| During my interview I was questioned a lot about my grandparents from Europe, especially the ones from Russia. This was after all the paranoid 50s. And, they didn't stop with just investigating me. They investigated a lot of people I knew and they talked to everyone and all my relatives. When they asked, "Who is Hank Roth?" they all assumed I was in some kind of trouble. |
 |
Everyone was suspicious but in those days you didn't ask the F.B.I. too many questions, they did all the asking. When I went home on leave everybody wanted to know why the F.B.I had been snooping around asking them about me. And I still didn't know myself. I had no idea they would be so thorough. I did know my life was going to change -- and it did.
The F.B.I. showed me a long list of organizations and they asked me if I was ever a member of any of those clubs or groups or if I knew anyone who was? I didn't. I didn't have any idea what they were or what the government was talking about. I was really green and of course I wasn't a member of anything then. That would come later. I didn't know Joseph McCarthy from Charlie McCarthy. I didn't know anything about hearings being conducted.
After that in my new job and in other jobs I would later be assigned to, many of the people I would work with were ardent right wing anti-communists. All of them but me. And I didn't meet my first real communists until I was assigned to Orleans, France at COMZREAR, but I'm getting ahead of myself. That comes later.
I was totally uninformed about politics and that was actually one of the reasons why I was so good for the job I was chosen to do. I was a patriot by their standards. I fit their profile. I was almost fresh out of military school and maybe I was also their token Jew? I was the first one in my new duty assignment.
I didn't know zip about anything except what I was told and I fit the perfect profile for my indoctrination into the highest echelons of power.
I was a member of the "duck and cover" generation and a patriotic, unquestioning, loyal to-authority, "gung-ho" soldier - who was ready to do my duty to god and country no matter what they told me that might be. I was dedicated and loyal. I'm certain a lot of young kids, just like me, going into the service today, go off to Iraq and elsewhere with that same kind of loyalty and dedication. And that is exactly what they want. That kind of loyalty is a good thing if we are to remain free and safe. I have no problem with it. But I would if the leader wasn't Eisenhower and it was someone like George Bush.
I passed their test for everything. I was "the man." They gave me top secret, crypto, and presidential clearances and I was now soon to be part of that very special inner circle of government cadre protecting and providing communications and cryptographic services for the president and his staff. What could be more special than that?
I can't believe that America has a president, who is as incompetent as George W. Bush. I respect the job that an American leader must do to keep the country secure, but how does it happen that someone like Bush is admired by so many - even though I'm convinced that if everyone was as informed as they should be he would not be president and most likely he would be in jail.