 6 inches; a diameter of 3.1–4.3 meters, or 10–14 feet; and a weight of 11,600 kilograms, or 25,500 pounds.

NASA named the world's first space-based optical telescope after the U.S. astronomer Edwin P. Hubble. Dr. Hubble confirmed an "expanding" universe, which provided the foundation for the big bang theory.

With a mission duration of up to 20 years, Hubble is visited regularly by space shuttle crews for regular servicing. At an altitude of 380 miles (612 kilometers) in a low-Earth orbit, the telescope completes an orbit of Earth every 97 minutes. Sensitive to ultraviolet through near infrared light, the telescope relays to Earth three to four gigabytes of information per day.

Powered by two 25-foot solar panels, the telescope has revealed new information on the age of the universe, made findings on black holes, and provided visual proof that dust disks around young stars are common, reinforcing the assumption that planetary systems are plentiful in the universe.

Hubble's Replacement

Scheduled for launch in 2011, the James Webb Space Telescope is intended to replace Hubble. This telescope will see objects 400 times fainter than those visible with Earth-based telescopes. By contrast, the Hubble can see objects 60 times fainter than those visible with Earth-based telescopes.

The first components for the International Space Station were taken into orbit in 1998, and the station received its first crew on November 2, 2000, marking the first day a permanent human presence in space was achieved.

The space station has grown and evolved into an unprecedented laboratory complex. Offering a microgravity environment that cannot be duplicated on Earth, the station furthers knowledge of science and of how the human body functions for extended periods of time in space.

By the time the station had been operating for five years, 89 scientific investigations had been conducted. A complete characterization study of the radiation environment in the station was done, with evaluation of models of radiation shielding by the station’s structure.

With 15,000 cubic feet of habitable volume assembled by late 2005, the space station at that point had more room than a conventional three-bedroom house. Astronauts and scientists from a variety of nations have visited and worked in the space station.

Civilian and private missions into space have been achieved. The California millionaire and former NASA rocket scientist Dennis Tito was the first private space tourist to visit the ISS for a 10-day excursion in April 2001.

Test pilot Mike Melvill took the privately built rocket plane SpaceShip One to an altitude of more than 100 kilometers, the acknowledged point at which space begins, on July, 12, 2004.

Robot explorers have also achieved an enormous amount in the conquest of space. The first interplanetary explorer, the United States’ Mariner II, was launched on August, 26, 1962, to explore Venus and successfully reported a high surface temperature and the absence of a magnetic field.
 

In January 2004 two NASA robot explorers named Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars. The six- wheeled craft crawled over the surface, measuring, photographing, and analyzing, and surprised their controllers by continuing to function for over a year, during which time they traveled for several miles.

On December 25, 2004, the NASA Cassini spacecraft, nearing Saturn, released the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe toward the surface of the ringed planet’s largest moon, Titan. Parachuting to the Moon’s surface, the probe’s cameras and spectrometers analyzed the chemical composition of Titan and transmitted data back to scientists on Earth.

Other probes have been sent to all of the planets in the solar system, including distant Pluto with the launch of the New Horizons probe in January 2006. Some probes have had lengthy careers and considerable success.

The Pioneer space probe, launched on March 2, 1972, was the first spacecraft to travel through the asteroid belt and the first spacecraft to make direct observations and obtain close-up images of Jupiter. It made its closest encounter with Jupiter on December 3, 1973, passing within 81,000 miles.

Pioneer’s last, very weak signal was received on January 23, 2003. Pioneer 10 continues into interstellar space, heading for the red star Aldebaran, about 68 light years away. It will take Pioneer over 2 million years to reach its destination.

Another development of the post-Moon jadwal has been the space community’s understandings of asteroid dangers. A "dinosaur-killer" strike is now thought to be avoidable, due to a jadwal of surveying and tracking all heavenly bodies.

Such ambitious ideas have been supported by the success of missions such as the Stardust spacecraft, launched in 1999. This mission managed to capture particles from a comet beyond the Earth-Moon orbit and return them to Earth.

Other aspects of space exploration are numerous. The discovery of other planets orbiting distant stars has been made possible; the Earth is ringed by satellites enabling advanced communications and a Global Positioning System (GPS); and superior meteorology and detailed imaging have been developed. Various spin-offs from the space jadwal for the everyday world include such variables as the development of freeze-dried foods and materials such as Teflon.

Progress has been not as fast as science fiction written from the 1930s to the 1980s depicted—space flight has proved expensive and difficult, and the manned Moon bases and Martian cities have not happened.

However, other nations besides the United States and the Soviet Union—a collective European approach and manned missions from China—have begun space exploration and plans are under way to see a human presence on both the Moon and Mars.

Two basic difficulties have to be overcome if human exploration of other stars and their solar systems is to succeed. The first is the speed of the spacecraft. The fastest vessel ever built (by 2006) was the New Horizons probe, which achieved a speed shortly after launch of 10.07 miles per second, or 36,256 MPH. The nuclear-powered craft crossed the Moon’s orbit around nine hours after liftoff. Even at this speed, the estimated mission duration to Pluto is around nine years.

If the mission were manned, this would mean an overall duration of 18 years traveling plus the exploration time. If this craft’s speed were applied to reach the nearest star system to Earth, the mission time would be hundreds of years. Therein lies the second major problem—the duration humans can withstand space conditions.

The long-term effects of weightless space flight are still being studied, but it is doubtful that such missions could be withstood by a human crew. Scientists believe the craft would have to have some sort of gravitational compensation. A manned, one-way, long-term mission is also an unknown, although science fiction has done a great deal to explore both of these issues.

Indeed, space flight may have provided some answers by extrapolating various scenarios from the work of physicists that may get around interstellar exploration problems.

If space is not an empty vacuum and contains distortions, as has been proved, then the "warps" in space may provide points where great distances can be surpassed, rather in the way a fly can travel from one end of a curved scarf to the other end by simply flying between the two points rather than walking the entire length of the scarf.

There may also be ways to build spacecraft that fly at much faster speeds; light sails, antimatter rockets, and drives utilizing alternative theories of gravity and electromagnetism might allow much greater speeds. But then other problems arise: that of the relativity time-space equation, for example, and how to get humans to cope with the acceleration and deceleration speeds such a spacecraft would demand.

Although the difficulties of exploring beyond the solar system are great, they may not be insurmountable. One fact remains: If humans want to survive beyond the certain degradation of our own star and its planetary system, then space exploration must be continued.

Wall Street

Viewed suspiciously past times people every bit far apart politically every bit the Rev. Jesse Jackson too the Rev. Pat Robertson, Wall Street is seen every bit the fulcrum of coin manipulation too shenanigans involving the U.S. economy.

The “insider trading” scandals of the 1980s added to the perception that Wall Street was soaked inwards corruption, sum of phoney deals, too a front end for nefarious interests of all types.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the largest securities central inwards the United States, began inwards 1792 when twenty-four New York merchants too brokers agreed to accuse criterion commissions on their sales. Formally organized inwards 1817 every bit the New York Stock Exchange Board, the NYSE adopted rules to principle the sales of securities.


Members paid an admission fee of $25 too had to bring a year’s sense inwards the brokerage business organisation earlier the entire membership could vote to allow them to join. In its early on years, the NYSE traded 30 dissimilar securities, including federal, state, too municipal bonds, merely shortly railroads too other private corporations traded shares on the Exchange.

Financing the Civil War led to immense growth inwards the NYSE, too the sales of country of war bonds led to charges of corruption too “speculation.” (Defining speculation is difficult, inwards that it is trading inwards a safety for a “short-term” gain. What constitutes “short term” to 1 mortal is a lifetime to another.)

The collapse of Jay Cooke’s investment banking household triggered the panic of 1873, raising suspicions nearly the “New York coin power,” “Jewish interests” (linked to the Rothschilds), too Wall Street. By the halt of the 1800s, approximately 1,300 securities were traded on “the Street,” too inwards 1901 daily book reached 3 1 thou one thousand shares.

In reality, the sheer book of Wall Street transactions made it nearly impossible for whatever consortium—let lone individual—to “control” fifty-fifty a unmarried major stock, allow lone the “market.”

New York Stock Exchange inwards Wallstreet

Quite the contrary, the NYSE has been buffeted past times external events: inwards 1914, along amongst all exchanges inwards Europe, Wall Street closed for to a greater extent than than 4 months after World War I broke out, too inwards 2001 the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center unopen downwardly the NYSE for iii business organisation days.

The strongest criticisms of Wall Street came over its purported purpose inwards causing the Great Depression. During the 1920s, inwards what was called the “Great Bull Market,” stock prices skyrocketed, approximately rising several hundred per centum inwards a few months.

Americans of almost every social strata participated inwards the market, amongst 1 survey of a novel bond number showing teachers, janitors, maids, too cab drivers amid the most ofttimes represented occupational groups.


Charles E. Merrill pioneered securities sales to the middle class. But concerns were raised over the perception that most people invested through “margin loans,” which involved using the value of the stock that was to last purchased every bit collateral for a broker to advance the loan.

H5N1 minute major concern focused on the purpose of “securities affiliates,” which were brokerage houses associated amongst major banks. Critics charged that banks used banking concern deposits to fuel lending past times the securities affiliates, feeding speculation fifty-fifty more.

When the marketplace position crashed on 29 Oct 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average witnessed a stunning reject every bit xvi 1 thou one thousand shares changed hands. The Crash brought investigations past times the Senate Banking too Currency Committee led past times counsel Ferdinand Pecora (“the hellhound of Wall Street”). Pecora hauled America’s top bankers earlier the committee, particularly hammering Charles Mitchell of National City Bank.

Convinced that the banks too brokers had created the smash amongst pure speculation, Congress passed the Securities too Exchange Act of 1934, laid the Securities too Exchange Commission, too then, inwards 1935, passed the Glass-Steagall Banking Act that separated investment from commercial banking.

Subsequent query past times scholars has shown all these premises to last false: virtually no academic has been able to verify that whatever genuine speculation occurred—and sure no speculation of proportions that would generate the “Great Bull Market”—and rather than harming banks, having a securities affiliate tended to brand a banking concern to a greater extent than stable too solvent than banks that lacked those affiliates.

No 1 has yet been able to explicate the specific drive of the Great Crash. Contrary to approximately Keynesian economists, at that spot is footling bear witness to advise that coin was funneled into speculation or the market. One sentiment that remains intriguing is that the displace through Congress of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, which dramatically increased tariff rates, triggered a sell-off based on hereafter expected cost hikes (and sales slumps).

It is likewise interesting to annotation that if the Crash was somehow manipulated to increment profits of the “moneyed interests,” the wealthiest industrialists on Wall Street poured billions of dollars into securities inwards an endeavour to maintain the marketplace position afloat. Many of them lost their entire fortunes. Only a few, such every bit Joseph P. Kennedy, a liquor-runner too manful mortal parent of the hereafter president, who entered the marketplace position after the Crash, made money.

Among the conspiracy theorists, Wall Street has ever been a villain responsible for starting wars too “electing” totalitarian leaders. Some groups run across a “Bolshevik-Wall Street” connection, spell those subscribing to the “Reformed Christianity” doctrines of Gary North too R. J. Rushdoony claim that Wall Street aided too abetted the ascension of Adolph Hitler.

After World War II, Americans piece of cake returned to the markets, particularly investing indirectly through large pension funds. The Dow Jones rose steadily after World War II, merely genuinely exploded after the taxation cuts nether the management of President Ronald Reagan. With both income taxation cuts too uppercase gains taxation cuts enacted, Wall Street witnessed phenomenal too steady increases that continued until the World Trade Center laid on inwards 2001.

During that time, a novel grouping of bond traders appeared on the scene using a newly created security, the “junk bond.” In fact, junk bonds were far from junk: they financed MCI Telephone, Disney, McCaw Cellular, too dozens of other business organisation start-ups or expansions.

They were called junk because they had non yet been rated past times the NYSE—but many securities amongst an AAA rating represented nearly bankrupt companies, spell junk bonds financed approximately of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, particularly the novel high-tech ventures. Both the “junk king,” Michael Milken of Drexel Burnham Lambert, too Ivan Boesky became wealthy through their transactions amongst junk bonds.

Boesky, who was the grapheme upon whom Michael Douglas’s “Gordon Gekko” was based inwards the motion-picture demonstrate Wall Street, was arrested on charges of insider trading amongst approximately of these securities, too inwards plough provided information that implicated Milken. Both men served fourth dimension inwards jail for fraud.

In the 1990s, many viewed the “dot.com” smash every bit a speculative manipulation similar to that of the 1920s. Nevertheless, the Dow Jones continued to surge, topping the 11,000 mark, earlier the events of September 11 brought a temporary sell-off. By that time, however, it was unfathomable for whatever private to command plenty securities to fifty-fifty displace a unmarried company’s stock a signal or two, allow lone to touching the entire market.

Somalia (1950–2006)

Somalia civil war

Following the end of World War II, the British administered Somalia until 1950, when it was divided, with southern Somalia put under Italian trusteeship and the Ogaden returned to Ethiopia, with the remainder of Somalia, held by the British, prepared for independence.

The decision to allow the Italians to supervise any part of Somalia was controversial given their colonial record in the region, and it sparked riots in 1950. Elections were held in southern Somalia in 1956, and these were won by the Somali Youth League.

In February the Somali National League won a majority in elections in northern Somalia. The platforms of both groups were to reunify Somalia and achieve independence which was granted on July 1, 1960.


The first president of Somalia was Aden Abdullah Osman Daar, who had served in the Italian colonial administration until 1941. He had been president of the National Assembly until 1960 when he became president of the Constituent Assembly, a position he held until independence.

The first prime minister, Mohammed Ibrahim Egal, was from British Somaliland; he joined the Somali National League Party in 1956 and became its secretary-general two years later.

He held the position for just over two weeks before stepping down on July 12, 1960, to become minister of defense. Replacing him was Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, from the Somali Youth League, who had studied political science at the University of Rome.

Unfortunately, not long after independence, Somalia became embroiled in a dispute with the British who granted the Somali-dominated Northern Frontier District of Kenya to the Republic of Kenya. Somalia broke off diplomatic relations with Britain in 1963.

The main masalah facing Somalia was the integration of the two halves of the country, plagued by ethnic rivalries, and worries that infrastructure development in one part of the country was disadvantaging the other.

Tensions with Kenya and Ethiopia proved intractable. War with the latter broke out over the Ogaden in 1964. Although it did not last long, it served to destabilize the country, which was becoming beset with factional troubles and the proliferation of political parties and corruption.

In 1964 Shermarke was replaced as prime minister by Abdirizak Haji Husain, also from the Somali Youth League, and on July 10, 1967, Shermarke was elected as president of Somalia, a post he held until his assassination on October 15, 1969, by Somali police officers.

The assassination led to a military coup six days later, which brought Major-General Mohammed Siad Barre to power. He then became president of the Supreme Revolutionary Council and head of state, also serving as prime minister until January 30, 1987.

Siad Barre was involved in introducing a jadwal he called "scientific socialism", by which he sought to integrate Somalia. One of these policies was the creation and dissemination of a written Somali language.

In 1975 a drought struck Somalia, and this led to a famine which saw thousands of people in Somalia, and also in neighboring Ethiopia, dying. Two years later Somalia attacked Ethiopia, with Siad Barre keen to create his Greater Somalia which was to include the Ogaden (from Ethiopia), Djibouti, and also northern Kenya.

In 1977 Somalia was in news headlines all over the world when a German Lufthansa Flight 181 from Majorca, Spain, was hijacked to the Somali capital, Mogadishu. There the GSG-9, a crack German antiterrorist commando force formed after the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, stormed the plane and released the hostages unharmed.

Forced to Flee

Surviving an attempted military coup in April 1978, Siad Barre came to lead an increasingly autocratic regime that started to face trouble from internal Somali resistance groups. In particular, the Somalia Salvation Democratic Front used bases in Ethiopia to attack Somali soldiers, eventually overrunning parts of northern Somalia.

In August 1990 the Somali Salvation Democratic Front allied with two other groups, the Somali Patriotic Front and the Somali National Movement (SNM), to form a loose coalition. Siad Barre himself had been seriously injured in a car accident in May 1986, but remained in control of Mogadishu. He was forced to flee the country on January 26, 1991, going first to Kenya and eventually settling in Nigeria in 1992.

With the victorious rebels seizing control of Mogadishu, Ali Mahdi Muhammad became the president of the country, with the task of bringing together the various factions. Northern Somali separatists appointed the leader of the SNM, Abdurahman Ahmed Ali, as president of the breakaway Somaliland Republic.

Fighting continued, and Ali Mahdi hastily left the Somali capital in November 1991 after the supporters of General Mohammad Farrah Aydid attacked Mogadishu, capturing the city after bloody street fighting. Aydid then proclaimed himself head of the new government, managing to fight off an attack in April 1992 by supporters of Siad Barre.

Aid agencies estimated that as many as 2,000 people were dying each day from hunger in and around Mogadishu alone. With Aydid holding food supplies only for his supporters, the United Nations felt the duty to act, and on August 12, 1992, they had permission from Aydid to deploy troops to protect the aid workers.

The result was 500 armed United Nations soldiers being deployed and a massive relief operation taking place. This part of the aid operation went well, although there were some problems in the towns of Baidoa and Bardera in the west of the country.

By mid-1993 the aid mission had been changed with the U.S. marines being deployed to achieve political objectives. This seemed to include the overthrow of the Aydid government, which led to a U.S. helicopter attack on an alleged Aydid munitions base on July 12, 1993, killing a large number of Somali clan leaders who had gathered for a conference.

The political climate moved against the Americans as the clan alliances reformed. On October 3, 1993, some 140 U.S. marines abseiled from Black Hawk helicopters into Mogadishu, with their mission being to abduct two senior lieutenants of Aydid.

The operation was planned to last no longer than an hour, but some U.S. Marines were pinned down by thousands of armed Somalis; by the time they were evacuated the following morning, there were 18 U.S. Marines killed and more than 70 badly injured.

Factional Shifts

With the United States clearly against General Aydid, he moved to form alliances with some of his erstwhile enemies, the Americans unable to keep up with the factional shifts. In November 1994 Aydid called a General Conference on Somali Reconciliation, but Ali Mahdi boycotted it, as did the Somali Salvation Alliance.

In June 1995 Aydid himself was ousted by Osman Ali Ato. Following the death of Aydid in 1996, his son, Hussein Aydid, a former U.S. Marine who had been involved in the Somali operation, became the leader of the United Somali Congress and took his father’s title as interim president of Somalia.

Hussein Aydid refused to take part in the National Salvation Council when it was formed by leaders of 26 of Somalia’s factions in January 1997. They agreed on a peace formula that saw the introduction of a federal system for the country, allowing the warlords to retain their local power bases.

This meant that by 1998 the country was effectively divided into three parts: Somalia, consisting of the southern provinces around Mogadishu; the former British areas in the north becoming Somaliland; and Puntland in the northeast. Frequent peace conferences were to be held to try to work out common policies on certain issues.

Although the infighting had died down, the problems over the famine continued with 650,000 people facing food shortages in April 2000. This led to food riots and instability in Mogadishu, forcing the warring factions to declare Baidoa the "provisional capital". By this time, large numbers of educated Somalis had fled.

An interim Somali National Assembly was formed in October 2001 with Salad Hassan Abdikassim (Abdiqasim Salad Hassan) as the interim president. Problems with Ethiopia continued, and the interim prime minister, Ali Khalif Galaydh, accused Ethiopia of trying to destabilize the country, supporting some of the clans that wanted separatism. Abdikassim appointed himself interim president of the Transitional National Government, and in November 2001 Abshir Farah Hassan was elected as the interim prime minister.

The September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the subsequent War on Terror saw the U.S. military take a keen interest in Somalia and the level of Islamic fundamentalist influence in the country. Since then the Somali "government" has gradually come to support, however reluctantly, the United States in its War on Terror. The United States has consequently rewarded pro-U.S. groups in the country.

On October 14, 2004, Abdullah Yusuf Ahmed became president, taking over from Salad Hassan Abdikassim, and in November 2004, Ali Mohammed Ghadi became prime minister of the transitional federal government. However, after a failed assassination attempt, Prime Minister Ghadi fled Mogadishu, returning in 2006 when Ethiopian troops, aided by the United States, backed him and on December 21, 2006, started a new war in Somalia.

Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone is a filmmaker whose politically charged films own got often provoked controversy. However, Stone’s 1991 cinema JFK, a docudrama centered upon New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation during 1967–1969 into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, is undoubtedly the most controversial of Stone’s works. In fact, no other cinema inwards U.S. painting palace history has attracted quite the same even out of critical scandalize as well as scrutiny equally JFK did before, during, as well as after its theatrical run.

Given the negative media coverage of Garrison’s failed elbow grease during the like shooting fish in a barrel 1960s to convict New Orleans adult man of affairs Clay Shaw of conspiracy inwards the murder of President Kennedy, it is non surprising that a cinema that recasts that same lawsuit inwards a means much to a greater extent than favorable to Garrison, as well as farther accuses most of the governmental apparatus of the U.S.A. of murdering its ain president, would create yet about other media tumult.

Stone’s early on life inwards many ways had prepared him for such world combat. He was born on 15 September 1946 inwards New York City to a Jewish stockbroker begetter as well as a French Catholic woman parent whose matrimony ended inwards divorce.


Stone entered Yale inwards 1965 but dropped out after 1 yr as well as moved to Vietnam as well as so Mexico. In 1967, Stone joined the regular army as well as returned to Vietnam equally a solider. He served 15 months inwards the 25th Infantry Division, where he was wounded twice. Upon his render to the U.S.A. inwards 1968, he entered New York University Film School.

His subsequent cinema career included screen-writing credit for Midnight Express (1978) as well as Scarface (1983) as well as directorial credit for The Hand (1981), Salvador (1985), Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), Talk Radio (1988), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), as well as The Doors (1991).

During this productive period, Stone read Jim Garrison’s 1988 book, entitled On the Trail of the Assassins, almost the investigation as well as trial of Clay Shaw. Stone believed that Garrison’s narrative could shape the footing of a powerful film.

Inspired past times the book, Stone began his ain investigation into the intellectual netherworld of JFK conspiracy theories to augment Garrison’s story. Stone purchased the rights to Jim Marr’s bulk Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy (1991) as well as hired a Yale graduate named Jane Rusconi to get together a squad of researchers as well as interviewers. Stone as well as his squad hence joined the ranks of those who had long sought to found the existence of a conspiracy to murder the thirty-fifth president.

Almost since the instant the president was killed inwards Dallas, conflicting eyewitness accounts suggested that shots were directed at the presidential motorcade from to a greater extent than than 1 direction (most infamously, from the grassy knoll inwards forepart of the president’s limousine).

The 1964 Warren Commission, formed to investigate the truth behind the shooting, produced a twenty-six-volume written report that named Lee Harvey Oswald equally the sole assassinator of the president but at in 1 lawsuit generated intense criticism of its conclusions from early on assassination researchers such equally Mark Lane, Josiah Thompson, Sylvia Meager, as well as Harold Weisberg.

The untimely deaths of many participants or witnesses to the events fostered a climate of mystery as well as paranoia that entirely aggravated researchers’ feeling that something sinister was afoot.

In the years next the assassination, earth followed the early on skeptics’ Pb as well as a bulk increasingly came to believe that a conspiracy, non simply a lone gunman, had killed President Kennedy. Even the U.S.A. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations inwards 1979 concluded that Kennedy “was in all likelihood assassinated equally the termination of a conspiracy.”

Stone as well as co-writer Zachary Sklar so began incorporating all of these disparate elements into a lengthy screenplay (first draft of 190 pages), which inwards its concluding shape is a distillation of most of the varied conspiracy theories advocated past times assassination researchers over the years.

Beginning inwards 1990, Stone also met alongside a quondam colonel as well as Pentagon main of exceptional operations named Fletcher Prouty, whose career as well as theories almost the motives behind the assassination provided the inspiration for 1 of the film’s most of import informants. Securing studio backing from Warner Brothers inwards 1989, Stone proceeded to active production, filming, as well as post-production during 1990 as well as 1991.

JFK inwards its concluding shape is primarily a murder mystery based inwards component on Garrison’s memoirs of the investigation as well as trial of Clay Shaw as well as farther incorporating diverse aspects of Stone’s ain enquiry into the presidential assassination. As the cinematic narrative unfolds, authentic footage is ofttimes as well as rapidly intercut into the film’s re-creation of historical events to give the pic its startling verisimilitude.

As Chris Salewicz observes, the cinema also interweaves at to the lowest degree iv dissever storylines inwards an impressionistic, almost stream-of-consciousness manner, influenced heavily past times the multiple perspectives inwards Akira Kurosawa’s famous 1950 cinema Rashomon as well as the 1969 Constantin Costa-Gavras political cinema Z (Salewicz, 81). JFK begins alongside a prologue depicting the election, presi- dency, as well as assassination of President Kennedy.

Then the cinema shifts to Garrison’s investigation of a New Orleans connectedness to supposed assassinator Lee Harvey Oswald—a connectedness that ultimately implicates private detective as well as ex-FBI agent Guy Banister, homosexual quondam Eastern Airlines airplane pilot David Ferrie, as well as Clay Shaw.

Garrison gradually becomes convinced that these men are component of a larger, rightwing conspiracy directed against President Kennedy as well as comprising a devil’s brew of anti-Castro exiles, Mafia gangsters, the CIA, military machine intelligence, as well as fifty-fifty the Lyndon B. Johnson White House. Garrison concludes that Oswald, slain inwards Dallas inwards 1963 past times gangster Jack Ruby, was a patsy, laid upward to expression guilty past times the larger forces behind the president’s shooting.

As Garrison retraces the Warren Commission investigation as well as tries to construct a instance against David Ferrie as well as Clay Shaw, Garrison is continually stymied past times staff defections, governmental interference, media scorn, as well as fifty-fifty the mysterious deaths of key figures such equally David Ferrie.

Only Clay Shaw survives to live arrested as well as tried for the murder of the president. However, given the insurmountable obstacles arrayed against Garrison, the trial’s number is a foregone conclusion. Shaw is acquitted, but Garrison vows to move along the crusade to convey Kennedy’s killers to justice.

Garrison, portrayed past times Kevin Costner equally a relatively elementary seeker after the truth, evidently believes inwards the merits of his case, fifty-fifty if few others do. Since the cinema is portrayed from Garrison’s signal of take in as well as those of the people he interviews, his conclusions may look to live presented equally absolute fact to the undiscriminating viewer.

But the cinema is ultimately to a greater extent than complex than it seems, equally Susan Mackey-Kallis observes, because it searches “for the ‘truth’ alongside the realization that at that spot is no single, ultimately knowable truth almost the Kennedy assassination” (Mackey-Kallis, 38).

Indeed, JFK raises to a greater extent than questions than it solves. The cinema considers several possible conspiracies inwards the assassination but in conclusion suggests that President Kennedy was killed inwards a coup d’état organized past times a shadowy U.S. cabal of governmental as well as industrial concerns.

In a covert coming together inwards Washington, D.C., a authorities informant based on Fletcher Prouty (“Colonel X”) tells Garrison that this cabal’s primary agenda was to turn a profit from an escalation of state of war inwards Vietnam.

Through X, the cinema postulates that Kennedy’s refusal to back upward the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Republic of Cuba inwards 1963, as well as his intention to abolish the Central Intelligence Agency as well as diminish the ability of the military-industrial complex past times withdrawing advisors as well as troops from Vietnam during a 2d term of office, resulted inwards his murder past times those committed to wartime militarism. Yet careful attending to the cinema reveals that no affair how persuasively argued or visualized, the theories proposed past times X or fifty-fifty Garrison rest conjecture, non absolute fact.

Stone himself claims that JFK is deliberately designed equally a “counter-myth” to provoke scrutiny of the official “myth” of the Warren Commission’s determination that Lee Harvey Oswald acted lonely inwards shooting President Kennedy from the 6th flooring of the Texas Schoolbook Depository.

In this destination of reopening a national dialogue almost a possible conspiracy behind the Kennedy assassination, Stone succeeded beyond all expectations. His success also placed him at the middle of a media as well as political firestorm.

Stone was denounced as well as vilified past times numerous high-profile media as well as governmental critics fifty-fifty earlier JFK’s world premiere. After an early on draft of the screenplay was leaked, Washington Post author George Lardner, Jr., as well as Chicago Tribune author Jon Margolis began attacking JFK inwards May 1991, earlier the film’s wintertime release. Other negative articles appeared during the film’s post-production phase.

As the cinema opened, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Weekly, the Chicago Dominicus Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Wall Street Journal, the L.A. Times, as well as Time as well as Newsweek magazines all weighed inwards repeatedly alongside decidedly negative appraisals of Stone’s film, inwards essence labeling it demagoguery. For example, Newsweek ran a comprehend story headlined, “Why Oliver Stone’s New Movie Can’t Be Trusted.”

The New York Times inwards item devoted much column as well as editorial infinite to the assail on the movie. Noted journalists, commentators, media figures, as well as politicians joined forces to barbarous non entirely the film’s conspiracy theories but seemingly the managing director himself.

Writers Alexander Cockburn, Tom Wicker, as well as George Will; cinema critic Leonard Maltin; managing director Nora Ephron; president of the Motion Picture Association of America Jack Valenti; quondam U.S. President as well as Warren Commission fellow member Gerald Ford—all went on the tape equally strongly, almost viscerally, opposed to Stone as well as his project.

These as well as other critics insisted that Stone heavyhandedly distorted history, invented characters that never existed as well as slandered others that did, mixed speculation as well as fact to an irresponsible degree, as well as unfairly influenced younger audience members whose exposure to history presumably came entirely from the simplistic exaggerations of goggle box as well as film.

Some critics insisted that the cinema was homophobic inwards its depiction of David Ferrie as well as Clay Shaw equally homosexual. Also troubling to many critics was the film’s flattening of the complex, tarnished grapheme of the real-life Jim Garrison.

Frank Beaver calls the cinematic Garrison a “representational icon rather than a human being—in the end, a symbolic instructor lecturing a class” (Beaver, 172). Most journalists reporting on the existent trial of Clay Shaw regarded the prosecution equally a ludicrous farce perpetrated past times a grandstanding, publicity-seeking, as well as quite maybe corrupt district attorney.

Allegations of underworld connections, illegal gambling, as well as witness tampering as well as bribery persistently dogged Garrison’s career equally district attorney and, later, elected judge. Even many conspiracy theorists believed that Garrison’s truthful agenda inwards the trial of Clay Shaw had been to divert attending away from a Mafia connectedness to the assassination.

Stone was non unaware of the negative take in almost Garrison (in fact had fifty-fifty confronted Garrison almost these charges early on inwards the procedure of researching JFK) but chose to disregard them, equally he was making a cinema almost the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, non a biography of Jim Garrison.

But to consider Garrison practically sainted past times Stone’s version of events as well as played equally a directly arrow past times Kevin Costner inwards the best Jimmy Stewart/Frank Capra tradition was probable to a greater extent than than about critics could bear.

Stone did own got his part of media supporters, such equally Garry Trudeau, Garry Wills, Norman Mailer, David Denby, as well as David Ansen, but at kickoff the negative press far outweighed the positive.

Stone defended himself inwards diverse world as well as media forums, as well as eventually his lonely motility began to pay off. Even equally the editorial elite pounded him, world take in shifted toward Stone. He began coming together alongside congressmen to advocate the release of sealed assassination files.

Also, inwards answer to the widespread accuse that Stone had distorted or fabricated fact for the movie, Stone as well as Zachary Sklar published JFK—The Book of the Film, inwards 1992. The bulk contained the annotated screenplay, extensive sources as well as references, as well as pro as well as con commentaries past times the film’s supporters as well as critics.

The cinema itself, after an initially dull box-office start, became a commercial success. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including best painting as well as best adapted screenplay, as well as won 2 inwards the categories of cinema editing as well as cinematography.

JFK personally garnered Stone a Golden Globe Award for best director, as well as Director’s Guild of America as well as Academy Award nominations for best director, equally good equally political as well as civic recognition such equally the Torch of Liberty Award from the Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Eventually, the film’s publicity resulted inwards the token release of a few formerly clandestine files as well as culminated inwards the congressional Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which released many of the previously classified authorities documents related to the assassination.

Although the released records provided no conclusive bear witness of an assassination conspiracy, plenty tantalizing clues emerged to furnish conspiracy researchers alongside to a greater extent than forage for their item theories. JFK hence joins the relatively rare ranks of films that own got inspired guide political action.

The film’s notoriety also revitalized the political conspiracy thriller genre. Throughout its history, U.S. painting palace had often trafficked inwards conspiratorial or fifty-fifty paranoid topics, often past times depicting dastardly external enemies such equally Communists or fifty-fifty inhuman ones such equally body-snatching infinite aliens.

However, inwards the political conspiracy genre entries of which JFK is the apotheosis, the fascistic threat is fifty-fifty to a greater extent than insidious, equally it originates from inside the real social institutions charged alongside protecting republic as well as the American people.

Even the president of the United States, JFK tells the audience, is a helpless (and disposable) pawn of such forces. This take in displaces the private as well as assigns ability to a decentralized, self-contained organization lethal to the form of humanistic values touted past times Kennedy inwards his academy address during the film’s prologue.

Stone’s sweeping indictment of what his cinematic alteration ego Garrison calls “the ascendency of invisible government” went much farther than whatever previous cinema had done. The world credence of JFK’s grim message illustrates dramatically simply how entrenched the mistrust of governmental institutions had move since the nifty disillusionments of the 1960s as well as 1970s.

Nevertheless, inwards the decade since JFK’s release, much of the assassination disceptation has subsided. (In the wake of the September 11 terrorist onslaught upon the United States, the film’s antimilitarism message may fifty-fifty seem momentarily out of favor.)

Norman Mailer’s fictional biography, Oswald (1995), faded apace from sight, as well as Gerald Posner’s bulk Case Closed (1993) seemed to satisfy most media observers, if non the public, that Oswald was indeed the lone assassin.

Meanwhile, Stone has weathered other controversies over his films Natural Born Killers (1994) as well as Nixon (1995). Both films ventured into about of the same thematic as well as stylistic territory equally JFK. Nixon created a tike outburst amidst many of the same political as well as editorial elite who had been outraged past times JFK.

Stone’s 2d presidential cinema portrays Richard M. Nixon equally a pitiable figure caught upward inwards tangential interest alongside the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, assassination attempts against Castro, as well as escalation of the Vietnam War, all of which are primal to JFK as well as ultimately conspire, inwards Stone’s rendition of history, to topple the Nixon regime inwards the Watergate scandal. But to a greater extent than often than non because of JFK, Oliver Stone’s bring upward has move synonymous alongside “conspiracy theory.”