Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72

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The greatest tragedy of this timeline for me is that I have now reached the end of the current material. ;)

Incredibly dystopian Drew, yet so incrementaly and cleverly done, so that it all seems plausible.

I am generally a lurker, not a poster, but I'd like to say congrats on this excellent timeline. :)
 
1) This timeline gave me a whole new view into the events of the decade of my birth, including some interesting views of what could have been.

2) Some of the timeline does seem...too convenient for making life for its residents difficult, but I've seen real life act like that on occasion.

3) This also puts the events of today in perspective as well. Could Sarah Palin have created the chain of events Agnew created ITTL in our own timeline? Gives whole new meaning to 'kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity'...

Good job! :D
 
A World of Troubles

Late October 1979

President Noberto Bobbio of Italy is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.


The Results of the French National Assembly Election October 14 and 21, 1979.
491 Seats (246 needed to form a majority)

The Left (Presidential majority)

Socialist Party (PS) --------- 178 – 2 = 176
Communist Party (PCF) --- 61 – 3 = 58
Other Left Parties ----------- 12 + 2 = 14

Total Left: 251 – 3 = 248

The Right (Opposition)

UDR ------------- 121 – 5 = 116
NFIR ------------- 98 + 12 = 110
Other Right: ---- 15 - 0 = 15

Total Right: 234 + 7 = 241

Non-Aligned

Ecologists: ----- 2 – 1 =1
Independent: ---1

Total Non-Aligned = 3 – 1 = 2

Prime Minister before election: Gaston Deffere (PS)
Prime Minister after election: Gaston Deffere (PS)


The Ohio Legislature votes to move its Democratic and Republican Presidential primaries up from June 3 to March 11, 1980.


November 1, 1979

The Irish security forces seized a quantity of arms at Dublin docks which were believed to have originated in the United States of America (USA) and to be bound for the Irish Republican Brigade (IRB). The shipment totalled 156 weapons and included the M-60 machine gun and was worth an estimated £500,000. Paddy Donegan, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), stated that he believed that the shipment of guns “goes to show how far you can believe the words of the men talking in France.”

Chinese military forces begin a build-up along the border with Hong Kong. The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Vietnam all contribute forces to increase the western defence of Hong Kong. More Taiwanese forces are also contributed covertly.

November 2, 1979

French police shoot gangster Jacques Mesrine in Paris.

Britain adjourns the Rambouillet talks with Sinn Fein over the weapons seizure in Ireland.

Assata Shakur (née Joanne Chesimard), a former member of Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, escapes from a New York prison to Cuba, where she remains under political asylum.

November 3, 1979

On November 3, 1979, five protesters were killed by KKK and American Nazi Party members in the Greensboro massacre in Greensboro, North Carolina. This incident was the culmination of attempts by the Communist Workers Party to organize the unemployed, both white and black, in the area, into so-called “employment action groups.” The CWP had been planning to lead a march of the unemployed on the Greensboro city government to demand housing and food. The escaped murder Charles Manson is later discovered to have been involved with the CWP’s efforts, although there are allegations that he also acted as a spy for the Nazis in the CWP’s ranks.

Governor David Flaherty of North Carolina sends in the North Carolina National Guard and declares Marshal Law in the aftermath.

An otherwise obscure Klan figure, Virgil Lee Griffin, uses the incident as a pre-text for declaring his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination for President. To the embarrassment of the Republican National Committee Griffin’s Klan affiliation was not officially discovered until after he had already qualified for the ballot in Iowa, New Hampshire and a number of other primary and caucus states. This “discovery” was to become the subject of controversy during the 1980 Election campaign due to the fact that Griffin never hid his Klan affiliation and was quite open about his extremist views.


The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) held its annual conference. The party rejected calls for talks with Sinn Fein. The party also called for a joint approach by the British and Irish governments to finding a solution to the problems in Northern Ireland.

November 4, 1979

B. J. Vorster, having hung on as Prime Minister of South Africa (serving since 1966) is finally compelled to retire by more hard line elements in the National Party government of South Africa. In the tense war environment General Magnus Malan, Chief of the South African Defence Forces, is able to use conservative support for the military to catapult himself into the office Prime Minister, which assumes a quasi-military authoritarian position. Malan will soon acquire the reputation as the Pinochet of South Africa. Within a year Malan fuses the offices of President and Prime Minister (occupying both) and establishes a military dominated Cabinet, moving civilian politicians into a secondary or supporting role.


November 5, 1979

The radio news program Morning Edition premieres on National Public Radio.

Vote for Parliamentary Leadership of the British Conservative Party (187 Parliamentary Members)

First Round
Airey Neave --- 80 (43%)
Geoffrey Howe -- 76 (40%)
Keith Joseph -- 20 (11%)
Douglas Hurd --- 10 (5.5%)
Enoch Powell --- 1 (0.5%)

Second Round
Airey Neave --– 96 (51.3%)
Geoffrey Howe – 91 (48.7%)

Airey Neave MP (Cons. - Abingdon) is declared elected as the permanent Leader of the Conservative Parliamentary caucus and Leader of the Official Opposition.


In Tehran negotiations breakdown between militants holding the Soviet Embassy staff hostage and the Iranian Government. Soviet intelligence reports that the Iranians are planning a rescue operation, but there is concern that an Iranian effort will be a disaster.


November 8, 1979

Spain and Portugal reach a UN brokered temporary cease-fire agreement securing the border between the two states along the historic frontier.


November 9, 1979

The Carl Bridgewater murder trial ends with all 4 men found guilty. James Robinson, 45, and 25-year-old Vincent Hickey are sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended 25-year minimum for murder. 18-year-old Michael Hickey is also found guilty of murder and sentenced to indefinite detention. Patrick Molloy, 53, is found guilty on a lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland detected purported massive Soviet nuclear strike. The United States moves to DEFCON 2 and launches nuclear bombers, as well as sending out a global alert. The U.S. activity causes the Soviet command to suspect an imminent first strike by the United States. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early warning radars, the alert was cancelled. It takes two days of diplomacy for the United States and the Soviet Union to quietly turn down their alerts. The U.S. forces are at DEFCON 2 November 9 – 12, 1979.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that Yuri Andropov suffers a heart attack during the alert.

Operation Red Talon – a Soviet effort to rescue their hostages being held in Tehran – is postponed by the alert.

November 10, 1979

Father Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa, the Pope’s personal representative to the Basque Country, meets with Ramón Rubial Cavia, Carlos Garaikoetxea Urriza, Jesús María de Leizaola Sánchez and other Basque leaders. Fr. Errazuriz undertakes to provide a neutral ground through which competing Basque factions can negotiate to produce a functioning governmental system. His brief is to achieve the development of a peaceful government, oriented toward democracy.

November 11, 1979

Iranian troops storm the Soviet Embassy compound in Tehran. What ensues is a blood bath. An unknown number of militants are killed, along with twenty-five Iranian soldiers and all but two of the Soviet hostages.

Both Houses of the U.S. Congress vote to confirm William Scranton’s appointment to the office of Vice President. Since Scranton had held the office from 1974 – 1977, and his tenure was viewed as highly favourable, the hearings for this nomination were symbolic and short. Primarily, Scranton assured both Houses that he would not be seeking election to either the Presidency or Vice Presidency for a full term in 1980. House vote: 362 – 73; Senate vote: 89 – 11.

November 12, 1979

The Kremlin issues a statement expressing outrage at what has happened in Tehran and calling the Iranian government’s actions a “callous act of war.” The Iranian Ambassador is asked to leave Moscow.

William Scranton is sworn in as the 42nd Vice President of the United States.

November 15, 1979

A weakened Yuri Andropov appears on Soviet television to express Soviet outrage over the failed hostage rescue attempt. His breath is heavy and laboured during the address and close observation shows that he is sweating heavily.

November 16, 1979

Bucharest Metro Line One is opened, in Bucharest, Romania (from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea stations, 8.63 km).

November 17, 1979

Ronald Reagan’s car is hit by another car on the Ventura Freeway while Reagan is commuting from his office to a speaking and fundraising event in Tarzana. Reagan’s driver is killed and Reagan is rushed to the UCLA Medical Center for emergency surgery. Reagan survives, but is in a weakened state. The other driver, Dan Lajulet, who is also injured, is charged with impaired driving and vehicular manslaughter.

Dan LaJulet – a.k.a. Dan “McJewels” – is a sometime porn film actor with a long list of felonies including assault, extortion and drug trafficking in his background. His links to individuals who are themselves connected to the Chicago Mafia (“the Outfit”), long regarded as a behind-the-scenes player in Chicago and Illinois state politics, leads to all manner of conspiracy theories about this accident. Many note that Reagan’s principle challenger in the Republican Presidential primaries is the Governor of Illinois, and let the innuendo insinuate that there is a connection to Donald Rumsfeld’s campaign, although no credible link is ever uncovered.

Reagan loyalist Michael Deaver publicly calls it an assassination attempt, although he blames the Chicago Outfit’s ties to the Democratic Party as the motive.

Dan LaJulet later receives a sentence of ten to fifteen years in prison for impaired driving and vehicular manslaughter.

November 18, 1979

Soviet forces begin to mobilize along the borders with Iran; naval activity in the Caspian Sea increases. Iranian commercial vessels in the Caspian Sea are increasingly challenged by Soviet Naval patrols.

November 19, 1979

Iranian Prime Minister (General) Azhari declares Soviet actions as an affront to Iranian sovereignty. He orders a mobilization of Iranian forces along the joint border and calls on the United States to assist Iran if the nation is invaded.

November 20, 1979

Emilio Óscar Rabasa of the Institutional Revolutionary Party is elected as the President of Mexico. Term: December 12, 1979 – December 12, 1985.

General Alexander Haig, commander of U.S. Forces in the Persian Gulf region, mobilizes U.S. forces in support of the Iranians.

November 22, 1979

A split developed within the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) as to its approach to the Terrence Boston's, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, invitation to attend a conference on the future of Northern Ireland. Gerry Fitt, then leader of the SDLP, wanted to attend the conference even without an Irish dimension being on the agenda. Others, including John Hume, then deputy leader of the SDLP, did not want to attend unless an Irish dimension was to be discussed. As a result of this dispute Fitt rather than resigning, split the SDLP in two by expelling Hume and his supporters.

Fitt then agreed to lead his branch of the SDLP to the talks proposed by Boston.


November 23, 1979

Fugitive Charles Manson escapes capture by police in North Carolina. He has been associated with the CWP and the troubles there.

Several bombs explode in Tehran, killing a dozen people and injuring others. The MEK acting under KGB influence is suspect. The Iranian regime cracks down on the MEK.


November 24, 1979 – June 1, 1980

A fourteen-nation summit conference (US, UK, USSR, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, Arab League, North Yemen, South Yemen, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt) convenes in Vienna where it spends seven months negotiating the terms of an Iraqi withdrawal from Arabia and its replacement with a consensus government. The discussions also include the status of Kuwait. While discussions go on the Iraqis agree to allow western oil companies to gain access to Arabian oil fields where repairs begin on the oil-producing infrastructure.

November 25, 1979

Soviet Air Force bombers and fighters begin over-flights of the Soviet-Iran border area.

November 26, 1979

US alert level goes back to DEFCON2 in response to the level of Soviet military activity along the Soviet-Iran border.

November 28, 1979

Air New Zealand Flight 901: an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashes into Mount Erebus (in Antarctica) on a sightseeing trip, killing all 257 people on board.

November 29, 1979

Large peace demonstrations take place in many western capitals.

November 29 – 30, 1979

Hong Kong goes on alert as the Chinese military engages in invasion drills along the border.

December 1, 1979

Richard Lawson, then a Lieutenant General, succeeded Timothy Creasey as General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the British Army in Northern Ireland.

John Hume announces he and his followers will form their own political party in opposition to Gerry Fitt and his “wets”. The new Northern Ireland Freedom Party (NIFP) is created.

President Wallace authorizes over flights of Chinese costal positions around Hong Kong in a clear warning that the U.S. will retaliate for any military action taken against Hong Kong.

December 2, 1979

Zbigniew Brzezinski is confirmed as U.S. Secretary of State by a vote of 53-47.

December 3, 1979

Eleven fans are killed during a crowd crush for unreserved seats before The Who concert at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The United States dollar exchange rate with the Deutsche Mark falls to 1.3079 DM, the all-time low so far.

December 4, 1979

The Hastie fire in Kingston upon Hull, England, leads to the deaths of 3 boys and begins the hunt for Bruce George Peter Lee, the UK's most prolific killer.

December 5, 1979

Two fighters, one Soviet and one US, collide while flying around each other (“shadowboxing”) along the Soviet-Iran border. This incident increases the alert level. At the same time General Haig makes a press statement indicating that the use of nuclear weapons is not “out of the question.” This remark causes further alarm and tension along the border.

December 8, 1979


Louisiana Gubernatorial Election – Run-Off

John R. Rarick - American Independent Party – 52.3% (29.9%) - elected
Johnny Lucas – Christian Values Movement – 47.7% (25.3%)

(Spoiled ballots – 44.8%)

John R. Rarick of the American Independent Party is elected as the 51st Governor of Louisiana. Term: March 10, 1980 – March 12, 1984

(The number in brackets represents the actual percentages after the number of spoiled ballots that are counted. The high number of spoiled ballots was a protest mounted against the two right-wing candidates on the run-off ballot.).


December 8-9, 1979

Elvis Presley leads the “Weekend of Repentance” – a giant evangelical revival meeting in Nashville.

The Irish government falls. Elections for Dáil Éireann are called for February 2.

December 9, 1979

The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction. This announcement proves to be optimistic and premature however.

Asked by a reporter whether or not he is out stepping his authority by calling alerts, General Haig famously comments “I am in charge here.”

Spanish Prime Minister Jamie Milans Del Bosch passes a resolution outlawing communication with external organizations by Spanish citizens. This leads to series of counter demonstrations and in turn to confrontations between demonstrators and police.

December 10, 1979 – April 12, 1980

The joint South African and Rhodesian Forces (the “National Resistance Alliance”) mounts a series of offensives through Botswana and into North Rhodesia-South Zambia to “cleanse” the area of “resistance elements” in what becomes a brutal war of annihilation between the NRA and the opposing alliance of the ZPLF, Zambian National Army and Botswana National Army. Casualties are not published, but are believed to be extensive on all sides. The NAR take advantage of air superiority while ZPLF receives increased support from the Soviet Bloc, along with Cuban troops in support positions. The five month campaign sees the use of a huge amount of chemical weapons and biological weapons (including the supposedly eradicated small pox) by the NRA, which also practices a scorched Earth policy in enemy held areas, creating as a by product refugees from dislocation, together with epidemic break-outs in refugee camps and starvation. During this period a South African commando leader, Eugene de Kock, becomes infamous for leading some particularly brutal attacks against civilian areas. De Kock and another South African officer, Craig Williamson, become infamous for organizing death squads.

The result of this campaign is very little territorial change, but a great deal of destruction of once productive farmland, as well as the dislocation of refugees.

Tim Sebastian of BBC News, who makes a covert trip into the war zone to report, describes the scene as “Hell on Earth.” Sebastian compares much of what he sees to historical accounts of German activity on the Eastern Front during the Second World War, although some pro-South African lobbyists in the west accuse him of engaging in hyperbole and propaganda. Sebastian is later awarded a BAFTA award for his reports.

The South Africans are believed to be financing the campaign by selling diamonds and nuclear technology, principally to Pakistan and Israel. Israel is reported to be providing weapons and some logistical support. The South Africans are also importing all the mercenaries they can find around the world. The involvement of the Cubans with the ZPLF leads to an influx of anti-Castro Cuban exile volunteers. The South Africans also have at their disposal American and South Vietnamese mercenaries with long experience from the Vietnam War. Chile, also under international embargo, is also involved in trade with the South Africans.

In contrast to Tim Sebastian, Margaret Thatcher (former Conservative Cabinet Minister and MP), hosts a series of programs approved by the South African government, (financed by the U.S.-U.K. lobby group “Friends of South Africa”) which include friendly interviews with President Malan and Prime Minister Bursey of Rhodesia. These stress that “civilized” and “democratic” Rhodesia and South Africa are resisting terror and Soviet domination. Most British broadcasters reject this broadcast as propaganda. The funders then organize a series of “South African Truth Nights” across the UK where the broadcast is shown to audiences. In the United States the Thatcher program is shown on the Hughes Network, where Thatcher herself is interviewed about what she has seen in South Africa and Rhodesia.

MT: “What I have seen convinces me more than ever that western countries must help the brave people of South Africa and Rhodesia to resist the Communist lead insurgents who have unleashed all manner of savagery and violence on free, peace loving people in the name of an oppressive, inhuman ideology of oppression. This really is the fight of civilization against chaos.”

“Friends of South Africa” proves effective in winning some political and economic support, particularly in Washington among right wing circles, for the South African and Rhodesian governments. FSA sells the struggle in the U.S. along Cold War lines. Billionaire Charles G. Koch finances a film depicting General Malan as the George Washington of the South African “Freedom cause.”

The Rhodesian and South African white populations feel the effects of sanctions and war economy measures in the form of shortages and, in the case of some Rhodesians, their forced relocation into “secure enclaves.” The whites are told that they are being asked to make sacrifices to prevent “chaos” and their own annihilation at the hands of “savages.” However, resistance in some quarters is beginning to build to the government policy, and to the take-over of the South African state by the military.

During the course of these months U.S. President Wallace, Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski and National Security Advisor David Aaron consider imposing a “no-fly zone” to strip the NRA side of their decisive air advantage. However, these plans generally fail over the practicalities of implementation. Aircraft carrier based Naval aircraft are insufficient to do the job, and the U.S. Navy fleet is already divided between patrols in the Persian Gulf, the South China Sea and around the Azores. Apart from that Africa lacks the basing facilities needed for sufficient numbers of the types of USAF aircraft needed (of which there are a limited supply needed in NATO, South Korea and Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, the Persian Gulf and in the Azores). Further many of the countries bordering the war zone, but outside of it, are reluctant to facilitate involvement for fear that they themselves might be drawn into the conflict. Other nations are of questionable stability or political reliability. In the case of Zaire a concern is expressed that Mobutu may try to steal USAF advanced aircraft for his own air force.

They also find their political efforts blocked by the FSA lobby.

December 10, 1979

General Haig is relieved of his command and General John William Vessey, Jr. is sent out to Iran to replace him.

December 12, 1979

A major earthquake and tsunami kills 259 people in Colombia.

December 12, 1979 – March 5, 1980

South Korean Army Major General Chun Doo-hwan attempts a coup against the government of President Kim Jong-pil. He fails, however the government of President Kim Jong-pil falls as it is perceived as weakened by the coup attempt. After new (Army controlled) elections to the National Assembly, University Professor Rhee In-su, the son of former dictator Syngman Rhee (and not a politician to this point) becomes the new civilian President of South Korea. President Rhee is widely seen as a front man for the Army and the KCIA. A former General, Yu Hak-seong, with links to the KCIA, becomes Prime Minister, and effectively wields political power from this post.

December 14, 1979

Rhodesia rebuffs the efforts of British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan to negotiate a cease-fire in the Southern Africa conflict.

Former President James Gavin travels to Moscow to speak with Soviet leaders on behalf of the Wallace Administration. The purpose of the Gavin talks is to prepare ground for an official agreement on how to defuse the confrontation in Iran.

December 21, 1979

Rhodesian Prime Minister Bursey proclaims the Republic of Rhodesia as “completely sovereign” and rejects any further “vestiges of colonial interference”’ from London.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, leader of the New Japan Party, takes office as Prime Minister of Japan after winning the national election. He forms the first non-LDP government in over two decades.

December 23, 1979

The highest aerial tramway in Europe, the Klein Matterhorn, opens.

A photograph of Ronald Reagan using a cane and leaning heavily on the arm of an attendant is taken without his knowledge outside of his home in Bel Air. This photograph is widely circulated in the tabloid press as evidence that the 68-year-old Reagan has been enfeebled by his accident.

December 24, 1979

The first European Ariane rocket is launched.

December 26, 1979

Rhodesian forces set fire to Lupane, literally burning the city to the ground to prevent it from being captured by the ZPLF forces.

December 27, 1979

U.S. Vice President Scranton and Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Zorin and Deputy Premier Ryzkov in Helsinki, where they work out a series of steps to defuse the tension along the Soviet-Iran border.

December 28, 1979 – January 2, 1980

The Western New Year in Hong Kong is overshadowed by five days of live fire “artillery drills” on the Chinese side of their border.

December 29, 1979

Pressured by the United States Iranian Prime Minister Azhari concedes that Iranian forces acted with “undo haste” and without “proper consultation” before storming the Soviet Embassy. The Prime Minister promises an investigation will be conducted to determine how it occurred and to hold “any negligent parties responsible.”

December 31, 1979
Sean Cairns (20), a Catholic civilian, was shot dead by Loyalist paramilitaries at his home in Tralee Street, Belfast.

Soviet news organizations make statements about the “recalcitrant nature” of the Iranian regime, but otherwise signal the Soviet government’s acceptance of Prime Minister Azhari’s statement. Soviet forces along the Soviet-Iran border begin de-mobilization.


January 1, 1980

Changes to the Swedish Act of Succession make Princess Victoria of Sweden Crown Princess and therefore next in line to the throne, ahead of her younger brother.

Two undercover members of the British Army (BA) were shot dead by other undercover members of the BA while there were setting up an ambush near Forkhill, County Armagh. Doreen McGuinness (16), a Catholic teenager, was shot dead by British soldiers while she was 'joy-riding' in a stolen car on the Whiterock Road, Ballymurphy, Belfast.

John Hermon succeeded Kenneth Newman as Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

Standings in the British House of Commons

Total Seats: 635 (318 needed to form a Majority)

Labour: = 352
Conservative = 187
Liberal = 54
True Labour* = 21
Ulster Unionist = 8
Scottish National = 5
Plaid Cymru = 3
Ind. Republican = 2
SDLP = 1
Ind. Labour = 1
NIFP = 1

*True Labour or “Conscience Labour” are a group of Labour MPs who broke with the government over the launching of a nuclear missile at Lop Nur, China by the United States. They sit separately in the House under the leadership of Barbara Castle MP.

The U.S. alert level returns of DEFCON 3.

January 2, 1980


Workers at British Steel go on a nationwide strike over pay called by the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, which has some 90,000 members among British Steel's 150,000 workforce, in a bid to get a 20% rise. It is the first steelworks strike since 1926.

The Matsu and Kinmen islands are fired at by long range PLA shore artillery and PLAN gun boats. This leads President Wallace to authorize the use of U.S. air power (in concert with the Taiwanese Air Force) to take out the shore batteries and gun ships.

President Wallace (asked if this might provoke a violent response on U.S. forces from the PRC): “They’re already shootin’ off cannon, and they used a nuclear bomb on their own people not three months ago. Violent response? They’ve already gone beyond that. The leadership in Peking has got to realize that trying to shoot their way into Hong Kong or Taiwan is going to cost them, because the United States and its allies are not willin’ to knuckle under to this young Mao’s bully-boy tactics, and we are ready to use force in defence of freedom, pure and simple.”

January 4, 1980

Alexander Reid (20), a Catholic civilian, was found beaten to death in a derelict garage in Berlin Street, Shankill, Belfast.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which has been seriously damaged by the civil war in Lebanon and the growth of the PJO holds a “national congress” in Tunis, Tunisia, during which Yasser Arafat and the many in the leadership are criticized for allowing the PJO to form and for their co-operation with Phalangists (and the Israelis) during the Lebanese War.

January 5, 1980


Fr. Errazuriz is present at a demonstration in the Basque capital of Gasteiz (Vitoria) where a group of Basque officials present an official petition to the Spanish governor asking him and his non-Basque Guardia Civil forces to leave. After some hesitation, the governor (receiving little in the way of tangible support from Madrid) accedes to the demand.

Spanish authorities raise the price of bus fare, leading to more street protests.

January 6, 1980

Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC.

The Korean Workers’ Party (the ruling Party of North Korea) is officially renamed the Korean Socialist Victory Party. Kim Il Sung is officially declared a historical un-person, with his name to be removed from all North Korean monuments and history books. In a show trial held in North Korea Kim Il Sung is declared to have been a stooge of the Japanese who betrayed the Revolution to them and then acted as an imperialist spy against the North Korean Revolution. The trial convicts the former leader of having plotted the Korean War of 1950-53 so that the imperialist powers could overrun the Socialist North, only to have the plot fail because of the national and ideological solidarity of the North Korean peasants and workers. (Kim Il Sung actually died in a Soviet prison some years earlier).

The President of Sicily, Piersanti Mattarella, is killed by the Mafia.

Three members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) where killed by the IRB in a land mine attack near Castlewellan, County Down.

January 7, 1980

The talks called by Terrence Boston, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, got under way at Stormont. As part of the wider Boston talks a constitutional conference was arranged at Stormont involving the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and the Alliance Party (APNI). The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the newly formed Northern Ireland Freedom Party (NIFP) refused to take part in the conference. Boston conceded a parallel conference which would allow the SDLP to raise issues, in particular an 'Irish dimension', which were not covered by the original terms of reference. The DUP refused to get involved with the parallel conference, but the NIFP did send “observers”.


January 11, 1980

Nigel Short, 14, becomes the youngest chess player to be awarded the degree of International Master.

In the Khmer Republic (Cambodia) General Lon Non and Sisowath Sirik Matak overthrow an increasingly erratic President Lon Nol, who in turn is “shot while attempting to escape custody” and dies of his wounds several days later. (There is evidence that Lon Nol may have ordered the execution of his brother, and that this prompted Lon Non to act). Lon Non becomes the new President of the KR, with Siri Matak taking over the role of Prime Minister. The privileged position of the Reverend Moon and his followers in the country remains unchanged.

“The natural course of India has been capitalism, of course. In fact the Indian trader and businessman is a creature of the free market. Long before the Europeans were open capitalists, long before Adam Smith was ever born, India was a center of free market trading and economics. Perhaps you have heard of the Silk Road? It should come as no surprise that when the Europeans came here they were mercantilists, dedicated to creating great empires under state control, but when they left, they were free marketers. This enthusiasm for business and the free flow of goods they acquired here, in India. So when you say to me, how can I bring this foreign capitalism into India, I reply, no you have the question wrong. Capitalism and free markets are the birth right of India and so we shall embrace what has been ours all along.”

-Newly inaugurated Indian Prime Minister Ram Sundar Das explaining his pro-free market policies. At the same news conference he announced the appointment of economic liberal Haribhai M. Patel as India’s Finance Minister.


Fr. Ezzati organizes a series of general strikes against public transit across Spain. These strikes start out as protests against the raise in bus fares, but soon extend to protests against the government in general. Over the course of two months the street protests becomes an on-going general strike which all but shuts down Spain’s economy.

From the Vatican the Pope endorses the general strike but calls on the demonstrations to remain peaceful. Cardinals Vicente Enrique y Tarancón and Emilio Benavent Escuín in turn inform Prime Minister Milans that the Church will not endorse any violent action by the government against the protestors. While the Milans government attempts to keep these talks secret, word of their content leaks out, further emboldening the protest movement.

January 17, 1980

Three people were killed and two injured when a bomb, being planted by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), exploded prematurely on a train at Dunmurray, near Belfast. One of those who died was a member of the INLA and the other two people were civilians.

Fr. Sergio Navia begins attracting followers in the rural provinces of Chile, where under his guidance peasants are beginning to resist the forces of the Pinochet government. Fr. Navia, a Dominican and eloquent speaker, is becoming a Liberation Theology revolutionary resisting the authoritarian regime in Santiago, Chile.


Abu Ali Mustafa of the PFLP is named to replace Yasser Arafat as the Chairman of the PLO, whose membership has become dissatisfied with the PLO leadership under Arafat. Mustafa’s main mission is to rebuild the PLO as a political and fighting force.

PRC artillery shells the Hong Kong border. US and UK air craft take out the artillery positions.


January 20, 1980

Super Bowl XIV – Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the Miami Dolphins (5-3) in the so-called “All Sunshine State Super Bowl.” (Also called “The Fruit Bowl” by some detractors).

January 21, 1980

The London Gold Fixing hits its highest price ever (adjusted for inflation), at US$1250 a troy ounce.

The MS Athina B is beached at Brighton, becoming a temporary tourist attraction.

Italy formally recognizes the Basque People’s Republic, becoming the first western state to do so. President Bobbio visits the Basque region, earning a diplomatic protest from Madrid to Rome. The Berlinguer government largely ignores the Spanish protest.

At least 200 people were killed when the Corralejas Bullring collapsed at Sincelejo, Colombia.

Iowa Presidential Caucuses

Democratic Party: Charles J. Wright: 30%, Pat Robertson 29%, Hugh Carey 12%, Ted Kennedy, 12%, Henry Jackson 7%, Others 2%, Uncommitted 8%

Republican Party: Donald Rumsfeld 32%, Ronald Reagan 31%, Jack Williams 9%, Trent Lott 2%, Others 7%, Uncommitted 19%

The government of Spain attempts to crack down on the bus strike by arresting a large number of protestors. The situation becomes chaotic when protesters converge on Guardia Civil troops attempting to make arrests. The situation becomes more complicated when some Guard commanders refuse to follow government orders and fire on the crowds.

January 22, 1980

Andrei Sakharov, Soviet scientist and human rights activist, is arrested in Moscow.

January 24, 1980

The Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail), The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific railroad and the Burlington Northern Railroad merge to form the United Rail System (ONERAIL). ONERAIL sets out to become a leading provider in cost-to-cost freight and passenger rail service.

January 28, 1980

Granada Television airs a controversial edition of World In Action on ITV, in which it alleges that Manchester United chairman Louis Edwards has made unauthorised payments to the parents of some of the club's younger players and had made shady deals to win local authority meat contracts for his retail outlet chain.

January 31, 1980

The Spanish Embassy in Guatemala is invaded and set on fire, killing 36 people. It is called "Spain's own Tehran", similar to the 1979 Soviet Embassy Hostages Crisis. Charges are made that the military government of Guatemala encouraged the occupation to protest the siege of the Falange government in Spain.

February 2, 1980

The Irish National Election

The Fine Gael government (a coalition with support of the Irish Labour Party) lead by Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Patrick (Paddy) Donegan is defeated.

Seats in the Dáil Éireann (148 seats/75 needed to form a government)
Fianna Fail = 71 + 16 = 87
Fine Gael 55 – 14 = 41
Labour = 20 – 3 = 17
Independent = 2 -1 + 2 = 3

Prime Minister After election: Charles Haughey (Fianna Fail).

February 2–3, 1980

The New Mexico State Penitentiary Riot takes place; 33 inmates are killed and more than 100 inmates injured.

February 6 – 11, 1980

U.S. President Wallace, Soviet President Andropov, French President Mitterrand, and Prime Ministers Lougheed (Canada), Healey (UK), Berlinguer (Italy) and Chancellor Khol (West Germany), along with their foreign and defence ministers and delegations from several other countries meet at a summit in Geneva to discuss a common approach on the crisis over China, the Southern Africa War and the Iraqi Occupation of Arabia.

From: Zbigniew Brzezinski - Power and Principle: Wallace Administration Memoirs 1977–1981

The meetings at Geneva constituted nothing more than an over-hyped tower of Babel. The effort of addressing three crises at once, even at the top most level, only exposed our differences. Clearly there were three principled objectives to be obtained. The first was to end the reign of the Lesser Mao in China. The second was to end the escalating war in Southern Africa. The third was to get Iraq out of Arabia and Kuwait. In our meetings in Washington the President and I had agreed that this was how we were going to address the matter without compromise.

It was doomed from the start because the Soviet Union was still smarting from the confrontation over Iran and so wanted to play the bullyboy. While they had co-operated on over the bombing of Lop Nur, they now became recalcitrant over any further military action. In particular, it was my belief that a mode of thinking had taken over their outlook which saw the possibility that China would soon disintegrate, and they would achieve territorial gains as a result. (History proved them correct in this analysis). As a bloc, the western countries could have pushed back and compelled a re-think on their part, especially recognizing their vulnerability on trade related issues. However, this was never explored, in no small part because the others lacked the fortitude to push for it. Instead what we saw was division and uncertainty, or more clearly a kind of dissembling more suitable to merchants in a souk than statesman. Even Jim Callaghan and Robert Stanfield (Canadian Foreign Minister), who had been closest to us in defending Hong Kong, proved to be disappointing. They got it into their heads that the most effective way to deal with the Chinese question was to strike a balance between the apparent Soviet position of awaiting a collapse, and our position of moving toward branding the PRC regime a criminal enterprise, and moving against it as an international law enforcement effort. I think they recognized that the Soviets wouldn’t budge on the position as long as Andropov and his old guard was still in power, but that provided no reason why they couldn’t act in concert with us on the matter and exclude the Soviets altogether, except that they wanted to have their cake (getting rid of the Lesser Mao) and eat it too (maintain good relations with Moscow).

For now we would have to go on what David Aaron (who had moved into my chair at NSC when I became Secretary of State) called “the long game,” which would be a covert effort by our intelligence and military services to exploit the criminal smuggling networks developed by the Lesser Mao and turn them back against him.

The fecklessness of the Europeans became even clearer on the Iraq question. Once the Soviets had more-or-less pressed the Iraqis into concessions that allowed the oil companies back in to Arabia the fight went out of them on the issue. It was a commercial sell-out plain and simple, although I couldn’t help but suspect that they had worked out a quid-pro-quo over China and the Arabian oil. It smelled of the sort of fast deal Mitterrand in particular was becoming well known for. If so, it was a rotten bargain that opened the door to more suffering and misery.

Finally there was Africa which only further exposed the shallowness and self-absorption of these former imperial powers. France had more or less settled the recent conflict in the Central African Republic and Zaire to its liking; the CAR was more-or-less a French colony again and Mobutu had had his hands slapped hard by the French. The view from Paris was that the CAR was theirs to exploit and a well paid-off and truculent Mobutu was an excellent buffer between their interests and what was happening in Southern Africa. In this sense Mitterrand could line up Berlinguer and some of the other smaller nations in supporting a black majority rule regime for Rhodesia and South Africa, which was the Soviet position on the matter. This puffed-up their credentials with the fashionable left but offered no real solution to the war, or to the question of what sort of black majority regime would replace the governments of Rhodesia and South Africa. The Soviets, of course, had Angola style Marxists ready to take over in both, which was their goal. Mitterrand and Berlinguer were certainly aware of this, but neither was willing to look it in the face.

Our friends the British meanwhile, had tried to bring the Rhodesians and the South Africans to the negotiating table and had been badly burned by the intransigence of the Rhodesian Prime Minister Ina Bursey – whom they were calling “the Iron Bottomed Lady” for her stubborn attitude – in particular. I had no greater sense from Jim (Callaghan) than a sense of despair over the situation. For their part the Labour government had a caucus made of many members who were squeamish on the British colonial past, and what capital the government had they had already exercised over the defence of Hong Kong. The Lop Nur incident had already split the party, both in the House of Commons and among the wider membership. Pressing for an African adventure could well have pushed the matter too far, with the result that Healey and Callaghan may have faced a revolt among the rank-and-file at the next Labour Party conference (the Labour Party was at the time looking at a mechanism for the wider party, and not just the elected MP’s, to choose their leader, this could have been used as the thin edge of an anti-Healey revolt on Labour’s left, lead I would have guessed by Barbara Castle, Michael foot and Tony Benn, among others). What it left us with was equivocation and proposals for more commissions of inquiry and study, but little in the way of resolve to actually do something.

At the end of Geneva I was stuck with how close we were to Governor Rumsfeld’s famous comment, “either the U.S. acts alone, or nothing happens.”

Iraq, China, and Southern Africa – we had no shortage of places to choose where to act.
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From James Callaghan – Time and Chance

In no small measure it was the personal infirmities of the leading personalities in the United States and the Soviet Union who crippled any chance we had of reaching a consensus at Geneva from the outset. On the American side President Wallace was by this time a withered figure in his wheelchair, barely able to attend more than two hours of talks at a time, leaving the control of the American delegation to the hawk Brzezinski, whose very personality irritated the Soviets and just about everyone else.

Andropov by contrast was as weak a figure: the Soviets tried to cover-over the fact that he was clearly in some health distress. One look at him would have confirmed to most that the rumours of his having suffered a serious heart attack the previous fall were more than likely correct. He was the greyest of grey, a fitting appearance for the leader of the Soviet Union’s grey men. Unlike with the Americans, it wasn’t clear who was running the show on the Soviet side in his name – clearly a succession had yet to be worked-out. This no doubt contributed to Soviet truculence and reluctance to engage at the Geneva conference.

We already knew George Wallace was a lame-duck, awaiting the election of his successor later that year. Andropov, it appeared, was as much passing from the scene, though in a less transparent fashion.

Given this situation, it was of little wonder that the more force full personalities, Mitterrand and Berlinguer, pushed themselves to the fore. Their essential message was one of anti-imperialism for Africa and China, and the development of peaceful commerce (in the case of Arabia) and co-operative peace brokering by means other than military force (China and Africa). Mitterrand may have been catering to the left in advance of his own re-election in 1981, but both he and Berlignuer appeared to be seeking to enhance their left-wing credentials on the matter.

The German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, was privately in sympathy with a more vigorous response, but this was still not a time when a German leader, even a conservative one, could step forth with talk of more forceful military action, not on his own initiative.

It is easy to quibble with our negotiation position from across the Atlantic, overlooking the division within American political leadership as to what actions needed to be taken. It would have been edifying to see Brzezinski aggressive tendencies put to a vote of Congress and to have measured he result. The fact of the matter was we were holding down a number of commitments already from Cyprus to Madeira to Syria to Hong Kong along with our NATO obligation, so to have engaged in three more conflicts would have required a mobilization unseen since the beginning of the Second World War. France and Italy were not keen on the matter, and the Soviet Union was not going to provide co-operation.

In truth Geneva exposed what we should have seen all along, we were exposed to more international crises than we could cope with, suggesting that we had entered into an unprecedented new chapter of the Cold War, specifically the point at which the so-called superpowers and the great powers had literally lost control of the international agenda.
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From Anonymous – Behind the Fortress Walls

It was clear from the outset that the Americans planned the Geneva summit as a cover for their aggressive policies. Judging from their President’s decrepit condition, he had lost control to the provocateur Brzezinski, who was the war monger guiding the imperialist American policies.

Iran had proved to be an embarrassment, and it was one we would not repeat. The Americans had crowed about their victory over so-called “Soviet aggression” in what had been our just and rightful move to avenge the insult that had been done to the Soviet people and our Revolution by the reactionary black ass bandits in Iran. If this was the path they wished to take, then we were more than ready to stand for recognition and respect against their so-called peace initiatives.

A reasonable accord would have been a division of spheres of control in China. We would provide no objection to western peacekeeping operations in the South around the occupied enclave in Hong Kong in return for our being allowed to exercise fraternal stabilization in the North. However, it was clear from the start that American policy, wetted in blood lust through their unreasonably aggressive stand in Iran, had now expanded from merely restoring socialist order in China to a policy of undoing the Chinese revolution. This we would not allow.

We had understood Lop Nur as a joint signal to the lunatic nephew of Mao that his time had come. Many hardliners in the Kremlin had stated at the time that the Americans would use it as an excuse to press their interest in re-colonizing the Chinese mainland, and in Brzezinski’s so-called security plan we saw just such a policy come into being.

Africa and Iraq were separate matters. Africa was a principled struggle for freedom by oppressed people’s, who were throwing off the vestiges of colonial imperialism and its racist fellow traveller. There could be no question of compromise when the clear path forward was for the European colonizers to leave and restore to the native people their rightful lands. Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov, acting as spokesman for the ailing Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, made this point clear in the round table discussions. The Soviet Union was happy to facilitate a series of talks through our fraternal ties with the revolutionary movements, but the goal of such talks could only be the liberation of Southern Africa. The fact that the imperialist powers could not get their colonial puppets to behave as they said they wished them too indicated either that the puppets were out of control, or that the imperialists were stalling. In either eventuality, entering into talks would be pointless if our fraternal allies were talking to those who had no control (or were unwilling to exercise it) over the other side. From this point an all out assault by the revolutionary forces seemed the better approach, to force the racist colonialists to the table by a strong revolutionary victory.

On Iraq there was more of a consensus, if only in all candour we were the ones with less control over our allies. The return of exploitive western oil companies was to be expected, as even Iraq did business with these pirates. Of course, as Nikolai Ivanovich argued ad nauseam, this opening would create an opportunity for our own state run petroleum unit to gain access to the Arabian fields through a commercial front of our own. Many of the old timers were sceptical of this sort of tilt toward capitalism, but Nikolai Ivanovich and his acolytes made the case that it would serve the national interest and secure our position in the Middle East in conjunction with our Iraqi allies. The proposal was mooted to do this through the proxy of several of our Eastern European comrades, so as to dilute the appearance of direct Soviet involvement, but in the long run we agreed to the French proposal to continue talks with the Iraqis while restoring the viability of the Arabian oil fields.

This was a time of great uncertainty for us, though we wished to disguise it from the imperialists. Yuri Vladimirovich was ill, a serious coronary episode had taken much out of him. Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov, Viktor Georgiyevich Kulikov and Grigory Vasilyevich Romanov were now in ascendance, but even as they consolidated effective power, they were in disagreement amongst themselves over a number of issues. A hard line on China was Grigory Vasilyevich’s firm view, and it was necessary to placate hard-liners of the old generation who still clung to the past. Nikolai Ivanovich took the lead on Iraq, while together Viktor Georgiyevich and Grigory Vasilyevich pushed forward an African policy which would maintain our international revolutionary credentials, and one we could effectively pass on to Castro to implement with actual troops.

During Yuri Vladimirovich decline this kept the ship of state in balance, though it pleased few at Geneva, least of all the Americans. But then we knew President Wallace would be out of office in a year, and the Cossack Brzezinski would go with him. If they elected a reactionary like Reagan then we could expect no better, but if another, more pliable President was elected, then perhaps we could re-open the matter then.
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February 8, 1980

Leonard Kaitcer, a Belfast antiques dealer, was killed following his kidnapping and demand for a £1 million ransom.

February 9, 1980

At the Vatican Pope Pius XIII announces the foundation of the Papal Council for the Reclamation of Dignity in Human Affairs. “The Dignity Council” [DC] is widely regarded as the Pope’s efforts to involve the Church more directly in the political development of nations around the globe within the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. The DC, with a specific vision of the Pope’s to help initiate a situation where popular democracies can be formed around Church views and values. Specifically the Pope’s vision is to offer an international network that will support a third way between the extremes of Liberation Theology and Marxism on the one side, and predatory capitalist economics on the other. Developments in Spain and the Basque Country are seen as the test cases for the DC and Pope Pius’ vision.

While the RC is lead by a Cardinal [Albino Luciani of Venice] who shares the Pope’s ideals on the matter, as a matter of status within the Church hierarchy, much of the development of the DC is lead by Fr. Ricardo Ezzati Andrello who is deeply involved in the Spanish project and will later be involved in ecclesiastical outreach by the Church.

February 10, 1980

Chancellor Roy Jenkins announces that state benefits for striking workers will no longer be paid to strikers. According to Jenkins it will be the responsibility of the Trades Unions themselves to take care of their striking members (this does not include their citizen benefits under National Health etc., just strike benefits).

Barbara Castle MP (TL - Blackburn): “Oh, what petty meanness this government has fallen too. What spite to do the bosses bidding by stealing the food from the mouth of hungry children. When did the Labour Party turn its back on the very people whom it was created to serve?”

Airey Neave MP (Cons. – Abingdon): “Finally this government has begun to address what is wrong with the economic policies of this country, where work is punished and free loading rewarded. If you want to strike, then you must take with that the consequences of that choice. It is not the government that takes the food from the mouth of a hungry child, it is the careless agitator who chooses to rabble rouse instead of good old fashioned work to get ahead. “

Betty Williams, one of the founding members of the Peace People, resigned from the organisation for family reasons.

February 13, 1980

The 1980 Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York.

February 15, 1980

In Vanuatu, followers of John Frum's cargo cult on the island of Tanna declare secession as the nation of Tafea.

Yasser Arafat is found dead in his apartment in Tunis. Suspects include the Israelis, the PJO or opponents from within the PLO. Arafat is given a state funeral in Tunis.

February 16, 1980

A total solar eclipse seen in North Africa and West Asia.

With the assistance of Toureg allies, the PJO (Palestinian Jihad Organization) declares Mali to be an Islamic Republic.

At the Fianna Fáil (FF) conference in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Charles Haughey, then the new Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), called for a joint initiative, on behalf of the British and Irish governments, to try to find a political solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Israeli jets manage to drop several bombs on Arafat’s funeral in Tunis. Israel is condemned for this action while the United States is condemned by many nations for allowing it to happen. (The Israelis had to re-fuel over the Mediterranean and the U.S. was almost certainly aware of this activity as it was happening but did nothing to prevent it).

February 17, 1980

British Steel announces that more than 11,000 jobs will be made redundant at its plants in Wales by the end of next month.

Barbara Castle MP (TL-Blackburn) [on ITV]: “All you need do is look at the language used to understand the real thinking. Eleven-thousand jobs made redundant? That sounds as if the jobs themselves are being done away with as if they were nothing more than widgets on the plant floor. In point of fact, that’s eleven thousand British working men and women – human beings – and eleven thousand ordinary families who are being thrown out of work and onto the dole. Now the government doesn’t want that to get too much attention, so British Steel plays to their agenda by calling these lay-offs redundancies, as if it were only a technical, bookkeeping matter and didn’t involve the welfare of flesh-and-blood families. British Steel says this enhances national productivity, but I can’t see how our nation can be made more productive, or how the long-term welfare of the British worker, is made more secure or more efficient by punishing eleven thousand honest, working people for the failings of British Steel and this government. I mean how is Britain made more secure by creating eleven thousand new dependent families? Is this not a failure of the government’s whole industrial policy?”

The United Nations Security Council approves a resolution which requires Spain not to invade or use military force against the Basque country. The resolution stops well short of recognizing Basque independence, but in mentioning Fr. Errazuriz’s efforts gives a tacit support to his process.

A group of UN observer troops drawn from Finland, Fiji, Canada, Mexico and India are set-up to provide border security for the Basque Republic along its borders with Spain.

February 22, 1980

In an upset for many Americans the Soviet Olympic Hockey Team defeats the United States Olympic Hockey Team 4-3 in the semi-finals of the Winter Olympics. After the game Soviet officials complain that their players are being harassed and threatened by Americans; FBI protection is extended to the Soviet team. Mike Ramsey and David Silk of the U.S. team are later roughed-up by some irate American fans.

The London Gold Fixing has dropped to US$975 a troy ounce, due in large part to a high volume of South African sales to the international market.

February 23, 1980

The Liberal/National coalition government of Sir Charles Court is re-elected in Western Australia.

In a speech President Francois Mitterrand states that France’s policy is to encourage the territorial integrity of Spain under a “government of democratic self-determination.” He also says that France will respect the “on-going developments in the Spanish Basque country and will respect the right of negotiations as long as France’s border security rights are respected.” He throws cold-water on any attempts to spread Basque autonomy into France by stating that France, having a “long developed democratic process” will address “such questions within France according to French law and in keeping with the wider interests of French national sovereignty.”

February 24, 1980

The Shekel replaces the Israeli lira.

February 25, 1980

A coup in Suriname ousts the government of Henck Arron; leaders Desi Bouterse and Roy Horb replace it with a National Military Council.

The first episode of the popular political television sitcom Yes Minister broadcast by the BBC.

Manchester United chairman Louis Edwards dies from a heart attack at the age of 65, just weeks after allegations about his dealings with Manchester United and his retail outlet chain.

February 26, 1980

New Hampshire Presidential Primary

Democratic Party: Ted Kennedy 36%; Hugh Carey 33%; Henry Jackson 18%; Charles Wright 10%, Others 3%

Republican Party: Donald Rumsfeld 34%; Ronald Reagan 34%; Jack Williams 18%, Trent Lott 4%, Others 10% [Rumsfeld victory by 9 votes after three recounts].


February 27, 1980

M-19 guerrillas begin the Dominican embassy siege in Colombia, holding 60 people hostage, including 14 ambassadors.

The INLA attempts to assassinate Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Terrence Boston with a bomb planted next to the roadway he uses to travel from the airport to Stormont. A faulty detonator causes the bomb to go off after Boston’s car has passed the spot. The bomb kills two security force escorts but leaves the Secretary unharmed.

February 28, 1980

The Basque National Council – an interim government for the Basque area, calls on the ETA (the armed Basque Nationalist/Terrorist group) to lay down arms and integrate into a peaceful political process.

March 1, 1980

The Commonwealth Trade Union Council is established.

The Voyager 1 probe confirms the existence of Janus, a moon of Saturn.

One of the leaders of the PJO, Mahmoud al-Zahar, meets with Colonel Qaddaffi in Libya to sign an agreement for mutual recognition and trade. (Al-Zahar is one of a collective leadership of the PJO, a shadowy group whose complete membership is largely unknown in the West. Al-Zahar appears to function as the foreign minister for the group).

Over the spring and summer of 1980 the PJO influenced regime in Mali begins to encroach on the territory of Mauritania and Niger, spreading Islamic revolutionary ideals in both countries. At this point the PJO is being armed and financed in part by Qaddaffi, who has made a deal with the PJO that in essence allows it to attack any other Arab or non-Arab state it wishes, as long as it leaves Libya alone. Qadaffi may also be using the PJO to carry-out his personal foreign policy without any obvious Libyan state involvement. (This alliance is not ideological, since there are great differences between Qaddaffi’s quasi-Socialist philosophies and the Islamist PJO, this is strictly a pragmatic partnership for the PJO).

March 2, 1980

At the request of King Felipe VI of Spain, the deposed former King Juan Carlos (the teenage King’s father) returns to Spain to act as his son’s regent. Juan Carlos replaces King Felipe’s Falangist regents who are dismissed from royal service.

March 3, 1980

Australian Federal Election Results

House of Representatives (127 seats/64 required to form a government)
Australian Labor Party (ALP) 61 + 2 = 63
Liberal Party of Australia (LPA) 41 + 1 = 42
National Country Party (NCP) 19 + 0 = 19
Australia Party (AP) 2 – 1 = 1
Democratic Labor Party (DLP) 1 + 0 = 1
Independent 3 – 2 = 1

Labor continues a coalition government (“the New Compact”) with the support of 1 DLP and 1 Independent member.

63 + 1 + 1 = 65 seats

Bill Hayden remains Prime Minister with an ALP cabinet (The incumbent government returned).

Senate (64 seats/33 needed for control)
LPA 28 – 2 = 26
ALP 26 + 1 = 27
NCP 5 – 1 = 4
AP 2 – 1 = 1
New Liberal Movement 1 + 1 = 1
Country Liberal Party 1 – 1 = 0
Independents 1 + 5 = 6

Control with neither Coalition; influence passes to the independents.

March 5, 1980

Tomás Ó Fiaich, then Catholic Primate of Ireland, and Edward Daly, then Bishop of Derry, held a meeting with Terrence Boston, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, to express their concerns about conditions within the Maze Prison. A former chairman of the Peace People, Peter McLachlan, resigned from the organisation.

U.S. Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski undertakes a five nation African tour in an effort to develop a consensus for moving to a “post colonial reality” in Southern Africa. His attempts to meet with representatives of the Rhodesian or South African governments are rebuffed.

March 6, 1980

Fr. Errazuriz organizes an event in New York hosted by Cardinal Cooke (at Vatican request) to bring together overseas Basque supporters to bring money and technical aid to the nascent Basque nation. Among the prominent Diaspora supporters include Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-NV), Ted Williams (retired Major League Baseball player), Roberto Goizueta (President of Coca-Cola), and descendants of the Nobel Laureate Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (Gabriela Mistral). The Basque International Fund is set-up to lobby for support for the Basque Republic with world governments and to raise funds for the Basque Republic.


March 8, 1980

The Soviet Union's first rock music festival starts.

March 9, 1980

In a major gaffe on March 9, Quebec Cabinet minister Lise Payette denounced women supporters of the "No" side of the Quebec Sovereignty referendum as Yvettes (the name of a docile young girl in an old school manual). She went so far as calling Quebec Liberal leader Claude Ryan's wife, Madeleine, an Yvette. This backfired spectacularly as the Yvettes, led by Madeleine Ryan, held a number of political rallies in response to her remarks.

The first of those rallies happened on March 30 when a group of 1,700 women held the brunch des Yvettes at the Château Frontenac in Quebec City. The major rally occurred at the Montreal Forum on April 7 when 14,000 women denounced the minister's declarations about women and manifested their support for the "No" side. This was the first major rally for the "No" side in the campaign. This would be followed by many more smaller rallies particularly by women groups.

At the National Assembly, Lise Payette would eventually apologize for her remarks.

March 11, 1980

The body of Thomas Niedermayer, a West German industrialist who had disappeared in December 1973, was found at Colinglen Road, West Belfast.

Armed men, later discovered to be Loyalists paramilitary members, attempt to shoot their way into the Boston conferences on Northern Ireland. They are unsuccessful as several are killed by British security forces and the remainder wounded and captured.

Price of oil: $ 29.00 (82.60) (down $ 6.00 from 1979)
Price at the Pump: $ 0.99/gallon (down from $ 1.12 in 1979)
Inflation: 3.9% (down 0.4% from 1979)
Unemployment: 6.4% (down 0.8% from 1979)

A crowd converges on the Royal Palace of Madrid, encircling it with protestors. This soon becomes the focus of the general strike.


March 14, 1980

In Poland, a plane crashes during an emergency landing near Warsaw, killing a 14-man American boxing team and 73 others.

The Khmer Republic and the Republic of (South) Vietnam reach an agreement to withdraw South Vietnamese troops from the eastern provinces of the Khmer Republic.

March 16, 1980

The British war ship HMS Cleopatra is attacked and sunk by Chinese patrol boats in the Pearl River estuary. Two days later, on March 18, allied aircraft bomb the port facility at which the Chinese patrol boats are based.

Barbara Castle MP (TL – Blackburn): “Fifty of our sailors have died and for what? To continue this endless provocation of a peaceful nation from the last outposts of colonial domination. What has China done to arouse our fury? Can it be in its reclusive desire to be left alone – a right which the Chinese should be free to exercise if they choose – it has transgressed the law of capital, that no one may withdraw from the world of commerce and exploitation? Perhaps if this government were to let China alone, and not provoke it with a resurgence of nineteenth century gunboat diplomacy, then perhaps the so-called emergency would pass.”

David Owen MP (Defence Secretary): “The honourable member highlights the very point when she posits on the Chinese right to freely exercise their choices. There is no freedom in China, no rights. Only the will of one man who uses mass murder to control his people and would seek to export his philosophy through violence and terror. This government has a commitment to defend the free people of Hong Kong, and together with our allies we will not waver in this responsibility.”

Airey Neave MP (Cons. – Opposition Leader): “Our party stands behind our armed forces in this hour of crisis. We say to this government that there can be no half measures when confronted by violence and mayhem. Whatever comes of this, we must look to ending the mad man’s grip on power once and for all.”

President Bobbio of Italy sends a letter of encouragement to the general strikers in Spain which is read out to protesting groups in various cities.

March 17, 1980

The night before the Illinois Presidential primary Sen. Edward (Ted) Kennedy is a passenger in a car which swerves to avoid another vehicle and is in an accident. Taken to hospital, a semi-conscious Kennedy is found to have a blood alcohol level three times over the legal limit and traces of cocaine are found on his clothing.

Kennedy’s drinking and the fact that he was involved in another major accident involving alcohol and an automobile revive memories of Chappaquiddick ten years before. Lost in the immediate sensation of this publicity is the fact that while Kennedy was intoxicated, he was not driving the car, and may in fact have been in sleeping in the back seat when the accident occurred.

March 18, 1980

Fifty people are killed at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia, when a Vostok-2M rocket explodes on its launch pad during a fueling operation.

Illinois Presidential Primary

Democratic Party: Hugh Carey 41%; Henry Jackson 29%; Ted Kennedy 14%; Pat Robertson 8%; Others: 8%

Republican Party: Donald Rumsfeld 46%; Ronald Reagan 28%; Jack Williams 11%; Trent Lott: 4%; Others: 11%

March 19, 1980

The sheriff of Menard County, Illinois formally books Sen. Kennedy for felony possession of a controlled substance (cocaine).

Gov. Donald Rumsfeld (R-IL): “In China this country, the defender of freedom and the arsenal of democracy, faces its most crucial test since 1941. The test is who's going to outlast the other, and the answer is we're going to outlast them. It’s not enough to quiet China, as some so-called doves would have it. The Lesser Mao has proved that he cannot be dealt with as a reasonable person, and as such there can be no peace with honor as long as he remains in power. The only way we are going to have peace is to change the regime in China."

March 20, 1980

The Mi Amigo, the ship that housed pirate radio station Radio Caroline, sinks (Radio Caroline returns aboard a new ship in 1983).

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) officially withdraws from the 1980 Democratic Presidential primaries.

March 21, 1980

Mafioso Angelo Bruno is murdered in Philadelphia.

General Inaldo, Chief of the Spanish Armed Forces, informs Prime Minister Milans that his troops will remain in the barracks and that he cannot further support the government. Urged on by the military Bishop Cardinal Benavent, General Inaldo rejects a Chilean style coup as a resolution to the situation.

March 24, 1980

Archbishop Óscar Romero is killed by gunmen while celebrating Mass in San Salvador. At his funeral 6 days later, 42 people are killed amid gunfire and bombs.

The Boston conferences end as no consensus has been found among the parties in over two months of talks.

Ronald Reagan (R-CA): “I do not embrace the path to war, but I will not – as so many liberals would have it – surrender our freedom for the sake of peace. The situation in China, and the other challenges around the globe, show that the world can only be free when the United States is strong. The Lesser Mao isn’t attacking us just because he’s crazy – which he is – but because our weakness has allowed him to believe that he can get away with it. The first step to ending the Lesser Mao’s dark reign is to bring strength and greatness back to foreign policy of the United States.”

March 26, 1980

A mine lift cage at the Vaal Reef gold mine in South Africa falls 1.2 miles (1.9 kilometers), killing 23.

Hoping to salvage some vestige of the peace process in Ireland the Healey government announces that it will continue the policy of special status for Republican prisoners in the North. Although there had been a plan to end special status, the gaolers became concerned that the prisoners would mount some loud protest which might de-rail or complicate political efforts. The Prime Minister reluctantly agreed that now was not the time to shake the pot.

March 27, 1980

The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.

The Silver Thursday market crash occurs.

March 28, 1980

Talpiot Tomb is found in Jerusalem.


March 31, 1980

British Leyland agrees to sell the MG cars factory at Abingdon to a consortium headed by Aston Martin-Lagonda when the plant closes that autumn.

National Heritage Act sets up the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

Prime Minister Healey: “I have today informed President Mitterrand that the United Kingdom government will not be returning for further talks with the representatives of the Irish Republican movement at Ramboulliet. Frankly these lengthy discussions over nearly two years now have achieved nothing of substance so there seems little reason to continue. More to the point, it seems the persons on the other side of the table cannot or will not control their paramilitary counterparts, and that a campaign of violence is still being waged against lawful authority in Northern Ireland. Under these circumstances talks with the self-styled political representatives of the outlaws have become nothing more than a shield behind which they can find political cover while their associates continue with murder and mayhem. The United Kingdom government will not pretend that this can lead anywhere, and we will not continue talks with those who, in their own terms, would rather pick-up the Armalite rather than negotiate in seriousness for peace and good order in Northern Ireland. We will continue our dialogue with the Irish government over join measures to address the lawless element, and the United Kingdom government will continue efforts to consult with those who respect law-and-order.”

Enoch Powell MP (UU – South Down): “After two years of negotiation this government has discovered what was self evident from the start; that negotiations with terrorists and criminals are impossible and immoral; impossible because criminals will take, take, take without end and immoral because to concede on any point to men with blood soaked hands is to replace law and order with the currency of blood as the only policy, and this no civilised nation can ever allow. Perhaps now this government will consider policies which will end the terror instead of prolonging it.”

Airey Neave MP (Cons. – Abingdon): “This government, slow in wit and oblivious to the suffering of the people of Northern Ireland since taking office, has finally had to conceded what the people have well known all along. We are at war, at war with terrorists. Now is the time to take that war to the terrorists.”

Barbara Castle MP (TL – Blackburn): “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. How many more must die because the British government arrogantly sticks to an old, shop worn policy born of the days of Empire and as long discredited as the idea of Empire. We have lost one Queen to this morass; how many more must die before we come to our senses and say have done with this and let Ireland go to its own democratic destiny. When will this government end the suffering?”

Enoch Powell (on the BBC): “What I wish this government would look into is the whole question of how the United States is funding this turmoil, and how close the relationship is between the provisional thugs in Ulster and certain American politicians. Specifically, my view and that of others who have studied the question is not so much that the criminals in Ulster have an legitimate goal, but rather that the United States is giving them the means to fight and that this is weakening our nation. That is not the act of an ally, and until we consider the American dimension and what their true purpose is in this, we will never fully be able to settle the problem once and for all.”

Faced with the inability to govern, the Regent Juan Carlos asks Prime Minister Milans to resign. Faced with little support, and a military and police increasingly reluctant to use force against increasingly larger crowds of protesting people, the Prime Minister resigns and makes arrangements to flee into exile in Chile.

Juan Carlos appears before the protesting surrounding the Royal Palace of Madrid and announces that “forty years of Falangist government has ended.” Sustained cheering, which goes on for several hours, drowns the rest of his speech out.


April 1, 1980

The Mariel boatlift from Cuba begins.

Ramón Rubial Cavia is elected as a provisional President of the Basque People’s Republic. Carlos Garaikoetxea becomes the provisional Prime Minister.

Despite efforts by the leadership of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation to end the British Steel steelworkers' strike, the membership rebels and calls for the strike to continue. The dissident Labour MP and former Deputy Prime Minister Barbara Castle prominently supports the rebellious steel workers in their efforts to prevent lay-offs and government mandated efficiencies at the nationalized British Steel.

New York City's Transport Works Union Local 100 goes on strike, which continues for 11 days.

April 2, 1980

The St Pauls riot breaks out in Bristol.

Alfonso Guerra González of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party is proclaimed interim Prime Minister of Spain. King Felipe VI formally requests that Guerra form an interim government. At the same time a Constitutional convention is proclaimed, which will produce a new Constitution to be ratified by the people in a national referendum.

In a speech which many Quebec sovereignists regard as incendiary Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport and Minister of State for Multiculturalism Steve Paproski MP (PC – Edmonton North) calls the Quebec sovereignty referendum “treason by writ”.

April 3, 1980

Three staff members of the Kincora Boys Home, Belfast, were charged with acts of gross indecency. [These charges, and subsequent revelations, led to years of accusations that elements of the security service, civil servants and a number of Loyalists had been involved in the sexual abuse of young boys at Kincora.]

USAF B-52 bombers attack the rail lines supporting the PLA forward defences near the Hong Kong border. At the same time US Navy Seal and British and Australian SBS Special Forces are used to infiltrate PLA forward areas and “spike the cannons” in terms of sabotaging Chinese artillery.


April 4, 1980

While attempting to apologize for Minister Paproski’s comments, Canadian Prime Minister Lougheed causes further tension by suggesting that Quebec “seeks a divorce from the federal relationship in order to create a society that is more exclusive and authoritarian in nature.”

A truck bomb detonates outside the Iraqi mission to the United Nations in New York, killing seven and injuring over twenty others. A group called the Mujahideen for the Liberation of the Holy Places claims responsibility. Intelligence indicates that the MLHP is an Arabian group receiving support from the PJO.

April 9, 1980

Soyuz 35 launched. It carries two Cosmonauts to the Salyut 6 space station.

April 10, 1980

In Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist party, Cuban leader Fidel Castro praises Quebec premier Rene Levesque as a “visionary of the people” and celebrates the Quebec referendum as a first step toward creating a “liberated, socialist democracy on the North American mainland.”

April 12, 1980

Samuel Kanyon Doe takes over Liberia in a coup d'état, ending over 130 years of democratic presidential succession in that country. The United States is widely believed to have supported the coup since the incumbent President, William R. Tolbert, had opened diplomatic relations and trade with the Soviet Union and its allies. Once he took power Doe quickly restored Liberia’s pro-western foreign policy.

Terry Fox begins his Marathon of Hope from St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

Quebec Premier Rene Levesque seems to confirm Castro’s essay when he says that a newly sovereign Quebec may be a “one party state for a time” until “a genuinely Quebec-oriented opposition is formed” – thereby suggesting that a sovereign Quebec would force the Quebec Liberal Party and other political parties with a Canadian national presence to shut down.

The New England Journal of Medicine publishes a report on a study conducted by the Center for Disease Control into the cases of 36 habitual users of injected narcotics in San Francisco. All 36 patients have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, and indications are that there are more sufferers on the streets. The new immune suppression virus acquires its name from this study – the Narcotics Related Immune Suppression Virus (or more commonly NACRIS [‘pron; Nah-kris’). The study will later be criticized for its selective focus on the addicts themselves, and overlooking the wider implications of the diseases transmission (i.e. through bodily fluids). For the moment research concentrates on a direct connection between NACRIS and the narcotics – leading some to speculate that the Chinese are poisoning their export heroin with biological agents. Opponents of the China and law enforcement sources will repeat this unproven connection for the next several years, further sabotaging research into the actual sources of NACRIS.

April 14, 1980

Iron Maiden's debut self titled album Iron Maiden is released.

April 15, 1980

Terrence Boston, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, travelled to Dublin for talks with Charles Haughey, then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister), and members of the new Irish government.

April 21, 1980

Rosie Ruiz wins the Boston Marathon, but is later exposed as a fraud and stripped of her award.

April 22, 1980

Rising unemployment approaches 1,000,000 mark in the UK. This re-news pressure on the government to create jobs.

April 24, 1980

Pennsylvania Lottery Scandal: the Pennsylvania Lottery is rigged by 6 men including the host of the live TV drawing, Nick Perry.

U.S. B-52 Bombers drop bombs on suspected PJO training camps near Bamako, Mali in retaliation for the terrorist attack in New York.

April 25, 1980

Dan-Air Flight 1008 crashes in Tenerife, killing all 146 occupants and marking the worst air disaster involving a British-registered aircraft in terms of loss of life.

Joint military and police strike forces move against Chinese heroin distribution points in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, along with major police raids in San Francisco, Seattle, Hawaii and Vancouver. This co-ordinated international effort is designed to put a squeeze on the Chinese international heroin distribution ring and so put a major stoppage into the flow of cash into the Lesser Mao’s coffers.

Later research would show that the American Mafia and underemployed drug traffickers in Turkey and other parts of Asia assisted the U.S. CIA and DEA and Britain’s Security and Police Services in gathering criminal intelligence on these Chinese networks. This unsavoury alliance would later cause a scandal over law enforcement and intelligence making alliances with criminals in order to ensnare other criminals.

April 26, 1980

Louise and Charmian Faulkner disappear from outside their flat in St Kilda, Victoria, Australia.

Agha Shahi, the Foreign Minister of Pakistanm becomes the first foreign official to be received in Peking in five years. (He had been Ambassador in Peking 1972-1973). The purpose of his trip was to attempt to negotiate a de-escalation of the tension between the Chinese and the western powers. (Shahi had been an important liaison between China and the west between 1967 and 1972 and had experience with the PRC). He quickly concludes that the officials he is speaking with have no real authority. Minister Shahi asks to speak with Mao Yang-jin himself, but is refused. Instead Minister Shahi receives a manifesto from the PRC leadership which amounts to a demand that the British surrender Hong Kong.

Agha Shahi: “I warned them that they were committing national suicide, but they were oblivious to my reasoning, acting as if they were robots programmed to speak the leadership line and nothing else. When I broached the subject of the Americans being held prisoner, and explained that their release would be an excellent good will gesture, the official with whom I debated denied they had any American prisoners, even as the Communist Party newspaper not two feet away expounded on the merits of trying them as war criminals. In such an environment of complete oppression, and denial, it is impossible to negotiate. I think we in the rest of the world must understand that there is no rational partner for us to negotiate with, that China is truly the asylum being run by the inmates.”

Agha Shai (a reflection published later): “I whispered to one of the fellows – “You are afraid, aren’t you?” - The man looked at me as if I had just suggested the most absurd thing on the planet. Then he said to me, also in a whisper, “fear is the normal way to live here.”


April 27, 1980

The Dominican embassy siege ends with all hostages released and the guerrillas flying to Cuba.

Quebec sovereignists are outraged by an English add which draws attention to Castro’s remarks about the Quebec referendum and which suggests that Premier Rene Levesque wants to create a Cuban-like Communist state in Quebec.

Former President Gavin: “Perhaps we have realized that, to our peril, that the world really is a web of complicated interdependencies, and more than just a two way struggle between ourselves and the Soviets. By focusing too much on the Cold War struggle, and not providing enough focus to other causes and passions which do not, necessarily, involve our ideological predispositions, we have let those other forces loose without control, until now we are more a prisoner of events than a determiner of them. Now, more than ever, we – by which I mean all nations dedicated to an international framework of laws and orderly co-existence - have to come together as at no time since 1945, and address the question of bringing a new world order out of the chaos.”

Ronald Reagan: “To call for a new world order that ignores the fundamentally corrosive effect of Soviet Communism is wishful thinking. Let’s look at the problem areas around the globe: China, Iraq, hard-line revolutionaries in Southern Africa, Communists in Portugal, anti-religious zealots in Spain, Communists in Italy and what do we see as the guiding hand behind all of that? Communism. All of these diverse troublemakers with their so-called web of complicated interdependencies have at their core two things; a Marxist-Leninist ideology written for them in Moscow and a bottomless pit of cash and weapons supplied from Moscow. There is no mystery as to who is the fundamental author of our troubles. Now, if we go after the effects – the troubles across the globe – of course we are going to feel weakened by the effort, and that is in part because recent Presidents have allowed our military capability to become so weak that we can no longer project American power as we once did. But really, and this is where the real weakness lies with the current administration and those before it who embraced the false doctrine of detente, we have but one challenge and one opponent. If we want to stop the chaos in the world then we must compel the Soviet Empire to stop creating it, and that we can only do as a strong nation, one they will fear and which they will once again respect.”

Donald Rumsfeld: “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know. What we need is a strong military backed by a strong, prosperous nation, that can prepare us to meet the challenges of the known and the unknown perils on the world stage. In the long run alliances aren’t going to cut it, because our allies are themselves gripped in an internal confusion over the unknown unknowns, and they lack a clarity of purpose. We need to restore that clarity of purpose to our foreign and military policy. The Soviets are causing world problems because they have been lead to believe they can get away with it. The United States has to be in a position to say no more and mean it.”

Hugh Carey: “Walking softly and carrying the big stick is no longer a viable solution because the big stick is nuclear and the cost of using it is too terrible to contemplate. If we need any reminding of that we need only look toward Kwangsi and see the full meaning of what the price of such a policy would be. Our Republican opponents seem intent on a focus of doom and gloom. Governor Reagan wants to take the war to Moscow while Governor Rumsfeld wants to go looking under the bed for his unknowable unknowns, armed to the teeth no doubt. But, I choose to look at the points of hope. I speak of the victory of democracy over tyranny in Italy and the end of dictatorship in Spain, both events brought about not by military force but by the resolve of peoples to be free and to stand-up to their oppressors. Perhaps this, and not armed conflict, is the way of the future. If nothing else, ordinary Italians and ordinary Spaniards have shown the rest of us the meaning of the credo we hold dear, that “We the People” make democracy. The people of Italy and Spain, nations with a long history of authoritarian tradition, have shown that the long, moral arc of history inevitably bends towards freedom and justice. Perhaps then we are looking at the wrong solution for the myriad of international problems we face. Instead looking for ways to impose order through force of arms we should instead be seeking ways to let free the people’s own desire for peace and democracy and give it a chance to bloom.”

Former President Richard Nixon: “It is all well and good to talk about giving democracy a chance to bloom, of course. But until you get the conditions for democratic change, then it’s so much wishful thinking, really. Italy and Spain are unique cases, in the case of Italy we introduced democratic government there at the end of the war, and the Spanish people were encouraged by what they saw there, and by the weakness of the Falangist regime. This sort of thing is not a model for Africa or China. Ultimately, we are going to have to create the conditions for change, through lessening the Soviet involvement in the case of Africa, and by getting rid of a madman in the case of China. None of that is going to happen overnight.”

Ron Dellums: “In this campaign we have become so obsessed with international relations that the candidates have lost focus on the economic difficulties which trouble the majority of our people. I think maybe that point is the theme of our history for the last forty years, at least in as far as we have let a perceived but distant foreign threat overshadow a real and persistent threat to our way of life. If nothing else, the last seven years, under Administrations and Congresses controlled by both major parties, has shown us – or should have shown us – how fragile our civil democracy and our prosperity is at home. When last confronted with such a crisis we addressed it by creating the New Deal, which like Lincoln’s rising tide, lifted-up everyone’s boat. But in the nineteen-seventies what have we done? We have allowed a drift toward political polarization and radicalism erode the fabric of our democracy. Today, as a nation, we are more divided than at any time in this century, and this threatens our return to prosperity in the nineteen eighties more than any foreign foe. Both major parties have failed to raise the tide beneath us; instead of uplifting our people with new and innovative ideas, three Presidents and the Congress have been busying themselves drilling holes in everyone’s boat, so that those among us who are not most capable of bailing are easily pulled under. I charge that both parties have failed at governance, both have failed to serve the interests of the electorate. On November fourth, both should be fired from government, and a new party elected that will put the interests and well-being of our people and our economy first. We will not forget about the Soviet threat, but we will not magnify it into a monster so great that we lose sight of what is important in our society, in our democracy, and we will act to uplift our people first.”

April 29, 1980

The INLA fires a 3M11 Falanga (AT-2 Swatter) surface-to-surface missile from the back of a lorry at the Palace of Westminster. The building sustains some visually spectacular damage on its street side façade but remains structurally sound. What is less structurally sound in the Labour government’s image on security after shots of the damaged façade are shown on television.


April 30, 1980

Iranian Embassy Siege: Six Iranian-born terrorists take over the Iranian embassy in London, UK.

Queen Juliana of the Netherlands abdicates, and her daughter Beatrix accedes to the throne.

The former King of Spain Juan Carlos, acting as regent for his son, King Felipe VI of Spain, signs the formal instrument of abdication, ending the second period of royal rule in Spain. The Royal family goes into exile in Britain.

Marion Price, who had been serving a sentence along with her sister Dolours for a car bombing in London on 8 March 1973, was released from Armagh women's prison on humanitarian grounds. Marion Price had been suffering from anorexia nervosa.

May 1, 1980

The Federal Republic of Spain (the Third Spanish Republic) is declared. May 1 is declared a national holiday. Pending a formal Constitutional assembly a three man Presidency is established to be composed of leaders of the PSOE, the Church and an agreed upon Professor of Law.

The Labour government sells shares in British Aerospace to private holders, but retains 51% control of the company.

Anthony Benn MP (TL – Bristol South East) “The Chancellor rises in this House and calls this a compromise, - quoting him “a bridge between national ownership in a strategic asset and an understanding of the importance of market freedom in giving initiative to enterprise.” I say bollocks to the whole thing! Selling the nation through the backdoor is still selling the nation, but instead of doing it openly like our Tory friends would do it, this government is slipping the fish out of the shop bit-by-bit in the middle of the night. How can you consider yourself a Labour government when your very policies surrender the rights and livelihoods of strategic industries and strategic jobs to the rapacious grasp of selfish commercial interests who have as their goal nothing more than to hollow out the nation for its wealth and cast the workers and taxpayers of this country to one side in the process? How can you allow this?”

Roy Jenkins MP (Chancellor): “I rise Mr. Speaker to note that the honourable member has a limited grasp of economics, as exhibited by his flawed analysis of our policy to deliver part of British Aerospace into private hands. I do have to wonder that, since the honourable member was elected in 1977 as a part of our governing caucus, and since he personally took part in early discussions of this very policy, where does he now derive the authority to criticize the policy. For whom does he speak? Having abandoned both his elected mandate and his economic senses, I think the honourable member should well consider by what right he says anything in this House.”

Keith Joseph MP (Cons. – Leeds North East): “The government seeks to split the loaf down the middle, so that each half will please a different constituency. We are to be happy that forty-nine percent of BA is now on the market, while the government’s socialist supporters are to be pleased with the retention of state control over the crucial fifty-one percent. This is a solution that attempts to please all of the people, but pleases none. Until the government releases all of BA to the market – effectively and truly making it a free company and not a state agency in disguise – they will have achieved nothing with this move, except to leave a broken loaf that nobody wants.”


May 3, 1980

SAS Special Forces storm the Iranian Embassy in London and kill the terrorists holding Iranian diplomats hostage. While the action is seen as one of strength from a security point of view, Prime Minister Healey and Home Secretary Cledwyn Hughes are condemned for “cowboy tactics” by much of the professional left and from among their own supporters.

Prime Minister Healey had in fact wanted the SAS to take the Embassy back on April 30, but it had taken three days (April 30, May 1 and May 2) for the SAS to prepare and rehearse the rescue. Meanwhile the government had stalled and engaged the terrorists in cosmetic negotiations. The SAS had wanted to delay another day or two, but the government pressured them to go on May 3.

May 4, 1980

Marshall Josip Broz Tito, the President of Yugoslavia, dies.

BasqueRepublic1980.png
 
The Democratic and Republican Presidential Primaries 1980

The Democratic Party Nominee: Gov. Hugh Carey (D-NY)

The Republican Party Nominee: To be determined at the Republican National Convention.
 

Attachments

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The Democratic and Republican Presidential Primaries 1980 (Maps)

Map representation of the 1980 Democratic Party and Republican Party Presidential Primaries.

1980PresidentialPrimaries.PNG
 
Great update, Drew!

Interesting primary season. Exactly how badly is Reagan hurt in the accident? Any long-term effects? I hope he wins at the convention, anyway.

Hope to hear more about the third parties and independents in the race (and speaking of which, will the American Independent Party nominate John Rarick for President like they did in our timeline? Or will he decline to focus on being governor?)
 
Great update, Drew!

Interesting primary season. Exactly how badly is Reagan hurt in the accident? Any long-term effects? I hope he wins at the convention, anyway.

Hope to hear more about the third parties and independents in the race (and speaking of which, will the American Independent Party nominate John Rarick for President like they did in our timeline? Or will he decline to focus on being governor?)

I suspect that it'll be Rumsfeld who the Republicans nominate in this timeline. Regardless, I'm sure Drew has an interesting set of developments in store.
 
I suspect that it'll be Rumsfeld who the Republicans nominate in this timeline. Regardless, I'm sure Drew has an interesting set of developments in store.

I dunno, the GOP bigwigs in this timeline have got to know that while Rumsfeld is popular with the base, his Agnew connections would hurt him badly in the general election.
 
Oh no I spoiled myself on the nominees! :( I have a feeling Rumsfeld will be elected President. And the American Independent Party has life breathed into it. I wonder how that will effect the election.

Opposition Leader Neave, interesting. I hoped that would happen, muahahaha. Speaking of British, politics, I wonder how much of a different tilt Yes, Minister has ITTL. Surely a belligerent Opposition Minister will be part of the show, no?

That NORAD close call reminds us that things can always get worse. Always. :eek: And then Iran... NATO has really disintegrated as a power bloc it seems, and its apparent in-universe as well. Pinochet of South Africa... Shit. The African situation is out of control, and it seems Europe sold out Arabia to Iraqi control.

This announcement proves to premature however. :( Also, NACRIS. AIDS has shown up as the "junker disease" then.

ONERAIL doesn't look like it'll be the wimpy Amtrak of OTL. A rebirth of public transport is possible now that Robert Moses is gone.

No Miracle on Ice wouldn't be an upset, unless the Soviets scored two goals near the endgame?

This new Pope is quite interesting. The Spanish Spring is already a feather in his cap, and John Paul I still being alive is quite interesting too. It's kind of sad to Juan Carlos play the same role in Spanish Spring, but go into exile.
 
I dunno, the GOP bigwigs in this timeline have got to know that while Rumsfeld is popular with the base, his Agnew connections would hurt him badly in the general election.

Has Agnew said anything about Rumsfeld lately? Does he endorse his old adviser, or does he view Rumsfeld as another treasonous opportunist?

At any rate, it looks like Williams's delegates will be the king-makers in this convention -- I feel like they're more likely to go for Rumseld, possibly after a veep pick.
 
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Woo, update!

It seems like the best-case scenario for Britain, France, and Canada re: Euskadi is for the new Spanish government to voluntarily (or "voluntarily") abandon it's claim to the region. Obviously a minority region becoming independent upon the dissolution of a dictatorship is right and proper and completely different from attempting to secede from a democracy, which would be just awful. ;) It looks like France is already moving towards this position. It's not ideal, but it's workable and avoids the risk of a Red Client or a collapsing failed state in their backyard. (One Portugal is enough, thank-you.)
 
Has Agnew said anything about Rumsfeld lately? Does he endorse his old adviser, or does he view Rumsfeld as another treasonous opportunist?

At any rate, it looks like Williams's delegates will be the king-makers in this convention -- I feel like they're more likely to go for Rumseld, possibly after a veep pick.

Well, he did stay with Agnew until the bitter end, so his former boss should be grateful...

I dunno about Jack Williams- he's a wild card.
 
Facinating update, as always.

The electoral map of the US got me thinking of what a similar map of Europe would show at this point. If Helmut Kohl falls, EVERY European state would have to be colored Red or Pink! A fact which would no doubt make the Tory Euroskeptics of Great Britain even more frightened of the EEC.

The situation of the Roman Catholic Church is rather surprising. The Portuguese Pope is acting like John Paul II towards the Western World, undermining a pillar of the right-wing regime in Spain, and probably Latin America. This will allow him to speak with great moral authority when condemning the oppression of Catholics (along with well, everyone!) behind the Iron Curtain. But I do wonder at the internal reaction within the Catholic Church to the Pope's swing towards Liberation Theology. The Sedavacantist crowd will just see this as more evidence of the illegitimacy of the Post-Vatican II Church. Inside the Church, the Society of Pius X, and Bishop Lefebvre is probably raising a stink, and probably not just behind the scenes. Of course, there is really nothing anyone inside the Church can do about this, as the successor to St. Peter is doctrinally infallible. Unless of course one buys into any of the conspiracy theories about John Paul I's death...

I wonder how the right-wing regimes that rule Latin American outside of Cuba, Mexico and Columbia are going to handle the transformation of one of the bedrock supporters of their regimes into an adversary? Without the acquiescence of the Church, the traditional alliance of landowner, industrialist and, colonel is only really left with nationalism and anti-communism to win over the masses.

Speaking of Latin America, just what is the state of Argentina following their disastrous war against Chile? Are the Peronists poised for a comeback, or is "El Proceso de Reorganización Nacional" simply under new management?
 
You know, something I really love about this timeline is that it's dark enough to make it easy to believe that everything will go to shit, so you actually root for the places that look like they're doing alright.

But yeah, excellent update.
 
Hmm, regarding the war in southern Africa, it's stated that the National Resistance Alliance is using quite a few foreign mercenaries in their campaign. I wonder if American white supremacist Don Black and his ilk (they of the ill-fated Operation Red Dog) are involved in this.

Also, minor inconsistency: you listed Senator Paul Laxalt as one of the high-profile guests at a Basque independence fundraiser in New York, yet you stated in your update regarding the 1974 midterms that Harry Reid had defeated Laxalt.
 
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