Efforts

Apollo 13 and LBJ

The movie of 1995 was Apollo 13, a Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris and Bill Paxton docu-drama directed Opie Taylor (sorry, it’s a generation thing. Some of you probably think his name Ron Howard). I saw the film at a Missoula theater on one of the rare days we had off from an National Endowment for the Humanities workshop on U.S. wars in Asia I was attending. Since I had somehow become a bridge between the traditional, often anti-war academics and the professional military education historians, I felt a bit guilty and perhaps relieved at the movie instead of at the library. The workshop became ever more heated as we approached the Vietnam war so an afternoon considering something else contemporaneous with the final years of the war seemed justifiable (and welcome).

I confess I didn’t remember April of 1970. Our family was preparing to go overseas again so I was undergoing the all-too-frequent pain of disengaging with one set of friends while desperately hoping I could find another clique once I arrived at the new school. I supposed I knew of the Apollo 13 drama but honestly did not remember anything about it.

If you haven’t seen the movie, somehow, go see it. Spend the money to stream it on some service. I have seen it several other times following 1995 but I still find my heart beating mercilessly at certain points as plot twists seem so hopeless.

I cite the movie on the 54th anniversary of the oxygen tank blowing up, a key factor in raising everyone’s fear these men would die trying to return to earth. The bulk of the film revolves around how to address the consequences of an action hundreds of thousands of miles away in space.

What I found so vital about the movie and the incident it recounted so vividly was the collective effort we saw unfold on the big screen. That sounds so obvious but in our contemporary environment nothing appears further from our reality. I have serious doubt that things would unfold similarly should that even have occurred in 2024 rather than 1970, as shocking as that statement may be.

Far too many Americans no longer automatically think of collective efforts on behalf of those in peril. They just don’t; instead, they seem to ask for assurance that helping someone in need somehow won’t lead to an advantage for ‘the other side’. People asking aid after a building collapses? Hmm, no that isn’t necessarily a good move because it might privilege the other political party and ideological perspective (although I long ago decided that ideology is dead in this country). Assistance to people after a natural disaster? No, let state and local officials deal with it (unless it’s a hurricane in Florida that invariably is so bad that the federal government has to pitch in). The list goes on and on. Our world in 2024 begins and ends for too many fellow citizens in a bifurcated political manner.

I left the theater that Wednesday afternoon in Missoula not only happy because of the ‘feel good’ ending—a genuinely upbeat ending rather than a hokey one intended to sedate me from my daily life—but I was so overwhelmingly stuck by the collaborative nature of the effort. Of course it was NASA’s responsibility to find a fix to get them home but this lunar voyage had from a few days prior to the launch been a cascade of problems. The oxygen tank turned out to be only one of the threats to end the three astronauts’ lives over the next several days as they had to circle the moon to return home. Even the final atmospheric reentry dragged beyond what scientific calculations indicated was survivable yet the men in the spacecraft, the families in Houston, and the NASA team so desperately working could do nothing but hold their breathes as the seconds became minutes before the spaceship reconnected with communications. It was a drama made in heaven (literally and figuratively) but one where we as Americans persevered.

Somehow, somewhere over the following years we stopped trusting each other to persevere. Too many of us automatically assume government lies to us about everything. We assume institutions fail far more often than they succeed. We expect institutions to be wholly successful while we give ourselves much leeway in our own behaviour whether it’s driving through stop signs or driving under the influence or something else. We think the politicians are only interested in their own futures. I confess you have read my cynical assertions that staying in power motivates far more people than not.

I can’t pinpoint when things became so negative but the end of the Vietnam War five years after Apollo 13 might certainly changed our self image. The 1973 OPEC-induced petroleum price increases showed we were vulnerable to things we had never considered. The Iranian hostage crisis and escalating fears resulting from the seeming folly of Nixon-Kissinger détente with the Soviets set the stage for political messaging beginning under Ronald Reagan repeatedly reiterated that ‘government is the problem’ at the same time he relied on government to do so many things in our society ranging from provide strong defense to administer justice to provide a social safety net even as funds were pared back in the budget. Threats abroad from pro-Soviet actors in Central America through the ups and downs of the Middle East to a modernising Asia (first the dragon economies, then Japan, and later China) led many to fear that government did not focus on our needs.

The 1990s became a breaking point as the ‘culture wars’ coincided with too many folks ever more frequently rejecting the collective benefits of an America leading an increasingly globalised world. Riots in Seattle associated with the WTO meetings in 1999, as well as the catastrophic events and consequences resulting from 9/11, raised fears for many individuals that the nation’s leaders abandoned Americans. The 2008 financial crisis only sealed their conviction that playing by the rules would lead to problems, even though many Americans had become ignorant of the dangers of their own behaviour. Political division driven by the Tea Party and Republicans in Congress thwarting anything Barack Obama espoused at the same time Democrats exhorted expansion of government already seen as curtailing freedoms by ignoring the public set into motion the stark polarisation we see today.

All of those steps brought us to the sense of futility so prevalent today. Few Americans would acknowledge a role in the end of the our coherent beliefs over the past fifty years and they don’t want to work together as if doing so were a trap. I am not sure we could even come together as we did after 9/11 as the constant refrain of accusations about the other side’s intentions shows how profound the divisions and distrust—and ignorance of people who assume aren’t like us for whatever reason. As I hear while I edit of an escalation of conflict between Teheran and Jerusalem, I wonder how Americans will react to any Biden administration responses

Many citizens today who know of the author Doris Kearns Goodwin think of her work on Abraham Lincoln’s co-opting strategy in creating his cabinet during the Civil War. A Time of Rivals is a superb, inspiring volume but Kearns Goodwin’s original work, of course, was as a researcher Lyndon Johnson’s administration as he increasingly flailed through 1967 and 1968. She had a striking essay in today’s Wall Street Journal praising Johnson’s unanticipated withdrawal from the presidential race on 31 March 1968. He recognised in his withdrawal speech that his actions on Vietnam were his job rather than pursuing the presidency in a partisan race. Kearns Goodwin’s point is that Johnson, a president who got to office under clouds of doubt but secured the farthest reaching civil rights legislation in our history as he was falling prey to a failing effort in Vietnam, put the country above his personal ambition. The picture of a bedraggled Johnson accompanying her essay reminds us of how harried he was during his last months in office, seeing a liberal Minnesota Senator attacking him on the left while the specter of another Kennedy—Bobbie—drove him to fear his efforts in government for decades would be forgotten if he gave up.

Yet Johnson, such a reviled figure who did much to damage the very institutions I mentioned above, chose unilaterally to withdraw from the race to prevent the nation from going through what he knew would be further turmoil. Of course, he also knew he would have a hard time winning reelection but Jimmy Carter did not make the same choice in 1980. Of course Johnson understood that Nixon, the epitome of a distrusted man, could win whether Johnson or someone else opposed him but LBJ chose to let the country decide. It was a startling decision but Kearns Goodwin argues it actually helped us as a nation, although Nixon’s election led to further unanticipated problems.

The point is that we no longer share the sense of unity, respect, and hope that the country (indeed, the world) had in the days of the Apollo 13 real life drama. Citizens don’t trust the nation and politicians don’t think often enough of the whole of the country as they confront choices today. The actions of the past six decades created consequences of major import that almost invariably push us apart.

Yet repairing the divisions is always in our power. It takes action to create consequences, however. Are we willing to trust and to engage to do so? What happens if we don’t? Government, institutions, parties, and America are all made up of individuals. Individual and collective actions can make a tremendous difference over time but not if we focus exclusively on blame or if we ignore our own role in our current condition.

Thoughts? Rebuttals? What did you take from Apollo 13 if you saw the film? Can you remember the ecstasy of success in 1970? What national successes do you recall now? I welcome your thoughts. I especially encourage specific remedies we could implement as individuals or as bigger groups. Please feel free to circulate this column if you think someone else would benefit from reading it. Thank you to the subscribers who mean so much to my work.

The wind in Annapolis has been fierce today but we have beautiful skies following a spectacular sunrise. I wish you warmth, joy, and flowers this weekend.

Be safe and be well. FIN

Doris Kearns Goodwin, A Team of Rivals. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2005.

—, ‘How LBJ Saved His Legacy by Refusing to Run Again’, WSJ.com, 12 April 2024, retrieved at https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/howlbjsaved-his-legacy-by-refusing-to-run-again-be2d06bf?mod=latest_headlines