The decade belonged to Ronald Reagan, who took office in January 1981 and over the next eight years, to the shock and dismay of liberals, put an indelible stamp on American politics.
President Ronald Reagan at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House.
In an early signal of the Reagan approach, he responded to a strike by federal air traffic controllers by firing the workers and breaking their union. Pursuing an agenda of lower taxes, more spending on defense and less spending on social programs, he preached an antigovernment, pro-business economic gospel that came to be known as Reaganomics. Free enterprise was the order of the day, and “supply-side economics,” “trickle-down theory” and “the Laffer curve” entered the American lexicon.
A centerpiece of Reaganomics was the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Reagan, a lifelong enemy of federal taxation, signed a bill that reduced the number of tax brackets, lowered the rates on top earners, closed loopholes and raised the deductions on home mortgages in a effort to promote home ownership. He also stood behind Paul Volcker, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, as he imposed stringent monetary policies to wring inflation out of the economy, even when the country plunged into recession in 1982.
Reagan’s affable manner disarmed critics and took the edge off his more radical policies. When a deranged gunman shot him in 1981, his political opponents had no choice but to go easy on him, and his nonchalant response to the attack—“I should have ducked,” he told his wife when she visited him in the hospital—further endeared him to the public.
With interest rates and unemployment falling, inflation in check and the economy growing, Reagan declared that it was “morning again in America” and went on to defeat Walter Mondale by a wide margin in the 1984 election.
President Reagan applauded by Rep. Jack Kemp, aides James Baker and Donald Regan, Sen. Bob Dole, and Rep. Daniel Rostenkowski during the 1986 Tax Reform Bill signing ceremony at the White House.
President Ronald Reagan addresses supporters a few days before the 1984 presidential election.
Geraldine Ferraro and Walter Mondale on the campaign trail in 1984.
The push for social tolerance and civil rights gained ground. Although the Equal Rights Amendment went down to defeat, dealing a blow to feminist aspirations, the Supreme Court welcomed its first female justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Geraldine Ferraro became the first female vice-presidential candidate on a major party’s ticket. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday was recognized as a federal holiday. The spread of AIDS stirred gay Americans to take political action, and groups like Act Up were formed to put pressure on elected officials. Just as important, writers and playwrights brought the tragedy of AIDS to the stage and screen, and expanded the boundaries of acceptance for a marginalized group.
The natural world served up spectacular disasters that killed dozens of Americans. The decade was bookended by the Mount St. Helens eruption and the Loma Prieta earthquake, which struck the San Francisco Bay area on the night the San Francisco Giants were getting ready to play the Oakland A’s at Candlestick Park. It was the first earthquake whose tremors were captured live on national television.
The crowds in Candlestick Park after the 1989 earthquake hit during game three of the World Series.
Technology transformed the workplace and leisure time, allowing the industry to deliver nonstop diversion. Americans enthusiastically explored an ever-expanding universe of entertainment choices: multichannel cable television, video games, portable cassette players, chat lines, online virtual communities. Suddenly the world was a much smaller but much more interesting place.
ABSCAM: High Officials Are Termed Subjects of a Bribery Investigation by the F.B.I.
High public officials, including a United States Senator and seven Representatives, have been subjects of a two-year undercover operation in which agents posed as businessmen and Arab sheiks willing to pay bribes, according to law-enforcement authorities.
In the course of the operation, in which most meetings between undercover agents and public officials were surreptitiously videotaped and recorded, authorities said the agents paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to the officials. In exchange, the officials reportedly agreed to help the sheiks and their financial ventures.
The public officials include Senator Harrison A. Williams of New Jersey, Representative John M. Murphy of Staten Island, Representative Frank Thompson Jr. of Trenton, Representatives Michael O. Myers and Raymond F. Lederer of Philadelphia, and Representative John W. Jenrette Jr. of South Carolina.
The operation began in February 1978 with information from a man convicted of fraud who introduced agents to public officials he said he knew to be corrupt. The agents, claiming to be a wealthy Arab sheik and in some instances posing as Arab sheiks, met with officials throughout 1979. It was during those meetings that undercover agents pretending to work for the sheik’s business, called Abdul Enterprises, Ltd., paid hundreds of dollars to the officials.
Law enforcement officials said the investigation was the sweeping inquiry into suspected political corruption by the F.B.I. in at least 25 years. Code name Abscam—short for “Arab Scam”—it was described as unusual in its use of undercover agents to attempt to identify corrupt officials. 
MAY 18, 1980
AT LEAST 8 DEAD AS PEAK ERUPTS;
WORST BLAST YET
MOUNT ST. HELENS THROWS MUD AND COLUMN OF ASH
Mount St. Helens on May 22, 1980, four days after an earthquake caused a landslide on Mount St. Helens’ north face triggering an eruption that killed 57 people, wiped out river valleys and destroyed enough trees to build 300,000 homes.
VANCOUVER, Wash., May 18 – Mount St. Helens exploded at 8:39 A.M. today with a thud felt 100 miles away and with a drifting column of steam and pumice that turned day into night. At least eight people lost their lives fleeing flood waters, fires and mudslides that hit the Toutle River valley shortly after the volcano’s eruption.
David Hubert, a spokesman for the Washington Department of Emergency Services, said that police officers working from helicopters had found some of the dead. “We have many overturned vehicles in the Toutle River valley,” he said, “and our communication with the helicopters is so fragile that all I can tell you is that we have found five bodies.” Two of them, found at a Weyerhaeuser Company logging camp near the mountain were flown to Kelso, Wash., by a helicopter of the Air Force reserve.
Minutes before the top of the 9,677-foot peak exploded with a shower of ash, two earthquakes registering about 5.0 on the Richter scale were recorded. Their impact was felt as far away as Port Angeles at the entrance of Puget Sound.
Within hours after the pillar of ash rose to a height measured by radar at 60,000 feet, wind had pushed it 160 miles east to Walla Walla, Wash., where automatic equipment turned on street lights as if dusk had come.
The eruption came from the old summit crater on the north side of the peak. It made a roar “like a truck,” according to Greg Meyer, who was fishing at Mosquito Lakes about 40 miles east of Mount St. Helens.
The black cloud, carried by the high-level winds that blow from west to east at this time of year, was carried over the lake with pumice falling from it, he said. His visibility was cut to between 6 and 10 feet. Mr. Meyer abandoned his fishing equipment and canoe.
Mount St. Helens had been quiet from 1857 until earlier this year, when its slopes began to shake with localized earthquakes that geologists said indicated the inactive volcano’s reservoir was filling with molten material.
On March 27, with an explosion, the peak began to spew steam and ash that drifted across into eastern Washington.
Jack Folliott, 25 years old, said that he thought “this will be the end” when the mountain shook with the earthquake that preceded the eruption. “My whole life is tied up in those five acres,” he said of his home near the Toutle River. “I don’t know what I’ll have when this is over.”
Reagan Easily Beats Carter; Republicans Gain in Congress
Ronald Wilson Reagan, riding a tide of economic discontent against Jimmy Carter and promising “to put America back to work again,” was elected the nation’s 40th President yesterday with a sweep of surprising victories in the East, South and the crucial battlegrounds of the Middle West.
At 69 years of age, the former California Governor became the oldest person ever elected to the White House. He built a stunning electoral landslide by taking away Mr. Carter’s Southern base, smashing his expected strength in the East, and taking command of the Middle West, which both sides had designated as the main testing ground. The entire West was his, as expected.
Mr. Carter, who labored hard for a comeback re-election victory similar to that of Harry S. Truman in 1948, instead became the first elected incumbent President since Herbert Hoover in 1932 to go down to defeat at the polls.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1981
JUSTICE O’CONNOR SEATED ON NATION’S HIGH COURT
WASHINGTON, September 25–Sandra Day O’Connor took her seat today as the 102d Justice and the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.
President Reagan, who fulfilled a campaign promise to name a woman to the Court by nominating the 51-year-old Arizona judge, attended the brief ceremony in the courtroom. It was the first time a President had visited the Supreme Court since President Ford attended Associate Justice John Paul Steven’s swearing-in ceremony in 1975.
President Reagan and Judge O’Connor entered the courtroom simultaneously but from opposite sides a few minutes past 2 o’clock. Judge O’Connor was escorted to a ceremonial chair, in the well of the courtroom below the bench, that was used in the Court’s early years by Chief Justice John Marshall. The eight members of the Court took their seats on the bench moments later.
Sandra Day O’Connor being sworn in before the Senate Judiciary committee during confirmation hearings in 1981.
After swearing in the Court’s new member, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger said: “Justice O’Connor, welcome to the Court. I wish you a very long life and a long and happy career in our common calling.”
Justice O’Connor’s work begins almost immediately. On Monday, the Justices will begin a weeklong conference to decide the disposition of about 1,000 cases that have come into the Court since June. The term opens the next Monday, Oct. 5.
REAGAN WOUNDED IN CHEST BY GUNMAN;
Outlook ‘Good’ After 2-Hour Surgery; Aide and 2 Guards Shot; Suspect Held
WASHINGTON, March 30–President Reagan was shot in the chest today by a gunman, apparently acting alone, as Mr. Reagan walked to his limousine after addressing a labor meeting at the Washington Hilton Hotel. The White House press secretary and two law-enforcement officers were also wounded by a burst of shots.
The President was reported in “good” and “stable” condition tonight at George Washington University Hospital after undergoing two hours of surgery. “The prognosis is excellent,” said Dr. Dennis S. O’Leary, dean of clinical affairs at the university. “He is alert and should be able to make decisions by tomorrow.”
The hospital spokesman said surgeons removed a .22-caliber bullet that struck Mr. Reagan’s seventh rib, penetrating the left lung three inches and collapsing it.
A rapid series of five or six shots rang out at about 2:30 P.M. as Mr. Reagan left the hotel. A look of stunned disbelief swept across the President’s face when the shots were fired just after he raised his left arm to wave to the crowd. Nearby, his press secretary, James S. Brady, fell to the sidewalk, critically wounded.
Eyewitnesses said six shots were fired at the Presidential entourage from a distance of about 10 feet. The assailant had positioned himself among the television camera crews and reporters assembled outside a hotel exit.
The authorities arrested a 25-year-old Colorado man, John W. Hinckley Jr., at the scene of the attack. He was later booked on Federal charges of attempting to assassinate the President and assault on a Federal officer.
Within minutes, Americans were witnessing for the second time in a generation television pictures of a chief executive being struck by gunfire during what appeared to be a routine public appearance. For the second time in less than 20 years, too, they watched as the nation’s leaders scrambled to meet one of the sternest tests of the democratic system.
Mr. Reagan, apparently at first unaware that he had been wounded, was shoved forcefully by a Secret Service agent into the Presidential limousine, which sped away with the President in a sitting position in the backseat.
Behind him lay a scene of turmoil. A Secret Service agent writhed in pain on the rain-slick sidewalk. Nearby a District of Columbia plainclothesman had fallen alongside Mr. Brady. The press secretary lay face down, blood from a gushing head wound dripping into a steel grate. A pistol, apparently dropped by one of the security aides, lay near his head.
At the sixth shot, uniformed and plainclothes agents had piled on a blond-haired man in a raincoat, pinning him against a stone wall. “Get him out,” a gun-waving officer yelled as the President’s limousine sped off. At first, it raced down Connecticut Avenue toward the White House.
Only then, according to some reports, was it discovered that Mr. Reagan was bleeding. The vehicle turned west toward the hospital. Upon learning of the shooting, Vice President Bush returned to the capital from Austin, Tex., where he was to address the Texas Legislature. In Washington, Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. and other Cabinet officers began gathering in the White House situation room as soon as they learned of the assassination attempt.
At 4:14 P.M, Mr. Haig, in a voice shaking with emotion, told reporters that the Administration’s “crisis management” plan was in effect, and citing provisions for Presidential succession, Mr. Haig asserted that he was in charge.
U.S. president Ronald Reagan, moments before his assassination attempt.
Mr. Reagan’s wife, Nancy, and senior White House advisers rushed to the hospital and talked to Mr. Reagan before he entered surgery at about 3:24 P.M. Despite his wound, the 70-year-old President walked into the hospital and seemed determined to assure his wife and colleagues that he would survive.
“Honey, I forgot to duck,” Mr. Reagan was quoted as telling his wife. As he was wheeled down a corridor on a hospital cart, he told Senator Paul Laxalt, a political associate, “Don’t worry about me.” According to Lyn Nofziger, the White House political director, Mr. Reagan winked at James A. Baker 3d, his chief of staff. Then, spying Edwin Meese 3d, the White House counselor, Mr. Reagan quipped, “Who’s minding the store?”
LEADERS CONCEDE LOSS ON EQUAL RIGHTS
WASHINGTON, June 24–Leaders of the fight for an equal rights amendment officially conceded defeat today. But they vowed to continue the struggle for equality of women by electing their backers to state legislatures and by suing corporations that practice sexual discrimination.
“We’ve just begun to fight,” said Eleanor Smeal, the president of the National Organization for Women, the group that spearheaded the Equal Rights Amendment Countdown Campaign, which has now ended in defeat.
In the 10 years since Congress passed the proposed constitutional amendment to forbid discrimination on the basis of sex, it has been ratified by 35 states, three short of the three-fourths it needed to become part of the Constitution.
“We’ve just begun to fight”
Hopes for ratification before the deadline next Wednesday were dashed this week when the amendment was rejected by the Illinois House and the Florida Senate, two states in which supporters felt they had a fighting chance.
In 1972, the proposed amendment passed the House by the wide margin of 354 to 24, and the Senate by an equally top-heavy vote, 84 to 8. It was a one-sentence amendment: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged or denied by the United States or any state on account of sex.”
OCTOBER 3, 1982
100 AGENTS HUNT FOR KILLER IN 7 TYLENOL DEATHS
CHICAGO, Oct. 2–The death of a seventh victim from Tylenol capsules laced with deadly cyanide was confirmed today by the local authorities. Officials also reported finding, for the first time, contaminated capsules in an unsold bottle of Tylenol from a store shelf at a suburban shopping center.
The announcements came as more than 100 state and Federal agents fanned out across the Chicago metropolitan area in a painstaking attempt to reconstruct the route of poisoned capsules of Tylenol, the nation’s largest selling over-the-counter pain reliever.
So far, all confirmed cases of poisoning from the Tylenol capsules have been in the Chicago area. Investigators independently examining some unexplained deaths Wednesday in two adjacent suburbs here were alerted to the Tylenol threat by two firemen who noted that the separate ambulance reports said all the victims had recently taken that pain medicine.
The seventh victim was identified as Paula Prince, a 35-year-old flight attendant for United Airlines. She returned from a flight Wednesday night and, according to a receipt found near her body, had purchased a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules at a Walgreen’s drugstore on Chicago’s Near North Side just before all the containers were removed from the store.
Investigators might then be able to trace the original contaminated capsules back to a precise point of time in their distribution. But they also note that given the amount of undetected shoplifting these days, someone could remove the bottles, replace the Tylenol medicine in a few capsules with cyanide and then surreptitiously return the contaminated bottles to a store shelf.
OCTOBER 11, 1983
MRS. REAGAN TAKES HER ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN TO TELEVISION
First Lady Nancy Reagan speaking at a Just Say No anti-drug rally on the Mall.
VIETNAM MEMORIAL:
QUESTIONS OF ARCHITECTURE; AN APPRAISAL
When a plan by Maya Yang Lin, a 21-year-old Yale architecture student, was selected last year as the winner of a nationwide competition to find a design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, it was hailed by the architectural press with words such as “stunning,” “dignified” and “eminently right.” The reaction was less enthusiastic from Vietnam veterans themselves, some of whom found the proposed memorial rather more cool and abstract than they would have liked. Nonetheless, Miss Lin’s scheme, which is neither a building nor a sculpture but, rather, a pair of 200-foot-long black granite walls that join to form a V and embrace a gently sloping plot of ground between them, was approved rapidly by the Department of the Interior, the Fine Arts Commission and other public agencies that have jurisdiction over what is built in official Washington.
Construction began last March. Next week, however, the Fine Arts Commission will hold a public hearing to consider a revised design for the memorial, despite the fact that by now the granite walls—on which are carved the names of all 57,692 Americans who were killed in Vietnam from 1963 to 1973—are nearly complete. Opposition to the scheme from Vietnam veterans, which was muted when Miss Lin’s design was first announced, later grew so intense as to lead to the unusual step of a proposed design change in mid-construction.
To many of the Vietnam veterans, Miss Lin’s scheme was too abstract to reflect the emotion that the Vietnam War symbolized to them, and too lacking in the symbols of heroism that more conventional monuments contain. They saw in the simple granite walls on which the names of the dead are inscribed not merely a means of honoring the dead, but a way of declaring that the Vietnam War was in some way different from past wars—from wars such as World War II, whose heroism could be symbolized in such a vibrant and active memorial as the Iwo Jima Monument just across the Potomac River, which contains a statue of marines struggling to raise the American flag.
It is a subtle design, like every great memorial capable of being given different meanings by each of us. The anguish of the Vietnam War is present here, but not in a way that does any dishonor to veterans. To call this memorial a “black gash of shame,” as Tom Carhart, a Vietnam veteran who a losing entrant in the competition, has said, is to miss its point entirely, and to fail to see that this design gives every indication of being a place of extreme dignity that honors the veterans who served in Vietnam with more poignancy, surely, than any ordinary monument ever could.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, as it now nears completion, could be one of the most important works of contemporary architecture in official Washington—and perhaps the only one that will provide a contemplative space of the equal of any in the past. The insertion of statues and a flagpole not only destroys the abstract beauty of that mystical, inside-outside kind of space that Maya Yang Lin has created; it also tries to shift this memorial away from its focus on the dead, and toward a kind of literal interpretation of heroism and patriotism that ultimately treats the war dead in only the most simplistic of terms.
For in the original design, the dead are remembered as individuals through the moving list of their names carved against the granite. It is the presence of the names, one after the other, that speaks. But if the statues are added, they will overpower the space and change the mood altogether. A symbol of loss, which Miss Lin’s design is, will become instead a symbol of war. The names of the dead and the hushed granite wall will become merely a background for something else, and the chance for a very special kind of honor—and for a very special kind of architecture—will be lost.
Crowd gathered at dedication ceremony of Vietnam Memorial on November 13, 1982.
COCAINE TRAFFICKING AND ITS HUGE PROFITS LURING MIDDLE CLASS
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 23–The huge profits to be found in cocaine trafficking are luring more and more middle-class and upper-income Americans to the cocaine trade, law-enforcement officials say, and relatively few of them are being caught.
Although no one knows how much money is involved, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that more than $30 billion is spent annually by cocaine users in this country.
The smuggling and distribution of the drug, officials say, are largely controlled by Colombians and other Latin Americans, as well as organized crime in this country.
But they say the trade is so lucrative, the chances of being caught are so small and the use of the drug has become so acceptable in some segments of American society that it is increasingly attracting dealers from middle-class professional and business life.
“It’s greed,” said Charles Palmer, a senior Drug Enforcement Administration agent in San Francisco. “Cocaine is a multibillion dollar industry, and it’s polluting all levels of society, from the lower classes to the very affluent. The affluent are going into it because there are such incredible amounts of money.”
Federal officials said last month that businessmen, physicians, lawyers and bank officials were among the leaders of a ring that smuggled into the country 3,748 pounds of cocaine confiscated in March in Florida in the largest cocaine seizure made in this country.
In another case, the officials in Georgia last month accused a once-prominent local businessman and a former Mayor of Clarkesville, Ga., of smuggling 300 pounds of cocaine into the state.
“Cocaine is a multibillion dollar industry”
Investigators say many of the new white-collar drug dealers are more sophisticated than conventional street criminals and are more difficult to catch. Investigators say they tend to devise elaborate schemes to conceal the movement of their money through ostensibly legitimate companies, often in collaboration with bribed bank officials.
“They make so much money that they can buy the best planes, the best radios,” Mr. Palmer, the agent in San Francisco, said. “They have fleets of airplanes, fleets of boats, and all kinds of other resources that are better than those we have.”
Users of the drug say it induces intense euphoria and self-confidence that lasts for perhaps 15 minutes. Drug experts say cocaine, most often ingested by being inhaled into a nostril through a straw or from a small spoon, is now being taken increasingly by direct injection or, in a method called “freebasing,” by smoking a cigarette that has been treated with a purified form of the drug. Both methods are said to provide faster, more intense “highs.”
MARCH 27, 1983
Would a Space-Age Defense Ease Tensions or Create Them?
WASHINGTON–In the 1980 campaign, Ronald Reagan scored points by attacking Jimmy Carter for zigzags in dealing with the Soviet Union. As President, Mr. Reagan himself has oscillated at times between hardline and more moderate positions. But lately, in his crusade for a $239 billion defense budget, he has given vent to his natural inclination for tough talk, sounding echoes of the Cold War.
Last week on television, he used charts and declassified intelligence photos to draw a stark and menacing picture of growing Soviet offensive weaponry and the threat facing the United States. But he also urged a shift in scientific thinking from offensive arms to devising an esoteric system of lasers or particle beams that, by the next century, could render attacking nuclear missiles impotent. This was his “vision of the future which offers hope.”
The President’s push for exotic new weapons was partly a response to the jittery feelings in the United States and Europe about growing atomic arsenals. But the tactic could backfire. In Europe, the prospect of more American weapons makes some people feel less, rather than more, secure. And some critics contend that his portrayal of Soviet power may indirectly feed the nuclear freeze movement by increasing fears of nuclear war.
Mr. Reagan, more than most recent Presidents, has turned up the rhetoric. With evangelical fervor in Orlando, Fla., this month, he summoned Americans to resist “the aggressive impulses of an evil empire.” He derided a nuclear weapons freeze as “a very dangerous fraud” (though not a Soviet-dominated movement, the F.B.I said last week). Later, he pictured Soviet proxies on the march in Central America. El Salvador, he said, “will join Cuba and Nicaragua as a base for spreading fresh violence to Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica” and beyond. The predatory Soviet design, he said, is “to tie down our forces on our southern border and so limit our capacity to act in more distant places such as Europe, the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, Sea of Japan.”
DEMOCRAT ELECTED MAYOR OF CHICAGO BY NARROW MARGIN
WASHINGTON EDGES PAST EPTON AFTER A DIVISIVE RACE TO BECOME TO BE FIRST BLACK IN THE POST
Harold Washington on the campaign trail.
CHICAGO, April 13–Representative Harold Washington, the 60-year-old son of a Democratic precinct captain, won a narrow victory over his Republican opponent, Bernard E. Epton, this morning to become the first black mayor in the history of Chicago.
“Tonight we are here to celebrate a resounding victory,” Mr. Washington said as he appeared before television cameras trained on a crowd of about 20,000 cheering campaign workers and supporters at Donnelly Hall. “We have finished our course and kept the faith.”
Mr. Washington, who trailed Mr. Epston in early returns, built the lead early this morning, with totals from a few black wards yet to be included. True to expectations, the vote of this radically divided city was adhering closely to racial lines, fueled by a record voter turnout of 82 percent of 1.6 million registered voters in the nation’s second largest city.
It was a low-key end to one of Chicago’s most bitter and strange campaigns. Two months ago neither candidate had any realistic hopes of victory in a city long controlled by a powerful political machine that flew the banner of the Democratic Party but was basically a nonideological coalition of conservative neighborhood clan chiefs.
In the Democratic primary Feb. 22, Mr. Washington ran on a reform platform vowing to destroy the machine, and faced Mayor Jane M. Byrne and Richard M. Daley, the Country Prosecutor who is the son of Mayor Richard J. Daley, who died in 1976. Mrs. Byrne and Mr. Daley, who were reflections of long rivalries between two Irish factions here, divided the city’s white and ethnic vote. Mr. Washington, who relied on solid black support from wards once the most obedient to the same machine, won a narrow victory.
But fear of his color and plans to eliminate patronage and install new party leaders prompted a surge of white support to Mr. Epton, a liberal Republican whose party has not controlled Chicago since 1931.
“In a way, my vote was based on color,” said Harry Birnhaum, a retired postal worker who voted Republican. “I think blacks would take away jobs from whites.”
There has been considerable concern expressed publicly here that such strong feelings about the election, whatever its outcome, could lead to social unrest. Chicago’s police have quietly drawn up contingency plans, and a number of businesses are said to have postponed major investment decisions pending the election results.
GERALDINE FERRARO IS CHOSEN BY MONDALE AS RUNNING MATE,
FIRST WOMAN ON MAJOR TICKET
Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.
ST. PAUL, July 12–Walter F. Mondale today named Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro of Queens as his running mate, the first woman selected to run for Vice President on a major party ticket.
Mr. Mondale, the probable Democratic Presidential nominee, announced his historic step before an ebullient crowd at the State Capitol. He introduced Mrs. Ferraro by saying: “I looked for the best Vice President and I found her in Gerry Ferraro.”
“This is an exciting choice,” he said, with Mrs. Ferraro by his side.
The 48-year-old former teacher and assistant prosecutor from Queens broke into a wide grin as Mr. Mondale said, “I’m delighted to announce that I will ask the Democratic convention” to ratify her.
Mr. Mondale said the decision to choose a woman was a “difficult” one, but added: “Gerry has excelled in everything she’s tried, from law school at night to being a tough prosecutor to winning a difficult election, to winning positions of leadership and respect in the Congress.”
Mr. Mondale said her political rise was “really the story of a classic American dream.”
Mrs. Ferraro, who was first elected to Congress in 1978, has received the endorsements for the Vice Presidency of Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., the Speaker of the House, Governor Cuomo of New York and a wide range of Democrats as well as feminists.
Mrs. Ferraro, who taught elementary school in Queens while attending Fordham Law School at night, noted that her father came from Marcianise, a small town in Italy.
“Like millions of other immigrants he loved our country passionately but what he loved most about it was that in America anything is possible if you work for it,” she said.
As Mr. Mondale listened intently, she said: “I grew up among working people, straightforward solid Americans trying to make ends meet, trying to bring up their families and leave their country a little bit better off than when they moved here and found it. Those are my values, too.
“I have a strong, loving family. And our neighborhood and our faith are important parts of our lives. So is our work.”
Mrs. Ferraro said that her friend, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of Manhattan, phoned her earlier and said, “Gerry, my heart is full.”
Mrs. Ferraro said quietly, “So is mine.”
REAGAN PROPOSES U.S. SEEK NEW WAY TO BLOCK MISSILES
WASHINGTON, March 23–President Reagan, defending his military program, proposed tonight to exploit advances in technology in coming decades so the United States can develop an effective defense against missiles launched by others.
In effect, Mr. Reagan proposed to make obsolete the current United States policy of relying on massive retaliation by its ballistic missiles to counter the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack.
In a television address from the White House, he coupled his proposal with his strongest appeal yet for his Administration’s program to increase military spending.
Mr. Reagan declared that a new missile defense program presented “a vision of the future which offers hope,” even though the necessary technological breakthroughs “may not be accomplished before the end of this century.”
White House officials said the new program might involve lasers, microwave devices, particle beams and projectile beams. These devices, most of which are in a very early stage of development, in theory could be directed from satellites, airplanes or land-based installations to shoot down missiles in the air.
Scientists have felt the beam defenses could revolutionize the concept of nuclear strategy because, up to now, the idea of shooting missiles down after they were launched has been deemed impractical.
Mr. Reagan also used his speech to defend his Administration’s arms reduction proposals to the Soviet Union, but for the first time he hinted publicly that he might be ready to modify his “zero-zero” proposal for banning all Soviet and American medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe.
Using charts, graphs and photographs—some of them recently declassified for tonight’s speech—Mr. Reagan reviewed in detail what he said was the buildup of Soviet military forces in recent years, especially in Central America. His Administration’s program, he said, is needed because of “our neglect in the 1970’s.”
On air reconaissance photographs, Mr. Reagan pointed to Soviet installations in Cuba, Nicaragua and Grenada to show how the Russians had tried to project power in the Caribbean. The photographs, however, did not show anything new beyond what the Administration had previously said existed in the region.
The speech tonight was aimed at defending his proposal to increase military spending by 10 percent in 1984. The proposal is under attack from Democrats and Republicans in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
NOVEMBER 7, 1984
REAGAN WINS BY A LANDSLIDE, SWEEPING AT LEAST 48 STATES; G.O.P. GAINS STRENGTH IN HOUSE
President Ronald Reagan shortly before the 1984 Presidential Election.
Reagan Faces Difficult Task in Leading Divided Congress
Despite his overwhelming electoral victory Tuesday, President Reagan faces a much more complicated task in leading a divided Government in his second term than when he entered the White House four years ago.
The Republican failure to gain effective working control of the House of Representatives, leaders in both parties say, will bring greater pressure on Mr. Reagan to strike political compromises on major issues than he faced at the start of his first term.
Even before the President sets out an agenda to Congress and the country for the next four years, he faces conflicting pressures from moderates and conservatives within his own party and a Democratic majority of roughly 70 seats in the House that is in a position to block his initiatives. Democrats have already challenged the scope of his mandate.
What remains most important and still uncertain, Reagan aides and other politicians say, are the President’s own priorities, whether he will side mainly with militant conservatives or favor a more flexible strategy, and how hard he intends to press his initiatives both with the Congress and the Russians.
On foreign policy, Mr. Reagan signaled recently that he would take a more conciliatory approach toward the Soviet Union and has declared several times that arms control will be a priority of his second term. Close political associates such as the retiring Senate majority leader, Howard H. Baker Jr., have come away from private sessions with Mr. Reagan convinced that he wants a place in history as a leader who has moved forward the cause of arms reduction.
Internally, however, his Administration is divided between Pentagon conservatives who are wary of Moscow’s intentions, worried about the problems of verifying any arms agreement and eager to set tough terms for Moscow, and moderates in the State Department and White House who see those problems but advocate flexible diplomacy to bring about arms reduction. A question of some debate in Washington is how hard the President will work to break these bottlenecks.
In the immediate aftermath of his election triumph, the President has given no sign of compromise on his four-year effort to curb the role of the Federal Government and cut the size of its programs, a strategy that has produced repeated confrontations with House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill Jr.
But voters who split their tickets by supporting both Mr. Reagan and local Democrats, which gave Republicans a net gain of about 14 seats in the House and cost them two seats in the Senate, signaled problems for Mr. Reagan on his economic formula of large increases in military spending, cuts in domestic programs and no tax increases.
But on the deficit and issues like taxes, abortion, school prayer and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, the election results are likely to tug House and Senate Republicans in opposite directions.
NOVEMBER 16, 1986
The Iran Connection; Skirting Credibility’s Border in Search of a Mideast Deal
WASHINGTON–In the soothing tones that have lubricated his entire Presidency, Ronald Reagan sidestepped the carping politicians, columnists and diplomats last week and took his case on Iran directly to the American people. In 12 minutes on television, he offered his version of a remarkable 18 months of secret diplomacy and arms sales to a country that his Administration had denounced as a font of terrorism and anti-American fanaticism.
President Ronald Reagan at his desk after making a speech on the Iran arms deal, with aides Patrick J. Buchanan Jr. and Donald T. Regan in rear.
The President’s talk contained internal contradictions that seemed to neutralize his denials that arms had been traded for American hostages. He had “authorized the transfer of small amounts of defensive weapons and spare parts for defensive systems to Iran,” he said, “for the simplest and best of reasons,” namely, to woo that country back into a relationship with the United States that would spell the end of its support for terrorism.
“We did not—repeat, did not—trade weapons or anything else for hostages—nor will we,” he added, just minutes after explaining: “The most significant step which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there.” He did not mention arms deliveries by Israel to Iran, reportedly made at American request and timed to the release of three hostages who were held by a pro-Iranian group in Lebanon.
The Administration’s credibility problems predated the Iran controversy. They began earlier this fall with reports that the White House had mapped a disinformation campaign last summer to plant false stories in the press that Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya was planning new terrorist attacks; the leaks hinted at further American military action.
Then in September, officials contended that no swap had occured when an accused Soviet spy was released in New York as an American journalist was set free in Moscow. And when a weapons-laden plane with an American crew was shot down over Nicaragua, the Administration denied any involvement, although such aid to the Administration-backed Nicaraguan rebels had long been coordinated from the White House by Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North, a National Security Council official.
Colonel North was also reportedly involved in the surreptitious Iran connection, which the National Security Council apparently undertook without consulting the Middle East experts in the State Department and the Pentagon. President Reagan confirmed that his former national security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane, had gone secretly to Teheran to meet with Iranian factions in an operation overseen by the present national security adviser, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter.
At least some of them doubted that the President’s tactics would work. Nobody denied Iran’s strategic importance, both because of its oil deposits and its “critical geography,” in the President’s words, between the Soviet Union and the Indian Ocean. The question is how to restore American influence. Mr. Reagan evidently accepted the Israeli argument that Washington could bolster pro-Western Iranians through arms sales. But there is no guarantee that such factions can be identified and trusted, or that weaponry can be an effective instrument for addressing the subtleties of a Middle Eastern country’s internal politics.
MAY 26, 1986
MILLIONS JOIN HANDS ACROSS U.S. TO AID THE HOMELESS AND HUNGRY
The line twisted through 4,150 miles of America, through city streets, across bridges, through deserts and mountain passes.
Its links included the rich, the poor and the homeless, movie stars and public officials, a flotilla of hot air balloons, cowboys in covered wagons, a chain of paper dolls and, at times, a bit of Hollywood hokum.
And for 15 minutes, organizers of the Hands Across America event said, it connected millions of Americans from Battery Park in New York City to the Pacific Ocean in a singing, hand-holding statement of support for the nation’s hungry and homeless.
President Ronald Reagan, wife Nancy, daughter Maureen and James Brady participating in Hands Across America outside the White House.
NOVEMBER 26, 1986
CONTRA SUPPLIES: MYSTERY UNRAVELS
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25–The disclosure that millions of dollars paid for United States arms sent to Iran were channeled through Swiss bank accounts to the Nicaraguan rebels may explain much of the mystery behind the covert program to supply the rebels, Congressional investigators and Reagan Administration officials said today.
When a C-123 cargo plane crashed inside Nicaragua last month and one of its American crew members, Eugene Hasenfus, was captured by the Sandinistas, investigations showed that a vast supply operation had been delivering arms to the rebels for the last two years, the period during which Congress banned direct military aid to them.
Numerous Administration officials said the supply operation had been coordinated and directed by Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North of the National Security Council staff. But as a Congressional investigator said today, “We were never able to figure out the funding.”
Rebel officers and Administration officials, including Colonel North, repeatedly asserted that the many millions of dollars needed to keep the supplies flowing had come from anonymous private donors in the United States and other countries.
Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, said today: “There were a thousand rumors, Texas millionaires and so forth, and we didn’t know.”
At a news conference today, Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d said that “somewhere between $10 and $30 million” in what amounted to profits on the sale of arms going to Iran had been deposited in Swiss bank accounts for the contras, as the rebels are generally known. The man directing all that, Mr. Meese said, again was Colonel North.
Today President Reagan said Colonel North “has been relieved of his duties on the National Security Council staff.”
PRESIDENT, SIGNING BILL, PRAISES DR. KING
WASHINGTON, Nov. 2–Black and white Americans, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives joined today in an act of unity as President Reagan signed a bill to establish a Federal holiday in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
A crowd of several hundred began singing “We Shall Overcome” after Mr. Reagan signed the bill in the Rose Garden of the White House.
The President paid warm tribute to Dr. King, saying his words and deeds had “stirred our nation to the very depths of its soul.”
The new law establishes the third Monday in January as a Federal holiday, starting in 1986. On such holidays, Federal offices are closed throughout the country. Many states observe Federal holidays, but state and local governments decide whether to close other places such as schools and banks.
We shall overcome
Dr. King was born in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 1929. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. In his remarks today, Mr. Reagan said that those 39 years “changed America forever,” and he accorded much of the credit to Dr. King.
Today’s ceremony gave Mr. Reagan an opportunity to attempt to improve his political standing among blacks, who have repeatedly criticized his record on civil rights. Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Manhattan Democrat, one of many blacks in the audience, said: “The President was eloquent. If we could only get his policies to catch up with his speech, the country would be in great shape.”
JANUARY 21, 1986
Nation Pauses To Remember King
American civil rights campaigner, and widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King and her son, Martin Luther King III.
ATLANTA, Jan. 20–Singing the ballads of the civil rights movement, thousands of people marched slowly through Atlanta today as this city and the nation marked the first Federal holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In Atlanta, where Dr. King was born and where he is buried, and in cities across the country, church bells tolled, choirs sang and citizens paused to remember the slain civil rights leader, eulogized in speeches and services as nation’s “drum major for justice and peace.”
Lift up those who are oppressed
The day’s stirring oratory, like the ranks of marchers moving in deliberate steps through downtown streets, was sharply evocative of another time, when Dr. King led similar marches through the streets of Selma, Montgomery and dozens of other cities.
In Atlanta, speakers at a service said that the best way that people could honor Dr. King was to live his dream. “Go out into the hedges and the highways and lift up those who are oppressed, and then Martin will have a gift,” said the Rev. Joseph L. Roberts Jr., pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. King was once co-pastor.
In Memphis, there was a vigil in the parking lot of the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King was killed by a sniper’s bullet on April 4, 1968. “This is the site of the crucifixion,” D’Army Bailey, a Memphis lawyer, said from the balcony of the motel.
Later, Coretta Scott King, Dr. King’s widow, and other leaders of the civil rights movement led a huge march and parade through downtown Atlanta. At times, the number of marchers passing slowly in the street seemed to outnumber the spectators who crowded five and six deep along the curb.
There was a festive atmosphere to the day. Vendors sold balloons and pennants, and children sat on their parents’ shoulders for a better view. The Atlanta police estimated that 500,000 people clogged downtown, where state and Federal offices, and many busineses, were closed.
There were other parades and observances in Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. And in the evening, more than a dozen stars, including Stevie Wonder, Harry Belafonte and Bill Cosby, were scheduled to be join a two-hour nationally televised program honoring Dr. King, to be broadcast from Atlanta, New York City and Washington.
Amid sharp debate over the holiday, and early opposition to a Federal declaration from President Reagan, who said the nation could not afford to honor all its heroes, Congress voted in 1983 to set aside the third Monday in January to commemorate Dr. King’s birthday. Mrs. King and other leaders of the civil rights movement had lobbied for this for more than 15 years.
Had Dr. King lived, he would have been 57 years old on Jan. 15. He was slain by a sniper as he stood on the balcony of the Memphis motel. A white ex-convict, James Earl Ray, pleaded guilty and is serving a 99-year term in Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Tennessee.
THE SHUTTLE EXPLODES:
6 IN CREW AND HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHER ARE KILLED 74 SECONDS AFTER LIFTOFF
U.S. space shuttle Challenger lifts off from a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, 72 seconds before its explosion killing it crew of seven.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Jan. 28–The space shuttle Challenger exploded in a ball of fire shortly after it left the launching pad today, and all seven astronauts on board were lost.
The worst accident in the history of the American space program, it was witnessed by thousands of spectators who watched in wonder, then horror, as the ship blew apart high in the air.
Flaming debris rained down on the Atlantic Ocean for an hour after the explosion, which occurred just after 11:39 A.M. It kept rescue teams from reaching the area where the craft would have fallen into the sea, about 18 miles offshore.
Americans who had grown used to the idea of men and women soaring into space reacted with shock to the disaster, the first time United States astronauts had died in flight. President Reagan canceled the State of the Union Message that had been scheduled for tonight, expressing sympathy for the families of the crew but vowing that the nation’s exploration of space would continue.
Killed in the explosion were the mission commander, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee; the pilot, Comdr. Michael J. Smith of the Navy; Dr. Judith A. Resnik; Dr. Ronald E. McNair; Lieut. Col. Ellison S. Onizuka of the Air Force; Gregory B. Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.
Mrs. McAuliffe, a high-school teacher from Concord, N.H., was to have been the first ordinary citizen in space.
The Challenger lifted off flawlessly this morning, after three days of delays, for what was to have been the 25th mission of the reusable shuttle fleet that was intended to make space travel commonplace. The ship rose for about a minute on a column of smoke and fire from its five engines.
Suddenly, without warning, it erupted in a ball of flame.
The eerie beauty of the orange fireball and billowing white trails against the blue confused many onlookers, many of whom did not at first seem aware that the aerial display was a sign that something had gone terribly wrong.
There were few sobs, moans or shouts among the thousands of tourists, reporters and space agency officials gathered on an unusually cold Florida day to celebrate the liftoff, just a stunned silence as they began to realize that the Challenger had vanished.
As the explosion occured, Stephen A. Nesbitt of Mission Control in Houston, apparently looking at his notes and not the explosion on his television monitor, noted that the shuttle’s velocity was “2,900 feet per second, altitude 9 nautical miles, downrange distance 7 nautical miles.” That is a speed of about 1,977 miles an hour, a height of about 10 statute miles and a distance down range of about 8 miles.
The Supreme Court: Dedicated Conservative Jurist: William Hubbs Rehnquist
WASHINGTON, June 17–Justice William H. Rehnquist, nominated to be Chief Justice of the United States by President Reagan today, is a conservative jurist whose polished opinions have won grudging respect even from those who oppose his views.
Justice Rehnquist, 61 years old, was named to the Court by President Nixon in 1971 after serving for two years in the Justice Department as head of the Office of Legal Counsel. As one of the Government’s chief legal strategists, he articulated that Administration’s policies on such issues as obscenity, wiretapping and defendants’ rights.
OCTOBER 26, 1986
Tax Bill Is Signed, and Its Revision Gets Under Way
The Tax Reform Act of 1986, declared President Reagan as he signed the most sweeping overhaul of the Federal income tax in 40 years, is “less a reform than a revolution.” The celebratory signing ceremony, before an audience of more than 1,000 on the White House South Lawn, marked less an end than a beginning.
The new volume of law will produce volumes of regulations on which the Internal Revenue Service has just begun, and, if history is any guide, yet another tax law, perhaps two.
One reason the legislators will go at it again is drafting errors and the need for “technical corrections,” such as giving the proper address for Carnegie Hall in Manhattan, one of a number of beneficiaries of specially tailored tax breaks. Another is a lack of Congressional agreement on the last few such “transition rules.”
A third reason could be the new law’s design. Intended to be “revenue neutral”—it is written to raise business taxes by $120 billion over the next five years while cutting taxes for individuals by the same amount—many economists think it will cost the Government $20 billion a year, and pressure to raise taxes to cut the deficit is growing. The Reagan tax cuts of 1981 were followed by tax increases, in the form of adjustments, in 1982, 1983 and 1984.
OCTOBER 24, 1987
BORK’S NOMINATION IS REJECTED, 58-42; REAGAN ‘SADDENED’
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23–One of the fiercest battles ever waged over a Supreme Court nominee ended today as the Senate decisively rejected the nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork.
The vote was 58 against confirmation and 42 in favor, the biggest margin by which the Senate has ever rejected a Supreme Court nomination. Judge Bork’s was the 27th Supreme Court nomination to fail in the country’s history, the sixth in this century, and the first since 1970, when the Senate rejected President Nixon’s nomination of G. Harrold Carswell by a vote of 51 to 45. There have been 104 Supreme Court justices in the nation’s history.
People carrying signs and attending rally for the rejection of Robert H. Bork as a Supreme Court Justice.
The vote came two weeks after Judge Bork, in the face of expected defeat, said he would not withdraw his name and wanted the full Senate to vote on his nomination. In a statement issued from his chambers at the Federal courthouse here, where he still serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Bork said he was “glad the debate took place.”
President Reagan, in a statement released by the White House, said, “I am saddened and disappointed that the Senate has bowed today to a campaign of political pressure.”
The President has publicly vowed to find a nominee who will upset Judge Bork’s opponents “just as much” as Judge Bork himself. Mr. Reagan said today, “My next nominee for the Court will share Judge Bork’s belief in judicial restraint—that a judge is bound by the Constitution to interpret laws, not make them.”
“If we receive a nominee who thinks like Judge Bork, who acts like Judge Bork, who opposes civil rights and civil liberties like Judge Bork, he will be rejected like Judge Bork, just like that,” Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts said on the Senate floor.
HART DROPS RACE FOR WHITE HOUSE IN A DEFIANT MOOD
Gary Hart, saying he was “angry and defiant” but finally overwhelmed by controversy, withdrew from the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination today, ending a four-year drive for the White House just five days after a public storm began over his private life.
In a short speech that sealed an extraordinary political collapse that began last Sunday, the Colorado Democrat, who had led all his party rivals in public opinion polls, said the press and the political system had become far more concerned with a candidate’s personal life than with his public agenda.
“Too much of it is just a mockery, and if it continues to destroy people’s integrity and honor, then that system will eventually destroy itself,” Mr. Hart told reporters and campaign staff members in a nine-minute speech at the Executive Tower Inn in downtown Denver. Mr. Hart, his campaign besieged since The Miami Herald reported last Sunday that he spent part of the weekend with Donna Rice, of Miami, asserted: “I believe I would have been a successful candidate. And I know I could have been a very good President, particularly for these times.”
American politician Gary Hart sits on a dock with Donna Rice on his lap in 1987.
Mr. Hart’s departure from the contest left the Democratic Party facing a drawn-out battle among a large field of candidates, most of whom lack national stature. Party officials said the campaign might not take a firm shape until the Iowa caucuses next February.
Mr. Hart, a former two-term Senator who came close to capturing the Democratic nomination in 1984 and who had been planning his 1988 campaign ever since, said at his new conference:
“Clearly, under the present circumstances, this campaign cannot go on. I refuse to submit my family and my friends and innocent people and myself to further rumors and gossip. It’s simply an intolerable situation.”
Mr. Hart and his wife, Lee, then returned to seclusion at their home near Denver, aides said. His staff members, stunned and often tearful, made plans to close down a campaign that had ended with shattering speed. “The campaign is over and the national headquarters is being closed,” said William P. Dixon, who had served as campaign manager.
To Mr. Hart’s believers, the withdrawal was the stuff of tragedy. “He could have been an incredible President,” said Ms. Casey, whose face was taut with sadness. She noted later that Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt had all had questions raised about their personal lives.
Ms. Casey added, “We’ve had Presidents who had personal lives that were beyond question, and we don’t even remember their names.”
NOVEMBER 9, 1988
The 1988 Elections; Bush Is Elected By a 6-5 Margin with Solid G.O.P. Base In South; Democrats Hold Both
President-elect George Bush and his family celebrate his victory during Bush’s acceptance speech in 1988.
George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas was elected the 41st President of the United States yesterday.
The Vice President fashioned a solid, 6-to-5 victory in the popular vote over Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts with a sweep of the once Democratic South. He captured enough major states in other regions to win a commanding majority in the Electoral College.
Of the total of 538 electoral votes, Mr. Bush appeared likely to get from 350 to 415.
His solid victory notwithstanding, Mr. Bush did little to help Republican candidates for the Senate. In states like Florida, New Jersey and Ohio, all carried by him and all with Senate races the Republicans had hoped to win, the Republican senatorial nominees went down to defeat.
As a result, the Democrats maintained control of not only the House of Representatives but also the Senate, as voters split their tickets in contest after contest.
NORTH GUILTY ON 3 OF 12 COUNTS; VOWS TO FIGHT TILL ‘VINDICATED’
Oliver L. North, the cocky marine who became the Reagan Administration’s covert guardian of the Nicaraguan rebels, was convicted today of shredding documents and two other crimes but was acquitted of nine other charges stemming from his role in the Iran-contra affair.
Federal District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell read the verdict in a tense, locked courtroom as Mr. North sat erect and taut, wearing the same blue suit he wore through much of trial, having retired as a lieutenant colonel after his indictment. The defendant bent his head before the 12 verdicts were read, but stared straight ahead as the counts were enumerated. His face hardened to a blank mask as the judge announced the three guilty verdicts.
Indicating his intention to appeal the guilty verdicts, Mr. North later said, “We will be fully vindicated.”
The verdict seemed to reject important parts of the Government’s case. Mr. North, who was an aide to the National Security Council, was found not guilty of accusations that he lied to Congress in 1985, spent contra traveler’s checks on himself and defrauded the Internal Revenue Service in his efforts to raise funds to arm the rebels fighting the Sandinista government.
But the guilty verdict salvaged some of the Government’s main charges. The jury held Mr. North accountable for personal acts: failing to pay for the $13,800 security system at his home, destroying and falsifying records and aiding and abetting the obstruction of Congress.
But it excused his participation in efforts to mislead Congress about his actions to aid the contras in violation of existing laws, and it showed leniency even about his direct lies to lawmakers in a White House meeting in August 1986.
Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North being sworn in before the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the Iran-contra affair in 1986.
The charges on which Mr. North was found guilty carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and fines totaling $750,000. His conviction of destroying documents was significant because, if the verdict survives appeal, Mr. North would be barred from holding public office and would lose his Marine pension.
The conviction is the first guilty verdict to result from a criminal trial in the Iran-contra affair, although other people, like Robert C. McFarlane, the former national security adviser, and two private fund-raisers, have pleaded guilty to lesser offenses.
JUNE 22, 1989
SUPREME COURT BACKS RIGHT TO BURN THE FLAG
In a decision virtually certain to be a First Amendment landmark, the Supreme Court ruled today that no laws could prohibit political protesters from burning the American flag.
In his majority opinion today, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. said, “We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.”
The case began with a protest against the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas. In front of the City Hall, a demonstrator doused an American flag with kerosene and set it on fire as several dozen others chanted, “America, the red, white and blue, we spit on you.”
Freedom for all
The demonstrator, Gregory L. Johnson, was convicted of violating the Texas flag desecration law and was originally fined $2,000 and sentenced to one year in prison. He was represented at the Supreme Court by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a public-interest law firm in New York that represents liberal causes. William M. Kunstler, who argued the case for Mr. Johnson, said today that the decision “forbids the state from making the American flag a religious icon.”
The case drew enormous attention and briefs from many outside groups. Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and a number of other artists filed an unusual brief on Mr. Johnson’s behalf that included color prints of works of theirs that used the American flag as an image.
Bush Plans to Name Colin Powell to Head Joint Chiefs
President Bush will name Gen. Colin L. Powell of the Army to be the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an appointment that would make him the first black officer to hold the nation’s highest military post, Administration officials said today.
The choice is expected to meet little opposition in the Senate, whose approval is needed for the appointment. General Powell is considered a forceful leader, is highly respected in the diplomatic community and, like the man he would replace, Adm. William Crowe Jr. of the Navy, is a considered a military intellectual.
At the age of 52, General Powell is among the youngest four-star generals in American peacetime history. He was promoted to that rank in April.
As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Powell will be the principal military adviser to the President, the National Security Council and the Secretary of Defense and a member of a new Pentagon executive committee that was established by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney as a means of advising the Secretary on everything from military budgets to military strategy.
OCTOBER 18, 1989
VIOLENT QUAKE HITS NORTHERN CALIFORNIA;
HUNDREDS DEAD; DISASTER SCOPE UNCLEAR; HIGHWAY AND BAY BRIDGE’S DECK COLLAPSE
Firefighters extinguish fire in the Marina District in San Francisco on October 21, 1989, after a quake erupted killing an estimated 273 people and doing $1 billion worth of damage.
A devastating earthquake rocked the San Francisco Bay area at rush hour last night, killing at least 200 people, collapsing a mile-long span of an Interstate highway and wrecking part the Bay Bridge to Oakland.
The earthquake, which rumbled along the San Andreas Fault, was the second deadliest in United States history after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire that killed more than 700 people. It started fires throughout San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley and in the mountain areas near Santa Cruz.
It also forced the cancellation of the third game of the World Series and the evacuation of thousands of spectators from Candlestick Park.
Water, electricity, communication and transportation were knocked out in the nation’s fourth largest metropolitan area, leaving officials to guess at the scope of the damage and residents to wander darkened streets, aware that they were in the middle of one of the worst catastrophes of their lives but unable to judge its extent. With little information except sketchy reports from transistor radios, they gathered in ones and twos on their porches and in larger numbers outside bars and hotels. There was a sense that they were surrounded by great damage, yet their isolation from the outside world made it impossible to know that so much had been destroyed in such a short time.
“This is just a devastating, terrible, terrible situation beyond everybody’s imagination,” said Marty Boyer, the public information officer for Alameda County.
Lieut. Gov. Leo McCarthy said the most extensive damage appeared to be south and east of San Francisco. He said he expected that states of emergency would be declared in Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
The greatest loss of life appeared to have occurred on Interstate Highway 880 in Oakland, when a section of an upper roadway collapsed onto the lower section, crushing at least 200 people in their cars.
The earthquake rumbled through the area at 5:04 P.M., (8:04 P.M. Eastern time) and registered 6.9 on the Richter scale. It was centered near Hollister, 80 miles southeast of San Francisco in San Benito County, and shook buildings as far as 200 miles away.
Some people escaped from buildings seconds before the structures shook and collapsed in a hail of rubble. “It was like a movie, happening behind us,” said Robert Northrup, who was leaving a meeting in Santa Cruz when the building fell. “It was absolutley like a Spielberg movie, like “Indiana Jones.” ’
John F. Melvin, a guest at the Four Seasons Clift Hotel in San Francisco, said he had been on the telephone to New York when the room started to shudder. “It was like riding on a New York City subway car,” he said. He tried to dive under the bed but ended up under a table, where he stayed until the swaying subsided.
Mike Krukow, a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, said, “It was an unbelieveable thing.” He was on the field awaiting the start of the World Series game when vibrations began. “The light towers were shaking,” he said. “I was stunned, stunned.”
The game was scheduled to begin in 16 minutes when the earthquake struck. ABC News and the Cable News Network reported that some of the 58,000 fans were injured as they rushed to the exits. Fans said they saw pieces of cracked concrete on the walkways outside the Candlestick Park, but the stadium itself did not appear to have been seriously damaged.
Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent is to meet with other officials this morning to decide on when to reschedule the game between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics.
A 30-foot section of the upper deck of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge caved in. Witnesses said that at least two cars were dangling between the upper and lower levels.
In Oakland, where the Interstate highway collapsed, witnesses said the concrete and steel supports of the double-decked, elevated road crumpled.
“The freeway was fairly crowded when it collapsed,” said Rick Andreotti, an Oakland police spokesman at a makeshift rescue center beneath the collapsed roadway. “It’s not a matter of just getting to the cars, it’s a matter of cutting the cars open.”
He said rescuers believed that some of the the people in cars sandwiched between the two tiers were still alive. Television cameras zoomed in on two firefighters trying to rescue a 7-year-old boy trapped in the back seat of his parents’ car. Witnesses said his 9-year-old sister had been pulled from the vehicle and taken to a hospital. Their parents were killed, witnesses said.
Five other freeways in the region were closed because of damage, including the curving overpasses leading into downtown San Francisco from the airport.
The hardest hit section of San Francisco seemed to be the Marina district, a fashionable area that was built on landfill brought in to make space for the Pan-American Pacific Exposition of 1905. Several apartment buildings there wobbled and collapsed onto parked cars. There were also a number of small fires that burned unattended while firefighters struggled to contain the biggest blazes. Some of the firefighters arrived by boat, squeezing past yachts docked near the fallen, burning buildings.
Everywhere people seemed in a state of shock. A steady stream of people came in to the Central Police Station on Vallejo Street near Stockton Street in the North Beach section. Most of them were neither distraught nor injured. The majority were from the East Bay and wanted to know there was any way to get home because they had heard the bridges and freeways were closed. They were told that there was no way, at least not before dawn today.
