1977 | Political Events
Political Events
CIA director George H. W. Bush resigns January 20 and President Carter appoints Chicago-born four-star admiral Stansfield Turner, 52, to succeed him. A classmate of the president at Annapolis, Turner will head the agency until 1981, improving its management systems, making it more accountable to congressional committees, and helping to diminish the sinister stigma that it acquired following revelations that came to light beginning in late 1974.
President Carter acts in January to pardon virtually all Vietnam era draft evaders and permit those living abroad to return without threat of persecution, but deserters are not pardoned. A spokesman for the National Council for Universal and Unconditional Amnesty says the action discriminates against deserters, who "are primarily and disproportionately from the poor and minority groups," whereas resisters "are essentially white, middle-class, and well-educated." Former U.S. Selective Service director Gen. Lewis B. Hershey dies at Angola, Ind., May 20 at age 80.
President Carter's friend Bert Lance comes under attack for questionable debts and financial commitments, the Controller of the Currency finds "unsafe and unsound" banking practices but no criminal behavior, a second Senate committee conducts hearings, and Carter tearfully accepts Lance's resignation as director of the Office of Management and Budget September 21.
The Cato Institute founded at Washington, D.C., by Los Angeles-born financial analyst Edward H. (Harrison) Crane, 3rd, 33, has $500,000 in financing from Wichita, Kansas-born oil company heir Charles de Gamahl Koch, 41, and initial ties to the Libertarian Party. A capital management executive, Crane will quickly distance the Institute from libertarianism and make it a right-wing "think tank" with positions similar to those of the Heritage Foundation founded 4 years ago. "I think Franklin Roosevelt was a lousy president," Crane will say. "What he did—which is to impose this great nanny state on America—was a great mistake." Backed by major banking, computer, oil, pharmaceutical, and tobacco interests, Cato will support opposition to environmental groups and favor privatization of Social Security while working to eliminate the departments of agriculture, commerce, education, energy, interior, and labor from the Cabinet.
The Argentine women's group Los Madres de los Desparecidos keeps a silent vigil, parading through the streets of Buenos Aires with pictures of "disappeared" daughters, sons, husbands, and fathers who have been secretly seized and in most cases murdered as "subversives" by the military government that is trying to eliminate Perónist and other elements opposed to its repressive regime (see 1976). Founded in April by patriot Azunclena De Vincenti, the group carries placards that may say, "Donde está Pedro?" or "Donde está Rosa?" They demand explanations (see 1983; war with Britain, 1982).
Former Jamaican prime minister Alexander Bustamante dies of cancer at Irish Town, Jamaica, August 6 (Jamaican Independence Day) at age 93.
Two Panama Canal treaties signed by President Carter September 7 with Panama's head of state Brig. Gen. Omar Torrijos Herrera, 48, provide for a phasing out of U.S. control. The treaties have taken 13 years to negotiate, and Panamanians approve them 2 to 1 in an October 24 plebiscite. Opponents include former California governor Ronald Reagan, who appropriates California state senator S. I. Hayakawa's remark about the Canal Zone, "It's ours. We stole it fair and square" (see 1978).
Venezuela holds her fifth consecutive free election December 3. Opposition Christian Democrats capitalize on domestic problems that have developed under the administration of President Carlos Andres Perez and elect Luis Herrera Campins to the presidency.
Former Peruvian president Juan Velasco Alvarado dies at Lima December 24 at age 67.
Former British prime minister Sir Anthony Eden, earl of Avon, dies of a liver ailment in Wiltshire January 14 at age 79.
West German terrorists murder the attorney general in charge of the Baader-Meinhof gang prosecution April 7 along with his driver and bodyguard (see 1976). Andreas Baader and two accomplices are convicted 3 weeks later and sentenced to life terms for murder, complicity in 34 attempted murders, and forming a criminal association. "So-called political motives" are no excuse for terrorism, says the judge, and no reason for clemency. The head of the Dresdner Bank, Jurgen Ponto, is murdered at Frankfurt July 30 by his granddaughter, 26, an RAF member (see 1974). Five terrorists at Cologne on September 5 seize the head of the German Industries Federation, Hanns Martin Schleyer; they kill his driver and three bodyguards, demand a ransom, and demand the release of Baader and ten other RAF members. Further outrages ensue, and Baader is found shot dead in his cell October 18 at Stuttgart's Stammheim Prison; his girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin, 37, is found hanging from a bar in her cell window; other RAF members are killed or wounded. Schleyer is "executed" October 18; West Germany mobilizes 30,000 police officers and restricts civil liberties.
Former German chancellor Ludwig Erhard dies of heart failure at Bonn May 5 at age 80; former Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg of cancer at Mutters, near Innsbruck, November 18 at age 79. Imprisoned by the Nazis, he was a professor of political science at St. Louis from 1948 to 1967.
Soviet president Nikolai Podgorny loses the job he has held since 1965 and is ousted from the Politburo May 24, having resisted Leonid Brezhnev's desire to be chairman of the Presidium as well as secretary general of the Communist Party.
A Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signed September 21 seeks to curb the spread of nuclear materials. The 15 signatories include the United States and the USSR.
Former Soviet Army chief of staff Gen. Aleksandr M. Vasilevsky (ret.) dies at Moscow December 5 at age 82.
Spain's parliamentary elections in June are the country's first free elections since 1936 (see 1975). Civil War heroine Dolores Ibárruri ("La Pasionaria") has returned May 13 after 38 years in exile, most of them spent at Moscow (her son Rubén was an officer in the Red Army and was killed at Stalingrad). Now 81, she protested the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, stands for election on the Communist Party ticket, but loses at the polls.
Actress Melina Mercouri wins a landslide election to the Greek Parliament. Now 52, she denounced the takeover of her country's government by a right-wing military junta 10 years ago, spent most of 7 years in exile at Paris, and returned in 1974—2 days after the collapse of the junta.
China expels her "Gang of Four" from the Communist Party and restores purged leader Deng Xiaoping to power July 2. A veteran of the Long March of the 1930s, the four-foot, 10-inch Deng has twice been denounced as a counter-revolutionary. The first Communist Party Congress since Mao's death last year elects pragmatic new leadership August 20, and although hard liners continue to hold considerable power Deng will push an agenda to promote China's economy.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi frees most of India's political prisoners, but voters repudiate her repressive 18-month "emergency" rule that has tried to stifle political opposition in the world's largest democracy; former prime minister Morarji R. Desai, now 81, is returned to power and promises to restore morality to government (he is a strict adherent to orthodox Hindu beliefs).
Pakistan's prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto loses power July 3 as his army chief of staff outs the civilian government and imposes martial law, dissolving the national and state assemblies and banning all political parties. Authorities arrest Bhutto September 3 on charges of having conspired to murder his parliamentary critic Ahmad Raza Kasuri in 1974 (see 1979).
Thailand's military stages another October coup as the students who led the 1973 rebellion bolster the Communist Party from jungle bases and begin to mount an effective challenge (see 1976). Gen. Kriangsak Chomanand is receptive to a more democratic government and the other generals transfer power at Bangkok to him (see 1988).
Ethiopia's president Gen. Teferi Benti, 55, and 10 others are killed February in a gunfight at a council meeting in Addis Ababa (see 1974). Lieut. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam is named head of state February 11; he ejects U.S. officials April 23 and brings in Cuban advisers, Somali forces threaten Harrar, and Moscow announces in October that it will cease military aid to Somalia, backing Ethiopia instead.
Former Mali president Modibo Keida dies at Bamako May 16 at age 61.
Djibouti (French Somaliland) gains independence June 27.
The Central African Republic becomes the Central African Empire December 4 as President Jean-Bedel Bokassa has himself crowned emperor in a $20 million ceremony funded largely by Paris (see 1960). Bokassa I seized power at the end of 1963, replacing the elected government of his cousin David Dacko (see 1979).