24 December 1968-Apollo VIII saves 1968

1. 1968. What a tumultuous, calamitous, violent year, both in the United States and around the world. A short summation of some of the major events in the year some historians have dubbed “The Year that Everything Went Wrong”:

21 January-North Vietnam launches a major offensive against the Marine base at Khe Sanh

23 January-USS Pueblo and its crew are captured by North Korea; crew is held and tortured for nearly a year before they are released.

30 January-Tet offensive erupts as the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong attack nearly every provincial capital in South Vietnam.

12 March-Senator Eugene McCarthy decapitates President Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, mobilizing thousands of students who “get clean for Gene”

16 March-Senator Robert Kennedy announces that he will also seek the Democratic presidential nomination

31 March-President Johnson addresses the nation on the Vietnam War, announces a bombing halt and that negotiations will soon begin in Paris; he then stuns the nation and the world by stating that “I will not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” Vice President Hubert Humphrey enters the race.

4 April-Dr. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis. Riots erupt across the nation the next day, which is Good Friday.

21 May-USS Scorpion (SSN-589) disappears while on patrol in the Med; all 99 sailors are lost at sea.

5 June-Senator Robert Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles after winning the California Democratic primary

21 August-Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact armed forces invade Czechoslovakia to crush the emerging democratic movement

28 August-As VP Humphrey is declared the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party at its convention in Chicago, a great riot erupts in the city, with television images of Chicago policemen using excessive force to quell student protestors who chant “the whole world is watching”. Earlier in the evening as Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut had decried Chicago Mayor Richard Daly’s “Gestapo tactics” from the convention podium, news cameras panned to Mayor Daly, who could be seen clearly shouting “fuck you, you kike son of a bitch.”

17 October-African-American sprinters John Carlos and Tommy Smith raise their black-gloved fists in the Black Power salute as the U.S. national anthem is played for their gold and silver medal awards. Not even the Olympics were free of controversy that year.

As the year came to a close, one shining moment reminded all of us here on Earth that we are all part of one human race, inhabiting the only planet known to be able to sustain our species. The Apollo VIII mission was launched on 21 December, with the never-before tried goal of entering lunar orbit and returning safely to Earth. The mission was commanded by Frank Borman, with Jim Lovell as Command Module pilot and William Anders as Lunar module pilot. The mission launched flawlessly, achieved lunar insertion trajectory perfectly, and executed a flawless burn that inserted them into lunar orbit on 24 December, Christmas Eve. On the fourth orbit of the moon, Frank Borman noticed something that no human had ever seen before: an Earthrise. He snapped a black and white photo. Minutes later William Anders got the color camera and snapped the photo that helped to inspire the first Earth Day in 1970. As the astronauts watched something that only they could see, Borman, his voice choking with emotion, said to Mission Control: “Fellas, we’ve just seen an Earthrise and it is truly wonderful!”

Later on the same orbit, the crew made a radio broadcast to Earth, which was listened to by almost a billion people worldwide. The men took turns reading from the first chapter of Genesis, verses 1-10, which are:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.


Borman concluded the broadcast with"And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth".

I was 8 years old in 1968, soon to be 9 as the year came to a close. I didn’t understand everything that had happened that year, but I knew it had been a terrible time across the board. The men of Apollo VIII reminded us that we all share this fragile world, and it’s all we have. I was also a firm believer in the Christian faith when I was 8, so the words from Genesis, broadcast from 200,000 miles away, were truly moving for me and for billions of others as well. Time magazine named Borman, Lovell and Anders as its Men of the Year for 1968, and the Earthrise photo taken by Anders was deemed by Life magazine to be one of the 100 most iconic photos of all time. When Apollo VIII returned safely to Earth, Borman received a telegram from an unknown sender who summed up what everyone on Earth felt. The telegram read:

“Thank you Apollo VIII. You saved 1968.”





Earthrise, as seen by the crew of Apollo VIII on 24 December, 1968

2 Dec 1941-"Climb Mt. Niitaka" is transmitted from Tokyo to the Imperial Japanese Fleet

On 2 December, 1941, a powerful force of Japanese aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers were en route to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. A smaller force was also en route to Singapore, home of the Royal Navy fleet guarding the British Empire in Asia. Both forces got underway on 26 November, awaiting the attack order/no attack order from Imperial Japanese Navy headquarters. The order to attack was dependent on the satisfactory conclusion of negotiations between the Japanese diplomats in Washington, who were holding regular meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull. If the negotiations were successful, the fleet would turn back. If not, the diplomats were to present the U.S. with a declaration of war, and the attack would commence.

The Japanese had been studying how to attack Pearl Harbor for years. They had modified their aerial torpedoes so that they could operate in the shallow waters of the Pearl Harbor anchorage, and the commander of the Japanese Navy, Admiral Yamamoto, had studied at the U.S. Naval War College. He knew his American counterparts very well, particularly their schedules. Saturday night was normally set aside for entertainment and poker playing (Yamamoto was an excellent card player), and Sunday was a day of rest, with liberty and church services for all hands. Sunday morning would be the best time to attack the fleet at Pearl Harbor, as operational readiness would be at the lowest point.

All the fleet needed to hear for the attack was a simple code phrase, which was “Climb Mt. Niitaka”. Niitaka is the highest mountain on Taiwan, which in 1941was a Japanese possession. The mountain had been climbed successfully in 1900 by a team of Japanese climbers, who named the mountain Niitaka, which means “new high mountain”. This name was given because Niitaka is even higher than sacred Mount Fuji on the island of Honshu. Niitaka is also a very difficult ascent, extremely challenging with a high chance of failure.

When the code phrase was transmitted, U.S. Navy cryptologists intercepted and translated it, but the phrase had no meaning. For the fleet commanders the meaning was perfectly clear. It meant that negotiations in Washington were not proceeding to Japan’s advantage, the the U.S. had no intention of lifting the oil and scrap metal embargo until Japan disengaged from its war in China and pulled its troops out of French Indochina (which after World War II would become the nations of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, but that’s another story), so the only alternative was war. The code phrase meant that all aircraft carriers and supporting ships were to be in place to attack Pearl Harbor and Singapore by 7/8 December. 7 December for Pearl Harbor, as it lay on the opposite side of the International Date line, and 8 December for Singapore.

1 Dec 1824-Deadlock in the Electoral College

The presidential election of 1824 was a mess from the start. There were four candidates vying for the White House that year and they were all from the same party, the Democratic-Republican party. The Federalist Party of George Washington and John Adams fell apart after Jefferson won the presidency in the election of 1800, leaving the country with one-party rule under the presidencies of Madison and Monroe. The candidates for 1824 were:

Andrew Jackson-Former Congressman, sitting Senator, hero of the Battle of New Orleans, and spokesman for the “common man”. Jackson, if elected, would be the first President not to attend college, the first President self-taught, and the first President from a state that was not part of the original 13 colonies: Tennessee.

John Quincy Adams-Secretary of State under President James Monroe, former ambassador to Russia, drafter of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, former US Senator from Massachusetts, son of President John Adams.

Henry Clay-Sitting Speaker of the House of Representatives and Congressman from Kentucky. Like Jackson, if elected, he would be the first President from a state not part of the original colonies.

William H. Crawford-Secretary of the Treasury, former Secretary of War, former US Senator from Georgia, former US ambassador to France.

Each candidate ran strongly in the region where they were from, and when the dust settled the electoral college vote was:

Jackson-99
Adams-84
Crawford-41
Clay-37

Total Electoral Votes=261

Votes needed to win the White House-131

The 12th Amendment to the Constitution mandates that the President must win a majority of the electoral college votes to secure the White House, and if no candidate wins a majority, the election is thrown into the House of Representatives, with the top 3 electoral vote recipients vying for the prize. On 1 December 1824 the electoral votes were certified and the presidential election was placed in the hands of the House. Clay would have been eliminated under the provisions of the 12th Amendment, but Crawford, who had suffered a stroke earlier in the year, withdrew his name from the contest, leaving the election to Jackson, Adams and Clay. Clay despised Jackson, viewing him as uncouth and a butcher, as Jackson’s victory over the British at New Orleans came after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, thus ending hostilities. As they say in combat, “there’s always some son of a bitch who doesn’t get the word”. Clay realized that as the man with fewest electoral votes, and coming from the small state of Kentucky (taking notes, Senators McConnell and Paul?) there was little chance of him entering the White House; however, he was in an excellent position to act as kingmaker for the eventual winner. His position on tariffs and national funding of roads and other infrastructure projects was closer to that of John Quincy Adams, so he threw his support behind Adams. When the House voted on 9 February 1825, the support of Clay put Adams over the top. Under the 12th Amendment, each state delegation votes together, and Clay’s position as Speaker also helped Adams.

Jackson was outraged, as he had entered the contest with a plurality of electoral votes and strong popular vote support as well. His rage exploded when Adams offered the position of Secretary of State to Clay. Prior to the House vote an article had appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper stating that as a price for Clay’s support, Adams would name him Secretary of State. This was never investigated before the House voted, but once the vote was certified and Clay accepted the offer, Jackson screamed that a “corrupt bargain” had been reached, and he swore revenge come the 1828 election. The position of Secretary of State carried extra potency in the early 1800s, as Jefferson, Madison and Monroe had all served in the office and gone from there to the White House. To the casual observer it appeared that Adams was offering Clay a stepping stone to the White House via the top office in the cabinet.

4 November 1979-The Great Iranian Hostage Crisis Begins

President Carter’s presidency began to unravel on Sunday, 4 November, 1979. That was the date when several thousand Iranian students in Tehran overran the U.S. Embassy, seizing it and holding 52 American personnel hostage for the next 444 days. Relations between the U.S. and Iran had been plummeting ever since the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, fled the country and the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from 15 years of exile.

The Shah and Carter had never seen eye to eye. Carter, with his genuine Christian faith, had serious problems with the Shah’s repressive rule, especially the Shah’s use of SAVAK, Iran’s secret police. Carter also knew that he needed the Shah to remain a U.S. ally, as Iran occupies a strategic position in southwest Asia, and the country also sits atop some of the world’s largest oil and natural gas reserves. Iran also hosted NSA listening posts on the Caspian Sea, which provided valuable insight into Soviet missile tests. These sites were also crucial to Carter’s ambition for a new SALT treaty with the Soviet Union, as the Senate would not ratify the treaty without verification measures provided by the NSA sites on the Caspian.

The Shah felt that Carter didn’t understand that a liberal, Western style democracy was simply not possible in a country like Iran. He also irrationally blamed Carter and the U.S. for increasing Iranian student unrest. When the Shah came to visit the U.S. in 1977, thousands of Iranian students protested against the visit, nearly shutting down Washington. A famous picture of that visit shows the Shah and Carter on the Truman balcony, both of them wiping their eyes from residual tear gas used to disperse the protests. I watched these protests on a bus ride home from high school, as my fellow McNamara students chanted “Sha-na-na-Sha-na-na get a job!”

Carter visited Tehran in January of 1978, and at a state banquet on New Years Day, he toasted the Shah as “a man beloved by his people” and Iran as “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world”. As 1978 progressed, more unrest began to roil Iran. By September the Shah was forced to put a military government in charge of the country, and the new government began to use lethal force against protesters. But as far as the CIA was concerned, everything in Iran was fine. A CIA assessment in August concluded that the Shah had firm control of SAVAK, the police and the military, and that the country was not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary state.

The U.S. ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan, had a different take on the situation in Iran. By talking to students, middle class Iranians, and observing the growing use of lethal force against protesters, Sullivan realized that the Shah’s days were numbered. On 9 November, 1978, Sullivan sent a cable to Washington entitled “Thinking the Unthinkable”. The cable outlined the growing unrest in Iran, the hatred most Iranians had for the Shah, and--most alarmingly--the growing religious fervor sweeping the country. Sullivan said that all these factors could force the Shah to abdicate in the very near future, which is precisely what happened on 16 January, 1979, when the Shah and his wife left the country.

Unknown to the CIA and Carter, the Shah was suffering from advanced lymphatic cancer. He was in Mexico in October of 1979, when he petitioned Carter to allow him to enter the United States for cancer treatment at New York’s Soan Kettering center. On 20 October, Carter, ever the Christian, allowed the Shah to come to the U.S. on compassionate grounds. Allowing the Shah to enter the United States enraged student protesters in Tehran and the newly formed government of Khomeini, who demanded that the U.S. send the Shah back to Iran to stand trial for “crimes against humanity”. Carter, knowing that sending the Shah back would seal his fate, refused.

On Sunday, 4 November, thousands of students gathered outside the U.S. Embassy, chanting “death to America, death to the Shah!”. As the crowd began to press against the gates of the embassy, the Iranian security forces drew back, leaving the embassy open to the student protesters. Some of the protesters had metal cutters, which they used to cut the bolts on the embassy’s gates. Once the gates were forced opened, the students rushed into the compound. The Americans were in the process of destroying sensitive documents when the students burst in and surrounded the staff. Soon, the Americans were blindfolded and led outside the compound to the jeers of thousands of protesters outside the embassy.

President Carter was awakened on Sunday morning by his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who informed the President that the embassy had been overrun and that at least 50 Americans had been taken hostage. Later that morning networks broke into their regular programming with video of the embassy seizure and pictures of blindfolded Americans surrounded by Iranian students. As a sophomore in college, I was stunned at the news, but like President Carter, I expected the crisis to be quickly resolved. Little did I, or the President, realize how much this crisis would consume the country.

30 October 1956-UK and France Enter the Second Arab-Israeli War

By the morning of 30 October, 1956, Israeli troops were deep in the Sinai, steadily pushing the Egyptian forces westward towards the Suez Canal. The United States introduced a resolution in the UN Security Council, calling for an immediate cease fire and a withdrawal of both Egyptian and Israeli forces to the armistice lines drawn after the conclusion of the First Arab-Israeli War of 1948-49. When the vote in the Security Council was called, France and the United Kingdom vetoed the resolution. Since both were permanent members of the UN, their vetoes killed the cease fire motion. The Soviet Union then introduced a similar resolution, which was also vetoed by France and the UK. These vetoes alarmed the US, and also provided more evidence that both countries were somehow involved in the military action taking place in Sinai.


President Eisenhower was concerned over the lack of intelligence on French and British intentions in the Egyptian-Israeli conflict. Ike was so much in the dark that he speculated that “the hand of Churchill” rather than of Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden, might be behind the British Suez adventure, since it was “in the mid-Victorian style”. (For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 233). Shortly after 10 that morning, an erroneous report came in that British and French forces were about to land at Suez. The report was wrong, but it was eerily prophetic, as an invasion of Egypt and France was part of the British/French/Israeli plot. After Eisenhower received the report of the landing, he drafted a message to Prime Minister Eden, stating that “the UK and U.S. quickly and clearly lay our their present views and intentions before each other”. Ike went further in the message, confronting Eden with some of the intelligence the U.S. had regarding the French and British build up of aircraft on Cyprus and in Israel, and the fact that the day before Israel invaded the Sinai, NSA reported a sharp spike in encrypted traffic between Paris and Tel Aviv.

Eisenhower’s message to Eden reached London just as Eden was addressing Parliament on the current crisis. Eden then stated that Paris and London were presenting an ultimatum to both Israel and Egypt to withdraw ten miles from the Suez Canal within 12 hours, and then permit Anglo-French occupation of key points along the Canal. The ultimatum, coupled with the previous veto of the UN Security Council cease fire resolution, showed that all three countries were in collusion. Israel said it would comply, but Egypt refused.

When news of the ultimatum reached Eisenhower, he exploded into one of his famous rages. The persona of the grinning, amiable Ike was for public consumption, but in reality he was a coldly calculating, firm leader who truly despised being double-crossed. As the ultimatum was read out, Eisenhower erupted with a string of curses, and then placed an immediate phone call to Prime Minister Eden. When the call was completed, it went to Eden’s press secretary by mistake. Eisenhower, thinking he was talking to Eden, poured forth his invective, concluding with “Anthony, I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but you’ve gone out of your fucking mind!”

29 October 1956-Suez Crisis Erupts into Full War

29 October 1956-The Second Arab-Israeli War began with a drop of Israeli airborne troops into the Sinai peninsula. In keeping with the agreement reached in Sevres, France on 24 October, 1956, Israel’s attack on Egypt was designed to make Egypt fight, thus “imperiling” the Suez Canal. This would necessitate an ultimatum from France and the UK for both sides to cease fighting and to withdraw to a buffer zone away from the canal. Israel would comply, Egypt would refuse, enabling the UK and France to bomb and invade Egypt so that the Suez canal would revert to their rightful owners.

Israel’s main objectives on the first day of the invasion were the capture of the Gaza Strip and the town of Sharm el-Sheikh, which is at the base of the Sinai peninsula. The Egyptian blockade of the Strait of Tiran, which leads to the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aqaba, was based at Sharm el Sheikh. Capturing this town would open the Red Sea to Israeli commerce. Capturing the Gaza strip would eliminate the Fedayen base camps which were used as staging areas for raids into Israel, and also prevent the Egyptians from using this territory to block the Israeli infantry and armor advance.

As in all wars, the plans which look so elegant and wonderful at HQ tend to go wrong when actually executed. The Israeli plan called for a paratroop drop into the Sinai, catching the Egyptians by surprise, thus clearing the path for a rapid advance of Israeli armor forces into the peninsula. The paratroopers dropped several miles from their objectives, and wasted valuable time in regrouping for the assault on Egyptian forces guarding the passes that required capture for the rapid advance of the IDF. While the the paratroopers struggled, the plan to disrupt Egypt’s command and control went down flawlessly, as Israeli P-51 fighters flew at treetop level, using their propellers to cut all the telephone and telegraph wires used by the Egyptian high command to relay instructions. In the South the Israeli forces conquered the town of Ras an-Naqb by complete surprise before the Egyptians had time to ready their defenses. The Egyptians surrendered the town without a fight, and the Israelis suffered no casualties. Capture of this strongpoint provided a vital anchor for the assault on Sharm el-Sheikh, which would take place in the next few days.

Israel also demonstrated superb expertise in the use of jet fighters for close air support of advancing infantry and armor units, as its newly acquired Mystere fighters dove and strafed Egyptian forces, clearing the path for the Israelis to advance towards the Canal. Punishing air strikes by the Mysteres allowed for quick advances, since the infantry and armor units didn’t have to wait for artillery units to move and position themselves for fire-support.

News of the invasion reached President Eisenhower as he was departing on a campaign swing through Florida and Virginia (Ike was up for re-election in 1956). The President was concerned at the speed and depth of the Israeli advance into the Sinai, as by nightfall the Israelis were a mere 25 miles east of the Suez canal. Ike was also worried that the French and British were somehow involved in this military action. He had ordered U-2 flights of Cyprus and Israel on 27 October, and those missions had shown large amounts of British and French attack and transport aircraft in both countries. The mission over Cyprus showed that the two main RAF airfields were crammed to the bursting with aircraft, necessitating the use of a third auxiliary field which could barely support modern warplanes. Another source of concern for Eisenhower was the growing threat of a Soviet invasion of Hungary to crush that country’s democratic revolt. Eisenhower knew that it would be next to impossible to get the UN to condemn the Soviet action if the UK and France were colluding with Israel in aggression against Egypt. He was suspicious of his NATO allies, but he had no concrete proof of the collusion. NSA had identified enciphered communication links between Paris, London and Tel Aviv, but each country could explain that away as routine planning and coordination. The U2 photos of Cyprus and Israel were problematic, as only the UK and the US knew about the ultra-secret radar evading plane that flew at 70,000 feet and produced crystal-clear photos of Soviet installations. Eisenhower couldn’t confront the French with this evidence, as that would blow his one insight into the US’ ability to determine the nature and strength of the Soviet arms program. All he could do was wait for some sort of overt action from the UK and France. That action would come in 24 hours.

24 October 1956-UK Defense Minister Sir Walter Monckton Resigns Over the Upcoming Israeli/French/British Attack on Egypt

On 24 October, 1956, the Israelis, French and British Foreign and Defense Ministers concluded their secret meeting at Sevres, France by signing the Protocol of Sevres. The Protocol stated that Israel would attack Egypt in the coming week, prompting an Egyptian response. As Israel and Egypt clashed in the Sinai, the UK and France would issue ultimatums to both countries that they both withdraw 10 miles from either side of the Suez Canal and cease fighting. Israel would comply, and Egypt would refuse, giving the UK and France the causus belli they needed to invade Egypt and re-take the Suez Canal from Nasser’s nationalization.

As the British Cabinet was briefed on the Sevres protocol, UK Defense Minister Sir Walter Monckton was the only member to state that he could not go along with this plan. He resigned in secret, but the secret wasn’t too well kept, as the U.S. Ambassador to the UK, William Aldrich, had a private meeting with Monckton. Monckton stated that the official reason for his resignation was health, but unofficially he was resigning due to his opposition to the use of force to regain British and French control of the Suez Canal. Aldrich immediately cabled this news to Washington, were it was turned over to CIA Director Allen Dulles, brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

Aldrich’s cable fit nicely with another piece of intelligence concerning the possible use of force against Egypt: the National Security Agency’s (NSA) discovery of a sharp increase in diplomatic cable traffic between Paris and Tel Aviv over the last 48 hours. Since the traffic was encrypted, NSA couldn’t tell what the two nations were discussing, but the increase in traffic between France and Israel was totally out of the norm. Earlier in the year Israel had reached a purchase agreement with France for Mirage and Mystere fighter-bombers to compensate for the growing Soviet arms flowing into Egypt, but this increase in diplomatic traffic seemed far more voluminous than traffic associated with a routine arms purchase. Additionally, arms purchase traffic should have been flowing between the countries’ defense ministries, not the foreign ministries.

President Eisenhower was briefed on all aspects of the growing crisis, but there was one fatal flaw in the briefing: little to no intelligence on how, if at all, the UK fit into this plan. Throughout the summer months after the seizure of the canal, Eisenhower had been in regular contact with British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden about how to deal with Nasser. Eisenhower had told Eden that the best way to deal with Nasser was isolation and possibly a coup along the lines of the one the CIA had executed in Iran in 1953 to unseat Prime Minister Mossadeq and return the Shah to his throne and dictatorship. Eden had seemed to agree with this proposal, but when he hinted at the use of armed force, Eisenhower rejected that line of thinking. In Eisenhower’s world view, the West had the high ground over the Soviet Union in that the West didn’t invade and conquer nations that “stepped out of line”. Eisenhower also felt that the use of force would make Nasser a martyr to other Arab nations while at the same time undermining our credibility in the region. Eisenhower’s blind spot was that he simply couldn’t believe that his closes allies in World War II would lie and betray him by colluding with France and Israel to attack Egypt.

22 October 1956-Israeli, French and British Military and Foreign Affairs Officials Meet in France to plan the invasion of Egypt

When Gamal Abdul Nasser seized and nationalized the Suez Canal on 26 July 1956, he was directly challenging the power of the United Kingdom and France. The Canal was owned by a joint British/French consortium, and it was also one of the last symbols of European colonial power in the Middle East. Nasser, who saw himself as the leader of Arab nations emerging from the yoke of Western imperialism, seized the canal in retaliation for the U.S. canceling a World Bank loan for the construction of a dam on the Nile. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, an ardent Cold Warrior, canceled the loan after Nasser purchased arms from Czechoslovakia. Nasser planned to use the tolls from canal shipping to build his dam, but he also saw the seizure as a way to demonstrate to the Arab nations that they could challenge the West without fear of retaliation. That was his mistake, as neither the UK or France were willing to sit idly by while one of their principal sources of revenue dried up.

France saw Nasser as a major irritant, due to Nasser’s support of Algerian rebels who were waging a brutal rebellion against France in their prized colony, Algeria. The British also saw Nasser as a major irritant, as seizure of the canal was further proof that the days of the UK ruling the world were over. UK Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden also saw in Nasser the same demon he saw in Hitler in the 1930’s: a dictator, who if left unchallenged, would wage wars of aggression against his neighbors. When Eden was serving in the cabinet of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, he had resigned in protest of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. Now that he was prime minister of a greatly diminished UK, he felt he must do something to stop Nasser in order to prove that the UK was still a relevant power. The French agreed, but since both countries were members of the UN, launching a war against Egypt without UN authority was out of the question. Both French and UK leaders also knew that President Eisenhower would never authorize them to launch a war to retrieve ownership of the canal.

The wild card in the game was Israel. The Israelis also wanted to deal with Nasser, as he was directly funding terrorists in the Gaza strip (Gaza belonged to Egypt until the Six Day War of 1967, when Israel seized it), who would then launch raids into Israel. Nasser’s purchasing of arms from Czechoslovakia also threatened Israel’s security, since as night follows day, Czech arms would soon be followed by Soviet arms, arms which could be used in a future war agains Israel. Shortly after the seizure of the canal, the French foreign minister, Christian Pineau, contacted his Israeli counterpart to discuss a possible joint French/Israeli operation against Nasser. Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was in agreement with the plan, but he told the French that he didn’t want anything to do with the operation if the British were going to be involved. The Israeli leader, and most of his cabinet, distrusted the British, as they had spent the better part of their lives fighting against British forces when Palestine was a UK colony. The French were adamant that the British had to be involved, so it was decided that leaders of all three nations’ defense and foreign policy establishments would meet in October to discuss their differences and then to come up with a plan to deal with Nasser.

On 22 October, 1956, Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion, Director General of the Ministry of Defense Shimon Peres and Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces Moshe Dayan secretly travelled from Israel to an isolated house in Sèvres to meet the French Minister of Defence Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury, Minister of Foreign Affairs Christian Pineau and Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces General Maurice Challe, and British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd. Together the men came up with the Protocol of Sevres. Israel would attack Egyptian forces in the Sinai on the pretext that Egypt was planning a major assault from Gaza into Israel. As Egypt and Israel battled, London and Paris would issue an ultimatum to both sides to stop fighting and withdraw 10km from either side of the canal. Israel would comply, Egypt would naturally refuse, giving the French and British the pretext they needed to invade Egypt to “protect the canal”. The protocol would lead to the Second Arab-Israeli War.

20 October 1973-The Saturday Night Massacre

When Alexander Butterfield, former White House aide, revealed to the Senate committee investigating Watergate that President Nixon had a taping system in the Oval Office, a bombshell detonated in Washington. Since the break-in at the Democratic National Campaign offices in the Watergate complex in June of 72, there had been speculation that the deed was the work of White House staffers, operating with direct or indirect authority from President Nixon. Nixon had been denying this all along, but the revelation of the taping system placed him in a trap. If he were innocent, why not simply release the tapes to those investigating the matter and thus clear his name? Nixon’s adamant refusal to release the tapes to either the Senate committee investigating Watergate, or to Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating the scandal, cast serious doubts on the truth of his statements that no one at the White House had anything to do with the break-in.

Archibald Cox, who had been appointed by Attorney General Eliot Richardson as Watergate special prosecutor, was someone Nixon truly loathed. Prior to his appointment as special prosecutor, Cox had served as dean of the Harvard Law school. Harvard embodied all of Nixon’s resentments from his childhood: growing up poor, never being accepted by those who were in power, especially those with the money to go to Harvard. Harvard was also the alma mater of JFK, the man who had barely beaten Nixon in the 1960 presidential race. Nixon always harbored suspicions that “the Harvards” in CIA and other government agencies had thrown the election to JFK. Cox kept pressing for release of the tapes, using his power of subpoena to get a court order to force Nixon to give up the evidence. Nixon refused the court order, citing executive privilege. Nixon then offered to have Mississippi Senator John Stennis hear part of the tapes and then tell Cox what was on them. This offer was absurd on its face for two reasons. Number one, Nixon would be picking the tapes for Stennis to hear, and given his adamant refusal to part with the tapes, it was quite obvious that Nixon would give Stennis access only to those tapes that would do nothing to implicate the President. Number two, Stennis was notoriously hard of hearing, and since he would be the only one listening to the tapes, there could be no accurate transcript. Cox refused Nixon’s offer of Stennis serving as stenographer, and a show-down was set up between the President and Cox. As the refusal of the court order to hand over the tapes came on Friday, 19 October, Cox figured that he had the weekend to marshal his forces for a court confrontation on Monday. Unfortunately for Cox, he didn’t know how ruthless Nixon could be when cornered.

On the evening of Saturday, 20 October. Nixon summoned Attorney General Eliot Richardson to the White House, and ordered Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson steadfastly refused, stating that he taken the job of Attorney General with the guarantee that even though Cox worked for him, Cox would have absolute freedom to pursue his investigation. Nixon insisted that Richardson fire Cox, prompting Richardson to resign immediately and leave the White House. Nixon next summoned the deputy Attorney General, William Ruckelshaus to the White House, and informed him that as acting head of the Justice Department, he was to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused, stating that both he and Richardson had promised the Senate Watergate committee not to interfere with Cox’s investigation. Nixon pressed more, and Ruckelshaus, like Richardson, promptly resigned and left the White House. The next ranking Justice Department official was Solicitor General Robert Bork (yes, that Bork), who when summoned by Nixon to fire Cox, did so. Bork then moved to have Cox’s offices sealed. In later years Bork defended his actions by saying that had he resigned the Justice Department would have been left without leadership, and that unlike Richardson and Ruckelshaus, he had not made any promises to the Senate Watergate committee.

My family was watching “All in the Family” when CBS news broke into the broadcast with news of the resignations, the firing of Cox, and the sealing of his offices. My dad then said “by Monday there will be troops in the street, and Nixon will claim some kind of emergency empowers him to suspend the Constitution”. To place that remark in context, by 20 October the Arab oil-producing nations had already announced their oil embargo of the Western countries, particularly the United States, for the massive re-arming of Israel during the Yom Kippur War, which was still raging. And, in less than 72 hours, Nixon did place all U.S. forces on DEFCON-3 in response to faulty intelligence that stated the USSR was sending troops to Egypt to help Sadat turn the tide in the Sinai.

While NIxon didn’t declare an emergency and seize power, Congress did begin to act next week. Up to now the Watergate investigation had been a matter for the Senate committee and Cox, but Nixon’s gutting of the Justice Department on a weekend goaded the House into debate on articles of impeachment. The Watergate matter, which Nixon once contemptuously declared a “third rate burglary” had now become a first rate Constitutional crisis. one that would ultimately bring down his presidency.

19 August 1960-Francis Gary Powers is convicted of espionage sentence to 10 years in prison while the first CORONA film capsule is successfully recovered

First satellite image from CORONA, the world’s first photo-reconnaissance satellite

Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev views wreckage of Powers’ U-2 aircraft

On 4 July, 1956, the first U-2 reconnaissance flight took place over the Soviet Union. The plane, flying at an altitude of nearly 70,000 feet, took high-resolution photographs of Soviet military installations around the city of Leningrad and the Soviet Northern Fleet bases around Severomorsk. For the first time the U.S. had precise insight into the Soviet military threat, but this insight came at a significant risk. Flying reconnaissance aircraft over another country’s airspace was tantamount to an act of war. Flying reconnaissance aircraft over the airspace of the ultra-paranoid Soviet Union was extremely dangerous, but President Eisenhower took the risk to gain insight into the missile and bomber threat posed by the Soviet Union.

Each U-2 flight had to be approved by President Eisenhower, and each time the CIA approached him with a flight request, Eisenhower would make the agency prove why the flight was needed. At the same time the U-2 flights were taking place, the Air Force and CIA were working on the world’s first photo-reconnaissance satellite. The satellite, called CORONA, would take pictures on film capsules, then eject the capsule over the Pacific Ocean, where an Air Force recovery plane would grab it in mid-air. There was some concern that orbiting a satellite over a country’s airspace might be the same as violating a country’s airspace with a U-2, but this concern was put to rest on 4 October, 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first satellite. Sputnik orbited the Earth by passing over the United States several times a day, giving the U.S. freedom to orbit a satellite over the Soviet Union.

U-2 flights were providing valuable intelligence on the Soviet military posture, but the flights could only cover small sectors of the world’s largest country. There were many bases, particularly ICBM bases, that remained outside the approved flight paths of the planes. The launching of Sputnik in 1957 added greater urgency for more missile base coverage, since placing a satellite in orbit required a missile with a significant amount of thrust, thrust which could in turn be used for more powerful ICBM’s aimed at the U.S. In 1960 President Eisenhower was scheduled to participate in a summit with Khruschchev, President DeGaulle of France, and Prime Minister Macmillan of the UK, with a subsequent trip to Moscow. Before these trips, however, CIA convinced Eisenhower that there was the need for one more U-2 flight. This flight, launched on 1 May, 1960, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, ended disastrously with the plane’s shoot down by a SAM over the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk. Powers was captured alive, imprisoned, and put on trial for espionage.

In one of history’s greatest ironies, on the date that Powers was convicted and sentenced to 10 years for spying for flying his U-2 over Soviet airspace, the first CORONA film capsule was recovered over the Pacific. On the roll of film was the world’s first satellite image from space. The image, of Mys Shmidta Air Field, which is 600 miles from Nome, Alaska, was incredibly crude by today’s standards, but it was one of the most significant intelligence feats in history. A satellite, orbiting without the knowledge of the target country, had provided intelligence on the target country without risking the life of a pilot, or incurring the threat of war. The first CORONA mission also covered far more territory on its one roll of film than all the U-2 flights that had taken place since 1956. A new era had begun. The CORONA satellite imagery also demonstrated that the so called “missile-gap” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was decidedly to the advantage of the United States. The same was true of the bomber gap, and this intelligence had been gathered risk-free.

15 August 1534-Ignatius Loyola Establishes the Society of Jesus

St. Ignatius of Loyola, as painted

by Rubens

Almost all European/Western Civilization history books cover the formation of the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, as this Roman Catholic priestly order had a profound effect on the spreading of both Catholic Christianity and Western European mores. The order was founded by Ignatius of Loyola on 15 August, 1534. 15 August is also the Feast of the Assumption, which is the day Roman Catholics celebrate as the day the Virgin Mary was bodily assumed into heaven, being spared the mortal pain of death.

Ignatius was born in Spain, and started his adult life as a solider. He participated in many battles, without suffering serious wounds, but on 21 May, 1520, his luck ran out. While fighting French forces in the Battle of Pamplona, a cannonball wounded one leg and severely broke the other. Ignatius required a long convalescence, and the leg had to be broken and re-set at least twice. During this time he read The LIfe of Christ by Ludolph of Saxony. This work, which was written in a style so that the reader experienced the events of the Gospels as though he were actually present at the time, had a profound effect on Loyola’s life. As he continued to heal, he read more religious works, which led a total re-dedication of his life. After his recovery from his wound, he spent several months in a cave near Catalonia, where he practices religious asceticism. When this period of prayer and study were over, he traveled to Palestine for three weeks in 1523, then returned to Spain. From Spain he journeyed to Paris, which at the time was a city in great upheaval due to battles between Catholics and Protestants. Martin Luther’s Reformation had reached France, and the clash of Protestant theology with Loyola’s fervent Catholicism spurred him to attend the University of Paris as a theology student.

While attending university, Loyola become close friends with the following individuals:

Francis Xavier,

Alfonso Salmeron,

Diego Laynez

Nicholas Bobadilla

Peter Faber

Simão Rodrigues

On 15 August, 1534, Loyola and his six companions met in the crypt of the Church of Our Lady of Montmartre, and pledged themselves to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience to the Pope as the newly created Society of Jesus. The primary mission of the order was to serve as the Pope’s missionaries, so the companions traveled to Rome to seek an audience with Pope Paul III. In 1537 Pope Paul III gave his blessing to the order and had the companions ordained as priests.

The Jesuits first set out to create schools and universities in Europe, as Loyola believed that the first step in arresting the Protestant Reformation was in educating the faithful. Loyola believed that one of the causes of the Protestant Reformation was an ill-informed, illiterate Catholic priesthood. Education would be his first bastion in re-claiming the world for the Catholic Church. Since he had started his life as a soldier, Loyola formed the Jesuits along military lines. The head of the order is called the Father-General, and there are rigid guidelines and steps before a man is ordained as a Jesuit priest. The Jesuit process, which is called formation, usually takes from 10-12 years, based on the applicant’s life experience. In addition to taking the normal priestly vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, a fully professed Jesuit swears a special fourth vow: obedience to the Pope and any missions he may request. Loyola’s creed for the Jesuit’s obedience to the Pope is eloquently stated here:

That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which appears to our eyes to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black. For we must undoubtingly believe, that the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of the Orthodox Church His Spouse, by which Spirit we are governed and directed to Salvation, is the same.

As the Jesuits constructed schools and universities in Europe, they also engaged in counter-Reformation activities. Poland and Bohemia were already strong Protestant bastions, but Loyola’s Jesuits were so effective that they turned these territories into the Catholic strongholds that they are today. The Jesuits also began extensive missionary work in the Americas and Asia. Francis Xavier spread the Gospels to Japan and China, following the Jesuit model of focusing conversion on the rulers and other powerful figures. As European expansion spread in the Americas, Jesuit mission activities and school construction came along with the explorers. Today there are 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States, an over 50 secondary schools. The order formed by St. Ignatius Loyola (he was canonized in 1622), had, and continues to have, a profound effect on civilization.

1 August 1972-Senator Thomas Eagleton withdraws as Democratic VP Nominee

Senator Thomas Eagleton, D-Missouri

The 1972 Presidential campaign is mostly known for the Watergate break-in and Nixon’s landslide victory over Senator George McGovern, but one of the factors in that victory was the selection and removal of Senator Thomas Eagleton as McGovern’s running mate.

By the time the Democrats convened for their convention in Miami, President Nixon appeared unbeatable, with a double-digit lead over McGovern in almost all national polls. Polling showed that the only way McGovern had a chance to beat Nixon was by selecting Senator Edward Kennedy as his running mate. Despite the Chappaquiddick disaster in 1969, Kennedy was still immensely popular amongst the Democratic faithful, but Kennedy adamantly refused to be on the ticket. His refusal was echoed by other high profile Democrats such as Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey (who had served and been humiliated as Johnson’s VP, losing the 68 election to Nixon by a whisker), Edmund Muskie and Birch Bayh, all of whom could smell the landslide defeat coming to McGovern in November. McGovern decided to offer the slot to Thomas Eagleton, Senator from Missouri, even though he knew very little about Eagleton. This lack of knowledge would prove to be his undoing.

Eagleton accepted the nomination, and promised to bring his medical records with him to Miami for McGovern’s review, but he didn’t. He also failed to tell McGovern and the Democratic party leadership that he had checked into a hospital 3 times between 1960 and 1966 for mental and physical exhaustion, depression, and on at least one hospital stay he had been given electro-shock therapy. His use of Thorazine, a powerful anti-depressant medication was also not disclosed, but when it came up during the initial meeting with McGovern, Eagleton dismissed any concerns about the drug, stating that the prescriptions were in his wife’s name, not his. That subterfuge should have been a red flag for McGovern, but he did nothing about any concerns he had.

When McGovern got the medical records, he read that Eagleton suffered from “manic-depressive” and “suicidal tendencies”. McGovern then called two of Eagleton’s doctors, both of whom said they had “grave concerns” about Eagleton’s mental health. Now McGovern was in trap. On the public level, if he dropped Eagleton, the Republicans would pounce on his terrible decision making and lack of vetting. If he didn’t drop him, he would face tremendous pressure from rank and file Democrats, many of whom already didn’t like him and saw him as an enormous albatross taking the party towards a massive electoral defeat in November.

On a private level, McGovern worried about how his daughter Teresa would handle the announcement that he was dropping Eagleton because of his mental health problems. Teresa, like Eagleton, also suffered from depression, which would ultimately lead to her death in 1994. The editorial pages of The Washington Post and New York Times added fuel to the fire, when both papers said that Eagleton had to be dropped from the ticket, warning that a man with these problems could not be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

McGovern initially said that he stood by Eagleton “1000%”, but pressure from party leaders continued to mount. Finally, McGovern made the decision to drop Eagleton, with Eagleton officially leaving the ticket on 1 August, 1972. Sargent Shriver, brother-in-law to Ted Kennedy, agreed to be the sacrificial lamb for the November slaughter, accepting McGovern’s offer of the VP nomination.

Later in life McGovern said he should have stuck by his initial decision to keep Eagleton, and he blamed his own ignorance of mental illness as the main reason for his decision to force Eagleton off the ticket. The selection of Eagleton and the cursory vetting showed just how much of the leadership of the Democratic party has passed out of the hands of the precinct captains and ward bosses and into the hands of the “people”, who proceeded to drive the party into a massive ditch. Nixon routed McGovern on 7 November 1972, carrying 49 states and 62% of the popular vote. McGovern carried Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. As the Watergate scandal erupted, I started seeing bumper stickers around my hometown of DC that read “Don’t blame me, I live in Massachusetts/DC”.

Eagleton went on with his Senate career, getting re-elected in 1974, 1980 and deciding not to run in 1986. After the Senate he was instrumental in brining the LA Rams to St. Louis. He died in 2007, and shortly after his death he was revealed as the source behind one of Robert Novak’s most explosive columns during the 1972 campaign. In May of 72 Novak published that “a Democratic senator says ‘people really don’t know McGovern. Once they get to know him, especially in the Midwest and heavily Catholic areas of the country, they’ll find out that he stands for amnesty, acid and abortion’” Amnesty, acid and abortion quickly became the smear Republicans used against McGovern, and when Novak was pressed to name his source, he approached Eagleton for permission to use his name. Eagleton refused, and Novak kept his secret until Eagleton died. There’s no doubt that McGovern would never have picked him as a running mate had he known the source of that quote.

28 July 1932-President Hoover orders the Army to disperse the Bonus Marchers

The Bonus Army, or Bonus Marchers, were a group of World War I veterans and their families who came to DC in the summer of 1932. There were about 17,000 World War I veterans, many of whom brought their families with them, raising their numbers to about 43,000 people. In 1924 Congress granted all World War I veterans service certificates, which would mature and be redeemable for cash upon maturation of the certificates. Like most bonds, the maturation date was 20 years from the issuance date, so the certificates would not be redeemable until 1945. This was no problem when the certificates were granted, but the Great Depression struck the country in 1929, and millions of people were thrown out of work and their homes. As the Depression worsened, the veterans decided that early payment of their bonus certificates would be the best way to ease their financial plight, so they assembled and marched on Washington, arriving in the city on 17 June, 1932 and setting up camp in Anacostia Flats.

The veterans organized the camp very well, setting up sanitation facilities, marking off streets in the dirt, and ensuring that only those veterans who had been honorably discharged from the Army could reside in the camp. The camp and the cause of the vets made an impact, as the House passed a bill allowing for early payment of the bonuses, but the Senate balked. President Hoover was also not in favor of early payment, as he and fellow Republicans feared adding to the country’s deficit while the Depression was weighing so heavily on the economy.

On 28 July, 1932, Attorney General Mitchell ordered the DC police to clear the camp. The police entered the camp’s perimeter, met with resistance from the vets, and the police met the resistance by firing and killing two of the veterans. When Hoover heard of this incident, he ordered the Army to move in and clear the camp. The Army, led by Major General Douglas MacArthur, assembled and marched down Pennsylvania Avenue towards Anacostia. MacArthur’s forces were augmented by 6 battle tanks from Fort Meyer, along with a cavalry unit, led by Major George Patton. When the vets saw the units moving down Pennsylvania Avenue towards them, they at first thought that the Army had assembled the parade to pay them homage, until Patton ordered “fix bayonets” and then ordered the calvary unit to charge. Tear gas was also used as the Army moved into the camp. Many of the vets and their families began to flee, and when word of this reached President Hoover, he ordered the assault to stop. MacArthur, believing that the vets represented a Communist plot to overthrow the government, disobeyed the President, and continued the assault, moving into the camp with the full force of the Army. Hundreds of veterans were wounded and several were killed during this action. The camp’s structures were then burned by the Army to prohibit the vets from re-assembling.

When President Roosevelt took office in 1933, he was not in favor of early bonus payment, but when the vets marched again on the Washington, he sent his wife, Eleanor, to visit with them and to listen to their pleas. Eleanor also convinced a large number of the vets to join the Civilian Conservation Corps, putting many of the men to work in building the Overseas Highway, linking the Florida Keys to the mainland. A great hurricane swept over the Keys on Labor Day in 1935, killing over 200 of the veterans working on the highway. Newsreels of the vets once again suffering, made the public groundswell for early bonus payment so great, that Congress granted the vets’ wish in 1936, overriding President Roosevelt’s veto of the measure.

The Bonus Army participants didn’t realize at the time that they were setting the template for better treatment of the nation’s veterans. In 1944 Congress passed the G.I. Bill of Rights, providing for low-interest loans to veterans for buying homes and starting businesses, one year of unemployment payments after leaving the service, and most significantly, generous assistance with college tuition. The G.I. Bill of Rights is perhaps the greatest result of the Bonus Army, who finally made the U.S. government live up to the words of President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan”

26 July 1956-Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal

Gamel Abdul Nasser

Leader of Egypt 1952-1970

Gamel Abdul Nasser, the dictator of Egypt, saw himself as the unifying force in the Arab world. The British saw him as a usurper who had overthrown the Egyptian King Farouk in 1952. The French saw him as a growing concern to their interests in the Middle East, as Nasser was supplying arms and assistance to the rebels France was battling in Algeria. The Israelis saw him in the same light, as Nasser supplied arms and assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (which would remain Egyptian territory until the Israelis conquered it during the Six Day War). The United States had mixed feelings about Nasser. On the one hand he was seen as an example of countries throwing off their shackles of European imperialism, but on the other hand he was also seen as an irritant to two of our most important NATO allies, the UK and France. The U.S. ambivalence turned to open hostility when Nasser made plans to purchase arms from Czechoslovakia. Purchasing arms from a Communist country which was in the firm orbit of the Soviet Union was anathema to U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, an ardent Cold warrior. Nasser went one step further on 16 May 1956, when Egypt recognized the People’s Republic of China. Dulles looked for a way to punish Nasser for his transgressions, and the best way was to cancel an International Monetary Fund loan to Egypt for the construction of a dam on the Nile.

Nasser had hoped to construct the Aswan High Dam to generate more electrical power for his struggling nation, and the cancellation of the IMF loan infuriated him. Egypt simply did not have the internal funds for the construction, and while Nasser had no problems buying arms from Communist nations, he was leery of allowing Soviet technicians into his country for the construction of the dam. Looking around for ways to generate revenue, he cast his eyes on the Suez Canal.

In 1956 the Suez Canal was run by a semi-private/semi-public British and French consortium. Ships paid fees to transit the canal, and the fees went back to Paris and London, despite the fact that the canal was on Egyptian soil. Nasser realized that if he seized and nationalized the canal, those fees would go to Egypt, and that he could use the money to build the dam and for other purposes. On 26 July he gave a speech in Alexandria, damning the western powers for their meddling in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern nations. In the middle of his speech, he deliberately uttered the name “Ferdinand de Lesseps”, the Frenchman who had built the canal in the 1800s. The mention of de Lesseps’ name was a signal to Egyptian armed forces to move in and seize the canal’s operational centers and offices. Nasser informed the British and French that the canal was now Egyptian property, and that the stockholders would be paid the price of their shares at their values when the market closed that day.

Nasser’s actions shocked the West, and the Conservative government of Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden was especially shocked. Eden came under intense pressure from his backbenchers to do something about the canal seizure and Nasser. That “something” would become the Arab-Israeli war of 1956.

25 July 1914-Serbia accepts almost all of Austria-Hungary's demands; Austria-Hungary breaks diplomatic relations with Serbia

The ultimatum which Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia on 23 July 1914 had the tone of a victor nation to one that had been utterly vanquished; yet Serbia had not been vanquished by Austria-Hungary, and the Serbian government had no responsibility for the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Although the assassin, Gabriel Princip, was a Serb, and the terrorist group to which he belonged was composed of Serbian/Slavic nationalists, the government in Belgrade had absolutely nothing to do with the financing or organization of the group or Princip’s assassination. To put this event in the context of another famous 20th century assassination: Lee Harvey Oswald murdered President John F. Kennedy. Two days later, Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby. To the casual observer it would appear that whoever wanted Kennedy dead also wanted Oswald dead, but unless there was direct evidence linking the murder of Kennedy to the murder of Oswald, all one has is coincidence.

Coincidence notwithstanding, Austria-Hungary was determined to obliterate Serbia and its “meddlesome influence” amongst the Slavic inhabitants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The ultimatum demanded the suppression of any and all publications critical of Austria-Hungary; all schoolbooks presenting propaganda against Austria-Hungary must be withdrawn; Serbian officials holding feelings against Austria-Hungary must be dismissed from their posts, and that the judicial inquiry into the assassination must be overseen by Austro-Hungarian officials.

Unaware that Austria-Hungary, egged on by Germany, wanted nothing but war with Serbia, the United Kingdom and Russia pressured the Serbs to be as conciliatory as possible in responding to the ultimatum. Sazonov, the Russian foreign minister, even went so far as to say that if war came between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, Belgrade should not put up a fight but allow for occupation, then appeal for arbitration and settlement at either the International Court at The Hague, or by the Great Powers (Russia, France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom). With this type of pressure from Serbia’s main ally, Russia, Belgrade said that it would comply with all of Austria-Hungary’s demands except for the last: allowing Austro-Hungarian officials to oversee the judicial inquiry into the Archduke’s assassination.

On 25 July the Serbian government replied to the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum, giving in to all the demands except the participation into the judicial inquiry, protesting that to do so would violate their constitution and laws on criminal procedure. The Serbs also suggested that the entire matter be handed over to the International Court or to the Great Powers for arbitration. All the Great Powers were relieved that the Serbs had been so accommodating; all that is except Austria-Hungary and Germany. When the Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Serbia, Baron Giesl, was given the Serb reply to the ultimatum, he glanced at it just long enough to see what the Serbs had not agreed to. Finding the one refusal, he figured that his country now had sufficient grounds for war, and boarded the train from Belgrade to Austria-Hungary. Upon his arrival in Austro-Hungarian territory, he telegraphed the Serb “refusal”, which prompted Vienna to break diplomatic relations with Serbia. The headlong rush into war was gathering more steam.

23 July 1914-Austria-Hungary delivers an ultimatum to Serbia on the Assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand

The tinderbox of Europe-1914
On 28 June, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was assassinated in Sarajevo. The assassin, Gabriel Princip, belonged to a Serbian terrorist society called the Black Hand. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for funding and controlling the Black Hand, but the Serbian government vehemently (and truthfully) denied any responsibility for the actions of the terrorist group. Nevertheless, Austria-Hungary saw the assassination as a golden opportunity to crush Serbia once and for all.
The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was a swollen polyglot by 1914. The empire was dominated by Austrians and the Magyars of Hungary, both minority groups in a nation dominated by Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, and a host of other Slavic people, most of whom longed for their own countries. The independent Slavic nation of Serbia acted as a magnet for those hopes, serving as a source of ethnic unrest against Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary never missed an opportunity to humiliate Serbia on the world stage, the latest act of humiliation taking place in 1908 with the annexation of the Serbian provinces of Bosnia-Hercegovina. That annexation had nearly caused a war between Austria-Hungary and Russia, as Russia saw one of its roles on the world stage as protector of Europe’s Slavic peoples. Germany, Austria-Hungary’s powerful alliance partner, forced the Russians to back down by threatening war, which Russia in 1908 was in no condition to fight, having just been defeated by Japan in 1905.


After the assassination of Franz-Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary swiftly made plans for a quick invasion and occupation of Serbia, and Germany approved of these plans, provided they were carried out swiftly before the other European great powers could react. Throughout the month of July Germany constantly harangued Austria-Hungary to take swift action against Serbia. Germany believed that if Austria-Hungary did nothing against the “Slav menace”, the Austrian Empire would implode and shatter into independent states, destroying Germany’s one certain ally, and leaving Germany to face France, the United Kingdom and Russia alone should war come one day. Accordingly, when the Austro-Hungarian ambassador to Germany informed Kaiser Wilhelm II that Austria-Hungary intended to “deal with Serbia”, the Kaiser gave his full endorsement and a blank check to Austria-Hungary for war.


All of Europe knew that something was going to happen with Serbia, but the ultimatum delivered to Belgrade by Vienna on 23 July shocked all the powers. The note charged that “the murder of Sarajevo was prepared in Belgrade”. It contained the following demands:


All Serbian publications critical of Austria-Hungary must be suppressed.
All schoolbooks presenting propaganda against Austria-Hungary must be withdrawn
All Serbian government officials, army officers, and schoolteachers holding these views must be dismissed
Specific officials and officers named in the note must be arrested
All of the above changes must be monitored by Austrian officials inside Serbia
Austrian officials must be allowed to participate in the judicial inquiry into the plot behind the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdiand


With this ultimatum, the fuse to World War I was lit.

21 July 1914-Buckingham Palace Conference on the Irish Home Rule Bill Begins

King-Emperor George V, King of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
Emperor of India, 1910-1935
By the summer of 1914 the “Irish Question” had reached a boiling point in the United Kingdom. Parliament, controlled by the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, had passed an Irish Home Rule Bill. Previous Home Rule bills had passed when the LIberals were in control of the House of Commons, but they had always been vetoed by the Conservative-dominated House of Lords. The Parliamentary Reform bill of 1911 had severely curtailed the Lord’s veto powers, so the Home Rule Bill had passed and gained the Royal Assent by the summer of 1914. The bill would allow for Ireland to govern itself with regards to internal affairs, which in any other territory granted dominion status would not have been a problem. Ireland was different.
The province of Ulster, also known as Northern Ireland, had a Protestant majority with strong ties to the British Union of England and Ireland. A Home Rule bill would give power to Ireland’s Catholic majority, severely curtailing the power of the Protestant majority in Ulster. Catholics in Ireland, along with those Protestants who cherished independence above loyalty to the Union, insisted that all of Ireland, Ulster included, had to be included in the newly semi-independent Ireland of Home Rule. Ulster insisted that it have the right to opt out and remain tied to the United Kingdom. Both sides were arming themselves with illegally smuggled weapons, alarming both King George V and Prime Minister Asquith. There was a strong possibility that the UK could be torn apart by civil war over Ireland.
King George, who had spent a great deal of time in Cork as a naval officer, felt that if he got all the parties together at Buckingham Palace, some sort of compromise could be reached without resorting to violence. He summoned the Ulster representatives, those who wanted Home Rule, and Prime Minister Asquith to Buckingham Palace for a conference on 21 July, 1914. The conference went on for 3 days without any concrete resolution, but tempers among the Irish nationalists and Unionists were cooled. An agreement in principle was also reached that if Ulster were to opt out, the entire province would leave, not just certain counties. Tempers were still running hot, but they began to cool as the crisis of World War I began to heat up on 24 July, 1914.

20 July 1944-FDR is nominated for a 4th Term

Senator Truman and President Roosevelt-1944

When the Democrats convened in Chicago for their 1944 convention, there was little doubt that President Roosevelt would be re-nominated. Since he had already shattered the 2-term tradition in 1940, and the United States was in the midst of fighting World War II, it only seemed logical to re-nominate the current occupant of the White House. The fight came down to the nomination of the Vice President. In 1944 the VP was Henry Wallace, whom Roosevelt liked, and who was also the favorite of the party’s left wing. Wallace’s problems lay with the more conservative Democrats in the South and Midwest, who were becoming alarmed at Wallace’s admiration of the Soviet Union and his unwavering embrace of labor unions. And while not publicly mentioned, there were serious doubts about Roosevelt’s health. Many delegates wondered if Roosevelt would live to finish a fourth Presidential term, so the VP selection became even more critical. By 1944 FDR’s health was in serious decline. 20 years of great physical exertion to overcome his polio handicap, coupled with smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day, had led to hypertension, emphysema, congestive heart failure, and angina.




FDR wanted to fight for Wallace, but as more and more delegates and party bosses told him that he would lose the vote on Wallace, he reluctantly agreed to their suggestion of Missouri Senator Harry Truman to be VP. Roosevelt barely knew Truman, but the Senator had established a solid reputation as chairman of a Senate committee overseeing fraud and waste in government war contracts. Additionally, Truman was from the moderate Midwest state of Missouri, and was not part of the “lunatic” fringe wing of the Democratic Party.



Roosevelt was not present at the convention, which was common practice in the days before television. He was on his way to Hawaii for a strategy conference with Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur. This was the last time that a major party nominee would be absent from a Presidential nominating convention.

19 July 1870-Emperor Napoleon III declares war on Prussia, starting the Franco Prussian War

Emperor Napoleon III

By the spring of 1870, Otto von Bismarck had nearly achieved the primary goal of his life: uniting the Germanic states under the leadership of Prussia into a a single German Empire. Two short wars with Denmark and Austria had resulted in the expansion of Prussian territory and the creation of a North German Confederation, dominated by Prussia; however, Bismarck was not satisfied. The Confederation was not an Empire. The one sure way of forming an Empire would be to unite all Germans against a common enemy. France was that enemy.
The France of Emperor Napoleon III had two foreign policy goals: remaining the strongest power in continental Europe, and ensuring that the German states never united into a single Empire. Prussia’s victories over Denmark in 1862 and Austria in 1866, and the subsequent formation of the North German Confederation, alarmed France. Bismarck decided to use France’s fears as a tool for a united German Empire. All he had to do was to provoke France into war, making Prussia and the German states the “victim”. The tool of provocation soon presented itself via Spain.


In 1870 Spain overthrew its monarch, Queen Isabella II, but still desiring to be ruled by royalty, Spain offered the throne to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a distant cousin of King Wilhelm I of Prussia. Leopold needed Wilhelm’s permission to accept the throne, and Wilhelm told Leopold to turn down the offer. Bismarck realized that this was the opportunity he had been waiting for: something that could be used to goad France into war. He knew that France would never accept a German prince on the Spanish throne, as that would surround France with German states--Spain to the west; the North German Confederation to the east. Bismarck persuaded King Wilhelm to change his mind and have Prince Leopold accept the offer of the Spanish throne.


Word of the acceptance reached the French on 3 July, 1870, causing great waves of alarm. The French government demanded that Prince Leopold withdraw his acceptance of the Spanish throne immediately, and King Wilhelm, not desiring war with France agreed. That should have been the end of it, but France went one step too far. The French ambassador to Prussia met the King at the spa resort of Ems, and demanded that in addition to Prince Leopold refusing the throne of Spain, Prussia must never, ever authorize a renewal of the candidacy of any German prince for the throne of Spain. King Wilhelm replied rather cooly to the demand, and walked away from the ambassador. He then telegraphed Bismarck the details of the meeting. Bismarck now realized that he had the perfect tool for goading France into war. He took the King’s telegram, and edited the words so that it appeared that the King spoke harshly to the French ambassador, insulting both the ambassador and the honor of France. With the telegram, known in history as the Ems Dispatch, now edited to incite passion in France, Bismarck released it to the world press on 14 July, 1870: Bastille Day in France, the highest day of French honor.


When the telegram was read by the French public , war fever swept the country. French newspapers demanded war the next day, and German states rallied to Prussia. Both countries mobilized their armies and called up reserves, and on 19 July, Emperor Napoleon IiI perfectly played his role as Bismarck’s dupe, and declared war on Prussia. The Franco-Prussian war was now underway, a war born of “honor” and of Bismarck’s perfect use of a pretext to obtain what he truly wanted: a powerful, united German Empire, dominated by Prussia.

18 July 1969-Senator Edward Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick Incident

Mary Jo Kopechne

Summer, 1969. Richard Nixon is President, having narrowly defeated Vice President Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 race for the White House, but the ghost in that campaign was Senator Robert Kennedy (D-New York). His life and campaign for the Democratic nomination were cut short on 5 June, 1968, when he was assassinated just moments after winning the California Democratic primary. Humphrey won the Democratic nomination at the Chicago convention, but he was tied to President Johnson and continuing the war in Vietnam, which was anathema to the “real” Democrats, and to those who yearned for the mythical Camelot of President John Kennedy. With the death of Robert Kennedy, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy was left as The One, the sole surviving Kennedy. There was already serious talk of his running against Nixon in the 1972 campaign, which sent shivers down the the spines of Nixon and his White House aides. All talk of of a 1972 campaign came to an end after the Chappaquiddick incident of 18 July, 1969.


Ted Kennedy attended a cook out on Chappaquiddick island, which is a small island off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The cook out was a get-together for the “boiler room” girls, who were young women who had done the grunt work (stuffing envelopes, yard signs, manning phone banks) of Bobby Kennedy’s campaign in 1968. At 2315 on 18 July, Senator Kennedy stated that he was leaving, and one of the girls, Mary Jo Kopechne, stated that she wished to leave as well, and would the Senator mind giving her a ride back to her hotel in Edgarton, on Martha’s Vineyard. Kennedy then asked his chauffeur for the keys to his car, and both he and Kopechne left together. Later it became known that Kopechne didn’t tell anyone else that she was leaving, and both her purse and hotel key were still at the cookout location.


Somehow, Kennedy got off the main road to the ferry landing, which was paved, and ended up on a dirt road that led to Dyke Bridge, a narrow wooden bridge with no guardrail. Just before he reached the bridge, Kennedy applied his brakes, which sent the car careening off the dirt road into Poucha pond, which is swept regularly by powerful tidal currents. The car ended up at the bottom of the pond, on its roof. Kennedy managed to escape and swim free, but Mary Jo did not. Kennedy testified at the inquest that he entered the water several times trying to help Mary Jo get free from the car, but it was dark and the current was strong. After several rescue attempts, Kennedy walked back to the site of the cookout, passing several houses where he could have called for help and reported the accident. Once back at the cookout, he enlisted the help of two friends, Joseph Gargan and Paul Markham, to return to the scene of the accident, where they also tried diving down to the car in order to help Mary Jo, but it was to no avail. The men insisted that Kennedy had to report the incident immediately, but he did not. Kennedy swam the 500-foot channel back to Edgarton, changed his clothes, and collapsed into bed. Later the hotel manager testified that Kennedy called the front desk to complain about noise from a party taking place near his room.


By the next morning the tide had begun to shift in Poucha Pond, and the partially submerged car was seen by two fishermen, who quickly called the sheriff. Kennedy still had not reported the accident, despite a heated argument with his friends, Markham and Gagan, both of whom were vehement that the accident had to be reported. Kennedy then went to a pay phone to call other advisors about what to do, but he didn’t make an official report until he heard that the sheriff had been notified and that a recovery team had found Mary Jo’s body.


I was 9 years old when this happened, and all I remember of that weekend was the Apollo XI moon mission. That was what most of the country, and indeed the world, were focused on that weekend, but once that story receded, all eyes turned to Kennedy and his actions at Chappaquiddick island. Wild rumors erupted that he was driving drunk, that he and Mary Jo were having an affair, that the affair had resulted in a pregnancy, which is why he drowned her. His behavior that evening helped fuel the rumors. Everything he did that evening, from not using his chauffeur, not realizing he was driving on a dirt road, not stopping at the first house he saw after the crash and heading back to the house where the cookout was held, and above all, not reporting the accident, made anything he subsequently said seem suspicious and self-serving. My parents, die-hard Democrats, never quite believed him after this tragedy, and it surfaced with a vengeance when he challenged President Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980. The tragedy was also the fodder for savage jokes about Kennedy. After the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident, one bumper sticker was made that said “More people died at Chappaquiddick than at Three Mile Island” (there were no fatalities at Three Mile Island).


My life covered all of Senator Kennedy’s political career. I was 2 when he entered the Senate in 1962, when he won the special election for his brother’s Senate seat (JFK won the White House narrowly in 1960, defeating VP Nixon in one of the closest Presidential races in U.S. history), and I was 49 when he died. To this day I don’t understand his actions, or lack thereof, on 18 July 1969. The Chappaquiddick tragedy most effectively ended any hope he had for the White House, proving that in American politics, what is forgivable at the local and state level may not be forgivable on the national stage.

The Abdication of Belgium's King Leopold III-17 July 1951

King Leopold III, with his first wife, Astrid. 

Prince Leopold became King Leopold III of Belgium upon the death of his father, King Albert I. Albert, a much beloved monarch, is best known for his steadfast leadership of his country and its armed forces during the German invasion and destruction of large portions of Belgium during World War I. King Albert heroically rejected German’s ultimatum of 2 August, which demanded that Belgium allow the German army to pass through Belgium without resistance. He then led his army in stubborn resistance against the German army, slowing its advance, thus allowing the British and French armies to be somewhat better prepared when the Germans crossed the French frontier later in August.
Albert’s son, Leopold, watched as his father addressed the Belgian parliament on 3 August 1914. In that speech King Albert stated that Belgian neutrality had been guaranteed by all the great European powers in 1830, and that accepting the German ultimatum would signify the end of Belgium as an independent nation. The American Ambassador, who was present during Albert’s speech, and who observed Prince Leopold watching his father, wrote in his diary “What are the thoughts in that boy’s mind? Will this scene ever come back to him in after years? And how? When? Under what circumstances?”
The American ambassador, Mr. Whitlock, had no idea that he was eerily predicting the future. After Leopold became King upon the death of his father, Albert, in 1934, he strengthened Belgium’s fortifications against Germany, but he withdrew from the alliance with France and the UK, hoping that Belgium’s stated neutrality would spare it from German invasion should war once again occur. War did occur again, as on 10 May, 1940, Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France. As in 1914, Belgium’s resistance and fierce artillery fire slowed the German forces down, but by withdrawing from the alliance with France the UK, King Leopold, who under Belgium’s constitution was commander in chief of Belgium’s armed forces, was unable to properly coordinate with the Allies, leading to chaos. This chaos led to a constitutional crisis in Belgium on 27 May, 1940, when King Leopold acted unilaterally and surrendered to Germany. Days earlier the King had a bitter confrontation with the Belgian Prime Minister and cabinet, where he stated that it was his intention to surrender, but to remain in Belgium with the army, rather than evacuate to London with other Belgian ministers to form a government in exile. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands left her country aboard a Royal Navy destroyer shortly before Germany conquered her country on 15 May. Leopold had no intention of following her example. His ministers stated that surrender was not solely the prerogative of the monarch, and throughout the war the Belgian ministers in London stated that the King did not speak for the Belgian government. Leopold did not cooperate with the Germans during their occupation of Belgium, and when he tried to exercise his authority as king, the Germans made him a prisoner, and in 1944, on the orders of SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, he was arrested and deported to Germany, and later he was sent to Austria. In May of 1945 the U.S. Army freed Leopold from German captivity, but his actions during the war made his return to Belgium impossible. Leopold remained in exile in Switzerland while the Belgian government decided what to do. A commission was held to determine whether the King had committed treason by surrendering without the consent of the elected government, and in 1946 the commission cleared him of treason; however, this still did not pave the way for Leopold’s return to Belgium.
The government decided to put the return of the King to a vote, and in 1950 57% of Belgians voted that the King should be allowed to return and assume the throne, but the vote showed how deeply the country was divided. In the Walloon (French speaking) part of Belgium and among Socialists, 42% of voters wanted the King to return, yet in Flanders (Flemish speaking) and among Christian Democrats, 70% of voters wanted him back. Even with 57% of the whole population voting for his return, Leopold’s arrival in Brussels in 1950 produced devastating riots and strikes across the country. The strikes turned violent, with 3 protesters being killed when the police opened fire on a crowd. In Walloon, the people stopped flying the Belgian flag and began flying the flags of an independent Walloonia, signaling that armed resistance to the King’s return was possible. With the country on the brink of civil war, King Leopold decided to abdicate on 1 August, 1950, in favor of his son, Baudoin. The abdication took effect on 17 July, 1951, when Baudoin became the fifth King of the Belgians.
The story of King Leopold III shows the limits of constitutional monarchy during times of crisis. It also shows the need for clear delineation of powers between the elected government and the monarchy. Every country will face a crisis of leadership, and how leaders respond to the crisis will define both them and their nations. Leopold acted incorrectly during the invasion of Belgium in 1940, but his decision to abdicate in favor of his son showed great leadership, sparing his nation significant violence and disunion.