Different Slants

The Washington Post, The Pentagon Papers, & Chicago’s Bob’s Newsstand

July 29, 2020 © by Robert M. Katzman

History matters. But this history has been unwritten, until now.

Forty-nine years ago in 1971, The Washington Post chose to publish The Pentagon Papers revealing the hidden political truth about the Vietnam War and its long-before assumed failure by successive administrations, after a lower court’s injunction against the internationally known and respected New York Times discouraged them from going beyond their first dramatic and exclusive front page story. The Post, a far smaller local newspaper barely known beyond the DC area and with much less in resources, took a big risk in deciding to continue publishing that story. That risk might have caused its extinction as a newspaper.

Thirty-five years ago today, on July 29, 1985, a certain enterprise called Bob’s Newsstand in Hyde Park near the University of Chicago–which was linked to The Washington Post in 1971 under unusual circumstances, and which also took considerable risks–closed its doors to the public 23 days short of its 20^thanniversary, having been founded August 21, 1965. 

(Read on …)

On the eve on my 40th surgery, on my foot this time in August, I was reminded of a truly remarkable incident which occurred in mid-December, 1992. The date of the operation is significant as you will see. I was 42 at that time.

For about six months, there was at first a slight occurrence of burning in my left ankle, then that gradually increased, and since I was self-employed at that time, there was no possibility in asking for time off to find out what the problem was. After a while, by late Fall, the burning was constant and elevating my leg at work did no good. This was a mystery. I had never been injured on my ankle and was never involved with sports.