Andy Rooney (RE: His and Studs Terkel's presence at the Elbe.

[nomb]

Weird. I read Rooney's obit here and then double-checked by reading the NYT's and CBS obits.

I had always thought of Rooney's claim to fame being his being present and witnessing (with Studs Terkel) the initial meeting between the Soviet and Allied armies along the Elbe (near Torgau in what was recently East Germany) near the end of WWII conducted by small units of infantry that just found each other. He wrote the article for the newspapers that made the end of the war a realistic possibility for all that read it. (Or so the history had it)

None of those obits made any mention. Is that little tidbit not even so much as a footnote now?

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Maybe they just know how far dumbed-down their audience is.

Like, wasn't WWII when Jefferson freed the slaves?

[nomb]

2. It's largely considered the classic apolitical moment of people to people friendship

It gave birth to peace activist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Polowski and a slew of other apolitical friendly stirrings from those like Studs - it also put Rooney off on Patton who was driving for war with the soviets,


It was anything but a non-event. And Rooney was both shaped by it and propelled into fame by it.

[Doc_Technical]

3. Everyone knows that the USA won WWII.

Sure, Great Britain and its Dominions were in it
from the beginning along with other nations and,
oh yeah, the Soviet Union helped a bit as well.

:sarcasm:

I love jingoism, it relieves me of the responsibility
of thinking for myself.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Perhaps even Rooney himself helped suppress memories of his joy at Torgau when he...

saw a great future for the Grand Alliance. Rooney's reporting was indeed his ticket to fame, but that doesn't mean he got everything right.

I have no idea what it was like to witness the horrors of the Reich and then its end, but it would be understandable if Rooney thought a bit too much of the Soviets for helping end it, and later wished he hadn't.