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Haldeman and Ehrlichman in happier days.

On April 30th, 1973, after mounting pressure concerning the break-in ten months earlier at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building – Nixon’s Chief Domestic Advisor John Ehrlichman, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst all resigned.

And White House Counsel John Dean was fired.

Although it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact moment in time when the Watergate tide turned against Nixon and he lost control of the situation, this “house-cleaning” moment is a very good candidate. The scandal had now moved inside the White House and as his subsequent, and sometimes very erratic and bizarre behavior showed – this “inside personal perspective” courtesy of Henry Kissinger not John Dean  - Nixon could no longer ignore Watergate and his internal demons were gaining control.

(Remember this is the man – I’m writing about Nixon here – who after a huge Presidential landslide election in 1972 demanded the resignations of everyone who reported to the Executive Branch. Think about that.)

Author, General and 18^th President of the United States, Hiram Ulysses Grant was born on April 27^th, 1827 in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Grant is one of those figures in U.S. history whom most of us recognize by name and face – his likeness is on the fifty dollar bill after all – as a Civil War Union commander and former President and then his history becomes cloudy and largely fictional.

For instance the story goes -

Grant was the “last general standing” as President Lincoln desperately searched for someone to command the Union Army. Thus his success was more a matter of timing – the war was all but over as the Confederate Army was on its last legs after three years of fighting - rather than due to anything Grant did. Having superiority in numbers, once Grant assumed command he simply started marching towards the Confederate capital of Richmond and steamrolled his way to victory.

After the Civil War, Grant capitalized on his military fame and suckered the American public into electing him to the Presidency, where one scandal followed another. Once again it was happenstance rather than any innate ability that guided Grant to the Oval Office and he proved totally unfit for office.

Lastly – he was more than likely drunk most of the time.

Appearances can blur reality. Author Mark Carp seems to dwell on this
theme in his latest book, a fictional memoir entitled Cain, Abel and the Family
Cohen.

Upon first blush, the diverse Cohen family seems remarkable, ideal and
intensely loyal to one another. There is the father, Abraham Cohen, the long-term
rabbi at Beth Israel synagogue in Baltimore, Maryland. Under Rabbi Cohen's
leadership, the synagogue has thrived despite its location in a poor inner-city
neighborhood. His wife, Leah, supports him in his rabbinic duties and is described
as the nurturing "glue" of the family.

The Cohen's have three children: the charismatic Isaac, a lawyer and
Maryland State Senator, who is running for a seat in the United States House of
Representatives; the remarkably talented middle child, Rachel, who has appeared
in some movies in Hollywood and will soon be auditioning for a lead role in a
Broadway play; and the youngest, Jonas, who recently has received a Master's
degree in finance from Columbia University and is now employed by the Frick
Group, a New York hedge fund where he has interned the previous two summers.

On April 17^th, 1987, baseball history was made not by what transpired on the field with the Chicago Cubs and the Montreal Expos, but rather with what happened up in the announcers’ booth.

The 1987 Cubs season opened with some tragic news; beloved play-by-play announcer Harry Caray suffered a stroke and was unable to take the microphone. The Cubs organization came up with a brilliant back-up plan while Harry recovered; they brought in guest announcers - including Jim Belushi, George Wendt, Mike Royko and George Will - to call the game along with regular color announcer Steve Stone. On April 17^th, it was Bill Murray’s turn and the rest is Sports Broadcasting history – literally. The Museum of Broadcasting Communications has a copy of this game in their archives.

The game got off to an inauspicious start – somehow all of the umpires’ equipment had been lost in transit - so the Cubs supplied them with what they needed – much of it with the Cubs logo on it. This was comedic fodder for Murray who after poking fun at the umpires’ wardrobe malfunction then opined on the Expos’ line-up – “Casey Candaele – he’s no good. Vance Law – he’s over-rated. Tom Foley shouldn’t even be playing. Hermann Winningham – What, you’re going to be afraid of a guy named Herman?”

Next came the Canadian National Anthem – “They’ve only got five words in the song and they just keep singing them over and over again.”

City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago by Gary Krist

Crown (April 17, 2012), 368 pages

Picking up on a recent trend – chronicling lesser well known but nonetheless critical historical events – the author focuses on twelve eventful days during the summer of 1919 in Chicago. And what a twelve days it was for the Windy City, including the crash of a blimp in the downtown Loop area, the mysterious disappearance of a 6-year-old girl, a transit workers’ strike and several days of race riots. Using just the right mix of newspaper and first-hand accounts, mini-bios of  the personalities involved – and this being Chicago, the politics – and enough back-story for context, Krist coherently tells us the story of this almost fortnight of drama.

In July of 1919 World War I was less than a year over and the world, country and city were dealing with the Spanish flu pandemic. Nationally Prohibition loomed on the horizon, inflation was running high and labor was frustrated with their post-war wages.  President Woodrow Wilson was shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic – “making the world safe for Democracy” and campaigning here for his League of Nations. (Indirectly, the author provides a picture of what was happening as the country transitioned from war to peace mode with no one at the helm – Wilson obsessed with the aforementioned and then subsequently debilitated by a stroke.)