[CIA impunity in 1988. U.S. imperialisms baby steps in 1898. Free
speech for Nazis in 1978. U.S. responsibility for Vietnam War in 1971.
Smallpox-infected presents in 1763. Voting wrongs, not rights, in
2013. Haymarket prisoners pardoned in 1893.]
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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, JUNE 20 . . .  
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_ CIA impunity in 1988. U.S. imperialism's baby steps in 1898. Free
speech for Nazis in 1978. U.S. responsibility for Vietnam War in 1971.
Smallpox-infected presents in 1763. Voting wrongs, not rights, in
2013. Haymarket prisoners pardoned in 1893. _

"If you like this report, I have a bridge to sell you.",

 

_JUNE 20, 1988 (35 YEARS AGO)._ In a classic example of the U.S.
government's practice of making a show of obeying the law, but then
refusing to actually do so, the chief of the CIA's Costa Rica station,
Joseph Fernandez, is indicted for his role in the illegal and secret
plot to provide weapons to Nicaraguan Contras. The Contras were
attempting to overthrow the revolutionary government of Nicaragua. The
U.S. Congress had passed a law forbidding any U.S. government
assistance to the Contras, but the Reagan administration was secretly
providing the aid anyway in what later became known as the Iran-Contra
scandal. Fernandez, the CIA station chief, was implicated in the
pro-Contra conspiracy, but when he was questioned, he lied and
destroyed evidence. He was indicted on four felony counts of
obstruction and false statements. His indictment is the first time
ever a CIA station chief had been charged with crimes committed in the
course of his official duties. As the pre-trial investigation of the
case showed, Fernandez was obviously guilty as charged -- he followed
orders and lied repeatedly government investigators to conceal the
Reagan administration's illegal activities and keep the CIA's role in
the Iran-Contra scandal under wraps. But despite an open-and-shut
case, Fernandez never came to trial. The U.S. Attorney General took
the unprecedented step of intervening in the case by refusing to
declassify "secrets" about the CIA's illegal activities, with the
result that the judge threw the indictment out in December 1989. (Not
long after that, Fernandez set up a consulting firm, Guardian
Technologies International, with fellow Iran-Contra conspirator Oliver
North for a partner.)
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_JUNE 21, 1898 (125 YEARS AGO)._ At the beginning of the
Spanish-American War, the U. S. Navy attacks the Spanish garrison on
Guam, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. No one on Guam was aware
that the U.S. and Spain were at war, so the Spanish offered no
resistance. With the Navy in control, Guam becomes the very first U.S.
overseas territory, and the U.S. becomes the world's newest imperial
regime. Within five years, the U.S. had acquired or was in the process
of acquiring Samoa, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines.
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_JUNE 22, 1978 (45 YEARS AGO)._ The American Civil Liberties Union
wins a major legal case defending the rights protected by the First
Amendment, but the victory is controversial and is even condemned by
some progressives. Thousands of ACLU members quit the organization in
protest. The case is controversial because the ACLU was defending the
right of the Nazi Party of America to demonstrate in a town with a
majority Jewish population including hundreds of Holocaust survivors.
The Nazis planned to hold banners of their political slogans outside
the Skokie, Illinois, town hall, while wearing Nazi uniforms complete
with swastikas. Before the demonstration, the Skokie government asked
a court to issue an injunction that would forbid the demonstration.
The Nazis asked the ACLU to represent them in the hearing. After
months of court proceedings the courts agreed that the Nazis had a
First Amendment right to hold a peaceful demonstration. At the last
minute, the demonstration was moved to downtown Chicago at the Nazis'
request. It went off peacefully and without trouble.
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_JUNE 23, 1971. _Daniel Ellsberg, the man who made the Pentagon Papers
public, turns himself in for arrest and is released without bail. That
evening, CBS News airs a 30-minute interview with Ellsberg, during
which he says, "Americans now bear major responsibility, as I read
this history, for every death in combat in Indochina in the last 25
years, and that's one million to two million people." The interview
receives wide publicity, including a page-one New York Times story
over this headline: "Ellsberg, on TV, Blames U.S. for 25 Years of
War." The transcript of the Ellsberg interview is here:
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_JUNE 24, 1763 (270 YEARS AGO)._ The British Army tries to start a
smallpox epidemic among unfriendly Native Americans in western
Pennsylvania. The British decision to use biological warfare comes
about after the British victory over the French in what is called the
French and Indian War. While the war was going on, the British induced
the region's Native Americans to abandon their alliance with the
French in exchange for a British promise to give the Native Americans
control of their territory if the French were defeated. When the
British broke their promise and refused to leave, the outraged Native
Americans besieged the British stronghold at Fort Pitt, where
Pittsburg is now located. They attempted repeatedly to persuade the
British to abandon the fort. At a negotiating session on June 24,
1763, the fort's commander gave the Native Americans gifts of
friendship, some of which were meant to be deadly. "We gave them two
blankets and a handkechief out of the [fort's] Small Pox Hospital. I
hope it will have the desired effect," the commander wrote in his
journal.
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_JUNE 25, 2013 (10 YEARS AGO). _In an outrageous and logic-chopping
5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declares that part of the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional. To reach that decision, the
court had to reverse the decisions of two lower courts in the same
case. In essence, the Supreme Court decided the law was
unconstitutional because it was based on 40-year-old facts, ignoring
the truth that there is nothing intrinsically false about an old fact.
The bipartisan, independent, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights noted
that in the five years following the decision, at least 23 states had
reduced access to the ballot box by closing polling places, reducing
early voting, purging voter rolls and imposing new voter
identification laws. The commission chair said people "continue to
suffer significant and profoundly unequal, limitations on their
ability to vote ... That stark reality denigrates our democracy and
diminishes our ideals. This level of ongoing discrimination confirms
what was true before 1965, when the Voting Rights Act became law and
has remained true since 1965: Americans need strong and effective
federal protections to guarantee that ours is a real democracy."
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_JUNE 26, 1893 (130 YEARS AGO). _Illinois Governor John Altgeld
pardons three men, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe and Michael Schwab, who
had been convicted in 1886 for the Haymarket bombing in Chicago. At
the same time, Altgeld releases a detailed, 17,000-word explanation
for his decision, calling the pardoned men victims of "hysteria,
packed juries, and a biased judge" and noting that the state "has
never discovered who it was that threw the bomb which killed the
policeman, and the evidence does not show any connection whatsoever
between the defendants and the man who threw it." The three are
immediately released from prison.
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* Spanish-American War
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* Nineteenth Century U.S. history
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* Guam
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* U.S. imperialism
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* Nicaragua
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* American Civil Liberties Union
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* Free Speech
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* Skokie
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* Daniel Ellsberg
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* Pentagon Papers
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* Vietnam War
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* anti-war
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* Native Americans
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* Voting Rights Act
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* voter supression
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* Haymarket massacre
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* pardons
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