Wednesday, September 25, 1963. President Kennedy speaks in Laramie.

Today In Wyoming's History: September 25: 1963  John F. Kennedy spoke at the University of Wyoming.  His address:

Senator McGee--my old colleague in the Senate, Gale McGee--Governor, Mr. President, Senator Mansfield, Senator Metcalf, Secretary Udall, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express my appreciation to you for your warm welcome, to you, Governor, to the President of the University, to Senator McGee, and others. I am particularly glad to come on this conservation trip and have an opportunity to speak at this distinguished university, because what we are attempting to do is to develop the talents in our country which require, of course, education which will permit us in our time, when the conservation of our resources requires entirely different techniques than were required 50 years ago, when the great conservation movement began under Theodore Roosevelt--and these talents, scientific and social talents, must be developed at our universities.

I hope that all of you who are students here will recognize the great opportunity that lies before you in this decade, and in the decades to come, to be of service to our country. The Greeks once defined happiness as full use of your powers along lines of excellence, and I can assure you that there is no area of life where you will have an opportunity to use whatever powers you have, and to use them along more excellent lines, bringing ultimately, I think, happiness to you and those whom you serve.

What I think we must realize is that the problems which now face us and their solution are far more complex, far more difficult, far more subtle, require a far greater skill and discretion of judgment, than any of the problems that this country has faced in its comparatively short history, or any, really, that the world has faced in its long history. The fact is that almost in the last 30 years the world of knowledge has exploded. You remember that Robert Oppenheimer said that 8 or 9 out of 10 of all the scientists who ever lived, live today. This last generation has produced nearly all of the scientific breakthroughs, at least relatively, that this world of ours has ever experienced. We are alive, all of us, while this tremendous explosion of knowledge, which has expanded the horizon of our experience, so far has all taken 'place in the last 30 years.

If you realize that when Queen Victoria sent for Robert Peel to be Prime Minister-he was in Rome--the journey which he took from Rome to London took him the same amount of time, to the day, that it had taken the Emperor Hadrian to go from Rome to England nearly 1900 years before. There had been comparatively little progress made in almost 1900 years in the field of knowledge. Now, suddenly, in the last 100 years, but most particularly in the last 30 years, all that is changed, and all of this knowledge is brought to bear, and can be brought to bear, in improving our lives and making the life of our people more happy, or destroying them. And that problem is the one, of course, which this generation of Americans and the next must face: how to use that knowledge, how to make a social discipline out of it.

There is really not much use in having science and its knowledge confined to the laboratory unless it comes out into the mainstream of American and world life, and only those who are trained and educated to handle knowledge and the disciplines of knowledge can be expected to play a significant part in the life of their country. So, quite obviously, this university is not maintained by the people of Wyoming merely to help all of the graduates enjoy a prosperous life. That may come, that may be a byproduct, but the people of Wyoming contribute their taxes to the maintenance of this school in order that the graduates of this school may, themselves, return to the society which helped develop them some of the talents which that society has made available, and what is true in this State is true across the United States.

The reason why, at the height of the Civil War, when the preservation of the Union was in doubt, Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act, which has built up the most extraordinary educational system in the world, was because he knew that a nation could not exist and be ignorant and free; and what was true 100 years ago is more true today. So what we have to decide is how we are going to manage the complicated social and economic and world problems which come across our desks-my desk, as President of the United States; the desk of the Senators, as representatives of the States; the Members of the House, as representatives of the people.

But most importantly, as the final power is held by a majority of the people, how the majority of the people are going to make their judgment on the wise use of our resources, on the correct monetary and fiscal policy, what steps we should take in space, what steps we should take to develop the resources of the ocean, what steps we should take to manage our balance of payments, what we should do in the Congo or Viet-Nam, or in Latin America, all these areas which come to rest upon the United States as the leading great power of the world, with the determination and the understanding to recognize what is at stake in the world--all these are problems far more complicated than any group of citizens ever had to deal with in the history of the world, or any group of Members of Congress had to deal with.

If you feel that the Members of Congress were more talented 100 years ago, and certainly the Senators in the years before the Civil War included the brightest figures, probably, that ever sat in the Senate--Benton, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and all the rest-they talked, and at least three of them stayed in the Congress 40 years--they talked for 40 years about four or five things: tariffs and the development of the West, land, the rights of the States and slavery, Mexico. Now we talk about problems in one summer which dwarf in complexity all of those matters, and we must deal with them or we will perish.

So I think the chance for an educated graduate of this school to serve his State and country is bright. I can assure you that you are needed.

This trip that I have taken is now about 24 hours old, but it is a rewarding 24 hours because there is nothing more encouraging than for those of us to leave the rather artificial city of Washington and come and travel across the United States and realize what is here, the beauty, the diversity, the wealth, and the vigor of the people.

Last Friday I spoke to delegates from all over the world at the United Nations. It is an unfortunate fact that nearly every delegate comes to the United States from all around the world and they make a judgment on the United States based on an experience in New York or Washington; and rarely do they come West beyond the Mississippi, and rarely do they go to California, or to Hawaii, or to Alaska. Therefore, they do not understand the United States, and those of us who stay only in Washington sometimes lose our comprehension of the national problems which require a national solution.

This country has become rich because nature was good to us, and because the people who came from Europe, predominantly, also were among the most vigorous. The basic resources were used skillfully and economically, and because of the wise work done by Theodore Roosevelt and others, significant progress was made in conserving these resources.
The problem, of course, now is that the whole concept of conservation must change in the 1960's if we are going to pass on to the 350 million Americans who will live in this country in 40 years where 180 million Americans now live--if we are going to pass on a country which is even richer.

The fact of the matter is that the management of our natural resources instead of being primarily a problem of conserving them, of saving them, now requires the scientific application of knowledge to develop new resources. We have come to. realize to a large extent that resources are not passive. Resources are not merely something that was here, put by nature. Research tells us that previously valueless materials, which 10 years ago were useless, now can be among the most valuable natural resources of the United States. And that is the most significant fact in conservation now since the early 1900's when Theodore Roosevelt started his work. A conservationist's first reaction in those days was to preserve, to hoard, to protect every non-renewable resource. It was the fear of resource exhaustion which caused the great conservation movement of the 1900's. And this fear was reflected in the speeches and attitudes of our political leaders and their writers.

This is not surprising in the light of the technology of that time, but today that approach is out of date, and I think this is an important fact for the State of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain States. It is both too pessimistic and too optimistic. We need no longer fear that our resources and energy supplies are a fixed quantity that can be exhausted in accordance with a particular rate of consumption. On the other hand, it is not enough to put barbed wire around a forest or a lake, or put in stockpiles of minerals, or restrictive laws and regulations on the exploitation of resources. That was the old way of doing it.

Our primary task now is to increase our understanding of our environment to a point where we can enjoy it without defacing it, use its bounty without detracting permanently from its value, and, above all, maintain a living balance between man's actions and nature's reactions, for this Nation's great resources are as elastic and productive as our ingenuity can make them. For example, soda ash is a multimillion dollar industry in this State. A few years ago there was no use for it. It was wasted. People were unaware of it. And even if it had been sought, it could not be found--not because it wasn't here, but because effective prospecting techniques had not been developed. Now soda ash is a necessary ingredient in the production of glass, steel, and other products. As a result of a series of experiments, of a harnessing of science to the use of man, this great new industry has opened up. In short, conservation is no longer protection and conserving and restricting. The balance between our needs and the availability of our resources, between our aspirations and our environment, is constantly changing.

One of the great resources which we are going to find in the next 40 years is not going to be the land; it will be the ocean. We are going to find untold wealth in the oceans of the world which will be used to make a better life for our people. Science is changing all of our natural environment. It can change it for good; it can change it for bad. We are pursuing, for example, new opportunities in coal, which have been largely neglected--examining the feasibility of transporting coal by water through pipelines, of gasification at the mines, of liquefaction of coal into gasoline, and of transmitting electric power directly from the mouth of the mine. The economic feasibility of some of these techniques has not been determined, but it will be in the next decade. At the same time, we are engaged in active research on better means of using low grade coal, to meet the tremendous increase in the demand for coal we are going to find in the rest of this century. This is, in effect, using science to increase our supply of a resource of which the people of the United States were totally unaware 50 years ago.

Another research undertaking of special concern to this Nation and this State is the continuing effort to develop practical and feasible techniques of converting oil shale into usable petroleum fuels. The higher grade deposits in Wyoming alone are equivalent to 30 billion barrels of oil, and 200 billion barrels in the case of lower grade development. This could not be used, there was nothing to conserve, and now science is going to make it possible.

Investigation is going on to assure at the same time an adequate water supply so that when we develop this great new industry we will be able to use it and have sufficient water. Resource development, therefore, requires not only the coordination of all branches of science, it requires the joint effort of scientists, government--State, national, and local--and members of other professional disciplines. For example, we are now examining in the United States today the mixed economic-technical question of whether very large-scale nuclear reactors can produce unexpected savings in the simultaneous desalinization of water and the generation of electricity. We will have, before this decade is out or sooner, a tremendous nuclear reactor which makes electricity and at the same time gets fresh water from salt water at a competitive price. What a difference this can make to the Western United States. And, indeed, not only the United States, but all around the globe where there are so many deserts on the ocean's edge.

It is in efforts, I think, such as this, where the National Government can play a significant role, where the scale of public investment or the nationwide scope of the problem, the national significance of the results are too great to ignore or which cannot always be carried out by private research. Federal funds and stimulation can help make the most imaginative and productive use of our manpower and facilities. The use of science and technology in these fields has gained understanding and support in the Congress. Senator Gale McGee has proposed an energetic study of the technology of electrometallurgy--the words are getting longer as the months go on, and more complicated-an area of considerable importance to the Rocky Mountains.

All this, I think, is going to change the life of Wyoming and going to change the life of the United States. What we regard now as relative well-being, 30 years from now will be regarded as poverty. When you realize that 30 years ago r out of 10 farms had electricity, and yet some farmers thought that they were living reasonably well, now for a farm not to have electricity, we regard them as living in the depths of poverty. That is how great a change has come in 30 years. In the short space of 18 years, really, or almost 20 years, the wealth of this country has gone up 300 percent.

In 1970, 1980, 1990, this country will be, can be, must be--if we make the proper decisions, if we manage our resources, both human and material, wisely, if we make wise decisions in the Nation, in the State, in the community, and individually, if we maintain a vigorous and hopeful 'pursuit of life and knowledge--the resources of this country are so unlimited and science is expanding them so greatly that all those people who thought 40 years ago that this country would be exhausted in the middle of the century have been proven wrong. It is going to be richer than ever, providing we make the wise decisions and we recognize that the future belongs to those who seize it.

Knowledge is power, a saying 500 years old, but knowledge is power today as never before, not only here in the United States, but the future of the free world depends in the final analysis upon the United States and upon our willingness to reach those decisions on these complicated matters which face us with courage and clarity. And the graduates of this school will, as they have in the past, play their proper role.

I express my thanks to you. This building which 15 years ago was just a matter of conversation is now a reality. So those things that we talk about today, which seem unreal, where so many people doubt that they can be done--the fact of the matter is, it has been true all through our history--they will be done, and Wyoming, in doing it, will play its proper role.

Thank you.

He'd fly on to Billings later that day.

On the same day, President Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic was overthrown in a military coup, having served following his election for only seven months.  His party was Socialist in nature, and the US would oppose another coup in 1965 which sought to restore him to power.

The House of Representatives approved a measure to reduce the Income Tax Rate. The Senate would later follow, and the bill signed into law in February 1964.

Wednesday, September 11, 1923. The British Empire in Southern Africa.

Southern Rhodesia became a British colony when the British government took it over from the British South Africa Company due to a 1922 referendum.  Prior to that time, it had been informally been known as Zambesia, based on the Zambezi River. It would form a government on October 1 and would retain its status, sort of, as a British colony until 1964.  

Flag of Southern Rhodesia.

Southern Rhodesia, massively British in terms of its colonial character, saw itself in that fashion, and its white residents had been highly supportive of World War One.  They would be again of World War Two.

Flag of Northern Rhodesia.

In 1953, it was confederated by the British with Northern Rhodesia, which had a larger landmass.  In the 1950s, it began to fall apart with the rise of African nationalism.  Northern Rhodesia became independent and changed its name to Zambia in 1964, interestingly changing its name during the course of the Olympics, and therefore entering the games with one name and exiting it with another.

Flag of Zambia.

When Northern Rhodesia became independent, with the cooperation of the British government, it struck fear into Southern Rhodesian whites, and the country, which was controlled by them, issued its Unilateral Declaration of Independence as Rhodesia in 1965.  The winds of change already well set in, Rhodesia, while it had cooperation from various countries, was unrecognized by any.  It fought an increasingly losing battle against African nationalist forces in the 60s and 70s, and returned to British colonial status brief in 1979, before becoming the current state of Zimbabwe.

Rhodesian flag.

Unfortunately, since independence its history has not been a happy one, as it fell to one party rule under Robert Mugabe, something it only recently overcame.  Zambia, spared a post-colonial war, has fared better, and indeed uniquely for a post colonia African nation, had an Acting President in recent memory who was of European (Scottish) descent.

Finnair, the Finnish national airline, was incorporated as Aero O/Y.

The Convention for the Suppression of the Circulation of and Traffic in Obscene Publications was signed in Geneva by members of the League of Nations. The anti pornography treaty is still in effect, accepted and amended by the United Nations, although a person would hardly know it.

Bulgaria arrested 2,500 Communist suspected of plotting an uprising.

Wednesday, June 24, 1943. Heroic jump.

Col. W. Randolph Lovelace, M.D. bailed out of a B-17 at 40,200 feet in a medical experiment which would lead to flight crews being instructed to delay opening parachutes until they reached a lower altitude, so as to not pass out from the shock of the parachute's opening at high altitude.

Dr. Lovelace at age 52, showing how, really, this generation took on the appearance of aging much more rapidly than current ones do.

Dr. Lovelace and his wife died in a December 1965 private plan crash near Aspen, Colorado.  The pilot, 27 year old Milton Brown, also died of injuries at the site, but not before he placed their bodies next to each other and covered them with a coat.

Head of the Hitler Youth, Baldur von Schirach engaged in an argument with Adloph Hitler over ending the war, which he urged.  The 36-year-old German Army veteran remained in his position, but Hitler would never speak to him again.

Schirach was born to a father who was a retired German cavalryman and a mother who was an American expatriate.  Indeed, three out of four of his grandparents were Americans, and he learned to speak English at home prior to learning to speak German, which he did not until age 6.

He was head of the Hitler Youth early on, but did serve as an infantryman early in World War Two, winning the Iron Cross.  He then served as Gauleiter of Vienna and was associated with the deportation of the city's Jewish population. He'd be sentenced as a war criminal for that following the war, being released in 1966.  He died in 1974 at age 67.  His wife, who had been the daughter of Hitler's photographer, divorced him while he was in prison.

Schirach serves as a disturbing example of a German who did not come from Nazi oriented roots, but who was corrupted into it as a very young man.

Stage Door Canteen, with a huge ensemble cast, was released.

I've never seen it, but it seems to be well regarded, or perhaps fondly recalled.

The Work Truck Blog: 1965 Dodge TownWagon Cummins Power Wagon

The Work Truck Blog: 1965 Dodge TownWagon Cummins Power Wagon

1965 Dodge TownWagon Cummins Power Wagon

Sunday, June 17, 1923. Dry Sunday

The Irish Free State saw its pubs swamped with visitors as Northern Ireland experienced its first "Dry Sunday", a day brought about due to a new law in Ulster.

Northern Ireland, reflecting its Presbyterian heritage, had a particularly notable set of Blue Laws.  Soccer was banned on Sundays prior to 2008.  Public playgrounds were closed on Sundays, and swings locked, in Belfast until 1965.  Stores over 280 square meters in size are still restricted to the hours of 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.

Mount Etna erupted.

Released on this day in 1923.  The plot involved a woman who is widowed at 38 and takes a job as a college librarian and starts dating over the objection of her children.

Sunday, February 28, 1943. Norwegians at Vermok.

Norwegian ski born Norwegian commandos raided the Norsk Hydro plant at Vermok, Norway, destroying the heavy water inventory that had been produced there by the Germans.

The plant in 1948.

28,000 Norwegians carried on beyond Norway during the war, joining Norwegian forces that had made it out of Norway when it was invaded in 1940.  15,000 Norwegians joined the German forces, principally in the SS, which mostly fought on the Eastern Front, although Germany attempted to recruit Norwegians for the German Navy as well.  About 40,000 Norwegians participated in the Milorg, the Norwegian resistance.

The Vermok event was memorialized in the 1965 British war movie, Heroes of Telemark.  It was also featured in a 1948 Norwegian movie, Operation Swallow.

This was the third attempted raid on the plan, this one being more successful than the prior two.  Another air attack would take place in November 1943 and a heavy water transporting boat would be attacked in 1944.

The USAAF and RAF made a 1,000 plane raid on Saint-Nazaire submarine base.

January 27, 1973. The Paris Peace Accords Signed and last combat casualty sustained.

Secretary of State William Rogers signing the Vietnam Peace Accords.

The following agreements were signed on this day in Paris, between the warring parties in Vietnam.

"Protocol Concerning the Cease-Fire in South Vietnam and the Joint Military Commission"

"Protocol Concerning the Return of Captured Military Personnel and Foreign Civilians and the Captured and Detained Vietnamese Civilian Personnel"

"Protocol Concerning the International Commission of Control and Supervision "

"Protocol Concerning the Removal, Permanent Deactivation, or Destruction of Mines in the Territorial Waters, Ports, Harbors, and Waterways of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam"

The agreements paved the way for the United States to exit Vietnam under the fiction that "peace with honor" had been brought to South Vietnam.  In reality, the fighting never fully stopped and the Nixon Administration expected South Vietnam to fall.  The South was pressured into signing the agreement.

By this point in the war, the US had largely withdrawn its combat troops from Vietnam.  The final ones would be withdrawn in March, by which time it was obvious that the war was continuing on.  As a practical matter, disciplinary problems in the US military were, by that point, so severe, that the Army was close to becoming incapable of engaging in combat operations.  To this extent, the North Vietnamese had truly defeated the US in the ground war, although US air cover remained potent up until the ceasefire took place.

On this day, U.S. Army Col. William Nolde was killed by Communist artillery fire. He is generally regarded as the last American combat casualty of the Vietnam War, although Marines Charles McMahon and Darwin Lee Judge were killed by a North Vietnamese rocket attack on April 29, 1975, just before Saigon fell.  The distinction, if there is one, is that Nolde was assigned to a combat command. 

Nolde had been a Korean War conscript, and stayed in the Army thereafter, becoming an officer.  His first tour of duty was in 1965.

Nolde had been a professor of military science at Central Michigan University before being conscripted, so he had the somewhat peculiar experience of being a university professor on military matters before being an enlisted man in the Korean War, and an officer in the Vietnam War.  A scholarship at Central Michigan was established in his memory.

Tuesday, January 12, 1943. Landings at Amchitka, Operation Iskra.

The U.S. landed troops on Amchitka.  It was an unopposed landing, as the Japanese had chosen not to occupy it.  Weather was bad and unpredictable and the USS Wordon was swept into rocks and ultimately broke up.  Fourteen of the crew died and the commanding officer was swept off the ship, but survived, while it was being abandoned.  The Japanese learned of the landing several days later when weather cleared sufficiently for a scout plane to overfly the island.

USS Worden sinking.

The island was used as an airbase by the U.S. in spite of the horrible weather it experiences, and set the stage for the US assault on Kiska.

The island is large by Aleutian standards, consisting of 116 square miles.  Not too surprisingly, given its size, it was historically occupied by the Aleuts but there has been no population on the island since 1832.  It's tectonically unstable.

Because of its uninhabited status, it was chosen by the US for underground detonation of nuclear weapons in order to test seismic detection, with nuclear weapons being inserted in bore holes in 1965, 1969 and 1971.

The parents of the Sullivan Brothers were informed for the first time that their sons, who had gone down in action in November, were missing in action.

In our last entry we noted the ship named in honor of the Sullivan brothers, the USS Sullivans.  Oddly enough, it was in the news yesterday after taking a huge haul of Iranian AKMs that were being shipped to Yemen.

Winston Churchill departed for Morocco to meet with Franklin Roosevelt, who had left the day prior.  Their departures were obviously kept secret.

The Soviets launched Operation Iskra aimed at breaking the German's siege on Leningrad.

Pierre Laval concluded a deal with Nazi Germany, allowing the Germans to administer the Departments du Nord and Pas de Calais.  France, under the arrangement, also pledged to provide 400,000 skilled workers to Germany and to essentially provide the remaining elements of its navy to Germany.  France retained the policing role in the German administered territories.

President Roosevelt addressed farmers for Farm Mobilization Day.

January 12, 1943

All over the world, food from our country's farms is helping the United Nations to win this war. From the South Pacific to the winter front in Russia, from North Africa to India, American food is giving strength to the men on the battle lines, and sometimes also to the men and women working behind the lines. Somewhere on every continent the food ships from this country are the life line of the forces that fight for freedom. This afternoon we have heard from some of the military and civilian righters who look to us for food. No words of mine can add to what they have said.

But on this Farm Mobilization Day I want to round out the picture and tell you a little more about the vital place that American farmers hold in the entire war strategy of the United Nations.

Food is a weapon in total war- fully as important in its way as guns or planes or tanks. So are other products of the farm. The long-staple cotton that goes into parachutes, for example, the oils that go into paints for the ships and planes and guns, the grains that go into alcohol to make explosives also are weapons.

Our enemies know the use of food in war. They employ it cold-bloodedly to strengthen their own fighters and workers and to weaken or exterminate the peoples of the conquered countries. We of the United Nations also are using food as a weapon to keep our fighting men fit and to maintain the health of all our civilian families. We are using food to earn the friendship of people in liberated areas and to serve as a promise and an encouragement to peoples who are not yet free. Already, in North Africa, the food we are sending the inhabitants is saving the energies and the lives of our troops there. In short we are using food, both in this country and in Allied countries, with the single aim of helping to win this war.

Already it is taking a lot of food to fight the war. It is going to take a lot more to win the final victory and win the peace that will follow. In terms of total food supply the United Nations are far stronger than our enemies. But our great food resources are scattered to the ends of the earth—from Australia and New Zealand to South Africa and the Americas- and we no longer have food to waste. Food is precious, just as oil and steel are precious. As part of our global strategy, we must produce all we can of every essential farm product; we must divide our supplies wisely and use them carefully. We cannot afford to waste any of them.

Therefore the United Nations are pooling their food resources and using them where they will do the most good. Canada is sending large shipments of cheese, meats, and other foods on the short North Atlantic run to Britain. Australia and New Zealand are providing a great deal of the food for American soldiers stationed in that part of the world. Food from Latin America is going to Britain.

Every food-producing country among the United Nations is doing its share. Our own share in food strategy, especially at this stage of the war, is large, because we have such great resources for production; and we are on direct ocean lanes to North Africa, to Britain, and to the northern ports of Russia.

American farmers must feed our own growing Army and Navy. They must feed the civilian families of this country and feed them well. They must help feed the fighting men and some of the war workers of Britain and Russia and, to a lesser degree, those of other Allied countries.

So this year, as never before, the entire Nation is looking to its farmers. Many quarters of the free world are looking to them too. American farmers are a small group with a great task. Although 60 percent of the world's population are farm people, only 2 percent of that population are American farmers. But that 2 percent have the skill and the energy to make this country the United Nations' greatest arsenal for food and fiber.

In spite of the handicaps under which American farmers worked last year, the production victory they won was among the major victories of the United Nations in 1942. Free people everywhere can be grateful to the farm families who made that victory possible.

This year the American farmer's task is greater, and the obstacles more formidable. But I know that once more our farmers will rise to their responsibility.

This farm mobilization is the first day ever dedicated by a President to the farm people of the Nation. I know that the whole country joins with me in a tribute to the work farmers already have done, in a pledge of full support in the difficult task which lies ahead for farmers, and in a prayer for good weather to make farmers' efforts more fruitful.

Our fighting men and allies, and our families here at home can rely on farmers for the food and other farm products that will help to bring victory.

Putting another log on the fire. Joe Biden stokes the inflationary fires with debt forgiveness.

 High school students, Pennsylvania, 1942.

First, even though I know that it'll make for a really long post, let me put in the White House's actual announcement on its forgiving student debt decision.

FACT SHEET: President Biden Announces Student Loan Relief for Borrowers Who Need It Most

AUGUST 24, 2022•STATEMENTS AND RELEASES

A three-part plan delivers on President Biden’s promise to cancel $10,000 of student debt for low- to middle-income borrowers

President Biden believes that a post-high school education should be a ticket to a middle-class life, but for too many, the cost of borrowing for college is a lifelong burden that deprives them of that opportunity. During the campaign, he promised to provide student debt relief. Today, the Biden Administration is following through on that promise and providing families breathing room as they prepare to start re-paying loans after the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic.

Since 1980, the total cost of both four-year public and four-year private college has nearly tripled, even after accounting for inflation. Federal support has not kept up: Pell Grants once covered nearly 80 percent of the cost of a four-year public college degree for students from working families, but now only cover a third. That has left many students from low- and middle-income families with no choice but to borrow if they want to get a degree. According to a Department of Education analysis, the typical undergraduate student with loans now graduates with nearly $25,000 in debt. 

The skyrocketing cumulative federal student loan debt—$1.6 trillion and rising for more than 45 million borrowers—is a significant burden on America’s middle class. Middle-class borrowers struggle with high monthly payments and ballooning balances that make it harder for them to build wealth, like buying homes, putting away money for retirement, and starting small businesses.

For the most vulnerable borrowers, the effects of debt are even more crushing. Nearly one-third of borrowers have debt but no degree, according to an analysis by the Department of Education of a recent cohort of undergraduates. Many of these students could not complete their degree because the cost of attendance was too high. About 16% of borrowers are in default – including nearly a third of senior citizens with student debt – which can result in the government garnishing a borrower’s wages or lowering a borrower’s credit score. The student debt burden also falls disproportionately on Black borrowers. Twenty years after first enrolling in school, the typical Black borrower who started college in the 1995-96 school year still owed 95% of their original student debt.

Today, President Biden is announcing a three-part plan to provide more breathing room to America’s working families as they continue to recover from the strains associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. This plan offers targeted debt relief as part of a comprehensive effort to address the burden of growing college costs and make the student loan system more manageable for working families. The President is announcing that the Department of Education will:   

Provide targeted debt relief to address the financial harms of the pandemic, fulfilling the President’s campaign commitment. The Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education, and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). No high-income individual or high-income household – in the top 5% of incomes – will benefit from this action. To ensure a smooth transition to repayment and prevent unnecessary defaults, the pause on federal student loan repayment will be extended one final time through December 31, 2022. Borrowers should expect to resume payment in January 2023. 

Make the student loan system more manageable for current and future borrowers by:

Cutting monthly payments in half for undergraduate loans. The Department of Education is proposing a new income-driven repayment plan that protects more low-income borrowers from making any payments and caps monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income—half of the rate that borrowers must pay now under most existing plans. This means that the average annual student loan payment will be lowered by more than $1,000 for both current and future borrowers.

Fixing the broken Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program by proposing a rule that borrowers who have worked at a nonprofit, in the military, or in federal, state, tribal, or local government, receive appropriate credit toward loan forgiveness. These improvements will build on temporary changes the Department of Education has already made to PSLF, under which more than 175,000 public servants have already had more than $10 billion in loan forgiveness approved. 

Protect future students and taxpayers by reducing the cost of college and holding schools accountable when they hike up prices. The President championed the largest increase to Pell Grants in over a decade and one of the largest one-time influxes to colleges and universities. To further reduce the cost of college, the President will continue to fight to double the maximum Pell Grant and make community college free. Meanwhile, colleges have an obligation to keep prices reasonable and ensure borrowers get value for their investments, not debt they cannot afford. This Administration has already taken key steps to strengthen accountability, including in areas where the previous Administration weakened rules. The Department of Education is announcing new efforts to ensure student borrowers get value for their college costs.

Provide Targeted Debt Relief, Fulfilling the President’s Campaign CommitmentTo address the financial harms of the pandemic for low- and middle-income borrowers and avoid defaults as loan repayment restarts next year, the Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in loan relief to borrowers with loans held by the Department of Education whose individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples) and who received a Pell Grant. Nearly every Pell Grant recipient came from a family that made less than $60,000 a year, and Pell Grant recipients typically experience more challenges repaying their debt than other borrowers. Borrowers who meet those income standards but did not receive a Pell Grant in college can receive up to $10,000 in loan relief.

The Pell Grant program is one of America’s most effective financial aid programs—but its value has been eroded over time. Pell Grant recipients are more than 60% of the borrower population. The Department of Education estimates that roughly 27 million borrowers will be eligible to receive up to $20,000 in relief, helping these borrowers meet their economic potential and avoid economic harm from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Current students with loans are eligible for this debt relief. Borrowers who are dependent students will be eligible for relief based on parental income, rather than their own income.

If all borrowers claim the relief they are entitled to, these actions will:

Provide relief to up to 43 million borrowers, including cancelling the full remaining balance for roughly 20 million borrowers.

Target relief dollars to low- and middle-income borrowers. The Department of Education estimates that, among borrowers who are no longer in school, nearly 90% of relief dollars will go to those earning less than $75,000 a year. No individual making more than $125,000 or household making more than $250,000 – the top 5% of incomes in the United States – will receive relief.

Help borrowers of all ages. The Department of Education estimates that, among borrowers who are eligible for relief, 21% are 25 years and under and 44% are ages 26-39. More than a third are borrowers age 40 and up, including 5% of borrowers who are senior citizens.

Advance racial equity. By targeting relief to borrowers with the highest economic need, the Administration’s actions are likely to help narrow the racial wealth gap. Black students are more likely to have to borrow for school and more likely to take out larger loans. Black borrowers are twice as likely to have received Pell Grants compared to their white peers. Other borrowers of color are also more likely than their peers to receive Pell Grants. That is why an Urban Institute study found that debt forgiveness programs targeting those who received Pell Grants while in college will advance racial equity.

The Department of Education will work quickly and efficiently to set up a simple application process for borrowers to claim relief. The application will be available no later than when the pause on federal student loan repayments terminates at the end of the year. Nearly 8 million borrowers may be eligible to receive relief automatically because their relevant income data is already available to the Department.  

Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, this debt relief will not be treated as taxable income for the federal income tax purposes.

To help ensure a smooth transition back to repayment, the Department of Education is extending the student loan pause a final time through December 31, 2022. No one with federally-held loans has had to pay a single dollar in loan payments since President Biden took office.

Make the Student Loan System More Manageable for Current and Future Borrowers

Fixing Existing Loan Repayment to Lower Monthly Payments

The Administration is reforming student loan repayment plans so both current and future low- and middle-income borrowers will have smaller and more manageable monthly payments.

The Department of Education has the authority to create income-driven repayment plans, which cap what borrowers pay each month based on a percentage of their discretionary income. Most of these plans cancel a borrower’s remaining debt once they make 20 years of monthly payments. But the existing versions of these plans are too complex and too limited. As a result, millions of borrowers who might benefit from them do not sign up, and the millions who do sign up are still often left with unmanageable monthly payments.

To address these concerns and follow through on Congress’ original vision for income-driven repayment, the Department of Education is proposing a rule to do the following

For undergraduate loans, cut in half the amount that borrowers have to pay each month from 10% to 5% of discretionary income.

Raise the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary income and therefore is protected from repayment, guaranteeing that no borrower earning under 225% of the federal poverty level—about the annual equivalent of a $15 minimum wage for a single borrower—will have to make a monthly payment.

Forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments, instead of 20 years, for borrowers with original loan balances of $12,000 or less. The Department of Education estimates that this reform will allow nearly all community college borrowers to be debt-free within 10 years.

Cover the borrower’s unpaid monthly interest, so that unlike other existing income-driven repayment plans, no borrower’s loan balance will grow as long as they make their monthly payments—even when that monthly payment is $0 because their income is low

These reforms would simplify loan repayment and deliver significant savings to low- and middle-income borrowers. For example:

A typical single construction worker (making $38,000 a year) with a construction management credential would pay only $31 a month, compared to the $147 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of nearly $1,400.

A typical single public school teacher with an undergraduate degree (making $44,000 a year) would pay only $56 a month on their loans, compared to the $197 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of nearly $1,700.

A typical nurse (making $77,000 a year) who is married with two kids would pay only $61 a month on their undergraduate loans, compared to the $295 they pay now under the most recent income-driven repayment plan, for annual savings of more than $2,800.

For each of these borrowers, their balances would not grow as long as they are making their monthly payments, and their remaining debt would be forgiven after they make the required number of qualifying payments.

Further, the Department of Education will make it easier for borrowers who enroll in this new plan to stay enrolled. Starting in the summer of 2023, borrowers will be able to allow the Department of Education to automatically pull their income information year after year, avoiding the hassle of needing to recertify their income annually.

Ensuring Public Servants Receive Credit Toward Loan Forgiveness

Borrowers working in public service are entitled to earn credit toward debt relief under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program. But because of complex eligibility restrictions, historic implementation failures, and poor counseling given to borrowers, many borrowers have not received the credit they deserve for their public service.

The Department of Education has announced time-limited changes to PSLF that provide an easier path to forgiveness of all outstanding debt for eligible federal student loan borrowers who have served at a non-profit, in the military, or in federal, state, Tribal, or local government for at least 10 years, including non-consecutively. Those who have served less than 10 years may now more easily get credit for their service to date toward eventual forgiveness. These changes allow eligible borrowers to gain additional credit toward forgiveness, even if they had been told previously that they had the wrong loan type.

The Department of Education also has proposed regulatory changes to ensure more effective implementation of the PSLF program moving forward. Specifically, the Department of Education has proposed allowing more payments to qualify for PSLF including partial, lump sum, and late payments, and allowing certain kinds of deferments and forbearances, such as those for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps service, National Guard duty, and military service, to count toward PSLF. The Department of Education also proposed to ensure the rules work better for non-tenured instructors whose colleges need to calculate their full-time employment.

To ensure borrowers are aware of the temporary changes, the White House has launched four PSLF Days of Action dedicated to borrowers in specific sectors: government employees, educators, healthcare workers and first responders, and non-profit employees. You can find out other information about the temporary changes on PSLF.gov. You must apply to PSLF before the temporary changes end on October 31, 2022.

Protecting Borrowers and Taxpayers from Steep Increases in College Cost

While providing this relief to low- and middle-income borrowers, the President is focused on keeping college costs under control. Under this Administration, students have had more money in their pockets to pay for college. The President signed the largest increase to the maximum Pell Grant in over a decade and provided nearly $40 billion to colleges and universities through the American Rescue Plan, much of which was used for emergency student financial aid, allowing students to breathe a little easier.

Additionally, the Department of Education has already taken significant steps to strengthen accountability, so that students are not left with mountains of debt with little payoff. The agency has re-established the enforcement unit in the Office of Federal Student Aid and it is holding accreditors’ feet to the fire. In fact, the Department just withdrew authorization for the accreditor that oversaw schools responsible for some of the worst for-profit scandals. The agency will also propose a rule to hold career programs accountable for leaving their graduates with mountains of debt they cannot repay, a rule the previous Administration repealed.

Building off of these efforts, the Department of Education is announcing new actions to hold accountable colleges that have contributed to the student debt crisis. These include publishing an annual watch list of the programs with the worst debt levels in the country, so that students registering for the next academic year can steer clear of programs with poor outcomes. They also include requesting institutional improvement plans from the worst actors that outline how the colleges with the most concerning debt outcomes intend to bring down debt levels. 

***   

More information on claiming relief will be available to borrowers in the coming weeks. 

Borrowers can sign up to be notified when this information is available at StudentAid.gov/debtrelief.

This is going to be controversial.

So, let's cut to the chase.

We've posted on the American student loan system before, which exists in the happy mythical world of the 1960s, really.  In that world, high school students, rather than get manual labor jobs at General Motors, are given a chance to get a bachelor's degree, as any bachelor's degree means that they can walk into any office across the United States, wearing a clean white button down shirt and black tie, with gray wool slacks, and become an executive.

And in the 50s, 60s and 70s, there was a lot of truth in that, which is why the GI Bill, which in some ways all American "loan" programs are based on, was such as success.

That world hasn't existed for a long time.

Since World War Two, Americans became highly acclimated to loans in general.  Going back before the war, usually the only major loan that most people had was on their house, although surprisingly automobile loans date back all the way to the 1910s, and Ford Motors introduced financing for their cars in 1919.  There were installment plans on some things as well, such as major appliances, but for real personal debt, houses were it, followed by cars.  Credit cards didn't start to come into existence until the 1950s and 1960s, and had very limited, and often specialized, use.

American student loans did not exist until 1958, when they came into existence as part of the National Defense Education Act. That act was structured the way that student loan bills still should be, it provided loans only in categories of national strategic need, specifically engineering, science and education.  In 1965, however, loans were broadened out with the Higher Education Act of 1965, which saw advancing higher education as a means of advancing social mobility.  I.e., it was part of Johnson's Great Society.

It was in 1973, however, that the entire project took a giant leap with the Student Loan Marketing Association, Sallie Mae, which joined the group of female named Federal guaranteed loan projects which took the moral hazard out of lending for certain dicey propositions, such as home loans or educational endeavors with no real long term prospects.

Educational institutions really picked up on this, and it resulted in tuition inflation that came to grossly outstrip inflation.  It also encouraged the creation of pseudo disciplines in education and the resulting massive increase in the student bodies resulted in grade inflation.  This resulted, over time, in the devaluing of a college education.

No more walking out with your baccalaureate and into the boardroom.

In recent years this has led people like Bernie Sanders to suggest the solution for everything is to have the government pay for everything, as if too much isn't solving a problem, way too much surely will.  The better evidence is that at this point in time we'd be better off going back to the original loan model, or ending loans entirely.

Stepping into this now is Joe Biden, who is trying to follow up on a campaign promise to address this issue by hurling money at it, which gets into the Sanders mindset.  Sanders would likely just forgive them all and then pay for all higher education, because if making an education easy to get hasn't devalued it enough, then making it free surely will. . . oh, wait.

Biden's act doesn't contribute to that, but it's inflationary without a doubt.  Loan forgiveness is income.  Indeed, normally, loan forgiveness is taxed as income, but due to the Inflation Reduction Act this particular example at least will not be.   As this is the equivalent to passing money out, there's no two ways about it.

And the propaganda about it being aimed at lower income people is just that.  Providing relief to the children of couples who make up to $250,000 per year is clearly aimed at the middle class, as is the suggestion that it won't go to the "top 5%" of income earners, that being a category which is unlikely to have student loans in the first place.

So what this is, is a species of temporary subsidization of education for mostly the middle class.  It'll hit lower earners too, but the middle class will be the primary beneficiaries.

For a time.

But at the same time, it'll be inflationary, which hits the middle class the most, and given the level it's at, its benefit to the target audience is of low value anyhow.  So it contributes to the reduction in value of what everyone makes, contributes to the devaluing of education, provides cash to banks for making bad loans, and advances the concept that any higher level education is of economic value.

It's not the 1950s or 60s anymore.  It's not even 1973.  If we're going to have a government supported program, it ought to support a national purpose. This one really isn't anymore.  

And I'm not suggesting that a college education has no value. Far from it.  It's become, except for those born into fortunate circumstances, necessary.  Rather, I'm suggesting that this be protected.  As Kris Kristofferson noted, via Janis Joplin; "freedom's just another word for nothing else to lose, nothing don't cost nothing, but it's free".  I don't find this to be universally true, but in this instance, as with a lot of things that are "free", they come to have low or no value over time.  This has us headed one step further in that direction.

But benefits once conferred are difficult to withdraw.

Wednesday November 24, 1971. The Flight of D. B. Cooper

On this day in 1971 a man wearing as suit and tie, typical travel attire for the era, checked into a short flight from Seattle to Tacoma, Washington, something only requiring thirty minutes of flying time.  Once the plane was airborne, he slipped a note to a stewardess seated nearby, who at first ignored it, thinking he was trying to pick her up. He then told her to read the note, which claimed he had a bomb in a briefcase.

At the time no search of carry ons was conducted, and the stewardess asked to see the bomb, which the man proceeded to show her. And then a several hours long ordeal unfolded in which the man, who had checked into the airplane as Dan Cooper, ordered that he receive $200,000, two reserve parachutes and two main parachutes, and that the plane take a route in which Mexico was the declared ultimate destination.  The money and the parachutes were provided in Tacoma, where Cooper also released most of the passengers and all of the stewardesses save for one.  Showing very advance knowledge of the aircraft, a Boeing 727, he instructed the pilots to fly it at 10,000 feet, keep the wheels down, and to set the flaps at a certain angle, all of which made sure that it was flying very slowly.

Once airborne, he parachuted into the night near Mount St. Helens during a severe thunderstorm, leaving via the 727's unique integral downloading back staircase.  The man, misnamed by the press as "D. B. Cooper", was not apprehended and most of the money has never been found.

This has, of course, been one of the most enduring air mysteries and crime mysteries of all time.  The serial numbers of the bills involved were microfilmed, but only a small number of them have ever been located, and those by campers on the Columbia River in 1980.  The bundles they found were, moreover, badly deteriorated but their bundling was not, with a small number of bills missing in a manner which raised questions as to how that could have occurred.  Given that the money did not resurface, the official speculation is that Cooper died parachuting into the forest, in a thunderstorm, at night.

There's plenty of reason to suspect that is the case.  He obviously was extremely familiar with the aircraft, its systems, and knew something about parachuting.  Nonetheless, he wasn't dressed for a hike through the wilderness and, dropping at night, he could not possibly have had anything but a remote idea as to where he'd be coming down. While some discount the chances of his death, night drops are always risky, let alone one in which a military parachute was used (which it was) and in which he was badly dressed for the endeavor.  The fact that the money never resurfaced strongly suggests he was killed in the attempt.

In spite of the massive effort to capture him, he was not located alive and no body was ever found. . .to date and, more oddly, nobody was ever reported as missing.  The knowledge that he displayed was quite distinct and therefore the number of suspects would seem rather limited, but nonetheless there's never been any solid leads.

The mystery remains an enduring one not only because Cooper wasn't captured, but also because there are so many clues regarding him, and yet he remains elusive.  Suffice it to day, if the event occurred today, which it would not as airline security has changed so much, Cooper would have been captured or found dead.

Cooper in fact left many clues as to his background, and therefore his identity. There was, of course, first of all his appearance.  He had "olive" skin and therefore a "Latin" appearance, something that gave him somewhat of a minority appearance for a Caucasian.  He was smoking heavily, although that could have been to steady his nerves, and therefore was a smoker at any rate, although at that point a little over 40% of all Americans smoked weekly, with that likely meaning that well over 50% of men did.

More tellingly, however, Cooper demonstrated a knowledge of parachutes, and expressed a request for military parachutes rather than sporting ones.  A comment from the air noted that he recognized the Air Force base at Tacoma.  And he had an extremely advanced knowledge of the features of the 727, knowing how slow it could go, knowing how to precisely set the flaps to slow it further, and knowing that it uniquely had a real loading under fuselage staircase that could be opened in flight.

Indeed, the 727 had seen military use in Vietnam due to its rear loading staircase for that very reason, with the Central Intelligence Agency using them for air drops of material.

These combined facts strongly suggest that Cooper had a military background of some sort, but they also, when combined with other factors, discount his having been a paratrooper, as is sometimes suggested.  

Cooper did not ask for the static line T-10 model of parachute in use then and now, but rather one that could be deployed manually, as would have been necessary for the drop.  That was a necessarily choice, but otherwise Cooper seemed to display an ignorance as to actual dropping.  He wanted the plane low, 10,000 feet, which makes sense, but military parachutes have a very violent deployment which meant that getting his stolen loot to the ground would have been difficult.  Beyond that, keeping his shoes on would have been difficult as well.

Landing safely would have been extremely difficult.  Deploying into the night, and in a severe thunderstorm, the odds would have been against him making it to the ground and landing uninjured.  Even if he did come down in the storm without injury, military parachutes of the era required, for good reason, the wearing of protective footgear, which his dress shoes were not in any fashion.  Moreover, his leaving in the night meant that he was risking coming down in trees experienced parachutists desperately seek to avoid as they are so strongly associated with death and injury to them.  

Finally, his clothing wasn't close to being suitable for a hike out of the forest.

Indeed, the entire concept of parachuting out of the plane, at night, seems to have been intentional, but it also seems to have been reckless in the extreme for a plot which was otherwise very well planned out.  Cooper's plan either seemed to discount the dangers and difficulties with making his departure from the plane to the ground safe, and his escape complete, or he just didn't care, trusting to luck at that point. And that also gives us an interesting hint as to his potential identity.

Combining all fo these up to this point, what this suggests is that Cooper had military experience involving parachutes and airplanes, but not that of being a paratrooper.  Being a pilot or a cargomaster seems the most likely candidates.

Analysis of  his tie, however, conducted years later suggests that he worked in heavy industry, and in some managerial capacity.  The aircraft manufacturing industry itself would seem to be a good candidate, as his clip on tie contained metals and substances that were used in that industry at the time, and which were unlikely to be picked up accidentally.

Combining all of these, it seems likely that Cooper was or had recently been an employee of an aircraft manufacturing company, perhaps Boeing the maker of the plane, and in that capacity he had become very familiar with the 727.  He likely had some prior military experience, or at least was aware of the military use of the plane.  He knew too much about the 727 for that knowledge to be casual, and if he had picked up any studied knowledge for the attempt, it would have been as to the use of the parachutes, and not the aircraft.  That knowledge would have been easier to obtain, and perhaps could have been obtained on the job.

Indeed, the oddity of it can't help but cause a person to have at least some question as to a possible connection with service in the CIA, and that has been suggested.

Of course, suggesting a CIA connection to things is commonly done with certain big events, with some reaching the absurd level. The claims, for instance, that the CIA was involved in the 9/11 attacks provides such an absurd example.  But here, there's at least some credibility to those claims.

The OSS of the 1940s and the CIA of the 50s and 60s was truly populated, in part, with characters who were "spooks".  And examples of servicemen and espionage characters going rouge are not too difficult to find.  Not really analogous, the example of Jonathan Pollard certainly comes to mind.  But beyond that, Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marine Corps veteran, turned defector, turned lone assassin.  Timothy McVey was a serviceman who turned against his own society. The recent January 6 Insurrection featured a serving Army intelligence officer.

While, once again, none of those ins analogous, it's not beyond the pale to think that a former member of the CIA went to work for Boeing and then used his knowledge to develop this scheme. Such a former member would have most likely been a pilot or crewmember of the 727 effort over Vietnam, with both positions being ones that would have been much less spy like than simply a rarefied form of government service.

Such a connection has been suggested as the reason the crime has never been solved, and while that sounds like a wacky conspiracy theory, it's at least partially credible as well. The CIA of the 60s and 70s did all sorts of things that it kept secret that are of an iffy nature, and the Government intelligence branches weren't above doing that, even coming up with bogus UFO reports to gaslight an individual.  If there was a CIA connection in 1970s, it's not at all impossible to imagine the CIA realizing a former member was involved and acting to cover the entire matter up.

That doesn't prove that by any means, however.

Other possibilities simply include a Boeing employee, or that of a contractor, who knew enough about the 727 and went to learn enough about parachuting to pull that part of it off.  It's also possible that it was done by a pilot form another airline who possibly had prior military experience or who simply studied up on parachutes before attempting the plot.  Indeed, this is quite plausible.  It's even possible that Cooper was a member of the one Air National Guard unit using a militarized version of the airplane at the time.

While we don't know, my guess is that he was a former or current Boeing employee who had some prior service connection, but not as a paratrooper.

If that's the case, then the question would be why he wasn't discovered.

It's simply possible that, in spite of the extremely long odds, he pulled it off.  It's hard to imagine a person walking to a forest road dressed in a suit and hitching a ride to town, but then it's also possible that the suit covered up a second set of clothes.  Maybe under that we was wearing a pair of Levis and a flannel shirt, although dress shirts are thin.  Still, it seems unlikely, but it's not impossible.  Perhaps he landed safely, hiked to a road, with or without most of the money, and made good his escape, returning to work after the holiday.  As careful as he was, chances are that he wouldn't have spent any of the money right away, or knew how to fence it without getting caught, which would not have been difficult at the time.

More likely, in my mind, he has already quit his job with Boeing, perhaps a year or more ago, and didn't have work to return to, which would explain a lot.

The careful part of the plan was getting the money and getting out of the airplane. Beyond that, very clearly, much was left to chance.  Perhaps to Cooper his chances in life had run out and therefore what happened beyond that point didn't really matter.  If he made good his escape, he had the money, if he didn't, he wasn't going to have to worry about it.

Any number of things come to mind.  Reported to be ni his mid 40s, he was smoking like a train which always raises the possibility that he had lung cancer or some other serious health issue.  If so, Cooper may have needed the money for something, and if the end came in the jump, that something wouldn't have mattered.

And then there's the myriad of things that seem looming at the time and prove not to be. Debts, legal and illegal, failed relationships, or whatever.

So why didn't they figure it out?

Assuming, of course, no CIA cover up, which we will assume, although as we noted, as wild as that sounds, it's not completely beyond the pale.

Assuming that, the ability to simply disappear in 1971 was much better than it is now.  Now, it's nearly impossible, but at the time, that wasn't the case.  DNA testing didn't exist at the time. Finger printing did of course, but not everyone had finger print data and even where it did exist, it often didn't lead to leads for a variety of reasons, including bad prints and bad police data.  Photo databases were in hard copy and microfilm form.  Most people operated mostly on a cash and check basis at the time with credit cards being rare and even somewhat disdained.  Millions of men  had been in the Army, fo course, but that meant millions of paper records that had to be accessed by hand.  Employment records operated the same way.  Social Security cards were easy to get, and like now, they didn't feature photographs. Driver licenses did, but pulling those records would also have required near knowledge that the one being sought was of the guilty person.

So searching for people was much more difficult.

And indeed, this explains the reason that a person's becoming a lifelong fugitive from that era is not all that uncommon. Just recently, for example,  to identify of a 1969 bank robber was revealed.  Theodore Conrad was a 20-year-old bank teller that year, just two years prior to the year we're considering, when he robbed his own employer of $215,000 in cash.  It turns out that he was Thomas Randele, having relocated from Ohio to Massachusetts, where he had subsequently lived a quiet life.  Interestingly, his posthumous identify was revealed due to ongoing FBI work on the robbery, which has supposedly ceased on the 1971 skyjacking. . .

Another example would be Abbie Hoffman, who is remembered for being a radical anti-war protestor but who was arrested for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, a charge he was was a set-up, in 1973.  He fled in 1974 and turned himself in, in 1980, at which time it was fairly clear nobody was really looking for him anymore.

Randele was young and employed when he scooped up a bunch of cash on his way off the door and became a lifelong fugitive.  Cooper appears to have been a middle-aged, highly intelligent, and experienced man when he went out the back of the 727.  If he was at that time an unemployed, for whatever reason, loner, living in an apartment or even a rented house, he could well have just disappeared forever, even if killed.  He may well have had no work to report back to, or maybe it was minor work, in which case he would have just been replaced as an employee for failing to show back up.  Or if he was medically retired, and living modestly but alone, even if he never showed back up it might well not have meant much.  

Of course, if he did show back up, people likely would never have taken notice.

So could he be found now?

That's an interesting question.

Randele was.  The FBI claims it closed Cooper's file, but Randele's was even older and unlike other recent cold cases, it didn't involve DNA.  Cooper left a ton of really interesting leads that still exist.  There's all that there originally was and now, more.  Moreover, the computerization of records has reached a state where it's reaching back into the past.

Given all of this, in my view, there's enough to take a second look, and some people have. For example, there's the work of Citizen Sleuths, which goes much further than what I've noted here:

Citizen Sleuths Analyze the D.B. Cooper Case

With all of this in mind, there's one other thing to keep in mind.

The most likely outcome of this mystery isn't a happy one, even assuming that a happy conclusion can be made from what was, after all, a terrible terroristic crime.  Cooper, whatever his real name was, likely went crashing into a forest canopy unprepared and at fairly high speed, given the military parachutes in use, and was likely hung up in the trees or killed right on the spot.  If not, his chances ankle injury were outstanding.  

No body has ever been found, but this very year a body of a hunter was discovered in Wyoming that had been out an equivalent period of time.  People go missing into the forest even now and are never found.  Cooper's body likely was hanging in the trees for years and has since decayed and fallen to the ground, to be distributed by wild animals.  His loot was probably distributed by the impact, assuming that it didn't get blown off his body when the parachute opened.  Only bits and pieces of the chute likely exist today, and nobody looks up in trees for those, and they likely couldn't be seen anyhow.

Also on this day. . . 

Ian Smith at the Convervative Monday Club in 1990, complete with Rhodesian flags.

Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home signed an agreement lifting British economic sanctions in exchange for Rhodesia outlawing racial segregation, with the eventual goal of the country gong to majority black rule. 

The agreement was shortlived and really didn't go anywhere.  It is an interesting reflection, however, on politics of the time.

Rhodesia had declared independence unilaterally in 1965 over the objections of the United Kingdom.  It was one of those area of the British Empire/British Commonwealth which had a reputation of being more English than the English, but only if a person considered the English minority population of the country.

The move came about due to Harold MacMillan's policies, as Prime Minister, of divesting the UK of its colonies, something that had become inevitable but which the UK had struggled with since the Second World War. That the British Empire could not survive in that form had been obvious since before the Boer War, and the British had developed the commonwealth concept as a means of trying to evolve outright rule of its colonies into an association of English influenced nations.  The concept is hard to express now, but basically it was based on there being a certain Britishness, and once a colony became mature, it joined in the commonwealth as part and parcel of the British nation, looking to the King or Queen as the sovereign, and not really fully independent, at least as to foreign affairs.  Canada was the first former colony to achieve this status, obtaining it in 1867.  This was followed by Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa and the Irish Free State.  In 1926 the dominions were given authority over their foreign affairs.

By the time the Irish Free State was given dominion status, which followed its treaty with the United Kingdom gaining its independence, the entire concept was in trouble.  Ireland didn't want dominion status in the first place.  It wanted outright independence and simply terminated its dominion status in 1937 unilaterally.  South Africa proved to be a problematic dominion at best as the Afrikaans population of the country resented the English both in the UK and in South Africa.  Meanwhile, in places like Rhodesia, being English continued to be a huge matter of self identity.

World War Two made the entire colonial/dominion enterprise untenable even while it was the last great gasp of empire.  The United States obviously closely supported the United Kingdom even while making it known that it did not support the ongoing maintenance of empire.  Ireland sat the war out as an official belligerent. South Africa entered the war, but barely supported it.  Following the war, the United Kingdom struggled for a time to maintain the system, but following the Suez crisis of 1956 it became clear to the UK that the day of empire and even commonwealth was simply over.  In 1960 the winds of change speech was delivered in South Africa, and the UK essentially announced that it was going to recognize independence movements in its colonies and divest itself of them.

This created a firestorm of concern in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been self-governing since 1923.  Recognizing that white minority rule was untenable even before the Suez Crisis, the British had attempted to create a larger political entity in 1956 by creating the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland,  It proved unstable right from the onset, with Rhodesia having outsized influence upon it.  It broke up in 1963 and its other regions headed rapidly towards independence.  Concerned that the British would force Rhodesia into a racial equality, the white controlled government declared independence in 1965.  No nation every recognized it.  For that matter, the British South African Police, which formed the policing body of the nation, nearly refused to recognize the move, while the army in the region did, leading to a rather odd tense situation.  Ultimately the BSAP came around, reluctantly.

This resulted in a hostile relationship between Rhodesia and the United Kingdom with Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson very much opposed to the unilateral move.  In 1970, however, Edward Heath became the Conservative Prime Minister and the position for Rhodesia improved.  The agreement noted above was negotiated with the thesis that it would move the country towards eventual full democracy.

The agreement was really moribund from the onset, being of the nature of too little too late.  By 1971 colonial constituents everywhere were no longer willing to wait for Europeans to eventually recognize them as political equals.  Such proposals elsewhere featuring slow evolution of this type, such as in Algeria, had likewise met with failure.  Added to it, as the Cold War was now raging, it became fairly easy for independence movements to secure funding and arms against colonial governments or, in this case, one that looked back toward the United Kingdom in an old-fashioned, and very English, way.  The proposal met with no acceptance by black nationalist movements and rapidly failed.  For that matter, Heath would be back out of office by 1974 and Wilson back in.

The ultimate results were not surprising, but perhaps what would be to a current audience is the degree to which Rhodesia, even though it did not gain political recognition anywhere, nonetheless retained some sympathy.  It obviously had it with conservatives in the United Kingdom, which were willing to acquiesce to the concept of eventual political rights to Africans, but not immediate ones.  It had a fair amount of support in South Africa, for obvious reasons, as it was also attempting to maintain a whites only rule.  Even in the US, however, a fair number of people supported it.  The nation was a pariah of a type, but only of a type.

All of that has since obviously changed and it's nearly impossible to imagine any of this occurring now.  South Africa only had 250,000 white residents and a black population of 5,000,000.

U.S. Air Force F15s flying over Okinawa.  Thirty-two American military bases remain on Okinawa.

Japan's diet recogized on this date the Okinawa Reversion Act which sought to vest control of the island back in Japan.  Somewhat controversial in the US, the treaty with the US returned Japanese control to the island that had been the scene of bloody fighting in World War Two.