1979 - Political Events
Political Events
Iran's Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlevi appoints Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar, 64, to head a regency January 4 in an effort to avert a fundamentalist Islamic revolution and flees January 16 to Egypt after nearly 38 years in power (see 1978; Shiites, 680). The Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, 78, flies into Teheran February 1 after 15 years in exile. His supporters clash with government troops and rout the elite Imperial Guard February 11. Bakhtiar resigns, autocratic rule ends after 2,500 years, but turmoil continues throughout the year, with thousands killed in rioting and mass executions. Khomeini accuses the "satanic" United States and her "agents" of fomenting disunity and sends troops to crush a rebellion of Kurdish guerrillas seeking autonomy. The shah moves on to Morocco, the Bahamas, and Cuernavaca, Mexico; terminally ill with cancer, he is permitted entry to the United States October 22 at the insistence of former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger and Chase Manhattan president David Rockefeller, 64, despite warnings from the U.S. ambassador in Teheran. The shah is admitted to New York Hospital for removal of his gall bladder and Iranian terrorists seize the U.S. embassy at Teheran November 4, taking 66 hostages and demanding extradition of the shah. The "student" terrorists release five women and eight black male hostages November 19 to 20. The shah departs for Panama via Texas December 16 (see 1980).
North Yemen and South Yemen have a border war beginning February 24 (see 1978). President Carter sends $390 million worth of arms with military advisers to North Yemen, and he dispatches a naval force to the Arabian Sea; nearly 3,000 Cuban and Soviet troops arrive in South Yemen.
A terrorist bomb explodes in a Jerusalem marketplace January 18, Israeli forces retaliate the next day with their heaviest strike into Lebanon since March 1978, they kill 40 Palestinians, a truce halts shelling across the border January 24, but Palestinian guerrillas attack an Israeli settlement in early May and 400 Israeli troops cross into Lebanon in pursuit May 9 with tanks and armored cars.
The peace treaty signed by Egypt's president Anwar el-Sadat and Israel's prime minister Menachem Begin at Washington March 26 ends a state of war that has existed for nearly 31 years. Both leaders credit President Carter, whose negotiations at Camp David last September have continued with visits to Cairo and Jerusalem. The accord produces dismay in the other Arab states, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) splits in two over the issue, with one side refusing to recognize the settlement. Egypt's neighbors denounce the treaty with demonstrations, strikes, and bombings; some countries break relations with Cairo and impose an economic boycott of Egypt (see 1981).
Former U.S. vice president and New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller suffers a fatal heart attack January 26 at age 70. It is initially reported that a security guard found him dead at his desk in his RCA Building office where he had been editing an art book, but it then comes to light that he was having sex with a young woman aide, Megan Ruth Marshack, at his 13 West 54th Street town house.
Afghan Muslim extremists abduct U.S. ambassador Adolph Dubs, 58, at Kabul February 14, local police storm the hotel where he is being held, and Dubs is killed along with several of his abductors in an exchange of gunfire. Soviet agents try to oust President Taraki's rival, Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin, in mid-September, but Taraki himself is killed in a shootout. Fearing that the Afghans will install a regime friendly to the United States, Soviet Communist Party chairman Leonid Brezhnev summons his foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, KGB chief Yuri Andropov, and defense minister Dmitri Ustinov to a meeting late at night December 12, and Soviet troops invade Afghanistan December 24, allegedly at the invitation of the new president Amin, who is convicted December 27 of "crimes against the state" and executed along with members of his family by a "revolutionary tribunal." He is succeeded by Soviet puppet Babrak Karmal. U.S.-supplied Afghan guerrillas will resist Soviet occupation forces for more than 9 years, forcing them to retreat into fortified cities (see sports [Olympic boycott], agriculture [grain embargo], 1980).
Accidental release of dry anthrax spores in early April at the Soviet Microbiology and Virology Institute in Sverdlovsk (later Yekaterinburg) contaminates an area with a radius of at least three kilometers and by some estimates kills several hundred persons. Tight censorship is imposed, but hundreds, perhaps thousands, of residents and military personnel reportedly die after inhaling the spores and contracting pulmonary anthrax. Soviet authorities say only that illegal sales of anthrax-contaminated meat have caused a public health problem. Critics charge Moscow with violating the 1972 convention that banned development of biological weapons (see Pasechnik, 1989).
Iraq's president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigns July 16 after 11 years in office, having suffered a heart attack 3 years ago. Now 65, he is succeeded by revolutionary leader Saddam Hussein, now 42, who has shared power with President Bakr since 1968, directed the nationalization of Iraq's oil industry 7 years ago, becomes president and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, will be ruthless in suppressing political opposition, and will embark on rash military adventures (see 1980).
Britain's prime minister James Callaghan loses a vote of confidence by one vote in Britain's House of Commons March 28, the first time such a vote has defeated a government since 1924. Striking trade unions workers have paralyzed transportation, allowed garbage to rot in the streets, forced hospitals to close, even left corpses unburied, and the tabloid London Sun has helped rally public opinion against Callaghan; Conservative leader Margaret (Hilda) Thatcher (née Robert), 53, becomes the nation's first woman prime minister when her party regains power May 3, winning the general elections by the largest majority any party has received since 1966. Mrs. Thatcher has promised to cut income taxes, scale down social services, and reduce the role of the state in daily life.
A 50-pound bomb planted by Irish Republican Army terrorists explodes August 27 on the fishing boat of Lord Mountbatten off the coast of County Sligo, killing the 79-year-old cousin of Elizabeth II with his 14-year-old grandson and a 15-year-old passenger. Four others aboard the Shadow V are seriously hurt (one dies the next day), and an IRA ambush 35 miles south of Belfast kills 18 British soldiers. A leading Conservative MP has been killed by the IRA outside the House of Commons March 30 and the violence continues. A bomb of a different sort explodes in Parliament November 15 when art historian Sir Anthony Blunt, 72, is revealed to have been a Soviet spy. Blunt confessed to treason in 1964 and was given immunity from prosecution and permitted to remain curator to the queen. He is stripped of his knighthood.
French statesman Jean Monnet dies at his country home outside Paris March 6 at age 90, having laid the groundwork for the European Community.
U.S.-educated German political leader Petra (Karin) Kelly, 32, quits the Social Democratic Party in protest against its policies toward nuclear defense, health, and women. Stepdaughter of a U.S. Army colonel, Kelly joins with some friends to found the Green Party, whose anti-nuclear, pro- environmental views will attract many followers (see 1983).
Former Hungarian premier Ferenc Nagy dies of a heart attack at Washington, D.C., June 12 at age 75; former Czech president Ludvík Svoboda at Prague September 20 at age 83.
Washington breaks ties with Taiwan as of January 1 and establishes diplomatic relations with Beijing (see 1978). Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping accepts a New Year's invitation to the U.S. Embassy at Beijing and flies to the United States later in the month, becoming the first Chinese leader to visit America (in addition to seeing President Carter at Washington, he tours the NASA Space Center at Houston, tries out a flight simulator, and attends a Texas rodeo), but he cracks down on dissenters upon his return. Beijing advises Moscow April 3 that China will not renew her 1950 treaty of friendship, due to expire in 1980. Moscow replies April 4 that the decision was taken "contrary to the will and interests of the Chinese people." The Taiwan Relations Act signed into law by President Carter April 10 is the only domestic U.S. law governing relations with a foreign nation.
Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh falls to Vietnamese forces January 7 as does the country's only seaport, Kompong Som (see 1978). Moscow congratulates the Cambodian rebels on their "remarkable victory," but Romania breaks with her Warsaw Pact allies to denounce Vietnam for intervening in Cambodia (Kampuchea), calling it a "heavy blow for the prestige of socialism" and a threat to peace. Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge followers are given refuge at the Thai border and will resist the Vietnamese for the next 12 years while continuing to murder Cambodians with any ties to the "bourgeois" past (see 1975; 1985). The Vietnamese install a new government, headed by Heng Samrin. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, in exile, says 14 Vietnamese divisions have invaded his country with Soviet backing and entreats the UN Security Council to get Vietnam out of Cambodia. Some 9,000 noncommunist troops loyal to Prince Sihanouk join with 15,000 noncommunists under Son Sann receive the support of 35,000 Khmer Rouge forces to fight the 170,000 Vietnamese who support Heng Samrin's government. Chinese troops invade Vietnam in March, destroy major towns, and inflict heavy damage, but withdraw in April after suffering heavy casualties.
South Korea's National Assembly ousts opposition leader Kim Young Sam, 51, October 9, all 70 members resign in protest a few days later, and President Park Chung Hee is assassinated October 26 at age 62 by the director of his Central Intelligence Agency Kim Jae Kyu, 53, a lifelong friend who opens fire at a private dinner party to which he has invited the president and his chief security officer (Park's wife was killed in an attempt on her husband's life in August 1974) (see Kim Dae-jung, 1976). Premier Choi Kyu Hah becomes president and begins releasing imprisoned dissidents (see 1980).
Pakistan's former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is hanged at Rawalpindi April 4 at age 51 for plotting the murder of a political opponent in 1974, having been sentenced by the Lahore High Court in mid-March 1978 (see 1977). President Carter, Pope John Paul II, and other world leaders have appealed for clemency to no avail. Demonstrations throughout Pakistan protest the execution.
U.S. Senate leaders block a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty signed at Vienna June 18 by Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev after nearly 5 years of negotiations (diplomat and former secretary of the navy Paul Nitze, now 72, represented U.S. interests). The United States has 2,283 missiles and bombers as of June 18, the Soviet Union 2,504. President Carter has approved construction of a new generation of smaller aircraft carriers January 8 and scrapped plans for another 90,000-ton supercarrier. He has approved development June 7 of a $30 billion MX Missile plan that would deploy large missiles located in any of 8,800 underground shelters connected by miles of track under the desert of Utah, Nevada, or another western state. The MX will survive a "first strike" by Moscow, say its supporters, provide counterforce capability, and for the first time give the United States "first strike" ability to eliminate large numbers of Soviet land-based missiles (see 1981).
Former French military commander Gen. Maurice Challe dies of cancer at Paris January 18 at age 73; Gen. André Zeller (Challe's fellow conspirator in opposing Algerian independence) at Paris September 18 at age 81. The late president Charles de Gaulle pardoned both in 1965.
Rhodesian whites vote January 30 to ratify a new constitution enfranchising all blacks, establishing a black majority in the Senate and Assembly, and renaming the country Zimbabwe Rhodesia (see 1978). Delegates from 30 Commonwealth countries meeting at Lusaka, Zambia, August 5 approve a new proposal to end the 6-year-old civil war in Zimbabwe Rhodesia (see 1980).
Ugandan guerrillas and Tanzanian troops sent by Julius Nyerere occupy Kampala April 10 and force Uganda's president Idi Amin Dada into exile (see 1972; Entebbe, 1976). Amin flees to Libya, having personally ordered the execution of Uganda's Anglican archbishop, her chief justice, the chancellor of Makerere University, the Bank of Uganda's governor, and several of his ministers, and it is rumored that he has kept some of the severed heads in his freezer and displayed them to guests at his dinner table. Probably neurosyphilitic, he has said that Hitler was right to kill 6 million Jews, that Zambia's president Kenneth Kaunda was an "imperialist puppet and bootlicker," and that Henry A. Kissinger was "a murderer and a spy." He has ejected Peace Corps volunteers and the marines guarding the U.S. Embassy at Kampala, offered to become king of Scotland and lead his Celtic subjects to independence, forced white residents of Kampala to carry him on a throne and kneel before him, and brutalized his own people. All other countries have broken diplomatic ties with Kampala. Amin ordered the invasion of Tanzania in October of last year, trying with Libyan support to annex Tanzania's northern province of Kagera while trying to cover up a mutiny in his army. His 8 years of capricious and bloody oppression have left his country $250 million in debt with only $200,000 in foreign exchange remaining in the central bank. Although Uganda is 85 percent Christian, Amin has had as many as 300,000 Christians killed, giving preference to his own Muslim Kakwa and other Sudanic tribes; Nilotic Acholi, Langi, Baganda, and other tribesmen (Uganda has at least 32 distinct tribes) vie for supremacy (see 1980).
South Africa's president John Vorster resigns June 4 after the release of a report accusing him of covering up irregularities in government spending on secret propaganda efforts in the United States (see human rights [Biko], 1977; [Joseph], 1978). Now 63, Vorster was elected president after leaving the prime ministry last September and was succeeded by Pieter W. Botha, but few people still have any illusions that apartheid can bring peace: the country is gripped by an economic recession, most of its homelands are mired in corruption, their only significant export is labor, skilled whites are exiting the country, and inflation has been running out of control. Vorster is succeeded as president by Marais Viljoen see 1982).
Ghana has a coup d'état June 4; rebels install flight lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, 32, as head of state and execute Gen. Frederick Akuffo along with two other former chief executives. An admirer of Libya's Muammar al-Qadaffi, Rawlings turns over the government to an elected president in July (but see 1981).
Mauritania's president Mustapha Ould Salek resigns in June after only 1 year in office and is succeeded by Lieut. Col. Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly, who will be replaced in January of next year.
Equatorial Guinea has a bloodless coup August 3 that ends the brutal 11-year rule of President Masie Nguema Biyogo Negue Ndong, 57, who has allied himself with Moscow but kept foreigners out of the 10,000-square-mile former Spanish colony. As president for life, Masie Nguema has put tens of thousands to death, scared more than half the country's 300,000 people into fleeing abroad, and shattered the nation's economy while spending lavishly on palaces and other symbols of power. His nephew Theodore Nguema Mbasago heads a new ruling junta. A civilian-military tribunal convicts Masie Nguema of genocide, treason, systematic violation of human rights, and embezzlement of public funds; he and six aides are executed by firing squad.
Angola's president Agostinho Neto dies at Moscow September 10 at age 56 following surgery for pancreatic cancer; he is succeeded by his planning minister José Eduardo dos Santos.
The Central African emperor Bokassa I is overthrown in a bloodless coup September 20 (see 1977). Accused of bankrupting his country and joining in a massacre of schoolchildren, Bokassa is rebuffed by France but given asylum by Ivory Coast. Former president David Dacko regains power, revives the Central African Republic, and pledges a restoration of democracy.
Canada's Progressive Conservative Party wins the general election May 22, gaining a plurality of seats in Parliament as economic and other domestic problems beset the nation; Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Liberal government is ousted after 11 years in power (although Trudeau retains his parliamentary seat), and Alberta-born party leader Charles Joseph "Joe" Clark, 40, becomes the youngest prime minister in the nation's history (but see 1980). Former prime minister John Diffenbaker dies of an apparent heart attack at his Ottawa home August 16 at age 83.
St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean gains full independence February 22 after more than 175 years of British colonial rule. St. Lucia gains full independence the same day. St. Vincent and the Grenadines gains full independence October 26 after nearly 196 years of British rule; (Robert) Milton Cato, 64, is the new nation's first prime minister and will serve until 1984.
Grenada has a leftist coup March 13 as the New Jewel Movement headed by Maurice Bishop, 34, takes power while Prime Minister Gairy is in New York, accusing Gairy of fiscal irresponsibility. Bishop is a protégé of Cuba's Fidel Castro (see 1974; 1983).
Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza resigns his presidency July 17 after a 7-week civil war and takes refuge at Miami with 45 aides, ending the 46-year Somoza family dynasty (see 1978). Sandinista rebels enter Managua July 19 with rebel leaders who include Daniel Ortega Saavedra, 33, riding an armored personnel carrier. Ortega dropped out of university at age 17 to join the FSLN (Sandanista National Liberation Front), was imprisoned by the Somoza regime from 1967 to 1974 and then exiled to Cuba, but was spirited back into Nicaragua, where he has led the most moderate of the three guerrilla groups opposed to Somoza; the new five-man junta expropriates the vast business empire of the Somozas and their supporters (see 1980).
El Salvador's military deposes Carlos Humberto Romero in a coup d'état October 15 after months of violence following the killing of 23 leftist demonstrators May 8 (President Romero came to power after disputed elections in February 1977). A new military junta assumes power, begins to redistribute lands to the peasants, and makes other reforms after 47 years of military dictatorship. Violence continues (see 1980).
Former Peruvian economist-diplomat-publisher Pedro Gerado Beltrán dies at his native Lima February 16 on the eve of his 82nd birthday; former Mexican president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz of a heart attack at Mexico City July 15 at age 68; former U.S. governor of Puerto Rico Rexford Guy Tugwell of cancer at Santa Barbara, Calif., July 21 at age 88; Peruvian statesman Vincent R. Haya de la Torre of lung cancer and heart complications at Lima August 2 at age 84; former U.S. first lady Mamie Eisenhower (née Doud) of heart failure at Washington, D.C., November 1 at age 82
The Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) gain independence July 12 after 64 years of British colonial rule.
British aeronautical designer and "dambuster" bomb inventor Sir Barnes Wallis dies at Leatherhead, Surrey, October 30 at age 91.
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