“The Fur’s Flying” (April 14, 1964)
by Eddie Germano (1924 – )
11 x 15 in., ink and wash on board
Coppola Collection

A native Bostonian, Germano became a full-time cartoonist in 1948, at age 24, after serving in WWII. Among other positions, he worked as the editorial and sports cartoonist for the Brockton Enterprisefrom 1963-1990.

In the 1960s, the Sino-Soviet split allowed only written communications between the PRC and the USSR, in which each country supported their geopolitical actions with formal statements of Marxist–Leninist ideology as the true road to world communism, which is the general line of the party.

In June 1963, the PRC published The Chinese Communist Party’s Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement, to which the USSR replied with the Open Letter of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; each ideological stance perpetuated the Sino-Soviet split.

In 1964, Mao said that, in light of the Chinese and Russian differences about the interpretation and practical application of Orthodox Marxism, a counter-revolution had occurred and re-established capitalism in the USSR; consequently, following Soviet suit, the Warsaw Pact countries broke relations with the People’s Republic of China.

On April 3, 1964, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union issued a statement calling the Communist Party of China “the main danger to the unity of the world communist movement,” and called for a summit of the leaders of the world’s communist parties. Printed in the party newspaper Pravda, they wrote “Peking is steering a course toward a split among the communist parties, toward the setting up of factions and groups hostile to Marxism-Leninism.”

“Birds of a Feather” (August 5, 1958)
by Bruce McKinley Shanks (1908-1980)
14 x 17 in., ink and crayon on textured paper
Coppola Collection

Shanks was an American editorial cartoonist who worked for the Buffalo Evening News during the middle of the 20th century. There he won the annual Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in May, 1958 (for a 1957 contribution).

Here we have Khrushchev and Mao, hatching a plan to charge the West with aggression.

From a released CIA document: Disagreement of foreign policy manifested itself in August 1958 when Khrushchev, after four days of discussion with Mao Tse-tung, publicly rejects, on August 5, Western proposals for a summit meeting within the UN Security Council on the crisis in the Middle East – proposals that he had accepted in July.

From the LA Times (August 4, 1958): Tass (USSR News Agency) said the fresh landings of American troops in Lebanon showed the United States was “planning new criminal aggressions.”

“Some Have a Choice, Some Don’t” (1960s)
by Eddie Germano (1924 – )
11 x 15 in., ink and wash on board
Coppola Collection

A native Bostonian, Germano became a full-time cartoonist in 1948, at age 24, after serving in WWII. Among other positions, he worked as the editorial and sports cartoonist for the Brockton Enterprisefrom 1963-1990.

The cartoon is clearly an anti-communist social commentary on the right to vote from the 1960s.

A 1945 decree allowed for members of the Red Army stationed outside the Soviet Union to vote in special 100,000-member districts. Voting was theoretically secret and direct with universal suffrage. However, in practice, until 1989 voters could only vote against the Communist Party candidate by using polling booths, whereas votes for the party could be cast simply by submitting a blank ballot. Gorbachev was elected in the first (and only) open (err… more open) election in the USSR before the break-up.

The cartoon is also a good time to remind Americans that its righteous propaganda was not extended as an equal opportunity for all US Citizens. Although the 15th Amendment was almost a hundred years old, and prohibited states from denying a male citizen the right to vote based on “race, color or previous condition of servitude,” various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African Americans, particularly those in the South, from exercising their right to vote. Typical voter turnout for African Americans at this time was less than 10% in many areas.

In 1964, the 24th Amendment made poll taxes illegal in federal elections.

One event that outraged many Americans occurred on March 7, 1965, when peaceful participants in a Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights were met by Alabama state troopers who attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas and whips after they refused to turn back. In the wake of this incident, Johnson called for comprehensive voting rights legislation. In a speech to a joint session of Congress on March 15, 1965, the president outlined the devious ways in which election officials denied African-American citizens the vote including literacy tests and the voting officials, primarily in Southern states, who had been known to force black voters to “recite the entire Constitution or explain the most complex provisions of state laws,” a task most white voters would have been hard pressed to accomplish.

The voting rights bill was passed in the U.S. Senate on May 26, 1965 (the vote was 77-19). And after debating the bill for more than a month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 333-85 on July 9. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965.

Voter turnout did, in fact, improve. Yet, sate and local enforcement of the law was weak, and it often was ignored outright, mainly in the South and in areas where the proportion of blacks in the population was high and their vote threatened the political status quo.

“Some Have a Choice, Some Don’t”… indeed.

“Gone Far Enough” (10/23/1962)
By Eddie Germano (1924 – )
14 x 18.5, ink and wash on board
Coppola Collection

A native Bostonian, Germano became a full-time cartoonist in 1948, at age 24, after serving in WWII. Among other positions, he worked as the editorial and sports cartoonist for the Brockton Enterprisefrom 1963-1990.

This is perhaps the earliest of his existing editorial cartoons from his time at the Enterprise, which speaks to the US quarantine of Cuba (by international law, the term “blockade” fell under an act of war.

On October 22, 1962, Kennedy delivered a nationwide televised address on all of the major networks announcing the discovery of the missiles. He stated: “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”

He described his plan: “To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port, will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.”

“The Bridge That’s Needed” (July 1971)
by Charles Phillip Bissell (1926 – )
14 x 12 in., ink and wash on board
Coppola Collection

In 1960, Boston Globe cartoonist Phil Bissell, working for $25 a day, was handed an assignment that would change his life—and the lives of fans of the brand-new AFL football team coming to Boston. “Sports editor Jerry Nason came to me and he said, ‘They’ve decided to call the team the Boston Patriots. You better have a cartoon ready for tomorrow’s edition.’” Bissel’s “Pat Patriot” cartoon was the Patriot’s logo from 1961-1992.

Before his election as president in 1968, former Vice President Richard Nixon hinted at establishing a new relationship with the PRC. Early in his first term, Nixon, through his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, sent overtures hinting at warmer relations to the PRC government.

After a series of these overtures by both countries, Kissinger flew on secret diplomatic missions to Beijing in 1971, where he met with Premier Zhou Enlai.

On July 15, 1971, the President shocked the world by announcing on live television that he would visit the PRC the following year. The weeklong visit, from February 21 to 28, 1972, allowed the American public to view images of China for the first time in over two decades.

Upon being introduced to Nixon for the first time, Mao, speaking through his translator, said to Nixon: “I believe our old friend Chiang Kai-shek would not approve of this.”

“Only a Republican, perhaps only a Nixon, could have made this break and gotten away with it.” – Senator Mike Mansfield (D), repeating a phrase he heard before.

“Only a Nixon could go to China” (section heading, US News & World Report, December 1971 interview with Mike Mansfield)

“Only Nixon could go to China.” (an old Vulcan proverb)
– Spock to Kirk, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country(1991)