Monday, June 16, 2025
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Thursday, June 12, 1975. Searching for the meaning of Vietnam.
The New York Review of Books ran an issue on The Meaning of Vietnam.
The disaster of no fault divorce spread to Australia with the Family Law Act 1975.
Last edition:
Wednesday, June 11, 1975. North Sea Oil. Reeducation. Gas Tax Rejection. MKUltra.
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Wednesday, June 11, 1975. North Sea Oil. Reeducation. Gas Tax Rejection. MKUltra.
The United Kingdom became an oil producing nation as the first oil was produced in the North Sea's Argyll field.
The U.S House of Representatives voted 209 to 187 to reject President Ford's proposal for a .23 per gallon federal fuel tax Ford saw as a way of ending US dependency on imported oil by 1985.
Alice Olson, the widow of Frank Olson, learned for the first time that her husband had been the subject of secret CIA experiments with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of the illegal clandestine program MKUltra. Olson had leaped to his death in 1953. The CIA was hoping to find drugs that could be used for interrogation purposes.
Vietnam sent an order to all "puppet soldiers" of Army of the Republic of Vietnam to attend three days of "re-education" (hoc tap), and for former officers to bring supplies for one month of training. Most officers who reported were held for more than one month.
Last edition:
Tuesday, June 10, 1975. Refugees.
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Tuesday, June 10, 1975. Refugees.
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass held a concert at Camp Talega, Camp Pendleton, to entertain Vietnamese refugees.
President Ford reported that 3,341 refugees had been relocated to third countries, with a majority going to Canada.
An artillery salute at Shea stadium for the Army's 200th anniversary went wrong.
Last edition:
Sunday, June 8, 1978. Võ Văn Ba.
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Sunday, June 8, 1978. Võ Văn Ba.
Major South Vietnamese spy, Võ Văn Ba, who had infiltrated the North Vietnamese and who had served, in that capacity, as the Communist Party secretary for Phu Kuong district, Tây Ninh province with responsibility for recruiting members of the Cao Dai religious sect, committed suicide in captivity.
Last edition:
Tuesday, June 3, 1975. New rules for boys and girls.
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Tuesday, June 3, 1975. New rules for boys and girls.
The Department of Health, Education and Welfare promulgated rules prohibiting separate physical education classes for boys and girls and schools from excluding pregnant students from the classroom.
I can't recall this happening, and I wonder if there were nuances to it. In junior high, which I was just going into, PE classes were definitely separated into male and female. They were not in high school.
I can only recall one pregnant student while in high school, and she was married.
Uganda nationalisted all land holdings.
Sultan Alimirah Hanfere, leader of Ethiopia's Afar people and of the Afar Liberation Front, declared war on the Ethiopian government.
Last edition:
Saturday, May 31, 1975. Laying down arms.
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Saturday, May 31, 1975. Laying down arms.
Neutralist Laotian Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma ordered the Royal Lao Army to lay down their arms and cease further resistance as the Pathet Lao took Savannakhet.
Last edition:
Wednesday, May 28, 1975. "NATO is the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy and has the unwavering support of the American public and of our Congress. Our commitment to this alliance will not falter."
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Wednesday, May 28, 1975. "NATO is the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy and has the unwavering support of the American public and of our Congress. Our commitment to this alliance will not falter."
Gerald Ford.
The statement was issued to calm NATO fears that the US might back out of its commitments to Europe, the way it had in Vietnam.
Last edition:
Tuesday, May 27, 1975. Americans out of Laos.
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Tuesday, May 27, 1975. Americans out of Laos.
The US and Laos reached an agreement which included that all Americans were to leave Laos,by June 30, 1975.
The nation was not yet fully controlled by the Pathet Lao.
Falling like dominoes.
Last edition:
Monday, May 26, 1975. Memorial Day.
Monday, May 26, 2025
Monday, May 26, 1975. Memorial Day.
Gerald Ford issued the following proclamation:
Proclamation 4375—Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day, May 26, 1975
May 22, 1975
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
At the height of the Civil War, President Lincoln proclaimed at a battlefield cemetery "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain." Shortly after that tragic war, a day was set aside each year to honor those who gave their lives.
Over 100 years have passed since that simple but moving ceremony at Gettysburg. There have been many Memorial Days, and many more Americans have died in defense of what we believe in. As Thomas Paine said, "Those who would reap the blessings of freedom must . . . undergo the fatigue of supporting it." Today, because of the sacrifice and courage of American men and women, we are a free Nation at peace.
Let us dedicate ourselves today, and every day, to honoring those valiant Americans who died in service to their country. Let us gain strength from their sacrifice and devote ourselves to the peaceful pursuits which freedom allows and progress demands.
With faith in ourselves, future Memorial Days will find us still united in our purpose. Let us join together in working toward the greatest memorial we can construct for those who lay down their lives for us-a peace so durable that there will be no need for further sacrifices.
In recognition of those Americans to whom we pay tribute today, the Congress, by joint resolution of May 11, 1950 (64 Stat. 158), has requested that the President issue a Proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe each Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace and to designate a period during that day when the people of the United States might unite in prayer.
Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Memorial Day, Monday, May 26, 1975, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I designate the hour beginning in each locality at 11 o'clock in the morning of that day as a time to unite in prayer.
I urge all of America's news media to assist in this observance.
I direct that the flag of the United States be flown at half-staff until noon on Memorial Day on all buildings, grounds, and naval vessels of the Federal Government throughout the United States and all areas under its jurisdiction and control.
I also call upon the Governors of the fifty States, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and appropriate officials of all local units of government to direct that the flag be flown at half-staff on all public buildings during the customary forenoon period; and I request the people of the United States to display the flag at half-staff from their homes for the same period.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-second day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-ninth.
GERALD R. FORD
It was my father's 46th birthday.
As it was a day he didn't have to work, my guess is that we went fishing on the North Platte.
Last edition:
Sunday, May 25, 1975. A Sunday in May.
Sunday, May 25, 2025
Sunday, May 25, 1975. A Sunday in May.
Bobby Unser won the 1975 Indianapolis 500, which was halted after 435 miles due to a rainstorm. My father likely would have watched this on television.
There was a lunar eclipse.
I turned 12 years old, although I don't remember it. In 1975 we probably went to Mass the evening prior. As this was a Sunday in May, we may have gone fishing on the river during the day. We wouldn't have had a party or anything, but my parents would have gotten me a few gifts and likely my mother made some sort of a cake.
Last edition:
Saturday, May 24, 1975. Virus variola major.
Saturday, May 24, 2025
Saturday, May 24, 1975. Virus variola major.
The last naturally occurring case of the smallpox virus variola major was found on a woman named Saiban Bibi in the Assam state of India.
The last case of variola minor was found in Somalia, at Merca, in October 1977.
The elimination of the disease is a scientific triumph that occured in an era in which the lethality of diseases was still widely appreciated.
Last edition:
Friday, May 23, 1975. Leaving Laos.
Friday, May 23, 2025
Friday, May 23, 1975. Leaving Laos.
Most American employees of the U.S Embassy in Laos were ordered to evacuate.
The U.S. has an embassy in Laos presently. In fact, the countries never severed diplomatic relations and normalized them in 1992.
The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975 was signed into law by President Ford. The act provided for resettlement of South Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees into the United States. In 1975 it would be amended to include include refugees from Laos.
A military government was appointed to govern Lebanon.
Former President of the Teamsters Union Dave Beck was pardoned by President Ford.
Last edition:
Thursday, May 15, 1975. The Raid on Koh Tang.
Thursday, May 22, 2025
The amazing ability of the Palestinians to self sabotage.
It's really stunning.
The basic Palestinian cause should be a sympathetic one. They were displaced from their homes in a war, made refugees, and many have no homes.
And yet, they do everything possible to make themselves detested and/or ineffective and unsympathetic.
In 1970 the PLO attempted to overthrow Jordan, where many Palestinians had taken refuge.
That ended up with them going to Lebanon, which they destabilized.
The treaty that resulted in them having self governance on the West Bank and Gaza ended up with them electing unrealistic flaming radicals in Gaza, who of course attacked Israel in a shocking manner on October 7, 2023.
The US supported Israel, as it naturally could have been expected to do, which bizarrely lead Palestinians in the US to support Donald Trump for the Presidency, which has to be about the most dimwitted thing they could have done.
And now
2 Israeli Embassy aides are killed in a shooting in Washington, D.C., officials say
This gives Donald Trump his Reichstag Fire moment.
And cover for the current government in Israel to occupy as much of Gaza as it wishes to.
No matter how wide, or narrow, this act of terrorism was, Palestinians in the US, and immigrant populations in general, are really going to get pounded by the Administration. This will be the rallying cry for "deport!". And it'll be the thing which causes the Trumpites to say "See? There really is a war going on. . . it's an emergency. . . deport them all".
And many rank and file Americans will have no sympathy for them at all.
For that matter, the same feelings exist in the UK, where those cries will echo.
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Tuesday, May 20, 1975. Seas of blood.
The Khmer Rouge began to purge Cambodians associated with the former government, a move that would feature mass execution.
This is commonly viewed as the beginning of the Cambodian Genocide.
The House of Representatives voted 303-96 to admit women to the previously all-male service academies. The move was quite controversial at the time.
The Senate would follow suit, with the first women entering the academies in the summer of 1976.
The final episode of the police series Adam-12 was broadcast.
Last episode.
Monday, May 19, 1975. Executive Order 11860—Establishing the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees.
Monday, May 19, 2025
Monday, May 19, 1975. Executive Order 11860—Establishing the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees.
Executive Order 11860—Establishing the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees
May 19, 1975
Since the arrival of the first settlers on our eastern seaboard nearly 400 years ago, America has been a refuge for victims of persecution, intolerance and privation from around the world. Tide after tide of immigrants has settled here and each group has enriched cur heritage and added to our well-being as a nation.
For many residents of Southeast Asia who stood by America as an ally and who have lost their homeland in the tragic developments of the past few weeks, America offers a last, best hope upon which they can build new lives. We are a big country and their numbers are proportionately small. We must open our doors and our hearts.
The arrival of thousands of refugees, mostly children, will require many adjustments on their part and considerable assistance on ours. But it is in our best interest as well as theirs to make this transition as gracious and efficient as humanly possible.
I have determined that it would be in the public interest to establish an advisory committee to the President on the resettlement in the United States of refugees from Indochina.
Now, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, and as President of the United States, it is ordered as follows:
SECTION 1. Establishment of a Presidential Advisory Committee. There is hereby established the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees, hereinafter referred to as the Committee. The Committee shall be composed of such citizens from private life as the President may, from time to time, appoint. The President shall designate one member of the Committee to serve as chairman.
SEC. 2. Functions of the Advisory Committee. The Committee shall advise the President and the heads of appropriate Federal agencies concerning the expeditious and coordinated resettlement of refugees from Southeast Asia. The Committee shall include in its advice, consideration of the following areas:
(a) Health and environmental matters related to resettlement;
(b) the interrelationship of the governmental and volunteer roles in the resettlement;
(c) educational and cultural adjustments required by these efforts;
(d) the general well-being of resettled refugees and their families in their new American communities; and
(e) such other related concerns as the President may, from time to time, specify.
The Committee shall also seek to facilitate the location, solicitation, and channeling of private resources for these resettlement efforts, and to establish lines of communication with all concerned governmental agencies, relevant voluntary agencies, the Vietnamese-American community and the American public at large. The Committee shall conclude its work within one year.
SEC. 3. Assistance, Cooperation, and Expenses.
(a) All executive departments and agencies of the Federal government, to the extent permitted by law, are directed to cooperate with the Committee and to furnish such information, facilities, funds, and assistance as the Committee may require.
(b) No member of the Committee shall receive compensation from the United States by reason of service on the Committee, but may, to the extent permitted by law, be allowed travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law (5 U.S.C. 5703).
SEC. 4. Federal Advisory Committee Act. Notwithstanding the provisions of any other Executive order, the functions of the President under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App. 1), except that of reporting annually to Congress, which are applicable to the advisory committee established by this Order, shall be performed by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.
GERALD R. FORD
The White House,
May 19, 1975.
Last edition:
Thursday, May 15, 1975. The Raid on Koh Tang.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
The Aerodrome: Air Force One.
Air Force One.
Air Force One has been in the news a lot recently, and it started before the Qatari proposal to give the United States, or Donald Trump (it isn't clear which) a luxury outfitted Boeing 747.
Technically "Air Force One" is a call sign, and merely denotes an airplane the Chief Executive is a passenger in. If a President rode in an Air Force Cessna, that would be Air Force One. But everyone knows that it refers to one of two Boeing VC-25s, militarized 747s, that are designated for the Presidents use.
Interestingly, the first aircraft designated for Presidential use was a Navy airplane, an amphibious Douglas Dolphin RD-2 that was luxury outfitted for use by President Roosevelt. It was used from 1933 to 1939, and obviously not for transglobal flight. The President didn't really do extensive travel until World War Two.
.jpg)
In spite of concerns over commercial aviation being used to carry the President during the war, it was in fact used and it wasn 't until 1945 that a new designated Presidential aircraft was acquired, that being a Secret Service reconfigured a Douglas C-54 Skymaster (VC-54C) which was named the Sacred Cow. It contained a sleeping area, radiotelephone, and retractable battery-powered elevator to lift Roosevelt in his wheelchair. It's only use by Roosevelt was to fly the then dying President to Yalta. Truman used it thereafter, but it was replaced by military DC-6 (VC-118) thereafter.
President Eisenhower, who of course knew planes well, to Lockheed C-121 Constellations, Columbine II and Columbine III. The Constellation was a very popular airplane at the time, and Douglas MacArthur also had one, that one spending many years after its service at the Natrona County International Airport on an abandoned runway.
Columbine II was the first Presidential aircraft to receive the designation Air Force One.
At the end of Eisenhower's Presidency Boeing 707s came in, in part because the Soviets were using a jet to transport their Premier. 707s remained through the Nixon era, giving good service in this role.
747s, as VC-25s, entered specialized manufacture for use as Air Force One during Reagan's administration, although the first one would enter service after that. They've been used ever since.
These aren't normal 747s. They are packed with communications and electronic warfare equipment in order to have combat survivability.
Replacing the current two aircraft that are used as Air Force One is a topic that the Air Force started looking at quite a few years ago. The 747 variant which the VC-25 isn't made anymore. Production of 747s stopped in 2023 in favor of more modern aircraft. Still, the airframe remains useful in this role, and after the Air Force started to look into options, updating a 747-8 appeared to be the best option. Only Boeing was interested in the project anyway, and it will take a massive financial loss to do it.
The aircraft that are being retrofitted for this role was built, originally, as a commercial airliner. The projected is a massive one, and the delivery date will be in 2027.
Enter Qatar.
Qatar has offered to give the US (I guess) a luxury Boeing 747-8 for use as Air Force One until the other 747-8s are complete. But here's the thing. Boeing has been working on the complicated task fo converting the two existing 747-8s for this use for several years. After all, it's basically a combat aircraft. All accepting the plane would do is give Boeing a third one to convert, which wouldn't be ready for years.
Trump is being childish about this, as he is about a lot of things. He doesn't seem to grasp the nature of the aircraft, and likely a lot of other people don't as well. In his case, this is inexcusable. It's a combat airplane.
Frankly, it's a Cold War combat airplane.
Which gets to this.
The 747 was a big massive airliner in an era in which it was the queen of the sky. That era is over and airlines have moved on to more modern aircraft. The world in which Ronald Reagan ordered 747s is gone as well. It's still useful to have an aircraft that can be used in a global thermonuclear war, which is what it is, but that's not going to happen and it makes no sense to use it to go on weekend golfing trips to Florida.
But that's what Trump tends to use it for.
That raises an entire series of other questions, many of which have little to do with aircraft, but some of which do. It's notable that other Presidents have used lighter aircraft for more mundane trips. In November 1999, President Bill Clinton flew from Ankara, Turkey, to Cengiz Topel Naval Air Station outside Izmit, Turkey, aboard a marked C-20C. In 2000, President Clinton flew to Pakistan aboard an unmarked Gulfstream III. In 2003, President George W. Bush flew in the co-pilot seat of a Sea Control Squadron Thirty-Five (VS-35) S-3B Viking from Naval Air Station North Island, California to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, with that latter obviously being an exception. Barack Obama used a Gulfstream C-37 variant on a personal trip in 2009.
Trump can use something else than a 747 for what he uses Air Force One for in almost every single instance.
Indeed, the entire topic brings up a lot of things about the risks of having an airplane like this, a luxury airliner inside, which is really a combat aircraft. It makes it easy to forget what it really is, and it makes a President feel like an Emperor, which he is not.
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Lex Anteinternet: A Nation of Slobs. But then. . .The Thomas Crown Affair.
Eh?
Allow me to explain.
I posted this yesterday:
Lex Anteinternet: A Nation of Slobs. But then. . .: Cary Grant and Myrna Loy from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. O.W. Root @NecktieSalvage · 1h People think I am exaggerating when I ...
Last night, I tried to watch the Thomas Crown Affair.
I'm generally a fan of older movies, and often watch ones older than this. But I couldn't make my way through it. The appearance of the characters and the urban settings were just too much for me. The thing is, I"m pretty sure it was accurate.
All the office workers and businessmen are dressed in contempoary suits, some of which were quite nice and still would be today. The hats really stood out, with every man wearing a Trilby, something really identifiable with teh 1960s, but which when we look back on the 60s, is easy to forget.
The 1960s may have been the era of Haight Ashbury and hippies, but it was also the era of men still wearing suits and ties in the office. It isn't really into the 1970s that this began to change. The wide lapel loud color suit came out of the 60s, but it didn't show up until the early 1970s, which is really, culturally, part of the 1960s. Even so, men were wearing coat and tie in the office.
The other thing I encountered leading to this thread was a link from something on Pininterest, which lead to a set of photos that a high school teacher/photographer, took of high school students in his school in the 1970s. I'm not going to linke them in, as some of the photos he took were, in my view, a bit lacking in modesty (not anything illegal, but just something I wouldn't really think a person should photograph), but maybe that was his point.
It wasn't that I didn't recogize the photographs. I really did. That's the thing. All the boys and girls in tight fitting t-shirts.
I have my father's high school annual from 1947, and I've written on the appearance of the studends that appear in it before:
Standards of Dress. Attending school
This is a 9th Grade (Freshman) Class in high school, 1946. Specifically, is the Freshman class at NCHS in 1946 (the Class of 1949).Now, some will know NCHS who might read this, others will not. But in 1946 this class attended school in a city that had under 30,000 residents. It was a city, but it was a city vastly surrounded by the country, as it still somewhat is. This class of boys (there were more in it than those just in this photograph) were from the town and the country. None of them were big city kids. Some were ranch kids. I recognize one of them who was.. Some came from families that were doing okay, some from families that were poor.So how do we see them dressed? One is wearing a striped t-shirt. Exactly one. Every other boy here is wearing a button up long sleeved shirt. Of those, all but one are wearing ties.One of the ones wearing a tie is one of my uncles.Did they turn out with ties just for their photographs that day? Probably they did. I suspect so, but even at that, they all actually could come up with ties. And somebody knew hot to tie them. None of these boys appears to be enormously uncomfortable wearing a tie.
NCHS Juniors in 1946, this is therefore the Class of 1947.Here's a few of the boys in the Junior class that year. Here too, this is probably a bit different depiction of high school aged boys than we'd see today. For one thing, a lot of them are in uniform. As already mentioned in the thread on JrROTC, it was mandatory at the school. Based upon the appearances of the boys at the time the photograph was taken, this probably reflects relatively common daily male dress at NC. Most of the boys are in uniform. Of those who are not, most are wearing button up shirts, but no ties. A couple have t-shirts. Nobody's appearance is outlandish in any fashion, and nobody is seeking to make a statement with their appearance.NCHS girls, Class of 1947, as Juniors in 1946.Here are the Junior girls that year. As can be seen, NCHS had a uniform for girls at that time, which appears to have been some sort of wool skirt and a white button up shirt. They appear to have worn their uniform everyday, as opposed to the boys who must not have.Uniforms at schools are a popular thing to debate in some circles, and I'm not intending to do that. Rather, this simply points out the huge evolution in the standards of youth dress over the years. This is s cross section of students from a Western town. The people depicted in it had fathers who were lawyers, doctors, packing house employees, ranchers and refinery workers. They're all dress in a pretty similar fashion, and the dress is relatively plan really. No t-shirts declaring anything, as t-shirts of that type weren't really around. And no effort to really make a personal statement through dress, or even to really stand out by appearance.
I don't know that things had changed enormously by the mid 1950s.
Kids still new how to dress fairly formally, by contemporary standards, and girls are always shown wearing relatively long skirts and blouses. Boy nearly are always wearing button up shirts, not t-shirts. For something more formal boys still appear quite often in jacket and tie, or suit and tie. Consider the school dance here from the 1950s:
Not ties in a quick review, but still pretty cleanly dressed for the boys and very well dressed for the girls.
By the 60s, things were evolving.
And by the 1970s, they had really changed.
And not really for the good.
In the 70s, men still wore coat and tie to the office, but the trend line is pretty obvious.
If anything, youth dress hit rock bottom in the 1970s. It's intersting that office dress has hit rock bottom, right now.
And, like Atticus Finch noted, dress does matter.