The Year I Was Born: 1959

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Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, Fidel Castro staged a communist revolution in Cuba, Marilyn Monroe starred in Some Like it Hot, and the British embassy was worried about Kenyan students:

A memo from a British diplomat in Washington to Whitehall — released today by the National Archives in West London — sets out their concerns about the young Kenyans.
Dated September 1, 1959, it says: ‘I have discussed with the State Department. They are as disturbed about these developments as we are. They point out that Kenya students have a bad reputation over here for falling into the wrong hands and for becoming both anti-American and anti-white.’
In one of the Foreign Office files, the future president’s father appears on a list of Kenyan students as ‘OBAMA, Barack H’ — they shared the same name.
At the age of 23, he enrolled at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu to study economics with classmates including Ann Dunham, a 17-year-old white American from Kansas. The couple had a short marriage that led to the birth in 1961 of the future president, Barack Obama II.
Mr Obama Snr was among 100 or so Kenyan students brought to America by the African American Students Foundation.
U.S. and British officials were deeply suspicious of this outfit, observing that the AASF — though backed by singer Harry Belafonte and actor Sidney Poitier — had links to a Kenyan nationalist leader.
‘The motives behind this enterprise, therefore, seem more political than educational,’ warned a letter from the British Embassy in Washington.
It added: ‘The arrival here of these students, many of them of indifferent academic calibre and ill-prepared for the venture, is likely to give rise to difficult problems.’

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

UPDATE: Like an exclamation point: Dick Clark just died.

38 comments

  4. Let me begin by denouncing myself and what I’m about to say.

    If you look at the pics in The London Daily Mail report of Obama Senior and Junior, they don’t look alike at all.

  8. Be interesting to see somebody really delve into the Commie element in our Barry’s past rather than wasting the time on the Muslim stuff (although, if you want to find fun stuff on the Muslim side, the commie/nationalist end of things was where to start).

  10. Also gives a good insight into why Barry doesn’t much care for the Brits; wonder what sort of dossier they have/had?

  17. Obama’s mother was briefly married to Barack Obama.  Under the law a woman’s husband was automatically considered the father of a child born into the marriage. 

    Look at Ann Dunham, Barry Sotoero, Barack Obama, and Frank Marshall Davis and tell me who the baby daddy.

  20. Um no.
    Until there were Americans being a Brit made one one of the freest people on earth. While it’s saddens one to contemplate the state of the Anglo Saxon world now we should be proud of that heritage.

  21.  Yeah, Imus was talking about it Wednesday morning.  Thoughts and prayers for him and his family and friends, it has been a long struggle.

  22. I’ve got a show he did on PBS a few years ago that I keep on the DVR and watch now and again, and, man, despite his throat troubles, he could still give you a damn fine show.

  23. I’m damn proud some of the blood that flows through my veins is English.

    Methinks Pagan is descended from Goddamn Irish Catholics [those three words must always be used together].

  26. It’s long been suspected that Davis was actually Obama’s father. When the pics are set side by side, the resemblance to Davis is striking.

  29. Here is another point:  If Bill Ayers and others know about this (presumably they do) what a black mail opportunity that is.  A lot more than a secret service guy cheating on his wife with a hooker.  

  33. From County Cork, and if they were Irish, they sure didn’t bring it here with them. That was on my father’s side, through my mother I too am an Englishman, and proud of that heritage. But like I said to Adobe, that great heritage was then, this is now.

  34.  @TheEBL:disqus    

    Don’t ever say that to someone of Greek, Romanian, or Russian descent, to say nothing of Chinese or Indian (of the Asian or the tomahawk variety).

  36. @TheEBL:disqus     

    That “Everyone was Catholic at some time.” A lot of ethnic groups here in the US were never Catholic, either before or after coming here, including but not limited to the groups I mentioned.    

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