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:
1965
Brutal coup in Indonesia, assisted by CIA, results in the deaths of over a million
- In a terrifically bloody coup, Indonesia's armed forces, assisted by the CIA, overthrow the elected government. Over a million combatants and civilians die in the fighting. Tyrannical military dictator General Suharto assumes control of the government. (ZMag)
- January 27: National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara send a memo to President Johnson stating that America's limited military involvement in Vietnam is not succeeding, and that the US has reached a "fork in the road" in Vietnam and must either soon escalate or withdraw. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- February: Johnson agrees to a long-standing recommendation from his advisors for a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam. In Hanoi, Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin is pressured by the North Vietnamese to provide unlimited military aid to counter the American "aggression." Kosygin gives in to their demands. As a result, sophisticated Soviet surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) begin arriving in Hanoi within weeks. (Vietnam War Timeline)
Malcolm X assassinated
- February 21: Famed civil rights leader and black nationalist Malcolm X is assassinated, apparently by a "hit squad" of his former Nation of Islam fellows, during a speech at the Audobon Ballroom in Harlem. Along with Martin Luther King, Malcolm X is seen as one of the prime spokespersons for black rights in America; unlike King, Malcolm advocated a more confrontational, more violent methodology of securing equality and freedom, appealing to blacks who became increasingly frustrated with King's insistence on non-violent methods and cooperation with sympathetic whites. He was born Malcolm Little in Nebraska; a brilliant student, his childhood was blighted by family tragedies and poverty, and he dropped out of high school after being told that his ambition of becoming a lawyer was "no realistic goal for a n*gger." He moved to Boston and embarked on a career of street crime, managing to avoid the draft for World War II by telling the military psychiatrist that he wanted to get his hands on a gun and "kill some crackers." Jailed for larceny and possession of firearms, he read incessantly in prison, and became a member of the nascent, black nationalist Nation of Islam. After his release, he joined Nation founder Elijah Muhammed, and quickly became a target of FBI surveillance because of his radical, firebrand rhetoric and his claim of sympathy with Communism. In 1964, he publicly broke with Muhammed and the Nation of Islam, and became a full-blown Muslim. His embrace of traditional Islam led him to tone down his former anti-white rhetoric, telling audiences that "The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks." Though he never completely abandoned his fiery rhetoric that advocated violence against racists in retaliation for violence against blacks, many in the Nation of Islam viewed Malcolm X as a traitor and a competitor for attention from their organization, and Malcolm and his family began receiving frequent death threats. He and his family survived the firebombing of his home on February 14. He would not be so lucky a week later, as three assassins pumped shotgun and handgun rounds into him as he began delivering a speech at the Audobon. He was pronounced DOA. All three assassins were convicted of his murder, though they refused to confirm their membership in the Nation of Islam and questions remain to this day about Malcolm's murder. His funeral attracted 1600 mourners, with noted black actor and activist Ossie Davis delivering a stirring eulogy, and his widow, Betty Shabazz, would continue his work into the next decades. The 1992 film by Spike Lee, X, will reinvigorate interest into Malcolm's life and work. (Malcolm X)
- March 2: Operation Rolling Thunder begins as over 100 American fighter-bombers attack targets in North Vietnam. Scheduled to last eight weeks, Rolling Thunder will instead go on for three years. The first US air strikes also occur against the Ho Chi Minh trail. Throughout the war, the trail is heavily bombed by American jets with little actual success in halting the tremendous flow of soldiers and supplies from the North. 500 American jets will be lost attacking the trail. After each attack, bomb damage along the trail is repaired by female construction crews. During the entire war, the US will fly 3 million sorties and drop nearly 8 million tons of bombs, four times the tonnage dropped during all of World War II, in the largest display of firepower in the history of warfare. The majority of bombs are dropped in South Vietnam against Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army positions, resulting in 3 million civilian refugees due to the destruction of numerous villages. In North Vietnam, military targets include fuel depots and factories. The North Vietnamese react to the air strikes by decentralizing their factories and supply bases, thus minimizing their vulnerability to bomb damage. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- March 7: "Bloody Sunday," the first of three marches from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama in support of civil rights. Over 600 protesters, trying to cross the Pettus Bridge out of Selma, are attacked by state and local police. In the presence of news media, the police attack the marchers with tear gas, billy clubs, and bullwhips. Local organizer Amelia Boynton Robinson is one of the number of marchers beaten and gassed nearly to death. In all, seventeen marchers were hospitalized. Pictures of the brutal police retaliation were broadcast all over the globe, horrifying audiences and eliciting sympathy for the civil rights movement. Two days later, another, smaller march, organized in part by Dr. Martin Luther King and joined by hundreds of people from outside Alabama, takes place; after the march, a white Unitarian minister from Boston who had come to participate in the marches, James Reeb, is savagely beaten outside a local cafe, and, after being refused treatment in the Selma hospital, dies two days later in a hospital in Birmingham. The death of the white Reeb did what the death three weeks before of local black organizer Jimmy Lee Johnson had failed to do -- energized national support for the marchers. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee spokesperson Stokely Carmichael says angrily, "What you want is the nation to be upset when anybody is killed...but it almost [seems that] for this to be recognized, a white person must be killed." On March 21, after obtaining judicial permission for a march, Dr. King and other organizers lead 3200 marchers on a three-day journey to Montgomery; this time, the police do not interfere. By the time the marchers reach Montgomery, their ranks have swelled to over 25,000. The marches are some of the events that galvanized President Johnson to signing the controversial Voting Rights Act in August 1965. Ironically, in light of today's political alignments, it is conservative southern Democrats such as Robert Byrd who oppose the Voting Rights Act, and a coalition of Democrats and liberal Republicans led by the GOP's Everett Dirksen who shepherd the bill through Congress. (Wikipedia, Yubanet)
- March 8: The first U.S. combat troops arrive in Vietnam as 3500 Marines land at China Beach to defend the American air base at Da Nang. They join 23,000 American military advisors already in Vietnam. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- April 1: At the White House, President Johnson authorizes sending two more Marine battalions and up to 20,000 logistical personnel to Vietnam. He also authorizes American combat troops to conduct patrols to root out Viet Cong in the countryside. His decision to allow offensive operations is kept secret from the American press and public for two months. A week later, he offers North Vietnam aid in exchange for peace, an offer the North Vietnamese refuse. (Vietnam War Timeline, Chronology of US-Vietnam Relations)
Anti-war protests in US escalate
- April 17: In Washington, 15,000 students gather to protest the US bombing campaign in the first major anti-war protest, this one sponsored by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). (Vietnam War Timeline, Chronology of US-Vietnam Relations)
- June 18: Nguyen Cao Ky takes power in South Vietnam as the new prime minister with Nguyen Van Thieu functioning as official chief of state. They lead the 10th government in 20 months. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- July 28: During a noontime press conference, President Johnson announces he will send 44 combat battalions to Vietnam increasing the US military presence to 125,000 men. Monthly draft calls are doubled to 35,000. "I have asked the commanding general, General Westmoreland, what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression. He has told me. And we will meet his needs. We cannot be defeated by force of arms. We will stand in Vietnam. ...I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle. I have spoken to you today of the divisions and the forces and the battalions and the units, but I know them all, every one. I have seen them in a thousand streets, of a hundred towns, in every state in this union-working and laughing and building, and filled with hope and life. I think I know, too, how their mothers weep and how their families sorrow." (Vietnam War Timeline)
- August 3: The destruction of suspected Viet Cong villages near Da Nang by a US Marine rifle company is shown on CBS TV and generates controversy in America. Earlier, seven Marines had been killed nearby while searching for Viet Cong following a mortar attack against the air base at Da Nang. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- August 31: President Johnson signs a law criminalizing draft card burning. Although it may result in a five year prison sentence and $1000 fine, the burnings become common during anti-war rallies and often attract the attention of news media. (Vietnam War Timeline)
- October 15 - 16: Anti-war rallies occur in 40 American cities and in international cities including London and Rome. (Vietnam War Timeline, Chronology of US-Vietnam Relations)
- November 14 -16: The first major military engagement between US and North Vietnamese forces occurs. (Chronology of US-Vietnam Relations)
- By year's end US troop levels in Vietnam reached 184,300. An estimated 90,000 South Vietnamese soldiers deserted in 1965, while an estimated 35,000 soldiers from North Vietnam infiltrated the South via the Ho Chi Minh trail. Up to 50 percent of the countryside in South Vietnam is now under some degree of Viet Cong control. (Vietnam War Timeline)
