1957

The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections. The problem is the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a member of any coalition government. In the late 50s the CIA even creates an “Armee Clandestine” of Asian mercanaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA’s army suffers numerous defeats, the US starts bombing, dropping more bombs on Laos than all the US bombs dropped in WW2. A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves.

Dates and that

January 1957 – USSR proposed permanent division of Vietnam into North and South, with the two nations admitted separately to the UN. The US rejects this proposal, unwilling to recognise communist North Vietnam.

10th / 11th January 1957 – King is named chairman of the Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and non-violent integration. Later known as Southern Christian Leadership conference SCLC. Southern black ministers shared strategies in fight against segregation.

Massu commanded the groupe parachutiste d'intervention and from 1956 the 10e Division parachutiste. (Grando and Valynseele). France sent Massu and his division to Algeria in response to a wave of armed attacks and terrorist bombings coordinated by Algerian FLN. (Codevilla and Seabury). Massu ultimately won the Battle of Algiers in 1957, during which French forces were able to identify and arrest the leadership of the FLN in Algiers through the successful application of coercive methods of interrogation and outright torture on members of subordinate cells. Wikipedia

General Jacques Massu and his torturers of the elite 10th paratroop division set out to exterminate the Algrian independence movement, the FLN, and failed.

“Over a million Algerians were killed during the war, many of them summararily executed, or first tortured then butchered to death at the height of Massu’s terror.”

Elridge Cleaver, the American Black Panther, found meagre refuge in Algiers.

Albert Camus – “enlightened spokesman” ; Frantz Fanon – “physician turned guerrilla tactician” – “watched of the earth” -check

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Algiers_(1957)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Massu

18th February, King appeared on the cover of Time Magazine.

6th March Ghana independence. King attends celebrations in west Africa.

There’s been problems and criticisms of the program.

On 13 March 1957, policies associated with NSC Action 1290d were redesignated as the Overseas Internal Security Programme (OISP). While the newly named policy maintained the previous mandate of developing the capabilities of security forces and agencies to counter internal communist subversion, policy makers acknowledged that attempts to eliminate all possible economic, social, and political causes of subversion were beyond the programme's capabilities. 69 Still, they believed that a focused OISP policy, properly co-ordinated and run in conjunction with appropriate technical, political, and economic actions could form an 'internal security system' that would ensure a significant measure of stability to the developing world. OIS programmes were envisioned as a 'major element of US foreign operations', forming an integral part of all operational plans for underdeveloped nations. Their purpose to act as a 'vaccine' against communist subversion, thereby "allowing for orderly progress and development. 70 – www.colombiawar.org  (references from text of original source)

1957 was the last full year in which [Eisenhower] could intitiate OISP policy in the other American republics without substantial legislative restrictions.

US lapsed back into recession which lasted 1957 to 1958 – 9 months.

Ike’s travels – designed to keep him out of the way – March 20th – 24th to Bermuda with MacMillan.

May 8th to 18th, Diem pays a state visit to Washington where Eisenhower labels him the “miracle man” of Asia and reaffirms US commitment.

Diem’s government spends little on schools, medicine, or other social services needed in the countryside. Communist guerrillas and propagandists are able to capitalise on this by making promises of land reform and better standard of living for the peasants.

17th May “Give us the ballot” – King.

13th June – King and ralph D Abernathy meet with V-P Richard M Nixon to issue statement.

July – President Castilo Armas was assassinated in Guatemala.

October VM guerrillas begin a widespread campaign of terror in South Vietnam including bombings and assassinations. By year’s end, over 400 South Vietnamese officials are killed.

France (Paris) for meeting of NATO heads December 14th – 19th, 1957.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Robert B Anderson replaced George Humphrey as Sec of Treasury. Neil H  McElroy replaced Wilson as Sec of Defence.

RFK case against Teamsters leader Dave Beck – larceny and tax evasion in 1957. He was pardoned by Ford in 1975.

Bermuda meeting – March 1957? FM Bernard Montgomery? Visited the US in 56/57 – NATO. NATO heads of government, December 16 – 18, Paris.

MAFIA

The shadowy organised crime syndicates were slowly becoming known to the authorities. A mob summit was discovered at Apalachin. J Edgar Hoover was embarrassed. The mob’s profits were ranking alongside those of IBM and GMC.

The Kingsley report revealed 10% of the population were predominately homosexual.

Sukarno attacked the new federation of Malaysia which had emerged in 1957 – British intervention.

•Kerouac’s “On the Road” appeared.

Movie – “Jailhouse Rock”

The “Biggest Show of Stars for ’57” tour with Buddy Holly, Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, etc.

Charlie Chaplin’s penultimate movie “A King in New York”, filmed in England, set in America. Chaplin now in exile since the late 40s. The film features McCarthyite investigations – not funny.

13th of January the first Frisbee produced by the Wham O Company.

Nat King Cole tv show failed after one year as racist corporations refused to sponsor this programme.

Eugene O’Neill playwright – “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”

Movie “The Girl Can’t Help It” influenced Rock n roll, especially in England – tommy steel had emerged as a rnr star and he quickly moved off into nmore lucrative ballads market. Cliff Richard and the drifters -  in late 58 drifters changed name to the shadows to back cliff.

Britian was not selling music in America or even in continental Europe. Britain exported family cars, fast unreliable motorbikes, radios, steel, coal, occasional films.

Disneyland, Barbie Dolls, Drive-in Movies.

Early malls – Sharpstraum Mall and Gulfgate Mall – Meyerland Plaza in Houston.

Diary of Anne frank – play in 1956.

James Dean – “Rebel Without a Cause” Rock n Roll cinema.

Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.

Hula-hoops; hopalong Cassidy guns; Davy Crockett coon skin hats, silly putty.

Olympics – where?

The Missile Gap

Percieved Soviet superiority in ICBMs due to exaggerated estimates by the GAITHER COMMITTEE in 1957 and USAF in early 60s & words “intelligence gap” were bandied about. WWW.Coldwar.org

Space

Sputnik K-1 on 4th October – the world’s first  - the size of a basketball and weighed about 183lb. www.hightechscience.org/models_of_spacecraft.htm

The American public was not particularly bothered by this event even though Washington policy-makers and media “issue-makers” assured that they were. People in media/ politics with an axe to grind were able to use the event to forward their beliefs/claims. Accusations made at administration and military establishment “we must work harder” – used for propaganda benefit. Only 17% of US population knew what an earth satellite was 6 months prior to Sputnik. Public concern was not great. “Americans felt we had lost the ball on our own 40 yard line but would still win the game.”

Sputnik II was launched on November 3rd. There was a dog on board, named Laika, who became earth’s first space traveller.

American response

The US Navy had commenced feasibility studies of global command and control of the US fleet via Earth Satellites back in 1946. Naval Research Laboratory and Office of Naval Research’s Viking rockets set altitude records – including a flight in May 1949 which reached 51.5 miles.

In 1955 the first US satellite – Navy’s Vanguard was selected. It led to the failure dubbed by some as “Flopnik” or “Kaputnik”. Ike had to green-light the alternative supplied by the Army, Exlorer, headed by Nazi Scientist Dr Wernher von Braun.

A key event took place in 1959, when Wernher von Braun submitted his final Project Horizon plans to the US Army. The overall goal of Horizon was to place man on the moon, a mission that would soon be taken over by the rapidly-forming NASA. Although concentrating on the moon missions, von Braun also detailed an orbiting laboratory built out of a Horizon upper stage. This basic concept of re-using existing boosters would lead directly to a number of follow-on designs, and eventually the Skylab that actually flew. Wikipedia

UFO Flap

On the 2nd and 3rd of November small cotton town of Levelland Texas, police duty officer AJ Fowler – town was ‘besieged’ – intense spate of close encounters caused huge volume of phone calls – cars and trucks stopped – egg shaped balls of light – The Air Force investigated and blamed a storm. According to Sherif Weir Clem and Dr James McDonald, there was no storm.

White sands New Mexico – were in 1945 the worlds first nuclear bomb was exploded 200 miles west Levelland to military patrol officers – ball of fire was seen to land in the desert.

In December the first US satellite exploded a few feet from take off.

11th October 1958 “a group of crewcut engineers waited tensely in a blockhouse at Cape Canaveral for news of Pioneer I – the first Moon probe, intended to orbit the Moon and photograph the surface. It was an ambitious aim for a nation which had orbited its first satellite only 26 weeks before – too ambitious, as it turned out. Pioneer’s Thor-Able launch rocket failed to provide sufficient boost, and the probe fell back to earth.” It reached 110,000 km (68,000 miles), 1/3 of the way to the Moon.”

Pioneer II and III were both victims of the same problem. Pioneer IV broke away from the Earth’s gravity but missed the Moon completely – by 37,000 miles (60,000 km) and entered orbit around the Sun.

New OISP surveys conducted El Salvador and Peru in Costa Rica – suspended due to sensitive political situation. “serious questions” over Honduras.

Training of eduadorian security officers in the ‘detection of illicit narcotics traffic’ began

Events throughout 1958 proved to be the low point of the administrations Latin American policies.

November - William P Rogers replaced Attorney General Brownwell ;

Rogers had joined the Administration in a Deputy-Attorney-General position in 1953, and then served from 1957 to 1961, as Attorney General

NOTES

ICBMs were developed sometime in mid to late 50s with the Soviets testing them first in 1957, but the US deployed theirs first in 1960.