Thursday, July 9, 2009

Politics, Government, Protest, and War

Canada
Federal
House of Commons: 153 Liberal (Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Prime Minister); 72 Progressive Conservative (Robert Stanfield, Leader of the Opposition); 22 NDP (Tommy Douglas, Leader); 14 Creditiste (Real Caouette, Leader); 2 independent; 1 vacancy.

Alberta: 15 P.C., 4 Liberal. Edmonton Centre--Steve Paproski (P.C.); Edmonton East--Bill Skoreyko (P.C.); Edmonton Strathcona--Hu Harries (Liberal); Edmonton West--Marcel Lambert (P.C.). Calgary Centre--Doug Harkness (P.C.); Calgary North--Eldon Woolliams (P.C.); Calgary South--Pat Mahoney (Liberal). Red Deer--Robert Thompson (P.C.).


Senate: 60 Liberal; 24 P.C.; 2 independent Liberal; 1 Liberal-Labour; 1 independent Conservative; 1 independent; 13 vacancies.

Alberta: Donald Cameron--Banff (independent Liberal); James Gladstone--Lethbridge (independent Conservative); Earl Hastings--Palliser-Foothills (Liberal); Harry Hays--Calgary (Liberal); Harper Prowse--Edmonton (Liberal); 1 vacancy.


Provincial and Territorial
Alberta: 55 Social Credit (Harry Strom, Premier); 7 P.C. (Peter Lougheed, Leader of the Opposition); 1 Liberal; 1 independent; 1 vacancy.

Edmonton and vicinity (including St. Albert, Leduc, Stony Plain); 11 S.C., 3 P.C. (Don Getty, Lou Hyndman, Bill Yurko).

British Columbia: 31 S.C. (W.A.C. Bennett, Premier); 17 NDP; 6 Liberal; 1 vacancy.

Saskatchewan: 34 Liberal (Ross Thatcher, Premier); 25 NDP
Manitoba: 28 NDP (Ed Schreyer, Premier); 22 P.C.; 4 Liberal; 1 Liberal-Democrat; 1 S.C.; 1 independent.

Ontario: 69 P.C. (John Robarts, Premier); 26 Liberal; 20 NDP; 1 Liberal-Labour.

Quebec: 55 Union Nationale (Jean-Jacques Bertrand, Premier); 46 Liberal; 3 independent; 2 Parti Quebecois (Rene Levesque, Jerome Proulx); 2 vacancies.

New Brunswick: 30 Liberal (Louis Robichaud, Premier); 27 P.C.

Nova Scotia: 41 P.C. (George Smith, Premier); 5 Liberal.

Prince Edward Island; 17 Liberal (Alex Campbell, Premier); 15 P.C.

Newfoundland: 36 Liberal (Joey Smallwood, Premier); 3 P.C.; 1 independent Liberal; 1 independent; 1 vacancy.

Yukon: James Smith, Commissioner
Northwest Territories: Stuart Hodgson, Commissioner

Governor-General of Canada: Roland Michener
Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta: Grant MacEwan

Mayor of Edmonton: Ivor Dent
Edmonton City Council: Morris Weinlos; James Bateman; Ed Leger; Una Evans; Cec Purves; Neil Crawford; Ken Newman; B.C. Tanner; Julia Kiniski; Terry Nugent; Kathleen McCallum; David C. Ward.

Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Canada: J.R. Cartwright

Wednesday, July 16--Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, on a brief tour of the west, visited Regina, and was met by 700 angry farmers. Two days earlier, Saskatchewan farmers had begun tractor demonstrations, displaying resentment at a current wheat price crisis and chronically declining farm incomes. 5,000 farmers and 2,500 tractors, from 40-50 localities, were protesting against lower farm prices and higher production costs. More than 100 tractors parked outside the Prime Minister’s hotel, and waited three hours before Trudeau appeared and delivered a thirty-minute speech. The heckling farmers called him such things as "stupid, stone-headed, a rich playboy, and a communist." Among the placards were those reading: "Riel was a Swinger--Look what it Got Him;" "Hustle Grain, Not Women;" "Our PET is a Pig;" "Trudeau is a Bum Steer;" and "Flour Power." At one point a woman exclaimed, "Good Lord, he’s completely nuts."

--In Calgary, Alberta Premier Harry Strom said that if the current round of friendly discussions between the federal and provincial governments did not produce results, "We will make a statement in regard to these matters."

--The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association issued a statement recommending changing section 167 of the Public Schools Act to abolish the opening of classes with a daily Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. According to the BCCLA, "compulsory observance of one religion in the public schools does violence to the rights of the non-Christian community."

--Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau said that he had no intention "to force [water] fluoridation on those who don’t want it."

--At Cape Kennedy, Florida, site of that morning’s Apollo 11 liftoff, U.S. Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who also headed up a Presidential committee on America’s long-range space goals, suggested Mars as the nation’s next space destination. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and fellow Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy responded by suggesting that earthly concerns such as hunger, housing, poverty, and education should take priority over space achievements as far as national goals and government spending were concerned.

--Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi forced the resignation from her cabinet of Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Morarji Desai. The move came several days after Desai had joined a group of other Congress party bosses in an attempt to outmaneuver Mrs. Gandhi on the nomination of a party candidate for President of India.

--Honduras accepted a conditional ceasefire in her war with El Salvador, while El Salvador demanded that Honduran forces "surrender or be destroyed on the battlefield." Emigration from densely populated areas of El Salvador to sparsely populated areas of Honduras had created tension, but the immediate cause of the war was a disputed call by a Salvadoran official in a soccer game between the countries.


Thursday, July 17--The Hotel Fort Garry in Winnipeg was the site of the charter meeting of the National Indian Brotherhood. Manitoba Premier Ed Schreyer, who had taken office just two days earlier, addressed the meeting, promising to establish a task force in the autumn to investigate problems in northern Manitoba communities.

--Prime Minister Trudeau was in Saskatoon, where he received a more polite reception than he’d received in Regina the day before. He launched a rhetorical question, "Why should I sell your wheat?," and proceeded to answer his own question. Some media reported that he was dismissing their concerns with "Why should I sell your wheat?" instead of taking them seriously.

--Former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, on his way from Ottawa to Melfort, Sask., where he was to open a fair the next day, held a press conference at Winnipeg International Airport. Commenting on the current Prime Minister’s western tour, Diefenbaker said that Trudeau had told "western Canada to go to hell with his compliments...for the life of me, I don’t know why he came out here. I was sure he was going to make some arrangements for the present emergency. But there has been nothing." Wally Dennison of the Winnipeg Free Press quoted Diefenbaker as saying that Trudeau had told the farmers to grow less wheat, and that the government could do no more than it was doing. "That shows the complete disregard by the government of the seriousness of Canada’s position, with a billion bushels of wheat piled up, and with markets lost as never before."
Diefenbaker also suggested that Trudeau was wrong by telling the Commons, in effect, that Canada ought to be careful in asserting sovereignty over Arctic waterways because this might interfere with the nation’s shipping trade to China and across Canada’s north. Diefenbaker said it was understandable that the United States would challenge any assertions of Canadian sovereignty over Arctic waterways, since there was great mineral wealth to be gained. Diefenbaker expected to spend the following week in Prince Albert, after his visit to Melfort.

--Quebec Premier Jean-Jacques Bertrand said that there would be no provincial election in Quebec in 1969, and that the next election might not take place until 1971.

--Police in Youngstown, Ohio arrested 28 people and blanketed 10 blocks of a south side street with tear gas during the early hours in putting down race riots for the second straight night. Eight people were injured, with three buildings and four cars burned. Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes had sent in 150 National Guard personnel to protect police, with 300 more on standby. A 9 P.M.-5 A.M. curfew had also been ordered. Police said the violence resulted from a demonstration at a neighbourhood dairy store where 100 Negroes gathered to support a woman patron’s complaint that she had been kicked by the store’s owner several weeks before. Charges of assault and battery were pending against the store owner.

--El Salvador invaded Honduras, ending Wednesday’s temporary cease-fire of hostilities. El Salvador’s army was claiming 1,700 Honduran deaths, while admitting to 700 dead on its own side.


Friday, July 18--Prime Minister Trudeau’s western tour took him to Alberta; he was shown oil industry activity in Namao, and then visited the Lacombe Research Station. He later dined on barbecued filet mignon with Premier Harry Strom; the Premier used the occasion to request more federal money for the provinces.

--Replying to questions in the House of Commons, Acting Prime Minister Mitchell Sharp virtually ruled out the possibility of a federal holiday Monday in honour of the moon mission: "I think civil servants will rejoice just as much in the success of the astronauts at their desks as anywhere else."

--The charter meeting of the National Indian Brotherhood was in its second day at Winnipeg’s Hotel Fort Garry. Neither Harold Cardinal, president of the Indian Association of Alberta, nor David Ahenakew, president of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians, would guarantee the safety of federal Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chretien or any other federal representatives, should they visit reserves in their respective provinces against the inhabitants’ wishes. Canadian Indian leaders were upset by the federal government’s stated plan to abolish special status for Indians.

--In Toronto, a crowd of more than 100, many of them Negroes, threw beer bottles and chanted Black Power slogans during an early-day battle with police. One man was taken to hospital unconscious, several policemen received minor injuries, and six people were arrested.
Metropolitan Toronto Police Superintendent James Morgan said there had been a series of incidents in the Alexandra Park area, and that Negroes and Portuguese had been fighting about girls in the urban renewal area. The trouble began when police found Ben Ameral, 23, beaten unconscious on a street. Police attempted to arrest suspects, but a crowd gathered, and Constable David Talbot was knocked unconscious with one punch.

--Also in Toronto, Joachim Foikis, Vancouver’s town fool, was convicted of causing a disturbance and was given the option of a $25 fine or five days in jail. He was charged May 31 in the Toronto hippie district of Yorkville after he shouted insults and obscenities at a policeman.

--North Vancouver district Mayor Ron Andrews criticized traffic control in effect during repair work on the Lions Gate Bridge, claiming that it took him 75 minutes to cross the bridge from Vancouver to the North Shore.

--Edmonton Journal movie reviewer Barry Westgate expressed his opinion on one of Edmonton’s most pressing issues--whether movie theatres would be able to open on Sundays:
So the Sunday movies issue has now come down to a plebiscite. Surprise, surprise! A few more than 2,000 people sign their names, and this year-next year-sometime-never we’ll all get to vote on whether or not Edmonton has grown enough to live with movies and entertainment on the Sabbath.
Sherwood Park and St. Albert have Sunday movies, Camrose has Sunday movies, and doubtless more of those smaller centres will follow suit while Edmonton sweats and dithers.
It’s a bad joke, a continuing charade of nonsense that has been going on and on and on until it is practically impossible to believe that this is 1969, and there are almost 500,000 supposedly competent souls in the city.
Sunday movies! The way the authorities have been handling the matter you’d think the issue was enough to open the
earth under us...instead of being a little something that ought to have happened years ago, when the world grew up.
What is there to say to defend a preposterous situation? Now that a petition (it was inevitable) has forced a postponement of the issue, and a plebiscite on it later in the year, the city once again wears its yokel weeds.


--The "National Revolutionary Conference for a United Front against Fascism" began three days of meetings in the Oakland Auditorium. The conference began more than an hour late because Black Panthers and members of their women’s auxiliary wing, acting as security personnel, searched those entering. Observers estimated that 80% of the approximately 10,000 delegates were not black. In addition to the Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society and Third Liberation Front were well represented.
Black Panthers’ cofounder Bobby Seale spoke of the law of the billy club and the service revolver ("It is necessary that people learn of this reign of terror"), and urged "a really united front against fascism which exists in America today...[From this conference will emerge] 150 committees across the country to fight fascism."

--The strike of nonprofessional hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina ended after 113 days, having brought organized labour and the civil rights movement together for the first time.

--The African separation movement in the three southern Sudanese provinces of Equatoria, Upper Nile, and Bahr el Ghazal announced the formation of a new military-led government, and declared that as of July 18, the southern Sudan had been renamed the independent state of Anyidi. The more extreme wing of southern leadership backed the Anya Nya movement, demanding total secession and independence from the "Arab-dominated north," rejecting the previous month’s offer of autonomy, an offer which had come from Sudan’s new revolutionary council, which had taken power in Khartoum in a military coup. Anya Nya’s Commander-in-Chief was 59-year-old Major-General Emidio Tafeng Lodongi.

--Knowledgeable sources disclosed that the United States had for many years deployed artillery shells and bombs loaded with lethal nerve gases to major military bases around the world. The deployment of the gases was made known after a report that 25 American soldiers were hospitalized following an accident involving nerve gas on Okinawa. The report indicating stockpiled nerve gases on Okinawa let loose a storm of protest in Japan and Okinawa, which the Japanese wanted treturned to their control.

--A ceasefire was reached in the Soccer War between El Salvador and Honduras. Under the terms of the ceasefire, El Salvador’s troops were to withdraw from Honduras by no later than the following Tuesday.


Saturday, July 19--Prime Minister Trudeau received a warm reception in Taber and Lethbridge. In Lethbridge, he was greeted by Canada’s Dairy Queen, Shirley Clarke of Namao, and Dairy Princess Anne Wearmouth of Cochrane, but declined their invitation to demonstrate his skill at cow-milking.

--The charter meeting of the National Indian Brotherhood wrapped up at the Hotel Fort Garry in Winnipeg. A proposal from Saskatchewan leaders received unanimous support, asking the federal government to finance a committee (to be composed of NIB members) to investigate all areas of Indian rights. NIB president Walter Dieter (who was reelected to his position) said it was evident that federal Indian policy was unacceptable to any Indian populations in Canada, and that all provincial Indian leaders agreed in their refusal to meet with Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chretien or other federal officials until they had completed their own studies and proposals.

--300 Indians and whites took part in the 42nd annual Indian Defense League of America free border crossing from the American side of Niagara Falls to the Canadian side, across Whirlpool Bridge. The march symbolized free border crossing rights (including duty exemption) given to Indians on both sides of the border by the Jay Treaty of 1794 (the treaty was never ratified by the Canadian Parliament, as it was generally believed to have been abrogated by the War of 1812). 86-year-old Chief Clinton Rickard of the Tuscarora nation, a founder of the I.D.L., was honoured with a citation from Niagara University.

--Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced that the government had nationalized the country’s 14 largest banks, in order to keep control of the banks out of the hands of India’s business giants and to put more credit into the hands of farmers, artisans, and other self-employed people.

--Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts reported to police, nine hours after driving off a bridge into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island, off Martha’s Vineyard, an accident that took the life of Kennedy’s passenger, a 28-year-old Washington secretary named Mary Jo Kopechne.

--It was the second day of the National Revolutionary Conference for a United Front against Fascism in Oakland, California. Several punches were thrown as Black Panthers and members of Students for a Democratic Society ejected about 40 members of the Red-China oriented Progressive Labor Party from a meeting in De Fremery Park, in the heart of Oakland’s black neighbourhood. Bill Ayers, an SDS officer, said the disturbance began when a PLP member threw a punch at SDS national secretary Mark Rudd. The PLP, which included many Negroes, called the Black Panthers revisionists and opportunists rather than revolutionaries. Approximately 2,000 people attended the meeting in the park.


Sunday, July 20
--in Port Colborne, Ontario, three were arrested following a fight between 150 demonstrators protesting against having to pay to see the beachfront, and employees of the nearby privately-owned Sherkston Beaches. No serious injuries resulted from the fracas. Groups participating in the protest included New Democrat Youth of the Niagara area, Niagara Youth Project, and the Association for Preservation of Eastern Erie Lakefront (APEEL). Rev. Robert Wright of All People’s United Church, Welland, the president of APEEL, said that such demonstrations had to continue because the Ontario government was doing nothing about its announcement that public park land should be developed along the Lake Erie shore. The fee that they were protesting against was $1.25 per person, with children under 12 admitted free. The youngest of those arrested was 16-year-old Peter Kormos.

--Heavy fighting erupted along the entire Suez Canal as Israeli jets struck Egyptian missile bases, antiaircraft positions, and artillery. Egypt accused Israel of launching "complete warfare" by land, sea, and air. Egypt claimed to have shot down 19 Israeli aircraft while losing only one of her own; Israel claimed to have shot down five Egyptian aircraft while losing only two of her own. It was the first air assault against Egyptian ground installations since the Six-Day War of 1967.

--Officials from the Organization of American States flew to various fronts to supervise the ceasefire in the Soccer War between El Salvador and Honduras.

--General Earle G. Wheeler, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, ending a four-day fact-finding tour of South Vietnam for President Richard Nixon, said that there was no indication that the current lull in enemy activity was a peace signal. Gen. Wheeler also said that the American tactic of relentlessly pursuing the enemy remained unchanged and that he fully approved of that style of fighting.

--Katherine Anne Warnes, 20, of Arnchiffe, New South Wales, was killed by a stray bullet as she sang at a U.S. Marine NCO’s club near Da Nang. She was singing her final number when a shot came through a partition and killed her. Miss Warnes was performing with an Australian troupe before an audience of about 75. An official of the agency which handled her bookings said she was advised not to go to Vietnam because the trip was too dangerous, but she decided to go because her boyfriend was in the group. "They were going to become engaged."


Monday, July 21
--The Globe and Mail reported that the federal External Affairs department had announced that it was sending a first installment of $25,000 to the provisional secretariat of La Francophonie, which had been founded in February. The provisional secretariat was headed by Montreal journalist Jean-Marc Leger.

--In the House of Commons, External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp announced that he had publicly rejected an attempt by mainland China to have Canada recognize China’s sovereignty over Taiwan as part of the deal for Canada’s diplomatic recognition of China.

--Liberal MP David Anderson (Esquimalt-Saanich) introduced a private member’s bill to require detergents sold in Canada to be the kind that did not contribute lasting pollution.

--Postmaster General Eric Kierans announced that the Montreal management consulting firm Samson, Belair, Riddell, Stead Inc. had been selected to design a permanent public address postal coding system. The report, scheduled for completion by early November, was to include the design of a national postal code and a plan for its introduction, implementation and maintenance. Kierans stated that if accepted, the national postal code would be introduced as soon as possible.

--In Victoria, British Columbia Premier W.A.C. Bennett called a provincial election for August 27. In Terrace, provincial N.D.P. leader Tom Berger referred to Bennett’s attack on the N.D.P. as a hysterical outburst by a pathetic old man clinging desperately to office.

--Former University of New Brunswick professor Norman Strax pleaded not guilty in Fredericton on charges of assaulting and obstructing police officers; he was freed on $700 bail and ordered to appear for trial July 31. The charges were laid following an incident Sunday at the Fredericton police station when officers were arresting another city resident on an intoxication charge. Dr. Strax asked the court how he could lay countercharges against the police officers, and was advised to contact the Crown Prosecutor.

--Red Deer City Council approved a bylaw permitting movie theatres to be open on Sundays. The vote came five days after Red Deer County Council approved a similar bylaw.

--Police in Columbus, Ohio reported one dead, 25 injured, and 130 arrested in rioting that apparently was started by the fatal shooting of a Negro man Monday afternoon. Roy Beasley, 27, was shot to death in a dry-cleaning shop in what police said was the culmination of a neighbourhood dispute. The white shop manager, Dave E. Shesnut, 69, was arrested and charged with second degree murder.

--Lillie B. Allen, 27, of Aiken, S.C., was fatally hit by sniper fire as she stood by her car in a troubled area of York, Pennsylvania. Four others were injured in the fifth day of sporadic shootings. Gov. Raymond P. Shafe ordered 200 National Guard personnel into armories in York and nearby Columbia at the request of Mayor John Snyder. There were also 67 state troopers on hand to assist 70 York police officers on duty.
Police Captain Russell Koontz said the trouble began last Thursday when a Negro youth accidentally set himself afire while playing with lighter fluid and reported falsely that a gang of white youths had burned him. Since then, 37 had been injured, and 36 arrested.

--Former United States Vice-President Hubert Humphrey met Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Moscow. According to Humphrey,
He wanted me to tell the President and the American people that the Soviet Union wants to work with the United States for peace...very complimentary about Apollo 11...I have the impression the Russians are ready to talk on arms control...

--Prince Charles, addressing the London Welsh Association, urged the British Parliament to pass anti-pollution laws:
My objective is to be alarmist and to say that there is a very small line between extinction and survival--and this applies to the country as well--and that legislation should be enacted now and not vaguely in the future.

--Police in Nairobi charged Nashashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge with the July 5 assassination of Tom Mboya, Kenya’s Minister of Economics and Development. The accused was a member of the Kikuyu tribe, the dominant tribe in Kenya, and rival to Mboya’s Luo tribe.

--The United States administration of President Richard Nixon lifted certain travel and trade restrictions to ease the long-standing American policy of isolating Communist China.


Tuesday, July 22
--Second-year arts student John Cherrington, president of the University of British Columbia debating society, told an audience of 100 at the Vancouver Rotary Club that university administrators should become more concerned with protecting university property and assuring an uninterrupted education for the majority of students wanting to study. Cherrington accused university administrators of being far too tolerant of minority student unrest, and that they should kick out the rabble-rousers instead of giving in to radical demands: "When individuals use a university as a tool for their own ideology, and infringe on the welfare of students, they have no right to attend and the community and university should expel them."

--Canon M.P. Wilkinson, associate secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches, and chairman of Lord’s Day Alliance of Canada, met with representatives of large chain stores and urged Ontario Attorney General Arthur Wishart to crack down on small grocery stores (such as Mac’s Milk and Becker’s) that opened on Sundays. Representatives from Dominion and Food City expressed agreement with Williamson, while a representative from Steinberg’s, also at the meeting, said nothing.
Rev. Alfred Fowlie, a Unitarian clergyman, disagreed, describing the alliance of churches and supermarkets as "a little bit ridiculous." "Thank God for Mac’s Milk being open on Sunday," he said.

--The always accurate and up-to-date government of the Northwest Territories issued a press release stating, "The labor standards ordinance...came into force in the Northwest Territories on July 1, 1968."

--In New York, the Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee announced that it had dropped "non-violent" from its name and had put H. Rap Brown back in charge. The new name was Student Natioal Co-ordinating Committee--still SNCC. Brown, 25, and Muhammad Hunt, identified as the head of SNCC’s new Revolutionary Political Council, appeared at a news conference in Holy Apostles Episcopal Church. SNCC, said Brown, would "no longer be hindered or hampered by ‘non-violent’ in the organization’s name." Brown, appealing a five-year prison sentence for violating the federal firearms act, told the news conference he had always believed that retaliatory violence was sometimes justified. But, he said, most blacks prefer other methods.

--In Columbus, Ohio, east side rioting continued, as 190 arrests were made (364 arrests since Monday), mostly for curfew violations. 1,200 National Guard personnel were on duty.

--in Washington, D.C., the Pentagon issued a call to draft 27,500 men for the U.S. Army and 1,500 for the Marine Corps in September.

--Tuesday marked the deadline for El Salvador’s troops to withdraw from Honduras in keeping with the terms of the July 18 ceasefire. El Salvador refused to withdraw, but there was no resumption of fighting in the Soccer War.

--Prince Juan Carlos of Bourbon received overwhelming approval from the Spanish parliament to become the future Spanish head of state. He was to succeed Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who presented the 31-year-old prince's name to the legislature, on Franco's death or incapacitation.


Wednesday, July 23--The Edmonton Journal printed, on page 3, the following, in small print, under the headline, "Sweden’s moral code in Edmonton?":
We feel that the explicit teaching of sex physiology, psychology and sociology, including the teaching of contraceptives in our local schools, which has been proposed by Edmonton’s Family Life Program would encourage a moral code similar to SWEDEN’S where sex is also taught explicitly in the schools. A
government study in Sweden has recently disclosed that 98% of the population there engage in what we in this country regard as illicit sex relations.
Those who want to express their views against this proposal should write to the Department of Curriculum, Edmonton School Board, 101 Street-107 Avenue, by September. Also we would appreciate your letter now. Write D.V.S. Box JD159, Edmonton Journal.

--in Burnaby, B.C., Simon Fraser University’s Board of Governors announced that the university would scrap its policy of having authoritarian department heads. Thomas Bottomore, former chairman of the Department of Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology (PSA) said that faculty fanaticism and foolishness had brought the department to the brink of destruction, and that some professors were obsessed with politics and intolerant of opposition, and that they ignored intellectual standards.

--In Madrid, Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon, 31, officially accepted the nomination to become King of Spain and heir to Generalissimo Francisco Franco as head of state. The Prince’s announcement came the day after the Spanish Parliament had overwhelmingly approved his nomination.

--Oscar-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge was among those addressing U.S. Senate subcommittee hearings on alcoholism and narcotics.

--U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s driver’s license was suspended by Massachusetts motor vehicle registrar Richard McLaughlin, until a hearing could be held.


Thursday, July 24
--In the House of Commons, the Liberal government continued its effort to force through rules limiting Parliamentary debate. Opposition Leader Robert Stanfield commented, "When Caesar came back from the west, the word went out that all talk must stop." Finally, shortly after 1 A.M. Friday, Prime Minister Trudeau imposed closure. As they left the House an hour later, Progressive Conservative M.P.s shouted "Heil Hitler!" at Trudeau.

--The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace denied that its relief agency CARITAS had transported arms aboard planes carrying food and medicine to Biafra. The CCODP had contributed over $160,000 to Biafran relief.

--Egyptian and Israeli forces clashed along the Suez Canal in the heaviest fighting since 1967. Israel claimed to have shot down nine MiGs. Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser said that Egypt would fight to regain all territory lost in the Six-Day War: "The Six-Day War is still on. It will become a two-year, three year, and four-year war."

--British lecturer Gerald Brooke arrived back in London after spending four years in a Soviet prison. Mr. Brooke had been arrested by the KGB in April 1965 for smuggling anti-Soviet leaflets; he was freed by the U.S.S.R. in exchange for the return of two Soviet spies.

--The Group of Ten (the leading Western nations), meeting in Paris, reached a monetary compromise aimed at creating the first internationally managed reserve unit, or "paper gold," intended to increase world liquidity and insure continued growth of world trade.

No comments:

Post a Comment