A hell of a lot can happen, and not happen, in 73 years.

June 1944 (l). American and Russian allies pose for a picture at Wilbur & Wright Memorial in North Carolina during top-secret Project Zebra. October 2017 (r). Project Zebra author, M.G. Crisci (me), poses for a picture at the same Wilbur & Wright Memorial in North Carolina.

There once were two countries (America and Russia) who had completely different social and political systems consistent with their history. They never understood the other; they never trusted each other. trusted the other. Then, along came that nutbag Adolph Hitler who vowed to get rid of both of them. And, so it was they were forced to work together in America in secret. When it was all over, 40 million Russians and 500,000 Americans lost their lives. When it was over, everybody went back to being suspicious, not listening, and disrespecting the other for 73 years, and, still counting.

Truman told the Russians to get lost, NATO refused their admission, and Joey Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev continued to position Russia as the Country nobody should ever trust. And, so we had the birth of Joe McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Civil Defense drills, a lingering Cold War, and on and on…

So, I looked at that Wright Brothers’ dedication not very long ago, I thought to myself, with all the problems in the world today, why is it so hard for these “once” allies to solve existing world problems rather than create new crisis? It is now 73 years later, and neither still understands or trusts the other, despite the fact that our constitutions (ours born 1776; theirs born in 1991), contain many startling similarities.

Question? How many of you are even aware the Russian Federation is only 26 years old at this writing? More importantly, how many members of the U.S. Senate and Congress have ventured into the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg to actually talk to ordinary Russian citizens? And, how many Russian politicians have been given that opportunity in America without being followed by CNN, the New York Times et al?