We’re killers, but we won’t kill today

Artist: Dana Fradon published : The New Yorker 24 Dec 1960

Dear Mr. Fradon,

It is very likely I have no clue to your cartoon here. However, I am going to try because I like it.
In December '60, your lady character did some crystal ball gazing to proclaim “no war”. I envy her ball’s optimism. Yes, it is very wonderful if anyone or anything foretells no war for next 7 years. But I have some bad news to report from year 2007. ‘1960’ was as bad a decade as any in 20th century- easily the bloodiest century in human history by some distance.

The lady in your picture perhaps shared her findings with our Prime Minister Nehru (who often was a target of the late Shankar of your tribe, India’s most celebrated cartoonist) because he too believed that there would be no wars.

Our nation had lost most of its innocence during ethnic cleansings following 1947's partition and assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. We lost the rest when we fought two horrible conflicts- with China in 1962 and Pakistan in 1965 - paving the way for what economist Surjit Bhalla calls "rotten age period (1960 to 1980) of declining growth and increasing poverty". During the time, India as a country went nowhere while our East Asian neighbors marched on to tiger-hoods lifting millions out of poverty.

Elsewhere the world looked down the barrel of nuclear gun with 1961’s Bay of Pigs Invasion and another bloody chapter was written in the history of Middle East with 1967’s Six-Day War (Third Arab-Israeli War). Btw- you know ink in the latter is still very wet. As I write this, one more colourful chapter is being written there.

You may visit Wikipedia to learn the complete list of conflicts at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1945%E2%80%931989#1960_-_1969

However, I want to end on an optimistic note of Star Trek’s Capt. James T. Kirk

“We’re human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we won’t kill today.”

Sincerely,