Dr. Peter Beter Audio Letter 51: Dollar; Russian Program; Synthetic Automatons - October 27, 1979
Channel: Peter Beter
Date: 2014-10-16

Dr. Peter David Beter - Audio Letter 51 - October 27, 1979
Text: http://www.peterdavidbeter.com/docs/all/dbal51.html
MP3: http://archive.org/download/DrPeterBeter_AudioVideoLetters/drpeterbetter_audioletter_51.mp3
(1) The crash of the United States dollar
(2) The Russian program to sell SALT II
(3) The surprise Bolshevik deployment of synthetic automatons

" Hello, my friends, this is Dr. Beter in Washington. Today is
Oct. 27, 1979, and this is my AUDIO LETTER No. 51.

The autumn of 1929 was a time of restless anticipation. On
all sides the air was stirring with the winds of change, radical
change. In the United States the Prohibition Era was in full
swing. Countless thousands of illegal speak-easies sprouted up
all over America. Millions of Americans determined to enjoy the
high times filled the speak-easies. One dance craze after
another swept the nation, and yet it was all just a little
unreal. Now and then people wondered: "Where is all this
leading?" At the same time, Americans were increasingly worried
about crime. Prohibition had brought with it a crime wave
unprecedented in America. It was the era of the famous
gangsters--the Capones and the Dillingers. On one hand people
were afraid, yet they were also fascinated, and gangster movies
would soon be packing the theaters. It was also a time of
turbulence on the international scene. In the Far East, tensions
over Manchuria were building among China, Russia, and Japan.
Soon China would be fighting, first with Russia, then with Japan;
but even as these and other tensions were rising, disarmament was
in the air. The great powers were discussing naval limitations,
and there was talk of convening a great conference for general
disarmament.

Developments like these were setting the stage for war to
come; but to most Americans they did not seem to matter much. It
was more exciting to watch the multiplying exploits in aviation
of that day. In 1927 Charles Lindbergh had flown the Atlantic in
the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris. Later he and
other aviators of this and other countries were outdoing
themselves with new accomplishments. An era was beginning which
would see flights spreading across continents, spanning oceans,
and girdling the globe. It was a time of thrills with both
tragedy and triumph. Aviation had caught the imagination of the
public, and yet very few had enough imagination to foresee how
aviation would soon revolutionize the world.

But in that autumn of 50 years ago all eyes were turning to
watch just one thing above all others--it was the New York stock
market. For years the stock market had been booming upward. It
had been so strong for so long that it seemed like a sure thing,
but now for some reason the stock market was beginning to shudder
slightly. Prices reached a peak in September 1929, then they
began to shiver and shudder erratically. Some stocks continued
to climb, others dropped; trading volume began to increase as
more and more shares changed hands. Meanwhile the market as a
whole began to drop. The market was suffering from chills and
fever, shivering slowly downward. Then came Black Thursday,
October 24. Stocks were sold off in an avalanche as panicky
traders tried to beat each other to the punch in getting out.
The tumult on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange grew so
loud that worried crowds collected outside in Wall Street. By
noon there were beginning to be news bulletins. Well-known
speculators committed suicide. Meanwhile a visitor had arrived
from England just at the right moment to stand in the galleries
and watch the frenzy. His name: Winston Churchill. It was not
until well into that evening that the ticker tape finally caught
up with the chaos. All around the country, investors and
speculators waited and watched. For many, the numbers on the
tape spelled RUIN. As people began to recover from the shock,
there were all kinds of official reassurances. The public was
assured that the market and the economy still were sound and
strong. It was said that there had been simply a shaking out of
weak spots.

The one thing no one told the public was the TRUTH. The truth
was that the worst was yet to come. It came five days later, on
Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. As soon as the New York Stock
Exchange opened it was flooded with orders to sell. More than
16-million shares were sold, a record that stood for 40 years.
In the process, the Dow Jones averages dropped nearly 12% in a
single day. Near the close there was a sudden rally because
those who secretly had triggered the crash were snapping up
bargains, but the day ended as the worst in history for the New
York stock market.[...]"