Showing posts with label Watergate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Watergate. Show all posts

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Monday, February 4, 1974. Patty Hearst kidnapped.

Patty Hearst, a grandchild of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California by the  Symbionese Liberation Army.  She was 19 at the time.

Hearst right during later bank robbery.

The group had first appeared in November when it had murdered Marcus Foster, the black Superintendent of Oakland Public Schools, and wounded his deputy superintendent Robert Blackburn.

The name of the entity, it might be noted, came from this, according to the organization:

The name 'symbionese' is taken from the word symbiosis and we define its meaning as a body of dissimilar bodies and organisms living in deep and loving harmony and partnership in the best interest of all within the body.

It's hard to seem how murdering public school superintendents fits that supposed goal.  Robert Blackburn, who survived his wounds, noted:

These were not political radicals, They were uniquely mediocre and stunningly off-base. The people in the SLA had no grounding in history. They swung from the world of being thumb-in-the-mouth cheerleaders to self-described revolutionaries with nothing but rhetoric to support them.

Emblematic of the times, the goof ball entity was a kind of sort of Communist terrorist cell that rapidly became disenchanted with "the people" after distributions of food, which it had demanded as a ransom in Berkeley, didn't go well.

In April, the group raided a bank in San Francisco, in which Hearst seemed to take part, although she denied doing so willingly. She nonetheless was convicted due to the actions and served two years out of a seven-year sentence before Jimmy Carter, ever the kind man, had her released.  Bill Clinton pardoned her.

In May the organization moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, where they got into a shootout at a sporting goods store where Hearst, on guard duty, fired shots.  A shootout a couple of days later at a supposed safe house killed six of them.

Hearst was arrested in September 1975, back at a San Francisco safe house.

Hearst, as noted, was convicted, but she claimed she had never participated willingly, and had been raped and threatened while a captive.  Given the nature of the SLA, that's certainly possible. Early on, however, after her arrest she had said that she comported her thoughts to theirs and was given a choice of being freed or fighting with them, and she elected to fight.

After her release, Hearst married Bernard Lee Shaw, a policeman who was part of her security detail during her time on bail.  They had two children.  He died in 2013.

The Provisional IRA bombed a bus on the M62 Motorway in England, killing nine solders and three civilians, including two children.

The Yom Kippur War resumed, but only as between Syria and Israel, with 500 Cuban soldiers joining a Syrian tank unit.  Fighting resumed in the Golan Heights.

Time Magazine featured Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil on the cover, with the caption "The Impeachment Congress.

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Monday, January 28, 1974. End of the Siege of Suez.

The Israeli siege of the Egyptian city of Suez ended at noon.  The IDF withdrew and the 20,000 encircled Egyptians were able to withdraw across the Suez Canal.

Suez.

Both Time and Newsweek's covers dealt with the Nixon tape. U.S. News & World Report's cover was on inflation.  

Sports Illustrated had a cheesecake photo, although it hadn't crossed over into pornography on the cover yet, for its swimsuit issue. Ann Simonton was the cover model, who was actually relatively covered.

Indonesian President Suharto took control of the country's internal security agency.

Bolivia was declared to be in a state of siege following a peasant uprising at Cochambamba.


Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier fought for a second time in a non-title fight.  Ali won.

George Foreman was the heavyweight champion at the time.

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Friday, January 4, 1974. Acknowledging war.

Today In Wyoming's History: January 4: 1974,  South Vietnam officially announces that, in light of ongoing communist attacks, the war in South Vietnam has restarted.

President Nixon refused to had over subpoenaed tapes to the Watergate Committee.


Sunday, November 26, 2023

Monday, November 26, 1973. Oops.

Mary Woods testified in Federal Court that she's accidentally caused part of the 18-1/2-minute gap in a White House tape.


Friday, November 17, 2023

Saturday, November 17, 1973. Richard Nixon - "I'm not a crook"


It's almost charming to think that there was a time when the Republican President had to assure the American people of his morality.

The Athens Polytechnic Uprising, which had started on November 14 as a student protest, was put down by the Greek Army.

Friday, October 20, 2023

Saturday, October 20, 1973. The Saturday Night Massacre, Sydney Opera House, and Arab Oil Embargo.

Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox was dismissed by the Administration, and attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and deputy attorney General William B. Ruckelshaus resigned.  Cox was dismissed by Robert Bork, who later became an unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee, but who nonetheless was influential in the philosophy of the current Supreme Court.

The Sydney Opera House was inaugurated and opened by Queen Elizabeth II.




Saudi Arabia and Algeria halted petroleum exports to the U.S., the embargo now becoming a full-blown disaster.

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Wednesday, October 17, 1973. The Arab Oil Embargo begins.

OPEC having doubled prices the day prior, Arab oil producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia, now went further and cut production overall by 5% and then placed an embargo on the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, West Germany,  Japan, Rhodesia, South Africa, and Portugal.  Western oil producers Venezuela nor Ecuador refused to join the embargo.

This causes us to recall part of what we recently posted here:

Friday, October 12, 1973. President Nixon commences a transfer of military equipment that leads to a Wyoming oil boom.

Congressman Gerald Ford was nominated to be Vice President by Richard Nixon.  

Also on that day, President Nixon authorized Operation Nickel Grass, the airlift of weapons to Israel.


 

M60 tank being loaded as part of Operation Nickel Grass

The operation revealed severe problems with the U.S. airlift capacity and would likely have not been possible without the assistance of Portugal, whose Azores facilities reduced the need for air-to-air refueling.  The transfer of equipment would also leave the United States dangerously short of some sorts of military equipment, including radios, something that was compounded by the fact that the U.S. was transferring a large volume of equipment to the Republic of Vietnam at the same time.

This would directly result in the Arab Oil Embargo, which had been threatened. The embargo commenced on October 17.  

U.S. oil production had peaked in 1970.  Oil imports rose by 52% between 1969 and 1972, an era when fuel efficiency was disregarded.  By 1972 the U.S. was importing 83% of its oil from the Middle East, but the real cost of petroleum had declined from the late 1950s.

The low cost of petroleum was a major factor in American post-war affluence from the mid 1940s through the 1960s.  The embargo resulted in a major expansion of Wyoming's oil and gas industry, and in some ways fundamentally completed a shift in the state's economy that had been slowly ongoing since World War One, replacing agriculture with hydrocarbon extraction as the predominant industry.

We often hear a lot of anecdotal information about this topic today.  

In this context, it's interesting to note that petroleum consumption is not much greater today in the U.S. than it was in 1973, but domestic production is the highest, by far, it's ever been.  Importation of petroleum is falling, but it's also higher than it was in 1973, but exportation of petroleum is the highest it's ever been, exceeding the amount produced in 1973.  If experts are balanced against imports, we're at an effective all-time low for importation.  In effect, presently, all we're doing with importation is balancing sources.


People hate this thought locally, but with renewable energy sources coming online, there's a real chance that petroleum consumption will fall for the first time since the 1970s, which would have the impact of reducing imports to irrelevancy.  Any way its looked at, the U.S. is no hostage to Middle Eastern oil any more.

It turned out that Europe wasn't hostage to Russian hydrocarbons either, so all of this reflects a fundamental shift in the world's economy.

Price has certainly changed over time.


Juan and Isabel Person were sworn into office as the elected president and vice president of Argentina

Judge John Sirica ruled that the Senate Watergate Committee was not entitled to have access to President Nixon's tape recordings, but that the U.S. Department of Justice special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, could subpoena them as evidence.

Motorola Corporation's engineer's filed for a patent on the DynaTAC, the first hand-held cellular telephone.  It would be issued two years later and our long modern nightmare would accelerate.

The DynaTAC would not enter production until 1983.

The Mets took game four of the World Series against the A's.  I surely would have watched that on the television with my father.

Friday, September 29, 2023

Saturday, September 29, 1973. Oops.

President Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, claimed to have committed a transcription incident that lead to the removal of 18 minutes of one of the Nixon tapes.

Woods reenacting the incident.

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Wednesday, August 15, 1973. The end of American involvement in the Vietnam War.

US bombing of Cambodia halted, bringing to an end US combat operations in Southeast Asia.

A7 Corsair II at Korat.

The last raid was flown by two A7's flying out of Korat Air Base in Thailand.  

When I was a National Guardsman, I had the interesting experience of having had a Colorado Air National Guard A7 roll over upside down above me as I was driving a Jeep attempting to clear an artillery location.  The pilot spotted me from quite high as I was driving around a curve and went into a dive, while still upside down, and came right over the top of me as I drove around the curve.  Had it been an actual conflict, I and everyone in the Jeep would have been killed.

On the same day, the USS Constellation departed Yankee Station, a fixed point off of the coast of North Vietnam.

Nixon addressed the nation on Watergate for the first time, asking the country to look forward rather than backwards, and declaring he had no knowledge of the events until after they had occured.

A rock band by the name Sick Man of Europe renamed itself Cheap Trick.

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Monday, July 23, 1973. Old Faithful Inn added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Old Faithful Inn in 1909.
Today In Wyoming's History: July 23: 1923  1973   Old Faithful Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Attribution:  On This Day.
  President Nixon refused to turn over tape recordings to the Senate or special prosecutor.

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Monday, July 16, 1973. Evidence of our sad descent.

Fred Thompson, Sen. Howard Baker, and Sen. Sam Ervin during the Senate Watergate Committee hearings

Republican counsel Fred Thompson, later U.S. Senator for Tennessee:"Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President?" 

FAA Administrator and former White House aide Alexander Butterfield:"I was aware of listening devices. Yes, sir."

Butterfield was a surprise witness in front of the Watergate Committee.

Taping was actually still ongoing.  Butterfield had not realized that this information had not been revealed by H. R. Halderman already, and that this was a bombshell that would ignite legal wrangling between the Committee and the Oval Office.  Nixon would order an end to the taping on July 18.

Note that it was the GOP counsel who asked the question, about a GOP President involved in scandal.

We've certainly descended a long ways since those days.  It's frankly impossible to imagine the GOP being willing to investigate a President of its own party now, and indeed it would no doubt defend him  rather than uphold the rule of law.

Time magazine hit the cover with their "Monroe meets Mailor" issue.

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Friday, July 14, 1973. The Archives Disaster, Nixon has a bad day, Perón has a good day and Queen.

The Military Personnel Archives Center in Overland Missouri caught fire shortly after midnight, resulting in one of the worst archival accidents in American history.  The center relates:

The Fire:

Shortly after midnight, on July 12, 1973, a fire was reported at the NPRC's military personnel records building at 9700 Page Boulevard in St. Louis, MO. Firefighters arrived on the scene only 4 minutes and 20 seconds after the first alarm sounded and entered the building. While they were able to reach the burning sixth floor, the heat and the smoke forced the firefighters to withdraw at 3:15am. In order to combat and contain the flames, firefighters were forced to pour great quantities of water onto the exterior of the building and inside through broken windows. The fire burned out of control for 22 hours; it took two days before firefighters were able to re-enter the building. The blaze was so intense that local Overland residents had to remain indoors, due to the heavy acrid smoke. It was not until July 16, nearly four and a half days after the first reports, that the local fire department called the fire officially out.

During the long ordeal, firefighters faced severe problems due to insufficient water pressure. Exacerbating the situation, one of the department's pumper trucks broke down after 40 hours of continuous operation. Numerous times, the fire threatened to spread down to the other floors; but firefighters were successful in halting its advance. In all, it took the participation of 42 fire districts to combat the disastrous blaze. Due to the extensive damages, investigators were never able to determine the source of the fire.

 


The Aftermath:

The National Archives focused its immediate attention on salvaging as much as possible and quickly resuming operations at the Page facility. Even before the final flames were out, staff at the NPRC had begun work towards these efforts. All requests and records shipments from other government agencies were temporarily halted, and certain vital records were removed from the burning building for safekeeping. These included the NPRC's operating records, a computer index for a major portion of the NPRC's holdings, and more than 100,000 reels of morning reports for the Army (1912-1959) and Air Force (1947-1959). The latter proved especially important in the days following, as NPRC's officials determined that the fire damage had been worst among the Army and Air Force records for this same time period. As such, on July 23, 1973, the Government issued a Federal Property Management Regulations Bulletin (FPMR B-39) halting Federal agencies from disposing of records that might be useful in documenting military service. Such records have proved vital in efforts to reconstruct basic service information for requestors.

On July 23, the NPRC awarded a construction contract to clear and remove the remains from the ruined sixth floor. That same day, employees, previously on administrative leave, returned to work to assist in recovery efforts and resume reference services. The removal and salvage of water and fire damaged records from the building was the most important priority, and such efforts were overseen by a specially appointed project manager. Their work led to the recovery of approximately 6.5 million burned and water damaged records.

Following the fire, the most immediate concern in the center revolved around water. In order to combat the blaze, firefighters had been forced to pour millions of gallons of water into the building. To stop sporadic rekindling of fire, firefighters continued spraying water on the building until late July. In addition, broken water lines continued to flood the building until they could be capped. Water damage was heaviest on the 5th floor but was spread throughout the building. Standing water, combined with the high temperatures and humidity of a typical St. Louis summer, created a situation ripe for mold growth. As paper is highly susceptible to mold, officials sprayed thymol throughout the building to control any outbreak.

Controlling the spread of mold was one concern; but, so too, was the issue of how to dry the millions of water-soaked records. Initially, NPRC staffers shipped these water-damaged records in plastic milk crates to a temporary facility at the civilian records center on Winnebago, where hastily constructed drying racks had been assembled from spare shelving. When it was discovered that McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation in St. Louis had vacuum-drying facilities, the NPRC diverted its water damaged records there for treatment. The vacuum-dry process took place in a chamber that had previously been utilized to simulate temperature and pressure conditions for the Mercury and Gemini space missions. The chamber was large enough to accommodate approximately 2,000 plastic milk cartons of water and fire damaged records. Once inside, McDonnell Douglas technicians lowered the air in the chamber to the freezing point and then filled the room with hot dry air, which squeezed out the water molecules. For each chamber load, they were able to extract approximately 8 pounds of water per container - the equivalent of nearly 8 total tons of water for each session. In addition to utilizing two more supplemental drying chambers at McDonnell Douglas, the NPRC also sent records to a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) facility in Ohio for drying.

 


Towards Reconstruction:

As part of the reconstruction effort, the NPRC established a "B" registry file (or Burned File) to index the 6.5 million recovered records. So too, the NPRC established a separate temperature controlled "B" file area to protect and safeguard the damaged records. Later, in April 1974, the NPRC established the "R" registry file (or Reconstructed File) to further assist with reconstruction efforts. Since then, staffers have placed all newly reconstructed records into the "R" registry file and stored them in an area separate from the "B," or burned, files.

In the months following the fire, the NPRC initiated several new records recovery and reconstruction efforts, including the establishment of a new branch to deal with damaged records issues. As many military personnel records had been partially or completely destroyed by the fire, the new branch's central mission was to reconstruct records for those requesting service information from the NPRC. While some staffers sought to recover such information from documents and alternate sources outside of the NPRC, others searched through the center's organizational files for records to supplement the destroyed OMPFs.

These alternate sources have played a vital role in the NPRC's efforts to reconstruct service files. Some of the more important records used by the NPRC to supplement damage files include: Veterans Administration (VA) claims files, individual state records, Multiple Name Pay Vouchers (MPV) from the Adjutant General's Office, Selective Service System (SSS) registration records, pay records from the Government Accounting Office (GAO), as well as medical records from military hospitals, entrance and separation x-rays and organizational records. Many work hours were spent making these sources usable. Efforts included: the transfer of records to the NPRC, screening projects and securing access to VA computer records.

In terms of loss to the cultural heritage of our nation, the 1973 NPRC Fire was an unparalleled disaster. In the aftermath of the blaze, recovery and reconstruction effort took place at an unprecedented level. Thanks to such recovery efforts and the use of alternate sources to reconstruct files, today's NPRC is able to continue its primary mission of serving our country's military and civil servants.

Learn more about burned records and how the NPRC's Preservation Laboratory works to treat and make these damaged files accessible

In my experience, records in the destroyed range often have actually survived and, given that service records tend to be duplicated in all sorts of ways, they can often be reconstituted.  Nonetheless, it's been reported that, 80% of records for U.S. Army personnel discharged November 1, 1912, to January 1, 1960, 75% of U.S. Air Force personnel discharged September 25, 1947, to January 1, 1964, with names alphabetically after Hubbard, James E., were lost.

Of note here, the Army was of very small size, following 1865, up until 1917, after which it remained large until the end of the Cold War. Even at that, it has never returned to its pre-1940 size.  Additionally, of note, up until 1947 the Air Force was a branch of the Army.   The damage range includes World War One, World War Two and the Korean War.

On a personal note, my father's Korean War Air Force records would not have been touched, as they were not in the damage range.  One of my uncle's records from the late 1950s would have been, however, although I don't know if they were included in the destroyed records.  The records of other family members from World War Two might have been.

The cause of the fire was never determined.  A workman who was smoking and who had extinguished a cigarette shortly before it began assumed he was the cause, but was not found culpable in a grand jury investigation.  An electrical short is strongly suspected.

President Nixon was reported to be suffering from pneumonia.  On the same day, Alexander Butterfield, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, and chief assistant to H. R. Halderman, revealed taht almost all of President Nixon's Oval Offce conversations had been taped.

Nixon was not having a good day.

Héctor José Cámpora resigned as President of Argentina in order to allow Juan Perón to return to power.

The British band Queen released, well, "Queen".

Sunday, June 25, 2023

Monday, June 25, 1973 John Dean starts testifying. . . back when Congress behaved like adults.

John Dean began his testimony on Watergate in front of hte Senate Watergate Committee.

Now, boys and girls, I know that it seems almost impossible that there was an era in which joint committees in Congress could function, let alone when the GOP didn't accuse everyone of being a Nazi Communist Traitor to their country for questioning a Republican President's actions, but there really was.

In all seriousness, Congress in 1973 looks so much better than Congress in 2023, it's not funny.  It's sad.


Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Wednesday, June 13, 1973. Freeze

President Nixon ordered a sixty-day freeze on prices of gasoline and groceries under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970.

It was the last of the "Phase III" price controls.

On the same day, prosecutors discovered a memo to John Ehrlichman concerning plans to break into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Also, Alexander Butterfield, former Presidential appointments' secretary, met with Senate investigators and revealed the existence of a secret taping system in the White House.

Butterfield.

Butterfield had known Ehrlichman and Halderman from his college days.  After graduating from college, he became an Air Force officer and retired from that prior to going to work in the White House.  In an interview, prior to the public revelation of Deep Throat's identify, he correctly guessed it and the name was published in his interview, although he was not unique in that regard.

The Soviet K-56 with the research vessel Academician Berg killed 27 people.

Saturday, June 10, 2023

Two Observations

 1.  The same political party that found that breaking into an opponents' headquarters for political advantage was beyond the pale, and impeachable, now holds, to a large degree, that prosecuting a former President is an act of political terrorism.

Richard Nixon must be spinning in his grave.

History will find the GOP, and in particular those candidates who cannot bring themselves to condemn Trump for his actions, cowardly and trace this moment as the one at which the demise of the GOP became fixed.

2.  Ukraine is going to lose a lot of armor in its offensive.

Everyone loses a lot of armor in armored offensives.  That, in and of itself, doesn't mean they're fighting poorly or that the armor is bad.

Monday, May 1, 2023

Monday-Tuesday, April 30-May 1, 1973. An unsettling start to the week.

April 30:


Nixon canned White House Counsel John Dean and requested the resignations of H.R. Halderman, his Chief of Staff, John Ehrlichman, is domestic affairs advisor, and Richard Kleindienst, his Attorney General. All due tothe Watergate Scandal.

Halderman.

Things were clearly not going well.


May 1:

The British Trade Union Congress called a day long, Labour Day, work stoppage which was honored by 1,600,000 workers in order to protest the government's anti inflation policies.

Japan repaid $175,000,000 in food assistance aid funds which were extended during the post World War Two occupation of the country.  The payment was made in one lump sum at the request of the US, which needed the money due to its growing concern over the imbalance in deficit payments.

Sweden's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister accused President Nixon of violating the Paris Peace Accords and of bombing refugees in Cambodia in May Day speeches.

Thursday, April 27, 2023

Friday, April 27, 1973. The removal of the Chagossians. Fall of Patrick Gray.

The United Kingdom concluded the forced expulsion of the Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago.


The extremely remote mid-ocean Indian Ocean islands were originally uninhabited, but came to have a population when under French administration. The original population was enslaved, and brought by the French from Madagascar and other African locations.  They were emancipated in 1840, the islands having belonged to the United Kingdom since 1814.  They were employed as workers on coconut plantations, that being the primary economy of the islands.

The British depopulation campaign was undertaken for the United States, which sought to use the islands for military purposes.  The best known of the islands is Diego Garcia, which remains a U.S. Naval installation.

L. Patrick Gray resigned as Interim Director of the FBI after it was revealed he destroyed materials removed from E. Howard Hunt's safe.  He spent the next seven years providing testimony regarding Watergate.

Gray was a 1940 Naval Academy graduate who attended law school while still in the Navy.  His naval career was distinguished, and he was discouraged from leaving the service when he did in 1960, meaning that at that time he'd had a twenty-year Naval career.

He was a recent appointee to the FBI when the Watergate scandal broke out.  Initially he was heavily involved in the investigation and pursued it vigorously. When it became clear the administration was involved, he turned the matter over to his deputy, Mark Felt, who later turned out to be the famous leaker to the press, "Deep Throat".

According to Gray, who does seem to have had no involvement with the Watergate conspiracy or its cover up, the papers he removed were told to him to be of national security significant.  Prior to destroying them, he examined them, and later stated that one set of papers were "false" secret cables indicating that the Kennedy Administration was involved with the Diem assassination and the second set papers written by Kennedy about his "peccadilloes". 

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Friday, March 23, 1973. Unraveling.

Watergate burglar James W. McCord Jr. wrote Judge John Sirica that the Watergate defendants had been pressured to remain silent, naming U.S. Attorney John Mitchell as the "overall boss" of the Watergate operation.

McCord had been a CIA officer before becoming a private security contractor.  He passed away at age 93 in 2017.

Mori Chack (森チャック) designer of Gloomy Bear, a Japanese pink stuffed bear that eats people, born.



Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Wednesday, January 7, 1973. Statemanship.

In an act of statesmanship impossible to imagine today, the United States Senate voted unanimously to approve Senate Resolution 60 establishing a committee to investigate the Watergate scandal.

Now, this would not occur, sadly.

Equally unimaginable, one of Wyoming's long serving Senator at the time was former University of Wyoming professor, Gale McGee.

He was a Democrat.

Stern magazine exposed Sir John Ogilvy Rennie as the director of MI6, code named "M".  He was not long for the office in any event, as his son and daughter-in-law had recently been arrested for alleged involvement in a heroin smuggling effort.

The Politburo approved a Yuri Andropov recommendation to allocate $100,000 to influence the upcoming March 4 election in Chile.

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Monday, January 15, 1973. Ceasefire and air strikes in Vietnam, independence for Comoro, Watergate plea bargains.

President Nixon announced the suspension of offensive actions in North Vietnam, effective January 27, in anticipation of a successful conclusion of the Paris Peace Talks.  Effectively, this was the declaration of an impending ceasefire.  The U.S. Navy, however, hit fourteen North Vietnamese bridges on this day.

VFA-25 insignia. VFA-25 carried out today's' raids.

France signed a treaty with the Comoro Island guarantying them independence with five years, subject to a referendum approving the same.

Comoro flag at the time.

Four Watergate defendants accepted plea bargains.  Remember, this was a trial regarding an even that had happened quite recently, showing that justice really did move a lot more swiftly in the pre late Bomber era.