Five Decades of Fear & Loathing

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Sunday, December 26th, 1976: President-elect Reagan names Alan Greenspan as the next Secretary of the Treasury; an acolyte of Ayn Rand, Greenspan was a former economic adviser to Nixon, Agnew, and Reagan over the years, and has been widely renowned for his work as a high-profile New York City financial and business consultant. A monetarist, Greenspan’s nomination is a sign that the incoming Reagan administration will significantly deviate from the Gavin consensus policies.

Senator Philip Hart (D-MI), a popular legislator known as the “conscious of the Senate,” dies at the age of 64 from cancer. Hart, who had did not seek reelection in 1976, quickly declined in the weeks following the election of his successor Marvin Esch. Janey Hart, his widow, is appointed to the seat on an interim basis until Congressman Esch can be sworn in on January 3rd.
Monday, December 27th, 1976: Elizabeth Dole, a former member of the National Trade Commission and wife of incoming White House Chief of Staff Bob Dole, is nominated as the next Secretary of Commerce. Joining her in the cabinet will be Ray Donovan, a New Jersey construction company executive with strong ties to organized labor, who will serve as Secretary of Labor. Jack Miller of the American Enterprise Institute meanwhile is announced as the next Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Lastly, famed economist Milton Friedman will serve as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Tuesday, December 28th, 1976: Blues guitarist Freddie King dies at the age of 42 from pancreatitis.
Wednesday, December 29th, 1976: President-elect Reagan nominates former Federal Aviation Administrator Alexander Butterfield to the position of Secretary of Transportation. Butterfield is best remembered for his role in Watergate when he revealed before the Ervin Committee the existence of the White House taping system that ultimately helped bring down and later convict the former President.
Friday, December 31st, 1976: In a written statement to Congress, President Gavin calls for Congress to pass legislation granting statehood of Puerto Rico. Despite Gavin’s desire to see the island territory admitted to the union as the 51st state, there is very little substantive support for such a move within Congress.
Saturday, January 1st, 1977: New Years Day is observed globally.
Sunday, January 2nd, 1977: Bowie Kuhn suspends Braves owner Ted Turner for one year due to tampering charges in Gary Matthews free-agency signing.
Monday, January 3rd, 1977: The 95th Congress convenes in Washington; John McFall (D-CA) is elected in a party-line vote as Speaker of the House of Representatives, while Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) will serve as the next Majority Leader of the United States Senate.
Tuesday, January 4th, 1977: Apple Computer Inc. is incorporated. A number of technology experts wonder who is providing the capital, as this is more than just a garage start-up by entrepreneurs. Indeed, Apple seems to be building its designs on ideas from a number of discredited technology designers (some in prison) who had been accused to stealing proprietary technology for their start-ups.

The world's first personal computer, the Commodore PET, is demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.

The Democratic Progressive Republic of Portugal, Cuba, Mozambique, Angola, and Ethiopia sign a Friendship Treaty calling for mutual support and development between the five parties. The Treaty also contains clauses which draw the five nations closer in military co-operation against “anti-imperialist” forces.

A bomb detonates in the mailbox of British MP Enoch Powell. No one was injured in the blast. The PIRA calls it "the first retaliation" for the leveling of PIRA members’ homes.
Wednesday, January 5th, 1977: President-elect Reagan nominates William French Smith to serve as the next Attorney General. A lawyer, informal adviser to Reagan, and member of the California University System’s Board of Regents, Smith is viewed as a law-and-order minded Washington outsider who is welcomed by conservatives in the Senate.
Thursday, January 6th, 1977: The United States Congress certifies the electoral votes cast earlier in December, formally bringing the 1976 election to a close and certifying Ronald Reagan as the official President-elect. Reagan is set to take office as the 40th President in just two weeks.
Friday, January 7th, 1977: Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto announces in a speech to the National Assembly that he will dissolve the body and call fresh elections scheduled for March 7th; the news that the Prime Minister will call new elections is met with derision and jeers from opposition MPs present, and the opposing parties, led by the conservative Pakistani Muslim League, announced within hours their plans to merge into a new Pakistan National Alliance party that they hope can coalesce the anti-Bhutto vote around them.
Saturday, January 8th, 1977: Off the coast of Portugal, the HMS Antrim is shadowed by two DPRP patrol boats. Support vessels, including a submarine, and aircraft from the U.S. Navy base on the Azores assist the Antrim, and chase off the Portuguese vessels.

Seven people are killed and dozens more injured after bombs explode on the Moscow subway. The Soviet Union’s state-run television and radio news broadcasts deny the explosions were related to terrorism, though several Armenian nationalist suspects are subsequently taken into custody and later tried and executed for the attack in 1979.
Sunday, January 9th, 1977: The Oakland Raiders defeat the Minnesota Vikings 32–14 in Super Bowl XI at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
Monday, January 10th, 1977: A year after New York City lost its municipal autonomy to the state of New York over ongoing financial and management issues, Governor Hugh Carey announces plans to return the city over to an elected government again. The plan, according to Governor Carey, is for the city to remain under state administration until November’s Mayoral elections, when direct local rule will be restored afterwards. The city’s police, fire, waste management, and utilities will remain under state control for an extended period of time, and the city’s financial decisions will still have to be approved by the state government.

The Australian Labor Party Government of Prime Minister Bill Hayden falls on a vote of confidence over budgetary measures. A federal election is called for March 1st.
Tuesday, January 11th, 1977: President-elect Reagan nominates James Watt, a member of the Federal Power Commission, to serve as Secretary of the Interior. Congressman Edward Madigan (R-IL) will be appointed Secretary of Agriculture. Ike Livermore, a California based conservationist and longtime adviser to Reagan on environmental issues, will be appointed Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Wednesday, January 12th, 1977: The Reagan Transition announces that the President-elect has asked Utah businessman Jon Huntsman Sr., a plastics manufacturer, to serve as the next Administrator of the Small Business Administration. Carla Anderson Hills, meanwhile, is selected to serve as the next United States Trade Representative. Hills had served as an Assistant Attorney General to J. Clifford Wallace and was considered a contender for the position of Attorney General by some in the media.

President Gavin delivers his last State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress.
Thursday, January 13th, 1977: Arthur Fletcher, a former Republican candidate for Lt. Governor of Washington and Assistant Secretary of Labor in the Nixon and Agnew administrations, is selected as the next Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Samuel Pierce, a former General Counsel for the Department of the Treasury, was nominated to serve as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Both Fletcher and Pierce are African-American, the only black members of the Reagan cabinet.
Friday, January 14th, 1977: Former British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, who succeeded Churchill in 1955 and served until his resignation in 1957 following the Suez Crisis, dies at the age of 79 at his home in Wiltshire.
Saturday, January 15th, 1977: President James Gavin delivers his farewell address to the nation that is televised nationally from the Oval Office. While Gavin defends his record in office, his approval ratings remain low, and the President’s popularity amongst independents, Republicans, and Democrats alike was dismal in part due to his decision to seek a full term and run for President.

Émile Derlin Zinsou, the former President of Dahomey (later renamed to Benin), flies into the city of Cotonou with a small band of mercenaries led by Bob Denard, a Frenchman with vast military experience in Africa, as part of an effort to overthrow the leftist regime in Benin. Forces loyal to President Mathieu Kérékou are able to hold the city, and the small band of mercenaries and rebels are forced to flee by plane after the planned coup crumbles.
Sunday, January 16th, 1977: Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed via firing squad at the Utah State Prison, the first execution in the United States since the Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling prohibiting capital punishment. Gilmore’s last words are “let’s do it!”
Monday, January 17th, 1977: Zaire’s President Mobutu visits Belgium and France to shore up support for his occupation of the Central African Republic, using allegations of Libyan support for rebels in the country resisting Zairian forces as a means of luring the west into supporting his invasion.
Tuesday, January 18th, 1977: Yugoslavian Prime Minister, Dzemal Bijedi, his wife and 6 others are injured when their plane makes a rough landing in stormy weather at an airport near Sarajevo. The Yugoslavian Prime Minister is treated at the scene for bruises and a small laceration on the forehead but is otherwise unharmed.
Wednesday, January 19th, 1977: On his last day in the White House, President Gavin signs an executive order pardoning all Vietnam War era draft-dodgers, as part of an effort to close what he describes as a “painful period” in American history.

Ronald Reagan

Thursday, January 20th, 1977.

The Capitol Building.

12:00 PM, Washington, D.C.

[1]

Senator Hatfield, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, Vice President Bush, Vice President Scranton, Senator Byrd, Senator Baker, Speaker O'Neill, Reverend Moomaw, and my fellow citizens:

To a few of us here today this is a solemn and most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.

Mr. President, I want our fellow citizens to know how much you did to carry on this tradition. By your gracious cooperation in the transition process, you have shown a watching world that we are a united people pledged to maintaining a political system which guarantees individual liberty to a greater degree than any other, and I thank you and your people for all your help in maintaining the continuity which is the bulwark of our Republic.

The business of our nation goes forward. These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions. We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history. It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike. It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people.

Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, human misery, and personal indignity. Those who do work are denied a fair return for their labor by a tax system which penalizes successful achievement and keeps us from maintaining full productivity.

But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.

You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding: We are going to begin to act, beginning today.

The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now, as we've had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we're sick -- professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truckdrivers. They are, in short, ''We the people,'' this breed called Americans.

Well, this administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunities for all Americans with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination. Putting America back to work means putting all Americans back to work. Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs. All must share in the productive work of this ''new beginning,'' and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy. With the idealism and fair play which are the core of our system and our strength, we can have a strong and prosperous America, at peace with itself and the world.

So, as we begin, let us take inventory. We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.

Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.

I believe we, the Americans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves, ready to do what must be done to ensure happiness and liberty for ourselves, our children, and our children's children. And as we renew ourselves here in our own land, we will be seen as having greater strength throughout the world. We will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of hope for those who do not now have freedom.

To those neighbors and allies who share our freedom, we will strengthen our historic ties and assure them of our support and firm commitment. We will match loyalty with loyalty. We will strive for mutually beneficial relations. We will not use our friendship to impose on their sovereignty, for our own sovereignty is not for sale.

As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; we will not surrender for it, now or ever.

Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act. We will maintain sufficient strength to prevail if need be, knowing that if we do so we have the best chance of never having to use that strength.

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors.

I'm told that tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day, and for that I'm deeply grateful. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on each Inaugural Day in future years it should be declared a day of prayer.

This is the first time in our history that this ceremony has been held, as you've been told, on this West Front of the Capitol. Standing here, one faces a magnificent vista, opening up on this city's special beauty and history. At the end of this open mall are those shrines to the giants on whose shoulders we stand.

Directly in front of me, the monument to a monumental man, George Washington, father of our country. A man of humility who came to greatness reluctantly. He led America out of revolutionary victory into infant nationhood. Off to one side, the stately memorial to Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence flames with his eloquence. And then, beyond the Reflecting Pool, the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln.

Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery, with its row upon row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom.

Each one of those markers is a monument to the kind of hero I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno, and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam.

Under one such marker lies a young man, Martin Treptow, who left his job in a small town barbershop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire.

We're told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading, ''My Pledge,'' he had written these words: ''America must win this war. Therefore I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.''

The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God's help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.

And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans.

God bless you and thank you.
[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain).

[Lumine]

Well! No Wallace presidency. We've truly entered the era of the unknown. I'm sure you'll have plenty of surprises for a Reagan administration, but one plot point I will miss from the original was the whole constitutional crisis over the 25th Amendment.

[2016]

Since it's 5 Decades I am assuming:

Decade 1 (1971 - 1981)
Decade 2 (1981 - 1991)
Decade 3 (1991 - 2001)
Decade 4 (2001 - 2011)
Decade 5 (2011 - 2021)

Going to be interesting!

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Since it's 5 Decades I am assuming:

Decade 1 (1971 - 1981)
Decade 2 (1981 - 1991)
Decade 3 (1991 - 2001)
Decade 4 (2001 - 2011)
Decade 5 (2011 - 2021)

Going to be interesting!

That’s exactly the plan. I find long threads intimidating to start reading so I’m breaking it up into five parts.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Well! No Wallace presidency. We've truly entered the era of the unknown. I'm sure you'll have plenty of surprises for a Reagan administration, but one plot point I will miss from the original was the whole constitutional crisis over the 25th Amendment.

I actually really enjoyed that too, so I have my own plans for a 25th amendment crisis in volume two that will be even more draining for the nation. Drew himself conceived the idea for me when he authorized the spinoff.

[2016]

Ronald Reagan is still the best Republican President ever Now that he has been elected 4 years earlier than originally it's going to be interesting what happens at the end of this Decade and the beginning of the next.

[username5243]

Great work so far, been watching this for a while. I did read the original thread and its sequel on AH.com a while ago and sometimes have the thread open to keep up with the changes you've made here.

I'll admit a lot of the events between this point and the Chinese nuking their own rebels in '79 (at least the original thread had that) have slipped through my memory. (I wanna say Saudi Arabia collapsed in revolution at some point in the interim?) I'll look forward to seeing what you have planned.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Friday, January 21st, 1977: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approves William Scranton’s nomination to serve as Secretary of State; his nomination is referred to the full Senate for a vote, who debate the nomination for a record breaking two hours before voting 90-10 to confirm him to the position.

President Reagan issues numerous executive orders on his first day in office; the executive orders issued by the nation’s 40th President include the following:

•   A proclamation demanding Congress cut its pay.
•   An order requiring the Commissioner of the IRS to give small businesses a one-year tax holiday.
•   An order that eased the “Gavin taxes” on imported oil and reduced federal restriction on domestic oil pricing.

Roadside bombs killed eight American soldiers in separate attacks in At Tall and Duma in Syria.
Saturday, January 22nd, 1977: John McCain is promoted to the rank of Captain and takes up the position of staff director for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Increasingly connected within the military and the national security establishment, McCain’s rapid rise in the ranks since being released from captivity in Vietnam and China has made him an attractive candidate for Virginia Republicans, who begin talking to McCain about a potential Senate run in 1978.
Sunday, January 23rd, 1977: The RAF bombs suspected PIRA and INLA staging areas and safe houses in the Irish Republic. The government of the Irish Republic replies with a diplomatic protest. Though it is not known initially by the public or press, Prime Minister Heath reportedly decided to take more aggressive measures against PIRA and INLA installations in Ireland due to Reagan’s election to the Presidency. Believing that the Reagan administration will take a harder line against terrorist groups, Heath hopes the United States will ignore the aggressive actions by the British government and military.
Monday, January 24th, 1977: The Senate Finance Committee begins confirmation hearings for the nomination of Alan Greenspan to the Treasury. The Senate Armed Services Committee also begins hearings for the nomination of Donald Rumsfeld to head the Department of Defense; Greenspan and Rumsfeld’s nominations are amongst the more controversial personnel decisions by the new administration.
Tuesday, January 25th, 1977: Armed with submachine guns, a group of far-right gunmen in Spain shoot their way into a labor union’s headquarters, line up eight trade unionist lawyers against a wall, and slaughter them. Only two of the eight victims of the shooting survive; the Atocha massacre angers Spaniards, and there are over 100,000 demonstrators attending the funeral of the victims in the following days. While Prime Minister Carlos Arias has been a liberalizing figure in post-Franco Spain, the massacre and subsequent threat of a general strike leads the Prime Minister to become convinced that Portuguese agitators were likely active in the country and attempting to capitalize on the chaos. The Atocha massacre marks the end of the country’s brief slide towards democratization.
Wednesday, January 26th, 1977: The Senate votes 93-7 to confirm Elizabeth Dole as Secretary of Commerce.

The Senate Finance Committee votes 11-7 to confirm Alan Greenspan as Secretary of the Treasury; Greenspan’s nomination is referred to the Senate for a full vote, which is slated to take place after extensive debate in the upper chamber of Congress.
Thursday, January 27th, 1977: Phillip Lynch is forced to resign as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia in the midst of an election campaign due to charges that he was evading taxes.
Friday, January 28th, 1977: The Senate votes 95-5 to confirm Edward Madigan as Secretary of Agriculture; the Illinois Congressman subsequently resigns his seat in the House of Representatives in order to assume leadership of the USDA.

The Senate Armed Services Committee votes 9-8 to confirm Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense after Senators Stennis (D-MS) and Byrd (I-VA) throw their support behind the former Congressman and White House Chief of Staff. The Senate debate over his nomination is scheduled to begin on Monday and is likely to be amongst the most hotly debated of the Reagan administration’s appointments.
Saturday, January 29th, 1977: The Portuguese Council of Liberation is formed as a “free Portuguese body of direction and struggle for liberation of the homeland” is formed in Madrid. Its key members (the collective leadership of “state guardians”) include Dom Duarte (pretender to the Portuguese throne, although he makes no claims about re-taking the throne, and serves only as a “guardian of the Portuguese state and people”), Americo Tomas, the last President of the Estado Novo regime overthrown by the Carnation Revolution in 1974; Marcelo Caetano, the last Prime Minister and dictator of the Estado Nuevo regime and General Antonio de Spinola, first President of the Portuguese Republic after the Carnation revolution in 1974, and now the leader of the insurgent forces fighting the DPRP government in the mountains near the Spanish-Portuguese border.

The “January 29 Movement” promises to bring about by armed struggle a Portuguese state that will be democratic within the respective bounds of Portuguese national tradition and in respect of Portuguese Catholic values. In addition to the heavy hand of the Spanish government, there is also some CIA support behind this group.

In Ethiopia Colonel Anafu Abate assassinates Lt. General Aman Mikael Andom and takes control of the Derg. He begins to steer the Derg into a more nationalistic organization and away from domination by the Soviets and the Cubans. He opens lines of communication to the United States and France for military support and aid, and as a result, Ethiopia slowly falls out of the Soviet orbit and grows closer to the United States.
Sunday, January 30th, 1977: Senator Barbara Leonard (R-RI), increasingly known in Washington as the “surprise Senator” due to her narrow and unexpected victory, appears on NBC’s Meet the Press for her first major interview. A relatively moderate Republican with a strong fiscal conservative bent, Leonard argues in favor of the Reagan administration’s plans to deregulate small businesses and transportation.
Monday, January 31st, 1977: Congressman Jack Kemp (R-NY) and Senator Bill Roth (R-DE) team up to introduce the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1977, or the Kemp-Roth Act as it becomes known. The bill would dramatically lower taxes across the board for all individuals and corporations, with the highest tax bracket being lowered from 70% to 50%, while the lowest is reduced from 14% to 10%. The bill also lowers estate, capital gains, and corporate taxes, while indexing rates for inflation. President Reagan calls on the Democratic controlled Congress to pass the legislation in his first televised speech to the nation from the Oval Office, promising that the tax relief will generate prosperity and ease the financial burdens faced by millions of American families.
Tuesday, February 1st, 1977: Senators John Grady (R-FL) and Joe Foss (R-SD) introduce the Countering Foreign Terrorism Act of 1977 to the Senate; the legislation would authorize the Departments of Justice and Defense to establish military tribunals for foreign terrorists captured in the United States. The legislation only applies to non-citizens charged with terrorism and establishes new provisions for the prosecution of American domestic terrorists as well, which are to be handled through the court system.
Wednesday, February 2nd, 1977: Jeffrey Agate, aged 59, then Managing Director of the American Du Pont factory in Derry was shot dead by members of the PIRA outside his home at Talbot Park, Derry. This killing marked the beginning of a series of attacks on businessmen in Northern Ireland. It is not initially known if the shooting was the work of the PIRA or the INLA.

Roger Moore is knighted as a Knight of the Order of the Bath by Queen Elizabeth II. Sir Roger is awarded this prestigious honor in recognition of his suffering during his kidnap ordeal and for his “persistence of character and courage” during his captivity.

Prime Minister Edward Heath makes an unannounced visit to President Maamun al-Kuzbari in Syria, where he also addresses the Syrian National Assembly. Heath angers Israel’s new Prime Minister when he voices support for the reconstruction of the Syrian military.
Thursday, February 3rd, 1977: Dom Duarte is given an audience at the Vatican by Pope Paul VI, who is concerned by the suppression of Roman Catholic churches and clergy by the DPRP government in Lisbon. To demonstrate that he is even handed, the Pope also receives President Soares two days later.

After visiting Damascus, Prime Minister Edward Heath visits British troops stationed near Liftaya along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Alan Greenspan is confirmed 56-44 by the Senate, clearing the way for him to take over the reins at the Treasury Department.

President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan host Menachem Begin and his wife Aliza at the White House for the first State Dinner of the Reagan Presidency. The banquet, which featured a musical performance by Frank Sinatra, was to be followed by a weekend at Camp David where the President and Prime Minister debate and discuss the future American role in neighboring Syria.
Friday, February 4th, 1977: In a deal that will catapult him into stardom, young real estate developer Donald Trump announces his intention to team up with Hyatt to buy the Commadore Hotel in New York City. Together, the Trump and Pritzker families manage to garner nearly $70 million in loans to cover the extensive renovations and redevelopment of the historic New York City hotel. Trump is invited onto Agnew on Point to talk about his project, as well as his other ambitions and opinions on the state of New York City.

The Senate Judiciary Committee votes 11-6 to move forward with William French Smith’s nomination to serve as Attorney General.
Saturday, February 5th, 1977: After spending two days in Syria visiting troops and meeting with government officials, British Prime Minister Edward Heath travels to Cyprus, where he again meets with British troops stationed on the island. He is scheduled to go to Greece the following day to meet with the newly elected socialist Prime Minister, hoping to work towards a permanent end to the conflict on the island between Greeks and Turks.
Sunday, February 6th, 1977: In a press release issued in Dublin, the PIRA Army Council declares the INLA to be an outlaw organization. This effectively formalizes the war between the two republican terror groups active in Northern Ireland, which mirrors similar feuds between unionist gangs and militias active in the region.

Bells toil across the UK to mark the 25th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign; the start of the Silver Jubilee brings about a swelling of patriotic fever across the country, particularly in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on the Queen the year earlier. The Queen is slated to visit Commonwealth realms in the South Pacific (Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea) in the coming weeks, and will be subject to intense security precautions throughout her international tour.

Ronald Reagan

Monday, February 7th, 1977.

Camp David.

4:15 PM, Frederick County, MD.

[1]

The President and Prime Minister sat face to face across a conference table inside a Camp David cabin, both tired and beleaguered after hours of negotiations and back-and-forth over a number of issues facing the bilateral relationship between the United States and the State of Israel.

“You must see, Mr. President, and I don’t believe President Gavin understood this, that we cannot allow a menace such as the Syrian-Egyptian axis to threaten us again. You say President Sadat is leaning to peaceful relations, but he still has a large Army, a dagger at the neck of Israel. Syria, this menace is gone now – Assad’s army was destroyed with him. We cannot allow a new one to emerge, for that would be another dagger at our throat.”

Reagan listened intently to the Prime Minister, whom he had almost immediately come to respect immensely upon meeting. But his attempts to get a word in were much harder. “President al-Kuzbari…”

Begin wasn’t having it, and continued as if Reagan never opened his mouth. “With all respect, sir, President al-Kuzbari is a Syrian, and an Arab. When he was President before, he opposed the existence of Israel, and in his heart he still does, even if he will not say so, because at moment he is no position to speak-out on the subject. No matter his intent, sooner or later al-Kuzbari will be compelled to give in to the demands of his people and neighbors, or he will be swept away by someone who will take a harder line. That is why we cannot support the notion of a re-built Syrian Army, and especially not a new Syrian Air Force.”

“There cannot be, will not be, and could never be a permanent commitment to maintaining American military force in Syria” responded Reagan, who was concerned by his Israeli counterparts seeming intransigence. Though Reagan was a hawk, he harbored no ambitions about colonizing Syria and keeping it under perpetual American occupation. A time would come when American forces would have to leave – America could neither afford nor desired the continuous unending occupation of Syria.

“There can be no commitment from the United States to maintain a force in Syria indefinitely” stated Reagan again, still perplexed by Begin’s demand. “It was never our intent to govern Syria as a dependency.”

“I accept that, but you must accept that we will never allow Syria to re-arm, to become the military force it was before the war” Begin repeated.

“That would be a very dangerous thing to do, leaving Syria unarmed, unprotected” observed Secretary of State Scranton. The former Vice President and current chief diplomat of the United States was already miffed by Begin’s less than favorable reference to President Gavin. “The obvious menace is from Iraq, but there also threats from Turkey, and the instability in Lebanon. I can’t see the Syrians sitting still if we left them toothless. Frankly, it wouldn’t be fair.”

“My concern is not the welfare of Syria, or what is fair to Damascus. I must think of Israel’s security first.” Begin declared firmly and resolutely. “I have sworn to my people that never again will we be held hostage to the whims of others, not where our security is concerned. On this we will not compromise.”

Ezer Weitzman, Israel’s Defense Minister, also spoke up. “Now that the Syrian state has been removed as a direct threat to our border security, we have no desire to see that threat re-emerge, ever!” Weitzman insisted, “we can agree to a constabulary force, even a small National Guard for purposes of keeping order and policing the borders – except for the Golan area, that must remain a de-militarized zone on the Syrian side. But we must never see the emergence of a heavily armed Syrian military capable of offensive actions."

“Nor must they ever again be allowed an Air Force” Begin added, “Syria must remain a toothless state.”

“That would place Syria at the mercy of Iraq and Turkey, and who knows who else” answered Scranton, “no self-respecting nation can accept that.”

“Mr. Prime Minister, I respect your patriotism, and I respect the historic significance which informs your perspective” Reagan replied firmly, “but the United States will not stay in Syria indefinitely, and we will at some point have to equip the Syrian….the Syrian national guard to be able to restore order and stability in the country. I respect your concerns, I do, but I just cannot withdrawal American forces and not leave some kind of security force behind, because it would only result in Iraqi hegemony over Syria, which in the view of my administration and many of our regional allies and partners, is a fate even worse than having al-Kuzbari as your neighbor.”

“I understand your point, Mr. President, but you must understand mine – ours. It is the policy of the State of Israel that our people will never again – never again – be placed at threat by a foreign oppressor. Never again will we submit to humiliation and oppression for any reason. This is not a policy choice, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, it is a commitment to a way of life, a very being as a free nation. Syria is an avowed enemy of Israel; it has been since 1948.”

Secretary Scranton began to say something, but Begin spoke right over him once again, intentionally ignoring the man he knew to be a Gavin loyalist.

“When Maamun al-Kuzbari lead Syria by the accord of the Syrian process, and any so-called moderate Syrian was free to make their own minds up, they stood for Israel’s destruction. The expressed vow of the Syrian nation prior to 1974 was to eradicate my nation, my people, from the face of the Earth. Now that you have removed the gun from our enemies hand, now that Syria has been reduced, it cannot be allowed to get up again. No matter what, no matter what you say – and I do not doubt your intentions Mr. President, Secretary Scranton, you cannot say to me that you will be able to control Syria forever. If you do, I will discard your words for the foolishness that they are. So you must see, we will never allow Syria to become a menace again. Never again!”

“Am I to interpret that as meaning you’ll take military action against any effort to re-build the Syrian military?” Reagan was stunned by the extent the Israeli Prime Minister was willing to go.

“You may take that as my word that Israel will never allow Syria to be a danger again, and that we must reserve any means at our disposal to prevent such a thing.”
Monday, February 7th, 1977: President Reagan signs a finding allowing the CIA to pursue covert action in the overthrow of Turkish Prime Minister Alparslan Turkes. The CIA commences Operation Climber with elements of the Turkish military aimed at overthrowing the Turkes government. The Mossad, as part of a secret agreement, is co-operating with the U.S. on this project.

The Senate votes 51-49 to confirm Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense; the close vote sees a number of conservative southern Democrats voting for his nomination while northern liberal Republicans like Richard Schweiker (R-PA) and John Chafee (R-RI) cast their votes in opposition to the controversial former White House Chief of Staff.
Tuesday, February 8th, 1977: Anthony Street is elected leader of the Liberal Party of Australia in the midst of a federal election campaign.

President Reagan signs a covert finding authorizing the CIA to provide arms to the Christian militias in Lebanon. A second covert order is given authorizing the CIA to arm and equip the government of Rhodesia and train the Rhodesian armed forces in counter-insurgency and psychological warfare.

The Senate votes 85-15 to confirm William French Smith as Attorney General of the United States.
Wednesday, February 9th, 1977: Arthur Fletcher is confirmed 87-13 as Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. The Senate also votes to confirm Raymond Donovan as Secretary of Labor by a vote of 88-12.
Thursday, February 10th, 1977: Soviet physicist and human rights activist Yuri Orlov is arrested by the KGB, and subsequently is exiled to a Siberian labor camp in 1978 on a seven-year sentence for anti-Soviet activities.

Senator Margaret Chase-Smith (R-ME), Barbara Leonard (R-RI), Betty Roberts (D-OR), and Gloria Schaeffer (D-CT) team up to encourage the Reagan administration to stand aside and allow the states to determine whether or not to ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment. Reagan’s Chief of Staff Robert Dole politely pushes back at the gaggle of women Senators, warning them that the Reagan administration will not sit idly by on issues that could involve the expansion of government in everyday American life.
Friday, February 11th, 1977: Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, President of India since 1974, dies of a heart attack following his return from a state visit in Malaysia. Basappa Danappa Jatti assumes office as acting President, though all political power is held in the hands of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the increasingly autocratic leader of the Indian National Congress.

The Senate votes 96-4 to confirm Alexander Butterfield as Secretary of Transportation. The four dissenting votes come from Senators Abourezk (D-SD), Bayh (D-IN), Clark (D-NY), and Gravel (D-AK).
[1] Taken from YNet News.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Saturday, February 12th, 1977: The socialist West African nation of Guinea’s President Sekou Toure, one of the most brutal and resolutely pro-Moscow leaders on the continent, announces the arrest of four top former government officials. They include Diallo Telli, a former head of the Organization of African States and a man once touted as the first potential African UN Secretary General, among others, who are all accused of plotting against the Toure regime. They are subsequently imprisoned in Conakry’s infamous Camp Boiro and put on the “black diet” – no food or water – until they slowly die from starvation and thirst.
Sunday, February 13th, 1977: Freddie Cowan, a disgruntled army veteran and a member of the National State’s Rights Party, shoots and kills three former coworkers and injures a fourth before taking his own life in a workplace mass shooting in New Rochelle, New York.
Monday, February 14th, 1977: The Senate votes to confirm James Watt as Secretary of the Interior by a vote of 73-27.
Tuesday, February 15th, 1977: The Washington Post reports on the First Lady’s extensive and expensive redecoration of the White House, which angers many Americans due to the elaborate and luxurious nature of the furniture and fine China purchased by Nancy Reagan. The First Lady defends the publicly funded purchases, stating that the White House China in particular simply “needed an upgrade.”
Wednesday, February 16th, 1977: The Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Janani Luwum, as well as Minister of the Interior Charles Ofumbi, and Minister of Housing Erinayo Oreyma, are arrested by soldiers on the orders of President Idi Amin and forced to kneel before him at a political rally and confess their guilt. Afterwards, their bullet riddled bodies are discovered in a burning car left alongside a busy road. The three officials are reported by the Amin regime to have been killed in a car accident en route to face interrogations at a military base.
Thursday, February 17th, 1977: William Casey is confirmed Secretary of National Intelligence by a vote of 61-39; the former Deputy National Security Adviser under Agnew was questioned extensively by civil libertarians in the Senate such as Senators Frank Church (D-ID), Ramsey Clark (D-NY), and Mike Gravel (D-AK), all three of whom opposed his nomination.
Friday, February 18th, 1977: Samuel Pierce is confirmed Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by a vote of 92-8.
Saturday, February 19th, 1977: General Anafu Abate emerges as the Ethiopian head of state, being declared President of the country by the ruling Derg junta. Elements of the Derg opposed to Abate, led by Tafari Bente, joined with the separatist groups seeking to take advantage of the chaos in Ethiopia to launch an anti-government insurgency. They are supported by Somali strong man Siad Barre who is a client of the Soviet Union. The Soviets and their Cuban allies had been backers of Mengistu Haile Mariam and General Anon and are now building ties to Bente and his anti-government group, using Somalia as their staging ground. This is the effective start of the civil war in Ethiopia.

President Abate invites Egyptian, Turkish, Saudi, and Yugoslav security advisers into the country to build a new secret police force entirely loyal to him. They are to replace the Soviet and Cuban advisers who were present in the country when the Derg was controlled by the late Mengistu Mariam.
Sunday, February 20th, 1977: President Reagan and the First Lady make the first official state visit to Ottawa, Canada, where they are hosted by Prime Minister John Turner. The discussions between the two predominately focus on strengthening counter-terrorism cooperation, though the two clash over the issue of free trade, with Prime Minister Turner being skeptical of Reagan’s proposed trade agreement between the two nations.

Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) introduces the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to the Senate, which prohibits American companies from using bribes to win over foreign governments or international organizations. This legislation is partially a response to the Lockheed scandal.
Monday, February 21st, 1977: Seamus Twomey, Chief of Staff of the PIRA was gunned down along with three of his bodyguards and two plain clothes French police officers in the town of Fougeres, France. Twomey had been living in exile in France while giving television interviews and negotiating with French President Francois Mitterrand’s government. The INLA claimed credit for the assassination.

The Syrian National Assembly votes to request that all foreign troops, apart from a garrison force to be agreed to in negotiations between the Syrian government and the allies, leave Syria by January 1, 1978. The Syrian Communist Party wins a concession, which is voted into law by the Syrian Assembly, to allow the Soviet military to establish a second, smaller garrison force in Marqadah in the northeast of Syria.
Tuesday, February 22nd, 1977: Hearings for the Countering Foreign Terrorism Act before the Senate Armed Services Committee grow heated, with Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) and Jesse Helms (R-NC) clashing over the constitutionality of the legislation. President Reagan has indicated that he would sign the bill, which is a watered-down version of the Military Commissions Act vetoed by President Gavin earlier last year.
Wednesday, February 23rd, 1977: Christian leaders of the National Liberal Party (NLP), the Kataeb Party and the Lebanese Renewal Party joined in the Lebanese Front, a political counterpoint to the PJO. Their militias - the Tigers, Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF) and Guardians of the Cedars - entered a loose coalition known as the Lebanese Forces, to form a military wing for the Lebanese Front. From the very beginning, the Kataeb and its Regulatory Forces' militia, under the leadership of Bachir Gemayel, who received covert Israeli and U.S. financial and intelligence support and arms, dominated the LF. In 1977-80, through absorbing or destroying smaller militias, he both consolidated control and strengthened the Lebanese Front into the dominant Christian force but made enemies among his own fellow Christians in the process.
Thursday, February 24th, 1977: Vice President Bush is dispatched on a whirlwind tour of the oil producing nations of South America, visiting Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela in order to lure the two major petroleum exporters outside of OPEC’s control. A second trip to Saudi Arabia is scheduled for Vice President Bush in March. The President is hoping that Bush’s diplomatic experience will help him negotiate better international energy deals for the United States until the country can become energy independent, which was a major sticking point of Reagan’s platform during the 1976 presidential election.

Shimon Peres is elected leader of the Israeli Labor Party over incumbent Yitzhak Rabin, who was defeated by Menachem Begin’s Likud Party in the recent election due to the Labor Party government’s bungling of the Entebbe crisis.
Friday, February 25th, 1977: Secretary of State Scranton is dispatched to Syria, where he meets with President al-Kuzbari to the irritation of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The Secretary of State afterwards travels to Cairo for talks with President Sadat, before moving on to visit Presidents Mitterrand, Prime Minister Heath, and Chancellor Kohl in Paris, London, and Bonn. While in Cairo, Scranton also makes time to visit with several prominent Turkish exiles, the first public stand taken by Reagan’s administration against the right-wing regime in Turkey.
Sunday, February 27th, 1977: Queen Elizabeth II opens the parliament of New Zealand under heavy security; the opening of the New Zealand parliament is part of a broader tour of the South Pacific by the Queen, who is celebrating her Silver Jubilee after 25 years on the throne.

Cathal Goulding, Chief of Staff of the OIRA, was shot and killed by two INLA gunmen.
Monday, February 28th, 1977: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is booed by a crowd of government workers numbering in the tens of thousands as she attempted to address a campaign rally in the capital city of New Delhi. The hecklers are persistent, forcing Gandhi to abandon a speech she was giving in defense of her autocratic rule of the country.
Update: expect March '77 tonight or tomorrow.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Tuesday, March 1st, 1977: Australian elections result in the Labor Party holding off the beleaguered Liberal Party, with Bill Hayden remaining Prime Minister with the supply and confidence of some independent MPs as well as a Democratic Labor Party MP.

New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo announces his intent to run for Mayor of New York City in 1977, challenging incumbent Mayor Abraham Beame, whom Cuomo has blamed for the city’s financial problems and subsequent administration by Albany.
Wednesday, March 2nd, 1977: The Libyan Arab Republic renames itself the “Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya,” adopts a green banner as their new national flag, and names Qaddafi the “Brother Leader of the Libyan Revolution,” a vaguely defined post which gives him absolute power over the country’s military even if he is neither technically head of state nor government. The changes are cosmetic; little substantive change takes place in Libya as a result, and Qaddafi continues to be an international pariah due to his support for terrorist groups and liberation movements across the globe.
Thursday, March 3rd, 1977: President Lon Nol declares himself the force of unity for the Khmer people and proclaims the Unification Church as “the enlightened and holy path of Khmer liberation.” The Unification Church, led by Reverend Moon, has found a permanent base of operations in Cambodia, where the controversial Reverend has curried the favor of government and military officials.
Friday, March 4th, 1977: The Bucharest Earthquake kills 1,500. Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu uses the earthquake’s destruction to clear large swathes of the city and rebuild it in a Stalinist fashion. Historic neighborhoods and ancient buildings are cleared with the rest of the rubble in the rebuilding process, including several historic churches. Protests are quelled quickly by authorities in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Saturday, March 5th, 1977: In a major thrust, DPRP forces, supported by Cuban, East German, and Czech troops and advisors managed to dislodge General Sipnola’s forces in the Mihno area and force the majority of the rebel force to retreat into Spanish Galicia. Surveying the results, U.S. paramilitary experts conclude that General Spinola’s Army is “finished.” Nonetheless, covert U.S. aid continues to be directed to General Spinola.
Sunday, March 6th, 1977: Prime Minister Son Sann declares that the Khmer Republic will respect the freedom of all religious practices, despite the growing influence of the Unification Church in the country.

Kevin O’Hara, a Deputy leader of the Irish Republican Socialist Party – the political wing of the INLA, was shot and wounded by PIRA gunmen in Mullingar, Ireland. O’Hara later turned himself over to the Irish authorities and pleaded guilty to several offenses in order to receive protection.
Monday, March 7th, 1977: Elections in Pakistan see Prime Minister Bhutto’s government easily reelected, taking 155 of the seats in the National Assembly as opposed to the Pakistan National Alliance’s 36 seats, which fell well short of their goals of dislodging Bhutto’s government.
Tuesday, March 8th, 1977: Eight members of the SAS were each fined £100 and sentenced to six months in jail in a Dublin court for carrying guns without a certificate. The men had been found in the Republic of Ireland and were arrested. The British government denies they were in the country operating on a clandestine basis.
Wednesday, March 9th, 1977: Queen Elizabeth II continues her tour of the South Pacific in Australia, where she opens the country’s parliament and meets with Prime Minister Bill Hayden as part of her continued efforts to strengthen the Commonwealth.

Angered by what they deem to be the blasphemous content of a movie about the Prophet Muhammed, twelve Hanafi Muslims (an offshoot of the Nation of Islam) armed with assault rifles, pistols, and grenades storm the District Building, the B’nai B’rith headquarters, and the Islamic Center of Washington (a mosque), taking over 130 hostages and killing one police officer in the process. The hostage crisis that ensues brings up bad memories of the 1975 New York Stock Exchange massacre, and the Federal Counter Terrorism Bureau quickly surrounds all three locations in Washington as negotiations with the hostage takers begin.
Thursday, March 10th, 1977: Day two of the Hanafi Muslim hostage crisis in Washington continues, with the lead hostage taker, Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, calling a federal investigation into the murder of his family by members of the Nation of Islam amongst other demands. At the order of Robert Sayre, the recently confirmed Director of the FCTB, negotiators distract the hostage takers while three separate SWAT teams launch simultaneous attacks on the three occupied buildings. In the three firefights, five of the hostage takers and 15 hostages in total are killed, while the remaining attackers are taken into custody and later convicted for the crime.
Friday, March 11th, 1977: With the endorsements of former Secretary of State George H.W. Bush (Yale ’48), former President James Gavin, and a number of other prominent alumni, Yale University offers former President Richard Nixon a Professorship in History and Government Studies.

A bomb goes off at a meeting of several IRSP leaders, killing two and wounding six. The PIRA is widely believed to be responsible.

Five South Vietnamese soldiers are killed and three wounded in an ambush near Qatana in southwest Syria.
Saturday, March 12th, 1977: On edge after an ambush of South Vietnamese troops by jihadi insurgents, the Soviet forces active in northern Syria go on the offensive against known pockets of Muslim Brotherhood fighters in their occupation zone. The Red Army roots out several weapons caches and take hundreds of foreign fighters into custody, mostly of Palestinian origin who had been radicalized in Lebanon's refugee camps.
Sunday, March 13th, 1977: Czechoslovakian philosopher and human rights activist Jan Patocka dies at the age of 69 from a brain aneurism after ten hours of interrogation by Czech secret police. Though he was not physically tortured, his death is still the subject of immense speculation as conspiracy theories quietly circulate in Prague.
Monday, March 14th, 1977: Sanjay Gandhi, the controversial son of Indira Gandhi and a candidate for the Indian Parliament, survives an assassination attempt after two unknown gunmen spray his jeep with bullets as he traveled to a campaign rally.

Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer dies at 59 from cancer; perhaps best remembered for her involvement in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, in which she challenged the Democratic Party establishment over civil rights issues at the 1964 Democratic Party National Convention. A one-time enemy of George Wallace, Hamer had controversially embraced the Alabama Governor during his 1976 campaign after previously backing the candidacy of Ron Dellums.
Tuesday, March 15th, 1977: After the House and Senate passed a bill prohibiting the import of Rhodesian chromium, President Reagan issues his first veto. Human rights activists are angered by the Reagan administration’s embrace of the Bursey government in Rhodesia, which has taken an even harder line against black militants in the ZPLF than the previous government of the late Ian Smith.
Wednesday, March 16th, 1977: Kamal Jumblatt, head of the Druze Progressive Socialist Party and its militia is assassinated. His son Walid assumes control of the Druze Militia. There is a great deal of controversy over who assassinated Jumblatt. At the time it was blamed on the PJO, although the Christian Phalangists were also suspects as they were allied with the Druze against the PJO, but the senior Jumblatt was not submitting to Gemayel’s leadership.
Thursday, March 17th, 1977: French Foreign Legion forces active in the occupied Central African Republic are attacked by local CAIF (Central African Independence Front) fighters. The French governments tacit support for Zaire’s invasion and occupation of their former colony in central Africa has angered many other African leaders, with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi funneling weapons and money towards the pro-Bokassa resistance.
Friday, March 18th, 1977: The Parliament of the Khmer Republic votes to declare the Unification Church as the “one sole path of enlightenment”, President Lon Nol as “the divine leader” and Reverend Moon as the “divine prophet.” The increasingly bizarre nature of the regime in the Khmer Republic does not go unnoticed in Washington, with Secretary of National Intelligence William Casey briefing President Reagan on the possibility of a communist resurgence in Cambodia that could threaten South Vietnam from their western border.

President Marien Ngouabi of the People’s Republic of the Congo is assassinated by gunmen who ambush the presidential motorcade in the capital of Brazzaville; a military junta calling itself the Military Committee of the Party installs Colonel Joachim Yhombi-Opango as President, who in a rambling address on national radio accuses the regime in neighboring Zaire of sponsoring the assassination of Ngouabi.
Saturday, March 19th, 1977: John J. McGirl, former IRA Chief of Staff (1958) calls on the OIRA, PIRA and INLA to stop killing each other and to unite against the common enemy.
Sunday, March 20th, 1977: President Reagan, while visiting a nuclear power plant that had opened and gone on-line, denies any interest in establishing a federal Department of Energy, stating that such a department would only expand government control over the sector and increase consumer costs.

Elections in India see the Indian National Congress led government of Indira Gandhi soundly defeated by the more center-right Janata Party, which forms a coalition government with several smaller parties in order to cobble together a new government. Morarji Desai replaces Gandhi as Prime Minister of India in the aftermath of the elections, while Neelam Sanjiva Reddy is later nominated and elected as President of India. The new Janata Party led government establishes the Shah Commission to investigate the previous abuses of power alleged to have been committed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during her rule.
Monday, March 21st, 1977: Prime Minister Son Sann’s government is defeated by the parliament in a no confidence motion engineered by supporters of Lon Nol, who is hoping to marginalize his Prime Minister and strengthen his hold on Cambodia.
Tuesday, March 22nd, 1977: The “White Terror” begins in Ethiopia as elements loyal to General Abate of the Derg root out rivals within the government. Supporters of the communist Mengistu Mariam and separatists aligned with Tefari Bente are dragged from their homes and killed by mobs of armed Abate loyalists, who also begin purging members of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party.
Wednesday, March 23rd, 1977: President Lon Nol installs Sosthène Fernandez the parliamentary leader of his Khmer Unification Crusade (KUC) party as the new Prime Minister. Son Sann and a number of his supporters flee to Bangkok. The ruling Social Republican Party is disbanded and replaced by the Khmer Unification Crusade, a quasi-religious movement.

12 Turkish soldiers die in clashes with the Kurdish guerrillas near the border with Iraq, raising fears that Turkey will launch incursions into northern Iraq.
Thursday, March 24th, 1977: Former Congolese President Alphonse Massamba-Débat is executed by the military junta ruling the country on the grounds that he was a co-conspirator in the plot to assassinate the late President Ngouabi.

The House passes the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1977 by a vote of 250-185; it advances to the Senate, where Senator William Roth (R-DE) takes the lead in pushing the proposed tax cut to southern Democrats, who could potentially be the kingmakers.
Friday, March 25th, 1977: Despite a significant grassroots draft movement organized by conservative activists in Virginia, White House Communications Director Pat Buchanan declines to enter the Virginia gubernatorial race. Buchanan had been privately encouraged to run by a wide variety of figures within the Republican Party ranging from President Reagan to former Presidents Nixon and Agnew and was polling ahead of other potential Republican candidates.
Sunday, March 27th, 1977: Congresswoman Martha Keys (D-KS) announces she will run for the United States Senate in 1978.
Monday, March 28th, 1977: Prime Minister Edward Heath, Foreign Secretary William Whitelaw and Defense Secretary Geoffrey Rippon pay a state visit to Washington for consultations with President Reagan.

Ronald Reagan

Monday, March 27th, 1977.

The White House.

2:20 PM, Washington, D.C.

[1]

President Reagan found Edward Heath to be a much more agreeable ally than Menachem Begin; the Reagan administration was ready and willing to rollback communism in Portugal, which opened the whole of the western Atlantic to a Soviet presence, while Britain was practically frothing at the mouth to avenge the Queen, who had barely avoided assassination at the hands of Irish terrorists trained in Red Portugal the preceding year.

“It is not our policy to hold you back with a star-spangled chain around your necks” President Reagan said, “we will continue to support your efforts to defend your national security and sovereignty.”

“And we appreciate that” Heath noted, “but the effort to chase the Soviets out of Lisbon cannot be a purely British undertaking, Mr. President. Between our garrison in Hong Kong, the peacekeeping missions in Cyprus and Syria, not to mention Northern Ireland, our forces are stretched dangerously thin. Any commitment on our part must be supplemented by the introduction of American forces.”

“Unfortunately, our own situation is all too similar to yours, as you probably know. We believe that a land war in Portugal would not pass the smell test with the American people. They want an end to the mission in Syria, they were relieved that we didn’t get tangled up in Cyprus, and they’re afraid of very…very close threats coming from Cuba and Castro’s henchman in Panama.”

“That is certainly a relatable predicament” replied Heath, referring to the growing unpopularity of his government over the war in Northern Ireland “but Moscow is on the march around the globe, and I’d be damned if I didn’t do my part to at least rollback this red tide back. We have to meet the moment Mr. President and stall their momentum.”

“The Spanish are the kingmakers here; they’re the only people who can do the dirty work of marching into Lisbon. All we can do is bomb them from the skies, and all you can do is bombard them from the Atlantic.”

“But the Spanish are fascists” Heath objected, “I can’t go before the Commons and explain such an alliance, not with their flirtations with Hitler and their ridiculous obsession over Spain’s ancient claim to Gibraltar.”

“I’m not a scholar of history, but my National Security Adviser has informed me of the significance of the enduring alliance between Portugal and the United Kingdom.”

“One of the oldest alliances in Europe, lasting centuries until the events of 1974. As opposed to the Spanish, who have never warmed to England.”

“Sometimes you’ve got to make deals with the devil.” Reagan’s take surprised Heath, and the Prime Minister realized that the American position on Iberia – that Spain should take the lead in any effort to topple the Goncalves regime in Portugal – was firm. “We do it all the time” continued Reagan, “you don’t think me or my predecessor have any affection for Soares? The guy is a socialist! But he’s also the only hope of restoring democracy in Portugal, and as a result, we put our weight and word behind him. And what will we get for this? He’ll be another Mitterrand or Berlinguer, but at least he’ll be independent of Moscow’s ambitions.”
Tuesday, March 29th, 1977: United States Ambassador John Gunther Dean informs President Lon Nol that the current situation will not be tolerated. The United States all but dictates that new parliamentary elections must take place. Since President Lon Nol is still dependent on the United States for economic and military assistance, he has no choice but to comply. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for May 2nd.
Wednesday, March 30th, 1977: Secretary of State Scranton travels to Panama for high-level talks with the country’s strongman, Cuban aligned Omar Torrijos. Scranton, who was initially viewed by the Panamanians as a friendly figure due to his involvement in the Gavin era negotiations over the status of the Panama Canal, comes with a hardline message from President Reagan that insists upon continued American control of the Canal Zone.
[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain).

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Friday, April 1st, 1977: Operation Batman is launched by U.S. and allied forces, who conduct a second major sweep along the Syrian-Lebanese border, attacking insurgent and PJO bases on the Lebanese side of the frontier.
Saturday, April 2nd, 1977: White House Press Secretary Lynn Nofzinger confirms that President Reagan will address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, April 6th, for the first time since taking office.
Sunday, April 3rd, 1977: General Peter Walls, Chief of the Rhodesian General Staff, announced that the government would launch a campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of Rhodesia's black citizens. In May Walls received reports of Mashona Militia forces massing in the city of Mapai in Gaza Province, Mozambique. Prime Minister Bursey gave Walls permission to destroy the base. Walls told the media the Rhodesian forces were changing tactics from contain and hold to search and destroy, "adopting hot pursuit when necessary."

In order to disrupt the Soviet backed FRELIMO government's hold on Mozambique, the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization helped to create and support its own insurgency movement within Mozambique. This guerrilla group, known as RENAMO battled with FRELIMO even as Rhodesian forces fought the militias within Mozambique. FRELIMO was given insurgency training by the Vietnam veterans then employed by the Rhodesian forces.

The Reagan administration also began to provide covert arms shipments to RENAMO, some of which were “side-tracked” to Rhodesia.
Monday, April 4th, 1977: Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) travels to Iowa to join Congressman Tom Harkin (D-IA) at a fundraiser in Des Moines. The Senator’s trip to the first in the nation caucus state is the first sign that the Senator is seriously weighing a presidential bid after declining to run in 1972 and 1976. Kennedy remains the frontrunner heading into the third presidential cycle in a row, but many believe the Senator is increasingly skeptical of a campaign for the Democratic nomination, having sat out the previous two races due to the memory of the Chappaquiddick scandal.
Tuesday, April 5th, 1977: Prime Minister Ina Bursey of Rhodesia announces a plan for nearly 250,000 black citizens to be removed from rural tribe land to fenced in villages where they will be subjected to a curfew. Black nationalist leaders in the country led by Bishop Muzorewa condemn the planned villages as “concentration camps.”
Wednesday, April 6th, 1977: In a speech to a joint session of Congress, President Reagan calls for the United States Congress to pass sweeping legislation that would deregulate transportation, cut federal taxes and spending, and open up large swathes of the country to increased energy exploration. While Republicans, particularly the conservative wing, welcome the departure from consensus politics that had dominated the Gavin administrations, Democrats warn of a return of “Agnewnomics” at a time of modest economic recovery.
Thursday, April 7th, 1977: Four INLA hijackers take over a Pan American (Pan AM) transatlantic flight from Shannon, Ireland to Boston, MA. After making a series of demands, the hijackers force the pilots to buzz the U.S. Capitol in Washington. President Reagan gambles that this is done for effect and orders the Air Force not to shoot down the plane.

The hijackers then order the pilot to take them to Cuba. Guessing that the hijackers know little about flying, (and being extremely low on fuel) the pilot takes the plane out over the ocean, and does a wide circle, before pulling in to and landing at Norfolk, Virginia, claiming to the INLA hijackers that they are in fact landing in Havana. (The pilot communicated with Norfolk air traffic controllers in Spanish to fool the hijackers; fortunately, operators at the Norfolk ground station caught on and communicated back in Spanish, going so far as to read a fake message of Cuban solidarity to the hijackers).

The hijackers are then subdued by the FBI in a raid on the plane, one was killed, and three captured, all of whom were wounded but survived. No hostages were injured or killed.

Prime Minister Turkes of Turkey and Vice President Saddam Hussein of Iraq sign on an agreement for mutual intelligence sharing and joint military operations against Kurdish insurgents along the nation’s common frontier.
Friday, April 8th, 1977: The Angolan government and Cuban troops had control over all southern cities by 1977, but the critical roads in the south face repeated UNITA attacks. Jonas Savimbi expressed his willingness for rapprochement with the MPLA and the formation of a unity, socialist government, but he insisted on Cuban withdrawal first. "The real enemy is Cuban colonialism," Savimbi told reporters, warning, "The Cubans have taken over the country, but sooner or later they will be overwhelmed by the independent spirit of the Angolan people.”

Government and Cuban troops used flame throwers, bulldozers, and planes with napalm to destroy villages in a 1.6-mile-wide area along the Angola-Namibia border. Only women and children passed through this area, "Castro Corridor," because government troops had shot all males ten years of age or older to prevent them from joining the UNITA. The napalm killed cattle to feed government troops and to retaliate against UNITA sympathizers. Angolans fled from their homeland; 10,000 going south to Namibia and 16,000 East to Zambia where they lived in refugee camps.

John McGirl, the former Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army, is assassinated in his home in Ballinamore by INLA gunmen. The escalating violence in Northern Ireland is increasingly spreading over the border into Ireland, much to the concern of the government in Dublin.
Saturday, April 9th, 1977: Secretary of National Intelligence William Casey briefs President Reagan on a growing number of ships sailing into Panamanian harbors from the Eastern Bloc nations, particularly Bulgarian flagged freighters that Casey suspects are supplying arms, artillery, and supplies to the regime of Omar Torrijos.

Businessman and real estate developer Donald Trump marries Czech born model Ivana Zelnickova in New York City. The couple quickly rises in the city’s social circuit as Trump’s real estate business continues to take off; Trump’s latest ambition, the refurbishing of the historic Commadore Hotel, has put him into conflict with historical preservationists who are opposed to Trump’s planned renovation of the building.
Sunday, April 10th, 1977: In a fierce and fiery speech, the Reverend Ian Paisley warns that “Westminster may abandon Ulster, but Ulster will never abandon the Crown.” The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party seemingly embraces a growing movement for Northern Ireland’s separation from the United Kingdom as the proposed Dominion of Ulster, which would retain the Queen but otherwise sever ties with London.

Shimon Peres is elected as leader of the Israeli Labor Party and thus leader of the opposition to the Likud led government of Menachem Begin.
Monday, April 11th, 1977: President Reagan pardons G. Gordon Liddy; the Watergate burglar’s leader and former Nixon aide had been convicted in 1974 for his role in the break-in that eventually resulted in Nixon’s trial and conviction.
Tuesday, April 12th, 1977: President Mitterrand reaches a two-step agreement with the PIRA, whereby Sein Fein, representing the Republican cause, will enter into peace talks with the British government in return for an armistice. President Mitterrand offers the resources of the French government as an honest broker and even a go-between for the parties to put in place an initial ceasefire. Once the ceasefire is attained, the next phase would be negotiations over a permanent armistice, again with the French acting as intermediary or only host, as the parties prefer.

The Italian prime minister, Enrico Berlinguer, endorses the plan as a step toward ending the Northern Ireland conflict. The Mitterrand plan is soundly rejected as “meddling by outsiders” by the Heath government.
Wednesday, April 13th, 1977: King Juan Carlos of Spain signs a decree that not only confirms the continued outlawing of the Communist Party but also orders the military and civil authorities to launch a renewed crackdown on their organizing in the country. The decree, pushed at the behest of the Prime Minister, is an excuse for the military to round up sympathizers with the Portuguese revolution who want to spread socialism to Madrid.
Thursday, April 14th, 1977: Argentine journalist Jacob Timerman is arrested, interrogated, tortured, and subsequently imprisoned by the military regime. Timerman, an editor of a leftist leaning newspaper, was accused of being an associate of David Graiver, a banker who laundered money for left wing guerilla groups active in the country.
Friday, April 15th, 1977: Congressman James Howard (D-NJ) teams up with Congressman Bill Harsha (R-OH) to introduce the Motor Carrier Act of 1977 to the House of Representatives. The bill would dramatically reduce regulation on over-the-road truckers, expanding the number of hours they were allowed to operate and removing a number of restrictions on pricing and what kinds of commodities can be carried over the road.

The legislation is endorsed by newly appointed Transportation Secretary Alexander Butterfield, who believed the bill would result in a dramatic increase of truckers on the road, which in turn would drive down the price of transport and alleviate the pressure felt by consumers in a time of rising inflation. But the bill is not without its opponents – the Teamsters Union’s president Frank Fitzsimmons warns that the plan would dramatically erode away at the income taken in by truckers and could risk public safety by allowing less experienced drivers on the road. The legislation to deregulate the trucking industry is the first of a three-pronged push by the Reagan administration to loosen federal control of transport industries.
Saturday, April 16th, 1977: The Congressional Women’s Caucus is founded; amongst it’s inaugural class of members are Congresswomen Lindy Boggs (D-LA), Yvonne Burke (D-CA), Shirley Chisholm (D-NY), Millicent Fenwick (R-NJ), Margaret Heckler (R-MA), Marjorie Holt (R-MD), Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY), Barbara Jordan (D-TX), Martha Keys (D-KS), Marilyn Lloyd (D-TN), Helen Meyner (D-NJ), Shirley Pettis (R-CA), and Virginia Smith (R-KS) as well as Senators Margaret Chase-Smith (R-ME), Barbara Leonard (R-RI), Patsy Mink (D-HI), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Betty Roberts (D-OR), and Gloria Schaeffer (D-CT).
Sunday, April 17th, 1977: A suicide bomber detonated a bomb inside a cafeteria outside the Syrian National Assembly building, killing one member of Parliament and injuring dozens of more civilians and soldiers present. No foreign nationals are killed in the attack, which is attributed to the Palestinian Jihad Organization.
Monday, April 18th, 1977: The Senate votes 55-45 to pass the Countering Foreign Terrorism Act, sending the bill to the House of Representatives, where it is introduced by Congressman William Ketchum (R-CA).
Tuesday, April 19th, 1977: In a move that “changes the political landscape” according to some commentators, President Reagan announces that he will issue an executive order prohibiting federal agencies from issuing new regulations and establishing the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which must approve all new regulatory measures after a cost-benefit analysis is submitted by each federal agency. The order also gives the President the ability to fast-track any regulation issued for National Security purposes to prevent bureaucratic stalling in times of crisis.
Wednesday, April 20th, 1977: Two Catholic civilians were killed when the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) carried out a bomb attack on the funeral of an PIRA member in the Ardoyne area of Belfast.
Thursday, April 21st, 1977: The Los Angeles Times reports on an FBI investigation into Tongsun Park, a South Korean businessman who has been allegedly funneling money from the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency to a number of Democratic members of the House of Representatives. Speaker John McFall (D-CA) is amongst the ten members of Congress implicated in this scheme, which was said to be authorized by Kim Jong-pil, the President of South Korea himself.
Friday, April 22nd, 1977: Speaker John McFall (D-CA) announces his sudden resignation as Speaker and from Congress in the face of revelations about an ongoing FBI investigation. After an emergency meeting of the Democratic Congressional caucus, Congressman Peter Rodino (D-NJ) is elected interim Speaker to serve out McFall’s term, with Rodino planning on retiring at the end of the current Congress. Congressman John Murphy (D-NY) wins the race to become Majority Leader over Congressman Tip O’Neill (D-MA), while John Brademas (D-IN) replaces Rodino as Majority Whip.
Saturday, April 23rd, 1977: Ian Paisley, in his role as head of the United Unionist Action Council (UUAC), threatened to organize a region-wide strike unless Geoffrey Howe, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland acted against the PIRA and also implemented the Convention Report. Meanwhile, Gerry Adams of the PIRA and John Regan of the Official IRA begin quiet negotiations about a mutual defense agreement against the Irish National Liberation Army.
Sunday, April 24th, 1977: Cambodian and South Vietnamese troops clash at Snoul, Cambodia, leading to a two-day battle between the groups. The Reagan administration is forced to negotiate a stand down.
Monday, April 25th, 1977: The United Unionist Action Council (UUAC), which was led by Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and Ernie Baird, then leader of the United Ulster Unionist Movement (UUUM), announced that it would hold a region-wide strike in May 1977. The strike was organized to demand a tougher security response from the government and a return to 'majority-rule' government at Stormont. The strike was supported by the Ulster Workers' Council (UWC), the group that had organized the successful strike of May 1974, and also by the Ulster Defense Association (UDA), the largest of the Loyalist paramilitary groups. The UUAC gave Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Geoffrey Howe seven days to respond to their demands. The threat of strike action by the UUAC was condemned by other groupings within unionism including the Vanguard Unionist Party (VUP), the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and the Orange Order.
Tuesday, April 26th, 1977: Secretary of State Scranton kicks off a tour of Southern Africa with a state visit to Kinshasa, Zaire, where he is greeted on the tarmac by President Mobuto at an elaborate welcome ceremony. The Secretary of State brings a tacit message of support from the Reagan administration, who are trying to lure the Zairian regime into the west’s orbit as part of the ongoing struggle for influence in Africa between the eastern and western powers. President Mitterrand is reportedly angered by Scranton’s meddling in Central Africa, an area of strong French influence, leading to a tense phone call between the President and his French counterpart.

Scranton’s travels in Africa will take him also to Botswana, Malawi, and Zambia, where the Secretary of State attempts to shore up America’s relations with these nations in order to blunt potential Soviet influence in the region. Reagan’s friendly relations with the Bursey regime continue to cause controversy amongst African nations, who distrust the agenda of the American President.
Wednesday, April 27th, 1977: Geoffrey Howe announced that the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast was to receive an order worth some £70 million to construct two liquid gas carriers. This is a major investment into Northern Ireland’s battered economy, though talk of a unionist strike threatens this deal.
Thursday, April 28th, 1977: PIRA gunmen shoot and kill an INLA assassination team in Belfast. The INLA team’s target had been Ian Paisley.

Operation Namor: The American and French Navies intercept and sink several ships bringing arms to the PJO from Libya. Muammar Qaddafi threatens to sink American naval vessels in response to the naval action against the Libyan flagged merchant ships bound for Beirut, leading to President Reagan to publicly threaten retaliatory airstrikes on Tripoli in response.
Friday, April 29th, 1977: Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), warned in a statement that if the British authorities failed to alter its policies, then loyalists might have to consider taking over the administration of Northern Ireland. He also called for people to consider a rent, rates, and Value Added Tax (VAT) strike. A meeting was held in Harland and Wolff shipyard at which a large majority of workers voted to support the planned UUAC strike. In addition, workers at the Ballylumford power station made it clear that they would only support the stoppage if it obtained clear support across all sectors of Northern Ireland industry.

Prime Minister Heath meanwhile confirms that extra British soldiers would be sent to Northern Ireland to maintain law and order in anticipation of the UUAC strike taking place. It was reported that approximately 200 Ulster Defense Association (UDA) men from Scotland along with 50 more from Liverpool had arrived in Belfast to support the strike planned by the UUAC.

Albert “Cubby” Broccoli indicates that the Bond film franchise will continue, with Sir Roger Moore signed to reprise the role of James Bond 007. The direction and script for the next film are yet to be decided. The question of doing Colonel Sun is sensitive due to the death of Timothy Dalton.
Saturday, April 30th, 1977: After multiple ballots, the Progressive Party of Canada elects Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed as leader of the party, replacing the outgoing former Prime Minister Robert Stanfield. Lougheed, who defeated Quebec MP Claude Wagner and Ontario MP Flora MacDonald in addition to other candidates including Attorney Brian Mulroney, and MPs Paul Hellyer, Joe Clark, Jack Horner, and Sinclair Stevens. Lougheed resigns as Premier of Alberta to take up the leadership of the party and is replaced on an interim basis back in Alberta by Clarence Leitch.

Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), said that if the forthcoming United Unionist Action Council (UUAC) strike was not a success then he would quit political life in Northern Ireland. It was alleged by sources 'close' to the UUAC that plans had been made to establish a loyalist provisional government in Northern Ireland. There were reports of panic buying of food, bottled gas, and other provisions in the face of the threats to supplies posed by the forthcoming UUAC strike.

A suicide car bomber blew himself up in a crowded book market in Homs in Syria, killing at least 38 people and injuring 105. Thirty bullet-ridden bodies showing signs of torture were found in the desert near Damascus in Syria. Allied authorities suspect the Syrian Police of the atrocity, but the Syrian authorities deny they are responsible and blame the PJO.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Sunday, May 1st, 1977: A report issued by Treasury Secretary Alan Greenspan is released.

Unemployment is estimated to have fallen until 11%, the lowest since 1974. Attributed to re-hires in the service sector and an increase in part-time employment. Local economies have also begun to produce a higher number of support jobs.

Price per barrel of oil is recorded at $88 – lowest since 1973. Attributed to decrease in demand, and increasing reliance on alternative sources of energy, also increased production in North America and the North Sea has cut worldwide import demand. The lowering of oil prices also stimulates other economic activity.

Consumer confidence remains low, however retail sales for the first quarter of 1977 are the highest since 1974, suggesting that those who have money are beginning to spend, mainly on durables and sustainment goods. Housing starts are up for the first time since 1974, indicating a slow rise in demand for new housing, especially in areas where service demands are increasing. Inflation is recorded at 7%.

Ahead of a unionist strike across Northern Ireland, 3,000 soldiers are deployed to the troubled British controlled enclave. The Royal Ulster Constabulary is fully called up as well to supplement the soldiers as the security situation is anticipated to worsen in the coming weeks.

The Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul occurs after demonstrating trade unionists and their allies in the Communist Party are brutally attacked by members of the far-right Grey Wolves, who brutalize their opponents after the army disobeyed Prime Minister Turkes’s orders to open fire on the crowd. 69 people are killed in the massacre, and a further 250 injured. The incident creates a rift between the Turkes regime and their Soviet benefactors, who have tolerated the far-right nationalist government due to the difficulties Turkes has caused within NATO.
Monday, May 2nd, 1977: In a last-minute attempt to avoid the planned United Unionist Action Council (UUAC) strike Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Geoffrey Howe met leaders of the UUAC including Ian Paisley and Ernest Baird but the talks broke up without any agreement. Ian Paisley rejected allegations that the UUAC was using the strike as cover to secure independence for Ulster but warned that if it were to occur, he could guarantee the security of those who chose not to participate.

At Belfast docks workers decided by a small majority to support the UUAC strike. In areas of Belfast, including the Shankill and Crumlin Road, there were reports of a number of food vans being hijacked and their contents stolen.

In an interview Geoffrey Rippon, the British Defense Secretary, warned that it might be impossible for the Army to maintain essential services. Thomas Passmore, then County Grand Master of the Orange Order in Belfast, alleged that he had received death threats in the wake of his public opposition to the strike. An opinion poll carried out by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) highlighted that although some 68% of people interviewed opposed the UUAC stoppage, 93% of Protestants and 43% of Catholics supported a tougher security response against the PIRA. The RUC announced that it had set up a special anti-intimidation squad in order to try to counter the use of the tactic during the proposed strike.

Just before midnight most of the shipyard workers walked out of the Belfast shipyard.

The Khmer National Party and their allies, the Cambodian Liberal Party, form a coalition government after the KNP led by Son Sam defeats President Lon Nol and Reverend Moon’s “Unification Crusade” movement. The election is a major blow to the regime of President Lon Nol.
Tuesday, May 3rd, 1977: The United Unionist Action Council (UUAC) began a Northern Ireland wide strike. Many factories managed to stay open although the port at Larne, County Antrim, was closed. Intimidation, or 'persuasion' as the Loyalist paramilitaries preferred to call it, was used in 1974 to try to stop people from going to work. The Harland and Wolff shipyard remains shut down.

The strike was criticized by the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), Ulster Vanguard, and the Orange Order. During the first three days of the strike the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) reported that it had removed 300 roadblocks, arrested 23 people, and received 1,000 complaints of intimidation. In calling the strike the UUAC were copying the tactics of the Ulster Workers Council strike in May 1974 and were obviously hoping for similar success. The strike gained popularity because it tapped into people’s anxieties about the British turn to more military oriented activities, the increase in violence, and the belief that Ulster’s interests were no longer well regard in Whitehall. The workers at the Ballymulford power station joined the strike over concerns about security, and this brought out other workers across Ulster. Paisley was then able to consolidate this into a thinly disguised movement for Ulster autonomy, though he spoke in terms of power devolution and the restoration of the Northern Ireland parliament at Stormont.

The British government meanwhile sought to avoid a head-on confrontation with the strikers, but Prime Minister Heath showed himself in no mood to be dictated to by civil unrest.
Wednesday, May 4th, 1977: The Countering Foreign-Terrorism Act is passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 220-215 and is subsequently signed into law by President Reagan. The act authorizes the Department of Defense to establish military tribunals for non-citizen terror suspects plotting against American targets.

North Dakota becomes the 38th State to ratify the 27th Amendment. The Amendment has now been ratified by a sufficient number of states to be certified as an Amendment to the United States Constitution. The amendment, which clarifies the process of contingency elections, had been rapidly ratified by state legislatures throughout 1974-1977.

The procedures of the twelfth amendment to the United States Constitution shall be amended as follows:

The Contingent Panel:

A contingent panel of three members shall be chosen not later than three weeks before the meeting of the joint session of Congress to count and certify the Electoral Vote. The contingent panel shall be chosen by lot, to be conducted by an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court designated to the task by the Chief Justice of the United States. The pool for the contingent panel shall be composed of the names of all currently serving Judges on all United States Circuits Courts of Appeal under the United States.

The designated Associate Justice shall choose three names at random from lots representing the names of all Judges of the United States Circuits Courts of Appeal. The Associate Justice shall continue to draw members’ names until the following conditions are met in full.

No two members of the Contingent Panel shall be drawn from the same Federal Circuit.

No more than two members of the Contingent Panel shall have been appointed to the federal bench by the same President.

No member of the panel shall be chosen who has been appointed to the federal courts by any of the candidates for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency currently under consideration.

No member of the panel shall have served in any advisory or executive capacity for any of the candidates for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency currently under consideration.

No member of the panel shall serve have served as a member of a Contingent Panel, or as an alternate, in the two previous Presidential elections.

No member of a Contingent Panel that has exercised contingent authority in presiding over a joint session of both Houses of Congress to elect either a President, a Vice President or both, shall be permitted to serve on a Contingent Panel a second time.

A reserve pool of three alternates shall also be chosen by the Associate Justice in a like manner. The alternates shall meet all of the qualifications of the regular members of the Contingent Panel.

Should the pool run out of candidates before three qualified panel members and three panel alternates have been chosen, then the drawing shall proceed from a pool of names of all currently serving United States District Court Judges. All Judges chosen shall meet the same a fore enumerated qualifications as applied to Judges of the United States Circuits Courts of Appeal.

The drawing of names shall be witnessed by the Secretary of State of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States and the Majority and Minority Leaders of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The witnesses may object to any choice, but such objection may only be rendered if they do not meet the qualifications listed above. The witness objecting shall provide the reason for his objection in writing and said objection will be a public document. The Associate Justice shall immediately determine whether the objection is valid or not. The ruling of the Associate Justice shall be deemed final on the matter. If the objection is determined to be valid, then the candidate shall be set aside and a new candidate drawn.

In the event that factual verification is required for an objection, the candidate’s name shall be set aside and an alternate drawn for that candidate (this shall be in addition to the three alternates drawn for the panel as a whole). The Federal Bureau of Investigation shall be required to verify the factual basis of the objection within five days. If the objection is determined by the FBI to be factually correct, then the alternate chosen shall replace the candidate as either a member of the contingent panel or as an alternate. The determination of the FBI shall be the final determination on the question of factual validity.

The government of the United States shall provide for all travel and related expenses, including accommodation, of the members of the Contingent Panel and the alternates from their place of domicile to the Capitol and for their return.

A Contingent Panel lawfully chosen need not be called to the Capitol if their service is deemed unlikely to be required. However, each member of the panel and each alternate shall be notified of their having been chosen, whether their service is anticipated or not. Each shall take the following oath before a Judge of the United States District Court in their respective place of domicile upon notification, and certification of the oath taken shall be returned to the Chief Justice of the United States.

“I (name) do swear or solemnly affirm that I shall fulfill this duty as a member (or alternate) of the Contingent Panel impartially and in accordance with the Constitution of the United States and the laws thereof.”

Joint Session of Congress:

All members of both Houses of Congress shall be required to attend the Joint Session of Congress for the counting of the Electoral Vote. The only acceptable reason for absence will be documented illness of personal hardship deemed an acceptable reason for absence by the Speaker of the House and the President of Senate

The Chief Justice of the United States shall assume the chair for a joint session of both Houses of Congress for the purpose of opening and counting the Electoral Vote. For these purposes the Speaker of the House shall assume his position as a Representative and exercise his vote as a member of the House of Representatives (if he or she has been elected as a Representative; otherwise if the Speaker is not an elected Representative, he shall be recused from the chamber).
The President of the Senate shall be recused from his Constitutional role during this process and shall have no vote in the process. He will be required to vacate the chamber during the voting process. If the President pro-tempore of the Senate is acting as President of the Senate, or any other elected Senator is acting in his stead, then the elected Senator shall assume his place as a member of the Senate.

In no incidence will this temporary recusal prejudice the return of these officers to their Constitutional offices once the process of electing a President and Vice President is completed.

The Chief Justice of the United States shall, in the presence of the full membership of the Senate and House of Representatives meeting jointly, open all the certificates and the Electoral votes shall then be counted.

If one candidate for President and one candidate for Vice President has achieved the majority of Electoral Votes lawfully cast and certified by the Constitutionally empowered certifying authority of the several states, then the Chief Justice of the United States shall declare the candidates so elected to have been elected as the President and Vice President of the United States for the succeeding term. The role of the Chief Justice shall then be completed and he shall return the chair to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate.

If one candidate for President and one candidate for Vice President has not achieved the majority of Electoral Votes lawfully cast and certified by the Constitutionally empowered certifying authority of the several states votes then the Chief Justice of the United States shall call for The Contingent Panel, which shall immediately – or as quickly as it’s members can be assembled together at the Capitol - assume the chair as the presiding authority over the joint session of Congress. The joint session shall adjourn if The Contingent Panel is not immediately present, and shall reconvene once the Contingent Panel is available to fulfill its function.

Once seated, the Contingent Panel shall call for an immediate vote of the joint membership of the Senate and the House of Representatives to choose one candidate as President from among the top three presidential candidates in the Electoral College vote. Each member of the House and each member of the Senate shall have one vote. An abstention, a no vote, or a vote for a person other than the three designated candidates, shall be deemed a not properly cast vote and shall not included in the total count of properly cast votes . The candidate receiving the majority (and not the plurality) of the properly cast votes for President shall be declared by the Contingent Panel as elected President.

If in the first round of votes no candidate shall have received a majority of the properly cast votes, a second ballot shall be taken, with the lowest of the three candidate on the first ballot removed, so that the choice shall be between the top two candidates. In the event of a tie on the second ballot, there shall be a third ballot and a fourth ballot if necessary, with the choice on each being between the top two candidates chosen after the first ballot. If at the end of four ballots, neither of the two candidate has received the majority of the properly cast votes, then The Contingent Panel shall, by a vote of its majority, declare which of the two candidates shall have been elected President of the United States.

Once the election of a President is completed in the above prescribed manner, a Vice President shall be elected in the same manner as the President from among the top three of those candidates who received Electoral Votes for the office of Vice President.

The service of The Contingent Panel shall end with the election of a President and a Vice President, and they shall return the chair to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate upon completion.

District of Columbia Provision

The District of Columbia having been by previous Constitutional Amendment granted the right to cast Electoral Votes in the Electoral College shall have the right to cast a number of votes equal to its number its Electoral Votes in the event of a contingent election. In such a situation the District of Columbia shall be represented by its Electors, who shall cast their votes for President and Vice President with the joint membership of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Electors shall have no other right of vote or voice in the joint session apart from the casting of votes for President and Vice President.

Thursday, May 5th, 1977: CBS Television announces it will produce an epic, seven-hour dramatic television mini-series to be titled Vietnam, and that former President James Gavin, former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and former National Security Advisors Henry Kissinger, Walt Rostow and McGeorge Bundy, former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and former analyst and dissenter Daniel Ellsberg have all agreed to serve as technical advisors. The thrust of the show is to, in dramatic re-creation, follow U.S. policy in Vietnam from the Kennedy through to the Gavin Administrations (1963 – 1975: from the self-immolation of Buddhist Monk Thich Quang Doc in June 1963 and the formulation of Cable 243 in August 1963 to the ceasefire and victory in April-May 1975). CBS indicates that the series will add new material to the understanding of the war. The mini-series relies on the Pentagon Papers for early material, and emerging literature about the war for the period from 1967 – 1975. Projected air dates are for the 1978 – 1979 television season.

A partial cast list is announced at the same time.

William Devane is cast in the role of President John F. Kennedy based upon his 1974 performance in the same role in the televised play Missiles of October (about the Cuban Missile Crisis, adapted from Robert F. Kennedy’s book Thirteen Days). Veteran western actor Forrest Tucker is cast as LBJ. Character Actor Harris Yulin, who also appeared in the 1974 Missiles of October play (but in a different role), is cast in the part of Richard Nixon, with Leonard Nimoy taking on the role of Henry Kissinger. Character actor James B. Sikking is to play Spiro Agnew. Actor James Olsen is cast as James Gavin. Veteran actor Leslie Nielsen is to play LBJ advisor and Defense Secretary Clark Clifford. Screen actor Kirk Douglas takes the role of General William Westmoreland.

President Reagan, joined by the First Lady and Secretary of State Scranton, arrives in London for the G7 Summit. He is hosted at Buckingham Palace for a state banquet by Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh, and Prince Charles of Wales.

By the summer of 1977, the US Labor Party had completely folded as the LaRouche movement rapidly changed strategy; the plan to influence the masses through one vanguard party composed of loyal cadres had failed spectacularly, with LaRouche’s quixotic candidacy placing a dismal and distant seventh in the popular vote. Reassessing the movement’s momentum over the winter of ’76, when most of America was distracted by the ongoing Hawaii recount, LaRouche decided to splinter his forces and infiltrate nearly every level of society. LaRouche found common cause with the Vietnam MIA/POW movement, where some adherents, such as a certain Colonel Bo Gritz, had come to notoriety over their circulation of conspiracy theories related to the prisoners who were “left behind” by the Gavin administration. Using the mysterious case of John McCain as their basis, this conspiracy theory in particular was gaining traction amongst various corners of the far-right by the summer of 1977.

LaRouche did not only capitalize on the post-Vietnam sense of “national burnout” that followed the Gavin era and lingered into the Reagan administration’s early days; the legacy of the Second Great Depression had left a bitter taste in the mouth of voters, who were more inclined than ever to support alternative candidates. New forces like the growing Libertarian Party, itself no stranger to paranoid conspiracy theories, were rising. Old forces, such as the Socialist Workers Party to which LaRouche once belonged, were entering their own renaissance eras. Though LaRouche’s Labor Party had flopped and folded, the legacy of his candidacy was the introduction of his scattered ideas and pseudo-philosophy into an organized coherent platform that could be marketed to moldable minds.

In splintering his organization into a string of specialized, issue-oriented think-tanks and fronts, LaRouche effectively took his platform to the public in disguise. This non-threatening approach gave the movement more flexibility and wiggle-room to effectively operate and influence others. The initial success of this strategy did not shock LaRouche. What would come as the greatest surprise to LaRouche himself, however, was just how far he was able to reach with his influence. It was one thing to fool a voter in Cleveland, Ohio, who was misfortunate enough to come across a LaRouche leaflet while leaving his job at the steel-mill. It was another thing to fool the Department of Justice and the FBI, both of which were using LaRouche affiliated organizations as intelligence sources in a number of different investigations with apparent disinterest or ignorance of LaRouche’s role in these groups.

Dennis King, LaRouche & The New American Fascist Movement., 1989

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Friday, May 6th, 1977: President Reagan is pressed by Secretary of State William Scranton and Vice President Bush to intervene publicly in favor of mediation as Northern Ireland spirals towards war. Reagan resists these entreaties however, stating publicly when pressed by reporters that Northern Ireland is a British matter, and that his administration would not “meddle” in the bilateral relations between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Later in the day, President Reagan joins Prime Ministers Edward Heath (Britain), John Turner (Canada), Enrico Berlinguer (Italy), Takeo Fukuda (Japan), Chancellor Helmut Kohl (West Germany), and President Francois Mitterrand (France) plus the European Commissioner Roy Jenkins as part of the G7 Summit. The world leaders discuss the planned allied drawdown from Syria and the complications created by the Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Employees at an electrical powerplant in Ballylumford walk off the job after British troops are deployed to “protect” the plant; the resentment over the presence of soldiers interfering with the operations of the plant leads the workers to join the unionist strike in Northern Ireland, resulting in the plant shuttering and rolling blackouts across the region.
Saturday, May 7th, 1977: Senator Albert Brewer (D-AL) and Bill Brock (R-TN) team up to introduce the Security in Southern Africa Act of 1977, which clearly defines the MPLA (Angola), the ZPLF (Rhodesia), and FRELIMO (Mozambique) as terrorist organizations and sanctions regimes trying to “undermine the security” of South Africa, Rhodesia, and Botswana. Human rights activists describe this bill as a “declaration of war” against the frontline states resisting Apartheid in South Africa and warn it is a “backdoor approach” to the full diplomatic recognition of Rhodesia.
Sunday, May 8th, 1977: The Grateful Dead perform a legendary concert at Barton Hall at Cornell University; this particular concert is later released as a live album and is one of the standout performances of the Dead’s 50-year career in rock music.
Monday, May 9th, 1977: The Hotel Polem in Amsterdam burns to the ground, resulting in 33 deaths and 57 injuries. The wooden building quickly became engulfed in flames after a fire broke out in an elevator shaft.
Tuesday, May 10th, 1977: The Palestinian Jihad Organization takes credit for the downing of an Israeli helicopter carrying 54 IDF paratroopers over the West Bank. The attack was initially denied by the IDF, who claim the crash was an accident, though eyewitness reports almost universally describe the shoulder-fired heatseeking missile flying through the air towards the helicopter.

Actress Joan Crawford dies at the age of 73.
Wednesday, May 11th, 1977: Congressman Dan Quayle (R-IN) and Congressman Al Gore Jr. (D-TN), both freshmen members of the House of Representatives, introduce the High Speed Communications Act, which would boost federal funding for fiber-optic cable connections between American military bases and the Pentagon.
Thursday, May 12th, 1977: An attempt to re-open the port of Larne, County Antrim failed due to violent protests by UUAC strikers. In an incident on Donegall Road in Belfast the driver of a petrol tanker was shot when he was forced to stop by a large crowd of loyalist protestors. During a debate at Westminster John Nott, then Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), defended the British government's security policy in Northern Ireland and pointed to figures which he claimed showed a fall in incidents over the past year. He also claimed that the UUAC strike was simply diverting the security forces from concentrating on the activity of paramilitary groups. On the political front Nott also held out the possibility that the government hoped to launch a new initiative after the local council elections scheduled for 18 May 1977. Enoch Powell, a Conservative MP, travels to Belfast where he angers the Prime Minister by vocalizing his support for the Unionist strike.
Friday, May 13th, 1977: Maruf Narwaz, a Damascus barber, cuts the throat of the Deputy Speaker of the Syrian National Assembly, killing him. Narwaz later sets himself on fire in a public square before he can be arrested. His family says that he was not political and that he fought against the Caliphate in 1974. Narwaz, they say, was depressed by the occupation and the lack of respect by outsiders for Syrian national identity and rights.
Saturday, May 14th, 1977: Dolores Ibarruri, an exiled Spanish Communist intellectual and renowned orator from the Spanish Civil War, attempts to return to her native Spain from the Soviet Union, where she has spent 38 years in exile. She is denied entry to the country, and instead travels onward to Portugal, where she is extended status as a refugee and sheltered by the regime of Premier Goncalves.
Sunday, May 15th, 1977: President Kenneth Kuanda of Zambia announces that a state of war with neighboring Rhodesia is an effect after Rhodesian planes bombed a ZPLF encampment in Zambian territory. The airstrikes are followed by a mobilization of Zambian forces near the border, but no further fighting is reported, and the Zambian parliament ultimately does not act on Kuanda’s declaration of war as tensions quickly settle.
Monday, May 16th, 1977: Critics of the Reagan administration’s budget cuts call on the President to sell the presidential yacht, the USS Sequoia, to prove his commitment to cost-cutting measures. White House Press Secretary Lynn Nofzinger denies the administration has any plans to sell the yacht, which the President and First Lady have used sparingly since moving into the White House.
Tuesday, May 17th, 1977: Zaire stages an internationally unrecognized referendum in the occupied regions of the former Central African Republic, in which upwards to 75% of those who participated voted in favor of merging the country into a Greater Zaire; the leftist military junta in the neighboring People’s Republic of the Congo appeals to Cuba for a commitment of troops to Brazzaville, where there are increased concerns about Mobutu’s expansionist ambitions. France is also less than thrilled at Zaire’s annexation of the Central African Republic, as they had extensive mineral and economic interests in the country’s mines which are now under Mobutu’s control.
Wednesday, May 18th, 1977: White voters in South West Africa, a territory under South African administration, vote for a transition to black majority rule and independence. The South African apartheid regime refuses to acknowledge the vote and does not implement the will of the voters to considerable international outcry. The Angolan and Zambian governments begin aiding the SWAPO (South West African People's Organization) in the hopes that their insurgency could lead to South African disengagement from the region.

District Council Elections for the 26 district councils in Northern Ireland were scheduled for this day. The UUAC strike council decided to boycott the elections, and to send strike units to actively prevent voters from casting ballots. The RUC and British security forces attempted to keep polls open, resulting in scuffles and violence. In one district ink was poured into a ballot box, thereby ruining the ballots in it. In another incident the strikers managed to set several ballot boxes on fire. The British authorities refused to invalidate the elections because they would not be intimidated by violence. Still, few – and even the British government itself – saw the outcome of these elections of having much legitimacy.
Thursday, May 19th, 1977: Kenya bans big-game hunting, limiting safaris to photography only, and prohibiting the killing of endangered elephants, leopards, and other animals.
Friday, May 20th, 1977: Operation Green Arrow: U.S. and allied forces initiate another sweep against insurgent strongholds in the border region. This time, the raids penetrate deeper into the Lebanese borderlands, taking PJO insurgents off guard as they had previously operated with relative impunity.
Saturday, May 21st, 1977: The International Court of Justice rules against Argentina and in favor of Chile over three disputed islands in the Beagle Channel; the Argentine military regime does not recognize the ruling and continues to press their claim to the islands in the critical shipping channel.
Sunday, May 22nd, 1977: Scientists at the University of California in San Francisco announce they have been able to successfully produce insulin with bacteria through a process called gene splicing.
Monday, May 23rd, 1977: Moluccan terrorists take over a school in Bovensmilde in the northern Netherlands, taking 105 hostages, and a passenger train on the Bovensmilde-Assen route nearby, taking a further 90 hostages at the same time.
Tuesday, May 24th, 1977: Leonid Brezhnev is hospitalized in Moscow following another heart attack; since his 1974 “reshuffling” from General Secretary to Chairman of the Presidium before being “retired” altogether, Brezhnev has been less and less visible, ailing anonymously much like his predecessor Nikita Khruschev did in the wake of his own purging from the party.
Wednesday, May 25th, 1977: Star Wars premieres in theaters nationwide. The movie, known for its groundbreaking special effects and intricate plot, becomes a massive critical success, grossing millions upon millions of dollars in revenue and breaking viewership records.
Thursday, May 26th, 1977: The Moluccan terrorists holding children hostage at a Dutch school release their young hostages, while keeping the teachers and school staff in their control until demands are met. Similarly, the Moluccan militants continue to hold hostages on a train in the countryside. Dutch authorities are weighing authorizing a commando raid to release the remaining prisoners and eliminate the terrorists.
Friday, May 27th, 1977: George Willig, the “human fly,” is arrested after climbing the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City with only some suction devices to cling to the side of the building.

Angolan and Cuban forces crush a coup attempt in the capital of Luanda, before launching a retaliatory purge of the MPLA for “UNITA sympathizers” who were involved in the coup attempt launched by rogue officers. President Agostinho Neto accuses the United States and the South Africans of fermenting the military coup in coordination with the UNITA rebels, but most journalists covering the country note in their reports that the forces involved in the failed uprising were MPLA forces.

The English punk-rock group The Sex Pistols release a controversial single titled “God Save The Queen” that is immediately banned by the BBC after being found to be disrespectful towards Queen Elizabeth II, who remains immensely and unprecedentedly popular since the assassination attempt.

The House of Representatives passes the Countering Foreign Terrorism Act by a vote of 234-201. President Reagan signs the bill into law hours later, with the Defense Department immediately forming a military commission to investigate and prosecute those involved in the Bicentennial sarin attacks.
Saturday, May 28th, 1977: The Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky is engulfed in fire, killing 165 inside.
Sunday, May 29th, 1977: Six people were injured in clashes between UUAC strikers and British security forces.
Monday, May 30th, 1977: 1,500 Rhodesian troops passed the border and travelled 60 miles to Mapai, engaging the Mashona forces with air cover from the Rhodesian Air Force and paratroopers in C-47 Dakotas. The Rhodesian government said the military killed 49 Mashona fighters and lost one Rhodesian pilot. The Mozambican government disputed the number of casualties, saying it shot down three Rhodesian planes and a helicopter and took several troops prisoner, all of which the Rhodesian Minister of Defense denied. General Peter Walls announced a day later that the Rhodesian military would occupy Mapai until they had eliminated the militia threat to Rhodesia’s border.
Tuesday, May 31st, 1977: Kurt Waldheim, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, condemned the Rhodesian raid into Mozambique. The British and Soviet governments also condemned the raid.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Wednesday, June 1st, 1977: Governor Brendan Byrne signs legislation in New Jersey which legalizes casino gambling; this makes New Jersey only the second state after Nevada to have done so.
Thursday, June 2nd, 1977: Three members of a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) mobile patrol were shot dead by PIRA snipers near Ardboe, County Tyrone.

Two men were stoned by UUAC strikers in Portadown. The men, both Protestants, had been ignoring the UUAC strike.
Friday, June 3rd, 1977: Nine members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) who were from the Coleraine, County Derry, area were jailed for a combined total of 108 years for their involvement in several attacks.
Saturday, June 4th, 1977: UUAC strikers burn the British and U.S. flags in a demonstration in Antrim. The U.S. flag is burned in protest of U.S. toleration of Noraid and other pro-PIRA fund raising activity in the United States.
Sunday, June 5th, 1977: France-Albert Rene takes power by a coup in the Seychelles, an archipelago of small islands in the Indian Ocean. Rene immediately aligns the tiny nation with the socialist world, gaining the support of the regimes in East Germany, Libya, and Tanzania amongst others.
Monday, June 6th, 1977: Senator Stanley Burger (R-MT) announces his intention to introduce the Freedom to Farm Act of 1977, which would slash farm subsidies and repeal large swathes of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, to the Senate. The bill, supported by President Reagan, Secretary of Agriculture Edward Madigan, is the first step in the Reagan administration’s rollback of New Deal era farm policies.
Tuesday, June 7th, 1977: After extensive campaigning by Anita Bryant and her anti-gay "Save Our Children" crusade, Miami-Dade County, Florida voters vote 51%- 49% to repeal the county's gay rights ordinance. Tensions over the issue had run high, with Bryant being hit by a pie at a press conference days before the vote.
Wednesday, June 8th, 1977: Geoffrey Howe, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced that the strength of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) would be increased by 1,500 and that of the Ulster Defense Regiment (UDR) increased to 4,000 full-time members. He also announced that there would be more undercover activity by troops and security forces.

The House of Representatives votes 327-108 to pass the Motor Carrier Act of 1977; the bill advances to the Senate, where labor backed liberal Senators try to rally in opposition to the proposed deregulation of the trucking sector.
Thursday, June 9th, 1977: Taha Carim, a seasoned Turkish diplomat currently serving as Ambassador to the Vatican, is shot and killed in Rome by two unknown gunmen. An Armenian nationalist group later takes credit for the assassination, though the Turkes regime accuses the CIA of being behind the killing.
Friday, June 10th, 1977: James Earl Ray, assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King, escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee.

Khmer Rouge guerrillas cross the border at Veun Kham and pillage several towns in the border area. President Lon Nol indicates that the Army didn’t respond because it had orders to stand down from the Prime Minister, a fact which Son Sann disputes, as his Minister of Defense had ordered the troops to counterattack, only to be ignored by the commanding General Lon Non (the President’s brother).

A subsequent counterattack several days later drives back the Khmer Rouge, but not after much damage and loss of life has occurred. President Lon Nol visits the area on June 14 and makes the claim that the Phnom Penh government of the Prime Minister is deliberately ignoring the needs of rural people, and that the Prime Minister personally allowed the farmers and peasants of the Veun Kham area be massacred by the Khmer Rouge as retribution for their votes for the President’s KUC party.

A Molotov cocktail is thrown at the front door of the American Consulate-General in Belfast.
Saturday, June 11th, 1977: Dutch Royal Marines storm the train being held by Molluccan terrorists; six terrorists and two hostages are killed.

Investigative author Dan Moldea publishes Momo, a book based on his extensive interviews with former Chicago mafia boss Sam “Momo” Giancana, which were conducted at an undisclosed nursing home where Giancana was then residing. The most sensational revelations of Momo include details of a Mafia-CIA conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro in the early 1960’s, as well as Giancana’s detail of a Mafia-Anti-Castro Cuban conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy which, he claims, was thwarted at all three attempts to carry it out: Chicago, Nov 2, 1963; Miami and Tampa Nov. 18, 1963.

Sam Giancana is quoted directly as saying: “We tried three times to get him, and three times we was undone by some rat in the works. Now this thing in Dallas, that wasn’t us, although (Jack) Ruby, he was on our books. But he wasn’t doin’ our thing that day. Whoever put together that Dallas thing wanted us to fail, and maybe be around to take the fall if it came to that, but they didn’t want to let us do it in Chicago or Florida. Musta been a reason for that.”

“Bobby Kennedy, yeah we didn’t want to see that punk become President, no way. But you know, there was no way LBJ and Hubert Humphrey were gonna let that happen, not in sixty-eight. And then there was Nixon, you know. So, yeah we might have had to – take out – Bobby sometime, but some Arab nut beat us to it in L.A.”

Syrian Police and U.S. forces foil an attempt to assassinate U.N. Secretary-General during his visit to Damascus. It is not clear if the would-be assassins are insurgents, or militias working for a Syrian political faction.
Sunday, June 12th, 1977: The FBI begins an investigation into Teamsters Union President Frank Fitzsimmons after Senators Howard Cannon (D-NV) and Harry Reid (D-NV) comes forward with claims that the union boss attempted to bribe them into opposing the Motor Carrier Act of 1977. Reid even agrees to wear a wire against Fitzsimmons as part of the ongoing investigation.
Monday, June 13th, 1977: James Earl Ray is taken into custody in Tennessee, days after he escaped a state prison. The assassin of Martin Luther King is returned to a high security facility, and faces new charges related to his escape from confinement in addition to the life sentence he is serving.

The Senate passes the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1977 by a vote of 54-46, sending the bill to the President’s desk for signing. At a Rose Garden ceremony, President Reagan signs the bill into law flanked by its coauthors, Senator William Roth (R-DE) and Congressman Jack Kemp (R-NY). The passage of the massive tax cut program is applauded by conservatives, who hail the legislative victory as an early triumph for the new President.
Tuesday, June 14th, 1977: Spain’s Prime Minister Carlos Arias Navarro announces that elections will be postponed, due to “chaos and disorder being caused by Communistic elements infiltrating from Portugal.”
Wednesday, June 15th, 1977: An attempt by the United Nations Security Council to condemn Zaire for its occupation of, and to hold Zaire responsible for the violence in the Central African Republic, is vetoed by France. The United States abstains from the vote.
Thursday, June 16th, 1977: Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, and Ed Oates.

Seven taxis are set on fire by UUAC strikers who are protesting the fact that the taxi drivers have not joined the work stoppage.
Saturday, June 18th, 1977: President Abate of Ethiopia accuses Somalia of infiltrating rebel Derg soldiers into the Somali area to fight alongside the Western Somali Liberation Front. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Siad Barre strongly denied this, saying the Derg rebels are "volunteers” and were being allowed to help the WSLF. The Ethiopians accelerate their plans to invade the Ogaden and drive out the Derg rebels and the WSLF forces, which alarms Barre’s more Moscow aligned regime in Mogadishu.
Sunday, June 19th, 1977: In a rambling speech, Panamanian strongman Omar Torrijos announces plans for the formation of “Popular Militias” to defend the country from a theorized American invasion. The Reagan administration denies any intent of using military force to resolve the dispute over the Panama Canal, but does warn firmly that Torrijos rhetoric, is damaging the negotiation process. Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Rohrabacher notes Torrijos speech from a script “written for him in Havana.”
Monday, June 20th, 1977: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that states are not required to spend Medicaid funds on elective abortions.
Tuesday, June 21st, 1977: Andullah Gul, an Economics and Management Professor at Sakarya University, attempts to assassinate Prime Minister Turkes. Gul fails and is gunned down by the Turkes’ Grey Wolves bodyguards, who are filmed pumping Gul’s body full of bullets long after he has been killed. Gul becomes a folk hero to the growing civil opposition to Turkes’ rule.

The Heath government falls in the House of Commons following a vote of no confidence; the vote, which was carried by a vote of 320-315, with Kenneth Clarke’s faction of moderate Tory MPs as well as hard-right MP Enoch Powell voting against the government. Powell is ejected from the Conservative Party and joins the Ulster Unionists, planning to stand in Northern Ireland instead of Wolverhampton, while the Kenneth Clarke group joins the Liberal Party in the face of similar expulsion. The Prime Minister travels to Buckingham Palace to meet with the Queen as a general election is scheduled for July 26th.
Wednesday, June 22nd, 1977: In advance of the Bangkok ’77 summit, President Reagan goes on a six-nation tour of Asia which includes State visits to South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, South Vietnam, and Thailand. He is greeted by protestors in Tokyo and Bangkok, which are tolerated by authorities. There are also attempted protests in Seoul, Taipei, and Manila as well, but the authorities put these down with a heavy hand. Only in Saigon is the relatively little protest to President Reagan’s visit.
Thursday, June 23rd, 1977: With the fall of the Conservative government, the UUAC leadership announces that it will suspend strike action until after the election. Workers in Northern Ireland’s protestant communities go back to their places of employment the following day, but the long-term economic consequences of the strike and worsening sectarian tensions linger in the wake of the strike.
Friday, June 24th, 1977: Andre Gilles-Fortin, leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada, is severely injured in a car accident in Quebec. The near brush with death sidelines the party leader for several weeks as he recovers from his injuries.
Sunday, June 26th, 1977: Concerned by the westward drift of Ethiopia in the wake of the Derg’s purging of leftists, Soviet backed Somali President Siad Barre orders a three-pronged attack on the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. Somali forces partly invade through Kenya, violating their neighbor’s territorial integrity as part of an effort to catch the Ethiopians off-guard. The Somali army is forced to withdrawal from Kenya after facing armed resistance from the Kenyan military. Hundreds of soldiers are reported dead on both sides following the international incident.
Monday, June 27th, 1977: The territory of the Afars and Issas, the last European colony in Africa, became independent from France as the Republic of Djibouti, with Hassan Gouled Aptidon serving as its first President.
Wednesday, June 29th, 1977: Despite calls from anti-war activists, liberals, libertarians, and budget hawks alike, President Reagan confirms that the Pentagon will move forward with the development of the costly B-1 long range bomber. Each plane is expected to cost over $100 million, with Rockwell International being contracted to build the bombers.
Thursday, June 30th, 1977: The SEATO summit (June 30 – July 1) is held in Bangkok, Thailand (Bangkok ’77). The membership roster includes: The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Thailand. The Republic of (South) Vietnam, the Khmer Republic, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) are added as adjunct members in 1977. Singapore and Japan both obtain observer status with the organization at the Bangkok ’77 summit. Japan’s role is limited to economic and not to involve any military commitments or presence in other nations.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Any reason why the Miami ordinance was approved by only 2% instead of 40%?

[username5243]

....Something's going to go down in Panama with the Canal, isn't it?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

....Something's going to go down in Panama with the Canal, isn't it?

Stay tuned!

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Sorry for the delay in updates. I am busily engaged in writing out the 1980 Democratic Convention. Once I finish that chapter, I'll post an update or two.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Friday, July 1st, 1977: The libertarian Cato Institute is formed in San Francisco.
Sunday, July 3rd, 1977: France’s National Assembly passes legislation abolishing the death penalty, which President Mitterrand has indicated he’d sign into law.
Monday, July 4th, 1977: Independence Day is celebrated across America under heavy security; despite concerns of terrorist activity, the day passes without incident, though the lingering legacy of the Bicentennial sarin attacks overshadows much of the festivities as the country marks 201 years of independence. President Reagan and the First Lady, fresh off a successful summit in Bangkok, lead the celebrations from the White House, where Washington is treated to a lavish and unprecedentedly large fireworks display.
Tuesday, July 5th, 1977: General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq overthrows Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, in a military coup. Zia, a relatively pro-western figure, begins to craft an alliance with the nation’s more moderate Islamists as part of an effort to cobble together a coalition of supporters for his military led regime.
Wednesday, July 6th, 1977: The Senate votes 60-40 to pass the Motor Carrier Act of 1977; the bill is sent to the desk of President Reagan, who signs the act into law. The legislation, which greatly deregulates the trucking sector, is part of the President’s broader push to deregulate transportation in America.
Thursday, July 7th, 1977: FBI agents raid the Church of Scientology's world headquarters at Los Angeles and its Washington, D.C., offices July 7 and discover evidence that members of the organization have conspired to infiltrate, burglarize, and bug offices of the IRS and Department of Justice. They seize a 19-page document outlining a plan to sabotage IRS investigations; followers of L. Ron Hubbard decry what they call "religious intolerance," but 11 Scientologists will eventually go to prison, including Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue.
Sunday, July 10th, 1977: On CBS’s Face the Nation, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) criticizes his own party for nominating “regional candidates” (a clear reference to the late John McKeithen and George Wallace) who in his words “failed to grow” the Democratic Party. It is the latest indication that Kennedy has his eyes set on 1980.
Monday, July 11th, 1977: President Reagan awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former President James Gavin, angering some who had expected a posthumous honor for the late Martin Luther King instead.
Tuesday, July 12th, 1977: Weeks into the Ogaden War in the Horn of Africa, Somali forces achieve their first major breakthrough, routing the Ethiopian army near the city of Jijiga, which is encircled by the Soviet supplied Somali army.
Wednesday, July 13th, 1977: The New York City blackout of 1977 lasts for 25 hours, resulting in looting and other disorder. The chaos in the nighttime darkness only ended at the crack of dawn when National Guard troops entered the city to restore order and to give backup to the badly beleaguered police department. The incident results in dozens of deaths (mostly due to traffic accidents and murders) and severely impacts the city’s suspended incumbent Mayor Abraham Beame’s remaining credibility, and also hurts Governor Carey’s image as an able administration of the badly mismanaged metropolis.
Thursday, July 14th, 1977: Citing perfidy on the part of the Soviet Union, President Reagan withdraws the United States from talks on a fifteen-nation non-proliferation treaty. The decision to withdraw the United States from the proposed treaty was pushed for by Jeanne Kirkpatrick, whose influence over the administration’s foreign policy is increasingly overshadowing Secretary of State Scranton; the Secretary of State privately complains behind the scenes to Vice President Bush that Kirkpatrick “is the new Kissinger.”

An American Chinook CH-47 cargo helicopter strays into North Korean airspace near the DMZ and is shot down by North Korean ground forces; three of the four servicemen onboard are killed instantly, while a fourth is taken into custody alive but badly injured. Secretary of State Scranton demands the immediate release of the captured American, Glenn Schwanke as forces along the DMZ go on high alert.

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden announces the birth of Princess Victoria, his firstborn child and heir apparent to the Swedish throne.
Friday, July 15th, 1977: Princess Mishaal bint Fahd al Saud is executed by gunshot at the Royal Palace in Jeddah on the orders of King Khalid following her conviction on charges of adultery; while the Royal Family was originally hesitant to pursue a rigorous prosecution of the 18-year-old Saudi Princess, the growing pressure from Islamist and Wahhabi movements forced the King to move forward with the case against his own great-niece. Her lover is executed by beheading on the same day.
Sunday, July 17th, 1977: On NBC’s Meet the Press, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warns that the growing presence of Soviet proxies such as Cuban, East German, and North Korean troops in countries like Angola, Rhodesia, and Somalia threatens to “gravely undermine security on the continent.” The comments anger Secretary of State Scranton, who complains to the President that Rumsfeld’s pronouncements weaken his position as chief diplomat of the United States.
Tuesday, July 19th, 1977: Flooding in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, caused by massive rainfall and a subsequent dam collapse kills over 75 people and causes billions in damage. The severe flooding prompts President Reagan to visit the town days later to inspect the damage in person alongside Governor Milton Shapp and Senators William Green and Richard Schweiker.
Wednesday, July 20th, 1977: Ayatollah Khomeini goes on trial in Italy on charges of attempting to subvert the government of Iran from Italian soil; the prosecutors leading the case against Khomeini are hoping to weaken the Eurocommunist government of Prime Minister Berlinguer by proxy.
Thursday, July 21st, 1977: On the orders of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan military deploys a tank battalion across the Egyptian border, raiding the border coastal town of Sallum. In response to the Libyan attack, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat declares a state of war between the two nations and threatens to march on Tripoli; in retaliation, Qaddafi warns that he will fund Islamists and socialist dissidents in Egypt.
Friday, July 22nd, 1977: Egyptian jets bomb the Libyan town of Tobruk, killing hundreds of Libyan soldiers in the initial aerial onslaught. In retaliation, Libyan heavy artillery shells several border towns, resulting in dozens of civilian casualties. As the Libyan and Egyptian militaries mobilize, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat steps in to offer his services as a mediator. Libya accepts Arafat’s offer, but Sadat is hesitant to engage immediately. Sporadic skirmishes continue to take place up and long the long and porous border between the two nations.
Saturday, July 23rd, 1977: Representatives of Egypt and Libya meet in Algiers, Algeria, for talks negotiated by Yasser Arafat. After a few hours of intense negotiations stalled by bitter recriminations and increasingly outlandish accusations, Arafat manages to cobble together a tenuous ceasefire agreement, thus averting full scale war between the Libyan and Egyptian regimes.
Sunday, July 24th, 1977: Scotland Yard announces they had disrupted an Irish National Liberation Army plot to detonate bombs at polling locations across the UK ahead of Tuesday’s general election, taking six suspects into custody and discovering four fully constructed nail-bombs ready for use. Ironically, the source of the information leading to the arrest of the INLA affiliated suspects is later revealed to be a member of the PIRA.
Monday, July 25th, 1977: Anwar Sadat issues a decree calling for Egyptian Jews who had moved to Israel to return to Egypt, vowing to protect religious liberties and to allocate land for them. Very few Jews of Egyptian descent return to the country despite Sadat’s promises.
Tuesday, July 26th, 1977: The 1977 British General Election is conducted; the Labour Party roars to victory, winning a majority of 372 seats while the Liberals surge to 45 seats. The Conservative Party hemorrhaged support under Edward Heath, whose popularity plummeted after the Irish National Liberation Army attempted to kill the Queen in central London, an attack which struck Britain to the core. Dennis Healey is set to take office the following day as the new British Prime Minister, ending seven years of Conservative governance. A number of notable Tories, including Margaret Thatcher, William Whitelaw, and Geoffrey Rippon, are casualties of the Labour Party landslide, with their parliamentary careers being prematurely ended in their constituencies by Labour and Liberal Party candidates.

1977 UK General Election
Labour (Dennis Healey): 363 seats (+73)
Conservative (Edward Heath): 194 seats (-127)
Liberal (David Steel): 45 seats (+36)
Scottish National (William Wolfe): 12 (+6)
Plaid Cymru: 3 seats (+1)
National Front (John Tyndall): 0 seats (-).
Other (Northern Ireland Parties): 18 seats (-).
Wednesday, July 27th, 1977: Edward Heath resigns as leader of the Conservative Party; he is replaced on an interim basis by Geoffrey Howe, the Minister for Northern Ireland and the most senior surviving member of the Heath government remaining in office following the Labour landslide. Meanwhile, Dennis Healey is invited to Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth II, who continues to peak in personal popularity, to form a new Labour led government. President Reagan is the first foreign leader to speak to the new Prime Minister by phone that evening.

John Lennon is granted an American green card, effectively giving him permanent residency in the United States. Lennon continues to reside and record in New York City.
Thursday, July 28th, 1977: Former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is released from military custody on the orders of General Zia-ul-Haq, though Bhutto does not go quietly, insisting that the Pakistani people are behind him in opposition to the newly installed military regime. The military regime begins an investigation into Bhutto, threatening to charge him with a number of crimes that he allegedly committed during his time in office.
Saturday, July 30th, 1977: Left-wing German terrorists Susanne Albrecht, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, and a yet to be identified third gunman kill Jürgen Ponto, chairman of the Dresdner Bank in Oberursel, West Germany, in a drive-by shooting.

[2016]

@ChairmanSanchez,
When will this TL continue or have you scrapped it?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

@ChairmanSanchez,
When will this TL continue or have you scrapped it?

It's continuing. I just started the other project as a practice exercise in narrative writing. It isn't going to detract from this.

In fact I plan to update this tonight!

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Monday, August 1st, 1977: Gary Powers, the former U-2 spy plane pilot captured by the Soviet Union in 1960, is killed in Los Angeles when the news helicopter he was piloting crashed. Powers, aged 47 at the time of his death, was killed alongside cameraman George Spears. Both were employees of KNBC.
Wednesday, August 3rd, 1977: Two days after miners in Romania’s Jia Valley went on strike, President Nicolae Ceausescu traveled to the city of Lupeni to personally address the dissident workers. There, he is booed by a crowd of 35,000 people at what was supposed to be a carefully choreographed propaganda rally. It is one of the most brazen displays of opposition to any regime behind the Iron Curtain to take place since the end of the Second World War.

Archbishop Makarios III, who served as President of Cyprus from 1960 (with a brief hiatus during 1974), dies at the age of 63 following a heart attack. He is succeeded as President of Cyprus by Spyros Kyprianou, President of the House of Representatives and next in line for the presidential secession. Makarios III is hailed as a hero by any on the island, though some hardline nationalists involved in the 1974 coup continue to criticize the late Archbishop as a traitor to the cause of enosis.
Thursday, August 4th, 1977: The Zimbabwean People’s Liberation Front (ZPLF) bombs the Woolworth’s Department store in Salisbury, Rhodesia. 11 people are killed and 75 people are injured in the blast. Prime Minister Ina Bursey orders a nationwide manhunt for two schoolteachers believed to be behind the bombing.
Friday, August 5th, 1977: The United States Senate began hearings on the MK-ULTRA experiments conducted between 1953 and 1964 by the CIA. The agency had turned over evidence of 149 different projects that had enlisted researchers at in 80 different institutions, and human test subjects, none of whom were aware that they were gathering data on "mind control", the regulation of human behavior with chemical substances.

Portuguese forces cross briefly in Spanish Galicia to attack rebel bases and to destabilize Spanish troops which have been supporting them. To the consternation of the Falangist government in Madrid – and to the delight of their opponents – the Spanish Army seems unable to adequately defend Spanish territory from the incursion. Rumors soon filter out that the DPRP are arming and providing logistical support to anti-government and separatist forces inside of Spain.

George Bush.

Saturday, August 6th, 1977.

The Naval Observatory.

3:30 AM, New York, NY.

[1]

The Vice President had found the Naval Observatory to be extremely comfortable and quiet, a place that he could truly make home. Located on a hill overlooking the Potomac a few blocks away, that house had been neatly – but modestly – furnished by Barbara Bush on private donations, and the Bushes were proud of the new home they had made. It wasn’t lavish or luxurious in comparison to the extravagant tastes of First Lady Nancy Reagan, but it was enough for Barbara. Considering the privileged background of both the Vice President and the Second Lady, the house’s modest aesthetic could be something of a surprise. But not to the Secretary of State, at least.

Bill Scranton had been invited up to the Naval Observatory from Foggy Bottom by the Vice President on what was purported to be mostly a social call between friends; the two men had grown close during Bush’s time as Secretary of State, when the then Vice President Scranton took on active role in securing vital information about the welfare of their prisoner-of-war son. The Vice President took the Secretary of State – an ironic reversal of roles – through the grounds of the newly minted official residence of the nation’s second most powerful man.

“It’s great for a Vice President” stated Scranton, “quaint, quiet, elegant. Rooted in history. Very befitting for the role.”

“Barbara has done her best to make her mark on the place” Bush replied, “I think she’s done a good job at it.”

“My compliments to Barbara, then” said Scranton, “if only our boss had such a wife.” The two men shared a laugh; Nancy’s disdain for the Bush’s had been apparent throughout the 1976 campaign, and she was never particularly sold on the selection of the former Secretary of State for the Vice Presidency. She had little in common and less to say to Barbara, whom she regularly treated with a cruel coldness that more amused than bothered the Second Lady. Barbara may not have earned Mrs. Reagan’s respect, but she was at least confident enough after losing a daughter and almost losing a son to the horrors of war to know that she didn’t need it anyway.

“Well, I assume you didn’t come out here to discuss the wallpaper and the new furniture…”

“No” Scranton chuckled, “I came to discuss the Panamanian matter.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that. I fear we’ve passed our jumping off point with Torrijos.”

“And I’m afraid that the President doesn’t realize that yet.”

“He doesn’t” affirmed Bush, “he isn’t as ignorant of the situation as Agnew would be, but he seems completely convinced that Torrijos isn’t going to meddle anymore than he already has. He thinks we’re just going to keep the canal because he speaks strongly and swings around the big stick.”

“Can the President be moved on this matter?”

“Not with Rummy at the Pentagon. I tried to stop him. But I was outflanked by Nancy and the Californians.”

“Does Secretary Rumsfeld at least realize the potential for…”

“War?”

“Yes….war. Unfortunately, if there’s one thing that gets Don hot and bothered, its another war. Mark my words, Bill, Don is rearing to go with Torrijos and with Castro too for good measure.”

"At least Don is prepared for this eventuality then?”

“You would think he’d be” sighed the Vice President, “but he isn’t. He’s still hung up on the Middle East, on stabilizing Israel’s northern borders and seizing the Saudi oilfields, and so on.”

“When I tried to convince him of the urgency of the Panamanian situation, he told me there are known knowns and there are unknown knowns.”

“What the f**k does that even mean?”

“I don’t even know” replied Scranton, “but he’s changed. He’s not Agnew’s Rummy. He’s less confident. Less assertive. He’s not the big fish in the small pond anymore.”

“But he’s still ruthless” Vice President Bush opined.

“One thing is for certain, we do not have the forces necessary to defend the canal from a hypothetical Panamanian attempt to take it. Our forces are spread too thin, between Syria, South Korea, and South Vietnam.”

“My understanding is that we have the capability of retaking the Canal Zone proper, but pacifying Panama and holding it afterwards is going to be a challenge at present. We may have to call up the National Guard again.”

“Another Bold Eagle” lamented Scranton, “well that’s just jingles!”

“We’re going to have to counter the Californians and form a common front here, Bill. Can I count you in?”

“Deal me in” said Scranton, shaking the Vice President’s hand, “we can stop this thing before it blows up God willing.”

“I hope so” Bush lamented, “I can’t bear the thought of one of my boy’s going back into a tropical warzone.”
Saturday, August 6th, 1977: The Queen makes her first trip to Northern Ireland since the assassination attempt on her the year before. Under heavy security, the Queen meets with a number of leading political figures from the Social Democratic & Labour, Ulster Unionist, and Democratic Unionist Parties before addressing the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Sunday, August 7th, 1977: A bomb explodes in Belfast hours after the Queen departs the city; the attack is attributed to the Provisional Irish Republican Army, which was not directly targeting the Queen (the blast had been timed for after departure) but still attempting to flex their muscles as the predominant republican paramilitary organization in Northern Ireland.
Monday, August 8th, 1977: Backed by prominent financial figures in Hong Kong, the first “Hong Kong-Taipei Commercial and Financial Forum” is held in Hong Kong. This association of business interests from Hong Kong and Taiwan is aimed at linking business partnerships between the two areas and further cementing commercial ties. Hong Kong entrepreneurs are exploring the possibility of using Taiwan as a commercial and industrial hinterland where production can be done cheaply and “off-shore.” To that end the forum encourages the Taiwan government to liberalize its economic and trade polices (and implicitly open-up the government in Taipei to Hong Kong influences through a more pluralistic, business-oriented system).

The military-controlled government of Uruguay announces that it will return the nation to civilian rule through general elections in 1981 for a President and Congress.
Wednesday, August 10th, 1977: Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) announces he has been diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer but vows not to resign from the Senate, insisting that he will continue to do his duties as a legislator.
Thursday, August 11th, 1977: The USAF and US Navy bomb PJO held areas around Beirut in retaliation for the recent attack on allied troops in Damascus.
Friday, August 12th, 1977: The NASA Space Shuttle, named Enterprise, makes its first test free-flight from the back of a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
Saturday, August 13th, 1977: The Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) holds a convention in San Diego which is highlighted by speeches from Governor Barry Goldwater Jr., Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former President and television host Spiro Agnew, Senator Barry Goldwater Sr., activist Phyllis Schlafly, and a keynote address by President Ronald Reagan, who receives a standing ovation.
Tuesday, August 16th, 1977: Elvis Presley collapses at his home in Graceland and is rushed to Memphis’s Baptist Hospital. Surgery to revive Pressley’s stopped heart is successful, but the rock and roll icon remains in a coma in the wake of the operation. Upwards to 75,000 fans gather outside of the hospital to hold vigil for Elvis as television networks interrupt regular programming to broadcast regular updates on the King of Rock and Roll’s failing health across the country.
Wednesday, August 17th, 1977: Police in Spain foil a plot by communist partisans in the country to assassinate King Juan Carlos with a bomb placed near the route of his car. Prime Minister Navarro accuses the Portuguese regime of conspiring with the leftist insurgents growing increasingly active in Spain.
Thursday, August 18th, 1977: The Soviet nuclear submarine Artika is the first vessel to reach the North Pole.
Friday, August 19th, 1977: Soviet Forces repel an insurgent attack in north-western Syria. They launch reprisals against the local population, creating anti-Soviet feelings among the Syrian population.
Saturday, August 20th, 1977: UK Prime Minister Healey announces that the new British government will continue sea patrols around Madeira and the Azores, and “participate in NATO peace stabilization activities” but that the posture of the Royal Navy along the Portuguese coast will be “scaled back so as to be less provocative, and less of a hindrance to further diplomatic negotiations on the future of the region.”
Monday, August 22nd, 1977: 80,000 people attend a rock concert in Yugoslavia, the largest such event to take place behind the Iron Curtain. While Yugoslavia continues to offer cultural opportunities for artists that are relatively lax compared to the other Eastern Bloc nations, most of the bands performing at this Belgrade festival are compelled by authorities to play “non-threatening” music that does question the regime of the ailing Marshall Tito.
Tuesday, August 23rd, 1977: Governor Blair Lee of Maryland, who has served since the 1975 assassination of Marvin Mandel, announces he will run for a full term as Governor of Maryland in 1978. Polling shows the popular incumbent taking a strong lead over several potential Republican challengers.
Thursday, August 25th, 1977: A fire breaks out on the 8th floor of the American embassy in Moscow. The KGB takes advantage of the blaze to send in agents disguised as firemen to ransack the embassy’s file cabinets during the chaotic fire, which takes several hours to contain. The resulting loss of classified information is one of the worst in memory, with countless files, diplomatic cables, and dossiers detailing dissident activity in the Soviet Union falling into unfriendly hands.
Friday, August 26th, 1977: President Reagan embarks for a four-day tour of Central America, meeting with Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt, Salvadorian President Carlos Romero, and Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle as part of an effort to contain the spread of communism on the continent.
Monday, August 29th, 1977: A ten-day conference at the Hague, co-sponsored by France, Italy and Yugoslavia begins. The conference fails to develop a solution over the issue of which government of Portugal is legitimate. Despite diplomatic efforts, no compromise can be reached in part because the Lisbon regime and the Azores-Maderia regime, each backed by a superpower, refuse to concede to the other. The conservative faction hosted by Spain is completely ignored in these talks.
Wednesday, August 31st, 1977: The deposed Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, flees the country ahead of reports that he is about to be re-arrested by the military junta. Bhutto founded a “government-in-exile” in London composed mainly of his followers.
[1] Taken from Business Insider.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Thursday, September 1st, 1977: Britain nationalizes the shipbuilding industry, consolidating 27 seized companies into a single government run organization. Prime Minister Healey also confirms that plans to privatize British Airways and British Steel are being scraped by the Labour Party government in London.

The USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya.
Friday, September 2nd, 1977: Prime Minister Healey announces the release from detention of the peace protestors Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams in a gesture of reconciliation to the non-violent peace process in Northern Ireland.
Saturday, September 3rd, 1977: The Golden Dragon massacre took place in San Francisco, California inside the Golden Dragon Restaurant. At 2:40 AM a longstanding feud between two rival Chinese gangs, the Joe Boys and Wah Ching came to head when a botched assassination attempt by the Joe Boys at the Golden Dragon Restaurant led to the death of five people, including two tourists, and injury to 11 people, none of whom were gang members. The assassination attempt was a result of the death of another Joe Boy Felix Huey, who had died in a shootout with Wah Ching members at the Ping Yuen projects earlier that year.

The Golden Dragon Massacre led to the establishment of the San Francisco Police Department's Asian Gang Task Force. It also led to more increased scrutiny on the activities of Asian narcotics importers, some of whom were linked through various gangs to Hong Kong and from there to cheap sources of narcotics supply in China.
Sunday, September 4th, 1977: Elvis Presley awakes from a coma weeks after suffering a heart attack at Graceland; Elvis reportedly tells nurses of a near-death experience marked by a meeting with Jesus and recommits himself to Christ in the aftermath of this experience.
Monday, September 5th, 1977: Employers Association President Hanns-Martin Schleyer is kidnapped in Cologne, West Germany. The kidnappers kill 3 escorting police officers and his chauffeur. They demand the release of Red Army Faction (RAF) prisoners.

The Kohl government declares a state of emergency to deal with the kidnappings.

The High Speed Communications Act (“The Gore-Quayle Act”) passes the House of Representatives by a vote of 356-79. The bill advances to the Senate, where there is some pushback from fiscal conservatives over the cost of the proposed legislation. Defense hawks such as Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA) meanwhile embrace the legislation, citing the need to gain a technological advantage over the Soviets in computing and communications systems.
Tuesday, September 6th, 1977: America, British, French African, and South Vietnamese troops repel an attack by insurgents on “Fort Gavin” (a base outside of Damascus). The running battle, which features suicide attacks and mortar barrages from hidden positions outside the base continues for two days until the allied forces, supported by Syrian Armed Police, manage to kill, or capture the main group of insurgents.

African National Congress activist Steve Biko suffers a massive head injury in police custody in South Africa, later dying from his injuries, which police conveniently can’t seem to account for.
Wednesday, September 7th, 1977: Talks between the United States and Panama break down again on the first day after negotiations were restarted in Costa Rica; General Torrijos leads the Panamanian delegation out of the talks after Secretary of State Scranton insisted upon the transfer of the canal zone being spaced out over a period of 25 years. Torrijos expels the American Ambassador from the country in the wake of the failure over the negotiations.
Friday, September 9th, 1977: Geoffrey Howe’s tenure as acting leader of the Conservative Party is extended for a year by the party’s remaining MPs. Howe will thus continue to serve as leader of the opposition until a permanent successor can be elected in 1978.
Saturday, September 10th, 1977: President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl meet at Verdun in France to discuss the strengthening of bilateral relations. Verdun, the sight of a lethal First World War battle is chosen in an effort to, as the leaders put it in a joint statement “to remember the lessons of the past, while at the same time moving out from the poison shadow left by the legacy of war, and to look ahead at Europe’s future instead of dwelling upon the past.” Despite cosmetics and efforts by the leaders, deep divisions remain over the future of NATO and the shape of the European Common Market.
Sunday, September 11th, 1977: First Lady Nancy Reagan publicly visits a recovering Elvis Presley in his hospital room in Memphis, where the two discuss the national drug epidemic and policy solutions to the crisis. Reagan would later attribute her conversation with Presley as the source of inspiration behind her “Just Say No” campaign, which is launched in early 1978.
Tuesday, September 13th, 1977: The Oldsmobile, the first diesel powered car sold in the United States, goes on sale for the first time.
Friday, September 16th, 1977: In an address to a Socialist Party convention President Mitterrand again suggests that a referendum be held in France before the next Presidential election in May 1981 which would offer to reduce the Presidential term from seven years to five years. The President receives approval (but only by 52% of the delegates) for the idea “in principle.”
Sunday, September 18th, 1977: The PRC performs a nuclear test at Lop Nor, according to seismologists who monitor the region. The official state media broadcasts coming from the People’s Republic make no mention whatsoever of the alleged nuclear test.
Monday, September 19th, 1977: The Reagan administration signs a new military and financial support agreement with the Nicaraguan regime of President Anastasio Somoza Debayle. There are protests over this as the Somoza regime is seen as both brutal and corrupt.
Tuesday, September 20th, 1977: A nuclear non-proliferation pact is signed by 14 countries, including the Soviet Union, but not the United States. The pact is considered largely symbolic and powerless because the United States has withdrawn from the negotiations.
Wednesday, September 21st, 1977: Turkish Prime Minister Turkes is arrested in his bed by Turkish Army troops. The Turkish Army, led by a number of senior officers, seizes all state communications and governing facilities and immediately bans all political parties as well as all “unapproved” political activity. Turkes and a number of his supporters are thrown into jail as the country’s top generals form a junta and declare an end to the “fascist reign of terror” that Turkes had presided over. Fighting breaks out between Turkish military forces and elements of the Grey Wolves who take to an insurgent/terror campaign in their resistance to the military government. Meanwhile leftist groups also begin a campaign of violence against the Turkish military government. The Soviet Union accuses the CIA of fermenting the coup in retaliation for Turkish departure from NATO.
Thursday, September 22nd, 1977: General Nutterin Ersin forms an interim military government in Turkey with himself as executive President with wide powers. The military continues to round up suspected Grey Wolves and Communists as part of a campaign of “pacification.”

A West German Red Army Faction terrorist kills policeman in Utrecht.
Friday, September 23rd, 1977: In Kampala, Uganda, six Ugandan military officers manage to escape from the infamous State Research Bureau’s headquarters by climbing through a ventilation duct before they can be executed by firing squad on charges of treason. The six officers had been charged and convicted for plotting a military coup against President Idi Amin.
Sunday, September 25th, 1977: Zambian President Kenneth Kuanda offers to meet with Prime Minister Ina Bursey of Rhodesia to discuss a proposal from the new British Foreign Minister James Callaghan on a peaceful transition to majority rule in her country; Bursey refuses to budge on her position or meet with Kuanda, telling reporters that “the time for talks with the terrorists has long passed.”
Monday, September 26th, 1977: Denis Healey, the new British Prime Minister, and Paddy Donnegan, the Irish Taoiseach, held a meeting in Downing Street, London. One of the main issues discussed was economic cross-border co-operation and the improvement of bi-lateral relations. Healey and Donnegan also touched on measures that both governments could take in facilitating the peace process, including tacit co-operation with the French diplomatic efforts.
Wednesday, September 28th, 1977: Japan Air Lines Flight 472 is hijacked shortly after takeoff from Bombay, India. The hijackers demand and receive six million dollars’ worth of ransom for the release of the passengers on board, who are eventually released to authorities after being diverted all the way to Algiers, Algeria.
Thursday, September 29th, 1977: President Truong of South Vietnam visits the United States, where he lobbies for a free trade agreement between the U.S. and the Republic of Vietnam. On his return to Asia President Truong will stop of for meetings in Hong Kong and Taipei aimed at building commercial relations.
Friday, September 30th, 1977: President Reagan infuriates anti-poverty activists when he vetoes the Food Stamp Act of 1977, which would allocate funding for a permanent food stamps program as 1974’s Hunger Relief Act nears its expiration.

Former President Richard Nixon gives his first televised interview since leaving prison earlier in the year to British journalist David Frost.

David Frost.

Friday, September 30th, 1977.

The Nixon Compound.

8:00 PM, San Clemente, CA.

[1]

DAVID FROST: I should ask you about your choice of Spiro Agnew as your running mate and eventual Vice President. Why did you choose him?

RICHARD NIXON: I chose Ted Agnew because he was the best qualified, in my opinion, to support me and my administration in the difficult issues were going to face.

DAVID FROST: Really? I mean, he was obscure – at best in 1968, no one outside of Maryland had ever heard of him, and few in that state were impressed by him. Why do you say he was the best qualified? What were those qualifications?

RICHARD NIXON: He was a Governor who had faced civil unrest and urban crises, he was – from the Maryland Statehouse – he was dealing with the key domestic issues of our day, lawlessness, urban blight, radicalism. He brought that perspective to my administration.

DAVID FROST: So did Governor Rockefeller and Governor Reagan, both from larger states, with, frankly, more of those problems than Maryland. In Nelson Rockefeller’s case he had nearly a decade’s worth of experience by 1968, not to mention his former work in the Federal government, experience neither Reagan nor Agnew came close to having. Why Agnew?

RICHARD NIXON: Governor Reagan wasn’t interested in the Vice Presidency, and frankly I preferred Governor Agnew’s approach. He was the right man for the job.

DAVID FROST: Alright. But surely your opinion must have changed after what happened in 1973?

RICHARD NIXON: I think, despite the challenges, as President in 1973, Mr. Agnew did a good job in protecting this nation’s interests.

DAVID FROST: Come now, we have to acknowledge the fact that as President, Spiro Agnew set-off a crippling round of inflation which damaged the economy; he re-ignited the War in Vietnam, which you and Dr. Kissinger had nearly settled during your term. In the Oval Office Mr. Agnew nearly allowed the Middle East War to escalate into a World War; he played chicken with the Soviets and the Chinese for months in the waters off the coast of Vietnam; and his actions set-off an oil shock which, when combined with his reckless spending program, sent the economy into a tailspin it still hasn’t recovered from. Surely, in light of all that, you must have some regret…

RICHARD NIXON: None. Agnew defended Israel against aggression, which I would have done and which President Gavin did when he took office. His actions in Vietnam, while strident, did bring about a victory for us and our South Vietnamese allies. If anything, a free and democratic South Vietnam is the legacy of the Agnew Presidency.

DAVID FROST: With all do respect, Mr. Agnew simply kicked over the molehill. It was his successor, President Gavin, who shaped that policy to a success, and even that would have been unnecessary if Agnew had continued your policy at the Paris Peace talks. You had by the end of your Administration all but ended American involvement in Vietnam. Agnew re-ignited a war that was resolved.

RICHARD NIXON: Not resolved, no, we produced a framework for peace, but not a final solution. In my Administration we returned the responsibility for the conduct of the war to the South Vietnamese, but we had to pledge a continuing support to South Vietnam, one which Congress was not going to support, as it turned out. The Paris peace accords were a controversial policy, opposed by some, including many who advised President Agnew. History has shown that their alternative, though costly and dangerous, was equally as viable, the peace they fashioned from a renewed conflict improved on what we had achieved before January 1973. It was a measure of his leadership ability – which I had recognized in him in 1968 - that President Agnew was willing to risk re-engaging and all the popular opposition that came with it - to achieve a better and lasting solution for the South Vietnamese people. That is I think, a fine legacy to come out of both his Administration and mine.

DAVID FROST: Omitting Agnew’s effect on the economy and nearly bringing us to World War III.

RICHARD NIXON: That’s exaggerated.

DAVID FROST: On the economy, I would say that thousands of unemployed would disagree with you. You must also be aware that he pardoned himself for his own crimes. How does that sort of behavior square with your assessment of his having been the best qualified for the job?

RICHARD NIXON: Of course, I didn’t know about his questionable actions in Maryland; frankly I’ve yet to see proof of actual wrong doing on Ted Agnew’s part.

DAVID FROST: You won’t see the proof because he pardoned himself, which the Supreme Court has indicated in the past is, legally, and admission of guilt. Do you think that was proper?

RICHARD NIXON: The President has that power, under the Constitution. Ted Agnew exercised that power in accordance with the Constitution.

DAVID FROST: So, you think it was wrong for the Congress to remove him?

RICHARD NIXON: Congress acted in accord with the Constitution. I wouldn’t second-guess their judgment in the matter.

DAVID FROST: So, deep down, you agree that he deserved to be removed?

RICHARD NIXON: The question was decided by the Senate, acting according to the Constitution. I support the Constitution.

DAVID FROST: Have you seen his program on television?

RICHARD NIXON: No.

DAVID FROST: No?

RICHARD NIXON: I don’t watch that sort of thing.

DAVID FROST: That sort of thing? How do you know what sort of thing it is if you don’t watch it?

RICHARD NIXON: I’ve heard things – from people like you, and others.

DAVID FROST: Well, I hope what you’ve heard is that he has been making a mockery of himself and television journalism in general?

RICHARD NIXON: He wouldn’t be the first. There are many so-called serious journalists who have made a mockery out of television journalism.

DAVID FROST: Come now, Mr. Nixon, when all is said and done, you must acknowledge some responsibility for bringing this man onto the national stage. Setting aside what he did as President – which some would regard as bad enough – he has now become a voice of discord distracting – if not overtly misleading - viewers with his nightly diatribes. You must bear some of the responsibility, at least for single-handedly placing him in the position he is in today?

RICHARD NIXON: I didn’t put him on T.V.

DAVID FROST: If you hadn’t made him Vice President, no one would ever have wanted to put him on T.V. to begin with.

RICHARD NIXON: The American people elected him Vice President – twice – and …

DAVID FROST: Once. The second time he elected himself.

RICHARD NIXON: I agree with Ted Agnew that our national dialogue is dominated by a liberal elite, one which controls our “mainstream” media. Today, I believe he speaks for a large segment of the American population that has been disenfranchised by the media elites, whose voices have been drowned-out in the liberal chatter. If the former Vice President and the people at Hughes want to provide them with an outlet where their views can be expressed, I’d say its past time they had one. As for Ted Agnew, I think he has found the job he was best suited for all along, even if it has become more entertainment than news. If I helped him along the way, well I guess I can’t be unhappy about that.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Saturday, October 1st, 1977: General Zia al-Haq postpones planned parliamentary elections in Pakistan, citing political instability in the wake of the recent military coup and former Prime Minister Bhutto’s flight into exile in London.

A group of prominent Nicaraguan professionals, business leaders, and clergymen allied with the Terceristas to form "El Grupo de los Doce", (The Group of Twelve) in Costa Rica. The group's main idea was to organize a provisional government from Costa Rica. The new strategy of the Terceristas also included unarmed strikes and rioting by labor and student groups coordinated by the FSLN's "United People's Movement" (Movimiento Pueblo Unido - MPU).
Sunday, October 2nd, 1977: Congressman John Kerry (D-MA) announces he will run for Senate against incumbent Edward Brooke (R-MA) in 1978. Kerry, who was first elected to the House in 1974 and was subsequently reelected in 1976, is considered to be a rising star within the ranks of the Democratic Party.

Around 500 Egyptian officers and soldiers are brought into Syria to assist the operations of the Allied coalition forces.
Monday, October 3rd, 1977: The new Healey government in the UK officially lifts many of the security restrictions imposed on the British mainland by its Conservative predecessor. Mainland Britain is no longer under martial law.

Indira Gandhi arrested by the new Janata Party led government in India for abuses of power committed during the “Indian emergency” as well as other violations of the constitution. A special inquiry known as the Shah Commission had been established by Prime Minister Morarji Desai to investigate these alleged abuses, and Gandhi’s arrest polarizes an already deeply divided country.
Wednesday, October 5th, 1977: At a contentious OPEC meeting the member states fail to agree on price and production quotas. The hard-liner block led by Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, backed by the Algerian delegation, argue for higher prices and reduced supply to the West, unless the United States and Western Europe withdraw recognition from Israel.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are both paralyzed by domestic instability and fail to provide counter-balancing leadership to the hard-liners. The Gulf states argue for a moderation of oil prices on the logic that hardline pricing policies are undercutting their markets because the high price of oil is driving down demand.

Nigeria and Venezuela both attempt to mediate the dispute, although both countries want to keep the world price of oil high as they are selling petroleum under the table at less than OPEC prices, and they want to keep this “gray market” alive. (Some of the Gulf Kingdoms are also involved in this grey-marketing of contraband oil).

The OPEC talks break down without an agreement among the members.
Thursday, October 6th, 1977: In Alicante, Spain, fascists attack a group of MCPV militants and sympathizers, and one MCPV sympathizer is killed in the subsequent melee.
Friday, October 7th, 1977: The Irish Independence Party (IIP) was launched. The IIP was a Nationalist political party which advocated British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. The founding members of the IIP were Frank McManus and Fergus McAteer. The IIP was seen as a potential challenge to the domination of nationalist politics by the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).

The USSR adopted the Fourth Soviet Constitution (or the Suslov Constitution). The new governing document of the Soviet Union does not change the day-to-day governance of the country, and only further codifies the power of the ruling Communist Party.
Monday, October 10th, 1977: Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, who were both founding members of the Peace People, and who have recently been released from detention by the Healey Government, are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Tuesday, October 11th, 1977: Two bombs explode in a Damascus animal market, killing 99 people and wounding over 200. The Syrian government claims that the bombs were carried by women and possibly remotely detonated.

Taking advantage of the weakened hold on power of the central government, the PKK (Kurdistan Worker's Party) begins agitation in Kurdish parts of Turkey and Syria. PKK guerillas carry out attacks on Turkish military installations on both sides of the border. This puts the Turkish government in weaker position as the army is still fighting the Grey Wolves militias. Areas of Eastern Turkey with Kurdish majority populations actually maintain a quasi-autonomy through most of the winter of 1977-78 further fueling Kurdish nationalist expectations. President Ersin is keenly aware of the Kurdish menace, but in his priorities are taking down the far-right and far-left insurgencies active in the country, with his hands full flushing out the remnants of the Grey Wolves. His government judges them to be the greater imminent threat to governance and stability in Turkey.
Wednesday, October 12th, 1977: Chinese backed Pathet Lao forces (Pathet Red) mount an offensive against the Royalist-Pathet Lao Nationalist forces (Pathet Green) in an effort to dislodge the country's government. Though the Chinese have withdrawn from world affairs, they continue to maintain active military presences in neighboring Burma and Laos and continue to support militant Maoist movements in Thailand as well.
Thursday, October 13th, 1977: Four Palestinians hijack Lufthansa Airlines flight 181 to Somalia and demand the release of 11 Red Army Faction members imprisoned in West Germany. The pro-Soviet regime of Siad Barre shelters the hijackers and hostages in Mogadishu.
Friday, October 14th, 1977: At the request of the nationalist government in Vientiane, the North Vietnamese army enters Laotian territory to take on the Pathet Red insurgency. The Maoist forces quickly inflict high casualties on the North Vietnamese intervention force, and a guerilla war erupts along the long and porous Laotian border.
Saturday, October 15th, 1977: The Lebanese army launches an offensive against PJO militants in the country, attacking PJO bases near Jabal Lubnan. The PJO manages to escape to Beqaa and Nabatieh, where their forces attempt to regroup, but they are hounded by American aerial attacks from across the Syrian border.
Sunday, October 16th, 1977: On NBC’s Meet the Press, outgoing Florida Governor Reubin Askew rules out a run for Senate in 1980 as incumbent Senator Bill Gunter (D-FL) weighs a potential gubernatorial bid to succeed Askew in 1978.
Monday, October 17th, 1977: GSG 9 troopers storm a hijacked Lufthansa passenger plane in Mogadishu, Somalia; 3 of the 4 hijackers die, while all hostages are successfully recovered as Somali ground forces flee. Fears of another Entebbe in Bonn go unrealized in the wake of the successful operation, which embarrasses the Somali regime and damages morale of the Soviet supplied, Cuban backed Somali army currently fighting in Ethiopia.
Tuesday, October 18th, 1977: Red Army Faction members Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin commit suicide in Stammheim prison; Irmgard Möller fails (their supporters still claim they were murdered). They are buried on October 27. Chancellor Kohl orders a redoubled intelligence effort against the RAF and indicates that "the gloves come off." West German security authorities begin a penetration operation of the RAF and related groups.
Wednesday, October 19th, 1977: Kidnapped industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer is found murdered in Mulhouse, France. The Red Army Faction was responsible for his forced disappearance and eventual killing.

While on tour of Canada, Prince Charles embarrasses both Prime Minister John Turner and the Queen when he speaks of the “historic injustices” faced by Francophone Canadians in a speech. The speech’s remarks are seized upon by Premier Rene Levesque, who uses the opportunity to again call for a Quebec independence referendum.

Hassan Tuhami, National Security Advisor to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, visits Washington DC in order to solicit US assistance for an Egyptian outreach to Israel. He meets with National Security Advisor Richard Allen, Secretary of State William Scranton, and Vice President George H.W. Bush, but fails to obtain the commitment of American support.

American and British Special Forces acting in conjunction with the Lebanese military destroy a PJO arms cache near Beirut.
Thursday, October 20th, 1977: Three members of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd survive a charter plane crash outside Gillsburg, Mississippi, three days after the release of their fifth studio album Street Survivors.
Friday, October 21st, 1977: Sheik Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baaz, a revered Wahabbi scholar, calls for the execution of more persons “corrupted by un-Islamic influences.” He publishes a list of thirty minor Saudi princes and officials whom he alleges have been “corrupted beyond redemption” and he wants King Khalid to order their execution as a sign of his, and by extension the Royal Family’s, piety.

Over the next month Sheik Abd and his followers push the list forward in sermons every Friday about the purity of Islam and the return of Saudi Arabia to “true Islam.” These fire-eating sermons are followed every Friday by increasingly large numbers of street demonstrations. Many of the people joining these demonstrations are ordinary Saudis who do not share fully in the Royal wealth. In addition to calls for Islamic “purification”, the protests also call for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Syria and the destruction of Israel. Most troubling to the Ruling Family, the protests call for the re-distribution of national wealth along “Islamic precepts.”

Crown Prince Abdullah at first tries to break-up the crowds with the religious police, the Mutaween. However, many members of the Mutaween are encouraged by Sheik Abd and his supporters to join in with the Islamic protests.
Sunday, October 23rd, 1977: In India the Janata government had lesser success in achieving economic reforms. It launched the Sixth Five-Year Plan, aiming to boost agricultural production and rural industries. Seeking to promote economic self-reliance and indigenous industries, the government required multi-national corporations to go into partnership with Indian corporations. The policy proved controversial, diminishing foreign investment, and led to the high-profile exit of corporations such as Coca-Cola and IBM from India. But the government was unable to address the issues of resurging inflation, fuel shortages, unemployment, and poverty.
Monday, October 24th, 1977: Secretary of State Scranton and National Security Adviser Richard Allen receive a briefing from Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Blum in which Blum states that Egyptian troops co-operating with the U.S. in Syria are in fact spying on Israel's northern defenses and looking for weaknesses in the same. Blum also gives a stilted interpretation of Sadat's several trips to Baghdad, indicating that the Egyptians and Iraqis are discussing a new military alliance.
Tuesday, October 25th, 1977: Moroccan troops move in force against Bir Lehlou, the capital of nominally independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in Western Sahara in an effort to enforce Moroccan control over the former Spanish colony. A Moroccan military governor is installed in the “Southern Zone” to administer Moroccan interests. Missions of foreign governments which had recognized the SADR are expelled from Bir Lehlou by the Moroccans. Polisario (SADR) forces are forced to flee into Mauritania, causing further instability in that country.
Wednesday, October 26th, 1977: The Shah of Iran calls out troops for a violent crackdown on protesters. The protesters fight back against the Army and SAVAK troops, creating vivid images of unrest in Iran for television news to broadcast across the globe.
Friday, October 28th, 1977: Disturbed by the Shah’s seeming loss of grip on power, Colonel Hossein Azhari of the Iranian Army forms a “National Officer’s Patriotic Group” designed to restore order and control. Through a number of connections, Colonel Azhari finds that he has support from the CIA.
Sunday, October 30th, 1977: Prime Minister Ina Bursey of Rhodesia meets in Johannesburg with Prime Minister Vorster of South Africa for a summit on their joint approach to African resistance movements. Although some common military and security policies are agreed to at the summit, Bursey and Vorster differ over the Rhodesian Prime Minister's refusal to negotiate with black nationalist forces and reach an accommodation. Vorster feels Bursey is shortsighted while Bursey feels that the South Africans are trying to push the Rhodesians into talks in order to buy time for their own struggles against the African National Congress forces. At the time, some Rhodesians said the still embittered history between the British-dominated Rhodesia and the Afrikaner-dominated South Africa partly led South Africa to limit its aid to Rhodesia.

Prime Minister Healey and Defense Secretary Owen head off an effort lead by Barbara Castle and Tony Benn to force the withdrawal of UK troops from Syria and Madeira. The Prime Minister rounds-up enough support for continuing the missions from within his caucus arguing that Great Britain must stand by her commitment to the western alliance even if these operations were the policy of the previous Conservative government. Nonetheless Healey's support is soft in the Labour parliamentary party and he senses that he will face stronger opposition in the future.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Tuesday, November 1st, 1977: With a week to go before gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey as well as a mayoral election in New York City, President Reagan – whose popularity hovers at 43% currently as the nation slowly creeps out of the Second Great Depression – hits the campaign trail for Republican gubernatorial candidate Lt. Governor John Dalton, who is running against Andrew Miller, the State Attorney General.
Wednesday, November 2nd, 1977: Zimbabwean People’s Liberation Front (ZPLF) guerillas fire a rocket at a plane carrying sightseers over Victoria Falls from within Zambia, but the rocket misses its target and instead strikes the Elephant Hills country club.
Thursday, November 3rd, 1977: Iranian oil workers go on a strike, demanding an increase in wages and benefits and greater control over their working conditions (some have compared their condition to workers in other parts of the Middle East: in many countries living conditions for oil workers have improved due to oil revenues; in Iran - despite the increase in oil revenues - the pay and working conditions for oil workers have actually declined, thanks largely to corruption and greed in the Shah's administration). The Iranian oil workers also accuse the Shah’s regime of not paying them in full and not using the nation’s oil wealth to the benefit of all the people. This latter demand wins the oil workers respect and support from many Iranians.
Friday, November 4th, 1977: UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick vetoes a UN Security Council Resolution that would implement an arms embargo against South Africa, angering anti-apartheid activists around the world in the process.

Influenced by the National Officers Patriotic Group, the Iranian Army refuses the Shah’s orders to put down the oil worker’s strike. The oil workers themselves manage to fend off an attack by the Shah’s Secret Police, the SAVAK. The oil workers not only defeated the SAVAK troops (and scare others away with their show of solidarity in the face of threats) but they actually capture some SAVAK operatives. Of these, some defect while others join with the oil workers.

The Rhodesian government begins work on a uranium separation program designed to isolate U235 for crude nuclear weapons production. They are buying the uranium from South Africa.
Sunday, November 6th, 1977: Congressman Jack Kemp announces that he will run for Governor of New York against Hugh Carey in 1978 on an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation. Kemp, the co-author of the Reagan tax cuts plan, has emerged as one of the leading conservatives and fiscal hawks in Congress, and is the face of the GOP’s soft-libertarian wing that has been growing in terms of influence under Reagan’s patronage.
Tuesday, November 8th, 1977: Off year elections are held in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia.

1977 New York City Mayoral Election
(D) Mario Cuomo: 62.8%
(R) Roy Goodman: 29.8%
(C) Barry Farber: 6.7%
(L) William Lawry: 0.5%
(LAB) Elijah Boyd: 0.2%
(Democratic hold)

1977 New Jersey Gubernatorial Election
(D) Brendan Byrne: 58.6%
(R) Raymond Bateman: 40.7%
(I) Francis Flowers: 0.5%
(L) Frank Primich: 0.2%
(Democratic hold)

1977 Virginia Gubernatorial Election
(D) Andrew Miller: 54.4%
(R) John Dalton: 45.6%
(Democratic hold)
Wednesday, November 9th, 1977: Gen. Hugo Banzer, President of the military government of Bolivia, announces that the constitutional democracy will be restored in 1978 instead of 1980 as previously promised.

FBI and FCTB agents arrest two men reconnoitering the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, PA. The men, said to be of Middle Eastern origin, may have been looking for ways to sabotage the plant’s operation and perhaps cause a nuclear disaster.

An Angolan sponsored rebel invasion into Shaba province forces President Mobutu to divert troops toward his southern border, further weakening his position in the north.
Thursday, November 10th, 1977: The Bee Gees release the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever; which like the film is received with lukewarm reviews. Sales are low and the album is considered a financial failure. It is considered too escapist by many audiences, unconnected to the issues of their lives.

Soviet Communist Party General Secretary dedicates a monument to Stalin, the first to be raised in the Soviet Union since the de-Stalinization twenty years earlier. The statue pays tribute to Stalin’s role as Soviet leader in the Great Patriotic War.

A squad of Grey Wolves attempt to assassinate President (General) Ersin while he is travelling in a convoy of vehicles through the streets of Ankara. The assassination attempt fails. Two Grey Wolves commandos, Mechmet Ali Agca and Omer Clelic survive the attack and are forced to flee the country. They later receive sanctuary in Libya after escaping the country by way of Lebanon.

Dr. Karim Sanjabi, Dr. Shapur Baktiar, Mehidi Bazargan and former Admiral Ahmad Mahdani form the nucleus of a new Iranian National Front Party, whose objective is to liberalize the Shah’s regime. They begin a process of cultivating allies for liberal reform within Iran and courting support in the U.S.
Friday, November 11th, 1977: The Shah calls on the Army to put down a protest in Tehran in sympathy with the oil workers. This time several army commanders refused to act and allow the protest to go on. During the protest there are several instances of the Army arresting SAVAK agents who attempt to intervene. As a result of the worsening disorder, the Shah cancels a planned trip to the United States in order to deal with continuing unrest in Iran.
Sunday, November 13th, 1977: Egyptian President sits down with CBS’s Walter Cronkite for an extensive interview, in which Sadat expresses a willingness to travel to Israel and meet personally with Prime Minister Begin to demonstrate his commitment to the Middle East peace process.
Monday, November 14th, 1977: Alexei Kosygin retires as Premier of the Soviet Union, and Boris Ponomarev steps down as First Deputy Premier. Kosygin disappears from public prominence while Ponomarev is named as the Soviet Ambassador to Nepal, which is effectively exile. Arvids Pelse is nominated by the Politburo to replace Kosygin as Premier, while Grigory Romanov is named to the post of First Deputy Premier. Romanov is thought in the West to wield the real authority at Suslov and Andropov’s direction, with Pelse is largely a figurehead Prime Minister (and a symbol, since he is a Latvian not a Russian).
Wednesday, November 16th, 1977: President Guillermo Fonseca-Álvarez of Mexico and Vice President George Bush fail to reach agreement on a U.S.-Mexican oil export agreement which could soften energy prices in the United States. President Fonseca-Alvarez is reportedly being pushed by nationalists in his government to extract world prices from the U.S. government.

Richard Allen

Thursday, November 17th, 1977.

The White House.

1:45 PM, Washington, D.C.

[1]

The White House Chief of Staff Robert Dole ushered in the National Security Adviser to the Oval Office; President Reagan arose from the Resolute Desk to greet him with a firm handshake, and then immediately returned to his seat. Dole took a seat on the couch behind Allen, who noticed that he was joined in the Oval Office by a few others, including Vice President Bush, Secretary of State Scranton, Secretary of National Intelligence William Casey, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and curiously, UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who carried more influence within the White House than any of her predecessors had during their stints in New York.

“Richard, I want you to settle this debate now for us” said the President, eying the divided members of his national security team. “Is the Shah done for?”

“The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency both agree that Shah is an increasingly…perilous position” answered Allen. Casey, the Secretary of National Intelligence, looked at him and nodded slightly in approval. It was true that the Shah was in danger, and Casey knew that the administration could not stand by and do nothing in the event that he did fall.

“At this point, the goal is to secure Iran from chaos, rather than securing the Shah” said Scranton, “but the issue as to how we go about doing that is up for debate, apparently.” The Secretary slightly rolled his eyes as he turned his glare towards the Secretary of Defense.

“I don’t buy this poppycock theory, I’m sorry Bill” replied Rumsfeld, “the truth is, and we all know it, is that the Shah is the only thing that is holding the country together. He’s –"

“He’s tearing it apart, Don, he has to go” interjected Secretary of State Scranton, but Rumsfeld continued unabated by the interruption.

“….he’s the heir to a thousand year old monarchy, the only thing the Persian people have ever known. If we let him go down, who knows what will be sucked away in the vortex?”

“Can’t we just do what Dulles and Eisenhower did twenty years ago?” asked Reagan, whose grasp on recent history was often underrated. There was a brief and slightly awkward pause in the conversation before Ambassador Kirkpatrick spoke up.

“That is an option, but it isn’t the most helpful one. The goal here is to prevent chaos in Iran, and directly intervening in support of the Shah could backfire. We need to support the institution of the monarchy, not the monarch himself necessary. I agree with Don on that.”

“Let me add that the Shah had some political support in fifty-three from among Iranian elites. He has none now; his regime is a spent force now” added Allen.

“We also have to consider international opinion” said Vice President Bush, “it’ll only make our diplomatic efforts in the whole Middle East more difficult if we are seen to be imposing regimes or propping-up a spent regime – as Richard puts it – then we could lose all credibility. We would be in a far better position diplomatically if we work with the reformers.”

“I see” said the President, who looked down at a briefing on his desk, “I guess we’re going to have guide the Shah off stage right.”
Friday, November 18th, 1977: Controversial Governor Barry Goldwater Jr. launches his reelection campaign for 1978 at a rally in Sacramento, California. The unpopular and polarizing Governor is expected to face John Tunney, a former Senator, in the 1978 election, though Tunney has not formally declared his candidacy.
Saturday, November 19th, 1977: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s proposed visit to Israel continues to enrage the Arab world; Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi even threatens to resume hostilities between the two bordering nations should Sadat make the proposed state visit.
Sunday, November 20th, 1977: A British Airways 747 crashes on final approach to Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, killing 119 passengers. British investigators suspect wind shear combined with poor weather conditions (sleet) caused the crash. However, Soviet authorities (who obstruct a British investigation) claim that the cause was pilot error and inferior aircraft design. They being to press a demand that foreign airlines who wish to fly into Soviet airports must do so using Soviet built aircraft.

Spanish Civil Guards put down an anti-government demonstrations by trade unionists and leftists in Madrid. This is followed by several days of unrest and rioting.

The National Officers Patriotic Group under Colonel Azhari and the National Front Party reached an accord, and agree to combine in an alliance under the Emergency Committee for National Salvation (ECNS). ECNS gains backing from the CIA and others in the State Department who want to see liberal reform, or at least stabilization, in Iran.
Monday, November 21st, 1977: The British Foreign Minister James Callaghan meets with Secretary of State Bill Scranton in Washington, where he formally informs Scranton and the Reagan administration that the newly minted Labour Party government in the United Kingdom led by Dennis Healey will begin to pull back the British military from Syria starting in 1978.
Tuesday, November 22nd, 1977: Air France and British Airway both introduce the Concorde to regular service for routes between New York City and Paris and London.
Wednesday, November 23rd, 1977: 21 Soviet soldiers are killed by a suicide bomber in Syria.
Thursday, November 24th, 1977: Jamie Milans del Bosch, supported by the Spanish Church and the Sindicato Vertical (which in the years since Franco's death has been positioning itself as a Roman Catholic Labour Syndicate) pushes out Carlos Navarro in a Falange Party internal coup to become Prime Minister of Spain.

Prime Minister Milans announces that his government will promote the "true fatherland values", "oppose Communist aggression from Portugal and other places" and restore the Sindicato Vertical "as the rightful collective instrument of all Spanish workers" (effectively ending Navarro's previous efforts at liberalizing the workplace by (selectively) legalizing certain non-governmental trade unions).

Milans also proclaims the Church, the Armed Forces, and the Monarchy as the "pillars of the Spanish state" and dismisses multi-party democracy as "the French disease which, unchecked, will rot Spain from within." He declares a renewed campaign to "eradicate" Basque separatists, whom he accuses of collaborating with the PDRP government in Lisbon. King Juan Carlos reluctantly embraces the new hardliner government, even though his personal sympathies were more aligned with the sacked Navarro.
Saturday, November 26th, 1977: A bomb is found and diffused at the Ras Tanura oil terminal in Saudi Arabia. It is blamed on local unrest, although word soon circulates through PLO sources that it was in fact planted by PJO operatives.

Ruhollah Khomeini is convicted of conspiring to overthrow a foreign government not at war with Italy by an Italian court. The Ayatollah is sentenced to three years in prison.

Approximately 6,000 Turkish Armed Forces cross the border into north-eastern Syria in an operation against Kurdish rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The move followed an aerial bombing campaign. Several French African Community soldiers are injured as a result of the Turkish activity.

A Friday religious demonstration in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia becomes a riot after word spreads that King Khalid will be meeting personally with President Reagan of the United States. Protestors are fired-up to believe that a personal meeting between the King and the American President will only further corrupt the King.
Sunday, November 27th, 1977: The Emergency Committee for National Salvation meets with the leadership of the striking oil workers and persuades them to join the ECNS in a common anti-Shah front. Meanwhile, Khomeini supporters demonstrate in Tehran and Qum against the verdict and sentence of the Italian court. The Army, backed by the ECNS, protects the Italian Embassy in Tehran from being sacked by the enraged mob of Islamists. This and related demonstrations add to the growing sense of chaos in Iran.

The French government begins brokering ceasefire talks between Zaire and the CAR rebels. An aim of the French policy is to get Mobutu to renounce his recent claim to the CAR.
Monday, November 28th, 1977: To quell further disturbances, King Khalid announces that he will not meet with President Reagan in Egypt as previously planned.
Wednesday, November 30th, 1977: Prime Minister John Turner of Canada signals that his government will give producers and international oil companies added incentives to begin oil exploration and production in his country, particularly in the province of Alberta.
[1] Taken from Wikipedia Commons (Public Domain).