Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• US GNP $1.015 trillion. Federal spending was $195 billion ($2.8 billion deficit). National debt was $370 billion. Inflation rate for 1/1970-1/1971 was 5.3%. Poverty rate was 12.6%. US population was 204.7 million. Federal government workers: approx 2.5 million. Local government workers: approx 7 million. Prime rate of interest: 7.9%
  
• Paladin Group formed by Otto Skorzeny
  
• Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof formed the Red Army Faction in West Germany
  
• Personality-altering Prolexin administered to 1,093 inmates at Vacaville.
  
• SALT talks
  
• Spiro Agnew crusade against rock music
  
• Breakup of the Beatles
  
• Reduction of US troops in Vietnam, modest cuts in defense spending
  
• Special Programs Unit behavior mod program begins at Joliet, Illinois, under Dr. Martin Groder.
  
• Col. James A. Donovan (USMC, retired) publishes the book Militarism, USA.
  
• Early 1970s: NSA Develops Rhyolite' Satellite Surveillance System
  
• 1/5/1970 Bodies of Joseph Yablonski of the United Mine Workers, his wife and daughter, are found in their home.
  
• 1/12/1970 Biafra capitulates to Nigerian government.
  
• 1/16/1970 Col. Muammar Khadafy becomes prime minister of Libya.
  
• 1/19/1970 Sen. Richard Russell reveals his doubts about Warren Commission's conclusions.
  
• 1/30/1970 State of siege in Guatemala after assassination attempt
  
• 1/31/1970 Arthur Burns becomes chairman of the Federal Reserve board, first Jewish chairman in a post long held by Protestant bankers.
  
• 2/18/1970 The Chicago Seven acquitted of conspiring to incite a riot at the 1968 convention.
  
• 3/1970 A U.S. intelligence officer introduces African swine fever virus into Cuba
  
• 3/4/1970 Army Intelligence claims it has destroyed files on and stopped spying on political dissidents
  
• 3/6/1970 A Weathermen bomb factory explodes in a Greenwich Village townhouse.
  
• 3/8/1970 Makarios III, president of Cyprus, was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt in Nicosia
  
• 3/18/1970 Postal workers in NYC go out on strike for higher wages
  
• 4/1970 Apollo 13 crisis
  
• 4/30/1970 Nixon gives speech to nation about Cambodia invasion. E. Howard Hunt officially retired from the CIA.
  
• 4/1970 D. Harold Byrd sells Texas School Book Depository building to Aubrey Mayhew.
  
• 5/1970 Robert B. Mullen Company, a CIA front, hires Howard Hunt.
  
• 5/1/1970 Tonight at Kent State University in Ohio, a riot resulted in the ROTC building being torched.
  
• 5/2/1970 Al Haig orders four more wiretaps to find leaks.
  
• 5/4/1970 Kent State students killed by National Guard.
  
• 5/5-6/1970 Nationwide student strikes against Kent State killing.
  
• 5/8/1970 100,000 protesters gathered in Washington and another 150,000 in San Francisco. Violet clashes in New York between protestors and construction workers.
  
• 5/9/1970 UAW leader Walter P. Reuther and others killed when their Lear-Jet crashed.
  
• 5/9/1970 in early morning hours, Nixon meets with protestors at the Lincoln Memorial.
  
• 5/12/1970 Race riot in Augusta, Georgia; six blacks killed, five by police.
  
• 5/14/1970 Two killed by authorities at mostly-black school of Jackson State College, Miss.
  
• 5/18/1970 Hoover memo about what could be done to destroy Ralph Abernathy's reputation.
  
• 5/29/1970 Pedro Eugenio Arambaru, former president of Argentina, was abducted and murdered by terrorists
  
• 6/5/1970 Nixon meeting with Hoover, heads of CIA, DIA, NSA to develop domestic surveillance program (Huston plan). Hoover disapproves and Nixon later rescinds the plan later in the month.
  
• 6/13/1970 Nixon established the President's Commission on Campus Unrest (Scranton Commission)
  
• 7/27/1970 Portugal: Antonio Salazar, dictator since 1928, dies.
  
• 8/1970 Red Brigades formed in Italy
  
• 8/19/1970 After two years of undeclared war, Egypt, Israel and Jordan accepted a US-proposed cease-fire
  
• 8/29/1970 The Chicano Moratorium: 25,000 Mexican-Americans in largest anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles; police attacked the crowd.
  
• 8/30/1970 Death of Abraham Zapruder from cancer
  
• 8/31/1970 James McCord retired from the CIA
  
• 9/6/1970 three airliners hijacked by Palestinians in Middle East
  
• 9/15/1970 Nixon orders CIA Director Richard Helms to prevent Salvadore Allende's taking office in Chile.
  
• 9/18/1970 War nearly breaks out between Syria and Jordan.
  
• 9/18/1970 Death of Jimi Hendrix.
  
• 10/1970 Environmental Protection Agency created
  
• 10/4/1970 Janis Joplin dies
  
• 10/6/1970 NY mafia figure Salvatore Granello founded murdered
  
• 10/15/1970 Henry Kissinger, Thomas Karamessines, and Alexander Haig meet to discuss supporting a coup in Chile.
  
• 10/22/1970 Chilean General Rene Schneider, supporter of democracy, was killed by another group of plotters the CIA had been collaborating with, led by retired General Roberto Viaux.
  
• 11/1970 Attorney General John Mitchell orders Justice Dept "to block the release of crucial ballistics evidence from the Kennedy assassination on grounds of national security."
  
• 11/1970 Economic recovery begins in US, lasting until 11/1973.
  
• Late 1970 UAW strike against GM
  
• 11/3/1970 modest gains for Democrats in Congressional elections.
  
• 11/9/1970 Charles de Gaulle died of a heart attack
  
• 11/13/1970 Coup in Syria led by Hafiz al-Assad.
  
• 11/27/1970 Pope Paul VI was threatened, but not hurt in the Manila, Philippines airport by Benjamin Mendoza, a Bolivian who was armed with a knife.
  
• 11/30/1970 Memo from Nixon to Kissinger; agrees to keep Helms as head of CIA, but wants to thin out the Agency and have a "housecleaning."
  
• Late 1970 Conclusions of the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography condemned by Nixon
  
• 12/1970 Clean Air Act passed
  
• 12/7/1970 A planned fascist coup in Italy, led by "Black Prince" Junio Valerio Borghese, fizzles out before it starts.
  
• 12/11/1970 Nixon announces appointment of Rep. George H.W. Bush as US representative to the UN.
  
• 12/14/1970 John Connally nominated as Sec. of Treasury.
  
• 12/29/1970 Nixon signed into law Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), setting up workplace standards.