NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ft solar reflector in earth orbit

[Rusty]

Here is a NASA report just added to the NTRS server in PDF format.

It's a 1966 NASA/Grumman study that uses a manned Lunar Module to
deploy a 400-ft to 3000-ft solar reflector in a 6000 nm or 24 hr earth
orbit. The reflector would be used to illuminate selected areas of the
earth during the hours of darkness. This proposed program was called
Project Able.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Feasibility study of utilization of LM for Project Able. Volume 1 -
Technical summary

NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI)
NASA-CR-117546 , 19661212; Dec 12, 1966

Accession ID: 79N76171
View PDF File
Document ID: 19790076663
Updated/Added to NTRS: 2005-11-17

34 pages

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790076663_1979076663.pdf

------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Rusty

[[email protected]]

Rusty wrote:
> Here is a NASA report just added to the NTRS server in PDF format.
>
> It's a 1966 NASA/Grumman study that uses a manned Lunar Module to
> deploy a 400-ft to 3000-ft solar reflector in a 6000 nm or 24 hr earth
> orbit. The reflector would be used to illuminate selected areas of the
> earth during the hours of darkness. This proposed program was called
> Project Able.

Any indication what the ultimate purpose was? I assume the national
security classification indicates that it was for military or
intelligence use.

[[email protected]]

wrote:

> Any indication what the ultimate purpose was?

To light up the ground at night. Numerous commercial and military
apps... light up a disaster area, light up a battlefield.

[Rusty]

wrote:
> Rusty wrote:
> > Here is a NASA report just added to the NTRS server in PDF format.
> >
> > It's a 1966 NASA/Grumman study that uses a manned Lunar Module to
> > deploy a 400-ft to 3000-ft solar reflector in a 6000 nm or 24 hr earth
> > orbit. The reflector would be used to illuminate selected areas of the
> > earth during the hours of darkness. This proposed program was called
> > Project Able.
>
> Any indication what the ultimate purpose was? I assume the national
> security classification indicates that it was for military or
> intelligence use.


I assume Project Able was for the benefit of the Defense Department.

Through the years, the media and NASA have repeatedly stated, that U.S.
civilian space program was totally in the open, unlike the Soviets.
It's interesting to see NASA documents that were once classified or
confidential, now being posted on the NTRS server, that disprove those
statements.

-Rusty

[Pat Flannery]

wrote:

>
>To light up the ground at night. Numerous commercial and military
>apps... light up a disaster area, light up a battlefield.
>
>

Or make the thing just a little bit flexible so that you can bow it into
a parabolic dish shape and....
In "Real Genius" they called it The Crossbow Project. ;-)
(considering the tiny amount of flexing it would need to bring it into
focus at its orbital height, something on the ground is probably going
to get fried every time an astronaut bumps something on the side of the
LM facing away from the Earth.)

Pat

[Pat Flannery]

Rusty wrote:

>I assume Project Able was for the benefit of the Defense Department.
>
>Through the years, the media and NASA have repeatedly stated, that U.S.
>civilian space program was totally in the open, unlike the Soviets.
>It's interesting to see NASA documents that were once classified or
>confidential, now being posted on the NTRS server, that disprove those
>statements.
>
>

Hmmm.... I wonder what the report on DART will have stamped on it in a
few years? ;-)
I still like the LM-based military system that goes up to Soviet
spacecraft and spray paints them black, via the "graffiti in space"
attack technique: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apolmcsd.htm

Pat

[OM]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:10:34 -0600, Pat Flannery >
wrote:

>I still like the LM-based military system that goes up to Soviet
>spacecraft and spray paints them black, via the "graffiti in space"
>attack technique: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apolmcsd.htm

....And when you think about it, the CLM (Combat LM) wouldn't have had
to get -that- close to the target to do sufficient damage. It would
have just had to let loose the paint against the flow of rotation
enough to cause a gradual buildup on the target to the point where the
thermal absorptiion would have done it in. Would have taken longer,
but it would have improved our "plausable deniability" in the long run
:-)

OM
--
]=======================================[
OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld
Let's face it: Sometimes you *need*
an obnoxious opinion in your day!
]=======================================[

[OM]

On 21 Nov 2005 08:54:34 -0800, wrote:

>
wrote:
>
>> Any indication what the ultimate purpose was?
>
>To light up the ground at night. Numerous commercial and military
>apps... light up a disaster area, light up a battlefield.

....From what I recall of this one, the disaster area use was felt to
be the best implementation, considering the total area of ilumination
that such an array theoretically could have provided.

OM
--
]=======================================[
OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld
Let's face it: Sometimes you *need*
an obnoxious opinion in your day!
]=======================================[

[Scott Lowther]

OM wrote:

>On 21 Nov 2005 08:54:34 -0800, wrote:
>
>
>
wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Any indication what the ultimate purpose was?
>>>
>>>
>>To light up the ground at night. Numerous commercial and military
>>apps... light up a disaster area, light up a battlefield.
>>
>>
>
>...From what I recall of this one, the disaster area use was felt to
>be the best implementation, considering the total area of ilumination
>that such an array theoretically could have provided.
>


One is forced to wonder what will happen now that this report has been
made public. Will Nagin and the Dems start to berate
Bush/Cheney/Haliburton for not having built Able to light up NOLA?

--
"The only thing that galls me about someone burning the American flag is how unoriginal it is. I mean if you're going to pull the Freedom-of-speech card, don't be a hack, come up with something interesting. Fashion Old Glory into a wisecracking puppet and blister the system with a scathing ventriloquism act, or better yet, drape the flag over your head and desecrate it with a large caliber bullet hole." Dennis Miller

[Henry Spencer]

In article >,
Pat Flannery > wrote:
>>To light up the ground at night. Numerous commercial and military
>>apps... light up a disaster area, light up a battlefield.
>
>Or make the thing just a little bit flexible so that you can bow it into
>a parabolic dish shape and....

And what? The bad news is, the physics doesn't allow you to get a tight
focus at a distance, because the Sun is not a point source. Inherently
the best you can do is to make the light per square degree of sky, as seen
at the target, equal to that of the Sun. A 3000ft reflector at a distance
of hundreds of kilometers isn't going to fry anything, because it'll be a
small fraction of a degree wide (vs. half a degree for the Sun). The
light at the target will be a small fraction of normal sunlight. To fry
something, you need to fill a sizable part of its sky with reflector.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

[Derek Lyons]

"Rusty" > wrote:

>
wrote:
>> Rusty wrote:
>> > Here is a NASA report just added to the NTRS server in PDF format.
>> >
>> > It's a 1966 NASA/Grumman study that uses a manned Lunar Module to
>> > deploy a 400-ft to 3000-ft solar reflector in a 6000 nm or 24 hr earth
>> > orbit. The reflector would be used to illuminate selected areas of the
>> > earth during the hours of darkness. This proposed program was called
>> > Project Able.
>>
>> Any indication what the ultimate purpose was? I assume the national
>> security classification indicates that it was for military or
>> intelligence use.
>
>I assume Project Able was for the benefit of the Defense Department.

Please provide a basis for that assumption.

>Through the years, the media and NASA have repeatedly stated, that U.S.
>civilian space program was totally in the open, unlike the Soviets.
>It's interesting to see NASA documents that were once classified or
>confidential, now being posted on the NTRS server, that disprove those
>statements.

'Confidential' *is* a classification. (The whole list being
Unclassified, For Official Use Only, Confidential, Secret, and Top
Secret.) The presence of a classification does not mean that it's DoD
related - the classification system system is more-or-less a goverment
standard used by all departments and branches.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

[Pat Flannery]

OM wrote:

>...And when you think about it, the CLM (Combat LM) wouldn't have had
>to get -that- close to the target to do sufficient damage. It would
>have just had to let loose the paint against the flow of rotation
>enough to cause a gradual buildup on the target to the point where the
>thermal absorptiion would have done it in. Would have taken longer,
>but it would have improved our "plausable deniability" in the long run
>:-)
>
>

"Saturn V launch? What Saturn V launch?" ;-)

Pat

[Henry Spencer]

In article m>,
Rusty > wrote:
>Through the years, the media and NASA have repeatedly stated, that U.S.
>civilian space program was totally in the open, unlike the Soviets.
>It's interesting to see NASA documents that were once classified or
>confidential, now being posted on the NTRS server, that disprove those
>statements.

You need to draw a distinction between the program and its technology,
because the latter had considerable overlap with military stuff, most
notably in rocketry. When you get down to the level of technical detail,
nobody's ever tried to pretend that there wasn't stuff that was stamped
SECRET for at least a little while.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

[Pat Flannery]

OM wrote:

>
>...From what I recall of this one, the disaster area use was felt to
>be the best implementation, considering the total area of ilumination
>that such an array theoretically could have provided.
>
>

I'd like to figure out just how little you'd have to flex that reflector
to focus it to a point from GEO; it's probably a few millimeters.

Pat

[Pat Flannery]

Scott Lowther wrote:

>
>
> One is forced to wonder what will happen now that this report has been
> made public. Will Nagin and the Dems start to berate
> Bush/Cheney/Haliburton for not having built Able to light up NOLA?


Murtha is an evil, weak-kneed traitor...no, Murtha is a military
hero...what will tomorrow bring from Cheney's office?

Pat

[Pat Flannery]

Henry Spencer wrote:

>
>And what? The bad news is, the physics doesn't allow you to get a tight
>focus at a distance, because the Sun is not a point source. Inherently
>the best you can do is to make the light per square degree of sky, as seen
>at the target, equal to that of the Sun. A 3000ft reflector at a distance
>of hundreds of kilometers isn't going to fry anything, because it'll be a
>small fraction of a degree wide (vs. half a degree for the Sun). The
>light at the target will be a small fraction of normal sunlight. To fry
>something, you need to fill a sizable part of its sky with reflector.
>
>

Oh, that's no fun! What was the point of developing it if you couldn't
use it as a death ray? :-)
Seriously though- if the point of the gizmo is to light up a night time
area of the Earth with reflected sunlight, how bright of an illumination
could you get on a moonless night with this thing? Also, wouldn't even
very small distortions in it's form (a few millimeters) cause its
illumination level to oscillate severely as the light striking the
Earth's surface shifted all over the place?

Pat

[[email protected]]

Derek Lyons wrote:

> 'Confidential' *is* a classification. (The whole list being
> Unclassified, For Official Use Only, Confidential, Secret, and Top
> Secret.)

Nit: FOUO isn't a national security classification, though it's
frequently misused as one.

> The presence of a classification does not mean that it's DoD
> related - the classification system system is more-or-less a goverment
> standard used by all departments and branches.

There's an interesting discussion about how classification was being
viewed in NASA in the mid-1960s at
http://history.nasa.gov/HHR-32/ch14.htm

[Derek Lyons]

" > wrote:

>> The presence of a classification does not mean that it's DoD
>> related - the classification system system is more-or-less a goverment
>> standard used by all departments and branches.
>
>There's an interesting discussion about how classification was being
>viewed in NASA in the mid-1960s at
>http://history.nasa.gov/HHR-32/ch14.htm

The classification guide mentioned therein would make for some
interesting reading.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

[[email protected]]

Derek Lyons wrote:

> The classification guide mentioned therein would make for some interesting reading.

Indeed so. But I think the discussion in the cited chapter,
particularly as it relates to narrow versus broad interpretations of
what constitutes "national security" and how that should affect
application of national security classification is very interesting in
itself.

It's a discussion/dispute that goes on to this day. It's easy to argue
that the narrow interpretation should be used, and equally easy to make
the case for the broad interpretation. I'm mostly in the narrow camp
but see the point the broadians are making. Somehow it reminds me of
Gulliver's Travels.

[Henry Spencer]

In article >,
Pat Flannery > wrote:
>>...A 3000ft reflector at a distance
>>of hundreds of kilometers isn't going to fry anything, because it'll be a
>>small fraction of a degree wide (vs. half a degree for the Sun)...
>
>Seriously though- if the point of the gizmo is to light up a night time
>area of the Earth with reflected sunlight, how bright of an illumination
>could you get on a moonless night with this thing?

Hmm... Speaking without having read the report, you're going to want a
fairly high orbit -- the reflector isn't much use if it's above the
horizon at the desired site for only a few minutes at a time.

Call it 1km across and say it's 6,000km away; that makes it roughly
1/100th of a degree wide. That gives about 1/2500th of full sunlight.
Full sunlight is, if memory serves, about 10,000 foot-candles, and you can
read and write -- although not comfortably -- at 1 foot-candle. So yeah,
it's not exactly bright, but enough to be useful.

>Also, wouldn't even
>very small distortions in it's form (a few millimeters) cause its
>illumination level to oscillate severely as the light striking the
>Earth's surface shifted all over the place?

At first glance, I'd say that changes in its overall shape would be
trouble, but local rippling etc. wouldn't do more than decrease the
overall intensity some.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

[Henry Spencer]

In article . com>,
> wrote:
>There's an interesting discussion about how classification was being
>viewed in NASA in the mid-1960s at
>http://history.nasa.gov/HHR-32/ch14.htm

Also interesting and related, although not NASA-specific, is
<http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dsbrep.html>.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

[Rand Simberg]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 23:31:54 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery > made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

>
>
>Scott Lowther wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> One is forced to wonder what will happen now that this report has been
>> made public. Will Nagin and the Dems start to berate
>> Bush/Cheney/Haliburton for not having built Able to light up NOLA?
>
>
>Murtha is an evil, weak-kneed traitor...no, Murtha is a military
>hero...what will tomorrow bring from Cheney's office?

When did Cheney's office call anyone an "evil, weak-kneed traitor,"
let alone Murtha?

You need to adjust your medication, Pat.

[David Lesher]

" > writes:


>Rusty wrote:
>> Here is a NASA report just added to the NTRS server in PDF format.
>>
>> It's a 1966 NASA/Grumman study that uses a manned Lunar Module to
>> deploy a 400-ft to 3000-ft solar reflector in a 6000 nm or 24 hr earth
>> orbit. The reflector would be used to illuminate selected areas of the
>> earth during the hours of darkness. This proposed program was called
>> Project Able.

>Any indication what the ultimate purpose was? I assume the national
>security classification indicates that it was for military or
>intelligence use.

Vietnam comes to mind...
--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

[David Lesher]

(Derek Lyons) writes:


>'Confidential' *is* a classification. (The whole list being
>Unclassified, For Official Use Only, Confidential, Secret, and Top
>Secret.) The presence of a classification does not mean that it's DoD
>related - the classification system system is more-or-less a goverment
>standard used by all departments and branches.


Not quite

A) FOUO/LOU etc are NOT classifications. They are agency inventions.

B) Confidential -> TS are; they are set into law so yes they apply
to all agencies.


--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

[OM]

On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 18:03:30 +0000 (UTC), David Lesher
> wrote:

>A) FOUO/LOU etc are NOT classifications. They are agency inventions.

....FYI, FOUO is not a classification under Federal law. 2/3 of the
state governments have legally adopted it as one. From my own
experience, Texas is one such state.

OM
--
]=======================================[
OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld
Let's face it: Sometimes you *need*
an obnoxious opinion in your day!
]=======================================[

[Derek Lyons]

David Lesher > wrote:

(Derek Lyons) writes:
>
>>'Confidential' *is* a classification. (The whole list being
>>Unclassified, For Official Use Only, Confidential, Secret, and Top
>>Secret.) The presence of a classification does not mean that it's DoD
>>related - the classification system system is more-or-less a goverment
>>standard used by all departments and branches.
>
>Not quite
>
>A) FOUO/LOU etc are NOT classifications. They are agency inventions.

Wrong. They are classifications - they are not however
classifications in universal use.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

[[email protected]]

Derek Lyons wrote:
> David Lesher > wrote:

> >A) FOUO/LOU etc are NOT classifications. They are agency inventions.

> Wrong. They are classifications - they are not however classifications in universal use.

The difference is perhaps one that our previous President could have
expressed best:

<Clinton>

It all depends on what you mean by "classification."

</Clinton>

The problem is that "classification" is usually taken to mean "national
security classification", in which case the only valid ones are C,S,TS.
In national security contexts, FOUO is usually described as a "handling
control" or something similar. However, you can find .gov pages on the
Web that describe FOUO as an administrative classification, and that's
right in the common usage of "classification."

I've found that such distinctions are often not well understood even
within the government.

FWIW, in the couple of cases where I've encountered actual explanations
of when FOUO should be used, they were protection of copyright material
in FBIS publications and protection of pre-award contract-sensitive
information within the government. Which struck me as perfectly
sensible, though not directly related to the national security.


(There have been Usenet discussions of such things in the past,
including the "beyond Top Secret", "compartmentation" and "Codeword"
threads. Google Groups will find them.)

[Derek Lyons]

" > wrote:

>The problem is that "classification" is usually taken to mean "national
>security classification", in which case the only valid ones are C,S,TS.

In the common usage that I encountered, 'classified' meant 'anything
that had to individually accounted and signed for', and that included
FOUO. We never used the term "national security classification",
classified material was classified material, period.

We may be seeing a conflict between the formal usages as defined by
academia and bureaucrats - and the more practical usages defined by
those who actually worked with the stuff.

>FWIW, in the couple of cases where I've encountered actual explanations
>of when FOUO should be used, they were protection of copyright material
>in FBIS publications and protection of pre-award contract-sensitive
>information within the government. Which struck me as perfectly
>sensible, though not directly related to the national security.

Many of our operating procedures were classified FOUO - the general
idea being to prevent them from becoming general [public] knowledge.
Ditto for much of the low level detailed information on the systems.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

[[email protected]]

Derek Lyons wrote:

> " > wrote:

> >The problem is that "classification" is usually taken to mean "national
> >security classification", in which case the only valid ones are C,S,TS.

> In the common usage that I encountered, 'classified' meant 'anything
> that had to individually accounted and signed for', and that included
> FOUO. We never used the term "national security classification",
> classified material was classified material, period.

As we've noted in previous such discussions over the years, your
experiences and mine show interesting and instructive differences. Not
surprisingly, as you were serving on submarines and I was an
inside-the-Beltway civil servant. In my world, there was no
"sign-for-it" accountability until you got into some special channels,
and even then things sometimes tended to be a bit loose. See, for
example, http://archives.his.com/intelforum/2000-June/msg00220.html .

As for FOUO and classification, see

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2004/d20040811BahlulProtective.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dhs-sbu.html
http://www.fas.org/sgp/clinton/eo12958.html
http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html

[OM]

On 28 Nov 2005 13:27:02 -0800, "
> wrote:

>Not surprisingly, as you were serving on submarines and I was an
>inside-the-Beltway civil servant.

....Ah, in other words, D earned his position, while you probably
kissed some politician's ass for yours :-) :-) :-)


OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

[Pat Flannery]

OM wrote:

>...Ah, in other words, D earned his position, while you probably
>kissed some politician's ass for yours :-) :-) :-)
>
>
Well, an Atoll AAM just went up Duke Cunningham's tailpipe:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-112805cunningham_lat,0,3806058.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

Pat

[[email protected]]

OM wrote:

> ...Ah, in other words, D earned his position, while you probably
> kissed some politician's ass for yours :-) :-) :-)

Actually, what I did was to submit an application and, after waiting a
fair number of months, got interviewed by a regional recruiter, waited
more months, got called to Washington for more tests, psychological
interview, polygraph. Then I waited a while longer and got hired. No
politicians were involved that I know of.

The point of the comment about different experiences was, well, that
that they were different and therefore offer different views on how
classification matters are treated in different places. (Four
differents there, one sees.)

[snidely]

Gene Cash wrote:
> Pat Flannery > writes:

> > Well, an Atoll AAM just went up Duke Cunningham's tailpipe:
> > http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-112805cunningham_lat,0,3806058.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
>
> Yeah, I saw that. It took me three times of "is it REALLY *THAT* 'Duke'
> Cunningham?" for it to sink in.
>
> He was one of my heros. I guess he really is only human, and years of
> the Beltway can get to anybody.
>

This guy is Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and his official bio at
<http://cunningham.house.gov/Biography/> mentions only Navy, Viet Nam,
and Top Gun.

He didn't join the Navy until 1966 at age 25, so fitting into an Apollo
slot seems dubious.

/dps

[[email protected]]

OM wrote:

> > wrote:

> >Not surprisingly, as you were serving on submarines and I was an
> >inside-the-Beltway civil servant.

> ...Ah, in other words, D earned his position, while you probably
> kissed some politician's ass for yours :-) :-) :-)

Thinking about this, I'd like to take a poll here, explaining it a
little first. (Not s.s.h stuff, but it came up here.)

When I wrote that, I was thing of "serving on submarines" as an
entirely honorable and respectable description which, I believe,
applies to Derek.

"Civil servant" I also regard as an honorable description, noting the
sometimes justified objections to those who draw pay and do little
service. I've known many civil servants that really took the
description seriously and did their best to serve. And a fair number
who didn't. Probably it's the same in other walks of life.

"Inside-the-Beltway" is also descriptive of those who work/serve in and
around the national government in the vicinity of the national capital.
It has negative connotations of detachment from real life in the rest
of the world, which I would be only too happy to enforce by many
anecdotes. But it also has just the meaning that the national
government has a central administrative apparatus in that area
including civilian leadership in the Pentagon, FBI, Justice, DHS, CIA,
etc. How could it be otherwise?

So, poll, what's your opinion about such matters?

[Pat Flannery]

Gene Cash wrote:

>Yeah, I saw that. It took me three times of "is it REALLY *THAT* 'Duke'
>Cunningham?" for it to sink in.
>
>He was one of my heros. I guess he really is only human, and years of
>the Beltway can get to anybody.
>
>

I think what probably happened was that he was politically naive and got
used by some hustlers because of his national hero status. By the time
he figured out what was going on, they probably had enough dirt on him
to make him keep up with it for fear of exposure.
Either that, or he was just greedy and crooked.
Being a good combat pilot doesn't automatically make you a good person.

Pat

[Pat Flannery]

snidely wrote:

>This guy is Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and his official bio at
><http://cunningham.house.gov/Biography/> mentions only Navy, Viet Nam,
>and Top Gun.
>
>He didn't join the Navy until 1966 at age 25, so fitting into an Apollo
>slot seems dubious.
>
>

"Ground control to Colonel Tomb..." ;-)

Pat

>
>
>

[EricT]

>>
> Well, an Atoll AAM just went up Duke Cunningham's tailpipe:
> http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-112805cunningham_lat,0,3806058.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
>
> Pat


Too bad. That man was a real American hero. I am very saddened this
morning to read such a thing. He was one of the few in Washington I thought
was beyond this sort of thing.

[Phillip Tooley]

----------
In article >, Pat Flannery
> wrote:

> I think what probably happened was that he was politically naive and got
> used by some hustlers because of his national hero status. By the time
> he figured out what was going on, they probably had enough dirt on him
> to make him keep up with it for fear of exposure.
> Either that, or he was just greedy and crooked.
> Being a good combat pilot doesn't automatically make you a good person.

I dunno. He sounds pretty fruity to me:

Cunningham Friends Baffled By His Blunder Into Bribery
Navy Ace-Turned-Congressman Didn't Act Like Big Spender
By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 4, 2005; A06

For those who have observed Duke Cunningham's behavior in Washington for 15
years, especially those who have felt his scorn, his remorseful exit from
the House last week carried no surprises. Since his early days in Congress,
Cunningham's behavior has been predictable: ad hominem attacks followed by
tearful apologies.

In one now-famous incident, Cunningham and Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.)
got in a shoving match over sending troops to Bosnia. Moran confronted
Cunningham, triggering a partisan melee among other members -- and
Cunningham fled.

Moran found him crying in the cloakroom.

"I thought he had been bullying too many people for too long, and I told him
so," Moran recalled. "He said he didn't mean to be so accusatory. . . .
After that, he would bring me candy from California."

Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a California Republican, can no longer smooth over
his bluster and lapses in judgment with a See's Candies party assortment.
The eight-term congressman and decorated Navy pilot resigned his seat Monday
after tearfully confessing to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes from
defense contractors that included $100,000 in cash, a Rolls-Royce and a
42-foot yacht. He pleaded guilty in federal court and awaits sentencing Feb.
27.

The news -- the sheer magnitude of the graft -- was met with incredulity
throughout Washington. How could Cunningham, a member of the Appropriations
Defense subcommittee, have been so stupid, so craven, so greedy? Even
President Bush weighed in, calling the crimes "outrageous."

Cunningham, who turns 64 next week, and his wife, Nancy, a school
administrator, are back in California and have no plans to return to
Washington, a source close to them said. He no longer has a home, having
agreed to forfeit his personal property related to the bribery. He is
staying with family until he knows what the future brings. He has apologized
to his staff.

No one could say for sure why this Vietnam War hero went astray, when he
stopped living on his $158,000 salary, how he thought he could get away with
driving a Rolls-Royce and moving into a $2.5 million house in Rancho Santa
Fe with the financial help of a defense contractor. The allegations make no
mention of debts or financial troubles -- just high living: a contractor's
credit card for a leather sofa and a sleigh bed; a $1,500 gift card for a
pair of earrings; a new boat, "Duke-Stir," docked at a slip in Washington;
and a graduation party for one of his two daughters. (He has a son from his
first marriage.)

Those who worked for Cunningham and who have associated with him on the Hill
said they saw none of the trappings of extravagance. His biggest joy, they
said, was skeet shooting, for which he won an award from the Congressional
Sportsmen's Caucus. The joke at his office used to be, one former aide said,
that he shopped at Costco and bought three of everything to save money. A
defense lobbyist who knows Cunningham well and golfed with him said that the
congressman never had his hand out with him. "I'm just stunned," the
lobbyist said. "He was a 'dems' and 'dose' kind of guy, a little rough
around the edges -- a regular guy."

A source close to Cunningham's office pointed out that the Rolls-Royce was
not in great shape, and that because Cunningham had previously lived on a
boat, the new one did not draw any attention. "It's not like he was sitting
around in a silk smoking jacket," the source said.

If someone suspected what was happening, few are talking. Unlike the allies
of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby who jumped to his defense last month after the
former White House aide was indicted for perjury, Cunningham's friends seem
to be distancing themselves. Republican Hill chums -- such as California
Reps. Duncan Hunter and Jerry Lewis -- did not respond to requests for
interviews. Former representative Ron Packard (R-Calif.) said he felt
betrayed, having believed Cunningham's denials for months and publicly
defending him. Packard said he found the charges "beyond comprehension."

Cunningham's career in politics began like those of other high-profile war
heroes -- catapulted into the profession by name recognition and his
district's appreciation for his patriotism. He had enlisted at age 25, after
a stint as a high school swim coach, and became the Navy's first ace pilot
of the Vietnam War and a legend after shooting down five enemy planes. He
was shot down once, and avoided capture with great daring. He earned medals
for valor, including the prestigious Navy Cross, before retiring from the
military in 1987.

But according to "Fall From Glory," a book about the naval Tailhook
Association's bacchanalias, Cunningham's superiors questioned his leadership
abilities and resisted giving him a permanent commission. (He eventually got
one.) The book, by Gregory L. Vistica, reports that Cunningham once broke
into a superior's office to read his own fitness report but was spared
discipline because the Navy did not want to generate bad publicity.

After briefly working in business after the military, Cunningham was courted
in 1990 by the GOP to run in an affluent Republican district. His high name
recognition and gung-ho conservative credentials carried him to a narrow
victory over the Democratic incumbent. He has been reelected handily ever
since.

From his arrival in Congress in 1991, Cunningham was branded as volatile and
a flamethrower who challenged members to fistfights -- and not someone
slated for leadership.

Packard, who sat with Cunningham on the Appropriations Committee, said he
had a short fuse. Early on, Packard recalled, Cunningham became angry and
emotional at a California delegation meeting when it became clear he did not
have the support for a committee assignment he sought. "He was extremely
upset and threatened to quit Congress. That was the first indication that he
didn't have control of his emotions," Packard said.

Then there were the biting attacks on colleagues -- mainly partisan -- for
which he usually apologized.

In 1992, Cunningham suggested that the Democratic House leadership should be
"lined up and shot." A few years later, a House debate over water pollution
turned ugly when Cunningham said lawmakers backing a particular amendment
were the same people who support "homos in the military."

During remarks in his district in 1998 to a gathering of prostate cancer
patients, Cunningham commiserated by describing a rectal procedure he had
undergone as "just not natural, unless maybe you're Barney Frank."

"He was a blustery fool," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is openly
gay. He said Cunningham apologized to him for the remark and noted that he
thought Cunningham had "calmed down" in recent years.

On his first trip back to Vietnam, Cunningham sat down with Vietnamese
officials for a formal dinner, and his first words of the evening were: "You
gooks shot me down."

"It's not exactly the way to start a diplomatic dinner," said Moran, who was
on the trip with Cunningham. "I told him quietly that he had bombed them,
too."

Those close to Cunningham say the gaffes coupled with the charges create a
caricature, and not the man they know -- the kind individual who sent an
aide home the minute her grandfather died and a softie who fretted over his
dog's health when the animal was injured. One Navy friend, George Nesby,
said that as an African American, he will forever be loyal to Cunningham for
giving him support and promotions as a young pilot.

Cunningham's legal troubles were triggered when the San Diego Union-Tribune
reported in June on his 2003 lucrative house deal. He sold his Del Mar,
Calif., house for the inflated price of $1.675 million to "Conspirator No.
2," -- identified through other sources as defense contractor Mitchell Wade
of MZM Inc. -- who then sold it at a $700,000 loss nine months later.
Cunningham was charged with using his influence to award federal contracts
to MZM in return for payoffs.

The housing transactions did not go unnoticed by neighbors. "We all knew it
was a shady deal as soon as we saw it," next-door neighbor Kent Greene said.
"The market stated very clearly it [$1.675 million] was not an appropriate
price." Victoria Konopacke, who bought a house across the street three
months before the Cunningham sale, said, "We bought ours for $915,000, and I
hate to say it, but ours is a lot nicer than theirs."

Congressional ethics laws prohibit members from accepting any largess over
$100 per year from any one source, and only $50 at one time. While the rules
are sometime subtly skirted, rarely so in such a blatant fashion.

"I think the only defense he could possibly have is stupidity," said Samuel
L. Popkin, a professor of political science at University of California at
San Diego, who has followed Cunningham's career. "But he's smart enough to
know the rules -- which he thinks don't apply to him."

A friend had another explanation: "I know what happened, and I know how it
happened," Nesby said. "It's really very simple. In the political arena,
what at first seems abnormal becomes normal. . . . It's very easy in this
environment for one to lose their moral compass."

[OM]

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 22:08:26 GMT, "Phillip Tooley"
> wrote:

>"I thought he had been bullying too many people for too long, and I told him
>so," Moran recalled. "He said he didn't mean to be so accusatory. . . .
>After that, he would bring me candy from California."

....Ok, so if we tell our Oz contingent that they've been bullying us
for far too long, will they start bringing us Vegemite instead of just
sending it?

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
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]=====================================[

[Neil Gerace]

"OM" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 22:08:26 GMT, "Phillip Tooley"
> > wrote:
>
>>"I thought he had been bullying too many people for too long, and I told
>>him
>>so," Moran recalled. "He said he didn't mean to be so accusatory. . . .
>>After that, he would bring me candy from California."
>
> ...Ok, so if we tell our Oz contingent that they've been bullying us
> for far too long, will they start bringing us Vegemite instead of just
> sending it?

How about we promise not to bring Vegemite? I think that would work better
:-)