Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace

President Dwight D. Eisenhower stood before the United Nations Assembly on December 8, 1953 to deliver an important message:  the atomic bomb, which had first been detonated by the United States in 1945, was no longer an American secret.  Canada and the United Kingdom both knew the secret.  Even the Soviet Union now knew the secret.  In fact, the United States and the Soviet Union were starting to stockpile their atomic weapons at an alarming rate.  In the space of only eight years, atomic energy had gone from a limited to an unlimited quantity.  The two countries had the capability of wiping each other off the face of the earth.  President Eisenhower pleaded with the nations represented at the United Nations to think about ways to cut back on their atomic weapons; to think about constructive ways to use atomic energy.  President Eisenhower goes on to mention the problems the world faces:  a divided Germany and a divided Korea.  He calls for a "free intermingling" between East and West in Europe.  He calls also for a rapprochement between the United States and the Soviet Union.  Here is an excerpt from President Eisenhower's speech:

"On July 16, 1945, the united States set off the world's first atomic explosion.  Since that date in 1945, the United States of America has conducted forty two test explosions.  Atomic bombs today are more than twenty five times as powerful as the weapons with which the atomic age dawned, while hydrogen weapons are in the ranges of millions of tons of TNT equivalent.  Today, the United States stockpile of atomic weapons, which of course increases daily, exceeds by many times the total equivalent of the total of all bombs and all shells that came from every plane in every theatre of war in the all the years of World War II.

The United States would be more than willing -- it would be proud to take up with others principally involved the development of plans whereby such peaceful use of atomic energy would be expedited.

The coming months will be fraught with fateful decisions.  In this Assembly, in the capitals and military headquarters of the world, in the hearts of men everywhere, be they governed or governors, may they be the decisions which will lead this world out of fear and into peace." (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhoweratomsforpeace.html)

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Dwight-D-Eisenhower/images-videos/Dwight-D-Eisenhower-delivering-his-Atoms-for-Peace-speech-to/120679

North by Northwest: The Hitchcock Picture to End All Hitchcock Pictures

"Fifty years on, you could say that Hitchcock's sleek, wry, paranoid thriller caught the zeitgeist perfectly:  Cold War shadiness, secret agents of power, urbane modernism, the ant-like bustle of city life, and a hint of dread behind the sharp suits of affluence.  Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill, the film's sharply dressed ad exec who is sucked into a vortex of mistaken identity, certainly wouldn't be out of place in Mad Men.  But there's nothing dated about this perfect storm of talent, from Hitchcock and Grant to writer Ernest Lehman, co-stars James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, composer Bernard Hermann and even designer Saul Bass, whose opening credits sequence still manages to send a shiver down the spine." (Time Out, London edition)

North by Northwest was not the brainchild of Alfred Hitchcock:  he is merely the man who adapted it to the big screen.  The original idea was created by journalist Otis C. Guernsey who, inspired by a fictitious spy created by the British, whom the Germans followed around during World War II (see "Operation Mincemeat") hatched his own fictitious agent.  The story involved an American salesman who travelled to the Middle East, was mistaken for a secret agent and got caught in a web of intrigue.  

Hitchcock bought the story for $10,000 and, along with writer Ernest Lehman, adapted it for the silver screen.  Lehman vowed that he would make "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures".  The famous director changed the salesman to a Madison Ave. executive.  He clothed the character in a gray flannel suit, one that the GQ fashion experts would later call "the best film suit in history".

Hitchcock tossed around plot ideas:  how about a murder at the United Nations or a Detroit car plant or a showdown in Alaska?  And how would the villains attack the main character?  He suggested a tornado.

James Stewart was the original choice for the starring role in North by Northwest.  However, in the end Hitchcock picked the dashing and debonair Cary Grant, who cut quite a figure in the gray flannel suit.  

The director settled on a murder scene at the United Nations building in New York City.  The building was relatively new in 1959, opening soon after the Second World War.

Hitchcock chose a crop dusting scene, rather than a tornado, in Indiana.  The shot, with Cary Grant running down a road, rows of corn on either side, has been compared to the painting "Le Paquebot ou L'Estran" by Leon Spillraerts.  The famous scene was rated number one by Empire magazine, among the 1001 Greatest Movie Moments. 

Hitchcock decided on a showdown in South Dakota at Mount Rushmore.  The portly director suggested that the main character would hide in Lincoln's nose, sneeze and be discovered by the villains.  He even suggested calling the movie "The Man in Lincoln's Nose", but in the end he settled on "North by Northwest" perhaps taken from the Hamlet line "I am but mad north-northwest."

While the Hitchcock changed the title of the movie, the effect remained the same:  the audience was mesmerized.  Journalist Nick Clooney called it "Hitchcock's most stylish thriller, if not his best".  

For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_by_Northwest#Influences.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/11190386/Manhattan-in-the-movies.html

E. B. White's "Here is New York"

One writer claims that "there is no more quoted piece of prose" than E. B. White's essay "This is New York".  Before the famous author wrote Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, he penned an essay for Holiday magazine.  It is the perfect example of an essay filled with the elements of fiction, including foreshadowing.   Who would have thought that he would predict 9/11?

"New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village," explained White, commenting on how New York was filling with skyscrapers.  Early in the essay, White maps out his location by explaining how many blocks he is away from certain events in history:  Rudolph Valentino laying in state, Nathan Hale's execution, Ernest Hemingway punching Max Eastman, Walt Whitman writing editorials and Marceline clowning on the boards at the Hippodrome.  History is on every corner of New York City.

When White went downstairs to eat at the cafe, he found himself sitting eighteen inches away from Fred Stone, star of the Wizard of Oz.  "The eighteen inches were both the connection and the separation that New York provides for its inhabitants."  He uses the eighteen inches analogy to highlight the proximity of everything and everyone in New York.

White points out that since he's arrived in town, a number of "splashy events" have occurred, almost unnoticed:  a man killed his wife in a jealous rage; the world's two largest ocean liners arrived and departed; the greatest air show on earth took place.  It's all part of a normal day in the city.

"New York is peculiarly constructed to absorb almost anything that comes along," observed White.  The author says there are three types of New Yorkers:  the native, who gives the city solidarity, the immigrant, who gives the city passion, and the commuter, who gives the city restlessness.  On any given day, you might have a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a grocery store, a girl from Mississippi trying to escape her small town and a man with a manuscript from the Corn Belt (the latter could describe Theodore Geisel who did just that in 1957, later called Dr. Seuss).

White points out those who have moved up in the world in New York:  Irving Berlin's journey from Cherry Street to the East Side.  He reminds us that New York "reached it highest point in the sky at the lowest moment of the Depression".  Irving Berlin was one of the city's 2 million Jewish residents; at the time it also had 700,000 Blacks, half a million Irish and half a million Germans, along with 230,000 Puerto Ricans.  "In New York Smolders every race problem there is but the noticeable thing is not the problem but the inviolate truce."  How fitting that the United Nations would be built in such a city.

White describes how New York is a big city full of small neighbourhoods.  Within two or three blocks its residents could find a grocer, barber, newsstand, dry cleaner, deli, flower shop, etc.  They could spend a lifetim in an area smaller than a country village.

E. B. White concludes by saying that New York is both "changing and changeless".  He focusses on the willow tree in the East River:  despite the abuse that it takes, it keeps growing upward.

http://www.startsateight.com/2011/11/here-is-new-york-2/