Among the more ominous aspects of the transition to Trump are the nominations of three generals to positions of secretary of defense, national security adviser and head of homeland security.
During the Eisenhower administration, the president twice overruled military advisers who wanted to use the atomic bomb in Asia, and in 1962, the Kennedy brothers rejected recommendations for a land invasion of Cuba by American troops.
With a man of staggering intellectual deficiency coming into the Oval Office, deference to military advice is more likely than at any period in my 73 years, and we may all need to worry about more than simply the erosion of civil liberties and the slide from republic to oligarchy, bad enough as those likelihoods are.
Robert S. Pingree
Concord