1966 - Political Events

Political Events

An encyclical issued by Pope Paul VI January 1 during a 37-day truce in Vietnam asks for an end to hostilities in Southeast Asia. Japan's prime minister Eisaku Sato announces an international peace mission January 25, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's chairman J. W. Fulbright challenges the legality of U.S. military intervention January 28, Sen. Fulbright questions Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 56, but U.S. bombing of North Vietnam begins by the end of the month. International Days of Protest in many world cities criticize U.S. policy in Vietnam.

India's prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri signs the Tashkent Agreement January 10 with Pakistan's president Ayub Khan, ending last year's 17-day war under terms brokered by Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin. Both sides agree to pull back all armed forces to the positions they held prior to August 5 of last year, restore diplomatic relations, and discuss economic, refugee, and other issues, but Indian citizens criticize the agreement for not containing a renunciation of guerrilla warfare, and rancor over the Kashmir controversy continues. Shastri dies of a heart attack at Tashkent, Uzbekistan, January 11 at age 61; Mrs. Indira Nehru Gandhi, 48, daughter of the late Jawaharlal Nehru, is elected to succeed him January 19.

Former Indonesian prime minister Sutan Sjahrir dies at Zürich April 9 at age 57.

Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) launches a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution August 5 to purge and reorganize China's Communist Party. The People's Republic fires her first nuclear bomb from a guided missile October 27. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, gets her first political job December 5. Now 52, she is made cultural consultant to the General Political Department of the Chinese Army as Mao acts to end the insolence of Red Guard youths, but Mme. Mao will become increasingly sympathetic toward the youths. The Red Guards will prove their "revolutionary integrity" in the next decade by humiliating and beating anyone with a Western education, anyone who deals with Western businessmen or missionaries, and any intellectual suspected of "reactionary" thinking.

Gen. Arthur E. Percival, British Army (ret.), dies at London February 1 at age 78.

Australia's prime minister Sir Robert Gordon Menzies resigns after a second ministry that has continued since 1949. Now 71, he is succeeded by Sydney-born federal treasurer Harold (Edward) Holt, 57, who increases Australian troop deployment in support of South Vietnam (but see 1967).

President Johnson visits New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, South Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and South Korea from October 19 to November 2, leaders of the allied nations pledge support for the war in Vietnam in a conference at Manila October 24 to 25, targets around Hanoi come under intensive bombing in early December, and by year's end 389,000 U.S. troops are in South Vietnam (see 1967).

Former French president Vincent Auriol dies at Paris January 1 at age 81.

President de Gaulle proposes a "Europeanized Europe" free of U.S. and Soviet domination. He announces March 11 that France will withdraw her troops from NATO and requests that NATO remove all its bases and headquarters from French soil by April 1 of next year (see 1949). De Gaulle sends his foreign minister to visit Eastern European capitals, he visits the USSR himself from June 20 to July 1, and Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) moves July 1 from Paris to Casteau, outside Brussels. Former French premier Paul Reynaud dies of an intestinal ailment at Neuilly September 21 at age 87.

Former Finnish prime minister Väinö Tanner dies at Helsinki April 19 at age 85.

Romania's premier Nicolae Ceausescu proposes dissolution of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact alliance in a meeting of Warsaw Pact powers at Bucharest July 4 to 6. Ceausescu also asks that all nations withdraw their troops from the soil of all other nations.

France severs diplomatic relations with Morocco in January over last year's Ben Barka affair.

Jordan suspends relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in July (see 1964), but her forces are unable to stop PLO raids across the Jordan into Israel. Israeli tanks and aircraft attack the Jordanian village of Sammu November 13 in reprisal for the PLO raids and the undeclared war brings agitation by Palestinians for the overthrow of Jordan's Hussein, who has Saudi and U.S. support (see Six-Day War, 1967).

Vice Admiral William F. Raborn Jr. resigns as CIA director June 30 and his Philadelphia-born deputy Richard (McGarrah) Helms, 53, becomes the first career official to head the agency, having served under Allen W. Dulles, John A. McCone, and the rather inept Raborn. An expert at covert operations whose German language skills made him useful to the Office of Strategic Services in World War II, Helms supervised construction in 1955 of a 500-yard tunnel connecting East and West Berlin for use in tapping telephone lines to Moscow and eavesdropping on conversations with Soviet agents in Poland and East Germany. He oversaw the coup that toppled Vietnam's president Ngo Dinh Diem in 1961 and was by some accounts involved also in efforts before 1963 to assassinate Cuba's Fidel Castro (see 1973).

Uganda's prime minister Milton Obote assumes full powers February 22 and deposes Sir Edward Mutesa II from the presidency March 2 (see 1962). Charges have been raised in the Parliament that he had his military commander Idi Amin Dada supply guerrillas in Congo with arms 2 years ago, that Obote and Amin misappropriated $350,000 in gold and ivory from the guerrillas, but Amin's men arrest the five ministers who raised the issue, and Obote suspends the nation's constitution. An almost illiterate giant who stands six foot four, Amin attracted the attention of British colonial officers after joining the King's African Rifles in 1946, fought against Mau Mau rebels in Kenya a decade later, and was the highest ranking Ugandan officer when the country obtained independence in 1962. Obote abolishes the kingdoms within his country and deposes Buganda's king Sir Edward F. W. Walugenbe Mutebiluwanguela Mutesa II, 42, who is sent into exile (his country is part of Uganda) and will die in 1969 (see 1968).

Ghana's army and police officers stage a coup February 24 and oust President Nkrumah, who is away on a visit to Beijing (Peking). Given refuge and named co-president by Guinea's president Sékou Touré, Nkrumah threatens military action to regain the power he held for 15 years.

President Mobutu of the Democratic Republic of Congo takes over all legislative powers from Parliament in March and renames the nation's cities July 1. Leopoldville becomes Kinshasa, Stanleyville Kisingani, Elisabethville Lubumbashi (see Zaire, 1971).

Malawi becomes a republic and elects prime minister Hastings Kamuzu Banda president (see 1964). Wearing dark suits and homburgs but affecting the lion-tail fly whisk of an African king, Banda refuses to make speeches in African languages, will hire only white foreigners to run his ministries and the businesses that will bring him a fortune, and will establish an Eton-like school at his native Mtunthama, where poor students will study Greek and Latin and learn African history from white teachers with a British point of view. He is eccentric and often cruel, but Banda is also witty and will have himself reelected continually until 1994.

South Africa's prime minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd is assassinated at Cape Town September 6 at age 65 after an 8-year administration in which he has tightened racial restrictions. His minister of justice B. J. Vorster, now 50, succeeds him a week later (see human rights, 1964); Vorster will continue the Verwoerd policies of apartheid and support for the white regime in Rhodesia.

The UN General Assembly terminates South Africa's mandate in South-West Africa (Namibia), but South Africa calls the action illegal, ignores it, and refuses a UN administrative commission entry into the mandate territory.

Botswana becomes an independent republic within the British Commonwealth September 30 and elects Sir Seretse Khama first president of the bleak territory known heretofore as British Bechuanaland.

Lesotho becomes an independent kingdom within the British Commonwealth October 4 after 82 years as the crown colony Basutoland. The new state is surrounded by South Africa but ruled by her Oxford-educated king Moshoeshoe II, 28, who runs into difficulties when he tries to establish more effective control. He is imprisoned and released only after promising to abide by the constitution, he will be exiled in 1970, but he will have two more reigns before his death in early 1996.

The U.S. Department of Commerce orders economic sanctions against Ian Smith's Rhodesia March 18, prohibiting export of anything that may be useful (see 1965). Smith meets with Britain's Prime Minister Wilson on a warship off Gibraltar in early December. They make a tentative agreement that Rhodesia will have majority rule within 10 or 15 years, the Salisbury government rejects the agreement December 5, London appeals December 6 for UN sanctions against the Smith government, the UN Security Council imposes mandatory sanctions, but South Africa and Portugal refuse to participate.

Gen. Courtney H. Hodges (ret.) dies of a heart attack at San Antonio, Texas, January 16 at age 79; Admiral Chester W. Nimitz (ret.) near San Francisco February 20 at age 80.

Former Nicaraguan dictator Emiliano Chamorro dies of a heart attack at Managua February 26 at age 95; former Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas at Mexico City October 19 at age 75.

The South American nation of Guyana becomes an independent state within the British Commonwealth May 26 (see British Guiana, 1964). Forbes Burnham, now 44, becomes first prime minister of the new South American nation, heretofore called British Guiana, and will remain in office until his death in 1985; a moderate socialist with racist and demagogic leanings, he will use what the U.S. State Department will later characterize as "wiretaps, mail interceptions, and physical surveillance" to "monitor and intimidate" his political opponents, led by Cheddi Jagan, rigging one election after another to retain personal power (see 1992; new constitution, 1980).

The Dominican Republic elects moderate Joaquin Balaguer, 59, president over Juan Bosch after more than a year of occupation by an inter-American peacekeeping force. Balaguer has U.S. support and embarks on a program of economic and social reform as the OAS withdraws its force in October.

Former Virginia governor and U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd dies at his Berryville country estate October 20 at age 79, having fought lynchings while at the same time opposing civil-rights reforms; former Massachusetts governor and U.S. secretary of state Christian A. Herter dies at Washington, D.C., December 30 at age 71.

Film actor Ronald Reagan wins election as governor of California, having supported Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential bid and campaigned as a Republican against Gov. Edmund G. "Pat" Brown with promises to "clean up the mess in Berkeley" (see education, 1964; 1967).