Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (96 page)

1.
Every year, thousands of people make the pilgrimmage to Plymouth Rock. But for 150 years after the original Pilgrims landed, no one paid much attention to it. In the 1770s, pro-American rebels decided it was an historic American landmark and went to preserve it. Where did they find it?

A)
10 feet under water

B)
buried in a roadway

C)
in a pile of rocks on the outskirts of town

2.
When this president died, his magnificent home and estate were sold to pay off his debts. A few years later, an observer described it as “nothing but ruin and change, rotting terraces, broken cabins, the lawn plowed up and cattle wandering among the Italian mouldering vases.” What landmark was he talking about?

A)
George Washington / Mount Vernon

B)
Thomas Jefferson / Monticello

C)
Andrew Jackson / The Hermitage

3.
The Statue of Liberty was not immediately installed in New York Harbor, because there was no money available to build a base for it. What private source offered to pay for the base—but was refused?

A)
The company that made Castoria laxative offered to pay for the base if they could put a huge advertisement on it.

B)
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt offered to pay for it in exchange for the rights to run the ferry to and from Liberty Island.

C)
The Daughters of the American Revolution offered to pay for it if the inscription welcoming immigrants was removed.

Twelve most-often-used letters in the alphabet: E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, L, U.

4.
As the country grew, the number of members in the House of Representatives grew. By 1857, the House had outgrown its chambers and moved to another wing of the Capitol. Today, the area contains statues of famous representatives. But in the late 1850s, it was occupied by:

A)
a train station

B)
a tourism information booth

C)
a root beer stand

5.
It was a dry-goods store from 1879 until the turn of the century. Then, in 1905, a hotel chain decided to buy the land, tear it down, and build a modern building on it. They offered $75,000 for it. The owner agreed to sell...unless the Texas legislature wanted to match the offer. But the legislature wouldn’t authorize the funds to save it. Was it:

A)
the Alamo

B)
Sam Houston’s birthplace

C)
the Emma Lapham house, where the first baby was born to a Texas settler

6.
Ford’s Theater, where Lincoln was shot, is now a popular Lincoln museum and working theater. But it was almost demolished by:

A)
John Ford himself, a Lincoln supporter who was heartbroken to have played any part in the assassination

B)
The U.S. government, at Andrew Johnson’s command. He thought it was in the nation’s best interest to eliminate all memories of the tragedy.

C)
An angry mob that gathered after the assassination. They wanted to burn it down, but were dispersed.

7.
“Old Ironsides,” the
U.S.S. Constitution
, is a tourist attraction afloat in the Boston Navy Yard today. But the famous ship was left to fall apart until 1927, when:

A)
schoolchildren contributed their pennies to save it.

B)
the Boston Red Sox played a series of exhibition games to save it.

C)
Al Capone, striving for good publicity, donated the money to save it.

Danny Thomas’s real name was Muzyad Yakhoob.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson claimed that the U.S. was forced into the Vietnam War by an unprovoked North Vietnamese attack. Did it really happen that way—or was it a phony story to get the U.S. into the war? Here’s a look at what happened, from
It’s a Conspiracy!
by The National Insecurity Council
.

L
ate in the evening on August 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson interrupted television programs on all three national networks with grim news. He announced that American destroyers off the coast of North Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin had been attacked twice by the North Vietnamese—without provocation.

He promised reprisals; in fact, he declared that U.S. planes were on their way to bomb North Vietnam as he spoke.

Three days later, President Johnson asked Congress to pass an emergency resolution that would authorize him to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”

Congress obliged: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed 98-2 in the Senate, and Johnson used it to launch the longest war in American history—a war that cost more than $400 billion, killed 58,000 U.S. service people, and divided the country more than any other conflict since the Civil War.

Yet, as incredible as it seems, evidence now suggests that LBJ and his advisors wanted a war in Vietnam—and conspired to start it with a lie.

THE OFFICIAL STORY

First attack: August 2, 1964.
According to government reports, three North Vietnamese PT boats, unprovoked and without warning, fired torpedoes and shells at the
Maddox
, a U.S. destroyer on patrol about 30 miles off the coast of North Vietnam. The destroyer and support aircraft fired back and drove them off.

Second attack: August 4, 1964.
North Vietnamese PT boats made another “deliberate attack” on two United States destroyers
—the
Maddox
and the
Turner Joy
—which were patrolling international waters about 65 miles off the coast of North Vietnam. This attack was described as “much fiercer than the first one,” lasting about three hours in rough seas, with bad weather and low visibility. The government said that American destroyers and aircraft fired on the vessels and sank at least two of them.

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SUSPICIOUS FACTS

The First Attack

• The government lied about where the
Maddox
was and what it was doing on the night of the first attack:

The
Maddox
wasn’t in international waters. According to numerous reports, it was no farther than 10 miles—and possibly as close as four miles—from the North Vietnamese coast.

It wasn’t on a “routine patrol.” The
Maddox
was providing cover for South Vietnamese gunboats attacking North Vietnamese radar stations in the Gulf of Tonkin. According to former CIA station chief John Stockwell, those gunboats were “manned with CIA crew” and had been raiding North Vietnam all summer.

• The government said the attack on the
Maddox
was “unprovoked.” However, the
Maddox’s
log showed that it had fired first while North Vietnamese boats were still six miles away.

The Second Attack

• Many people doubt that the alleged August 4 attack ever occurred. They include:

The
Maddox’s
captain, John Herrick. He radioed that reports of an enemy attack “appear very doubtful” and said there were “no actual sightings by
Maddox
.”

Commander Jim Stockdale, a navy pilot who responded to the
Maddox
’s distress calls. According to an October 1988 article in
The New American
, Stockdale “found the destroyers sitting in the water firing at—nothing....Not one American out there ever saw a PT boat. There was absolutely no gunfire except our own, no PT boat wakes, not a candle light, let alone a burning ship. No one could have been there and not have been seen on such a black night.”

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Pentagon planners who analyzed the information from Vietnam. “There was a great amount of uncertainty as to whether there was such an attack,” recalls Daniel Ellsberg, who was working with the Pentagon at the time.

President Lyndon Johnson. According to Stanley Karnow’s
Vietnam: A History
, “Johnson privately expressed doubts only a few days after the second attack supposedly took place, confiding to an aide, ‘Hell, those dumb sailors were just shooting flying fish.’”

• According to investigative reporter Jonathan Kwitny in his book
Endless Enemies:
“At one point things were so confused that the
Maddox
mistook the
Turner Joy
for a North Vietnamese ship and a gunner was ordered to fire at her point blank—which would have sunk her—but he refused the order pending an identity check. That was the closest that a U.S. ship came to being hit that night.”