1980 - Political Events
Political Events
The shah of Iran leaves Panama for Cairo March 23 at the invitation of President Sadat, surgeons remove his enlarged spleen and part of his liver March 28, and the cancer-riddled shah dies July 26 at age 60, ending the Pahlevi dynasty that ruled Iran from 1921 until last year.
A U.S. attempt to rescue the 53 hostages held at Teheran since November ends in disaster April 24, and the Ayatollah Khomeini threatens to kill the hostages if another "silly maneuver" is tried. Six U.S. C-130 transport planes from a base in southern Egypt have landed 90 commandos in the desert 300 miles southeast of Teheran; mechanical problems and a sandstorm knock out three of the operation's eight helicopters, the mission is aborted, eight men are killed as a fourth helicopter collides on the ground with a C-130, and the survivors beat a hasty retreat. The hostages remain in custody at year's end as negotiations proceed for their release, but they will not go free until January 20, 1981.
Iraqi planes hit 10 Iranian airfields September 22 after months of border skirmishes, troops cross into Iran September 23 and besiege the huge oil refinery at Abadan, beginning an 8-year war over the Shatt Al-Arab estuary (see 1975). Iraq's new president Saddam Hussein launches the first of his military adventures (see 1979; 1981).
Turkey has strikes, terrorism, inflation, and rising unemployment that bring the country to the verge of anarchy until a military government takes over September 12 in a coup d'état, bans Süleyman Demirel from involvement in politics for 3 years, and establishes some order (see 1971; 1987).
India's former prime minister Indira Gandhi regains power January 6 in an election victory engineered by her son Sanjay, 33, only 33 months after a humiliating defeat. Called ruthless and autocratic for pushing slum clearance projects that left thousands homeless and family planning programs that included forced sterilizations, Sanjay has been convicted on one of more than a dozen criminal charges that he reaped huge profits from a state project to produce small, cheap automobiles, none of which ever came off the assembly line. Sanjay and a flight instructor die June 23 in a plane crash while doing illegal aerial acrobatics.
Vietnam's president Ton Duc Thang dies at Hanoi March 30 at age 91 after nearly 11 years in power; former Pakistani president Agha Mohammed Yahha Khan dies at Rawalpindi August 10 at age 63, having resigned in 1971 and been paralyzed since shortly after his release from house arrest.
South Korean general Chun Doo Hwan makes himself director of the KCIA in April (see 1979), students and other citizens in urban centers demonstrate against another military regime, Chun seizes power in a coup d'état May 17, declares martial law May 18, and orders the shutdown of colleges and universities, the National Assembly closes, and Chun suppresses an uprising at Kwangju in South Cholla Province, a city of 730,000 with a pan'gol (anti-authoritarian) tradition. Chun's paratroopers open fire May 21, and demonstrators occupy government buildings; former KCIA chief Kim Jae Kyu says at his trial that he assassinated President Park Chung Hee last year to prevent a bloodbath Park had planned for his opponents, but the prosecution says he did it merely to preserve his own power, Kim Jae Kyu is sentenced to death, and he is hanged May 24 along with four KCIA aides. Chun sends tanks and personnel carriers into Kwangju before dawn May 27 and his men kill more than 200 unarmed students and workers, wounding or arresting thousands of others (it will later emerge that top officials in the Carter administration gave approval to South Korean contingency plans to use military units against the student and labor protests, having been misled by faulty intelligence that exaggerated the seriousness of the situation). Armed survivors of the massacre withdraw into the mountains outside Kwangju, and a court convicts political dissident Kim Dae-jung on sedition charges in connection with the demonstrations at Kwangju (see 1976); sentenced to death by hanging, he will have his sentence commuted next year to life in prison, gain release in 1982, and be exiled to the United States, where he will live for 26 months (see 1984).
Japan's prime minister Masayoshi Ohira dies of a heart attack at Tokyo June 12 at age 70. Zenko Suzuki, 66, becomes prime minister after elections held June 22.
Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) in the South Pacific gains independence July 30 after 93 years of joint British and French colonial rule.
Poland's premier Piotr Jaroszewicz, 69, resigns under pressure in February after more than 9 years in office. Accused of corruption and abuse of power, he is held responsible for the economic mismanagement that plagues the country.
Juliana of the Netherlands abdicates on her 71st birthday April 30 after a 32-year reign. Her daughter Beatrix, 42, succeeds to the throne, her husband is a onetime member of the Hitler Youth, but the demonstrations that rock Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht are inspired by homeless conditions, not anti-Nazi sentiments.
Yugoslavia's president Josip Broz Tito dies May 4 at age 87 after a 35-year rule in which he has used his political finesse to keep his country's various ethnic groups working in some degree of harmony. Tito's death leaves a power vacuum that raises fears of a breakup of Yugoslavia into her former components (Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina) (see 1987).
Italy's political struggles erupt in violence August 2, when 85 men and women are massacred at the Bologna railway station; some 200 are wounded (see Aldo Moro, 1978). The perpetrators remain unknown, but evidence points to neo-Fascists.
Former Portuguese premier Marcello Caetano dies at Rio de Janeiro October 26 at age 70.
Iceland elects Reykjavík City Theater director Vigdis Finnbogadottir, 50, "President Vigdis." Divorced in 1963, she adopted a baby daughter as a single parent in 1972, and she is the first woman anywhere in world history to be elected head of state. She will be reelected in 1984 and again in 1988.
Polish shipyard workers at Gdansk quit August 14 to protest the August 9 dismissal of forklift operator Anna Walentynowicz, who collected the remains of candles from graves in a local cemetery to make new candles for a memorial to workers shot in the 1970 food riots. The strike at the Lenin Shipyard spreads as some 350,000 workers demand the right to strike and to form self-governing unions independent of Communist Party control. Other demands include wage raises, release of political prisoners, a curb on censorship, and meat rationing. Led by electrician Lech Walesa, 37, the strikers do not stage street demonstrations as in 1970, when they gave authorities an excuse to use force and kill at least 55. Party leader Edward Gierek agrees to the demands September 1, he releases dissidents who have been arrested, and the labor union Solidarity, created September 22 with 10 million members, becomes the first independent labor union in a Soviet bloc country. Gierek is succeeded by Stanislaw Kania, 53, as Moscow masses 55 divisions on Poland's frontiers, fearing the deviation from orthodox Marxist-Leninist philosophy will spread to other Soviet satellites and even to Soviet Russia.
Premier Aleksei Nikolaievitch Kosygin dies at Moscow December 18 at age 76; former German naval commander Karl Doenitz of a heart attack near Hamburg December 24 at age 89.
Former Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau regains office in March following the election defeat February 18 of Prime Minister Joe Clark's Progressive Conservative Party after less than 9 months in office (see 1979). Trudeau will remain in office until 1984.
Puerto Rico's first popularly elected governor Luis Munoz Marin dies at his native San Juan April 30 at age 82.
Surinam Army sergeants overthrow the government of Premier Henck Arron in a coup d'état that begins before dawn February 25 with an attack on army headquarters and the main police station at Paramaribo (see 1975). President Johan Ferrier is deposed in another military coup d'état August 13 after 5 years in office and replaced by Premier Chin A Sen, who announces on television that he is assuming the office of president at the request of the nation's military commander Lt. Col. Desi Bouterse. The new military council's chairman Sgt. Chas Mijnals and another council member are arrested August 17 on charges that they are planning a Cuban-style takeover; Mijnals is succeeded by Lt. Ivan Graanoogst, who becomes in effect the country's leader, albeit subject to the will of Bouterse (see 1981).
Peru elects Fernando Belaunde Terry to a second presidential term May 18 after 12 years of military rule (see 1968). Now 67, Belaunde Terry returned to Peru in December 1970 after 2 years in exile, was exiled again in January 1971, returned in January 1976, and has defeated 14 other candidates. Strikes, economic problems, and terrorist insurgency continue as in so much of the world; Belaunde Terry heads one of the few remaining civilian governments in Latin America (see 1985).
Former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza is assassinated at Asunción, Paraguay, September 17 at age 54. Gunmen firing a bazooka and machine guns hit Somoza's Mercedes-Benz, killing also his driver and a financial adviser.
Uruguayan voters reject a new constitution that would institutionalize the role of the military in a "restricted democracy" (see 1976). President Aparicio Méndez announced 3 years ago that elections would be held in 1981 but indicated that political liberties would be secondary to economic recovery; the November 30 referendum is a setback for Méndez, who will lose his office in September of next year.
Guyana adopts a new socialist constitution that gives her a presidential form of government (see 1966). Legislative power is vested in a unicameral National Assembly, whose 65 members (53 of them popularly elected) elect the president to a 5-year term. The country's 430,000 registered voters give People's National Congress Party of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham 76 percent of the popular vote in the December 15 election (the People's Progressive Party of opposition leader Cheddi Jang receives only 20 percent), Burnham is elected president for a fourth term, and he will serve until his death in 1985, but the leader of the 10-member international observer team returns to Britain December 19 and says Burnham's victory was "fraudulent in every possible respect," with voter lists falsified, opposition parties barred from meetings, and Burnham's political opponents beaten (see Jagan, 1992).
Mauritania's president Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Louly resigns in January and is succeeded by his prime minister Lieut. Col. Mohammed Khouna Ould Haidalla, who will rule until he is deposed in 1984.
Tunisia's prime minister Hedi Amira Nouira suffers a stroke in March after a decade in office and has to step down at age 68. He has been the designated successor to President-for-Life Habib Bourguiba.
Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) gains independence April 17 (see 1979). A new government headed by Robert Mugabe, now 56, takes power after years of civil war; his Zimbabwean African National Union Party represents the 70 percent of black Rhodesians who speak Shona and takes 57 parliamentary seats as compared to 20 for Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwean African People's Union, whose members are from the Ndbele tribe (20 seats are reserved for the white minority). Mugabe appeals to Zimbabwe's 7 million blacks for fair treatment of the new nation's 230,000 whites, and he makes Nkomo Home Affairs Minister (but see 1982).
Liberia's president William R. Tolbert Jr. is ousted in a military coup April 12, castrated, and executed at age 66 after having his ears cut off (see 1971). A 17-member People's Redemptive Council suspends the constitution April 25 and assumes all executive power with General (formerly Master Sergeant) Samuel K. (Kanyon) Doe, 30 (approximate), as president. An ethnic Krahn, he becomes the first chief executive not descended from the American settlers who have ruled the country since its founding in 1847, and although he has had no more than an 8th-grade education and knows nothing about governance there is widespread rejoicing at his assumption of power (crowds in the streets cry, "We are finally free!"). Doe begins his regime by purging several prominent members of Tolbert's cabinet, killing 27 high officials, some of them in a public execution by firing squad on a city beach at Monrovia (see 1990).
Senegal's first president Léopold Sédar Senghor steps down at age 74 after 20 years in power. He will be succeeded beginning next year by Abdou Diouf.
Uganda holds her first elections in 18 years in December and returns to constitutional government, putting former president Milton Obote back in power (see 1979).
Former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas dies of pneumonia and kidney failure at Walter Reed Hospital January 19 at age 81. He retired from the bench in 1974 after having served for 36 years, longer than any other justice, and written more than 1,200 opinions.
A draft registration measure signed by President Carter June 27 requires that some 4 million U.S. men aged 19 and 20 register for possible military service. Congress has excluded women, despite a request by Carter that they be included.
U.S. voters turn Carter out of office and elect former California governor (and former film actor) Ronald Reagan, who campaigns with slick, upbeat television commercials that talk about "morning in America" and quote John Winthrop's sermon of 1630 about a shining "city on a hill," words quoted in years past by politicians who included John F. Kennedy in 1961. Now 69, the genial Reagan wins 489 electoral votes to Carter's 149, with 51 percent of the popular vote (43.2 million) as opposed to 42.5 percent (34.9 million) for Carter, 6.5 percent (5.6 million) for independent candidate John Anderson, an Illinois Republican congressman. Leading liberal Democrats lose their seats in Congress as the Republicans gain control of the Senate for the first time since the 1950s.
English-born U.S. hostess Pamela Churchill Harriman (née Digby), 60, founds Democrats for the 90s to provide encouragement and financial support for politicians who will oppose Reagan's policies. Wife of former New York governor and diplomat W. Averell Harriman and widow of Hollywood producer Leland Hayward, she divorced her first husband, Randolph Churchill, by whom she had a son, Winston Spencer. Her political action committee PAMPAC will raise millions of dollars in political contributions for Democratic Party candidates (see 1993).
Weather Underground activist Bernardine Dohrn turns herself in to Chicago police December 3; now 38, she has been a fugitive since 1970 and is blamed for several acts of terrorism by her left-wing group, including some bombings. "I regret not at all my efforts to side with the forces of revolution," she tells reporters. "The nature of the system has not changed . . . The system of violence and degradation against women is openly encouraged."
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