July 1

1848 Countdown to Infamy: American citizen Ranald MacDonald pretends to be shipwrecked to gain access to Japan, which is closed to the outside world. He will spend 10 months in confinement in Nagasaki, where he will become the first teacher of English there. Fourteen samurai will learn English under his tutelage, including one Einosuke Moriyama. When he returns to the US, MacDonald will write to the United States Congress and urge that a treaty be signed with Japan, "if not peaceably, then by force." (Roe, Schodt)
[See: Countdown to Infamy: Timeline to Pearl Harbor.]

1883 Birth: Arthur Borton V.C. at Cheveney, Kent:

Arthur Drummond Borton was educated at Eton and The Royal Military College Sandhurst, before being commissioned into the 60th Rifles with whom he served in the South African War. Retiring from the Army in 1910, he re-joined in 1914 . . . . Appointed Second-in-Command of the 2nd/22nd London Regiment (The Queen's) in June 1916, he served in France and Palestine. At Tel-el-Sheria on 7th November 1917, he led his attacking companies against a strongly held enemy position.

He was decorated with his Victoria Cross and DSO by HM King George V at Buckingham Palace on 23rd February 1918 and later served in the North Russian Campaign of 1919. He was one of the pall bearers at the Burial of the Unknown Warrior on 11th November 1920. His death occurred on 5th January 1933 at Southwold, Suffolk, and his Victoria Cross is in the Regimental museum at Clandon.

His Citation reads: "For most conspicuous bravery and leadership. Under most difficult circumstances in darkness and in unknown country, he deployed his battalion for attack and at dawn led his attacking companies against a strongly held position. When leading waves were checked by a withering machine-gun fire, Lieutenant Colonel Borton showed utter contempt for danger and moved freely up and down his lines under heavy fire. Reorganizing his command, he led his men forward and captured the position. At a later stage of the fight, he led a party of volunteers against a battery of field guns in action at point blank range, capturing the guns and the detachments. His fearless leadership was an inspiring example to the whole brigade".

1898 Spanish-American War: A combined force of about 15,000 American troops, including Teddy Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders." attack 1,270 entrenched Spaniards in dangerous Civil War style frontal assaults—with supporting fire by Gatling guns—at the Battle of El Caney and the Battle of San Juan Hill outside of Santiago. More than 200 U.S. soldiers are killed and close to 1,200 wounded in the fighting. (Trask)

1903 Birth: Amy Johnson, in Hull Yorkshire:

Amy began to learn to fly at the London Aeroplane Club in the winter of 1928-29 and her hobby soon became an all-consuming determination, not simply to make a career in aviation, but to succeed in some project which would demonstrate to the world that women could be as competent as men in a hitherto male dominated field. Her first important achievement, after flying solo, was to qualify as the first British-trained woman ground engineer. For a while she was the only woman G.E. in the world.

Early in 1930, she chose her objective: to fly solo to Australia . . . . At first, her efforts to raise financial support failed, but eventually Lord Wakefield agreed his oil company should help. Amy's father and Wakefield shared the 600 pound purchase price of a used DH Gypsy Moth (G-AAAH) and it was named Jason after the family business trademark. Amy set off alone . . . from Croydon on May 5, 1930, and landed in Darwin on May 24, an epic flight of 11,000 miles. She was the first woman to fly alone to Australia.

In July 1931, she set an England to Japan record in a Puss Moth with Jack Humphreys. In July 1932, she set a record from England to Capetown, solo, in a Puss Moth. In May, 1936, she set a record from England to Capetown, solo, in a Percival Gull, a flight to retrieve her 1932 record. With her husband, Jim Mollison, she also flew in a DH Dragon nonstop from Pendine Sands, South Wales, to the United States in 1933. They also flew nonstop in record time to India in 1934 in a DH Comet in the England to Australia air race. The Mollisons were divorced in 1938.

After her commercial flying ended with the outbreak of World World II in 1939, Amy joined the Air Transport Auxiliary, a pool of experienced pilots who were ineligible for RAF service. Her flying duties consisted of ferrying aircraft from factory airstrips to RAF bases. It was on one of these routine flights on January 5, 1941, that Amy crashed into the Thames estuary and was drowned, a tragic and early end to the life of Britain's most famous woman pilot.


Fromelles Watercolor, 1915, by Hitler

1915 World War I: Various:

List Regiment: Gefreiter Adolf Hitler's 16 Reserve Infantry Regiment continues to occupy a position at Fromelles, on a level field with water channels, willow trees and willow stalks. In the distance towards the enemy lines lies an insignificant wood with barbed wire entanglements. Under the direction of their defense-minded commander, Lieutenant General Gustav Scanzoni von Lichtenfels, the regiment works ceaselessly day and night to further fortify their position at Fromelles while fighting off repeated assaults by the enemy. [For further details, Click here.]

Lusitania: The Warburg Bank sends a telegram to the Imperial Navy Cabinet warning of the mounting anti-German mood in America after the sinking of the Lusitania. (THP)

1916 World War I: Various:

List Regiment: Gefreiter Adolf Hitler endures trench warfare in Flanders (Artois) with 3 Company, 16 Reserve Infantry Regiment. [For further details, Click here.]

The Battle of the Somme: The British infantry, following the artillery barrage on the Somme, are mowed down by German machine guns as they attempt their assault. By nightfall the British have lost about 60,000 men, 19,000 of them dead—the greatest single, 1-day loss in the history of the British army.

Dwight D. Eisenhower marries "his Mamie": On this day in 1916, a 25-year-old Army lieutenant named Dwight D. Eisenhower marries 19-year-old Mamie Geneva Doud at her parents' home in Denver, Colorado. [For further details, Click here.]

1917 World War I: Various:

Kerenski Offensive:Russian Commander-in-Chief Brusilov attacks toward Lemberg with the few troops still capable of combat operations. After a few minor gains, the Russian supply system breaks down, and Russian enthusiasm and discipline quickly disappears as German resistance stiffens.

Commander-in-Chief Alexei Brusilov's Address to the Revolutionary Army regarding the Kerenski Offensive:

Since you could fight bravely and beat the enemy for the old regime, under the threat of being shot, surely you will not now hesitate and doubt as to defending our freedom and exalting our great Revolution. Surely you do not want to justify the shameful assertion of the enemy, that freedom has undone us, that we are not worthy of it, that the Russian Revolutionary army is not a threatening force, but a weak, distracted crowd of people unworthy of freedom.

List Regiment: Gefreiter Adolf Hitler's 16th RIR remains deployed for Phase 1 operations in Flanders, Belgium. [For further details, Click here.]

Reminiscence by Hitler:

There, in October and November, 1914, we had received our baptism of fire. With the love for the fatherland in our hearts and with songs on our lips, our young regiment had marched into battle as to a dance. Valuable blood gave itself up joyfully in the belief that the fatherland's independence and freedom would endure. In July, 1917 we stepped for the second time on that soil that was sacred to us. For under it there slumbered the best comrades, some little more than boys . . . . 

The older soldiers among us, who had been with the regiment from the beginning, were deeply moved as we stood on this sacred spot where we had sworn 'Loyalty and Duty unto Death.' Three years before the regiment had taken this position by storm: now it was called upon to defend it in a grueling struggle. (Payne)

1918 World War I: Various:

US Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels' Official Report on the US Navy During Wartime:

On July 1, 1918, there were 823 naval aviators, approximately 2,052 student officers, and 400 ground officers attached to naval aviation. In addition, there were more than 7,300 trained mechanics, and more than 5,400 mechanics in training. The total enlisted and commissioned personnel at this time was about 30,000. On the day war was declared 197 ships were in commission. Today there are 2,003. In addition to furnishing all these ships with trained officers and men, the duty of supplying crews and officers of the growing merchant marine was undertaken by the navy. There has not been a day when the demand for men for these ships has not been supplied - how fit they were all the world attests - and after manning the merchant ships there has not been a time when provision was not made for the constantly increasing number of ships taken over by the navy. During the year the energy available for new construction was concentrated mainly upon vessels to deal with the submarine menace. Three hundred and fifty-five of the 110-foot wooden submarine chasers were completed during the year.

List Regiment (June 17-27): Gefreiter Adolf Hitler's 16th RIR endures trench warfare at Passy sur Marne. [For further details, Click here.]


1920 Rudolf Hess joins the Nazi party. Hess is said to have failed to persuade Karl Haushofer, an early influence on Hess's life and the leading theorist of Geopolitics, to fall in behind the "tribune" (as he referred to Hitler during this period). When Haushofer was introduced to Hitler, the latter was apparently the more impressed, as Hitler incorporated many of the Professor's theories into his own world view.

1927 Weimar: Joseph Goebbels newspaper Der Angriff (The Attack) is first published in Berlin:

One of the most astonishingly gifted propagandists of modern times, he stood head and shoulders above the bizarre mediocrity of the rest of the regime's top-ranking functionaries. He was one of the few real powers in the movement's leadership, not merely a figurehead drawn into the light of history 'in the wake of the victorious cause'. These two, Hitler and Goebbels, complemented each other in an almost unique manner. For Hitler's sombre, complex-determined visions, his initiative, ecstatic relationship with the masses, Goebbels found the techniques of persuasion, the rationalizations, the slogans, myths and images. It was from Goebbels that der Fuehrer, the term by which Hitler appeared as redeemer, demiurge and blessed saviour, received its visionary content. He astutely turned the initially irresolute Adolf Hitler into der Fuehrer and set him on the pillar of religious veneration. With strenuous Byzantinism, consciously mingling the sacred with the profane, he spread around Hitler that messianic aura which so appealed to the emotions of a deeply shaken nation. The cult of the Fuhrer, whose true creator and organizer he was, not only exploited the need for faith and security, as well as the German's latent urge to self-abandonment in the face of a world stripped of its gods, but also gave the rising NSDAP the solid backbone of a hierarchical structure. The evidence of this cult is overwhelming. In Der Angriff, the paper he founded as Gauleiter of Berlin, Goebbels wrote, with a significant imitation [in the original] of biblical cadences and alliterations.

1932 USA: The Democrats nominate FDR for president.

1933 Various:

Church and Reich: Hitler telephones Franz von Papen in Rome with instructions. He authorizes Papen to tell Pacelli that after the conclusion of the Concordat he "would arrange for a thorough and full pacification between the Catholic portion of the people and the Reich government," and that he "would be willing to put a finish to the story of past political developments." (THP)

Holocaust: Jewish student organizations are abolished in Germany. A conference of German housewives in Berlin excludes all Jewish women from its membership.

Engelbert Dollfuss—Chancellor of Austria—threatens to implement strong measures against Austrian Nazis if they don't cease their anti-Jewish campaign.
[See: Austria: The Other Germany.]

Francois Coty—perfumery's first abstract genius and publisher of a chain of French newspapers—is found guilty by a French court for having committed libel against a number of Jewish war veteran organizations. (Edelheit) Coty was something of a recluse, disliking crowds of any kind, and hiding behind his public image. The company he founded in 1904 is now Coty, Inc., based in New York City. The movement he founded drew on the previous Coty-backed groups Faisceau and Croix-de-Feu. Solidarite Francaise attempted to become the equivalent of the Italian National Fascist Party, with Coty as France's Benito Mussolini (he styled himself the French Duce). Never anything but marginal.

1934 Night of the Long Knives: Defense Minister General Werner von Blomberg thanks Hitler in the name of the Wehrmacht for curbing Ernst Roehm and the SA. (See: June 30, and July 2, 1934.)

1935 Various:

Church and Reich: The Gestapo arrests Protestant pastor, Martin Niemoeller. Note: Niemoeller had been a U-boat captain during WWI before becoming a pastor. Prior to Hitler's taking power, Niemoeller supported him, but soon abandoned the Nazis. In 1933 he organized the Pastors Emergency League to protect Lutheran pastors from the police, and in 1934, he was one of the leading organizers at the Barmen Synod, which produced the theological basis for the Confessing Church. Despite its persecution, it became an enduring symbol of German resistance to Hitler.

Volkishness: Heinrich 'New Age' Himmler officially founds the Society for Research into the Spiritual Roots of Germany's Ancestral Heritage (Ahnenerbe) in Berlin. He soon turns the Ahnenerbe into an official organization attached to the SS. (Pauwels)

Its name came from a rather obscure German word, Ahnenerbe (pronounced AH-nen-AIR-buh), meaning "something inherited from the forefathers." The official mission of the Ahnenerbe was to unearth new evidence of the accomplishments and deeds of Germanic ancestors "using exact scientific methods." In reality, the Ahnenerbe was in the business of mythmaking. Its prominent researchers devoted themselves to distorting the truth and churning out carefully tailored evidence to support the ideas of Adolf Hitler, who believed that only the Aryans—a fictional "Nordic" race of tall, flaxen-haired men and women from northern Europe—possessed the genius needed to create civilization. Most modern Germans, he claimed, were descended from these ancient Aryans. But scholars had failed to uncover any proof of a such a master race.

1940 World War II: Various:

USA: Roosevelt signs another Navy bill providing $550 million dollars to build ships and other projects.

War at Sea: In the first 6 months of the year, German U-boats have sunk 900,000 tons of Allied shipping.

Channel Islands: German troops complete the occupation of the Channel Islands, the only British territory ever captured by Germany during WWII.

Vichy France: The French government of Marshal Petain moves from Bordeaux to Vichy.

Victory: Hitler tells Italian Ambassador Dino Alfieri that he "could not conceive of anyone in England still seriously believing in victory." Hitler was still waiting for word that the British were willing to settle. (THP)
[See: What Were Adolf Hitler's Major Blunders?]

1941 World War II: Various:

Canadian forces: The first Canadian armored regiments arrive in Britain.

Barbarossa: Armored forces of Panzergruppe 4 (Hoepner) of Heeresgruppe Nord (von Leeb) cross the Dvina and capture Riga, while units of Panzergruppe 2 (Guderian) of Heeresgruppe Mitte (von Bock) reach the Beresina near Borisov near Minsk.

Goebbels writes in his diary: "Haushofer and his son have been forced out of public life. They are both responsible for peddling mystic rubbish and have the Hess affair (Hess' flight to England) on their consciences." (THP)

1942 World War II: Various:

Stalin to FDR:

I should like to tell you that I fully concur with you as to the advisability of using the Alaska-Siberia route for US aircraft deliveries to the Western Front. The Soviet Government has, therefore, issued instructions for completing at the earliest possible date the preparations now under way in Siberia to receive aircraft, that is, for adapting the existing airfields and providing them with additional facilities. As to whose pilots should fly the aircraft from Alaska, I think the task can be entrusted, as the State Department once suggested, to Soviet pilots who could travel to Nome or some other suitable place at the appointed time. An appropriate group of those pilots could be instructed to carry out the survey flight proposed by you. To fully ensure reception of the aircraft we should like to know the number of planes which the USA is allocating for dispatch to the Western Front by that route.

North Africa: The First Battle of El Alamein begins:

On this day, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is brought to a standstill in the battle for control of North Africa:

In June, the British had succeeded in driving Rommel into a defensive position in Libya. But Rommel repelled repeated air and tank attacks, delivering heavy losses to the armored strength of the British, and finally, using his panzer divisions, managed to force a British retreat-a retreat so rapid that a huge quantity of supplies was left behind. In fact, Rommel managed to push the British into Egypt using mostly captured vehicles.

Rommel's Afrika Korps was now in Egypt, in El Alamein, only 60 miles west of the British naval base in Alexandria. The Axis powers smelled blood. The Italian troops that had preceded Rommel's German forces in North Africa, only to be beaten back by the British, then saved from complete defeat by the arrival of Rommel, were now back on the winning side, their dwindled numbers having fought alongside the Afrika Korps. Naturally, Benito Mussolini saw this as his opportunity to partake of the victors' spoils. And Hitler anticipated adding Egypt to his empire.

But the Allies were not finished. Reinforced by American supplies, and reorganized and reinvigorated by British General Claude Auchinleck, British, Indian, South African, and New Zealand troops battled Rommel, and his by now exhausted men, to a standstill in Egypt. Auchinleck denied the Axis Egypt. Rommel was back on the defensive-a definite turning point in the war in North Africa.
[See: The Mediterranean Strategy.]

Battle of Sevastopol: German troops capture Sevastopol, Crimea, in the Soviet Union after an eight-month siege.

1943 World War II: Antonescu—in Rome—again begs Mussolini to begin immediate negotiations with the Allies.

1944 World War II: Various:

From the minutes of a meeting between Doenitz and Hitler:

Regarding the general strike in Copenhagen, the Fuehrer says that the only weapon to deal with terror is terror. Court-martial proceedings create martyrs. History shows that the names of such men are on everybody's lips, whereas there is silence with regard to the many thousands who have lost their lives in similar circumstances without court-martial proceedings.

Churchill to Stalin:

The battle is hot in Normandy. The June weather has been tiresome. Not only did we have a gale on the beaches worse than any in the summertime records of many years, but there has been a great deal of cloud. This denies us the full use of our overwhelming air superiority, and also helps the flying bombs to get through to London. However, I hope that July will show an improvement. Meanwhile the hard fighting goes in our favor, and although eight Panzer divisions are in action against the British sector we still have a good majority of tanks. We have well over three-quarters of a million British and Americans ashore, half and half. The enemy is burning and bleeding on every front at once, and I agree with you that this must go on to the end.

France: Since D-Day, the Allies have landed 920,000 troops, 177,000 vehicles and 600,000 tons of supplies and equipment. In 24 days of fighting, they have lost 62,000 men killed, wounded and missing. EasternFront: Troops of the 3rd Belorussian Front (Chernyakovsky) recapture Borisov.

1944 July 1-22 The Bretton Woods Conference—officially called the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference—meets at Bretton Woods, N.H. It is attended by delegates from 44 states and nations. This conference provides the foundations for the postwar international monetary system and establishes both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

1945 USA: New York establishes the New York State Commission Against Discrimination to prevent discrimination in employment because of race, creed or natural origin; the first such agency in the US.

1946 Nuremberg Tribunal: Katyn: On day 168 of deliberations, the Soviets continue their disgraceful attempt to pin the massacre on the Germans. Even though the UK, US, and French judges realize that it was the USSR who committed the atrocity, they are nonetheless compelled by their Soviet partner to be allowed to present evidence. The Tribunal has limited the Soviets, and the defense, to just three witnesses, and a maximum three days to make their case. All things considered, this is the most shameful moment of the Trial. On this day, the Defense calls their first witness, German Colonel Friedrich Ahrens.

Flottenrichter Otto Kranzbuhler (Counsel for Defendant Doenitz, and one of the more talented members of the Defense): Colonel, did you yourself ever discuss the events of 1940 with any of the local inhabitants?

Colonel Ahrens: Yes. At the beginning of 1943 a Russian married couple were living near my regimental headquarters; they lived 800 meters away and they were beekeepers. I, too, kept bees, and I came into close contact with this married couple. When the exhumations had been completed, approximately in May 1943, I told them that, after all, they ought to know when these shootings had taken place, since they were living in close proximity to the graves. Thereupon, these people told me it had occurred in the spring of 1940, and that at the Gnesdovo station more than 200 Poles in uniform had arrived in railway trucks of 50 tons each and were then taken to the woods in lorries. They had heard lots of shots and screams, too.

Flottenrichter Otto Kranzbuhler: Was the wood off limits to the local inhabitants at the time?

Colonel Ahrens: We have . . .

The President: That is a leading question. I do not think you should ask leading questions.

Flottenrichter Otto Kranzbuhler: Do you know whether the local inhabitants could enter the woods at the time?

Colonel Ahrens: There was a fence around the wood and according to the statements of the local inhabitants, civilians could not enter it during the time the Russians were there. The remains of the fence were still visible when I was there, and this fence is indicated on my sketch and is marked with a black line.

Flottenrichter Otto Kranzbuhler: When you moved into Dnieper Castle did you make inquiries as to who the former owners were?

Colonel Ahrens: Yes, I did make inquiries because I was interested. The house was built in a rather peculiar way. It had a cinema installation and its own rifle range and of course that interested me; but I failed to ascertain anything definite during the whole time I was there.

Flottenrichter Otto Kranzbuhler: Apart from mass graves in the neighborhood of the castle, were there any other graves found?

Colonel Ahrens: I have indicated by a few dots on my sketch, that in the vicinity of the castle there were found a number of other small graves which contained decayed bodies; that is to say, skeletons which had disintegrated. These graves contained perhaps six, eight, or a few more male and female skeletons. Even I, a layman, could recognize that very clearly, because most of them had rubber shoes on which were in good condition, and there were also remains of handbags.

Flottenrichter Otto Kranzbuhler: How long had these skeletons been in the ground?

Colonel Ahrens: That I cannot tell you. I know only that they were decayed and had disintegrated. The bones were preserved, but the skeleton structure was no longer intact.

Flottenrichter Otto Kranzbuhler: Thank you, that is all.

Dr. Hans Laternser (Counsel for General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces): Mr. President . . .

The President: Dr. Laternser, you know the Tribunal's ruling.

Dr. Laternser: Yes, Sir.

The President: Well, you have no right to ask any questions of the witness here.

Dr. Laternser: Mr. President, I just wanted to ask you, in this unusual case, to allow me to put questions...

The President: I said to you that you know the Tribunal's ruling and the Tribunal will not hear you. We have already ruled upon this once or twice in consequence of your objections and the Tribunal will not hear you.

Dr. Laternser: Mr. President, the Katyn case is one of the most serious accusations raised against the group.

The President: The Tribunal is perfectly well aware of the nature of the allegations about Katyn and the Tribunal does not propose to make any exceptional rule in that case and it therefore will not hear you and you will kindly sit down.

Dr. Laternser: Mr. President, I wish to state that on account of this ruling I feel myself unduly handicapped in my defense.

The President: As Dr. Laternser knows perfectly well, he is entitled to apply to the Commission to call any witness who is called here, if his evidence bears upon the case of the particular organizations for which Dr. Laternser appears. I do not want to hear anything further.

Dr. Laternser: Mr. President, the channel you point out to me is of no practical importance. I cannot have every witness who appears here called by the Commission.

The President: Dr. Siemers, you are appearing for the Defendant Doenitz, or is it Raeder?

Dr. Siemers: Defendant Raeder.

The President: Well, unless the questions you are going to ask particularly refer to the case of the Defendant Raeder, the Tribunal is not prepared to hear any further examination. The matter has been generally covered by Dr. Stahmer and also by Dr. Kranzbuhler. Therefore, unless the questions which you want to ask have some particular reference to the case of Raeder, the Tribunal will not hear you.

Dr. Siemers: Mr. President, I had merely assumed that there were two reasons on the strength of which I could put a few questions: First, because the Tribunal itself has stated that within the framework of the conspiracy all defendants had been participants; and second, that according to the statements by the Prosecution Grossadmiral Raeder, too, is considered a member of the alleged criminal organizations, the General Staff and the OKW. It was for that reason I wanted to ask one or two supplementary questions.

The President: Dr. Siemers, if there were any allegations that in any way bore on the case against Defendant Raeder, the Tribunal would of course allow you to ask questions; but there is no allegation which in any way connects the Defendant Raeder with the allegations about the Katyn woods.

Dr. Siemers: I am grateful to the Tribunal for that statement, Mr. President.

Dr. Laternser: Mr. President, may I be allowed to ask something else? May I have the question put to the Prosecution, who is to be made responsible for the Katyn case?

The President: I do not propose to answer questions of that sort. The Prosecution may now cross-examine if they want to. [For the full text of today's proceedings, Click here.]

1947 "Mr. X" article appears:

State Department official George Kennan, using the pseudonym "Mr. X," publishes an article entitled "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" in the July edition of Foreign Affairs. The article focused on Kennan's call for a policy of containment toward the Soviet Union and established the foundation for much of America's early Cold War foreign policy.

In February 1946, Kennan, then serving as the U.S. chargé d'affaires in Moscow, wrote his famous "long telegram" to the Department of State. In the missive, he condemned the communist leadership of the Soviet Union and called on the United States to forcefully resist Russian expansion. Encouraged by friends and colleagues, Kennan refined the telegram into an article, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," and secured its publication in the July edition of Foreign Affairs. Kennan signed the article "Mr. X" to avoid any charge that he was presenting official U.S. government policy, but nearly everyone in the Department of State and White House recognized the piece as Kennan's work. In the article, Kennan explained that the Soviet Union's leaders were determined to spread the communist doctrine around the world, but were also extremely patient and pragmatic in pursuing such expansion.

In the "face of superior force," Kennan said, the Russians would retreat and wait for a more propitious moment. The West, however, should not be lulled into complacency by temporary Soviet setbacks. Soviet foreign policy, Kennan claimed, "is a fluid stream which moves constantly, wherever it is permitted to move, toward a given goal." In terms of U.S. foreign policy, Kennan's advice was clear: "The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."

Kennan's article created a sensation in the United States, and the term "containment" instantly entered the Cold War lexicon. The administration of President Harry S. Truman embraced Kennan's philosophy, and in the next few years attempted to "contain" Soviet expansion through a variety of programs, including the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. Kennan's star rose quickly in the Department of State and in 1952 he was named U.S. ambassador to Russia. By the 1960s, with the United States hopelessly mired in the Vietnam War, Kennan began to question some of his own basic assumptions in the "Mr. X" article and became a vocal critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In particular, he criticized U.S. policymakers during the 1950s and 1960s for putting too much emphasis on the military containment of the Soviet Union, rather than on political and economic programs.

1947 Operation Paperclip: Congressman John D. Dingell, Democrat from Detroit, Michigan, denounces Operation Paperclip on the floor of the House of Representatives:

I have never thought that we were so poor mentally in this country, that we have to go and import those Nazi killers to help us prepare for the defense of our country. A German is a Nazi, and a Nazi is a German. The terms are synonymous.
Note: Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for Cold War employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II.

1947 Operation Paperclip: A story appears in the El Paso Times: German Scientists in El Paso Blasted. The story relates the growing opposition to the presence of the Operation Paperclip scientists—without naming any names—in the US. Stating the Army's position, the article noted that the Nazi scientists had now been employed by the Army for over a year and had proved to be "technically and morally to the satisfaction of the War Department" and thus "wider avenues of research have been opened to them." However, the article continues:

The British [press] warned that some of the scientists had perfected rockets which had killed British women and children, and that some had committed war crimes more serious than those for which other Nazis had to hang. For months, the New York Times, in articles, had been warning Americans that, among the scientists at El Paso, were some very active Nazi party members.
[See: Wunderwaffen: Hitler's Deception and the History of Rocketry.]


1960 Space: The Development Operations Division of ABMA at Redstone becomes the Marshall Space Flight Center, named after Eisenhower's World War II commander, George C Marshall. The entire facility is placed under the direction of Werner von Braun, Hitler's former chief rocket scientist. (Piszkiewicz)

1968 The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons—also referred to as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT):

[The treaty]obligates the five acknowledged nuclear-weapon states (the United States, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, France, and China) not to transfer nuclear weapons, other nuclear explosive devices, or their technology to any non-nuclear-weapon state. Nuclear weapon States Parties are also obligated, under Article VI, to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control." Non-nuclear-weapon States Parties undertake not to acquire or produce nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices. They are required also to accept safeguards to detect diversions of nuclear materials from peaceful activities, such as power generation, to the production of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. This must be done in accordance with an individual safeguards agreement, concluded between each non-nuclear-weapon State Party and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Under these agreements, all nuclear materials in peaceful civil facilities under the jurisdiction of the state must be declared to the IAEA, whose inspectors have routine access to the facilities for periodic monitoring and inspections. If information from routine inspections is not sufficient to fulfill its responsibilities, the IAEA may consult with the state regarding special inspections within or outside declared facilities.

1973 Von Braun: One day after his retirement from NASA, Werner von Braun becomes the vice president for engineering and development at Fairchild Industries in Germantown, Maryland.

1990 Germany:The German Democratic Republic accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency and East Germans line up to obtain West German deutsche marks as a state treaty unifying the monetary and economic systems of the two Germanys goes into effect.

1991 Warsaw Pact: The last vestige of the Cold War-era Soviet Bloc is formally disbanded as East European leaders meet in Prague and announce the end of the Warsaw Pact.

1997 Hong Kong returned to China:

At midnight . . . Hong Kong reverts back to Chinese rule in a ceremony attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Charles, Prince of Wales, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. A few thousand Hong Kongers protested the turnover, which was otherwise celebratory and peaceful.

In 1839, Britain invaded China to crush opposition to its interference in the country's economic, social, and political affairs. One of Britain's first acts of the war was to occupy Hong Kong, a sparsely inhabited island off the coast of southeast China. In 1841, China ceded the island to the British with the signing of the Convention of Chuenpi, and in 1842 the Treaty of Nanking was signed, formally ending the First Opium War.

Britain's new colony flourished as an East-West trading center and as the commercial gateway and distribution center for southern China. In 1898, Britain was granted an additional 99 years of rule over Hong Kong under the Second Convention of Peking. In September 1984, after years of negotiations, the British and the Chinese signed a formal agreement approving the 1997 turnover of the island in exchange for a Chinese pledge to preserve Hong Kong's capitalist system. . . . . The chief executive under the new Hong Kong government, Tung Chee Hwa, formulated a policy based on the concept of "one country, two systems," thus preserving Hong Kong's role as a principal capitalist center in Asia.

2002 The Rome Statute entered into force—establishing the International Criminal Court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression.

2010 Russian spy ring to appear in US court:

Nine people charged in a Russian spy case are to appear in court today, as a US prosecutor said the evidence against them was growing stronger by the day . . . . Hearings were set for federal courts in New York, Boston and Alexandria, Va., for all but one of the 10 people arrested over the weekend by federal authorities in the United States.

At a court hearing on Monday, Michael Farbiarz, the assistant US attorney, said that evidence against one of the suspects, Anna Chapman, was steadily growing stronger. Miss Chapman, a striking 28-year-old redhead who has been branded a femme fatale faces a potential penalty of five years in prison if convicted. Most of the others are charged with crimes that carry penalties of up to 25 years.

Mr Farbiarz said he was seeking detention without bail for all the New York defendants, saying the investigation was steadily gaining evidence as search warrants are executed across the country. Mr Farbiarz made it clear that he believed his arguments to keep Miss Chapman jailed before trial applied to the other defendants as well. Although charges were outlined against the defendants in two documents, the prosecutor said he expected them to be combined into one document outlining a conspiracy that stretched back to the 1990s.

"The evidence against the conspirators . . . is truly, truly overwhelming," he told Judge Ronald L. Ellis. "There is evidence, video and audio surveillance, of meetings between Russian government officials and some of the co-conspirators that are sitting at this table." He said the defendants face "extraordinary evidence, and it is the kind of evidence that any defendant looking at it has got to look at it and say, 'I'm going to be convicted here.'"

Edited by Levi Bookin (Copy editor)
levi.bookin@gmail.com









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