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U.S. NEWS Saturday 12 OctOber 2019
AP Explains: Columbus, once

immigrant hero, now heel to some

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS tance between Spain's man.
Associated Press Canary Islands and Japan Around 60 years after Co-
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) was only around 2,300 miles lumbus' arrival, the Taino
— The image and story of (3,701 kilometers) and felt indigenous population of
Christopher Columbus, the he could sail west to reach the Caribbean had been
15th century navigator who Asia for a new sought-out reduced from an estimat-
began European incursions route for spices. ed 250,000 people to a few
into the Americas, have It was really about 12,000 hundred because of slav-
changed in the U.S. over miles (19,321 kilometers). ery and death from new
the decades. Columbus Columbus based his incor- diseases.
was an obscure figure until rect calculations on mysti- ___
his adventures were revi- cal texts, and ended up RESURRECTION
talized in the 1800s. By the landing in the present-day Columbus remained a
1990s, a new generation Caribbean on Oct. 12, mostly unknown figure in
of Native American activ- 1492. the English-speaking world
ists blamed the navigator Columbus convinced until Washington Irving re-
for launching centuries of Spain's Queen Isabella to leased in 1828 his biograph- This undated portrait attributed to Rodolfo Ghirlandaia shows
indigenous genocide. With fund his voyage by prom- ical account, "A History of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.
Columbus Day falling on ising that the riches he'd the Life and Voyages of Associated Press
Monday in the U.S. — and collect would be used to Christopher Columbus." The
now being called Indige- finance a crusade to "re- romanticized version be- before. 1874, for example, Norwe-
nous Peoples' Day in some claim" Jerusalem for Chris- came a best-seller in the ___ gian American scholar Ras-
states — here's a look at tians. Instead, he found United States and helped IMMIGRANT HERO mus Bjorn Anderson pub-
how views of Christopher new foods, animals and create the image of Co- Beginning in the 1860s, Ital- lished "America Not Discov-
Columbus have changed indigenous people who, he lumbus as a self-made man ian and Irish immigrants ered By Columbus." Ander-
over the years: wrote, were childlike and who overcame great odds. started celebrating Colum- son argued that the Vikings
___ could be easily turned into Thanks to the book, Colum- bus in local parades. They were the first Europeans to
THE MAN slaves. bus grew popular and Ir- claimed him as America's set foot in the Americas,
Born in the Republic of Ge- As indigenous populations ving's myth played into the very first founding father not Columbus. The Vikings,
noa (now Italy), Columbus revolted against brutal frontier spirit of U.S. west- and used his story to insert Anderson explained, were
took part in several voy- Spanish treatment, Co- ward expansion at the ex- themselves into the U.S. the pure white race and
ages in the Aegean and lumbus ordered a ruthless pense of Native American narrative. From the mid- Christians who started the
Mediterranean seas as a crackdown that included tribes living there. 1800s to the early 1900s, U.S. narrative, not someone
teenager and later par- having dismembered bod- However, the book falsely Italian and Irish immigrants like Columbus or southern
ticipated in expeditions to ies being paraded in pub- claimed that it was Colum- endured years of discrimi- Europeans.
Africa. Like Aristotle and lic. Eventually, Columbus bus who convinced Euro- nation and exclusion from Nonetheless, Italian Ameri-
others, Columbus believed was arrested on misman- peans of his time that the jobs and higher education. cans convinced local and
that the world was round. agement and brutality Earth wasn't flat. Others Still, some white national- state authorities to adopt
He theorized that the dis- charges and died a broken had made the same claim ists attacked Columbus. In Columbus Day holidays.q

White House to cut foreign policy staff by nearly half

By DEB RIECHMANN levels of the past. A senior administration of-
WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi- He told NSC employees at ficial said Friday that the
dent Donald Trump's new a town hall meeting that cuts were not related to
national security adviser the size of the staff grew the leaks and that the NSC
plans to dramatically cut to more than 200 under would reduce employees
the White House foreign the Obama administra- through attrition by not re-
policy unit as it comes un- tion and that he wants to placing people as they fin-
der scrutiny over a whistle- return it to the level it was ish their assignments at the
blower's complaint that under President George White House.
launched an impeach- W. Bush and have about A former staffer said there
ment inquiry by Congress. 100 people by the end of are a few areas of NSC
National security adviser January."It just ballooned that could be trimmed,
Robert O'Brien said late into a massive, you know, but that some current staff
Thursday that he wants to bureaucracy ... under the members already work 60
gradually eliminate about last administration," he said to 70 hours a week and
half of the 178 staff mem- in an interview later on the National security adviser Robert O'Brien talks with reporters be- they worry that the job of
fore boarding Air Force One with President Donald Trump at Los
bers of the National Secu- Fox Business Network pro- Angeles International Airport, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019, in Los providing the president
rity Council over the next gram "Lou Dobbs Tonight." Angeles. with national security pol-
15 months. Trump has also complained Associated Press icy options will diminish as
O'Brien, who recently took about the unidentified the unit shrinks. The staffer
over after national security whistleblower and people the Ukrainian president in needed military aid to the spoke on condition of ano-
adviser John Bolton was in the NSC who apparently which he pressed for an Eastern European nation. nymity to discuss the staff
ousted by the president, provided that person with investigation of a political The complaint is now the reductions announced at
portrayed the cuts as an information about a July rival while his administra- central focus of the im- the closed-door town hall
effort to return to staffing 25 phone call he had with tion was delaying badly peachment inquiry. meeting.q