almost gone (VU)
Tekst: Juul Lentze
The decade of the Sixties came
upon us with its own promises
and threats. It was to he a deca
de of wonderful ups and terrible
downs. Several former
European colonies had gained -
or would gain - their indepen
dence as did the Eelgian Congo,
where things didn 't always go as
expected. Amidst plunder and
unrest troops were sent to pro
tect Eelgian citizens who lived
there, sometimes for more than
a generation. And we saw a
repeat of what we had to deal
with in the Hutch East-Indies
after World War II. The world
was full of displaced persons
who had to start all over elsew
here.
moessOn
Meanwhile Jack Kilby and
Robert Noyce, the one not
knowing it from the other,
invented the integrated circuit. It revo
lutionized the way we built computers
because now all things electronic could
be built so much smaller and even be
completely miniaturized. It brought
man's dream of some day walking on
the moon much closer to reality.
America had lost the space race against
Russia. The Russians had launched the
was going on. The profes
sor I worked for at the
time came in white as a
ghost, tears in his eyes. He
served on the President's
Council of Economic
Advisors and knew John
Kennedy well.
The campus closed down
and for the next three days
everything was closed, the
streets were empty and
everybody sat glued to
their tv-sets. America was
a nation in deep mour
ning. But life goes on.
Sputnik in 1957 and in 1961 Yuri
Gagarin orbited the earth, the first man
in history to do so.
JFK
Then John E Kennedy became presi
dent and vowed that before the decade
was out America would put a man on
the moon. It was a breathtakingly bold
promise. As a first step John Glenn suc-
cesfully made a three-orbit trip into
space and became our space-age hero.
But we were still a long
way away from the
moon, 390 thousand kilo
meters to be exact.
In November 1963 things
turned ugly in the U.S.
President John E
Kennedy was assasinated.
It is said that most every
body can remember
where he/she was the
moment when the news
of this terrible act came
over the airwaves.
I remember that I was just
coming back from lunch,
ready to start the after
noon at work, when I saw
people running everywhe
re. It turned out that they
were all trying to get to the
nearest tv-set to see what
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