Captain Jerry Ford and Mr. Kissinger save the day ...

[mmtz]

... but Ford gets the girl

Therin of Andor sent me this link to a 1976 Star Trek comic that appeared in National Lampoon

http://mystartrekscrapbook.blogspot.com/2009/04/national-lampoon-magazines-detente-trek.html

the Star Trek Scrapbook blog is pretty entertaining too

 

[Christopher]

Huh? I'm not sure whether that was meant as satire or propaganda.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the Ford administration... who was the guy standing in for McCoy? Was that Ford's VP, Nelson Rockefeller? That doesn't seem right, since Wikipedia says Rockefeller and Kissinger were longtime friends and allies, but this comic seemed to be alluding to a real-life conflict between Kissinger and this guy.

 

[JWolf]

That was just creepy.

 

[William Leisner]

Huh? I'm not sure whether that was meant as satire or propaganda.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the Ford administration... who was the guy standing in for McCoy? Was that Ford's VP, Nelson Rockefeller? That doesn't seem right, since Wikipedia says Rockefeller and Kissinger were longtime friends and allies, but this comic seemed to be alluding to a real-life conflict between Kissinger and this guy.

I'm going to guess it's supposed to be Ron Nessen, Ford's press secretary, but that's pure conjecture, since the poor bastard never gets named. On the other hand, the fact that he doesn't get named makes me think the readers of 1976 were meant to recognize him, and the press secretary would be far more visible than the VP or anyone else in the cabinet. (Which is probably why they made SecDef Rumsfeld a voice over the comm.)

Or, he could just be a really poorly drawn DeForrest Kelley.

 

[KRAD]

^ Yeah, that's gotta be Nessen, since it actually looks like Nessen, and a 1976 audience would be expected to recognize him, as Bill said. Also: looks nothing like Rockefeller.

 

[Steve Roby]

Huh? I'm not sure whether that was meant as satire or propaganda.

Well, given that it was in National Lampoon, not National Review...

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, but it didn't seem to be questioning or mocking the very naive, black-and-white Cold War-era worldview of the Soviets and the Mideast crisis, just regurgitating it uncritically. I guess the idea was to make fun of the personalities of the Ford administration, and of Kissinger's diplomatic philosophy in particular, but it's just hard for me to see it as any kind of satire when the attitudes it seems to embrace are just as ludicrous as the ones it's satirizing.

 

[William Leisner]

Well, you have to keep in mind this was an era when Chevy Chase stepping in a wastepaper basket was the height of political humor. Plus, it was probably a lot more scathing after a few lines of coke...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I'm thinking "Bones" is Schlesinger.