1974 | Political Events
Political Events
President Nixon resigns in disgrace August 9, becoming the first U.S. chief of state ever to quit office. The Supreme Court has ruled 8 to 0 July 24 that Nixon must turn over 64 White House tape recordings to a special prosecutor (see 1973). The House Judiciary Committee has voted July 30 to adopt three articles of impeachment, charging Nixon with obstruction of justice, failure to uphold laws, and refusal to produce material that the committee had subpoenaed.
President Gerald R. Ford is sworn in August 9 and says, "The long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men . . . I am acutely aware that you have not elected me by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers." Nixon tries to take his White House papers with him, but Ford has the truck stopped (Congress adopts legislation authorizing seizure of the materials on behalf of the American people and ordering publication of those parts that do not concern state secrets or purely personal matters).
President Ford names former New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller vice president under terms of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and 1 month later grants Nixon a "full, free, and absolute pardon" for all federal crimes that Nixon "committed or may have committed or taken part in" while in office, noting that he has taken the action to spare Nixon and the nation further punishment in the Watergate scandal (presidential press secretary J. F. terHorst resigns in protest, and Ford's action angers millions of Americans, but it will later be hailed as a courageous act taken in full knowledge that it will doom any chance of Ford's being elected president in 1976). President Ford asks Congress to appropriate $850,000 to facilitate Nixon's transition to private life; Congress trims the grant to $200,000.
The Election Reform Act passed by Congress 355 to 48 just hours before President Nixon's resignation limits to $1,000 the amount that any individual may contribute to a candidate for federal office, limits to $20 million what any presidential candidate may spend on a bid for election or reelection, provides for a $1 tax check-off on individual federal income tax returns to provide federal funding of presidential elections, and contains other provisions to minimize the impact of large company campaign contributions and thus prevent the kinds of abuses that characterized the Watergate scandal (see law, 1972). Most Republicans have opposed public funding of elections; the new law says political groups such as the Heritage Foundation may contribute no more than $5,000, a candidate no more than $50,000. The legislation crowns efforts by Common Cause, the private citizens' group founded in 1970, but the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 permitted labor unions as well as corporations to have political action committees (PACs), and PACs will raise large amounts of money for candidates, thereby blunting the effects of the new law, which does not bar corporations and affluent individuals from contributing vast sums of "soft money" to political parties (see Supreme Court decisions, 1976).
Washington, D.C., voters elect their first government in more than 100 years. Mayor Harold E. Washington was appointed mayor in 1967 and wins popular election; he will be sworn in early next year by Justice Thurgood Marshall and serve through 1978.
Britain's Conservatives lose the general elections February 28 in the midst of a coal miners' strike that has forced the nation to go on a fuel-conserving 3-day work week (see commerce [strike], 1972). National Union of Mineworkers president Joe Gormley is credited with bringing down the Heath government. Former prime minister Harold Wilson has called for nationalization of North Sea oil, his Labour Party has won 301 seats to 296 for the Conservatives, Edward Heath resigns, and a second Wilson ministry begins March 5, the first in 45 years to lack a majority in the House of Commons. Parliamentary leader Richard Crossman dies at London April 5 at age 66. Labour retains power in the general elections October 10, winning 319 seats to 276 for the Conservatives, but inflation (19.1 percent for the year) and economic decline continue to plague Britain.
France's president Georges Pompidou dies of cancer at Paris April 2 at age 62. Former finance minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 48, is elected May 19 to continue the Gaullist regime that has ruled since 1958, narrowly defeating the leftist François Mitterand.
Portugal has a coup d'état April 25 in what will be called the "revolution of the carnations" (because joyful soldiers slip red carnations into the barrels of their guns). A leftist military junta of young officers led by Major Ernesto Melo Antunes, 40, takes power from Premier Marcelo Caetano, now 68, who has been dictator since the late Premier Antonio de Oliveiro Salazar suffered a stroke in 1968. (Caetano flies to Brazil, where he will head the Institute of Comparative Law at Rio de Janeiro's Gama Filho University.) Melo Antunes and his fellow officers form a Council of the Revolution to supervise the restoration of democracy after 41 years of authoritarian rule, but the new civilian government soon falls apart and the officers of the Armed Forces Movement asks Gen. António (Sebastião Ribeiro) de Spínola, 64, to be president; his regime takes office in July, abolishes the secret police, releases political prisoners, and resumes diplomatic relations with Moscow for the first time since 1917, raising fears in the NATO alliance that communists in the new Lisbon government will leak secrets. Spínola resigns in September and is succeeded by Gen. Francisco da Costa Gomes, 60, who fought liberation movements in Mozambique from 1965 to 1969 but now recognizes that decolonization is inevitable; he will remain president until 1976 (see 1975).
West Germany's chancellor Willy Brandt resigns in early May following revelations that his close aide Gunther Guillaume has been an East German spy. Now 60, Brandt won the Nobel Peace prize 3 years ago and continues to be chairman of the SPD, but Helmut Schmidt, 55, becomes chancellor in a coalition government headed by SPD and Free Democrat leaders.
Hitler Youth founder Baldur von Schirach dies at Munich August 8 at age 67; he was released from Spandau Prison in 1966.
West German terrorists Bernd Andreas Baader, 31, and Ulrike Meinhof, 40, of the notorious Baader-Meinhof gang begin their third hunger strike September 13 at Düsseldorf's Schwalmstadt Prison and Cologne's Ossendorf Prison; 40 other prisoners join the strike. Captured in June 1972 after a series of bank robberies and bombings, the leftist Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Faction, or RAF) members have led one of several gangs that are disrupting West Germany. RAF militant Holger Meins, 33, dies November 9 after 5 weeks of forced feeding. Four youths carrying flowers call on the president of West Berlin's court of appeals November 10, Judge Gunter von Drenkmann opens his front door, and he is shot dead (see 1975).
Former Soviet Army marshal Georgi K. Zhukov dies at Moscow June 18 at age 78. He has been hailed as the "Eisenhower of Russia."
Diplomat Charles "Chip" Bohlen dies of cancer at Washington, D.C., January 1 at age 69; U.S. Air Force general Carl Spaatz (ret.) at Washington July 14 at age 83; Army Chief of Staff Gen. Creighton W. Abrams of complications from lung surgery at Washington September 4 at age 59.
Israel and Egypt sign a disengagement agreement January 18 after negotiations by U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger (see 1973). Israel withdraws from the west bank of the Suez Canal, Egypt reoccupies the east bank, and a UN buffer zone is created between the two. Golda Meir wins reelection as prime minister March 10 but resigns a month later, citing schisms within her own Labor Party with regard to military planning errors. Israel agrees in June to withdraw from Syria and from part of the Golan Heights (see Lebanon, 1975).
Greek Cypriot troops overthrow the Makarios government July 15, Athens denies any link to the uprising, Archbishop Makarios arrives at New York and charges the Greek military regime with complicity in the coup. Former anti-communist Cypriot guerrilla fighter Col. Georgio Grivas has died at Limassol January 28 at age 75. Turkish forces invade Cyprus July 20, vowing to restore Makarios and defend the island's ethnic minority. Greece mobilizes troops, Moscow puts 40,000 men on alert, the UN Security Council calls for a halt in hostilities, but heavy fighting continues. Greece's military junta resigns July 23 after 7 years in power, former premier Constantine Caramanlis returns from exile to head the first civilian government at Athens since 1967, he announces in mid-August that Greece will not go to war to stop the Turkish invasion but will not negotiate under pressure. U.S. Ambassador Rodger P. Davies is shot dead August 19 during a Greek Cypriot demonstration outside the U.S. embassy at Nicosia; President Ford vetoes a bill that would have cut off military aid to Turkey. Former dictator George Papadopolous is arrested with 19 others and charged with treason (see 1975). Archbishop Makarios returns to Nicosia December 7, Turkish forces occupy 45 percent of the island, and tensions continue.
Black Panther cofounder Huey Newton flees to Cuba after being accused of killing a 17-year-old Oakland prostitute (he will ultimately be acquitted). He names his lover, Elaine Brown, 31, as the new leader of the Party; she joined the Panthers in 1968 and will head it until 1977.
Former Algerian nationalist leader Ahmed Messali Hadj dies at Paris June 3 at age 75.
Angola, Mozambique, and Portuguese Guinea redouble efforts to regain independence following the change at Lisbon. Portuguese Guinea becomes Guinea-Bisseau September 10.
Somalia's Marxist government signs a treaty of friendship and cooperation with Moscow, the first black African nation to do so, and Somalia becomes a Soviet satellite (see 1969; 1977).
Ethiopia's army seizes Addis Ababa in late June. Emperor Haile Selassie, now 82, is deposed September 12 after a 44-year reign interrupted by the Italians from 1936 to 1941, and the new Soviet-dominated regime announces December 20 that Ethiopia will become a socialist state directed by one political council (see 1977).
Rhodesia releases Joshua Nkomo from prison after 10 years of confinement, but Ian Smith's efforts to make peace come to naught and Nkomo goes into exile in Zambia (see 1976).
The U.S. Army grants a parole to Lieut. William L. Calley Jr., who has been serving a 10-year term for his part in the My Lai massacre of 1968 in South Vietnam but has served no prison time, only house arrest.
Militant radical Jane Alpert, now 29, gives herself up November 14, 4 years after jumping bail in connection with 1969 bombings at New York.
Grenada gains independence February 7 after more than 200 years of British rule. Prime Minister Eric M. Gairy curbs civil liberties to reduce violence on the Caribbean island (see 1979).
France gives her Caribbean island of Martinique the status of a région September 5 (see 1946).
Argentine dictator Juan Perón dies at Buenos Aires July 1 at age 78 (see 1973). His vice president (and third wife), Maria Estela (Isabel) Martinez de Perón, 43, becomes the hemisphere's first woman chief of state (but see 1976).
New Delhi announces May 18 that India has conducted a successful test of a 10- to 15-kiloton atomic device in the Rajasthan desert near Pokaran, joining the United States, the USSR, Britain, France, and China in the world nuclear club. Ottawa protests the underground Indian test and suspends Canadian aid to India's atomic energy program (see energy, 1956). Paris and Washington agree to supply Iran with nuclear reactors, but the Indian test dramatizes the need to halt the proliferation of fissionable materials and nuclear weapons technology.
India annexes the Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim, ending a 330-year-old dynasty and alarming the 10-year-old king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, whose late father died 2 years ago while on safari in Kenya.
Former Pakistani president Mohammad Ayub Khan dies near Islamabad April 19 at age 67. A car carrying President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's vigorous parliamentary critic Ahmad Raza Kasuri is ambushed November 11 at Lahore (see 1973). Kasuri is unhurt, but his father is killed; the perpetrators turn out to be members of the Bhutto government's security agency (see 1977).
Japan's prime minister Kakuei Tanaka resigns November 26 in the face of financial scandals (see 1972). Charged with having received a bribe from Lockheed Aircraft, he is publicly disgraced, his Liberal-Democratic Party has barely survived the July 7 elections, it is feared that the party will break up if either of the two leading candidates is chosen to succeed the 56-year-old Tanaka, and the Diet names 67-year-old Takeo Miki prime minister December 28 (see 1976).
The New York Times runs a front-page story December 22 under the banner headline, "Huge CIA Operation Reported in U.S. Against Anti-War Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years" (see 1967). Written by Seymour M. Hersh, the article about the Central Intelligence Agency's Operation Chaos concludes that the laws are "fuzzy" with regard to the agency's powers with regard to domestic surveillance of Americans (see 1975).