1986 - Political Events

Political Events

Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme, 59, is assassinated at Stockholm February 28 after leaving a movie theater with his wife, Lisbet. Carl Gustav Christer Pettersson will be arrested in December 1988, charged with the crime, and convicted, but a court will overturn his conviction in October 1989.

French voters elect Paris mayor Jacques Chirac, 53, March 15 to head a Conservative Parlement and share power with President François Miterrand, whose Socialist Party has ruled since 1981 (see 1995).

Former U.S. Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty June 4 to having supplied classified information to Israel (see 1985; 1987).

Nuclear submarine pioneer Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, U.S. Navy (ret.), dies at Arlington, Va., July 8 at age 86.

The Sunday Times of London learns in September that Israel's clandestine nuclear-weapons facility 80 feet below the sands of the Negev Desert at Dimona has stockpiled enough fissionable material to produce between 100 and 200 thermonuclear warheads. Moroccan-born technician Mordechai Vanunu, 31, was employed at the facility from 1976 until November of last year and has spoken with reporters from the paper; a female Israeli agent lures him from London to Rome, where he is drugged and kidnapped September 30 on orders from Prime Minister Shimon Peres, taken to Israel, and charged with espionage, although he has received no money for providing information (see 1987).

Nuclear space weapons are a stumbling block to disarmament as President Reagan and Soviet Party Secretary Gorbachev hold summit meetings at Reykjavik, Iceland, in October. They reach conditional agreements to ban medium-range missiles, fail to agree on strategic forces, and wind up in icy disharmony when Reagan rejects Soviet demands that he restrict development of his "Strategic Defense Initiative" ("Star Wars"), which exists only in Reagan's mind, but Gorbachev will later say that their frank exchange about the possibility of a build-down of nuclear weapons has paved the way for mutual disarmament (see 1987). The four-stage LGM-118A Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile deployed by the United States in December has a range of more than 6,000 miles, travels at a speed of more than 15,000 miles per hour, measures 71 feet (21.8 meters) in length, and weighs 195,000 pounds (87,750 kilograms), including 10 reentry vehicles that can be targeted independently with a high degree of accuracy.

Diplomat (and Nobel Peace Prize co-winner) Alva Myrdhal dies at Stockholm February 1 at age 84; former Turkish president Celâl Bayar at Istanbul August 22 at age 103 (or 104); former Finnish president Urho Kekkonen at Helsinki August 31 at age 85; former Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov at Moscow November 8 at age 96; former British prime minister Harold Macmillan, 1st earl of Stockton, at Birch Grove, Sussex, December 29 at age 92.

Former Arab Legion commander Sir John B. Glubb dies at Mayfield, East Sussex, March 17 at age 88.

U.S. warplanes from Britain bomb Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi's headquarters at Tripoli April 15 in an 11-minute strike that hits a few other sites and leaves 15 civilians dead, including some of Qadaffi's children. President Reagan has ordered the attack in retaliation for the terrorist bombing of a West Berlin discothèque that killed a U.S. soldier and a Turkish woman and wounded 230 April 5 (see energy, 1982). An American F-111 with two airmen is lost in the attack on Libya, and three hostages are killed in Lebanon in reprisal for the U.S. action.

Iran and Iraq continue their bloody war, with Iran receiving covert aid in the form of U.S. arms and aircraft replacement parts. Israel is the chief source of such aid, but a Beirut magazine reveals in November that the United States has sent spare parts and ammunition to Iran in hopes that "moderates" there would help obtain the release of U.S. hostages. Further investigation will show that other arms sales were made to Iran with the profits going to fund Contra forces in Nicaragua (see 1985). San Antonio, Tex.-born Marine Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North, 43, and Indiana-born National Security Council adviser Vice-Admiral John M. (Marlin) Poindexter, 58, resign their positions and refuse to answer congressional investigators' questions about their activities in the affair (see 1987).

Terrorists continue to take their toll. A bomb aboard a TWA plane over Athens kills four Americans April 2; guards at London's Heathrow Airport avert a tragedy April 17 when they arrest a British woman with explosives in her luggage, planted there by her Jordanian fiancé in an effort to blow up a Tel Aviv-bound El Al flight; four Arab terrorists posing as airport security guards seize a Pan Am jet at Karachi September 4, a 16-hour standoff ensues, the gunmen storm aboard early September 5 and kill 15 of the nearly 400 passengers, wounding 127 (of whom 6 are dead by September 11); two Arabs fire submachine guns into worshipers at an Istanbul synagogue September 6, killing 21; a bomb at a Parisian department store September 17 kills five after four earlier explosions in September have killed three, injured 170.

Kurds ambush a Turkish Army truck near the Iraqi border August 12, killing 12 soldiers; 10 Turkish F-4s cross into Iraq August 15 and bomb suspected hideouts of Kurdish guerrillas in retaliation, Premier Turgut Ozol reportedly says the bombing killed "around 150 to 200 people," Iran has supported Kurdish guerrillas fighting for autonomy in Iraq, Iraq has supported those fighting for autonomy in Iran, Iranian officials warn Turkey August 27 to remain neutral in the Iran-Iraq war, Turkey's foreign minister reportedly warns Iran that if her armies succeed in ousting Iraq's Saddam Hussein regime Turkey will have to seize Iraq's oil-rich northern region but Ankara denies the report (see 1987).

Pakistani authorities arrest opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, 33, August 14 and lock her up after she has addressed an Independence Day protest rally at Karachi. Her father, Ali, was executed in 1979 at Rawalpindi, and she has demanded the resignation of President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, who overthrew her father in 1977. The Reagan administration has supported the repressive Zia regime, which does not free Ms. Bhutto until September 8 (see 1988).

The Caribbean island of Aruba secedes from the Netherlands January 1 to become a self-governing member of the kingdom, but The Hague is to remain responsible for the island's defense and foreign affairs until full independence is granted 10 years hence; Curaçao, Bonaire, St. Martin, Saba, and St. Eustatius remain part of the Netherlands Antilles.

Haiti's president Jean-Claude Duvalier, 34, resigns February 6 and receives "temporary" sanctuary in France after 15 years of repressive rule in which "Baby Doc" has looted the nation's treasury. Haitians rejoice, but Duvalier cronies retain power (see 1990).

Congress votes June 26 to approve $100 million in aid to the military adventurers trying to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista regime (see 1985; 1987).

U.S. authorities arrest Surinamese Army captain Etienne Boerenveen and two accomplices on charges of cocaine smuggling March 24; Boerenveen is a member of Surinam's five-member Supreme Council and describes himself as being second in power only to Lt. Desi Bouterse (see 1984). A new cabinet installed by Bouterse July 16 includes representatives of trade unions, private business firms, three leading political parties and the army; Pretaapnarain Radhikishun is appointed premier, but Bouterse remains head of state. A federal jury at Miami convicts Capt. Boenenveen and his cohorts September 17, foreign airlines stop flying to Surinam November 5, Boerenveen receives a 12-year prison sentence November 17, and the rebels advance on Paramaribo under the command of Sgt. Ronny Brunswijk as they escalate their efforts to overthrow the Bouterse government. They devastate a town 60 miles east of the capital beginning November 20 and force the closing of the country's second largest bauxite mine. Intensified fighting at the end of November and early December leaves 21 dead, and the government announces a state of emergency in eastern and southern Surinam December 2. Brunswijk says he wants better treatment for his fellow maroons, or bush negroes; descendants of runaway African slaves, they represent 10 percent of Surinam's population (see 1987).

Corazon C. Aquino assumes the presidency of the Philippines February 26 after winning election amidst charges of ballot tampering by Ferdinand E. Marcos. Widow of slain opposition leader Benigno Aquino (see 1983), "Cory" receives support from key military leaders, and a U.S. military plane flies Marcos to Guam after pressure has been applied to make him leave Manila. Accompanied by his billionaire crony Eduardo Cojuanco, he takes with him crates of gold and pesos and receives sanctuary in Hawaii after a 20-year rule that has bled the country of perhaps $5 billion (his estimated wealth is between $5 million and $10 million). Now 53, Aquino expropriates her estranged cousin Cojuanco's coconut-trading cartel, plantations, ships, pearl farms, cement works, and other properties.

Vietnam's Communist Party secretary-general Le Dung (Le Duan) dies at Hanoi July 10 at age 78, having witnessed the expulsion of much of the country's ethnic Chinese. Effective at organizing the party and mobilizing manpower for the war against the United States, he has been less pragmatic than the late Ho Chi Minh in dealing with peacetime economic and foreign affairs.

Uganda's government falls January 29 after seizure of Kampala by an anti-Obote group that has been excluded from the new regime (see 1985). National Resistance Army founder Yoweri Museveni, now 41, is declared president but fighting continues in the northern provinces (see 1987).

Former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman (and cotton planter) James O. Eastland (D. Miss.) dies at Greenwood, Miss., February 19 at age 81, having received hundreds of thousands of dollars in government subsidies while fighting civil rights, racial integration, and labor unions, and government aid to the poor during his six terms in the Senate; former secretary of defense Robert A. Lovett dies at New York May 7 at age 90; diplomat Chester Bowles at Sussex, Conn., May 25 at age 85; former presidential adviser and onetime New York governor W. Averell Harriman of pneumonia-related kidney failure at Yorktown Heights, N.Y., July 26 at age 94; lawyer and former McCarthy aide Roy M. Cohn of AIDS-related cardiopulmonary arrest at Bethesda, Md., August 2 at age 59.

Justice William H. Rehnquist assumes office as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court September 26 (see 1971). Appointed by President Reagan to succeed Warren Burger, who has retired, Rehnquist has been an associate justice since January 1972 and established a record as the most right-wing member of the high court that he will head into the 21st century. The Senate has confirmed his appointment by a margin of only 65 to 33; it has confirmed Trenton, N.J.-born jurist Antonin Scalia, 50, by a vote of 98 to 0 to fill the seat left vacant by Rehnquist, making him the first Italian-American to serve on the high court. Witty, opinionated, and not a believer in judicial restraint, Scalia will support constitutional liberties while sometimes taking positions even farther to the right than those of Rehnquist.

Congresswoman Barbara Ann Mikulski wins election to the U.S. Senate with help from $150,000 contributed by women on Emily's List (see 1985). Now 50, the Maryland politician is the first female Democrat to win a Senate seat.