The NFL, NBC and every Ad/PR firm on the face of the world is saying yes for all the reasons wall street loved credit default swaps. CA$H!

But would a public auction be more accurate? Steven Dubner from Freakonomics fame takes a deeper look.

American sentiments to look back and reflect every December are just as striking in this volume.  This is the first volume that acknowledges a growing domestic anti-war sentiment throughout 1966.  It must have been considered “strong enough” to influence policies in early 1967. Volume IV C-6-b opens with the examination of key news correspondents, examining the impact of journalists reporting against the war.

Pentagon Papers:  Part IV. C6b: Evolution of the War.
Extracted pages 1-22
1. Hedged Public Optimism Meets the New Year
Harrison Salisbury’s dispatches from North Vietnam were generating an explosive debate about the bombing. Not only had he questioned the “surgical” precision claimed for the bombing of military targets in populated areas, but he questioned the basic purpose of the strategy itself. In his view, civilian casualties were being inflicted deliberately to break the morale of the populace, a course both immoral and doomed to failure. The counter-attack mounted by bombing advocates (and apologists) combined with the predictable quick denunciations and denials from official sources helped generate a significant public reaction. The Pentagon reaction to the Salisbury articles touched off a new round of editorial comment about the credibility gap. Polls at the start of the year reflected the public’s growing cynicism about public statements. One Harris poll indicated that the public of January 1967 was just as likely to blame the United States for truce violations (despite public announcements to the contrary) as the enemy. Two years earlier this had not been so. Salisbury happened to be in North Vietnam when Hanoi was first bombed — whether by accident or design is uncertain. Consequently, his dispatches carried added sting — he was reporting on the less appealing aspects of a major escalation in the bombing campaign which would have attracted headlines on its own merits. His “in depth” of such an important benchmarks added markedly to its public impact. So great was the cry that President Johnson felt impelled to express “deep regret” over civilian casualties on both sides.

To Walter Lippman, the New Year meant “there is hope ONLY in a negotiated compromise” (emphasis added), but to others optimism was the keynote. Ambassador Lodge, in his New Year’s statement, predicted that “allied forces will make sensational military gains in 1967″ and “the war would end in an eventual fadeout one the allied pacification effort made enough progress to convince Hanoi that the jig was up.”  The New York Daily News informed 15 million New Yorkers that the “U.S. Expects to Crush Main Red Force in ’67.”

Johnson’s troop commitments generated an interesting quote from future President Gerald Ford on page three of this volume: “This event generated a storm of criticism especially from Congressman Gerald Ford who attacked the Administration for expanding operations into the Delta without advising Congress.” Ironic he would serve Nixon as VP (beginning in 1971) and had to confront Nixon’s secret war in Cambodia dating back to 1969.
Even the The Washington Starquoted North Vietnam’s Premier Phan Van Dong as being convinced that American public opinion “would eventually force the US to leave South Vietnam. He confirmed the often expressed fears of US officials who prophesied great danger of a wider and bloodier war if North Vietnam misread the peace marches and opposition to the war, interpreting it as lack of US determination.”

One of the interesting sections in this Volume is Section 4 “The Domestic Debate Continues: Polarization at Home.” Both members of Congress and citizens at home were protesting the war in Vietnam.  This was noted in February 1966, yet the war would continue and more Americans would die for another 10 years.  Another hot issue was inconsistent reporting from the military with reporters:

Pentagon Papers:  Part IV. C6b: Evolution of the War.
Extracted pages 90-100
In early February the Pentagon acknowledged that it had lost 1800 aircraft in Vietnam as opposed to the 622 “combat planes” which it had quoted earlier. R. W. Appel wrote in the New York Times questioning COMUSMACV infiltration figures.

 The public and the press alike were becoming increasingly wary of the statistics coming out of Washington. Even the Chicago Tribune in early March surmised that either the figures coming out of MACV were wrong or those coming out of the Pentagon were misleading. The paper cited a recent joint press conference held by McNamara and Rusk in which they announced that communist military forces in Vietnam had suffered tremendous casualties in the past four months, quantitatively an increase of 40-50%, thus reducing their effectiveness significantly, but in the next sentence announcing that serious communist military activity in Vietnam had “increased substantially.”

By mid-March editorial commentary was focusing on the theme that generally there would be more and wider war. American casualties announced on 10 March were higher than those for any other week of the war: 232 KIA, 1381 WIA, 4 MIA for a total of 1617.  Four days later the U. S. conducted the heaviest attacks of the 1967 air war on North Vietnam (128 missions flown by approximately 450 aircraft). Not only was there a feeling that the war would be longer and more intense, bur the public was becoming increasingly aware of its costs. In mid-March the House Appropriations Committee approved a $12 billion supplemental appropriations bill and a week later the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $20.8 billion military procurement program. The ease of which the appropriations bills were being passed was not truly indicative of the mood of Congress which was becoming increasingly divided about the war. The Stennis Subcommittee (Preparedness) was carrying the military’s fight for more troops. In late March Stennis charged that “American commanders in Vietnam are not getting all the troops they want and the bombing of the north is overly restricted.” The Pentagon reply to this was that “there had been no reduction in any program of troop deployments previously approved by the Department of Defense.” Senator Symington was publicly urging wider air raids of North Vietnam to include attack of the MIG airfields. By late March, Stennis’ charges were coming in drum-fire fashion focusing on charges that future troop deployments to Vietnam would fall below approved levels; that urgent military appeals for the bombing of more meaningful targets in North Vietnam were being arbitrarily denied and that the Pentagon was responsible for a gross shortage of ships in Vietnam. Prior to General Westmoreland’s return to the U.S. in late April, General Abrams had been named as his Deputy Commander and it appears that indeed, despite Westmoreland’s promises of victory, it would be a long war. For early that week the infiltration/casualty figures for the first quarter of 1967 were released, and they indicated that despite huge Red losses of nearly 25,000 men in the first 12 weeks of that year, nearly 4,000 more than that amount had infiltrated during the same period and were now active in enemy units in the South.

The waring signs were ringing again.  Yet the lack of honesty in the military and the White House contributed to a protest movement that required another two years to become simply unavoidable for Johnson.  But it was all at such a terrible cost.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I feel that more reports documenting a losing effort will continue to surface as I make my way through all 7,000+ pages of the study.

On the surface it should shock Americans today to read the reports and both military and diplomatic cables that show President Johnson, General Westmoreland & their aides planed how to deal with losing the war in Vietnam in mid 1965.

Regrettably if you read previous volumes of the Pentagon Papers its very clear America had absolutely no reason to back Diem and the South in its war against the communist North….other than the domino theory that was gripping global politics.  They knew well before ’65 that South Vietnam would fall to the communists.
US involvement in Vietnam and to a greater extent South East Asia began during the late stages of World War II.  During the 1961 Presidential transition we learned President Eisenhower briefed incoming President elect Kennedy that Americans would again be drawn into war in Laos — not Vietnam.  The Johnson White House clearly understood the history of failed efforts by the US to aid South Vietnam in it’s long protracted war against the communist North.

While it was Watergate that would later gave us the catch phrase “What did the President know and when did he know it” clearly Volume IV-C5 reveals Johnson and his White House advisers knew between March and July of 1965 that South Vietnam could not win their war.  Mid 1965 — its already understood we cannot turn the tide against the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong?

These memorandums appear on roughly page 1,780 in Volume IV-C5 and just five months before the battle of the Ia Drang valley.  Today some will recognize this battle by the critically acclaimed book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young. Many remember the 2002 movie starring Mel Gibson.  305 Americans died in this battle. And while winning at LZ X-Ray, horrifically American soldiers marched to LZ X-Albany where the stung enemy ambushed and killed an additional 155 Americans.  So even before waging this battle the White House knew it was a losing effort.  Again, just stunning to read these cables and reports by key members of the White House and armed forces outlining how to bring US soldiers into Vietnam in a formal landing while working on a strategy to salvage face (against the Soviets and Chinese) while understanding their efforts were inevitability a lost cause.

Volume IV C5 reveals the deep ties of four consecutive Presidential Administrations regarding Southeast Asia, Laos and Vietnam.  Beginning with Truman in 1945 to Eisenhower, then Kennedy and at the time of the writing – Johnson with Richard Nixon to take over and expand the War after 1968.  Despite an initial deployment of 44 US battalions (~57,200 troops) to Vietnam to help fight the war all reports by military and civilian analysts, well…now we can read for the first time – 40 years later….it was all just bullshit from before our troops even landed at Da Nang.

Pentagon Papers:  Part IV. C5: Evolution of the War.
Phase I in the Build-up of U.S. Forces: March – July 1965
Section: N:  The U.S. Moved to Take Over the Land War — The Search and Destroy Strategy and the 44 Battalion Debate
Subsection: D:  Search and Destroy as a Strategy and 44 Battalions as a Force
Key participants:  President Johnson, General Westmoreland, Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy, US Ambassador to South Vietnam Maxwell Taylor, Under Secretary of State George Ball & Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton

Extracted Text: Pages 104 – 116:

Page 104:
D. Search and Destroy as a Strategy and 44 Battalions as a Force
—
Page 114:
This message was extremely important, for in it COMUSMACV [Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam] spelled out the concept of keeping U.S. forces away from the people. The search and destroy strategy for U.S. and Third Country forces which continues to this day and the primary focus of RVNAF on pacification both stem from that concept.  In addition, Westmoreland made a big pitch in this cable for a free hand to maneuver the troops around inside the country. That is the prerogative of a major field commander — there is good indication that at this stage Westmoreland saw himself in that light rather than as advisor and assister to the Vietnamese armed forces.

Ambassador Taylor returned to Vietnam from Washington shortly after the battle at Dong Xoai, just as the new Thieu-Ky government was being installed. His first report confirmed the ‘seriousness of the military situation as reported by General Westmoreland and also pointed up the very tenuous hold the new government had on the country.  This report apparently helped to remove the last obstacles to consideration of all of the forces mentioned in Westmoreland’s request of 7 June. On 22 June, the Chairman of the JCS cabled Westmoreland and CINCPAC to inform them that the ante had gone up from 35 to 44 battalions, counting all forces planned and programmed and including the 173rd. Westmoreland was asked if 44 battalions would be enough to convince the VC/DRV that they could not win. General Westmoreland replied that there was no evidence the VC DRV would alter their plans regardless of what the U.S. did in the next six months. The 44 battalion force should, however, establish a favorable balance of power by the end of the year. If the U.S. was to seize the initiative from the enemy, then further forces would be required into 1966 and beyond.

On the 26th of June, as has already been noted, General Westmoreland was given the authority to commit U.S. forces to battle in support of RVNAF “in any situation ..”when, in COMUSMACV’s judgment, their use is necessary to strengthen the relative position of GVN forces.”  This was about as close to a free hand in managing the forces as General Westmoreland was likely to get. The enclave strategy was finished, and the debate from then on centered on how much force and to what end. There were some attempts to snatch the chestnuts from the fire, however.

Westmoreland’s opposition, while far from presenting a united front, had its day in court during late June and early July 1965. The Embassy in Saigon, “‘while recognizing the seriousness of the situation in South Vietnam, was less than sanguine about the prospects for success if large numbers of foreign troops were brought in. Deputy Ambassador U. Alexis Johnson told Assistant Secretary of Defense McNaughton on 25 June that the U.S. should not bring in more troops. The situation,
according to Johnson, was in many ways no more serious than the previous
—
Page 115:
year. Even if it were more serious, he went on, massive input of U.S. troops was unlikely to make much difference. The best they could do would be to hold a few enclaves. Johnson pointed out that the Vietnamese were afraid they would lose authority if more U.S. troops were brought in. He advised that the U.S. allow the forces already in the country to settle. After some experimentation with them, the way would be much clearer. Once in, troops could not, without difficulty, be-taken out again.

The views expressed by Johnson to McNaughton parallel those of Ambassador Taylor throughout the build-up debate. Both men were very much concerned with the effect of the proposed build-up on the Vietnamese; They were not directly opposed to the use of U.S. forces to help the GVN; they merely wanted to go very slowly to insure against loss of control.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from General Westmoreland was Under Secretary of State George Ball. Convinced that the U.S. was pouring it’s resources down the drain in the wrong place, Ball placed himself in direct opposition to the build-up. In a draft memorandum he circulated on the 28th of June, Ball stated that Westmoreland’s intention was to go to Phase III combat (Phase III of the 8 May Concept of Operations which called for US/Allied forays inland to secure bases and areas for further operations). In Ball’s view there was absolutely no assurance that the U.S. could with the provision of more ground forces achieve its political objectives in Vietnam. Instead, the U.S. risked involving itself in a costly and indeterminate struggle. To further complicate matters,· it would be equally impossible to achieve political objectives by expanding the bombing of the North — the risks of involving the USSR and the CPR. There too great, besides which such action would alienate friends. No combination of the two actions offered any better’ prospect for success. Since the costs to achieve its objectives if the U.S. embarked on an expanding program were indeterminate, the U.S. should, in Ball’s view, not elect to follow such a course of action.   It should instead “cut its losses” by restricting itself to the programmed 15 battalions and 72,000 men made public at a press conference in mid-June by the Secretary of Defense.  By holding those forces to a very conservative Phase II strategy of base defense and reserve in support of RVNAF, U.S. combat losses could be held to a minimum while the stage was being set for withdrawal.

Ball was cold-blooded in his analysis. He recognized that the U.S. would not be able to avoid losing face before its Asian allies if it staged some form of conference leading to withdrawal of U. S. forces.  The loss would only be of short term duration, however, and the U.S. could emerge from this period of travail as a ”a wiser and more mature nation.” On 1 July, Ball sent to the President a memorandum entitled “A Compromise Solution for South Vietnam.” In that memorandum, Ball presented his case for cutting losses essentially as it is described above.
—
Page 116:
Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy, like so many others, found himself in between Westmoreland and Ball.  The U. S. needed to avoid the ultimatum aspects of the 44 battalions and also the Ball withdrawal proposal, both of which were undesirable in Bundy’s estimation. On 1 July, Bundy suggested to the President that the U.S. should adopt a policy in which you could allow it to hold on without risking disasters of scale if the war were lost despite deployment of the full 44 battalions. For the moment, according to Bundy, the U.S. should complete planned deployments to bring in-country forces to 18 maneuver battalions and 85,000 men. The Airmobile Division and the remainder of the 1st Division should be brought to a high state of readiness, but the decision as to their deployment should be deferred. By so acting the U.S. would gain time in which to work diplomatically to realign Southeast Asia and thereby salvage its honor and credibility. The forces in Vietnam, which Bundy assumed would be enough to prevent collapse, would be restricted to reserve reaction in support of RVNAF. This would allow for some experimentation without taking over the war effort — a familiar theme. Bundy felt, as did Ambassador Taylor, that there remained considerable uncertainty as to how ‘well U.S. troops would perform in the Vietnam environment. We needed to find out before going big.

While our trusted leaders and their advisers saw the writing on the wall they nevertheless marched America into that darkness. And we needed to find out before going big?  58,195 American lives and 350,000+ casualties.  Think that was big enough?

The study is a 47 volume, 7,000+ page report regarding the US involvement in Vietnam’s long civil war.  This is a long deeply engaging read of organizational failure at the highest levels of the military and government.  So many American lives were lost for a policy that was doomed from the beginning.  This book will painfully show that the brightest and smartest RAND analysts knew it, senior military and policy advisors knew it and so did the White House.

The study was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967.  And for “newly released” material (in 2011) it provides the most horrific, fascinating and astounding read of our policy and warfare strategy under a total of four Presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. However the war continued through both Johnson and Nixon administrations finally ending under President Gerald Ford in 1975.

The Vietnam War was the longest 20th century war in American history.  The study covers a 25-year military engagement in Vietnam while US political interests and efforts actually developed before the end of World War II and continued until the fall of Saigon in 1975.  Take a step back and realize it was a 30 year losing commitment.

Even today in 2012 its amazing to learn multiple volumes of this 1967 study remained classified for exactly 40 years until released (fully redacted) by the National Archives in June 2011.

As important as this study is for understanding our role in the world over a generation, it will regrettably open old wounds. We finally have full access to read the carelessness of our decision makers (both military and Presidential) that cost the lives of over 53,000 American soldiers.  How horrific would these numbers be viewed today?

So why isn’t this “book” listed with any 2011 best sellers?  It was sure greeted with much fanfare and press coverage the day the US National Archives released the study. 

IMHO today’s twitter-focused society cannot read a 7,000+ page study. Sorry to be so blunt. American culture today — we are a nation of ‘skimmers’ due to the vast amounts of data available and our busy lifestyle, we simply do not have the time to read such lengthly books.  We only seek to quickly skim headlines in print, online and while mobile.

And regarding war, I’m afraid here (yet again) is where the lessons of history are lost.

40 years also makes another amazing difference – my ability to hold all 47 volumes on an iPad. As of January I’m just past page 3,500.

My highest compliments to an amazingly professional effort to move the Papers, printed over 40 years ago into an easily copy/paste format for educators, students and historians.

May I suggest photoshopping the faded lines of text in attached memorandums?

By simply modifying the brightness level of the image’s histogram (using the Levels tool in Photoshop) it would benefit many readers who like me, find focusing and recognizing faded text somewhat difficult to read.

The example here took less than one minute to produce a deeper, darker text that makes character recognition much easier to comprehend.

BTW: Its wonderful to color hilight sections of any volume of the study on an iPad.  And carrying around this entire 7,000+ page, 47 volume study is just remarkable.

As Part IV-C.4. reveals research, studies & politics all concluded that South Vietnamese armed forces were on the brink of collapse against the Viet Cong.  The document provides the data that should have not only questioned the decision to deploy US forces but the questioned the role of the US in Vietnam vs Laos.

It was just one terrible decision by the White House after 20 years of continued support for the South Vietnamese.  The “no surprise at the time of deployment” was an existing 20,000 American force of military and policy advisers supporting the South Vietnamese air force and government.

An emerging mistake in the previous part “[Part IV. C. 3.] Evolution of the War. Rolling Thunder Program Begins: January – June 1965″ is the “automatic reliance” on superior air power to defeat the NVA and Viet Cong.  I believe Nixon proved this wrong at the very end of the war.

Looking back — One should not help but evaluate these hard lessons from David Halberstam’s The Best and The Brightest published in 1972 (my review here)  Kennedy seemed to have the top researchers and policy advisors like McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara, Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow continue policies established by Presidents Truman and Eisnenhower regarding Southeast Asia, Laos and Vietnam.   Halberstam looked at the promise of the young Kennedy think-tank and drew upon his own lessons while reporting from Vietnam.  Halberstam was awarded a 1964 Pulitzer prize for International Reporting on the war in Vietnam  and the overthrow of the Diem regime.

If there is a way to get there — I would make the trip in a ping.

As I approach page 3,500 and reading about actions 40 years ago, I cannot convey how sad this is for America.  The loss of life in a war against communism (today we can realize) was doomed from the beginning. Consistently ignored by Washington and every President from FDR to Nixon lied through their teeth to protect US interests during the Cold War.

Interesting to look at the title “US – Vietnam relations 1945 – 1967″ clearly the early volumes indicate before the end of World War II the US sent money and arms to the Viet Minh — yes the Viet Minh.

In 1960 the Viet Minh changed their name to the National Liberation Front (NLF) aka Viet Cong.   So FDR and the US gave money and arms to Ho Chí Minh for one year…however we reversed course, backed the South Vietnamese and welcomed the quagmire that cost 53,000 American lives.  I hope to be done in January 2012.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To my utter amazement Dr. Meehan was not at the World Trade Center or even in New York City on 9/11.  She watched events unfold from South Orange New Jersey, 15 miles away from The World Trade Center while working at Seton Hall University.

Dr. Meehan: An attempt to share your “compelling, first-hand experience” is an embarrassment for you and Alverno College.

Your address could have described how seemingly within seconds of Flight UA #175 impacting the South Tower, a human leg fell onto Liberty street in-front of the Deutsche Bank Building.  But you could not hear the screams from those standing near the severed limb from Seton Hall.  Your address could have described segments of UA#175 that were on the grounds on the WTC Complex.  But you could not see those from Seton Hall.  And you could have shared how the impact of UA #175 shook all that way down to the entrance of the Deutsche Bank Building.  But you could not feel that from Seton Hall.

If only you were standing in-front of the Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street adjacent to the South Tower when flight UA#175 struck at 9:03am.

Because in all that horror Dr. Meehan — regrettably — you would have stood next to my wife.

Proving that ‘tigers eat their young’ those same pundits are already calling Google+….the next GoogleWave.

Wave? Oh, how quickly did you forget about Google’s last B-L-U-N-D-E-R in social media?  Feels like yesterday Google was so slowly handing out Wave invites that it actually killed user adoption by the time they got around to “launching” the product.

Wave was so over-hyped by those same pundits who were also on twitter begging for a Wave invite.  I recall them wishing they could be part of the Wave hype….until the exact moment they logged into Wave they found out how complex the UI was presented. Boy did Google deserve one hard shot right to the groin for that social train wreck.

So those who consider themselves social media leaders (or innovators) are actually voicing their displeasure with Google+ after its been public for just 30 days?  Oh the irony.  I cannot help but relish that quote from earlier this year that puts all those social media so called leaders or innovators into context:

“99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns”
-Gary Vayerchuk interview

I attended a social media briefing two weeks ago where the guest ‘innovator’ actually stated Google+ would “totally wipe out LinkedIn” but not kill Twitter.  Interesting since LinkedIn plays to the business hiring community. And with a mid-May IPO valuation of $4.3 billion (yes that’s B — as in Billion) I somehow think the hype got the better of them yet again.

Expectations regarding Google and social media are simply out of control.  It will never be what any of those pundits want. With today’s accepted fast user-adoption model it might be time to re-evaluate a “3 strikes and your out” policy.  Will it be strike-two and your out for Google?

I hope not especially since they have been upfront to keep business away for the moment from embracing Google+ as a replacement for corporate Facebook.  It helps when you generate AdSense revenue of $2.04 billion.

Here is one sales method Google successfully employed in the UK to secure Wave penetration into the Higher Education community: Tie Wave accounts to every University student, faculty, staff and alumni when the institution migrates costly legacy email services to Google Apps for Education.  Wave made inroads in UK Universities using that exact strategy.  If Google truly wants Plus to establish a social media juggernaut, then make Plus a standard component of the Google Apps for Education strategy.  And throw in Google Voice for good measure too.

If Wave was killed due to languishing in beta Plus has a chance. Today Google can scale more efficiently than it could just four years ago (Google server infographic) However even with their infrastructure in place they have stumbled a bit out of the gate regarding Plus.

But its not a killer after just 30 days people!

Remember – in the end its all about managing expectations.  Unfortunately social media pundits expect Google to scale Plus into the stratosphere where Facebook sits.  Even with all of Google’s servers they are still not engineered to take advantage of this type of roll-out strategy…..yet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I cannot help but look back at sections of his book regarding the CIA’s role in Vietnam from 1954-1975. Weiner book helps indicate where the CIA is today as an organization, regarding their war on terror….also known as the ‘transnational anti-terrorism activities’ including implications of human rights abuses.

Weiner’s rich history of CIA’s vast amount of intelligence gathering required by Presidnets Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon is no surprise, however I was surprised by Weiner’s documentation regarding Kennedy’s distain for the agency and its Director former Air Force General Charles Cabell.

As I read the Pentagon Papers its amazing to cross reference Weiner’s timelines to Vietnam and learn how Johnson and Nixon where throwing billions at a problem that simply never went away.  Faulty intelligence by the CIA misled Nixon into bombing Cambodia and ultimately a secret invasion that backfired on his Presidency.  Nixon, like Kennedy had no love for Director Richard Helms.  Weiner documents the difficult political role Directors have played in working with every President.  Chief issue for all: faulty intelligence.  Oh how it has cost America.  Then there is the whole Watergate thing…

Legacy of Ashes is a great read that will enlighten you to the amazing history of American espionage and the failures of the agency that have lead to incredible mistakes in American foreign policy.  Since America seems to ignore it’s own history this book provides the framework for future errors that will cost America more than just blood.

The study traces US involvement in Vietnam beginning in 1945 just after World War II and ending in 1967 before the Tet Offensive.  The report, a scathing self-examination of U.S.-Vietnamese relations and the Vietnam War, led to one of the largest and most significant court battles ever concerning government secrets vs. freedom of the press.  Nixon’s demand to damage Ellsberg resulted in the Watergate scandal.

The Nixon Library has a copy in that was part of President Richard Nixon’s papers. It will be released at 9 a.m., June 13, 40 years to the day that leaked portions of the report were printed on the front page of The New York Times.

Smart’s Smartboard allows a teacher using a custom pen with touch recognition to control a software program while standing in-front of the Smartboard.  There is no better example of the use of Smartboards than the educational marketplace.  The term “SmartClassroom” has been around for over a decade.  The call to replace ancient chalkboards with Smartboards continue to grow louder and louder.

But just hold on a minute.  The popular message to schools is simple: “Go Digital” and embrace “high tech” in your classroom.  Parents think their children are getting a better education simply because their school has installed Smartboards.  But the costs are so high (between $3,000 and $8,000/unit) that some K12 Districts hold special fund raising events to pay for these units.  And as a result critical services like bandwidth are ignored….but this is another discussion.

While working at an Art college in Wisconsin I was interested to learn about a “grant opportunity” to add Smartboards into classrooms.  I arraigned a two week “kick-the-tires” evaluation from Smart Technologies’ regional sales office.  Yes – a two week test drive. My goal was to obtain a real-world understanding of this technology to justify the purchase, install, design and lead a faculty training program.

During my testing period I was also fortunate to take a campus tour of Marquette University’s installation of Smartboards around campus and even take a look at their new SmartClassroom in the new Raynor Library.  Several vendor installations around campus successfully demonstrated a range of working interactive whiteboards.

But once again the products from Smart Technologies failed to impress.  It left an impression on me that Smart Technologies is all about Paris Hilton selling cheeseburgers?

What did I learn?  If you can actually find the time to analyze this product and really give it an honest evaluation, you will be disappointed.  It misses the mark on “smart.”  Smart’s unit failed so terribly that I refer to them as Dumbboards.  The conversations at Marquette were just as interesting, a limited choice of supported applications really kill the marketing hype of these products.  However at the same time the real, functional SmartBoards integrated into SmartClassrooms have a price point over $40,000 per room.

Guess What?  S E X sells even in Ed Tech
Everyone is so hooked by the “sex” of “Smartboards” — and ignoring the product’s limitations.  Part of my arrangement included a vendor demo.  Things could not have started off on the wrong foot in-front of the College’s Faculty, Administrators and IT staff. The demo crashed three times during a 1-hour sales presentation.  I can guarantee that with three crashes, you’ll even lose the support from the IT group … and they are used to demo crashes.  Faculty and administrators were laughing after the second crash.  Holding out all hope….I gave up after the third.

Reading the fine print:
So was I missing something?  This led me to question what I may have overlooked in all those positive reviews.  Why are schools installing these units?  This product simply does not work as advertised becuase Smart’s products require all software used to be modified.  Here is the fine print from the company’s website:

Which computer applications can I use?
Any application that you use on your computer will work on a SMART Board interactive whiteboard. Some commonly used applications, such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel and Word, and AutoCAD, are especially well integrated for use with SMART Board interactive whiteboards. Depending on the application, you can save files with notes, convert handwriting to text or activate tools when you pick up a pen from the SMART Pen Tray.
While any software will work on a SMART Board interactive whiteboard, some applications are designed specifically for use on interactive whiteboards. These applications may feature large buttons and scroll bars for easy manipulation and low toolbars for easy access by children or seated users.

–Okay: The company’s PR states “Some commonly used applications” which really means Word, Excel, PowerPoint and AutoCAD have been modified by their programmers to be “especially well integrated” to their touch pen.  Smart must tweak software in order to fully sync their touch recognition (pen input device) with the code used by Adobe to control Photoshop’s menus.

Adobe is one of the biggest software companies on the planet and yet the only Adobe product “supported” by Smart (yea….get ready for this shocker) is Acrobat Reader.  Yes, Reader!  Not Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign or even Acrobat Pro…just Reader.  Do you really need an $6,000 interactive whiteboard to “interact” with a .PDF file?  What bullshit!

So what this does this limitation say upfront about the product? Let me put it this way: If your school’s software is not on their special list, you just purchased a space shuttle to drive to the grocery store to pickup a gallon of milk.  And your school is stuck with a $6,000 old-fashion projector even when you get updated software next year!

To make matters worse schools are ALTERING their curriculum in order to bring Dumbboards into the classroom.  Oh yes, lets let companies actually dictate what software is taught in schools.  Faculty are actually permitting Smart’s software programmers to dictate their lesson plans.  How does this play with students or their parents?  Okay students like the “wow” factor of playing with the device in class. But seriously how can any curriculum director approve this expense while budget cuts are hitting everyone?

Can a Table make you smarter?
At the 2009 Brainstorm 10.0 conference in the Wisconsin Dells I had an opportunity to see Smart’s Microsoft Surface knockoff called the SmartTable. Smart is selling this table to schools for a whopping $8,000.00 and aimed square at K12 School Districts.  I would ask any K12 teacher or curriculum director if YOUR approved curriculum software is able to be loaded onto SmartTable.  I’m afraid their demo was even less impressive. as I began to see that their custom software cannot be modified easily.

Smart will point you to their custom programming tools (SDK) that permits schools to make changes to “force” the school’s software to work.  So the School purchases software from company X but has to have their own IT staff program custom program software application Y in order to join the “some commonly used software” list?  Yea right.  Schools are losing budget dollars left and right yet Smart wants your school’s IT staff to program software changes?

I gave the SmartTable a spin at BrainStorm 10.0 and was not impressed with this “dumb” product either. They were taking a hint from the buzz surrounding Surface and pitched it to grade schools.  When I first stood in-front of the unit I was thinking of Microsoft’s Surface.

When I watched the the demo I realize it was nothing more than another Dumbboard.  When I read the technical specifications I learned it was a kluge of a design.  Many think the SmartTable is a flat panel TV mounted on a table with touch recognition.  The Table is in fact just a projector inside the box shooting its display against the glass surface.  Not very high tech (or smart) at all.

A real-world Smartboard for just $500.00
Three years ago I advised the college in Milwaukee Wisconsin to forgo a Smartboard and leverage grant money to purchase a slew of Dell projectors.  Why?  From each instructor’s workstation (and every faculty laptop) Dell’s projector runs every software WITHOUT required modification.  Best feature?  Dell projection units support High-Definition video.  Should it really surprise you that Smart’s $8,000 Table does not support HD video?

Note to sales rep: Know your audience!
The Dumbboard has custom software that includes a built-in “art” library that looks like it was designed by a 2nd grader with the attention span of Boo Radley using KidPix. Don’t show this proudly to teachers at an Art School as a key feature of the product.  It’s outright insulting.  And when you demo Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint for faculty, don’t expect a roomful of artists to “light up” when you execute an Excel macro.  Just admit up front the Dumbboard does not support Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash or InDesign.

The excitement of a product from Smart Technologies should wear off in 90 seconds. Otherwise your still hooked on the marketing…and Paris Hilton.

Clearly Congress was pitched a bill of goods manipulated by Wall Street. That simply bit them in the ass.  I was amused to see how they were asking for the government to bail them out when their house of cards folded in on them.  And yet I’m amused to read and listen to “specialists” or “experts in the field” in the financial marketplace or even the vast field of TV “analysts” who say the government is socialist for ”buying” the banks.

TARP was issued under W. Bush?  If the Treasury did not step in and bail out Wall Street we would be in the middle of a global revolution as I type.  Sure ignore it all and watch our entire economy totally collapse.

I was impressed with the book’s level of detail surrounding the relationships between W. Bush and Obama’s senior leadership (who transitioned to the Democratic White House) and their twisted histories with the major banks on Wall Street.  Its clear the amount of money funneling through Congress today provides Wall Street with a clear avenue to set policy — and even give away free money.  Well its not exactly free…the money handed to Wall Street to protect their horrible investment decisions on terms they could bargain for collectively.  And of course they all took it.

As Jamie Dimon from JPMorgan Chase stated, somehow during the financial  collapse they managed to have the best year in the company’s history — and paid out billions in bonus compensation while most Americans who purchased their products lost everything:  jobs, mortgages and ultimately their future as a result of the recession that followed.

13 Bankers blog

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cedric Jennings is the focus of “A Hope in the Unseen” an incomplete story of a gifted high school student in the poor intercity of Washington DC during the height of the crack cocaine wars of the 90s. His story of overcoming all the odds to win a scholarship to an Ivy League college is just part of his story.  And college was just beginning another struggle in his life.  With other groups sometimes the title did not fit the organization, like Jon Krakauer‘s Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. That is one tough book for any club.

I have learned what some titles really do not make any sense for a university administrator.  During a regular meeting with a former college’s senior leadership we went around the table speaking about a current book we were reading and how it fit into our job. I was reading about innovation yet was humored with one academic dean who shared her thoughts about her job and a murder mystery based in Chicago. Yikes!

This is the third book by Ron Suskind that I have read over the last year. Having been impressed with his previous works One Percent Doctrine and The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism it was no surprise I found his work again very enjoyable. What I did not realize prior to beginning this book was his Pulitzer Prize for writing a short story about Cedric Jennings while he attended Ballou High School were published in the Wall Street Journal.

Again the impression I found with this group was really to view Cedric’s life as a lesson for students that we engage every day on campus. I began to think about the type of discussions I could bring to students with my experiences to assist them making their way through college and life.  Cedric’s journey is not that far from the story of Sudhir Venkatesh in Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, a great read about a University of Chicago grad student studying life in the Chicago gangs during the same time-frame.

The issue of simple attendance in Cedric’s high school was also not far from an experience I had working on a technology project with the Detroit City Schools.  This project took me into a high school back in the 90s that woke me up to the fact that I passed metal detectors manned by the Detroit Police Department…who also instructed me when to best walk the halls during the day.  Clearly I was out of my element.

This book is hard to put down when you consider the dynamics of today’s college students.