Global food supply under threat as water wells dry up, analyst warns: Russian wheat harvest problems

 

Global food supply under threat as water wells dry up, analyst warns

Lester Brown says grain harvests are already shrinking as US, India and China come close to 'peak water'

Iraq is among the countries in the Middle East facing severe water shortages. Photograph: Ali al-Saadi/AFP

Wells are drying up and underwater tables falling so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the US that food supplies are seriously threatened, one of the world's leading resource analysts has warned.

In a major new essay Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, claims that 18 countries, together containing half the world's people, are now overpumping their underground water tables to the point – known as "peak water" – where they are not replenishing and where harvests are getting smaller each year.

The situation is most serious in the Middle East. According to Brown: "Among the countries whose water supply has peaked and begun to decline are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. By 2016 Saudi Arabia projects it will be importing some 15m tonnes of wheat, rice, corn and barley to feed its population of 30 million people. It is the first country to publicly project how aquifer depletion will shrink its grain harvest.

"The world is seeing the collision between population growth and water supply at the regional level. For the first time in history, grain production is dropping in a geographic region with nothing in sight to arrest the decline. Because of the failure of governments in the region to mesh population and water policies, each day now brings 10,000 more people to feed and less irrigation water with which to feed them."

Brown warns that Syria's grain production peaked in 2002 and since then has dropped 30%; Iraq has dropped its grain production 33% since 2004; and production in Iran dropped 10% between 2007 and 2012 as its irrigation wells started to go dry.

"Iran is already in deep trouble. It is feeling the effects of shrinking water supplies from overpumping. Yemen is fast becoming a hydrological basket case. Grain production has fallen there by half over the last 35 years. By 2015 irrigated fields will be a rarity and the country will be importing virtually all of its grain."

There is also concern about falling water tables in China, India and the US, the world's three largest food-producing countries. "In India, 175 million people are being fed with grain produced by overpumping, in China 130 million. In the United States the irrigated area is shrinking in leading farm states with rapid population growth, such as California and Texas, as aquifers are depleted and irrigation water is diverted to cities."

Falling water tables are already adversely affecting harvest prospects in China, which rivals the US as the world's largest grain producer, says Brown. "The water table under the North China Plain, an area that produces more than half of the country's wheat and a third of its maize is falling fast. Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer, forcing well drillers to turn to the region's deep aquifer, which is not replenishable."

The situation in India may be even worse, given that well drillers are now using modified oil-drilling technology to reach water half a mile or more deep. "The harvest has been expanding rapidly in recent years, but only because of massive overpumping from the water table. The margin between food consumption and survival is precarious in India, whose population is growing by 18 million per year and where irrigation depends almost entirely on underground water. Farmers have drilled some 21m irrigation wells and are pumping vast amounts of underground water, and water tables are declining at an accelerating rate in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu."

In the US, farmers are overpumping in the Western Great Plains, including in several leading grain-producing states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Irrigated agriculture has thrived in these states, but the water is drawn from the Ogallala aquifer, a huge underground water body that stretches from Nebraska southwards to the Texas Panhandle. "It is, unfortunately, a fossil aquifer, one that does not recharge. Once it is depleted, the wells go dry and farmers either go back to dryland farming or abandon farming altogether, depending on local conditions," says Brown.

"In Texas, located on the shallow end of the aquifer, the irrigated area peaked in 1975 and has dropped 37% since then. In Oklahoma irrigation peaked in 1982 and has dropped by 25%. In Kansas the peak did not come until 2009, but during the three years since then it has dropped precipitously, falling nearly 30%. Nebraska saw its irrigated area peak in 2007. Since then its grain harvest has shrunk by 15%."

Brown warned that many other countries may be on the verge of declining harvests. "With less water for irrigation, Mexico may be on the verge of a downturn in its grain harvest. Pakistan may also have reached peak water. If so, peak grain may not be far behind."

 

Russian wheat harvest problems

 

Russia’s worst heatwave for decades shows no sign of relenting. President Dmitry Medvedev has declared a state of emergency in seven Russian regions over fires which have left tens of thousands of acres ablaze and uprooted hundreds from their homes. The emergency ministry said that forest fires had engulfed more than 114,000 hectares across Russia. It mobilized almost 240,000 emergency workers to fight the blazes, along with 2,000 members of the armed forces.

The fires in forests, fields and peat bogs have killed up to 40 people throughout Russia and come after weeks of searing heat and practically no rain. A new wildfire broke out near a major nuclear research centre in the Russian town of Sarov, causing the plant’s management to ask firefighters and troops to reverse their withdrawal.

Natalia Solonina, 70, stands in front of charred chimneys, all that was left of her houses, after a spreading wildfire burned them to the ground as well as the entire village of Peredeltsy in Ryazan region, some 111 miles southeast of Moscow. Nearly 600 separate blazes have burned nationwide, mainly across western Russia, according to the Emergencies Ministry, which said that the area affected had increased. Hundreds of forest and peat bog fires have ignited amid the country’s most intense heat wave in 130 years of record-keeping.

The severe drought has destroyed much of the wheat crop in Russia, the world’s third-largest exporter, and now wildfires are sweeping in to finish off some of the fields that remained. Moscow announced a ban on grain exports due to the severe drought that has reduced this year’s estimated harvest by a third.

Russia’s worst heatwave for decades shows no sign of relenting. President Dmitry Medvedev has declared a state of emergency in seven Russian regions over fires which have left tens of thousands of acres ablaze and uprooted hundreds from their homes. The emergency ministry said that forest fires had engulfed more than 114,000 hectares across Russia. It mobilized almost 240,000 emergency workers to fight the blazes, along with 2,000 members of the armed forces.

The fires in forests, fields and peat bogs have killed up to 40 people throughout Russia and come after weeks of searing heat and practically no rain. A new wildfire broke out near a major nuclear research centre in the Russian town of Sarov, causing the plant’s management to ask firefighters and troops to reverse their withdrawal.

Natalia Solonina, 70, stands in front of charred chimneys, all that was left of her houses, after a spreading wildfire burned them to the ground as well as the entire village of Peredeltsy in Ryazan region, some 111 miles southeast of Moscow. Nearly 600 separate blazes have burned nationwide, mainly across western Russia, according to the Emergencies Ministry, which said that the area affected had increased. Hundreds of forest and peat bog fires have ignited amid the country’s most intense heat wave in 130 years of record-keeping.

The severe drought has destroyed much of the wheat crop in Russia, the world’s third-largest exporter, and now wildfires are sweeping in to finish off some of the fields that remained. Moscow announced a ban on grain exports due to the severe drought that has reduced this year’s estimated harvest by a third.

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Natalia Solonina, 70, stands in front of the charred chimneys, all that was left of the houses, after a spreading wildfire burned them to the ground as well as the entire village of Peredeltsy in Ryazan region, some 180 km (111 miles) southeast of Moscow, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010. Nearly 600 separate blazes were burning nationwide Saturday, mainly across western Russia, according to the Emergencies Ministry, which said that the area affected had increased over the past 24 hours. Hundreds of forest and peat bog fires have ignited amid the country's most intense heat wave in 130 years of record-keeping. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) #

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A Russian man walks in a forest near the village of Golovanovo, Ryazan region, on August 5, 2010.Russia struggled to contain the worst wildfires in its modern history that have killed 50, after President Dmitry Medvedev sacked top military officers for negligence in the catastrophe. AFP PHOTO / NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA #

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A fire fighter attempts to extinguish a forest fire near the village of Dolginino in the Ryazan region, some 180 km (111 miles) southeast of Moscow. The new climate change treaty under negotiation for the last 2 1/2 years begins with a brief document called "A Shared Vision." The problem is, there isn't one. The latest round of talks that concluded Friday Aug. 6, 2010 showed that the 194 negotiating countries have failed to even define a common target or method for curbing greenhouse gases, just one example of the ongoing divide among rich and poor nations. (AP Photo/File) #

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Russian people dig a ditch to protect them from fires in the village Mokhovoye, Lukhovitsi municipal district, some 130 kilometers from Moscow, on August 3, 2010. Russia's worst heatwave for decades shows no sign of relenting, officials warned as firefighters battled hundreds of wildfires in a national disaster that has claimed at least 40 lives. President Dmitry Medvedev has declared a state of emergency in seven Russian regions over the fires which have left tens of thousands of hectares of land ablaze and uprooted hundreds from their homes. AFP PHOTO / ANDREY SMIRNOV #

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A tree trunk burning amid smoldering remnants of a forest outside the village of Kadanok, 90 miles (150 kilometers) southeast of Moscow, seen Tuesday, Aug, 3, 2010. The fires in forests, fields and peat bogs have killed up to 40 people throughout Russia and come after weeks of searing heat and practically no rain. The weather in the areas where the blazes are concentrated are forecast to reach 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) this week. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) #

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Local residents make a human chain to carry buckets of water to extinguishes a peat fire in a forest near the town of Shatura, some 130 km (81 miles) southeast of Moscow, Thursday, July 29, 2010. Peat swamps started burning in central Russia following an unprecedented heat wave. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) #

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A man sits on burned out car in the village Kriusha on August 7, 2010. Russia struggled to contain the worst wildfires in its modern history that have killed 52, after President Dmitry Medvedev sacked top military officers for negligence in the catastrophe. AFP PHOTO / ARTYOM KOROTAYEVKOROTAYEV #

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Russian women cry near the remains of their burnt out homes in Voronezh on August 1, 2010. Firefighters fought an uphill battle against spreading forest fires that have already killed 30 people, destroyed thousands of homes and mobilised hundreds of thousands of emergency workers. The emergency ministry said that forest fires had engulfed more than 114,000 hectares across Russia. It mobilised almost 240,000 emergency workers to fight the blazes, along with 2,000 members of the armed forces. AFP PHOTO / ALEXEY SAZONOV #

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A nun from the Vyksynsky Iversky monastery distributes food to volunteer firefighters in the forest near the village of Verhnyaya Vereya, some 350 kilometres from Moscow, on August 6, 2010. AFP PHOTO / ANDREY SMIRNOV #

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Alexander, 26, collects potatoes in the garden of his house that was burned to the ground fire at the village of Peredeltsi that was burned to the ground by a wildfire in Ryazan region, some 180 km (111 miles) southeast of Moscow, Friday, Aug. 6, 2010. More than 500 separate blazes were burning nationwide Friday mainly across western Russia, amid the country's most intense heat wave in 130 years. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) #

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The carcass of a charred bird, foreground, lies in the village of Mokhovoe destroyed by a forest fire near the town of Lukhovitsy some 135 km (84 miles) southeast of Moscow, Friday, July 30, 2010. The fires have spread quickly across more than 200,000 acres (90,000 hectares) in recent days, destroying this town, after a record heat wave and severe drought that has plagued Russia for weeks. (AP Photo/Dmitry Chistopudov) #

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A Russian man scratches his head while standing near the charred remains of his burnt out home in Voronezh on August 3, 2010. Russia's worst heatwave for decades shows no sign of relenting, officials warned as firefighters battled hundreds of wildfires in a national disaster that has claimed at least 40 lives. President Dmitry Medvedev has declared a state of emergency in seven Russian regions over the fires which have left tens of thousands of hectares of land ablaze and uprooted hundreds from their homes. AFP PHOTO / Alexey SAZONOV #

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A ceramic dog statue that survived last week's fire is seen surrounded by burned-down ruins of the wooden house in the village of Kadanok, 90 miles (150 kilometers) southeast of Moscow, seen Tuesday, Aug, 3, 2010. The fires in forests, fields and peat bogs have killed up to 40 people throughout Russia and come after weeks of searing heat and practically no rain. The weather in the areas where the blazes are concentrated are forecast to reach 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) this week. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) #

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A forest fire volunteer on a burned field near the village of Plotava in the east of the Moscow, Aug. 5, 2010. In this summer of extreme heat, drought, crop failures and a nationwide eruption of wildfires, the Russian government is facing a rare upwelling of popular anger with more than 3,000 people left homeless because of fires. (James Hill/The New York Times) #

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A Bulgarian firefighter drinks water from a fire hose while fighting a blaze in the forest near Noginsk on August 10, 2010. Russia fought a deadly battle to prevent wildfires from engulfing key nuclear sites as alarm mounted over the impact on health of a toxic smoke cloud that has shrouded Moscow. AFP PHOTO / VIKTOR DRACHEV #

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Volunteers look at the sky as they prepare for extinguishing a fire at a forest near the village of Tokhushevo, some 50 km outside Sarov, on August 11, 2010. A new wildfire broke out Wednesday near a major nuclear research centre in the Russian town of Sarov, causing the plant's management to ask firefighters and troops to reverse their withdrawal. AFP PHOTO / VIKTOR DRACHEV #

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Russian firefighters prepare to extinguish a fire at a forest near the village of Tokhushevo, some 50 km outsede Sarov on August 11, 2010. A new wildfire broke out Wednesday near a major nuclear research centre in the Russian town of Sarov, causing the plant's management to ask firefighters and troops to reverse their withdrawal. AFP PHOTO / VIKTOR DRACHEV #

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Fading sunflowers droop in a field in Voronezh region, some 415 km (257 miles) south of Moscow, Monday, Aug. 2, 2010, after weeks of searing heat and practically no rain. A severe drought destroyed one-fifth of the wheat crop in Russia, the world's third-largest exporter, and now wildfires are sweeping in to finish off some of the fields that remained.(AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel) #

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In this photo taken from the driver's cab, farmers bring in the harvest with their combine harvesters, which are reflected in the mirror, in a barley field near the village of Uzunovo in Moscow region, 170 km (105 miles) south of Moscow, Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010. Last week, Moscow announced a ban on grain exports due to a severe drought that has reduced this year's estimated harvest by a third. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev) #

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Russian women organize donated clothing and household items at a humanitarian aid collection point in Moscow on August 10, 2010 for victim's of the nation's worst ever forest fires. Russia is starting to count the losses of the worst heatwave in its history, with economists saying the weather may cost the economy billions of dollars and undercut a modest economic revival. AFP PHOTO / NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA #

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Teenagers jump into fountains to cool themselves in Alexandrovsky Garden just outside the Moscow Kremlin, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010. Usually Russia's summer snags are little more than a brief irritation; a few days of heat, followed by cooling rains. This year is different. Moscow, a city that has beaten back huge military assaults and survived horrifying terrorist attacks, is under a quiet siege that it seems helpless to repel. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) #

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A couple rest in Alexander's Garden just outside Moscow's Kremlin, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010, enjoying the brief respite from the smog due to a change in the wind direction. Deaths in Moscow have doubled to an average of 700 people a day as the Russian capital is engulfed by poisonous smog from wildfires and a sweltering heat wave, a top health official said Monday. Acrid smog blanketed Moscow for a six straight day Monday, with concentrations of carbon monoxide and other poisonous substances two to three times higher than what is considered safe. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev) #

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A newly married couple, no name given, celebrate their wedding despite the deep layer of smog from wildfires covering the ancient Russian city of Ryazan, some 180 km (111 miles) southeast of Moscow. Nearly 600 separate blazes were burning nationwide Saturday, mainly across western Russia, according to the Emergencies Ministry, which said that the area affected had increased over the past 24 hours. Hundreds of forest and peat bog fires have ignited amid the country's most intense heat wave in 130 years of record-keeping. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) #

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A man sprays water on Tverskaya street in the center of Moscow, Russia, on Monday, Aug. 2, 2010. In many Russian regions, including Moscow, July was the hottest month since records began 130 years ago, and the heat wave is expected to last at least through the end of this week. Photographer: Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Bloomberg #

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Russian women organize donated clothing and household items at a humanitarian aid collection point in Moscow on August 10, 2010 for victim's of the nation's worst ever forest fires. Russia is starting to count the losses of the worst heatwave in its history, with economists saying the weather may cost the economy billions of dollars and undercut a modest economic revival. AFP PHOTO / NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA #

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A young woman cools off in a fountain near the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Monday, Aug. 2, 2010. In many Russian regions, including Moscow, July was the hottest month since records began 130 years ago, and the heat wave is expected to last at least through the end of this week. Photographer: Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Bloomberg #

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People rest on the Manezhaya Square just outside the Moscow Kremlin, Monday, Aug. 9, 2010, enjoying the brief respite from the smog due to a change in the wind direction. Deaths in Moscow have doubled to an average of 700 people a day as the Russian capital is engulfed by poisonous smog from wildfires and a sweltering heat wave, a top health official said Monday. Acrid smog blanketed Moscow for a six straight day Monday, with concentrations of carbon monoxide and other poisonous substances two to three times higher than what is considered safe. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev) #

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Local residents look at a heavy smog from a peat fire in a forest near the town of Shatura, some 130 km (81 miles) southeast of Moscow, Thursday, July 29, 2010. Peat swamps started burning in central Russia following an unprecedented heat wave. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) #

 

FILE - In this Saturday, July 31, 2010, file photo a field of unidentified cereals burning near the town of Voronezh some 500 km (294 miles) south of Moscow, after weeks of searing heat and practically no rain. A severe drought destroyed one-fifth of the wheat crop in Russia, the world's third-largest exporter, and now wildfires are sweeping in to finish off some of the fields that remained. (AP Photo / Mikhail Metzel, File)

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QUOTES TO REMEMBER

 

QUOTES TO REMEMBER

Thomas Jefferson
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

Donald Alexander
We now have so many regulations that everyone is guilty of some violation.

Alan Barth
The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free ­ which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.

Lord Acton
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Gaius Julius Caesar
Beware of the leader, who strikes the war drum in order to transfer the citizens into patriotic glow, patriotism is indeed a double-sided sword. It makes the blood so boldly, like it constricts the intellect. And if the striking of the war drum reached a fiebrige height and the blood is cooking and hating, and the intellect is dismissed, the leader doesn’t need to reject the citizens rights. The citizens, cought by anxiety and blinded through patriotism, will subordinate all their rights to the leader and this even with happy courage. Why do I know that? I know it, because this is, what I did. And I am Gajus Julius Cäsar.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.

Niccolo Machiavelli
Thus it happens in matters of state; for knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow so that everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found.

Sir Winston Churchill
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Napoleon Bonaparte
When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.

Louis Freeh
Ask the American public if they want an FBI wiretap and they’ll say, “no.” If you ask them do they want a feature on their phone that helps the FBI find their missing child they’ll say, “Yes.”

Henry Brooks Adams
Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

H. L. Birum, Sr.
The Federal Reserve Bank is nothing but a banking fraud and an unlawful crime against civilization. Why? Because they “create” the money made out of nothing, and our Uncle Sap Government issues their “Federal Reserve Notes” and stamps our Government approval with NO obligation whatever from these Federal Reserve Banks, Individual Banks or National Banks, etc.

QUOTES TO REMEMBER

Evocative images of American life in 1960s and 70s

 

 

Evocative images of American life in 1960s and 70s    Through the centuries, whether combatants have fought with spears, bows and arrows, muzzle-loading rifles, naval cannons, long-range bombers, nuclear weapons or cutting-edge drones, one aspect of warfare has never changed: innocents die. In the 20th century alone millions — tens of millions — of civilians were killed and continue to be killed and maimed in global, regional and civil wars. Most of these victims are “collateral damage”: men, women and children caught in urban warfare; families obliterated by grenades and mortars; entire cities laid waste by bombers dropping tons of ordnance from miles above. But countless civilians slaughtered in warfare don’t die by accident or as the result of military errors; they’re killed by design. They are, in other words, murdered — often after being raped or tortured. It happened in the Peloponnesian War, it happened in the Napoleonic Wars, it happened in the Filipino American War, American Civil War and World War I and the Spanish Civil War and World War II and the Korean War and Vietnam and Kosovo and Iraq and it’s happening today in Syria and the Congo and other places where the paths of warriors and civilians inevitably cross. For Americans of a certain age, meanwhile, one particular atrocity not only remains a grisly emblem of other war crimes that have been committed by some of “our boys” through the years, but in a very real sense marked the end of a certain willful American innocence about the fluid, shadowy line that separates good and evil in war zones. Two simple syllables, My Lai (pronounced “me lie”), are today a reminder of what America lost in the jungles of Vietnam: namely, any claim to moral high ground in a war often defined by those back home as a battle between right and wrong. For the Vietnamese, meanwhile, the March 1968 massacre in the tiny village of My Lai is just one among numerous instances of rape, torture and murder committed by troops — Americans, South Vietnamese, Viet Cong and others — in the course of that long, divisive war. That said, just because it was not the only atrocity committed by American troops in Vietnam hardly mitigates its horror; on the contrary, the fact that this one act of collective barbarity has received so much attention, while other equally appalling acts have for decades gone virtually unnoticed, should terrify and shame us all the more. The chilling facts about My Lai itself are widely known, but on the 45th anniversary of the massacre, some details bear repeating. On March 16, 1968, hundreds (various estimates range between 347 and 504) of elderly people, women, children and infants were murdered by more than 20 members of “Charlie” Company, United States’ 1st Battalion 20th Infantry Regiment. Some of the women were raped before being killed. After this mass slaughter, only one man, Second Lt. William Calley, was convicted of any crime. (He was found guilty in March 1971 of the premeditated murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians, but served just three-and-a-half years under house arrest at Fort Benning, Georgia.) Incredibly, the world at large might have never learned about the death and torture visited by American troops upon the villagers at My Lai had it not been for an Army photographer named Ron Haeberle. Following Charlie Company’s 3rd platoon into the tiny hamlet, and expecting to document a battle between American and Viet Cong fighters, Haeberle instead ended up chronicling (with his own camera, not his Army-issue camera) a scene of unspeakable carnage. More than a year later, when he returned to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, he shared some of the pictures from the massacre with the city’s newspaper, the Plain-Dealer, which published them in late November, 1969. A few weeks later, in its Dec. 5, 1969, issue,   By early 1963, the number of American military personnel in Vietnam had grown from several hundred to more than 10,000 in a few short years. The ramifications of the United States’ direct involvement in a conflict halfway around the globe — less than a decade after the ceasefire in another brutal war in Korea — were certainly part of the national conversation, but in ’63 America’s growing role in Vietnam was not even close to the all-encompassing, divisive issue it would become by the middle of the decade. Vietnam was on people’s radar, of course, but not as a constant, alarming blip. Military families were learning first-hand (before everyone else, as they always do) that this was no “police action; but for millions of Americans, Vietnam was a mystery, a riddle that no doubt would be resolved and forgotten in time: a little place far away where inscrutable strangers were fighting over … something.   All the more remarkable that in January of 1963, LIFE magazine published the powerful cover article, “We Wade Deeper Into Jungle War,” and illustrated it with not one or two photos but with a dozen pictures — most of them in color — by the great photojournalist, Larry Burrows. Burrows, seen at left in Vietnam in 1963, worked steadily — although not exclusively — in Southeast Asia from 1962 until his death in 1971. His work is often cited as the most searing and the most consistently, jaw-droppingly excellent photography from the war, and several of his pictures (“Reaching Out,” for example, featuring a wounded Marine desperately trying to comfort a stricken comrade after a fierce 1966 firefight) and photo essays (like 1965′s magisterial “One Ride With Yankee Papa 13″) both encompassed and defined the long, polarizing catastrophe in Vietnam. He and three fellow photojournalists died when their helicopter was shot down during operations in Laos. Burrows was 44. The pictures here, meanwhile, are striking not only for the clarity with which they document a scary, widening conflict, but for how graphic they are. To American eyes, long accustomed to having their news sanitized by the major media, the notion that these and similarly gruesome pictures routinely ran in a popular weekly magazine five decades ago will likely come as something of a shock. Today, a photograph of blood stains and broken glass on a street after a car bombing is about the extent of what most Americans will ever see on the nightly news, on bale shows or in their newspapers. (Raggedly severed limbs, torched corpses and viscera-covered walls evidently being deemed too upsetting to the fragile American sensibility.) [MORE: See all of TIME.com's coverage of the Vietnam War.] But it’s worth recalling — or reminding those who weren’t alive at the time — that, starting even before the January 25, 1963, issue in which the photos in this gallery appeared, and throughout the war in Vietnam, LIFE and other major, mainstream American news outlets, in print and on TV, regularly published and broadcast what today would be considered graphic, unsettling content. That LIFE considered this a significant, indeed a groundbreaking article is evidenced by the highly unusual treatment it received on the magazine’s cover. The first slide in this gallery illustrates this perfectly: rather than the customary horizontal, one-sheet image found on literally thousands of other LIFE covers, the January 25, 1963, issue featured an exceedingly rare fold-out, giving full play to Burrows’ powerful portrait. Finally: A note on slide #14 in this gallery. In the decades since 1972, when LIFE ceased publishing as a weekly, and in subsequent years when thousands upon thousands of the magazine’s photographs were physically, carefully archived and stored away, very occasionally things have gone awry. Pictures went missing. Negatives went walkabout. Prints have gone off to wherever it is that prints go to hide. In short, some of LIFE’s photographs (very few of them, thankfully, but still enough to cause concern and dismay), both published and unpublished, only exist today in old issues of the magazine itself, or in digital scans made of the pages on which the pictures ran. The originals, as the vernacular has it, are “lost in circulation.” Maybe someone pulled a strip of negatives from the archive 20 years ago for a research project only to have it fall, unnoticed, behind a desk, or under a radiator. Perhaps someone mistakenly mailed the only remaining original, photographer-sanctioned print of a picture to another publication, and it was never returned. Maybe the prints and the contact sheets from an assignment were destroyed in a fire, or mold destroyed a small set of poorly stored negatives. The point here is that the image in slide #14 in this gallery was scanned from an old issue of LIFE, because the original is “lost in circulation.” It’s gone. And no one knows where it is.   "Vietnamese pile out of H-21 helicopter near Rach Gia. They flushed out 15 Viet Congs." "In large-scale probe of the Mekong Delta, Vietnamese soldiers wade into a canal to put their equipment aboard boats. The amphibious operation was designed to ferret out small parties of Communist guerillas hiding out in the nearby flooded paddies." "In a hostile village Vietnamese infantrymen warily move past hut they set ablaze after they found it held Communist literature." AMERICA IN VIETNAM, 1963: DEEPER INTO WAR     The deployment of scientific experiments by Astronaut Edwin Aldrin Jr. is photographed by Astronaut Neil Armstrong. Man's first landing on the Moon occurred July 20, 1969 as Lunar Module "Eagle" touched down gently on the Sea of Tranquility on the east side of the Moon.(Photo by NASA/Newsmakers) # This incredible image of the Earth rise was taken during lunar orbit by the Apollo 11 mission crew in July of 1969. (NASA) # In this July 1969 file photo, Astronaut Edwin Aldrin walks by the footpad of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. (AP/Photo, NASA, file) # In this July 20, 1969 file photo, a footprint left by one of the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission shows in the soft, powder surface of the moon. (AP Photo/NASA, file) # Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, walks on the surface of the Moon near the leg of the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" during the Apollo 11 exravehicular activity (EVA). Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, commander, took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. While astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the Moon, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Columbia" in lunar orbit. (NASA) # Theirs is an imperfect, unairbrushed and largely unformulaic beauty. From the dark tans and healthy smiles of girls frolicking on a beach to the come-hither flirtation of Liz Taylor, LIFE magazine's sexiest shots all have a natural realness about them. Celebrating 75 years of LIFE, the photos are part of a collection of defining images from the news magazine's formidable history. Lean to: Actress Elizabeth Taylor posing in bathing suit on location during filming of motion picture The Night of the Iguana in Mexico Liz Taylor, lounging against a tree in Mexico flirts playfully - as ever - with the camera. Visiting her husband at the time, Richard Burton, on the set of Night of the Iguana in 1963, the screen megastar relaxes in a summery beach suit and flip flops. More... 'I feel sorry for these very young girls': Vogue cover girl Marisa Berenson on the 'cold business' of modelling Michelle Obama says Aloha to tropical style with showstopping Hawaii wardrobe By the time the photo was taken, says LIFE, the star had already won her first Oscar and was Hollywood's highest-paid actress. Legs eleven: Betty Grable models a shirt of her own design while showing off her famous pins in the process The stunning beauty found herself at the subject of several scandals in the years leading up to the shot, though her beauty was never in dispute. In another, Steve McQueen drapes a languidly protective arm around his wife, Neile Adams, as she envelops The Great Escape star in an embrace. Shot by John Dominis, the image, also from 1963, is taken in the actor's home after the photographer developed a close working relationship with McQueen. LIFE writes that the handsome star would often walk around his home and garden in the nude - here, swimmers protect his modesty. Splashin around: Girls play in the ocean in California, the photo was taken as part of a Co Rentmeester essay on the state's beach life California dreamin: Another shot from Co Rentmeester's essay on California beach life shows a splashing woman in the sun Doll-like: Actress and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield lounges on an inflatable raft in a swimming pool surrounded by bottles shaped like bikini-clad versions of herself, Los Angeles, 1957 A colour photo from the Fifties shows Jayne Mansfield and her perfect physique on a pool lilo, surrounded by plastic dolls. The dolls are hot water bottles modelled on the pin-up's figure. On to another pin-up, and Betty Grable is caught, arms aloft, showing off the military-style jacket she decorated herself. The coat paid homage to the troops, writes LIFE, who had made the siren a star, her famous and much lusted-after legs on show, as ever. Revealing: Actor Steve McQueen is photographed at home with wife Neile Adams in 1963 Balls aloft: US water polo team, circa 1966, L-R, Rick McNair, Alex Rousseau, Chris Humbert and Chris Duplanty Soap suds: Actress Jeanne Crain balancing a huge soap bubble on her index finger as she luxuriates in a bubble bath in scene from the movie Margie In a ruffle: Taken in 1954 by Gordon Parks, this image captures garters in their everyday glory, before they had become a true staple of the x-rated wardrobe Fresh as a daisy: Brigitte Bardot during filming of the movie En Effeuillant la Marguerite, or 'Plucking the Petals from the Daisy' Other photos from the collection continue to record stolen moments of the past for posterity - with Life photographers often capturing unplanned, serendipitous and often fleeting moments. A group of girls splash and laugh together on a California beach, their long hair and tanned bodies shot by Co Rentmeester as part of a 1970 photo essay of beach life in the sun-soaked state. Smoking hot: Brigitte Bardot on set during filming of Lady and the Puppet New York fashion, 1969: While many of her peers sported Woodstock style, this young lady strides up a city street looking sleek and sophisticated Other images include the US water polo team. Toned, dark and wide-grinned, the naked men - who became immensely popular with ladies - hold water polo to protect their modesty as they laugh together. Another sees Jane Fonda, anachronistic and faintly comical in full Barbarella get up, staring wilfully at the camera. In one, an unnamed girl of the swinging Sixties strides up a New York street, her sleek fashion at odds with her Woodstock-loving peers. Beaten and bruised: Actor Clint Eastwood is bare-chested and bandaged after a brutal beating scene from Dirty Harry, 1971 Roller girl: Actress Raquel Welch in roller derby uniform during filming of The Kansas City Bomber, 1972 Unearthly woman: Jane Fonda in full Barbarella get-up, 1967, is a plastic-encased, gun-toting force to be reckoned with Boudoir: Texan model Suzy Parker lounges in her California apartment for photographer Allan Grant in 1957 Oscar winner: Faye Dunaway takes in her Oscar win over breakfast and papers at the Beverley Hills Hotel in 1977 A beaten, bruised and bandaged Clint Eastwood appears to shake off his injuries with a smile in a 1971 shot from the filming of Dirty Harry. The macho man played policeman Harry Callahan, propelling the actor to the top of the pile of Hollywood action heroes. 'It's easy to be beautiful - just be born that way,' once said model Suzy Parker, according to the magazine. A photo of the red-head in a summer dress lying in her California home, proves that that the Texan was blessed with more than her fair share of natural beauty. As ever, Marilyn Monroe shows how to do it best, looking directly at the lens, not showing an ounce of flesh and simply giving the camera a look that could melt a million men. Satin sheets: Actress Rita Hayworth looks stunning - wearing her trademark charming, nonchalant look - in a nightgown in 1941 Saving the best for last: Inimitably sexy Marilyn Monroe outside her home, shot by Alfred Eisenstaedt. As ever, time has only accentuated the sexiness of many of LIFE's best shots. Faye Dunaway, shot in 1941 on satin sheets and casually throwing a coy look that became dubbed the 'Mona Lisa of pinups,' hit superstardom shortly after the photo was taken. The screen siren, natural-looking, voluptuous and every bit the pin-up star, encapsulated a style that is firmly lodged in a bygone era. Her ensuing fame makes the innocence of the shot yet more endearing.

'V Shape on Ground'(1971-1974): Since first picking up a camera in 1957, Eggleston's work is said to find 'beauty in the everyday' His influence on contemporary photography and photographers is far-reaching and has inspired the likes of Martin Parr, Sofia Coppola, Andreas Gurksy and Juergen Teller. Talking about the award Eggleston comments: 'The world is in color. To paraphrase my friend John Szarkowski, my attempt has been to see simultaneously, both the blue and the sky as one thing.' Astrid Merget, Creative Director of the World Photography Organisation comments: 'William Eggleston is a without a doubt, one of the great pioneers of our time.  His influence on colour photography and subsequently on many of today's most revered working photographers, is one to be admired, respected and awarded.  'We are honoured to have the opportunity to present the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award to William this year.' 'Minnows Sign' (1971-1974): The majority of the prints are from his iconic Los Alamos and Dust Bells series 'Louisiana' (1970-1974): Eggleston's images capture the ordinary world around him, creating interest through sharp observation, dynamic composition and great wit 'Election Eve' (1976): Eggleston's influence on contemporary photography and photographers is far-reaching and has inspired the likes of Martin Parr, Sofia Coppola, Andreas Gurksy and Juergen Teller Four Freedom Riders are flanked by newsmen on arrival at airport in New Orleans, Saturday, May 27, 1961, after posting bond in Jackson, MS., where they were arrested with 23 others at an interstate bus station. They are, from left, David Dennis, Doris Jean Castle, Julia Aaron and Jerome Smith. All live or attend school in New Orleans and walked quickly through the airport without incident to a limousine. Lucretia Collins, 21, Freedom Rider from Fairbanks, Alaska, walks to a plane in Jackson, May 27, 1961, after being freed from the county jail on $500 bond. (AP Photo) #

The highly influential American photographer Joel Meyerowitz has produced Taking My Time, a retrospective monograph giving an unprecedented insight into his mind and work.  Meyerowitz, 74, is a street photographer who began photographing in color in 1962. He was an early advocate of using color photography at a time when it wasn't regarded as serious art. In an interview where he recalls his early life as a photographer, Meyerowitz describes how he spent as much time on the New York streets as possible. He would walk all day, seeing himself and his friends as 'fishermen in the stream of Fifth Avenue' who were 'sifting all the human information that flows on the streets.' Meyerowitz photographed all over the U.S. and the globe. The images below include photographs from New York, Massachusetts and Florida in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Joel Meyerowitz: Taking My Time, with an introduction by Francesco Zanot, is available from Phaidon for $750. Legendary photographer Joel Meyerowitz would walk the streets of New York City as much as possible. This steamy scene outside Gucci dates from 1975 'Florida, 1965' Joel Meyerowitz was an early advocate of color photography at a time when it wasn't taken seriously A tired friend gets a lift in New York, 1965 'New York City, 1963' Joel Meyerowitz saw himself 'sifting all the human information he found on the streets' 'Doorway to the Sea, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1982' Meyerowitz photographed across the U.S. and the globe A social engagement in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, 1977 Going to the movies in New York City, 1963 An awkward scene in New York City, 1963 An appealing Florida pool in 1978 Ballston Beach, Truro, Massachusetts, in 1977 (L-R) Freedom Riders Julia Aaron & David Dennis sitting on board an interstate bus as they & 25 others (bkgrd. & unseen) are escorted by 2 Mississippi National Guardsmen holding bayonets, on their way from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi. (Photo by Paul Schutzer//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images) # The Alabama state troopers and National Guardsmen escorted the bus to the Mississippi state line and then departed. Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett warns the Freedom Riders to "obey the laws of Mississippi." On May 24, 1961, as the buses arrived at the Jackson, Mississippi bus station, the Riders debarked and entered the White Waiting Room. Jackson Police Captain, Capt. Ray, was waiting for the Riders and asked them to leave the white waiting room. When the group failed to heed the order they were arrested and taken to the city jail. (AP Photo) # Fifteen Freedom Riders that arrived on a second bus in Jackson, Miss., are loaded into a paddy wagon at the bus station, May 24, 1961. They entered the "whites only" waiting room and were arrested for being in violation of state laws. (AP Photo/Horace Cort) # A Freedom Rider is shown the way to the paddy wagon in Jackson, May 24, 1961, as a second bus load of the integration supporters arrived. Fifteen in second bus were arrested when they entered the white waiting room of the bus station. After the arrests, Gov. Ross Barnett decides to send the Riders to the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Mississippi to teach the Riders a lesson. (AP Photo) # A view of Parchman Prison's maximum security unit in Parchman, Mississippi is seen Jan. 9, 1962. After their arrival at the prison, the Freedom Riders were subject to strip searches, beating, and hard labor. More Freedom Riders from across the country vow to fill Parchman Prison before giving up the Freedom Rides. (AP Photo) # Jack Young, attorney for the 27 Freedom Riders tells newsmen in Jackson, May 26, 1961, that his clients have elected to remain in jail "at least for the present." Additional Freedom Riders from across the country vow to take the place of the jailed original Freedom Riders. (AP Photo/Fred Kaufman) # In this Nov. 11, 1958 file photo, Edward M. Kennedy, and Joan Bennett, kneel on the altar and receive communion from Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York at the nuptial mass at St. Joesph's Roman Catholic Church in Bronxville, N.Y. Robert F. Kennedy, left, Counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee, confers with his brothers Edward Kennedy, center, and Sen. John F. Kennedy during a committee hearing in Washington, D.C., in 1959. (AP Photo) # Sen. Edward Kennedy, center, flanked by his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, at the White House in August, 1963. (JFK Presidential Library via The New York Times) # Sen. Edward Kennedy, third from left, walks with his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and sister-in-law Jacqueline Kennedy, during the funeral procession for his slain brother, President John F. Kennedy, outside the White House in Washington, Nov. 25, 1963. (Abbie Rowe/National Park Service/JFK Library via The New York Times)

WOODSTOCK GENERATION On the 44TH anniversary of the legendary Woodstock music festival, held in Bethel, New York, a series of remarkable photographs taken at the time offer a window on the landmark event celebrating music and peace. Woodstock Music & Art Fair was staged at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskill mountains near the hamlet of White Lake from August 15 to August 18, 1969. The festival featured a total of 32 acts, including such icons as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Santana, and The Who, making it one of the most outstanding concert lineups in history. Peaceful masses: Overall image of the huge crowd, looking towards the large yellow tents, during the Woodstock Music & Art Fair Living arrangements: Concert-goer sleeping on two cars at Woodstock in Bethel, New York, on August 1, 1969 Wet and wild: The rain did little to deter hundreds of thousands of young people from sticking around at the festival Despite the rain which had turned the grounds of the farm into a giant mud bath, the festival drew an audience of some 500,000 people, many of whom camped out in tents and vans for the duration of the weekend. Hendrix was the last act to perform at the festival, but due to the bad weather, only about 35,000 people got to hear his psychedelic rendition of the U.S national anthem in what was to become one of the defining moments of the 1960s. The community of Bethel was not prepared for the great influx of young people from all over the country, and by August 14, much of the area had become an enormous traffic jam. Flower children: The festival proved especially popular among members of the hippie counterculture who believed in nonviolence and coined the phrase, 'Make love, not war' Signs of times: The event drew hundreds of thousands of young hippies and was marked by widespread drug use While some locals were less than welcoming to the flower-adorned, bell-bottomed, mud-splattered  hippies flooding the area, others embraced the visitors, supplying them with free food and water when it became apparent that Food For Love, the festival concessionaire, was not prepared to feed the massive crowd. Beside amazing musical acts, the weekend of peace was marked by widespread use of drugs, and the organizers of the event even established a ‘freak-out tent’ for those suffering from bad ‘trips,’ according to the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.     Slip and slide: Despite the rain which had turned the grounds of the farm into a giant, filthy mud bath, the festival drew an audience of some 500,000 young music fans from across the country Groovy invasion: The community of Bethel was not prepared for the great influx of people, and much of the area had become an enormous traffic jam While some concert-goers remembered the unique historic festival as an adventure that changed their lives, others found it nothing but a messy, filthy, poorly organized fiasco. Epic: Jimi Hendrix was the last act to perform at the festival, but due to the bad weather, only about 35,000 people got to hear his psychedelic rendition of the U.S national anthem For his part, one of the LIFE photographers on scene during the festival, John Dominis, summed up his own recollections of Woodstock this way: ‘I really had a great time,’ Dominis told LIFE.com, decades after the fact. ‘I was much older than those kids, but I felt like I was their age. They smiled at me, offered me pot … You didn’t expect to see a bunch of kids so nice; you’d think they’d be uninviting to an older person. But no — they were just great!   The festival was the brainchild of Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld, who initially designed it as a profit-making venture. In the end, it turned into a free concert of epic proportions when it became apparent that the event was drawing hundreds of thousands more people than the organizers had prepared for. Historic lineup: Young people from across the country flooded Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm to catch such great acts as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Who     Different takes: While some concert-goers remembered the historic festival as a life-changing adventure, others found it nothing but a messy, filthy, poorly organized debacle Surrounded by hippies collapsed in a sea of mud, a young couple hug each other while wrapped in a bedraggled blanket. Nick and Bobbi Ercoline didn't know it, but they were about to become an iconic symbol of the Woodstock rock festival. It is now exactly 44 years since the couple joined a crowd estimated at 500,000 for the four-day event. But their relationship is still going strong. They married two years after Woodstock, have two sons and still live not far from the concert site at Bethel in upstate New York. Iconic: This image of Bobbi and Nick Ercoline, wrapped in a muddy blanket, became one of the most well-known photographs of Woodstock Phenomenal: Bobbi and Nick outside their New York home in May, 2009 Yesterday the Ercolines, both 60, returned to their field of dreams for an anniversary event which starts today. 'Who'd have thought that our 15 minutes of fame would last 44 years?' said Nick, who now works for his county's housing department. He and Bobbi, a school nurse, never intended to go to the original concert. But as the couple sat listening to the radio that weekend, the crowd swelled, police closed the roads and broadcast appeals for people to stay away. This made them determined to join in the fun. They grabbed a gallon jug of red wine, some bags of crisps, and headed for Woodstock, abandoning the car six miles from the concert and walking the rest of the way. The couple were pictured by a wandering photographer and the shot made it on to the cover of the Woodstock triple album featuring, among others, Jimi Hendrix and The Who. Nick recalls that he and Bobbi were listening to it at a friend's house when he picked up the sleeve. 'I said, "Hey that's our blanket." Then I said, "Hey, that's us!"' Peace and love: An aerial view of the concert grounds, where nearly half a million people crammed into the muddy fields for a weekend to create music history Many of the crowd at the original festival were shirtless for most of the weekend A 'Hippies Always Welcome' sign sits in a window in the town of Woodstock, New York as the 40th anniversary of the festival approached. When the novelist Martin Amis said recently that it was the sexual revolution of the Sixties and Seventies that destroyed his 'pathologically promiscuous' sister Sally, an alcoholic who died in 2000 aged 46, he provoked a wave of controversy. His views were ridiculed by his critics, who claimed that his sister 'was out of control. It was her doing, not the culture.' Well, I was part of that culture too. As a university student between 1966 and 1969, I experienced first-hand the impact of the sexual revolution, and the sweeping changes it wrought between men and women. To suggest any individual was immune from that tidal wave of change, or from the pressures that came with it, for women in particular, is frankly wrong. Free love: The sexual pressure has gone from liberation to degradation. Yet Amis has hit a nerve, with liberals in particular, who rightly read his comments as a criticism of everything they believed in and fought for through the massive social upheavals of those decades. It was not 'the free love culture' which caused her death, they insist, but her own self-indulgence. After all, we all have choices, don't we? To me, this is one of the most fascinating issues of our time - raising so many questions about freewill, and cause and effect. I'm always amazed at the way the liberal Left (a broad church, with which I'd have once identified) is eager to make excuses for any dubious results of their progressive ideas. Yet the damaging consequences of that Sixties revolution are obvious in the society we now live in - ranging from the utter mess made of education in this country (directly attributable to the overturning of traditional ideas in the Seventies, an orthodoxy which still prevails), to the dangerous 'anything goes' attitude which challenges any idea of restraint in speech or behaviour. I happen to believe Martin Amis makes an interesting case. Who is to say he isn't right and that in a less 'liberal' society his sister might have behaved differently, or might have been safer? 2009: Ladette behaviour  is a direct result of the freedom women fought for Of course any individual is a unique, complex, multi-faceted creation - shaped by family, by personal reactions to events, and by the random nature of sex and love. Nevertheless it's absurd to suggest that we exist in isolation, that we are not shaped by the culture we inhabit. The zeitgeist is the defining mood or spirit of a particular period in history and shaped by the ideas and beliefs of the time. Nobody can escape it. So Amis asks us to pose this question: what were the pressures on a particular girl - his sister - who turned 20 in 1974? And, equally important; what is the ongoing effect on the society of today? Oh yes, they were heady days, out of which many good things came. But at university I could see close-up the impact of the sexual revolution and the 'new' pressure to sleep around. It was expected; nobody wanted to be called 'uncool' or 'uptight'. People have always had sex before (and illicit sex within) marriage. You only have to think of the excesses of the first sexual revolution - the 'roaring' Twenties. But our sexual revolution was more sweeping and long-lasting. 'Health centres handed out the Pill like sweeties' The university Student Health Centre handed out the Pill like sweeties. So you wouldn't get pregnant - good. But at the same time you had no reason to be careful - bad. Most of us embraced the hippie-esque idea that sexual freedom was a beautiful thing to be celebrated. 'Seize the day,' we shouted, and threw old notions like fidelity out of the window. But beneath all those naive and high-sounding ideals, the sexism of supposedly radical and free-thinking men on the left could be summed up with: 'A woman's place is underneath.' As the writer and feminist pioneer Rosie Boycott has said: 'What was insidious about the underground was that it pretended to be alternative. But it wasn't providing an alternative for women. It was providing an alternative for men in that there were no problems about screwing around.' The artist Nicola Lane, another young woman of the age, adds: 'It was paradise for men - all these willing girls. But the problem with the willing girls was that a lot of the time they were willing not because they particularly fancied the people concerned but because they felt they ought to. There was a lot of misery.' Sex mad: A mock up of a Cosmopolitan  magazine  cover, showing cover lines from recent editions An acceptance of casual sex was central to the spirit of the age, and it was not easy for a young woman to escape that influence, whether it made her uncomfortable or not. One cultural historian of the Seventies, Howard Sounes, writes: 'The after-effects of the great social and cultural changes of the Sixties, like waves created by rocks tossed in water, rippled out through society.' Today, those of us who express doubts about the long-term effects of such cultural changes are dismissed as prudes suffering from a permanent moral panic-attack. The denial of the liberals is ongoing: a blinkered refusal to admit the causes and effects of history. But this is what the distinguished historian Eric Hobsbawm writes about the shift in standards in his authoritative book, Age Of Extremes: 'The crisis of the family was linked with quite dramatic changes in public standards governing sexual behaviour, partnership and procreation... and the major change is datable and coincides with the Sixties and Seventies.' No wonder the Seventies saw an unprecedented explosion in writing about sex. The air-brushed innocence of Sixties Playboy gave way to the gynaecological explicitness of Penthouse and a host of imitators. Sex, which in previous eras was private (even taboo), became public, with the result that women were expected - in their love lives - to demonstrate the expertise of prostitutes. Except these 'liberated' women gave it away for free. Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide To Lovemaking, came out in 1972, and that same year the first issue of British Cosmopolitan changed women's magazines for ever. 'To be a nice girl was to be looked on as a freak' I was working on a glossy magazine at the time and we all looked askance at this brash newcomer with its philosophy that women should do anything to be sexy and get a man. (By the mid-Seventies, I was writing for it - although the Cosmo of those days was relatively innocent compared with now, when the magazine is often covered up in American stores because of the explicitness of its cover lines.) Books such as Cosmo's Steamy Sex Games: All Sorts Of Naughty Ways To Have Fun With Your Lover' (and countless others) carried the message that if you don't want to do this stuff, well, there's something wrong with you. To be a 'nice girl' was to be looked on as a freak. The truth was, however, the new permissiveness gave men permission to exploit you. These are the pressures which, according to Martin Amis, contributed to his sister's ruin. It may be cruel to say it, but today's young girls primping and un-dressing for Saturday night, when they will get drunk and get laid (and feel doubly bad in the morning) are the inheritors of her destiny. Bleakly, Amis commented: 'It's astonishingly difficult to find a decent deal between men and women and we haven't found it yet.' I suggest it is impossible to find that 'deal' when we are living with the worst aspects of the sexual revolution - which has not encouraged mutual love and respect between the sexes but instead has given us the trashy 'pornogrification' of our society. Dangerous: When Tom Cruise is stupid enough to permit his three-year-old to totter out in high heels, what hope is there for fans who see him as a role-model? As the young American writer Ariel Leve has said: 'Even though this new world of beer and babes feels foreign to Sixties revolutionaries, it is actually... a repercussion of the very forces they put into motion.' She's right. We did start it - and those who followed paid the price, and are paying it still. In her book, Bodies, psychotherapist Susie Orbach writes: 'Girls as young as four have been made bodily self- conscious and are striking sexy poses in their mirrors which are more chilling than charming.' The question we must all ask ourselves is - what made them so bodily self-conscious? I'm afraid we know the answer. When Tom Cruise and his wife are stupid enough to permit their three-year-old daughter to totter out in silver high heels, what hope is there for those millions of fans who see them as heroic role-models? Nowadays, parents (the ' grandchildren' of the sexual revolution) have no compunction about dressing their little girls as minihookers and taking them along to see sexually explicit acts like the Pussycat Dolls, where dancers mimic sex on stage. Those girls grow up to post pictures of themselves posing like porn stars on the internet. Indeed, a third of teenage girls, we learnt this week, text sexually explicit pictures of themselves, too. And so it goes on. 'We were conned into abandoning self-respect' Is it any wonder that the phenomenon of young teenage boys expecting their girlfriends to provide sexual gratification at any time (on a school bus, for example, according to Susie Orbach) leaves girls feeling abused and full of hate for their bodies - the very bodies so cynically exploited for commercial gains throughout a sexualised media? There is sexual pressure on women as never before and no matter how much women achieve in the boardroom or as helicopter pilots, it makes a nonsense of equality. In 2007, the American Psychological Association issued a report citing innumerable contributing causes to the sexualising of young girls, including music videos, TV and advertising. Are they to be accused of 'moral panic'? When a magazine like Zoo can run a competition in which men send in pictures of their girlfriends' breasts along with a picture of the celebrity breasts they most admire, and the prize is a remodelling of the girlfriend's to match the ideal breasts - then something is very, very wrong. The ongoing sexual 'revolution' is, in truth, as selfish and reactionary as those groovy Seventies men were, when Martin Amis's sister was young. She, like so many others, was conned by the talk of freedom into abandoning all self-respect. The sad thing is young women today are still being conned - victims of the pervasive sex industry which uses 'liberation' as a mask for degradation.       December 8, 1960 At Georgetown University Hospital after the baptism for John F. Kennedy Jr. (AP photo) May 31, 1961. Returning from a dinner at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France. (AP photos) November 7, 1961 With India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, for a private dinner at the White House. (AP photo)   On October 15, 1962, a group of CIA analysts assigned to review aerial photographs of Cuba identified several newly established Soviet medium-range ballistic missile installations -- bases within 100 miles of the United States. The State Department was notified that night, and President John F. Kennedy was briefed the next morning, setting in motion a crisis that brought the world frighteningly close to nuclear war. The U.S. considered options, deployed troops and weapons to Florida, confronted the Soviets at the UN, and shortly set up a naval blockade of Cuba. For 13 tense days, the crisis deepened and people around the world feared the very real possibility of a new, horrific worldwide conflict. On October 27, the U.S. and Soviets reached a secret agreement, where Kennedy would order the removal of missiles in southern Italy and Turkey, and Khrushchev would remove all missiles in Cuba. Over the following weeks, U.S. forces monitored the departure of 42 missiles aboard eight Soviet ships, and the crisis was averted. Gathered here are a few glimpses from those tense Cold War days, as the world approached, then retreated from, the brink of destruction. U.S. President John F. Kennedy speaks before reporters during a televised speech to the nation about the strategic blockade of Cuba, and his warning to the Soviet Union about missile sanctions, during the Cuban missile crisis, on October 24, 1962 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images) 2 A spy photo of a medium range ballistic missile base in San Cristobal, Cuba, with labels detailing various parts of the base, displayed October of 1962. (Getty Images) # 3 Evidence presented by the U.S. Department of Defense, of Soviet missiles in Cuba. This low level photo, made October 23, 1962, of the medium range ballistic missile site under construction at Cuba's San Cristobal area. A line of oxidizer trailers is at center. Added since October 14, the site was earlier photographed, are fuel trailers, a missile shelter tent, and equipment. The missile erector now lies under canvas cover. Evident also are extensive vehicle tracks and the construction of cable lines to control areas. (AP Photo/DOD) # 4 President John F. Kennedy meets with Air Force Maj. Richard Heyser, left, and Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Curtis LeMay, center, at the White House in Washington to discuss U-2 spy plane flights over Cuba. (AP Photo/Richard Heyser private collection) # 5 A map of Cuba annotated by former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, displayed for the first time at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 13, 2005. Former President Kennedy wrote "Missile Sites" on the map and marked them with an X when he was first briefed by the CIA on the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 16, 1962. (Reuters/Brian Snyder) # 6 A photograph of a ballistic missile base in Cuba, used as evidence with which U.S. President John F. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, on October 24, 1962. (Getty Images) # 7 President John F. Kennedy tells the American people that the U.S. is setting up a naval blockade against Cuba, during a television and radio address, on October 22, 1962, from the White House. The president also said the U.S. would wreak "a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union" if any nuclear missile is fired on any nation in this hemisphere." (AP Photo/Bill Allen) # 8 U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, second from right, confronts Soviet delegate Valerian Zorin, first on left, with a display of reconnaissance photographs during emergency session of the U.N. Security Council at the United Nations headquarters in New York, on October 25, 1962. (AP Photo) # 9 A composite image of three photograph taken on October 23, 1962, during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Cuban Missile Crisis. From left, Soviet foreign deputy minister Valerian A. Zorin; Cuba's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mario Garcia-Inchaustegui; and U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson. (Library of Congress) # 10 Cuban President Fidel Castro replies to President Kennedy's naval blockade via Cuban radio and television, on October 23, 1962.(AP Photo/file) # 11 President John F. Kennedy signs a proclamation enacting the U.S. arms quarantine against Cuba, on October 23, 1962.(Library of Congress) # 12 Picketers representing an organization known as Women Strike for Peace carry placards outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City, where the U.N. Security Council considers the Cuban missile crisis in a special meeting, on October 23, 1962. (AP Photo) # 13 Two soldiers sit in a sandy dugout beside a machine gun hold position on a beach on Key West, Florida, on October 27, 1962.(AP Photo/Harold Valentine) # 14 New Yorkers eager for news of the Cuban missile crisis line up to buy newspapers in October of 1962. (Library of Congress) # 15 U.S. Navy surveillance of the first Soviet F-class submarine to surface near the Cuban quarantine line on October 25, 1962.(U.S. Navy) # 16 Members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) march during a protest against the U.S. action over the Cuban missile crisis, on October 28, 1962 in London, England. (Getty Images) # 17 U.S. Army anti-aircraft rockets, mounted on launchers and pointed out over the Florida Straits in Key West, Florida, on October 27, 1962.(AP photo) # 18 A low-level photograph taken November 1, 1962, of a Medium Range Ballistic Missile Site at Sagua La Grande, Cuba.(AP Photo/U.S. Defense Department) # 19 President John Kennedy reports personally to the nation on the status of the Cuban crisis, telling the American people that Soviet missile bases in Cuba are "being destroyed", on on November 2, 1962. He said U.S. air surveillance will continue until effective international inspection is arranged. (AP Photo/Henery Griffin) # 20 Soviet personnel and six missile transporters loaded onto a Soviet ship in Cuba's Casilda port, on November 6, 1962. Note shadow at lower right of the RF-101 reconnaissance jet taking the photograph. (Department of Defense) # 21 A P2V Neptune U.S. patrol plane flies over a Soviet freighter during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. (Getty Images) 42 At 12:30 pm, just seconds after President John F. Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally were shot in Dallas, Texas, the limousine carrying mortally wounded president races toward the hospital, on November 22, 1963. With secret service agent Clinton Hill riding on the back of the car, Mrs. John Connally, wife of the Texas governor, bends over her wounded husband, and Mrs. Kennedy leans over the president.(AP Photo/Justin Newman) # 43 Lee Harvey Oswald sits in police custody shortly after being arrested for the assassination President John F. Kennedy, and the murder of Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit, in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. (AP Photo) # 44 Flanked by Jacqueline Kennedy (right) and his wife Lady Bird Johnson (2nd left), U.S Vice President Lyndon Johnson is administered the oath of office by Federal Judge Sarah Hughes, as he assumed the presidency of the United States, on November 22, 1963, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas (Cecil Stoughton/AFP/Getty Images) # 45 Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is placed on a stretcher after moments after being shot in the stomach in Dallas, Texas, on November 24, 1963. Nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald as the prisoner was being transferred through the underground garage of Dallas police headquarters. (AP Photo) 46 Jackie Kennedy kisses the casket of her late husband, President John F. Kennedy while her daughter Caroline touches it in rotunda of U.S> Capitol, on November 24, 1963. (AP Photo) # 47 With the illuminated U.S. Capitol in the background, mourners form an endless line which lasted through the night, to pay their respects to the slain President John F. Kennedy, in Washington, D.C., on November 24, 1963. (AP Photo) # 48 Three-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr. salutes his father's casket in Washington in this November 25, 1963 photo, three days after the president was assassinated in Dallas. Widow Jacqueline Kennedy, center, and daughter Caroline Kennedy are accompanied by the late president's brothers Senator Edward Kennedy, left, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. (AP Photo) #   “The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to . . . The Twilight Zone.” — Rod Serling, 1960

Mad Men style: This image from 1963 depicts four women at the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City in bright shift dresses and white pumps, with their hair styled into beehive do's Transition: Joel Meyerowitz launched his career in the 1960s, working primarily in color, which marked a shift from black-and-white photography Unlike the carefully staged shots and stuffy formal portraits, Meyerowitz’s street scenes are pulsating with life and action while capturing a singular, unique moment. Many of the photos taken between 1962 and 1977, which are presented in Part I of Howard Greenberg Gallery’s exhibit this fall, give off a distinct sense of the time and place. For example, one image in the exhibit from the 1963 Puerto Rican Day Parade depicts four women decked out in colorful shift dresses, white pumps and signature beehive hairdos familiar to any fan of the popular AMC show Mad Men. Change of scenery: Meyerowitz traveled to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1968 to document the sun-drenched beach scenes in the resort town Moody: This 1977 picture shows an empty porch at dusk in Provincetown, Massachusetts Food for thought: Meyerowtiz captured gritty street life wherever he could find it, like in this 1978 image from St. Louis Meyerowitz used color, as well as black-and-white film, to depict the vibrant scenes of everyday life, from a beautiful brunette smoking in a Time Square restaurant to a woman in futuristic white sunglasses walking hand-in-hand with her significant other in Central Park. Although much of his work focused on documenting New York City street life, Meyerowitz also ventured beyond the Big Apple, traveling to Florida, St. Louis, Missouri, and Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he continued documenting scenes ranging from the gritty to the frivolous. Vintage style: While much of Meyerowitz's work was in color, he at times reverted back to black-and-white photography, like in this 1962 shot from Times Square Candid camera: Unlike the carefully staged shots of years past, Meyerowitz¿s street scenes are pulsating with life while capturing a singular moment in time, like this couple kissing outside a Times Square cinema in 1965 Back to the future: A woman in futuristic white sunglasses walking hand-in-hand with her significant other in Central Park in 1965 Through his remarkable work, Meyerowitz helped overcome resistance to the idea of color photography as serious art, making the form universally accepted. He went on to win multiple awards in his field and had his images featured in over 350 exhibits in some of the world's most prestigious museums and galleries. As dates go, October 5, 1962, isn’t famous. They don’t mention it in school history lessons, nobody very important was born or died then and no world-changing events made the headlines. Perhaps the most newsworthy event of that day was the London premiere of the first James Bond film, Dr No. But, 50 years ago on Friday, and unnoticed by all but a couple of hundred teenagers in Liverpool, The Beatles’ first single, Love Me Do, was released. Icons of an extraordinary decade: The Beatles provided a great soundtrack to the Sixties And, in that moment, it seemed that the torch was passed from one generation to the next. Nearly three years late, the Sixties, as we think of them, had begun. Obviously few of the changes, for good or bad, which that decade brought were as a direct consequence of The Beatles. But, by reflecting their time so famously, the band  put to music the attitudes of a new and confident youth that appeared overnight to brush aside the staid Britain of their parents. And the funny thing was, no one saw it coming, least of all The Beatles. The conception of a new era hadn’t been how the future had looked just three weeks earlier on September 11 when the group had driven down from Liverpool in their van to London’s Abbey Road studios. It hadn’t seemed that way to their record producer, George Martin, either, when he’d agreed to pay each of them the union minimum of seven pounds ten shillings (the equivalent of £137 today) for the session and a royalty of one-fifth of a penny each for every disc sold. (Their manager, Brian Epstein, got another fifth.) The James Bond film Dr No starring Ursula Andress (pictured left) was the most newsworthy event on 5 October 1962. The music at the time was pretty straight with Cliff Richard (right) releasing The Young Ones George Martin wasn’t taking much of a risk, but, as every other record label in London had already rejected the group, why should he? Nor was the record welcomed with any excitement outside Merseyside, where the day after its release the band had a reality check when they found themselves performing at a horticultural society dance in Port Sunlight. It’s been said that to increase sales, Brian Epstein ordered 10,000 copies himself, but even that could only push Love Me Do to number 17 in the charts. And it certainly wasn’t played on TV’s Juke Box Jury. Musically, the world was a pretty straight place then: Cliff Richard had started the year with The Young Ones, but the biggest hit that summer was I Remember You — by a yodelling Australian called Frank Ifield. For The Beatles, though, even making the top 20 was a breakthrough, and their next record, Please Please Me, would top charts around the globe. But what was the world like half a century ago, back then on October 5, 1962? What else was happening? Who were the stars? What were ordinary people reading, watching, talking about? Well, nothing too outlandish — that was for sure. While ripples of change may already have been stirring, they were going largely unnoticed. Two months after the death of 36-year-old Marilyn Monroe in August, Marlon Brando was playing a fat Fletcher Christian in Mutiny On The Bounty and Elvis Presley was committing career suicide in cheap Hollywood beach movies with terrible songs — carelessly leaving a vast musical vacuum in his wake. Two months after Marilyn Monroe (left) died in 1962, Marlon Brando (right) starred in Mutiny On The Bounty Most of the big films of the year were backward glances, like the D-Day epic The Longest Day and Lawrence Of Arabia; and although Len Deighton’s new nameless hero in his first spy novel The Ipcress File was born then, it wouldn’t be until 1965 when Michael Caine put flesh on him in the cinema version that the character would become a Sixties icon. Meanwhile, solid Agatha Christie thrillers such as The Mirror Crack’d From Side To Side plodded on in the libraries, which was where most people got their books. Altogether it seemed a quiet, insular time, with a global population of around three billion, which is slightly less than half of what it is today, in which Eastern Europe was a far-off place of grey, grim Communism where few people from the West ventured, and where East German border guards shot anyone who tried to escape over the wall built the previous year to divide Berlin. And when a man called Nelson Mandela went on trial accused of treason in Johannesburg on October 11, 1962, the case was largely ignored outside South Africa. He would stay in prison until 1990. As for a Britain approaching the end of Empire, the average UK house was worth £2,670 (around £48,000 today), the average annual salary was £800 (£14,000 now) and a Ford Cortina, the flashiest new family car of the time, cost £591 (just over £10,000 today). With almost full employment, the austerity of the Fifties might have been over, but there was still an ingrained unfairness and waste in the education system — especially if you were a girl. Flashiest new family car of the time: In 1962, a Ford Cortina cost £591 (just over £10,000 today) Only four young people in a hundred were getting into university (with three of those being boys), and bright girls were encouraged to go to teachers’ training college. So, all in all, things looked modestly exciting for the young in 1962. But there’s something else, and this cannot be stressed too strongly. The year 1962 was a million miles from the image of the swinging Sixties we’ve come to know. Some teenagers in a few clubs would have tried amphetamines, known then as purple hearts, but, with cannabis rare, heroin and cocaine the habit of a tiny, invisible few, and LSD unknown, there was no big drugs problem. And although smoking was common, binge-drinking was hardly known, certainly among teenagers. With a shorthand typist just out of secretarial college in a provincial town lucky to earn £5 (£88 today) a week, and a London bedsitter considered expensive at £4 (£70 in modern terms) a week, few young people could afford much more than a couple of halves of bitter. The fabled, or perhaps even mythical, Sixties decade of sex, drugs and rock and roll was as yet nowhere in sight. London's Carnaby Street (pictured), in the early Sixties, had a couple of shops which sold daring clothes By the 1960s, Carnaby Street proved popular for followers of both the Mod and hippie styles. Many independent fashion boutiques, and designers lined the sides of the street Nor were the clothes as daring, revolutionary and colourful as they would very quickly become. This was pre-mini-skirts when, despite Mary Quant’s best King’s Road efforts, college girls around the country dressed like frumps, and fans at Liverpool’s Cavern would wear curlers in their hair all day at work, to take them out just before The Beatles came on stage at night. London’s Carnaby Street had, as I recall, a couple of shops which sold relatively brightly coloured, and thus daring, clothes for boys, but V-necked Marks & Spencer sweaters were what most young blades wore on a night out, and everyone had a sports coat and flannels in the wardrobe. As for sex, although the Pill had been introduced a year earlier, it wouldn’t be available for some years to single girls, who would even then have to run the gauntlet of some fierce questioning by moralising GPs. Social attitudes were very different. Despite Mary Quant's efforts in the early Sixties, the mini skirt was yet to take off When John Lennon’s girlfriend, Cynthia, had told him in June that she was pregnant, his instant response had been to marry her. On the cusp of fame, the timing was hardly opportune for him, and, worried about adverse reactions from fans, the fiction that he was single was maintained for a year. But marriage had been ‘the decent thing to do’. Early Sixties Britain was, therefore, still tied by tradition and conformity. It was also a very stratified ‘know your place’ country, where Civil Service-type rules of politeness, decorum and respect for one’s seniors ruled. At the Abbey Road studios, for instance, musicians (the people who actually made the music recorded there) had to use the tradesmen’s entrance. Such general deference was, however, about to be torn apart. Just three weeks after Love Me Do was recorded, a new programme was aired for the first time on the BBC. It was called That Was The Week That Was, and with satirical impudence it made fun of the great, the good and the pompous. Not only did TW3 (as it became known) make David Frost an overnight star, it marked a sea-change in attitudes towards politicians, which grew to hilarity when the sexual hanky-panky of the Profumo Affair began to leak a few months later. Until then television — still in black and white and only featuring the BBC and ITV — had vacillated between being cautious, worthy and dull, the most popular programmes being Dixon Of Dock Green and the Western series Bonanza. So it’s no surprise that, apart from one short, solitary piece of film by Manchester’s Granada TV, there is no footage of The Beatles playing at the Cavern — although they appeared there 292 times. Ground-breaking technological change for television had, however, already arrived. When the Soviet Union had thrown its first Sputnik satellite into orbit in 1957, Cold War defence worries had been the most common reaction. But, if The Beatles had gone home to watch a special late-night programme after their Cavern appearance on July 11, 1962, they would have seen the future in the shape of the first live images from America. Relayed to Britain through the satellite tracking station at Goonhilly Downs in Cornwall, and with the voice of Richard Dimbleby lilting in excitement, the nation watched and waited for a satellite called Telstar to come over the horizon and show us — what? A car, I think, driving along a road more than 3,000 miles a way. It might have been mundane, but it was mesmerising, too. And what was top of the charts three months later, on the day Love Me Do was released? Telstar, played by the Tornados. The Beatles didn’t know it, but all through that autumn they were living the last three private months of their lives before impossible fame would overtake them in 1963. The Cuban Missile Crisis: President Kennedy meets with U.S. Army officials in October 1962 Soon, however, in moments of black humour, it may have occurred to them that they might be living the last few months of their lives altogether. It certainly crossed my mind when, on October 22, President Kennedy went on television and announced to the world that the Soviet Union had installed intercontinental nuclear missiles on Cuba, and that the U.S. Navy would now blockade that island until they were taken away. It was a confrontation that, it was agreed later, came rather too close to a nuclear war. I was a student in London at the time and marked Kennedy’s sabre-rattling television speech by putting up warnings around the Georgian hall of residence where I lived, saying that missile-watching from the balconies was not allowed as they were structurally unsafe. There were many other such jokes, but I remember being quite pleased the following morning to discover that I hadn’t been vaporised overnight in an atomic holocaust. With black CND (Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament) badges pinned to many student scarves, there were demonstrations outside the U.S. Embassy that week — even some outside the Soviet embassy. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll: Drugs became more popular as the Sixties progressed What other memories of that autumn when the Sixties really began? Well, it was a time when people wrote lots of letters, hence the flip-side of Love Me Do being PS I Love You. Although it’s unlikely any of the Beatles would have noticed, it was the season when Liverpool Football Club rejoined the First Division under their new manager Bill Shankly. Then, in December, there was a simply unbelievable smog, in which you couldn’t see a lamp-post until you walked into it, and which killed 60 people. Now, I’d like to be able to write that I’d been one of The Beatles’ first fans, who went out and bought Love Me Do on the day it was released. But I can’t. In fact, it wasn’t until the start of the long frozen winter of 1963, when, in January, I heard Please Please Me on the Light Programme’s Housewives’ Choice for the first time, that I realised what I’d been missing. And by then, so did everybody else. Looking back at that following year of 1963, as the Sixties began to flower, it seemed to me that the world I was living in was changing from black and white to dazzling colour. Perhaps, later, as drugs began to permeate through society, it became too dazzling. But, all the same, it was an astonishing and often exhilarating time as class barriers tumbled and opportunities multiplied. Suddenly the future looked exciting. As I say, The Beatles weren’t responsible for most of the changes of the Sixties, but from October 5, 1962, they proved a terrific musical accompaniment to them.