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Going through a box of old Life magazines I got from my grandfather and I saved for unknown reasons, I came across the April 25, 1969 issue titled “Confrontation in Harvard Yard” 
The cover story is about the “academic calm of centuries broken by a rampage”; the rebels had a list of demands dealing with such issues as ROTC, black students, university expansion into poor urban areas. Predictably the Admin building seized. This was new to the Ivys
The magazine was chock full of those wonderful Mad Men ads of the 1960s – for scotch, banks, cigarettes, airlines, Columbia 8-track cartridges; even a two-page spread for a Hatteras Yacht. Here’s an interesting way to sell beer:
There were two articles in the magazine of interest to me – 1) the main editorial titled “After 20 good years, an identity crisis for NATO” and 2) a close-up of General Creighton Abrams called “One day they will go it alone”
The article about NATO could have described the same situation today, 50 years later, even with the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union. The opening paragraph describes an organizational identity crisis over lack of military effectiveness and a confusing political role.
They trace the malaise to its “brilliant success” in meeting the post war Communist threat in Europe. In the 20 years of the alliance, there hasn’t been a square kilometer of Western Europe lost or a single life lost in combat.
The editorial says NATO needs to stay in its lane, which is strong defense alliance. What the article missed is that NATO has taken on more than just defense (turning school teaching and street cleaning over to the cops b/c they are good at law and order is not a good idea).
The article concludes that the US should not maintain a “token strength” of 320K soldiers, and it encourages all of NATO to strengthen what NATO is – a defense alliance. If 320K was a token presence, what is today’s end strength of about 35,000?
The article on General Abrams was incredibly insightful. By this point in time, Abrams had been in command of MAC-V for over a year. Abrams believed the South Vietnamese would eventually “go it alone”. That wasn’t to be.
Abrams was a major influence on our modern Army; the early counter-insurgency tactics he deployed in Vietnam, the VOLAR Project and formation of the Ranger Batts. The modern US tank bears his name- the most lethal and survivable vehicle on the ground in the modern battlefield.
The last quote of the article could be used today with one change – and you can replace the word “Vietnamese” with Afghan. Sadly history has repeated itself.
There’s nothing like those old large format Life magazines to take you back in time, and see the world was having a lot of the same issues we are dealing with today, 50 years later. You can find the whole magazine here on Google - books.google.com/books?id=jE8EA…
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