1952 | Political Events
Political Events
Britain's George VI dies of lung cancer at Sandringham February 6 at age 56 after a reign of more than 15 years (the king was a heavy smoker). His widow, now 51, will continue for more than 3 decades to make herself popular as the "queen mum." Their elder daughter, who drove a truck every day during World War II, flies home from a visit to East Africa, and at age 25 ascends the throne as Elizabeth II (she will be crowned next year) to begin a long reign that will see the empire dwindle from 40 nations to no more than 12, with the British monarch having an effective voice in only one.
President Truman relieves Gen. Eisenhower of his post as Supreme Allied Commander at Ike's request in April and names Gen. Matthew Ridgway to succeed him. Gen. Mark Clark succeeds Ridgway in the Far East. Beijing (Peking) accuses U.S. forces in Korea of using germ warfare. U.S. Air Force planes bomb North Korean hydroelectric plants June 23, and by year's end some 1.2 million Chinese are engaged in the conflict under the command of Gen. Peng Dehuai (Peng Te-huai).
Playwright Lillian Hellman defies the Dies Committee May 22, testifying that she is not a "Red" but will not say whether she was 3 or 4 years ago because such testimony "would hurt innocent people in order to save myself . . . I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." But the communist "witch-hunt" that began last year continues, ruining many careers (see human rights, 1953).
French general Jean de Lattre de Tassigny at Paris dies January 11 at age 62; Italian diplomat-statesman Carlo, Conte Sforza at Rome September 5 at age 78; former Finnish president Kaarlo Juho Stahlberg at Helsinki September 22 at age 87.
Moscow ousts U.S. Ambassador George F. Kennan Jr. October 3. Kennan has commented on the isolation of Western diplomats in Moscow, and the Kremlin has demanded his recall.
Former Czech foreign minister Vladimir Clementis and communist leader Rudolf Slánsky stand trial on charges of treason and espionage November 27. Both 50, they are found guilty and hanged along with nine others at Prague December 3 as President Klement Gottwald purges his political rivals.
Former U.S. secretary of the interior Harold L. Ickes dies at Washington, D.C., February 3 at age 77.
Canada's first Canadian governor-general takes office January 24. Vincent Massey, 64, will serve until 1959 (he is a scion of the Massey-Harris farm equipment family; his brother Raymond is a prominent actor). Canadian nationalist and newspaper founder Herni Bourassa dies at Outremont outside Montreal August 31 on the eve of his 84th birthday.
A Cuban military coup March 10 overthrows President Prio Socarras and replaces him with former president Gen. Fulgencio Batista, now 51, who led the country effectively from 1933 to 1944. Batista seizes Havana's major army posts, aborts a scheduled democratic election, and gains control of the city's communications and transportation systems. Washington expresses disapproval, but Batista promises stability, business interests welcome a return of order and labor tranquility, Batista receives recognition from the United States March 27, and he will be a brutal and corrupt dictator until he is ousted in 1959 (see Castro, 1953).
Puerto Rico adopts a new constitution July 25 and becomes the first U.S. commonwealth (see referendum, 1951); residents obtain all rights of U.S. citizenship except voting in federal elections and need not pay federal income taxes (see 1954).
Bolivia has a revolution against the ruling Patino, Hochschild, and Aramayo tin-mine families; supported by the radicalized masses of workers and peasants, former economics professor Victor Paz Estenssoro, 44, seizes power as president April 9 and works with fellow revolutionist Hernan Siles Zuazo, 39, to nationalize the nation's three largest tin companies. The new regime will extend voting rights to Indians and begin transferring to them the arable land of the central plateau.
Argentina's First Lady Eva "Evita" Perón dies of uterine cancer July 26 at age 33, plunging the country into mourning. More popular than her husband, Juan, a champion of women who has won them the vote and persuaded the legislature to legalize divorce, she has also been quick to punish any who criticized her by having them tortured or simply "disappeared."
Egypt's dissolute king Farouk I abdicates July 26 after a 16-year reign and 3 days after a coup by Gen. Muhammad Naguib, 51, who forms a government September 7. Egypt and Sudan sign an agreement October 13 over use of water from the Nile, the Egyptian constitution of 1923 is abolished December 10, and Gen. Naguib will become president of a new Egyptian republic next year (see 1953).
Jordan's schizophrenic King Talal is deposed August 11 after a brief reign. His playboy son Hussein Ibn Talal, now 16, will ascend the throne next year, marry an American woman, and reign until 1999, despite at least 10 attempts on his life and countless conspiracies to depose him as he works to maintain peace in the Middle East.
Israel's first president Chaim Weizmann dies in office of a heart attack at his Rehovoth estate November 7 at age 77, having been reelected a year ago but been in such poor health since then he could not perform many of his duties. The Knesset replaces him December 8 with Itzhak Ben-Zvi.
Ethiopia takes over Eritrea from the British September 11 (see 1950; 1962).
Union leader Joshua (Mqabuko Nyongolo) Nkomo, 35, is elected president of the Southern Rhodesian African National Congress. He soon helps British colonial authorities win support for confederation plans but then storms out of a London conference that endorses the plans (see 1964).
A Mau Mau insurrection against Kenya's white settlers begins October 20 at a Seventh Day Adventist mission seven miles outside Nairobi. Colonial administrators have promised for years to grant self government and institute land reform, they have repeatedly broken their promises, and Kikuyu tribal leader Jomo Kenyatta (Kamau wa Ngengi), 63, has organized the Mau Mau ("Hidden Ones") as a secret society with a mission to drive out Kenya's white population. The Mau Mau have been accused in a series of arson and cattle-killing incidents, and Mau Mau gunmen now murder Kikuyu chief Kungu Waruhiu as he arrives in his car at the mission; London declares a state of emergency (it will last for nearly 8 years) and dispatches a cruiser and battalion of troops (see 1953).
Former British viceroy to India Victor A. J. H. Linlithgow, 2nd marquess of Linlithgow, dies at his native Abercorn, West Lothian, Scotland, January 5 at age 74. India gains sovereignty over Chandernagore from the French; it will be ceded to West Bengal in 1954.
Allied occupation of Japan ends April 28 after nearly 7 years in which a new constitution and many reforms have been adopted. Former Japanese prime minister Keisuke Okada dies at Tokyo October 17 at age 84, having supported efforts in 1945 to overthrow the Tojo government and make peace overtures to the Allies.
Former Australian prime minister William M. Hughes dies at Sydney October 28 at age 90.
The Republican Party nominates former general Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for president (few voters are aware that Ike suffered a heart attack 3 years ago because it was hushed up). Democrats nominate Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson, 52, of Illinois, whom Republicans denigrate as an "egghead," coining a new word to mean intellectual. Critics accuse Gen. Eisenhower's running mate of taking a "slush fund" of $18,000 from California businessmen, but Sen. Richard Nixon appears on television September 23 and says, "I come before you tonight as a candidate for the vice presidency and as a man whose honesty and integrity have been questioned"; he denies that any of the money in question went for his personal use and adds, "We did get something, a gift after the nomination. It was a little cocker spaniel dog, black and white, spotted. And our little girl Tricia, the six-year-old, named it 'Checkers.' The kids, like all kids, love the dog . . . Regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it." The speech produces more than 1 million favorable letters and telegrams.
Britain tests an atomic (nuclear fission) bomb developed by her physicists October 3 over Monte Bello Island off Western Australia. Gibraltar-born British nuclear physicist William G. (George) Penney, 43, was principal scientific officer of the department of scientific and industrial research at Los Alamos from 1944, helped develop the U.S. atomic bomb, has supervised development of the British device, and is knighted later in the year. Britain joins the United States and the USSR as a nuclear power.
The National Security Agency (NSA) established by President Truman's executive order October 24 is a counterpart to Britain's 6-year-old GCHQ; its huge budget will remain secret, officials will barely acknowledge its existence, and it will become larger than the 5-year-old CIA and the 44-year-old FBI combined. Established within the Department of Defense, it has a mission to conduct electronic surveillance of communications; formulate and protect codes, ciphers, and other forms of cryptology; intercept, decode, and analyze coded transmissions by electronic or other means from potentially inimical foreign and domestic governments and individuals. Headed by a general or admiral, the super-secret group will operate posts around the world to intercept signals and will grow to have an annual budget in the range of $5 billion (see Central Security Service, 1972; Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 1978).
The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission tests a nuclear-fusion (hydrogen) device at the Eniwetok proving grounds in the Pacific November 1 (see 1951; von Neumann, Fuchs, 1946; Truman, 1950). Physicist Raemer E. Schreiber of Manhattan Project fame has led the group that has gone to Eniwetok to assemble the 82-ton, 20-foot-long device, nicknamed "Mike," from materials that include purple-black uranium, silvery deuterium, a touch of tritium, gold leaf, and waxy polyethylene. Conducted at 7:15 local time, the test is based on work by the late nuclear chemist William Draper Harkins and is the first full-scale thermonuclear explosion in history, letting go a fireball more than three miles long that soon fills the sky with a mushroom cloud eight miles wide at its stem, 27 miles long at its top, and nearly 1,000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 (see 1951; Bikini, 1954).
Gen. Eisenhower wins 55 percent of the popular vote and 442 electoral votes in the U.S. presidential election, Stevenson only 89 electoral votes with 44 percent of the popular vote. President-elect Eisenhower visits Korea December 2 in fulfillment of a campaign promise. The UN adopts an Indian proposal for a Korean armistice December 3 but Beijing (Peking) rejects it December 15.
Scholar Owen Lattimore is indicted in December for perjury in connection with testimony he has given to defend himself against Sen. McCarthy's accusations of his being a Soviet agent (see 1950). A federal judge will quash the indictment in 1955, and the government will later drop the case for lack of evidence (see McCarthy, 1954).