Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72
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The Rumblings of Fanatics
From James M. Gavin – A Call to Duty: A Memoir
Shortly before Thanksgiving we received an interesting entreaty from the Middle East, one that neither Henry nor I could acknowledge openly, so we had to engage in a little subterfuge in order to meet with the person who wanted to talk to us.
I spent Thanksgiving at Camp David with Jean and the girls, a brief family respite from the turmoil of office, in one of the few perks of the Presidency that I truly enjoyed. It was a pleasant holiday, if far too short.
Early on Friday morning I flew out of Camp David disguised as an Army Corporal (I had held that rank once, briefly, fifty years earlier!) accompanied by a minimal Secret Service detail. The lead agent wore a Sergeant’s uniform, in what may have been an attempt to reinforce who was really the boss if my safety was endangered. At Dover Air Force Base we boarded a Gulf Stream executive jet which had Exxon Corporation markings, and that took us to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. There, in an ancient villa nestled in the foothills overlooking the capital city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife - which had once been the Governor’s palace (an office once held by Christopher Columbus and Francisco Franco himself) Henry greeted me in the company of Shafiq al-Hout, then the Palestinian Ruling Council’s delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.
Personal meetings with Yassir Arafat’s emissaries were politically dangerous because of the political firestorm that would arise if it ever came out. Israel would be highly offended, and the Israel lobby in America would be up in arms. I had no doubt that if word got out, there would be attempts to impeach me. But, Henry and I had met with Arafat’s representative Mahmood Abbas in Morocco the earlier in the year – under the strictest of security - and that exploratory meeting had gone well. Arafat had indicated through various intermediaries that al-Hout would be carrying an important message and that is should be received at the highest level. Henry and I had decided that I should continue the outreach to the PLO, even if it was kept secret, to signal the seriousness with which we took these feelers, and of our interest in the Palestinian side of things.
While it would have been difficult for my Administration if I had been caught meeting with al-Hout, the potential consequences were even more dire for Arafat and his inner circle. The United States was still closely aligned with Israel, and our actions in Syria had not won us many friends in the Arab Middle East. Hardliners in the Palestinian movement would no doubt have used the meeting to lambaste Arafat, perhaps using it to indicate that he was a weak leader and perhaps plotting to sell-out the PLO’s cause. Where I faced possible impeachment, Arafat was literally taking a chance that he might not only lose his position but his life if our talks became known beyond a narrow circle.
The three of us spent several minutes engaging in the niceties of small talk amidst the restored splendor of Spanish baroque furnishings, being watched over by a seventeenth century portrait of Columbus, and an even larger photograph of General Franco.
Al-Hout was a slight man with a soft voice; he was a writer and an intellectual who had been a founding member of the Palestinian Resistance, but who had lost out to the swashbucklers like Arafat in the struggle for control of what became the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Now he served as its voice to the UN, and as a diplomat for other delicate missions, such as this.
“It is the situation in Lebanon I come to speak to you about, Mr. President,” al-Hout confided once the small talk was over. “You are aware that Bayanouni sent his people to preach in our camps.”
“Yes, we’ve heard reports of that,” Henry confirmed. Tactfully, he didn’t add – from Israeli intelligence.
“It is true,” al Hout confirmed. “And he has found many receptive ears among the disposed of our brothers, especially the young. Much as a tent revivalist in your old west found willing recruits, so has Bayanouni. More so, now that he is dead and considered a martyr by some.”
“Why do you tell us this?” Henry asked.
“I carry a warning, Mr. President, from Chairman Arafat to you. Lebanon will erupt soon; the war in Syria will make this inevitable…”
“There is no war in Syria,” I began, “Just a peace …”
“Meaning no disrespect Mr. President, you may not recognize it as such, but a war has begun between you and the fanatics. Killing Bayanouni or re-taking Damascus did not end this. I apologize if my words are harsh, but you must understand that they are using this struggle to recruit soldiers to attack your forces, to attack us, to attack the Lebanese government. They see it as Jihad against the infidel, a sacred cause. Soon chaos will erupt.”
I did not know how to take his remarks, a warning or a threat?
“Do you have any information on when this will begin? Who will attack from where?” Henry asked him.
“They have already attacked; soon the attacks will grow more intense. I tell you now, Mr. President, you must defuse the situation in Syria, or I fear what comes next will sweep us all aside.”
“You speak for Chairman Arafat on this?” I asked.
“I speak for all sane men who wish to see a Palestinian homeland, Mr. President. You see, we are nationalists, but we are not fanatics, not like these followers of Bayanouni. A Middle East under their power would be hell on earth.”
“You will help us stop this?” I asked him.
“As long as we are not seen to do so, we can assist. But if we are exposed in this, then we are all dead men. The Chairman will risk his life, because the danger is this serious.”
Henry and I flew back to Dover on the executive jet and discussed what we had heard from al-Hout.
“He sounds paranoid,” I commented.
“I am not an Arabist, Mr. President,” Henry said “But I understand where his fear is coming from. The intelligence supplied by Meir and Dayan indicates that the Bayanouni message is spreading through the Palestinian camps in Lebanon like a virus. This the source of the PLO’s foot soldiers. The religious fanatics are disaffecting many of the youth – you heard al-Hout – the young are especially vulnerable to the message. This could very seriously undermine the secular nationalists in the PLO if it keeps up.”
“What can we do? I would like to withdraw our forces from Syria, but if we do that before that country is stabilized, we could face a repeat of the Bayanouni problem.”
“Perhaps, but the problem is not unique to Lebanon; it is being observed among the Palestinian populations in Jordan and Egypt as well. And, while I understand that al-Hout and Arafat are concentrating on their own people, this religious fanaticism has an appeal among some of the young and disgruntled in many other Arab countries, and even in Iran and Turkey. It is a very serious contagion which could spread out of control.”
“So, what is our solution, Henry?”
To this my chief global affairs strategist shrugged, not a very helpful response. “The best I can offer, Mr. President, and it is not a very good solution, is to develop some kind of counter-position that can at least deflect the Bayanouni message.”
“Such as?”
“We must find an Arab solution for the Syria problem.”
“Can we get the Soviets – and the Israelis – and the Turks – to go along with that?”
Henry didn’t have to say what was obviously on his mind – something to the effect that it would be easier to invent perpetual motion machine than achieve what I had just asked.
“See what we can do,” I said.
We were back in Dover by Saturday afternoon, and I slipped back into Camp David dressed as a corporal. When Jean and I returned to the White House on Sunday night, none in the press were the wiser to my secret trip.
Later that week I received another disturbing piece of news, this time in the form of a memo which came to me from the CIA. Ordinarily it should have come to me through the Director, Paul Nitze, but it didn’t. It was slipped to me on the sly by an old friend in the Agency and had come across this bit of intelligence which for some reason the Director had decided to keep from me. To protect my friend’s privacy and his professional reputation I won’t name him.
The memo I received was a digest of a South Korean Central Intelligence Agency memo which had been acquired by our station in Seoul and which, if it were known we had it, could prove quite explosive. I had no doubt it could also bring down the South Korean government itself, which added to its sensitivity.
The memo concerned the activities of an outfit called the Unification Church, a South Korean based cult which had been raising a lot of money from “uncertain sources” and spreading it around with that country’s ruling Democratic Justice Party. Since the recent assassination of President Park, and the subsequent alert of our forces in response to a war scare from Stalinist North Korea, there had been concern in our government about the stability of the South’s government. A number of our Korea analysts seemed convinced that the new President, Kim Jong-pil couldn’t hold the nation together, and that this had been signaled by the elevation of the KCIA spy chief to the post of Deputy President. Some were anticipating a power struggle between the two men sometime in the near future.
The Unification Church itself was run by an eccentric preacher named Sun Myung Moon, who preached a really odd-ball interpretation of Christianity, the upshot of which was that he was the second savior and that he was sent to make all mankind part of his church, which would replace all world governments with a theocracy ruled by him and replace all languages with Korean as the global language. It might have been laughable, except for the political influence he was gaining in South Korea, and the fact that he had been spreading his message here, picking-up American followers along the way. The report I received on Moon reported that the Agnew Administration had given him permanent resident alien status in the United States in April 1973, which had allowed Moon more freedom to engage in his recruiting and lobbying activities.
The KCIA internal memo which our Seoul station had sent to Washington read in part:
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars were earmarked for “special manipulation” of congressman: their staffs were to be infiltrated with paid collaborators to develop an intelligence network and a network of influence.” That network was to be grown to include the State Department, Treasury Department, the Pentagon and the White House.
“We may over time gain access to the inner workings of all part of the United States government.” It added chillingly, “once we have gained such influence we can then have a significant control over the choice of judges who are the arbiters of law in the United States. Then we can influence not only those who write the laws and those who enforce the laws, but also those who apply them in the courts and those who interpret their legal meanings.”
The report went on to list a series of right of center political groups which they thought would share their goals. This was premised on the Unification Church’s own opposition to liberal social policies and the what they identified as “the liberal agenda in America.” The memo alluded to a natural fit between the Church’s political ideology and that which it identified as “the American right.” Moon’s group would fund “a media infrastructure to support those political ideas of the right which will further our overall goals.”
No individuals in the United States were named as agents or targets of this campaign, but the thrust was clearly an effort to gain inordinate influence within the Republican Party, which the memo identified as “friendlier to the cause of free speech and capitalism; through which we can build our American network.”
In and of itself the memo was highly disturbing, but equally alarming was not only that the intelligence service of a supposedly friendly power had obtained this and not shared it with us, but that for some reason Director Nitze had sat on it once the CIA did obtain a copy. Given the reports I had been hearing from Bernie Rogers about what the CIA was up to in Syria, I began to further doubt the Agency’s Director.
Cap Weinberger and I discussed this memo – I decided to keep it a close secret because of the explosive nature of the allegations.
“Clearly we can’t sit on this,” Weinberger said. “We have a foreign private organization plotting to meddle in our political affairs – and that’s espionage plain and simple. I have to add that this reflects badly in the South Koreans. We should have President Kim account for his government’s silence on this.”
“I’m concerned that if we release this, or mishandle it, we could end-up with nothing but a kind of red scare or a witch hunt, with little to go on,” I said. “Worse if we go at this and come-up blanks, they could get away with it. At the same time I can’t let this pass.”
“So where do we go?”
I indicated that my preference was to let the FBI conduct an investigation of the Unification Church in the United States, along with involving the IRS in digging into some of the Church’s funding and financial activities. The memo, though not a complete airing of the Church’s questionable financial dealings, did contain a number of tantalizing hints. One was the use of the Diplomat National Bank right in Washington to funnel money from offshore accounts into the United States, which was a good starting point for investigating illegal money transactions. If it could be proven that Moon was violating the law, we could then remove his tax-exempt status and really start digging into his church’s activities.
“We’re going to have to be careful,” Weinberger warned, “that we don’t appear to be treading on the First Amendment here. That will be their first defense if we try to prosecute them openly.”
"This is not a church, this is an espionage organization and God knows what else,” I replied. Cap didn’t need me to tell him that.
After settling on a course of action Cap and I briefed in Nicholas Katzenbach, who advised us on some finer legal points, before we brought in Attorney General Wallace and FBI Director Smith.
It was Cliff Wallace who suggested that the enormity of this was going to require a special prosecutor, in part so that this did not appear to be a politically motivated attack on the Reverend Moon. As the Attorney General pointed out, “we don’t know where this could lead, but I willing to bet we’ll uncover a lot of nasty secrets once we start turning over the rocks on this. For that reason we want to keep it at arm’s length until we know just what kind of tiger we have by the tail here.”
After some more consultation between Cap, Nick and Cliff they agreed that the special prosecutor route was the best to go. Cliff Wallace suggested a man known for his integrity and for having a sharp mind; Elliot Richardson who had been Massachusetts Attorney General and who had served in Nixon’s Cabinet as HEW Secretary. He was currently in private practice.
While that was being set in motion, I had to turn my attention to the increasing problem of what Paul Nitze was doing over at the CIA. It was one thing for him to keep secrets – that was his job – but to interfere in policy, as his people were doing in Syria – and to keep explosive intelligence from the President – suggested that he was working on an agenda all his own. That kind of thing had contributed to the undoing of Johnson, Nixon and Agnew, and I wasn’t going to be the fourth on that list.
From James M. Gavin – A Call to Duty: A Memoir
Shortly before Thanksgiving we received an interesting entreaty from the Middle East, one that neither Henry nor I could acknowledge openly, so we had to engage in a little subterfuge in order to meet with the person who wanted to talk to us.
I spent Thanksgiving at Camp David with Jean and the girls, a brief family respite from the turmoil of office, in one of the few perks of the Presidency that I truly enjoyed. It was a pleasant holiday, if far too short.
Early on Friday morning I flew out of Camp David disguised as an Army Corporal (I had held that rank once, briefly, fifty years earlier!) accompanied by a minimal Secret Service detail. The lead agent wore a Sergeant’s uniform, in what may have been an attempt to reinforce who was really the boss if my safety was endangered. At Dover Air Force Base we boarded a Gulf Stream executive jet which had Exxon Corporation markings, and that took us to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. There, in an ancient villa nestled in the foothills overlooking the capital city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife - which had once been the Governor’s palace (an office once held by Christopher Columbus and Francisco Franco himself) Henry greeted me in the company of Shafiq al-Hout, then the Palestinian Ruling Council’s delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.
Personal meetings with Yassir Arafat’s emissaries were politically dangerous because of the political firestorm that would arise if it ever came out. Israel would be highly offended, and the Israel lobby in America would be up in arms. I had no doubt that if word got out, there would be attempts to impeach me. But, Henry and I had met with Arafat’s representative Mahmood Abbas in Morocco the earlier in the year – under the strictest of security - and that exploratory meeting had gone well. Arafat had indicated through various intermediaries that al-Hout would be carrying an important message and that is should be received at the highest level. Henry and I had decided that I should continue the outreach to the PLO, even if it was kept secret, to signal the seriousness with which we took these feelers, and of our interest in the Palestinian side of things.
While it would have been difficult for my Administration if I had been caught meeting with al-Hout, the potential consequences were even more dire for Arafat and his inner circle. The United States was still closely aligned with Israel, and our actions in Syria had not won us many friends in the Arab Middle East. Hardliners in the Palestinian movement would no doubt have used the meeting to lambaste Arafat, perhaps using it to indicate that he was a weak leader and perhaps plotting to sell-out the PLO’s cause. Where I faced possible impeachment, Arafat was literally taking a chance that he might not only lose his position but his life if our talks became known beyond a narrow circle.
The three of us spent several minutes engaging in the niceties of small talk amidst the restored splendor of Spanish baroque furnishings, being watched over by a seventeenth century portrait of Columbus, and an even larger photograph of General Franco.
Al-Hout was a slight man with a soft voice; he was a writer and an intellectual who had been a founding member of the Palestinian Resistance, but who had lost out to the swashbucklers like Arafat in the struggle for control of what became the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Now he served as its voice to the UN, and as a diplomat for other delicate missions, such as this.
“It is the situation in Lebanon I come to speak to you about, Mr. President,” al-Hout confided once the small talk was over. “You are aware that Bayanouni sent his people to preach in our camps.”
“Yes, we’ve heard reports of that,” Henry confirmed. Tactfully, he didn’t add – from Israeli intelligence.
“It is true,” al Hout confirmed. “And he has found many receptive ears among the disposed of our brothers, especially the young. Much as a tent revivalist in your old west found willing recruits, so has Bayanouni. More so, now that he is dead and considered a martyr by some.”
“Why do you tell us this?” Henry asked.
“I carry a warning, Mr. President, from Chairman Arafat to you. Lebanon will erupt soon; the war in Syria will make this inevitable…”
“There is no war in Syria,” I began, “Just a peace …”
“Meaning no disrespect Mr. President, you may not recognize it as such, but a war has begun between you and the fanatics. Killing Bayanouni or re-taking Damascus did not end this. I apologize if my words are harsh, but you must understand that they are using this struggle to recruit soldiers to attack your forces, to attack us, to attack the Lebanese government. They see it as Jihad against the infidel, a sacred cause. Soon chaos will erupt.”
I did not know how to take his remarks, a warning or a threat?
“Do you have any information on when this will begin? Who will attack from where?” Henry asked him.
“They have already attacked; soon the attacks will grow more intense. I tell you now, Mr. President, you must defuse the situation in Syria, or I fear what comes next will sweep us all aside.”
“You speak for Chairman Arafat on this?” I asked.
“I speak for all sane men who wish to see a Palestinian homeland, Mr. President. You see, we are nationalists, but we are not fanatics, not like these followers of Bayanouni. A Middle East under their power would be hell on earth.”
“You will help us stop this?” I asked him.
“As long as we are not seen to do so, we can assist. But if we are exposed in this, then we are all dead men. The Chairman will risk his life, because the danger is this serious.”
Henry and I flew back to Dover on the executive jet and discussed what we had heard from al-Hout.
“He sounds paranoid,” I commented.
“I am not an Arabist, Mr. President,” Henry said “But I understand where his fear is coming from. The intelligence supplied by Meir and Dayan indicates that the Bayanouni message is spreading through the Palestinian camps in Lebanon like a virus. This the source of the PLO’s foot soldiers. The religious fanatics are disaffecting many of the youth – you heard al-Hout – the young are especially vulnerable to the message. This could very seriously undermine the secular nationalists in the PLO if it keeps up.”
“What can we do? I would like to withdraw our forces from Syria, but if we do that before that country is stabilized, we could face a repeat of the Bayanouni problem.”
“Perhaps, but the problem is not unique to Lebanon; it is being observed among the Palestinian populations in Jordan and Egypt as well. And, while I understand that al-Hout and Arafat are concentrating on their own people, this religious fanaticism has an appeal among some of the young and disgruntled in many other Arab countries, and even in Iran and Turkey. It is a very serious contagion which could spread out of control.”
“So, what is our solution, Henry?”
To this my chief global affairs strategist shrugged, not a very helpful response. “The best I can offer, Mr. President, and it is not a very good solution, is to develop some kind of counter-position that can at least deflect the Bayanouni message.”
“Such as?”
“We must find an Arab solution for the Syria problem.”
“Can we get the Soviets – and the Israelis – and the Turks – to go along with that?”
Henry didn’t have to say what was obviously on his mind – something to the effect that it would be easier to invent perpetual motion machine than achieve what I had just asked.
“See what we can do,” I said.
We were back in Dover by Saturday afternoon, and I slipped back into Camp David dressed as a corporal. When Jean and I returned to the White House on Sunday night, none in the press were the wiser to my secret trip.
Later that week I received another disturbing piece of news, this time in the form of a memo which came to me from the CIA. Ordinarily it should have come to me through the Director, Paul Nitze, but it didn’t. It was slipped to me on the sly by an old friend in the Agency and had come across this bit of intelligence which for some reason the Director had decided to keep from me. To protect my friend’s privacy and his professional reputation I won’t name him.
The memo I received was a digest of a South Korean Central Intelligence Agency memo which had been acquired by our station in Seoul and which, if it were known we had it, could prove quite explosive. I had no doubt it could also bring down the South Korean government itself, which added to its sensitivity.
The memo concerned the activities of an outfit called the Unification Church, a South Korean based cult which had been raising a lot of money from “uncertain sources” and spreading it around with that country’s ruling Democratic Justice Party. Since the recent assassination of President Park, and the subsequent alert of our forces in response to a war scare from Stalinist North Korea, there had been concern in our government about the stability of the South’s government. A number of our Korea analysts seemed convinced that the new President, Kim Jong-pil couldn’t hold the nation together, and that this had been signaled by the elevation of the KCIA spy chief to the post of Deputy President. Some were anticipating a power struggle between the two men sometime in the near future.
The Unification Church itself was run by an eccentric preacher named Sun Myung Moon, who preached a really odd-ball interpretation of Christianity, the upshot of which was that he was the second savior and that he was sent to make all mankind part of his church, which would replace all world governments with a theocracy ruled by him and replace all languages with Korean as the global language. It might have been laughable, except for the political influence he was gaining in South Korea, and the fact that he had been spreading his message here, picking-up American followers along the way. The report I received on Moon reported that the Agnew Administration had given him permanent resident alien status in the United States in April 1973, which had allowed Moon more freedom to engage in his recruiting and lobbying activities.
The KCIA internal memo which our Seoul station had sent to Washington read in part:
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars were earmarked for “special manipulation” of congressman: their staffs were to be infiltrated with paid collaborators to develop an intelligence network and a network of influence.” That network was to be grown to include the State Department, Treasury Department, the Pentagon and the White House.
“We may over time gain access to the inner workings of all part of the United States government.” It added chillingly, “once we have gained such influence we can then have a significant control over the choice of judges who are the arbiters of law in the United States. Then we can influence not only those who write the laws and those who enforce the laws, but also those who apply them in the courts and those who interpret their legal meanings.”
The report went on to list a series of right of center political groups which they thought would share their goals. This was premised on the Unification Church’s own opposition to liberal social policies and the what they identified as “the liberal agenda in America.” The memo alluded to a natural fit between the Church’s political ideology and that which it identified as “the American right.” Moon’s group would fund “a media infrastructure to support those political ideas of the right which will further our overall goals.”
No individuals in the United States were named as agents or targets of this campaign, but the thrust was clearly an effort to gain inordinate influence within the Republican Party, which the memo identified as “friendlier to the cause of free speech and capitalism; through which we can build our American network.”
In and of itself the memo was highly disturbing, but equally alarming was not only that the intelligence service of a supposedly friendly power had obtained this and not shared it with us, but that for some reason Director Nitze had sat on it once the CIA did obtain a copy. Given the reports I had been hearing from Bernie Rogers about what the CIA was up to in Syria, I began to further doubt the Agency’s Director.
Cap Weinberger and I discussed this memo – I decided to keep it a close secret because of the explosive nature of the allegations.
“Clearly we can’t sit on this,” Weinberger said. “We have a foreign private organization plotting to meddle in our political affairs – and that’s espionage plain and simple. I have to add that this reflects badly in the South Koreans. We should have President Kim account for his government’s silence on this.”
“I’m concerned that if we release this, or mishandle it, we could end-up with nothing but a kind of red scare or a witch hunt, with little to go on,” I said. “Worse if we go at this and come-up blanks, they could get away with it. At the same time I can’t let this pass.”
“So where do we go?”
I indicated that my preference was to let the FBI conduct an investigation of the Unification Church in the United States, along with involving the IRS in digging into some of the Church’s funding and financial activities. The memo, though not a complete airing of the Church’s questionable financial dealings, did contain a number of tantalizing hints. One was the use of the Diplomat National Bank right in Washington to funnel money from offshore accounts into the United States, which was a good starting point for investigating illegal money transactions. If it could be proven that Moon was violating the law, we could then remove his tax-exempt status and really start digging into his church’s activities.
“We’re going to have to be careful,” Weinberger warned, “that we don’t appear to be treading on the First Amendment here. That will be their first defense if we try to prosecute them openly.”
"This is not a church, this is an espionage organization and God knows what else,” I replied. Cap didn’t need me to tell him that.
After settling on a course of action Cap and I briefed in Nicholas Katzenbach, who advised us on some finer legal points, before we brought in Attorney General Wallace and FBI Director Smith.
It was Cliff Wallace who suggested that the enormity of this was going to require a special prosecutor, in part so that this did not appear to be a politically motivated attack on the Reverend Moon. As the Attorney General pointed out, “we don’t know where this could lead, but I willing to bet we’ll uncover a lot of nasty secrets once we start turning over the rocks on this. For that reason we want to keep it at arm’s length until we know just what kind of tiger we have by the tail here.”
After some more consultation between Cap, Nick and Cliff they agreed that the special prosecutor route was the best to go. Cliff Wallace suggested a man known for his integrity and for having a sharp mind; Elliot Richardson who had been Massachusetts Attorney General and who had served in Nixon’s Cabinet as HEW Secretary. He was currently in private practice.
While that was being set in motion, I had to turn my attention to the increasing problem of what Paul Nitze was doing over at the CIA. It was one thing for him to keep secrets – that was his job – but to interfere in policy, as his people were doing in Syria – and to keep explosive intelligence from the President – suggested that he was working on an agenda all his own. That kind of thing had contributed to the undoing of Johnson, Nixon and Agnew, and I wasn’t going to be the fourth on that list.
Peace on Earth? Not this Christmas
November 2, 1974
The Atlanta Braves trade Hank Aaron to Milwaukee Brewers for OF Dave May.
78 die when the Time Go-Go Club in Seoul, South Korea burns down. Six of the victims jumped to their deaths from the seventh floor after a club official barred the doors after the fire started.
November 5, 1974
Ella Grasso elected Governor of Connecticut. She becomes the first female Governor in the United States who is elected who is not a close relative of a previous Governor of her state.
Walter E. Washington, becomes the first elected mayor of Washington DC.
November 6, 1974
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Mike Marshall becomes the first relief pitcher to win Cy Young Award.
November 12, 1974
South Africa is suspended from UN General Assembly over racial policies.
November 13, 1974
PLO leader Yasser Arafat gives a landmark address to the United Nations General Assembly, during which he warns of “ominous new forces which are seeking to consume the Middle East in a storm of ancient hatreds and fanaticism.”
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Steve Garvey wins NL MVP
November 16, 1974
The Arecibo radio telescope sends an interstellar radio message towards the M13 Great Globular Cluster. The message will reach its destination around the year 27,000.
November 20, 1974
British Police and Military authorities announce that they have broken up a plot by the PIRA to detonate two bombs in pubs in Birmingham, England. Over forty suspected PIRA collaborators are rounded-up and interned in connection with this plot,
Margaret Thatcher: “This is why we must be ever vigilant against these criminals. We can never let-up, not for one minute until they are utterly destroyed.”
In a major speech before the Supreme Soviet, Soviet Communist Party Deputy General Secretary Mikhail Suslov announces, “that our commitment to détente cannot overshadow the world march toward Socialist victory. One need only look at the situation in France to understand how the reactionaries will attempt to stall the liberation of the world’s masses. Let no one be in doubt of our dedication to the Socialist liberation of all human kind.” Suslov is given a standing ovation. Leonid Brezhnev, the nominal head of State and Party General Secretary is not seen at the important Party and State meeting.
The United States Justice Department files an anti-trust suit aimed at breaking-up A.T.&T.’s national telephone service monopoly.
November 21, 1974
The lame-duck 93rd Congress passes the Freedom of Information Act. President Gavin signs it into law on November 23.
November 22, 1974
The United Nations General Assembly grants the Palestine Liberation Organization observer status.
In the California gubernatorial election campaign a three judge panel of the California Court of Appeals which supervised a state-wide recount of the November 5th balloting rules by a 2-1 vote that an additional 17 votes for Goldwater from Orange County be counted, and that sixty-five questionable votes for Brown identified in Los Angeles and San Francisco Counties be discarded. This ruling awards the election to Representative Barry Goldwater on the strength of an eighty-vote margin.
Jerry Brown’s campaign immediately appeals this finding to the California Supreme Court, which extends a stay on the three-judge panel’s findings until it can review the facts.
November 24, 1974
A skeleton from the hominid species Australopithecus Afarensis is discovered and named Lucy.
November 25, 1974
The PIRA carried out three bomb attacks in the centre of London. In each case a small bomb with a timer was placed inside a post office pillar-box. The first bomb exploded at 5.50pm in King's Cross and injured two people. The second bomb exploded at 6.00pm in a pillar-box in Piccadilly Circus injuring 16 people. The final bomb exploded at 6.50pm outside Victoria Station and two people were injured.
In a statement the PIRA paraphrases Margaret Thatcher saying, “We will never let-up, not until our homeland is free. The question is, will you let Bloody Maggie Thatcher and her stubbornness destroy your land?”
November 26, 1974
Japan's Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka announces he will resign in the face of financial scandals. 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 9.
November 27, 1974
The PIRA carried out two bomb attacks near an Army museum in Tite Street, Chelsea, London. Initially a small bomb exploded in a post office pillar-box at 8.30pm. Approximately 20 minutes later a second, larger bomb, exploded behind a hedge just a short distance away from the first explosion. Twenty people were injured in the second explosion including an explosives officer, six policemen and two ambulance men. [The tactic of the 'come-on' bomb was one which the PIRA used on many occasions in Northern Ireland.]
November 29-30, 1974
British authorities thwart a PIRA bomb plot in the Belgravia section of London. Six people are killed by police during arrests, some of whom may be innocent bystanders.
December 1, 1974
A Boeing 727 carrying TWA Flight 514 crashes 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Dulles International Airport during bad weather, killing all 92 people on board.
MLB rules that cowhide, rather than just horsehide, can be used to make baseballs.
December 4, 1974
A Dutch DC-8 charter crashes in Sri Lanka killing 191 Muslim pilgrims. Rumors circulate in Islamic countries that non-Muslim forces deliberately shot down the aircraft.
December 5, 1974
“Monty Python's Flying Circus" last shown on BBC.
Despite a co-habitation accord between them, relations between Socialist President Francois Mitterand and Gaullist Prime Minister Olivier Guichard remain tense. News reports indicate that Guichard is facing calls to resign from within his own UDR Party.
December 6 – 8, 1974
Soyuz 16 orbits the Earth.
The California Supreme Court rules that the questionable sixty-five votes cast for Brown in Los Angeles and San Francisco Counties during the California gubernatorial election were improperly disqualified by the three judge panel, but makes no ruling as to the seventeen extra votes for Goldwater from Orange County. On the strength of this finding the California Supreme Court awards the gubernatorial election to Jerry Brown.
The Goldwater campaign immediately gets a stay from the U.S. Federal District Court in Sacramento, and challenges the California Supreme Court ruling under the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. Specifically, Goldwater’s attorneys argue that the Court has left in place a count of illegal votes.
December 9, 1974
The Paris summit, reuniting the European communities' heads of state and government, commences. A deep ideological split between President Mitterand and Prime Minister Heath characterizes it. A plan to create a European parliament is put on hold because of disagreements between Britain, France and West Germany.
December 10, 1974
The Feakle incident. Senior representatives of the PIRA held secret talks with a group of eight Protestant clergymen from Northern Ireland at Smyth's Village Hotel in Feakle, County Clare, Republic of Ireland. Ruairi O’Bradaigh, Daithi O’Conaill, Maire Drumm and three others represented the PIRA. Among the group of clergymen were: Dr Arthur Butler, Dr Jack Weir, Revd Ralph Baxter and Revd William Arlow. In the ensuing hour of their meeting they were interrupted by armed men and all eleven people were killed. The British authorities claimed it was the work of the PIRA, while the PIRA blamed British authorities. Irish authorities, in whose territory the killings took place, publicly blame Ulster loyalist paramilitaries, but private correspondence within the Irish government indicates that Irish police suspect that the British SAS were behind it; calling the incident “an assassination.”
A secret CIA report on the incident states "British government collusion with the assassins in this incident, whether by direct design or unintended coincidence, cannot be ruled out. We find the theory of PIRA complicity in this incident to be less than wholly convincing."
December 11, 1974
A debate on the reintroduction of capital punishment for acts of terrorism was held in the House of Commons, London. The specific motion came in the form of an amendment which was proposed by a Conservative MP. Margaret Thatcher speaks in favour of the amendment while Barbara Castle calls it “the utmost horror”. Following a five-hour debate the amendment was passed by a free vote of 320 to 318.
While the debate was taking place the PIRA carried out a bomb attack on the Long Bar of the Naval and Military Club in Piccadilly, London. At 6.30pm PIRA members threw a small bomb through the window of the bar; no one was injured. As two PIRA members were leaving the scene they were followed by a taxicab and they fired two shots at the driver; the driver was not injured. Almost at the same time a second group of PIRA members carried out a gun attack on the Cavalry Club; again there were no injuries.
December 13, 1974
Malta is declared a Republic.
December 14, 1974
The PIRA carried out a gun attack on a joint British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol near Forkhill, County Armagh. An RUC officer died at the scene and a soldier died on 30 December 1974 from injuries received.
Three PIRA gunmen are shot dead while attempting a gun attack on the Churchill Hotel in Portman Square, London. Three bystanders were slightly injured by flying glass, while a fourth was wounded. There is a dispute as whether he was shot by the PIRA or the police.
December 17, 1974
The World Intellectual Property Organization becomes a specialized agency of the United Nations.
December 19, 1974
The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, goes on sale. The poor economy guarantees that sales are limited.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out a bomb attack on Selfridge's department store in Oxford Street, London. A time bomb had been placed in a car which was then parked outside the store. Three telephone warnings were given and the area was evacuated. [The explosion was later estimated to have caused £1.5 million pounds worth of damage.]
December 20, 1974
Ethiopia becomes a one-party Socialist Republic.
A bomb left by the IRA on a platform of the railway station in Aldershot, England, detonates as explosives officers try to defuse it.
December 21, 1974
A PIRA bomb explodes at Harrod’s, killing twelve and wounding upwards of twenty-eight shoppers. Controversy erupts as to whether or not there was a phone warning in advance, and whether the store ignored it.
Another unexploded bomb was discovered and defused at the King's Arms public house in Warminster, Wiltshire.
The U.S. Federal District Court in Sacramento upholds the California Supreme Court decision, although it does trim Brown’s fifty-vote margin by twenty “questionable” votes that the judge rules are invalid.
The Goldwater campaign immediately secures another stay on the court ruling while it appeals the judgment to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
December 22, 1974
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" 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.
Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mohéli vote to become the independent nation of Comoros. Mayotte remains under French administration.
The PIRA carried out a bomb attack on the personal home of British Prime Minister Edward Heath, in Wilton Street, Belgravia, London. A small bomb with a short fuse was thrown onto the first-floor balcony of Heath's flat. The bomb caused extensive damage but Heath was not present and there were no injuries.
December 23, 1974
British Opposition leader Denis Healey tours Northern Ireland in an effort to start reconciliation talks: Feces are thrown at him by Unionist protestors.
December 24–25, 1974
Darwin, Australia is almost completely destroyed by Cyclone Tracy.
On December 25, 1974, Marshall Fields crashed his Chevrolet Impala into the Northwest Gate of the White House complex. Dressed in Arab clothing, Fields claimed that he was the Messiah and that he was laden with explosives. He drove up to the North Portico and positioned himself only several feet from the front door. During the subsequent stand-off he was shot and killed by the Secret Service. The explosives he claimed to be in possession of were discovered to be flares. President Gavin and his family were not home at the time.
December 26, 1974
The Soviet Union launches Salyut 4.
December 29, 1974
PIRA prisoners at Portlaoise Prison in the Republic of Ireland held a number of prison officers hostage and caused considerable damage in protests for better conditions. Troops were used to regain control and the prison officers were freed unharmed.
British film actor Roger Moore is kidnapped from his home in Denham, near Pinewood Studios. Moore’s latest James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun had just been released ten days earlier. The PIRA later claimed responsibility and demanded the release of forty internees in release for the safe return of “James Bond.” As one PIRA statement put it: “Not even James Bond is safe from us. Give us our land and go home, and will send Commander Bond right along safe and sound to save the world another day.”
December 30, 1974
After four years of legal wrangling the Beatles are legally dissolved.
The Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the California election recount was conducted with all propriety, and chastises the California Supreme Court in overruling the judgment of the three judge panel (court of first instance).
“This Court recognizes that there were some irregularities in the casting of ballots in this election, which the court of first instance was asked to address, and which it did. In our review of the facts we find that we cannot in good faith arbitrarily cast aside the informed deliberations of that court, whose learned members operated under the electoral laws of the State of California in formulating its final holding on the matter.
"The predominant standard for any case of electoral dispute must be to make, as best possible, is as close an interpretation of the wishes of the electorate as is possible, for an election is in the end a statement of the electorate's will. The Courts should not interpose themselves between the people and their expressed wishes as demonstrated at the ballot box. In a democracy, the people and not the courts have the final say over who shall govern them.
"In this case, the closeness of the race gave rise to a valid disputation of the result, which was then addressed by finders of fact who operated in accordance to the electoral laws as legislated by the California State Legislature, and signed into law by the State Executive. The Court of first instance supervised a state-wide recount and ruled in each case where some dispute occurred in accordance with the electoral laws of the State of California. There was no departure from that procedure or the legal standard underling it by the three qualified jurists from the bench of the State Court of Appeals who composed this panel and reviewed the issues at hand to render a determination based upon their findings of the law and the facts. Further in our review have uncovered no fact or failure of law which on its face would represent a reversible error on their part.
"The California Supreme Court has now interposed its jurisdiction to nullify their findings and reach a differing conclusion, arguing that the reasoning of the court of first instance was flawed in determining which ballots were and were not qualified to be counted. Yet, on examining the facts in the case as reviewed by the court of first instance, we can find no fundamental flaw in their conclusion, or in the method by which it was reached. The consideration of the "flawed" votes was addressed in an adequate and proper manner in the deliberations of this panel, which has provided ample support for their reasoning. Rather we find in the action of the California Supreme Court reflects an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges to make the critical decisions necessary in a vote recount, especially in a case where the outcome hangs on a few votes. This, and no new finding of fact or law, seems to underpin the California Supreme Court's holding. Instead of addressing a valid point of law, the Court appears to be imposing a preference of its own choosing on these proceedings according to an arbitrary standard it has set for itself, which has no basis in the prevailing law. Why else count the disputed votes from San Francisco and Los Angeles Counties, yet not the ones from Orange County, which the court of first instance found no valid grounds to dispute? Is this not a case of selective re-assessment of the facts to suit a predetermined conclusion? The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court, in these circumstances, can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law, and which has been undermined by this finding. We see no valid reason to second-guess the work of the original panel in this case.
"Finally we must look at the merits of the petitioner's case. The Petitioner (Goldwater) argues that the California Supreme Court unfairly violated his right to equal protection under the Constitution by imposing its conclusion on the recount conducted by the court of first instance. The respondent (Brown) argues that the court of first instance erred in its conclusions, and that the California Supreme Court rectified this wrong by setting aside their finding and imposing one of its own.
"This court finds that there is a third issue at stake here, one which neither petitioner nor respondent have adequately addressed, but one which the respondent in particular should have some familiarity with. Unless the situation is dire, the courts should not become involved in electoral disputes to the extent that their actions would decide the outcome of an election, as would be the case here. Were this court to find otherwise we would forever taint the efficacy of the electoral process and provide a precedent whereby litigation might become the normal tool for reversing an electoral result which one side didn't like.
"If this court were to second guess the work of the court of first instance we would find ourselves making the decision as to who should serve as the next Governor of California. Absent some fundamental flaw in legal reasoning, or a direct finding of fact which would in itself adversely change the outcome at the ballot box, Courts should never assume this role. We see nothing in the work of the court of first instance which this court finds intolerable or beyond the legal powers of that panel, and our review of their work concludes that there is nothing in it which even approaches the standard outlined above. That court endeavored to interpret as best possible the intent of the voter, and provided adequate reasoning in its application of that standard.
"Accordingly we set aside the finding of the California Supreme Court and find for the petitioner, re-instating the original finding of the court of first instance and the results it arrived at through a carefully conducted re-count of the ballots cast."
This ruling re-affirms Barry Goldwater Jr. as the Governor-elect of the state of California.
Jerry Brown announces that he will appeal this decision to the United States Supreme Court.
Brown: “I’m deeply disappointed by this ruling; clearly the Court has stepped away from the right move, which is to reject the recount, and in so doing has rewarded dishonest politics. I will not give-up the fight; I will persevere to the end and I am confident that the people of California are with me. My fight is for their right to the clean, honest government of their choice."
Goldwater: “Today the Ninth Circuit, with whose past rulings I have had many disagreements, has proved that its judges do understand the Constitution and the rights of the people. Now, I won't let-up on the liberal judges who work in this building, not one bit, but I will thank the court for understanding its proper Constitutional role."
December 31, 1974
US casualties in Syria reach 77 dead.
The British band Fleetwood Mack dissolves.
NY Yankees sign Jim "Catfish" Hunter to 5 yrs for record $3.75 million. In a time of recession (depression) this amount being paid to a baseball player causes controversy over the overpayment of athletes in professional sports.
November 2, 1974
The Atlanta Braves trade Hank Aaron to Milwaukee Brewers for OF Dave May.
78 die when the Time Go-Go Club in Seoul, South Korea burns down. Six of the victims jumped to their deaths from the seventh floor after a club official barred the doors after the fire started.
November 5, 1974
Ella Grasso elected Governor of Connecticut. She becomes the first female Governor in the United States who is elected who is not a close relative of a previous Governor of her state.
Walter E. Washington, becomes the first elected mayor of Washington DC.
November 6, 1974
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Mike Marshall becomes the first relief pitcher to win Cy Young Award.
November 12, 1974
South Africa is suspended from UN General Assembly over racial policies.
November 13, 1974
PLO leader Yasser Arafat gives a landmark address to the United Nations General Assembly, during which he warns of “ominous new forces which are seeking to consume the Middle East in a storm of ancient hatreds and fanaticism.”
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Steve Garvey wins NL MVP
November 16, 1974
The Arecibo radio telescope sends an interstellar radio message towards the M13 Great Globular Cluster. The message will reach its destination around the year 27,000.
November 20, 1974
British Police and Military authorities announce that they have broken up a plot by the PIRA to detonate two bombs in pubs in Birmingham, England. Over forty suspected PIRA collaborators are rounded-up and interned in connection with this plot,
Margaret Thatcher: “This is why we must be ever vigilant against these criminals. We can never let-up, not for one minute until they are utterly destroyed.”
In a major speech before the Supreme Soviet, Soviet Communist Party Deputy General Secretary Mikhail Suslov announces, “that our commitment to détente cannot overshadow the world march toward Socialist victory. One need only look at the situation in France to understand how the reactionaries will attempt to stall the liberation of the world’s masses. Let no one be in doubt of our dedication to the Socialist liberation of all human kind.” Suslov is given a standing ovation. Leonid Brezhnev, the nominal head of State and Party General Secretary is not seen at the important Party and State meeting.
The United States Justice Department files an anti-trust suit aimed at breaking-up A.T.&T.’s national telephone service monopoly.
November 21, 1974
The lame-duck 93rd Congress passes the Freedom of Information Act. President Gavin signs it into law on November 23.
November 22, 1974
The United Nations General Assembly grants the Palestine Liberation Organization observer status.
In the California gubernatorial election campaign a three judge panel of the California Court of Appeals which supervised a state-wide recount of the November 5th balloting rules by a 2-1 vote that an additional 17 votes for Goldwater from Orange County be counted, and that sixty-five questionable votes for Brown identified in Los Angeles and San Francisco Counties be discarded. This ruling awards the election to Representative Barry Goldwater on the strength of an eighty-vote margin.
Jerry Brown’s campaign immediately appeals this finding to the California Supreme Court, which extends a stay on the three-judge panel’s findings until it can review the facts.
November 24, 1974
A skeleton from the hominid species Australopithecus Afarensis is discovered and named Lucy.
November 25, 1974
The PIRA carried out three bomb attacks in the centre of London. In each case a small bomb with a timer was placed inside a post office pillar-box. The first bomb exploded at 5.50pm in King's Cross and injured two people. The second bomb exploded at 6.00pm in a pillar-box in Piccadilly Circus injuring 16 people. The final bomb exploded at 6.50pm outside Victoria Station and two people were injured.
In a statement the PIRA paraphrases Margaret Thatcher saying, “We will never let-up, not until our homeland is free. The question is, will you let Bloody Maggie Thatcher and her stubbornness destroy your land?”
November 26, 1974
Japan's Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka announces he will resign in the face of financial scandals. 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 9.
November 27, 1974
The PIRA carried out two bomb attacks near an Army museum in Tite Street, Chelsea, London. Initially a small bomb exploded in a post office pillar-box at 8.30pm. Approximately 20 minutes later a second, larger bomb, exploded behind a hedge just a short distance away from the first explosion. Twenty people were injured in the second explosion including an explosives officer, six policemen and two ambulance men. [The tactic of the 'come-on' bomb was one which the PIRA used on many occasions in Northern Ireland.]
November 29-30, 1974
British authorities thwart a PIRA bomb plot in the Belgravia section of London. Six people are killed by police during arrests, some of whom may be innocent bystanders.
December 1, 1974
A Boeing 727 carrying TWA Flight 514 crashes 25 miles (40 km) northwest of Dulles International Airport during bad weather, killing all 92 people on board.
MLB rules that cowhide, rather than just horsehide, can be used to make baseballs.
December 4, 1974
A Dutch DC-8 charter crashes in Sri Lanka killing 191 Muslim pilgrims. Rumors circulate in Islamic countries that non-Muslim forces deliberately shot down the aircraft.
December 5, 1974
“Monty Python's Flying Circus" last shown on BBC.
Despite a co-habitation accord between them, relations between Socialist President Francois Mitterand and Gaullist Prime Minister Olivier Guichard remain tense. News reports indicate that Guichard is facing calls to resign from within his own UDR Party.
December 6 – 8, 1974
Soyuz 16 orbits the Earth.
The California Supreme Court rules that the questionable sixty-five votes cast for Brown in Los Angeles and San Francisco Counties during the California gubernatorial election were improperly disqualified by the three judge panel, but makes no ruling as to the seventeen extra votes for Goldwater from Orange County. On the strength of this finding the California Supreme Court awards the gubernatorial election to Jerry Brown.
The Goldwater campaign immediately gets a stay from the U.S. Federal District Court in Sacramento, and challenges the California Supreme Court ruling under the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. Specifically, Goldwater’s attorneys argue that the Court has left in place a count of illegal votes.
December 9, 1974
The Paris summit, reuniting the European communities' heads of state and government, commences. A deep ideological split between President Mitterand and Prime Minister Heath characterizes it. A plan to create a European parliament is put on hold because of disagreements between Britain, France and West Germany.
December 10, 1974
The Feakle incident. Senior representatives of the PIRA held secret talks with a group of eight Protestant clergymen from Northern Ireland at Smyth's Village Hotel in Feakle, County Clare, Republic of Ireland. Ruairi O’Bradaigh, Daithi O’Conaill, Maire Drumm and three others represented the PIRA. Among the group of clergymen were: Dr Arthur Butler, Dr Jack Weir, Revd Ralph Baxter and Revd William Arlow. In the ensuing hour of their meeting they were interrupted by armed men and all eleven people were killed. The British authorities claimed it was the work of the PIRA, while the PIRA blamed British authorities. Irish authorities, in whose territory the killings took place, publicly blame Ulster loyalist paramilitaries, but private correspondence within the Irish government indicates that Irish police suspect that the British SAS were behind it; calling the incident “an assassination.”
A secret CIA report on the incident states "British government collusion with the assassins in this incident, whether by direct design or unintended coincidence, cannot be ruled out. We find the theory of PIRA complicity in this incident to be less than wholly convincing."
December 11, 1974
A debate on the reintroduction of capital punishment for acts of terrorism was held in the House of Commons, London. The specific motion came in the form of an amendment which was proposed by a Conservative MP. Margaret Thatcher speaks in favour of the amendment while Barbara Castle calls it “the utmost horror”. Following a five-hour debate the amendment was passed by a free vote of 320 to 318.
While the debate was taking place the PIRA carried out a bomb attack on the Long Bar of the Naval and Military Club in Piccadilly, London. At 6.30pm PIRA members threw a small bomb through the window of the bar; no one was injured. As two PIRA members were leaving the scene they were followed by a taxicab and they fired two shots at the driver; the driver was not injured. Almost at the same time a second group of PIRA members carried out a gun attack on the Cavalry Club; again there were no injuries.
December 13, 1974
Malta is declared a Republic.
December 14, 1974
The PIRA carried out a gun attack on a joint British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) foot patrol near Forkhill, County Armagh. An RUC officer died at the scene and a soldier died on 30 December 1974 from injuries received.
Three PIRA gunmen are shot dead while attempting a gun attack on the Churchill Hotel in Portman Square, London. Three bystanders were slightly injured by flying glass, while a fourth was wounded. There is a dispute as whether he was shot by the PIRA or the police.
December 17, 1974
The World Intellectual Property Organization becomes a specialized agency of the United Nations.
December 19, 1974
The Altair 8800, the first personal computer, goes on sale. The poor economy guarantees that sales are limited.
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out a bomb attack on Selfridge's department store in Oxford Street, London. A time bomb had been placed in a car which was then parked outside the store. Three telephone warnings were given and the area was evacuated. [The explosion was later estimated to have caused £1.5 million pounds worth of damage.]
December 20, 1974
Ethiopia becomes a one-party Socialist Republic.
A bomb left by the IRA on a platform of the railway station in Aldershot, England, detonates as explosives officers try to defuse it.
December 21, 1974
A PIRA bomb explodes at Harrod’s, killing twelve and wounding upwards of twenty-eight shoppers. Controversy erupts as to whether or not there was a phone warning in advance, and whether the store ignored it.
Another unexploded bomb was discovered and defused at the King's Arms public house in Warminster, Wiltshire.
The U.S. Federal District Court in Sacramento upholds the California Supreme Court decision, although it does trim Brown’s fifty-vote margin by twenty “questionable” votes that the judge rules are invalid.
The Goldwater campaign immediately secures another stay on the court ruling while it appeals the judgment to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
December 22, 1974
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" 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.
Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mohéli vote to become the independent nation of Comoros. Mayotte remains under French administration.
The PIRA carried out a bomb attack on the personal home of British Prime Minister Edward Heath, in Wilton Street, Belgravia, London. A small bomb with a short fuse was thrown onto the first-floor balcony of Heath's flat. The bomb caused extensive damage but Heath was not present and there were no injuries.
December 23, 1974
British Opposition leader Denis Healey tours Northern Ireland in an effort to start reconciliation talks: Feces are thrown at him by Unionist protestors.
December 24–25, 1974
Darwin, Australia is almost completely destroyed by Cyclone Tracy.
On December 25, 1974, Marshall Fields crashed his Chevrolet Impala into the Northwest Gate of the White House complex. Dressed in Arab clothing, Fields claimed that he was the Messiah and that he was laden with explosives. He drove up to the North Portico and positioned himself only several feet from the front door. During the subsequent stand-off he was shot and killed by the Secret Service. The explosives he claimed to be in possession of were discovered to be flares. President Gavin and his family were not home at the time.
December 26, 1974
The Soviet Union launches Salyut 4.
December 29, 1974
PIRA prisoners at Portlaoise Prison in the Republic of Ireland held a number of prison officers hostage and caused considerable damage in protests for better conditions. Troops were used to regain control and the prison officers were freed unharmed.
British film actor Roger Moore is kidnapped from his home in Denham, near Pinewood Studios. Moore’s latest James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun had just been released ten days earlier. The PIRA later claimed responsibility and demanded the release of forty internees in release for the safe return of “James Bond.” As one PIRA statement put it: “Not even James Bond is safe from us. Give us our land and go home, and will send Commander Bond right along safe and sound to save the world another day.”
December 30, 1974
After four years of legal wrangling the Beatles are legally dissolved.
The Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the California election recount was conducted with all propriety, and chastises the California Supreme Court in overruling the judgment of the three judge panel (court of first instance).
“This Court recognizes that there were some irregularities in the casting of ballots in this election, which the court of first instance was asked to address, and which it did. In our review of the facts we find that we cannot in good faith arbitrarily cast aside the informed deliberations of that court, whose learned members operated under the electoral laws of the State of California in formulating its final holding on the matter.
"The predominant standard for any case of electoral dispute must be to make, as best possible, is as close an interpretation of the wishes of the electorate as is possible, for an election is in the end a statement of the electorate's will. The Courts should not interpose themselves between the people and their expressed wishes as demonstrated at the ballot box. In a democracy, the people and not the courts have the final say over who shall govern them.
"In this case, the closeness of the race gave rise to a valid disputation of the result, which was then addressed by finders of fact who operated in accordance to the electoral laws as legislated by the California State Legislature, and signed into law by the State Executive. The Court of first instance supervised a state-wide recount and ruled in each case where some dispute occurred in accordance with the electoral laws of the State of California. There was no departure from that procedure or the legal standard underling it by the three qualified jurists from the bench of the State Court of Appeals who composed this panel and reviewed the issues at hand to render a determination based upon their findings of the law and the facts. Further in our review have uncovered no fact or failure of law which on its face would represent a reversible error on their part.
"The California Supreme Court has now interposed its jurisdiction to nullify their findings and reach a differing conclusion, arguing that the reasoning of the court of first instance was flawed in determining which ballots were and were not qualified to be counted. Yet, on examining the facts in the case as reviewed by the court of first instance, we can find no fundamental flaw in their conclusion, or in the method by which it was reached. The consideration of the "flawed" votes was addressed in an adequate and proper manner in the deliberations of this panel, which has provided ample support for their reasoning. Rather we find in the action of the California Supreme Court reflects an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges to make the critical decisions necessary in a vote recount, especially in a case where the outcome hangs on a few votes. This, and no new finding of fact or law, seems to underpin the California Supreme Court's holding. Instead of addressing a valid point of law, the Court appears to be imposing a preference of its own choosing on these proceedings according to an arbitrary standard it has set for itself, which has no basis in the prevailing law. Why else count the disputed votes from San Francisco and Los Angeles Counties, yet not the ones from Orange County, which the court of first instance found no valid grounds to dispute? Is this not a case of selective re-assessment of the facts to suit a predetermined conclusion? The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court, in these circumstances, can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law, and which has been undermined by this finding. We see no valid reason to second-guess the work of the original panel in this case.
"Finally we must look at the merits of the petitioner's case. The Petitioner (Goldwater) argues that the California Supreme Court unfairly violated his right to equal protection under the Constitution by imposing its conclusion on the recount conducted by the court of first instance. The respondent (Brown) argues that the court of first instance erred in its conclusions, and that the California Supreme Court rectified this wrong by setting aside their finding and imposing one of its own.
"This court finds that there is a third issue at stake here, one which neither petitioner nor respondent have adequately addressed, but one which the respondent in particular should have some familiarity with. Unless the situation is dire, the courts should not become involved in electoral disputes to the extent that their actions would decide the outcome of an election, as would be the case here. Were this court to find otherwise we would forever taint the efficacy of the electoral process and provide a precedent whereby litigation might become the normal tool for reversing an electoral result which one side didn't like.
"If this court were to second guess the work of the court of first instance we would find ourselves making the decision as to who should serve as the next Governor of California. Absent some fundamental flaw in legal reasoning, or a direct finding of fact which would in itself adversely change the outcome at the ballot box, Courts should never assume this role. We see nothing in the work of the court of first instance which this court finds intolerable or beyond the legal powers of that panel, and our review of their work concludes that there is nothing in it which even approaches the standard outlined above. That court endeavored to interpret as best possible the intent of the voter, and provided adequate reasoning in its application of that standard.
"Accordingly we set aside the finding of the California Supreme Court and find for the petitioner, re-instating the original finding of the court of first instance and the results it arrived at through a carefully conducted re-count of the ballots cast."
This ruling re-affirms Barry Goldwater Jr. as the Governor-elect of the state of California.
Jerry Brown announces that he will appeal this decision to the United States Supreme Court.
Brown: “I’m deeply disappointed by this ruling; clearly the Court has stepped away from the right move, which is to reject the recount, and in so doing has rewarded dishonest politics. I will not give-up the fight; I will persevere to the end and I am confident that the people of California are with me. My fight is for their right to the clean, honest government of their choice."
Goldwater: “Today the Ninth Circuit, with whose past rulings I have had many disagreements, has proved that its judges do understand the Constitution and the rights of the people. Now, I won't let-up on the liberal judges who work in this building, not one bit, but I will thank the court for understanding its proper Constitutional role."
December 31, 1974
US casualties in Syria reach 77 dead.
The British band Fleetwood Mack dissolves.
NY Yankees sign Jim "Catfish" Hunter to 5 yrs for record $3.75 million. In a time of recession (depression) this amount being paid to a baseball player causes controversy over the overpayment of athletes in professional sports.
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Hmm....to be blunt, this bugs me.
This wouldn't be the language they'd use, exactly. There is no precedent for re-doing an election simply because it's a "statistical tie", or an actual tie for that matter, nor would the court want to open that door. (Because then every close result could potentially be appealed into a re-do.)
If the court does order such, they would probably use the logic described here, and claim that the election produced a "non-result".
Even so...I think you should re-consider this result. While the idea of re-dos have come up in legal thinking, I suspect there's a good reason they rarely happen -- forcing a (costly!) special election every time there's a disputed, close vote could lead to chaos. (Especially in light of the '72 elections.) If they do order this, they would need to lay out the specific and very narrow precedent behind it. Basically, that there was just so much election-day fraud that the vote is irreversibly tainted and unknowable. Then again, that doesn't really seem to be the case here...especially since the dispute is not over eligible voters, but eligible ballots, as near as I can tell.
It's also doubtful if the court can order a re-do if there isn't already a state provision for such.
Finally, attempting to force the re-vote before January 21st (inauguration, I take it), three weeks time, is crazy. Arranging elections take time. If this did go through as scheduled, I'd expect the loser to scream (and sue), that overseas military personnel were denied their right to vote -- and they'd be right. There's no way you could print new ballots, send them out to military voters, and give them enough time to vote and send them back on a three-week turnaround. (Hmm...did the military vote trend Republican then like it does now?)
In short, I really, really don't think the court would do this.
John Farson
Banned
I agree that the court's ruling seems dubious, but I trust you've got an explanation for that.
About Britain: Wow, it's really starting to look like What If Gordon Banks had played there. Restoring the death penalty (for terrorist acts)!? Did Heath and the other leading Tories at the time really have it in them to be this hardline? I imagine that Enoch Powell, on the other hand, would be excoriating Heath and co for being too soft.
And now the Provisional IRA have taken James Bond hostage. Wow. I wonder how much the events of this TL had an affect on the plots of the Bond movies made since the POD? The production of Live and Let Die began in 1972, so I don't think there'd be that much changes there. The Man With the Golden Gun, though, may be different to the one we know. In the film a central plot point was the energy crisis, hence the scramble for the Solex Agitatorthingamajig. Here, Arab terror and fanaticism may also be in the plot. Actually, in TMWTGG there is an early scene where Bond is in a Beirut nightclub and he gets into an altercation with some local gangsters after getting fresh with a belly dancer. Perhaps this time the Beirut scene could involve Bond battling fanatics as a veiled allegory of the Bayanouni crisis?
If something happens to Moore here, well, that would certainly change the whole history of the Bond films.
About Britain: Wow, it's really starting to look like What If Gordon Banks had played there. Restoring the death penalty (for terrorist acts)!? Did Heath and the other leading Tories at the time really have it in them to be this hardline? I imagine that Enoch Powell, on the other hand, would be excoriating Heath and co for being too soft.
And now the Provisional IRA have taken James Bond hostage. Wow. I wonder how much the events of this TL had an affect on the plots of the Bond movies made since the POD? The production of Live and Let Die began in 1972, so I don't think there'd be that much changes there. The Man With the Golden Gun, though, may be different to the one we know. In the film a central plot point was the energy crisis, hence the scramble for the Solex Agitatorthingamajig. Here, Arab terror and fanaticism may also be in the plot. Actually, in TMWTGG there is an early scene where Bond is in a Beirut nightclub and he gets into an altercation with some local gangsters after getting fresh with a belly dancer. Perhaps this time the Beirut scene could involve Bond battling fanatics as a veiled allegory of the Bayanouni crisis?
If something happens to Moore here, well, that would certainly change the whole history of the Bond films.
Fleetwood Hart said:
I re-wrote it to have the Court basically indicate that courts should butt out of elections. The end result was the one I was aiming for in the long run, and one which will leave a legacy of a tainted election in Goldwater's resume yet propel him to the next level.
Of course, it doesn't mean its all over for Jerry Brown either. He has a lot he can take away from this in his path in this TL.
John Farson said:About Britain: Wow, it's really starting to look like What If Gordon Banks had played there. Restoring the death penalty (for terrorist acts)!? Did Heath and the other leading Tories at the time really have it in them to be this hardline? I imagine that Enoch Powell, on the other hand, would be excoriating Heath and co for being too soft.
What I have is a government being pushed to the wall by violence and splintering, doing largely the opposite of what the OTL Labour government did. The fractures among the Tories will begin to appear.
John Farson said:
There might be, but the plot of Man With the Golden Gun would remain largely in tact because it addresses an energy crisis caused by the on-going oil embargo. Golden Gun was released a week before Moore was kidnapped. The question is what will the next film be? OTL Spy Who Loved Me was partially filmed in Egypt, and the current problems might be more front and center (Instead of Stromberg being a renegade German trying to destroy the United States and the Soviet Union for an undersea habitat, he might be an Arab fanatic trying to achieve the same thing "to avenge the Middle East, or something like that - or an Irishman trying to do the same thing to the UK.) And who replaces Moore if he doesn't come back?
John Farson said:
Without a doubt. Might make future actors wary of playing the part too.
Drew: First of all, I read through the TL over the last few days. Impressive, to say the least; I do enjoy the technical details (even if I'm prepared to admit that some of the biography stuff does cause my eyes to glaze over).
Some thoughts on dealing with the Twelfth Amendment-related deadlock hangups that would probably come up:
-Allow a certain number of states' delegations to introduce a new candidate after a deadlock lasting a certain period of time or a certain number of ballots. I would suggest a large number (ten or fifteen), which would basically require either one party to switch their support or a broad consensus candidate to be put forward. Bear in mind you'd basically be requiring at least forty or more Congressmen to get on board, and more likely closer to eighty, so you wouldn't get chaos in the House. Alternately, you could allow any of the three to step aside in favor of another candidate.
-Permit people to split their vote. Let's face it: Nobody voted for Agnew, and not just in the normal sense. Agnew got in on people who voted for Nixon, and I think retrospective polling would show a lot of people who would have voted Nixon-Bayh given the choice. You'd have still got a hung vote in the Presidential race, but the VP race would've probably been a rout.
I think the first option is the most likely, but there's definitely going to be arguing for the latter, and you might even have a state or two adopt it (sort of like Maine and Nebraska vote by CD these days). The latter is also appealing because it can be enacted at the state level, rather than having to get 37 states to agree on it. It could also be jammed through on a referendum in places such as (to offer an example) California where the relevant laws are permissive.
Another point: By the 1970s, the SoCreds in Canada were mostly from Quebec. Consider them something of an odd trial run for the BQ (the two are rather different, but it was a way for Quebec to vote for 'someone else'), and though they did retain some hit-and-miss support out west (particularly on the provincial level), their parliamentary representation out there was gone after 1972; it was mostly PCs and Dippers (and yes, I am well aware of the comedy that the Western protest vote has been: Progressives to SoCreds to Dippers to Reform/Alliance back to Dippers with the only thing in common being how much the Eastern establishment fails to get along with the party in question).
Edit with a note to explain the above: Canada has long had several regional political systems operating in parallel: The Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, and the West. Generally, the mix seems to be as follows:
-The Maritimes are dominated by the Conservatives/PCs and the Liberals. The NDP wasn't much of a factor here for a long time.
-Quebec is dominated by a local party and the Liberals (though said "local party" has been the Tories twice: In the Diefenbacker landslide, where Maurice DuPleiss (sp?) swung the UN's machine behind them, and in the Mulroney landslide, where the Tories had a popular leader from Quebec). Basically, if the local party lines up with the Tories or gets enough strength on their own, they sweep everything outside of Montreal. If not, the Liberals tend to clean up by default through the "other" vote being split. The NDP is largely a non-factor here (they've won two seats in Quebec, one in a by-election in Montreal in 2007 and the other when the provincial wing of the party went sovereigntist and an NDP candidate got in under this banner...note that that riding has been solidly BQ since).
-Ontario is dominated by the PCs and Liberals, with a significant presence by the "third party" on the left (be it the CCF/NDP or the Progressives and the United Farmers before that).
-The West is, in terms of popular vote, usually dominated by the PCs and whomever the protest flavor of the decade happens to be. The Liberals are generally stuck in third (or at best battling over second) unless they're blowing the doors off of everyone (they have only broken 40% in any province there twice since 1949: In Manitoba and BC in 1968 (Trudeau's blowout) and in Manitoba alone in 1993 (the strangest election in Canadian history, and the worst time the NDP ever really had). Often, they're battling just to get a third of the vote in any of those provinces. They do somewhat better because of some highly popular MPs (Ralph Goodale leaps to mind) and because of their vote being concentrated in the cities (look at Alberta for a great example of this: The Libs have traditionally been at least somewhat competitive in Edmonton and Calgary to varying degrees, but one could be forgiven for wondering why they even bother in rural Alberta; another example is BC, where the Liberal/NDP strength tends to rely extremely heavily upon Vancouver and Vancouver Island while the mountains tend to break reasonably strongly for the Conservatives).
Finally (for now): Henry Howell is technically an independent in 1973. The Democrats were backing Godwin (VA politics at the time was very wacky; if I recall rightly, there was a big spike in the number of non-party legislators in '73, for which we can probably thank Howell...I should know, I've been studying the state for a couple of years and have a lot of fun data to play with) despite Godwin being the Republican; the state Democratic leadership was still rather aligned with Byrd (and therefore the national GOP) compared with where they had been a few years before; let's not forget that Pat Robertson's father was still US Senator in 1968.
Edit: A request, if I might. It is very hard to tell if the votes in the final round in various states are Wallace votes or abstentions. Could you clear this up with either listing the votes in the same order (i.e. Nixon-McKeithen-Abstain/Blank/Vacant-"Wallace where appropriate" or something like that), or at least putting Wallace's votes after a note of 0 abstentions so we know where his votes are coming from/what votes he's getting at the end?
Some thoughts on dealing with the Twelfth Amendment-related deadlock hangups that would probably come up:
-Allow a certain number of states' delegations to introduce a new candidate after a deadlock lasting a certain period of time or a certain number of ballots. I would suggest a large number (ten or fifteen), which would basically require either one party to switch their support or a broad consensus candidate to be put forward. Bear in mind you'd basically be requiring at least forty or more Congressmen to get on board, and more likely closer to eighty, so you wouldn't get chaos in the House. Alternately, you could allow any of the three to step aside in favor of another candidate.
-Permit people to split their vote. Let's face it: Nobody voted for Agnew, and not just in the normal sense. Agnew got in on people who voted for Nixon, and I think retrospective polling would show a lot of people who would have voted Nixon-Bayh given the choice. You'd have still got a hung vote in the Presidential race, but the VP race would've probably been a rout.
I think the first option is the most likely, but there's definitely going to be arguing for the latter, and you might even have a state or two adopt it (sort of like Maine and Nebraska vote by CD these days). The latter is also appealing because it can be enacted at the state level, rather than having to get 37 states to agree on it. It could also be jammed through on a referendum in places such as (to offer an example) California where the relevant laws are permissive.
Another point: By the 1970s, the SoCreds in Canada were mostly from Quebec. Consider them something of an odd trial run for the BQ (the two are rather different, but it was a way for Quebec to vote for 'someone else'), and though they did retain some hit-and-miss support out west (particularly on the provincial level), their parliamentary representation out there was gone after 1972; it was mostly PCs and Dippers (and yes, I am well aware of the comedy that the Western protest vote has been: Progressives to SoCreds to Dippers to Reform/Alliance back to Dippers with the only thing in common being how much the Eastern establishment fails to get along with the party in question).
Edit with a note to explain the above: Canada has long had several regional political systems operating in parallel: The Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, and the West. Generally, the mix seems to be as follows:
-The Maritimes are dominated by the Conservatives/PCs and the Liberals. The NDP wasn't much of a factor here for a long time.
-Quebec is dominated by a local party and the Liberals (though said "local party" has been the Tories twice: In the Diefenbacker landslide, where Maurice DuPleiss (sp?) swung the UN's machine behind them, and in the Mulroney landslide, where the Tories had a popular leader from Quebec). Basically, if the local party lines up with the Tories or gets enough strength on their own, they sweep everything outside of Montreal. If not, the Liberals tend to clean up by default through the "other" vote being split. The NDP is largely a non-factor here (they've won two seats in Quebec, one in a by-election in Montreal in 2007 and the other when the provincial wing of the party went sovereigntist and an NDP candidate got in under this banner...note that that riding has been solidly BQ since).
-Ontario is dominated by the PCs and Liberals, with a significant presence by the "third party" on the left (be it the CCF/NDP or the Progressives and the United Farmers before that).
-The West is, in terms of popular vote, usually dominated by the PCs and whomever the protest flavor of the decade happens to be. The Liberals are generally stuck in third (or at best battling over second) unless they're blowing the doors off of everyone (they have only broken 40% in any province there twice since 1949: In Manitoba and BC in 1968 (Trudeau's blowout) and in Manitoba alone in 1993 (the strangest election in Canadian history, and the worst time the NDP ever really had). Often, they're battling just to get a third of the vote in any of those provinces. They do somewhat better because of some highly popular MPs (Ralph Goodale leaps to mind) and because of their vote being concentrated in the cities (look at Alberta for a great example of this: The Libs have traditionally been at least somewhat competitive in Edmonton and Calgary to varying degrees, but one could be forgiven for wondering why they even bother in rural Alberta; another example is BC, where the Liberal/NDP strength tends to rely extremely heavily upon Vancouver and Vancouver Island while the mountains tend to break reasonably strongly for the Conservatives).
Finally (for now): Henry Howell is technically an independent in 1973. The Democrats were backing Godwin (VA politics at the time was very wacky; if I recall rightly, there was a big spike in the number of non-party legislators in '73, for which we can probably thank Howell...I should know, I've been studying the state for a couple of years and have a lot of fun data to play with) despite Godwin being the Republican; the state Democratic leadership was still rather aligned with Byrd (and therefore the national GOP) compared with where they had been a few years before; let's not forget that Pat Robertson's father was still US Senator in 1968.
Edit: A request, if I might. It is very hard to tell if the votes in the final round in various states are Wallace votes or abstentions. Could you clear this up with either listing the votes in the same order (i.e. Nixon-McKeithen-Abstain/Blank/Vacant-"Wallace where appropriate" or something like that), or at least putting Wallace's votes after a note of 0 abstentions so we know where his votes are coming from/what votes he's getting at the end?
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Sounds about right -- the courts must be getting pretty tired of being dragged into all these "political questions".
Jerry Brown will have cemented his support on the left, like OTL Gore. (Who, being a fairly centrist southerner, albeit with a huge green streak, wasn't especially loved by liberals until after 2000.) He can either parlay this into another shot at Goldwater in four years, or becoming a political celebrity.
As for Goldwater, for now nobody will care how tight his victory was (apart from liberals and other folks who already hate his guts), but if his governorship goes south...
Actually, this raises a good question: Who controls the CA legislature? If the Dems control it, even though this is pre-Prop. 13, I sense something of a deadlock coming.
GrayAnderson said:
Interesting ideas for reforming the twelfth amendment and I think these ideas would be floating around after the train wreck that was the 1972 Presidential election. However, the twelfth is pretty rigid about the unit rule for the House delegations and the fact that the House can only consider the top three from the Electoral College. It would require an amendment of the twelfth to allow this.
If anyone tried to introduce another candidate other than Nixon, McKeithen or Wallace, and that candidate was elected, arguably their election would be challenged on Constitutional grounds. Even if they chose McGovern as a compromise candidate (highly unlikely) it would fail the constitutionality test.
I did put a test of the rules in when the House regulated the balloting for once a week so they could get on with other business. Nixon took that to the Supreme Court, which effectively said that – as long as the House was voting on a regular basis – the Justices didn’t want to be about telling the House of Representatives how to schedule its business. Even so, breaking the “shall chose immediately by ballot” restriction could raise constitutional questions.
GrayAnderson said:
I didn’t see the three personalities involved as doing this: Nixon had a chip on his shoulder about past concessions, and Wallace wasn’t in to win as much as to stoke his own base. McKeithen was in it to win and believed he had a chance, figuring that the Nixon side would eventually have to throw in the towel because they couldn’t win.. I had Nixon concede only when Agnew’s shortcomings became readily apparent
GrayAnderson said:
I tried to reflect public reaction in the 1974 Senate elections. A number of the Senators who voted for Agnew paid for it. What happened was a political manipulation, pure and simple. The Republicans and independents who voted for Agnew didn’t expect him to win, the expected 51 Democrats to carry the vote for Bayh. However, Talmadge soured the milk because he was being blackmailed from both sides, and that was a miscalculation by both sides (like real history I try to incorporate into this TL some level of stupidity, bullheadedness and just plain idiocy which doesn’t make logical sense, but which is so much a part of human affairs – a TL without that is missing some level of what humans do in just about any circumstance). Some of the feeling too may have been a vote for Agnew would spur the House to reach a conclusion, which it didn’t. I don’t think anyone expected him to be acting President for very long. It exposed a serious flaw in the Constitution over these kinds of problems.
GrayAnderson said:
It might be fun to have a Red Tory minority government work with the SC and not repeat the mistakes Joe Clark made in 1979.
I’ll take a look at the division maps from the House vote and do some kind of guide. I’m actually going to take a rest from this for a couple of days as I’m getting a little stale from too much focus on it.
GrayAnderson said:
I bow to your research. This OTL reversed result was more a reflection an anti-Republican tide, and the shock of the moment when the election took place right at the height of the removal.
The Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution said:
Democrats control both Houses of the Legislature, so yes, Barry Jr. is going to be doing battle.
The Ninth Circuit - December 1974
The Bench of the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in December 1974 (by Presidential appointment)
Eisenhower (R):
Richard H. Chambers (Chief Judge)
Montgomery O. Koelsch
Kennedy (D)
James R. Browning
Benjamin C. Duniway
Johnson (D)
Walter R. Ely
Shirley Hufstedler
Nixon (R)
Herbert Choy
Eugene A. Wright
Alfred T. Goodwin
Ozell M. Trask
Agnew (R)
(Agnew 1: J. Clifford Wallace having been appointed Attorney General of the United States)
(Agnew 2)
Gavin (I)
(Gavin 1: Possibly Anthony Kennedy)
Republican appointees: 8
Democratic appointees: 4
Independent: 1
A potential 8-5 en banc ruling in the case of Goldwater v. Brown:
Majority: Chambers, Koelsch, Trask, Wright, Goodwin, Agnew 1, Agnew 2, Gavin 1
Dissent: Browning, Duniway, Ely, Hufstedler, Choy,
The Bench of the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in December 1974 (by Presidential appointment)
Eisenhower (R):
Richard H. Chambers (Chief Judge)
Montgomery O. Koelsch
Kennedy (D)
James R. Browning
Benjamin C. Duniway
Johnson (D)
Walter R. Ely
Shirley Hufstedler
Nixon (R)
Herbert Choy
Eugene A. Wright
Alfred T. Goodwin
Ozell M. Trask
Agnew (R)
(Agnew 1: J. Clifford Wallace having been appointed Attorney General of the United States)
(Agnew 2)
Gavin (I)
(Gavin 1: Possibly Anthony Kennedy)
Republican appointees: 8
Democratic appointees: 4
Independent: 1
A potential 8-5 en banc ruling in the case of Goldwater v. Brown:
Majority: Chambers, Koelsch, Trask, Wright, Goodwin, Agnew 1, Agnew 2, Gavin 1
Dissent: Browning, Duniway, Ely, Hufstedler, Choy,
John Farson
Banned
This is pretty much the worst way for Goldwater to win the governorship, one that irrevocably taints him. I foresee him having hard times ahead of him. Like Healey in N. Ireland, he may very well end up getting literal crap thrown at him. And with the Democrats controlling the legislature, they're not gonna be doing him any favors.
It's occurred to me that one of the few bright spots in this TL so far is that the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror and the killing fields have most likely been butterflied away in Cambodia. True, Lon Nol was definitely no saint, but the Black Death would be preferable to Pol Pot. Are there going to be any updates on that front?
It's occurred to me that one of the few bright spots in this TL so far is that the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror and the killing fields have most likely been butterflied away in Cambodia. True, Lon Nol was definitely no saint, but the Black Death would be preferable to Pol Pot. Are there going to be any updates on that front?
Yeah... I wouldn't be so sure Lon Nol is a BIG improvement. He was sort of--crazy. And he was kind of planning a war with Thailand eventually. Which, if we're propping up his soldiers, and giving them funds and training...
Yeah, SE Asia is in big trouble.
Yeah, SE Asia is in big trouble.
Drew,
Though I understand that you're taking a break (and you do deserve one for all of the work you've done), my first proposal was an amendment. That was the advantage of the second one...that you could have states permit splitting.
As to Howell: You got the result right. Trust me, you did. Henry Howell was probably the biggest anti-establishment figure in Virginia in the 70s, and I think the whole situation in the House would trigger a bit of generic "anti-establishment-ism" in cases...and with Howell running high on it anyway, I think his win would be a lock. The only plausible difference would be the Dems and GOP both running candidates, but that backfired in '71 when Howell became Lt. Governor (he beat the Dem and GOP candidates 40-37-23). Godwin was an ex-Democrat, anyway...but he also affiliated with Democrats for Nixon in '72 IRL. If the Dems run someone different, Howell wins in a walkover due to split opposition.
Though I understand that you're taking a break (and you do deserve one for all of the work you've done), my first proposal was an amendment. That was the advantage of the second one...that you could have states permit splitting.
As to Howell: You got the result right. Trust me, you did. Henry Howell was probably the biggest anti-establishment figure in Virginia in the 70s, and I think the whole situation in the House would trigger a bit of generic "anti-establishment-ism" in cases...and with Howell running high on it anyway, I think his win would be a lock. The only plausible difference would be the Dems and GOP both running candidates, but that backfired in '71 when Howell became Lt. Governor (he beat the Dem and GOP candidates 40-37-23). Godwin was an ex-Democrat, anyway...but he also affiliated with Democrats for Nixon in '72 IRL. If the Dems run someone different, Howell wins in a walkover due to split opposition.
Reading the Armenian Genocide's account, this Henry Howell sounds like an interesting character. Wonder if he'll go far in this TL?
A minor note on Massachusetts: you have Francis Sargent running with "A Republican" -- I see no particular reason his running mate wouldn't be Donald Dwight (the sitting Lite Gov), as OTL.
A minor note on Massachusetts: you have Francis Sargent running with "A Republican" -- I see no particular reason his running mate wouldn't be Donald Dwight (the sitting Lite Gov), as OTL.
Well, he's capped to one term as Governor under VA law, but if the GOP is still up the creek he'd have an excellent shot at a Senate seat in 1978 (the one that John Warner won IRL). Once we get to that point, if Drew likes I can write a brief piece on the 1978 US Senate election in Virginia in this timeline. IRL it was a wild one; both parties used conventions, so I've got a lot of data one of my professors gave me on that race (they did a monograph). Hell, I can even excerpt straight from the narrative in the monograph and alter for the timeline.
Failing that, he could easily run for another term as Governor in 1981 (the one term rule is only on consecutive terms, but you can run after you take a term off, and the rule only applies to the Governor's office...we've had multi-term Lt. Governors and Attorney Generals before), and he could flip to Lt. Governor or Attorney General in 1977 as well. IRL, his career mainly faltered from one too many defeats, I suspect, and he didn't want to turn into a Harold Stassen.
By the way, mentioning Harold Stassen makes me wonder if there's any chance we could get that idiot Mecham elected in Arizona in '78 (and I say "idiot" with good reason...just look at his rather abbreviated term in office for why).
ITTL Donald Dwight beat Tip O'Neill in a 3 way race with a McGovernite candidate in the Massachusetts 8th in 1972. He managed to hold on to that seat in 1974 running against an upstart named John F. Kerry, largely by showing a photo of Kerry throwing his medals at the White House in a very patriotic area of Boston.
'A Republican' is a sort of convenient AH guy who pops in to replace OTL figures but who doesn't need to be fleshed out much (or can be retconed in later if needed). He has a counterpart called 'A Democrat' who gets around too.
Might be interesting. It will be a while before I get to 1978 though. Of course he sounds like interesting running mate material too.
I remember Mecham, a sort of Palin prototype. Hmm, maybe this time he'll make it to the Presidency....=
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