THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
1961-1970:
1962
- As Republican John Tower wins a special election to replace Vice President Lyndon Johnson in the US Senate, a groundswell of discontent transforms Texas politics (a change mirrored all over the South). Conservative Democrats, angry with the party's newfound support for civil rights and organized labor, begin defecting in droves to join the Republican Party, where their influence will shove that party sharply rightward. George H.W. Bush is a prime beneficiary of this shift; during this period, he wins two terms in the US House of Representatives, runs two strong, but losing, campaigns for Senate, serves as the chair of the Republican Party and the Ambassador to the United Nations under Nixon, and serves as ambassador to China and director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Ford. Bush enjoys the politically savvy advice of longtime associate James Baker III as well as the nearly unlimited campaign funding provided by former business partners Hugh and William Liedtke. Other oilmen join the Bush bandwagon, most prominently C. Fred Chambers, Bobby Holt, Earle Craig Jr., Robert Mosbacher, and Hugh Roy Cullen. In 1966, freshman congressman Bush is named to the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, the first freshman to be named to that committee in 63 years. Bush is perfectly positioned to fight for the interests of the oil corporations, and he does so, defeating efforts to repeal two hugely favorable tax loopholes that allowed oil companies to legally conceal billions of dollars from the IRS. Bush continues to build his political connections, and serve in Washington, until the Carter administration takes power in 1977. (Consortium News)
- George Parmet writes of George Bush's initial introduction to Texas politics: "The Houston of George [H.W.] Bush's political baptism was one of free-flowing, everything-goes, unrestricted pell-mell growth. Limits were practically 'subversive.' The city that had kept sprawling after the war could not be restrained or even rationalized by urban planning. Efforts at public modification opened its authors to charges of 'socialism' or even 'communism.' Money was king in the most uninhibited sense, and the accumulators [were] the new emperors in a modern frontier anarchy." As a result of Houston's economic policies, it will overtake Los Angeles as the US's smoggiest city in 1999. Under Governor George W. Bush's environmental policies, the list of spillages, toxic emission problems, particulates, and general pollutants plaguing Houston and the rest of Texas is overwhelming. (In 1999, Texas will rise from the worst-polluted state in the US to fifth worst, but that happened because the rating system was modified to include several new industries. Under the old system, Texas would have still ranked at the bottom.) In 2000, Time magazine writes, "Bush let industry write an anti-pollution measure, and believes voluntary plans, not regulation, can clean up air and water. No wonder Texas has a world-class pollution problem." The Bush family will come to political maturity in a climate where business, finance, politics, and social connections are everything, and laws and regulations are something to be subverted, gotten around, or ignored. The effects on both Bushes' political careers and proclivities are widespread. (Kevin Phillips)
1962
- US troops enter Laos as part of American intervention in Vietnam, as well as opposing a native Laotian guerrilla war. (ZMag)
- William Rehnquist, who will become a Supreme Court justice in 1972, is part of a Republican operation to deny minority voters access to the polls. Rehnquist, who will be active in the Barry Goldwater campaign for president, serves as a GOP "poll watcher" in the 1962 and 1964 elections, challenging minority voters' documentation and ability to read. Rehnquist will deny his involvement in his 1986 hearings to become Chief Justice, but the allegations are proven true. (Vincent Bugliosi)
- The Justice Department files a federal antitrust suit against Hollywood corporation MCA on the basis that it is both a talent agency and a production company; the Screen Actors Guild is charged as a co-conspirator. Former SAG president Ronald Reagan is the subject of criminal and civil investigations by both the FBI and a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. A Justice Department memorandum quotes a Hollywood source as saying, "Ronald Reagan is a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything." On February 5, Reagan testifies before the grand jury, but fails to recall any of the decisions he had made as SAG president that led to the "sweetheart deal" between MCA and SAG in 1952. Federal prosecutors are so convinced that Reagan has perjured himself repeatedly during his testimony that they subpoena his and his wife's income tax returns for the years 1952 to 1955. (Wife Nancy Reagan, formerly actress Nancy Davis, has been a member of SAG's board of directors since 1951) In July, after MCA's purchase of Decca Records, the parent company of Universal Pictures, MCA agrees to abolish its talent agency. As a result, all charges against and investigations of the company and its alleged coconspirators are dropped and the record of the case is sealed. Reagan is devastated by the breakup of MCA, the company for which he has devoted his entire career; a lifelong Democrat, he now becomes an anti-big government Republican, partly at the urging of his political mentor Taft Schreiber, an MCA vice-president, and Jules Stein, MCA's founder. Both Schreiber and Stein are active in GOP politics. (Dan Moldea)
- January 15: During a press conference, President Kennedy is asked if any Americans in Vietnam are engaged in the fighting. "No," Kennedy responds without further comment. This, of course, is patently untrue. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- February 2: Kennedy broadens the long-standing partial embargo against Cuba to ban all US trade with Cuba, except for non-trade food and medicines. (History of Cuba)
- February 6: MACV, the US Military Assistance Command for Vietnam, is formed. It replaces MAAG-Vietnam, the Military Assistance Advisory Group which had been established in 1950. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- February 10: The Americans and Soviets trade spies: U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down over Russia in May 1961, for German spy Rudolf Abel, in Berlin. The CIA avoids an embarassing media moment when reporters and cameras flock to the Millegeville, Georgia home of Mrs. Powers for comment; unfortunately, Mrs. Powers, who has not been informed of her husband's release, is drunk and in bed with a neighbor. Reporters show up at roughly the same time as the police, called by Mrs. Powers to protect her from the neighbor's wife who is waving a shotgun around and issuing threats. The CIA has a difficult time keeping this particular story out of the news, but is successful, even though one reporter's interview with Mrs. Powers goes awry when Mrs. Powers keeps falling out of her chair. (Larry Kolb)
- March: Operation Sunrise begins the Strategic Hamlet resettlement program in which scattered rural populations in South Vietnam are uprooted from their ancestral farmlands and resettled into fortified villages defended by local militias. However, over 50 of the hamlets and are soon infiltrated and easily taken over by Viet Cong who kill or intimidate village leaders. Diem orders retaliatory bombing raids against suspected Viet Cong-controlled hamlets. The air strikes by the South Vietnamese Air Force are supported by US pilots, who also conduct some of the bombings. Civilian causalities erode popular support for Diem and result in growing peasant hostility toward America, which is largely blamed for the unpopular resettlement program as well as the bombings. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- May: Defense Secretary McNamara visits South Vietnam and reports, "[W]e are winning the war." (Vietnam War Timeline)
Algerian independence
- July 1: The Algerian people overwhelmingly approve the Evian Accords negotiated between France and the FLN rebels; on July 3, Charles de Gaulle will declare Algeria a free and independent nation. Pat Buchanan writes, "For France, the key to victory was not to lose the loyalty of the Arab population. But that loyalty began to die in Algerian hearts when Paris replaced French Muslim troops with French European troops, and started to treat all Berbers and Arabs as potential suspects. Racial profiling, while a successful tactic, proved a disastrous strategy. By treating the French 'pied noirs' differently from the Arabs, France made the Algerian Arabs realize they were a separate people. As more and more Arabs identified with the cause of rebellion and joined the rebellion, the FLN escalated to guerrilla war and appealed to a world by now converted to anti-colonialism from the high ground that this was not a civil war but a people's war of liberation." (OnWar, Pat Buchanan)
- July 23: The Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos signed in Geneva by the US and 13 other nations, prohibits US invasion of portions of the Ho Chi Minh trail inside eastern Laos, a provision that will be routinely ignored by US forces. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- August 1: President Kennedy signs the Foreign Assistance Act of 1962 which provides "...military assistance to countries which are on the rim of the Communist world and under direct attack." (Vietnam War Timeline)
- October 1: Riots break out on the University of Mississippi campus, fueled in part by former General Edwin Walker and a group of right-wing extremists. Walker would later admit that he led an attack on federal troops in hopes of fomenting an insurrection against the Kennedy administration. Walker was incited in part by white supremacist Jim Johnson of Arkansas; Walker had recently resigned from the Army for his ultra-right propagandizing and has lately been agitating audiences at meetings of the John Birch Society and similar organizations. Walker organizes a group of over 3000 angry racists to prevent the entrance of black student James Meredith to the Ole Miss campus. Walker, along with 200 of his cohorts, is arrested and charged with an array of crimes, including "insurrection." The mob got its licks in; before the Army arrives to quell the riots, scores of federal marshals and National Guardsmen are wounded by rocks, Molotov cocktails, and shotgun blasts. Two people, a British journalist and an innocent bystander, are killed in the violence. (JFK Assassination Timeline, An American Insurrection, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)
Cuban Missile Crisis
- October 16 - 17: American U-2 spy planes photograph what are later confirmed to be Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missile sites in Cuba. A day later, Kennedy is told that Cuba is harboring 16 to 32 Soviet nuclear missiles that have the potential of killing 80 million Americans; with a flight time of just 17 minutes from launch to detonation, there will be little warning if the missiles are launched. Kennedy is informed that more missile components are being shipped in, and that the missiles will be ready for deployment by the end of the month. (Later information shows that the USSR shipped a total of 42 intermediate range missiles and 24 medium-range missiles, along with 22,000 Russian technicians and troops to accompany the nukes.) (History Learning Site)
- October 27: Soviet anti-aircraft fire shoots down an American U-2 spy plane flying over Cuba. The shootdown, and the death of the pilot, inflames an already-critical political crisis between the US, the USSR, and Cuba over the Soviet nuclear and military presence in Cuba. US president Kennedy institutes a naval blockade of Cuba, preventing further missile components from being delivered. (History Learning Site)
- October 27 - 28: After conflicting messages from Soviet leader Khruschev (one offering unilateral withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, the other demanding that the US withdraw its missiles from Turkey if the USSR is to withdraw its own missiles from Cuba), Kennedy demands that the USSR withdraw its missiles from Cuba; in return, Kennedy promises to lift the blockade. Kennedy promises a military invasion to destroy the missiles within 24 hours if the Soviets do not agree to his terms. Khruschev agrees, averting what could have been a nuclear war, and contributing heavily to his own political downfall and the lionization of John F. Kennedy. Later information shows that a highly placed "mole" in the Kremlin has been feeding critical information to the US government, and Kennedy was fairly certain that once push came to shove, Khruschev would back down. Kennedy's political enemies are convinced that he has cut a secret deal with the Soviets; instead of winning Kennedy some respect for standing up to the Soviets, the Cuban Missile Crisis, as it is later known, will cause Kennedy's enemies to loathe him even more. (History Learning Site)
- November: After losing an election for governor of California, former vice president Richard Nixon gives an angry, rambling "concession" speech accusing the press of unfair coverage and hurling any number of complaints; some observers believe they are witnessing Nixon having a nervous breakdown in front of them. Nixon concludes by saying, "One last thing. ...For years you've had a lot of fun... You've had the opportunity to attack me.... Just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." Many predict Nixon's political career is finished. Instead, he moves to New York City, joins a prestigious law firm headed by, among others, John Mitchell (later Nixon's attorney general), becomes involved in the 1964 Goldwater campaign, and begins building towards his 1968 presidential run. (David Fremon)
- November: Investment banker and peacetime Navy veteran Donald Rumsfeld wins a longshot bid for a US House seat from Illinois. The combative Rumsfeld plays well with his conservative constituency, who send him back to Congress throug 1970. High school, college, and business pals like Gerald Ford, Dick Cheney, Frank Carlucci, and Robert Ellsworth will provide critical assistance to Rumsfeld throughout his political and business careers. Rumsfeld quickly moves to become a Republican leader in the traditionally minority party, leading a group of young, conservative Republicans to replace House Minority Leader Charles Halleck with Rumsfeld's friend, Gerald Ford. Ford repays Rumsfeld by making him one of his top advisors. Ellworth later recalls that even those close to Rumsfeld were wary of him: "[He was] very demanding when you make a deal. Better not welch if your deal is with Rumsfeld.... He'll speak sharply to you, if nothing else.... And [if] you broke a deal, [it would be] difficult to do a deal with him in the future...." In 1968, his political ambitions, and the enemies he has made in the House, impel him to consider leaving Congress to try to hook on with the Nixon campaign, and hopefully with the new Nixon administration. But even though Rumsfeld plays a key role in the campaign, Rumsfeld's Republican enemies, particularly Nixon confidante H.R. Haldeman, keep him out of the White House for a time. (PBS)
- December 18 - 20: The US and Britain agree to contribute part of their nuclear arsenals to NATO. (NATO and UN History)
- Late 1962: A high-ranking US "mole" in the Soviet military, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, is unmasked and executed by the Soviets. Until his exposure, Penkovsky was able to supply the CIA with tremendously valuable information about Soviet missile programs. (Philip Taubman)
