PEOPLE OF ACTION

THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY

Joe McCarthy (1953-1954) 1909-1957. A Senator from Wisconsin in the early in1950s, who, in a Congressional committee that he himself directed, made wild accusations against an ever-growing list of people--in the American government as well as outside of it--of being communist or pro-communist. He himself was being investigated for financial fraud in late 1951--and fearing his non-reelection to the Senate in 1952 he took up the anti-communist tirade as a way of drawing fire away from himself and toward others.  Once having made the claim of possessing a list of known communists in the State Department that he himself was going to expose (he never did reveal who those might be) he took up in early 1953 his attacks in order to made good some of his claim of being the country's best anti-communist crusader. For a while he terrorized the Eisenhower Administration--claiming that a number of Eisenhower's diplomatic appointees had communist connections (as vaguely defined by McCarthy).  Then in April and May of 1954 he even took on the US Department of Defense, claiming that it was widely infiltrated by pro-communist insiders.  His accusations became so outrageous that he finally embarrassed himself before the new TV-viewing public and gave the Senate an opportunity to silence him in December with a motion of censure for his behavior. In the meantime McCarthy presented American politics with a new name for the technique of attempting to intimidate or destroy your political opponents by accusing them of being soft on communism:  "McCarthyism." Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890-1969.  President of the United States, 1953-1961. Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe (1942-1945). John Foster Dulles (1953-1959) 1888-1959.  Secretary of State, 1953-1959. A militant anti-Communist and even an anti-neutralist who viewed the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union (Russia) as a great moral crusade of good against evil--in which there could be no neutral ground. John F. Kennedy 1917-1963.  United States President, 1961-1963. Martin Luther King, Jr.  1929-1968. Robert F. Kennedy (1961-1968) 1925-1968. Robert Kennedy's major works or writings: The Enemy Within (1959) Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) 1908-1973.  United States President, 1963-1969. Hubert Humphrey Richard M. Nixon 1913-1994.  United States President, 1969-1974. Nixon's major works or writings: The Memories of Richard Nixon (1978) The Real War (1980) Beyond Peace (1994) Henry A. Kissinger (1969-1977) 1923- . National Security Advisor (1969-1973) and Secretary of State (1973-1977) under the Presidential Administrations of Nixon and Ford. Kissinger's major works or writings: Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957) The Necessity for Choice (1960) American Foreign Policy (1969) The White House Years (1979) For the Record (1981) Nelson Rockefeller Gerald Ford 1915- .  United States President, 1974-1977. Jimmy Carter 1924- .  United States President, 1977-1981. Paul Volcker Ronald Reagan 1911- .  U.S. President, 1981-1989. Bob Dole George Bush 1924- . Bill Clinton Newt Gingrich 1943- . Bill Gates 1955- . Gates' major works or writings: The Road Ahead (with Nathan Myhrvold and Peter Rinearson,1995)

Nikita Khrushchev (1953-1964) 1894-1971. Became First Secretary of the Communist Party shortly after Stalin's death in 1953.  In 1957 he ousted his colleague Nikolai Bulganin and took for himself the State position as Premier, thus holding the top party and state posts. But his diplomatic miscalculations in placing Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962--and then having to remove them--and the worsening performance of Soviet agriculture and industry under his leadership finally led to his ouster in October of 1964. Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (1964-1982)  (1906-1982) The honorary "President" of the USSR, 1960-1964 under Khrushchev.  With the ouster of Khrushchev in 1964, he was elevated to the all-important Communist Party position of First Secretary (later General Secretary)--a position he would hold until his death in 1982.  In 1977, upon the ouster of his collegue Nicolay Podgorny he once again took up the position of President of the USSR--combining supreme positions in both the state and party. Author of the "Brezhnev Doctrine," which affirmed the USSR's right to intervene in the political affairs within any country within the Soviet bloc when Moscow perceived that the country was threatened by anti-socialist forces--as was the case in 1968 in Czechoslovakia, when that country started to show signs of a drift away from Russian domination. Alexei Kosygin (1964-1980) 1904-1980. Soviet Premier:  President of the Soviet Council of Ministers, 1964-1980.  Kosygin was part of a Soviet triumvirate composed of Brezhnev, Podgorny, and himself which jointly ruled the Soviet Union--though Brezhnev's position was paramount, becoming even moreso as the 1970s advanced. Nikolay V. Podgorny (1964-1977) 1903-1983. Podgorny was Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1963-1965.  But he was deposed from this key position in a power struggle with Brezhnev.  Nonetheless, he was granted the lesser position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 1965-1977, and supposedly formed part of a joint rulership of Brezhnev, Kosygin and himself.  In 1977 he was ousted from this state position as Brezhnev took it for himself. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (1985-1991) 1931- . A Communist Party bureaucrat with a specialization in economic matters, in 1980 he was brought into the inner circle of Soviet politics (the Politburo) as a protege of Yuri Andropov.  When Andropov became Soviet leader Gorbachev was placed in charge of the stumbling Soviet economy. In 1985 Gorbachev became Soviet leader and party chief as the Communist Party General Secretary.  He removed old party economic planners and replaced them with younger, reform-minded economic ministers, ones willing to work with his program of liberalizing the Soviet economy (perestroika) and culture (glasnost). This liberalization extended to the lightening of the military hand of the Soviet Union on its neighbors--both in Asia (Afghanistan) and in Eastern Europe (the entire Soviet bloc)--in order to relieve the Soviet economy of the huge economic burden of maintaining such a huge an imperial presence at a time when its own economy was collapsing under years of State planning.  In 1989 he pulled the Soviets out of Afghanistan--and let an independence-minded Eastern Europe go its own way--much to the amazement of everyone. Further internal reforms to reduce the Party's grip on the Soviet economy did little to breathe new life into the Soviet economy and disillusionment set in against his leadership.  Old-guard communist officers staged an attempted military coup against him in August of 1991.  Though the coup failed--popular support shifted to the Russian President Boris Yeltsin.  With Gorbachev's dissolution of both the Communist Party and the Soviet Union in late 1991, he no longer held any real political offices--and simply retired from Russian politics. Boris Yeltsin (1991- ) 1931- . Russian President, 1991- .  Elected to that position in 1991 and again in 1996, despite rumors of his worsening health and despite the miserable showing of Russian troops in the Chechnya war and the very obvious deterioration in the Russian economy. GREAT BRITAIN Anthony Eden Conservative Party.  British Prime Minister, 1955-1957 Harold Macmillan 1894-1986.  Conservative Party.  British Prime Minister, 1957-1963. Alec Douglas-Home 1903-1995.  Conservative Party.  British Prime Minister, 1963-1964. Harold Wilson 1916-1995).  Labour Party.  British Prime Minister, 1964-1970 and 1974-1976. Edward Heath 1916- .  Conservative Party.  British Prime Minister, 1970-1974. James Callaghan 1912- .  Labour Party.  British Prime Minister, 1976-1979. Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) 1925- .  Conservative Party.  British Prime Minister, 1979-1990.  Led the British to victory over Argentina in the 1982 Falkland Islands War. John Major 1943- .  Conservative Party.  British Prime Minister, 1990-1997. Tony Blair 1953- .  Labour Party.  British Prime Minister, 1997- .    FRANCE Pierre Mendes-France Charles De Gaulle (1940-1969) 1890-1970. Georges Pompidou Giscard-d'Estaing François Mitterand (1981-1995) 1916-1996. President of France, 1981-1995 (two terms; he also ran as the Socialist candidate for President in 1965 and 1974, coming close to victory both times). Jacques Chirac 1932- . Gaullist.  President of France since 1995 (defeating Lionel Jaspin in a fairly close election).  French Prime Minister, 1974-1976 and 1986-1988.   GERMANY Konrad Adenauer (1949-1963) 1876-1967.   He was born in Cologne, Germany.  He studied in Freiburg, Munich and Bonn--eventually returning to Cologne to begin practicing law there.  In 1917 he was elected Burgomeister (Mayor) of Cologne.  During the early years of the Weimar Republic after World War One he was an active member of the Catholic Center Party and was elected to the Provincial Diet (Legislature) and to the Prussian State Council.  Of the last-mentioned, he served as President from 1920 until 1933.  A Nazi takeover of power in Germany forced him from that position.  The following year he was imprisoned--and also again in 1944. This record of opposition to the Nazis was to stand hinm in good stead for political service in post-war Germany.  Once again he became mayor of Cologne.  He also took the leading role in founding the Christian Democratic Union--a centrist party of Christian values pleasing to both the occupying authorities--and to the German electorate.  In 1949 he was named as Chancellor (Prime Minister), and was reelected to that office again after national elections in 1953 and 1957. He attempted to restore German dignity by putting the country in loyal service to the United States during the Cold War.  He hoped that this would be rewarded by equally strong backing by the United States for the reunification of Germany--by ending the Communist rule in East Germany and the return of the whole country under the free-democratic government of West Germany. But when Kennedy did nothing to stop or respond to the building of the Berlin Wall, which only isolated East Germany all the more from the West, Adenauer began to distance himself somewhat in this pro-American relationship.  He began to appear in close harmony with Charles de Gaulle in the early 1960s--as de Gaulle took on a more strident anti-American foreign policy. This raised complaints in Germany that Der Alte or "Old One" was in fact losing touch with reality.  In 1963 Adenauer thus stepped down from his party offices and retired to private life.  he died in 1967. Ludwig Erhard 1897- .     German Chancellor, 1963-1966. Kurt Georg Kiesinger 1904 - . German Chancellor, 1966-1969 Willy Brandt 1913- .    German Chancellor, 1969-1974 Helmut Schmidt 1918-  .   German Chancellor, 1974-1982. Helmut Kohl (1982-1998) 1930- .    German Chancellor, 1982-1998 Gerhard Schröder (1998- ) German Chancellor, 1998- . OTHER EUROPEAN COMMUNITY NATIONS Paul-Henri Spaak THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING COMMONWEALTH Robert Menzies (1949-1966) 1894-1978. (Liberal) Australian Prime Minister, 1949-1966. Malcolm Fraser (1975-1983) 1930- . (Labor) Australian Prime Minister, 1975-1983. Bob Hawke (1983-1991) 1929- . (Labor) Australian Prime Minister, 1983-1991. Paul Keating (1991-1996) 1944- . (Labor) Australian Prime Minister, 1991-1996.    Pierre Trudeau (1968-1979 and 1980-1984) 1919-2000. (Liberal) Canadian Prime Minister, 1968-1979 and 1980-1984.    Brian Mulrooney (1984-1993) 1939- . (Liberal) Canadian Prime Minister    Jean Chrétien (1993-2003) 1934- . (Liberal) Canadian Prime Minister, 1993-2003. POLAND Lech Walesa OTHER EAST EUROPEAN NATIONS Marshall Tito Nicholas Ceaucescu THE VATICAN John XXIII pope:  1958-1963. Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli (1881-1963).  An Italian (unexpectedly elected on the 11th ballot) who called into session the Second Vatican Council in 1962.  Previously, as papal nuncio, he worked hard to save war refugees, most notably Jewish refugees of all national varieties.  He was also a strong supporter of the new state of Israel.     He believed strongly in the equality of all before God ... was very interested in ecumenical work with other Christian faiths and worked hard to bridge political and religious divisions.  He named the first non-European cardinals ... selected from Africa, Japan and the Philippines.  He died soon after the start of the Second Vatican Council ... shutting it down (temporarily). Paul VI pope:  1963-1978. Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonia Maria Montini (1897-1978).  An Italian who reconvened and continued the work of the Second Vatican Council ... completing it in 1965.  He was interested in improved relations with the Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches.  He was strongly Marian ... naming Mary as the Mother of the Church.  In his 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, he held to the church’s traditional stand on marriage, birth control, etc. John Paul I pope:  1978. Albina Luciani (1912-1978).  An Italian who really did not want the position ... and died only 33 days on the job!  A very kind individual. John Paul II pope:  1978-2005. Karol Jozef Wojtyla (1920-2005).  Polish (first non-Italian since the 1500s).  Conservative in terms of issues debated in the church ... though quite open to improved relations with Judaism, Islam, and Eastern Orthodoxy.  He was quite outspoken in his opposition to Communist rule in Poland.  He also beatified 1,344 and canonized 483 people ... more than the combined total of all of his predecessors LATIN AMERICA Fulgensia Batista Fidel Castro Papa Doc Duvalier Anastasio Somoza Fernando Henrique Cardoso President of Brazil, 1994 to the present.  Widely appreciated as having brought Brazil's soaring inflation under control. Alberto Fujimori Hugo Banzer Bolivian General and dictator of Bolivia, 1971-1978.  Present elected civilian President of Bolivia. Alfredo Stroessner Dictator of Paraguay, 1954-1989. Juan Peron Augusto Pinochet 1916- . Chilean General who seized power in Chile in 1973 and ran that country as a dictator until 1990.  In 1990 he returned power to a civilian government but stayed on as army commander.  In March of 1998 he resigned his military position to become a senator for life.  In October 1998 he was arrested while in England (for medical reasons) in response to the orders of a Spanish court which claimed jurisdiction to try him for his political crimes. Eduardo Frei President of Chile. JAPAN Emperor Michinomiya Hirohito (1926-1989) 1901-1989. Emperor, 1926-1989. Emperor Tsugu Akihito (1989- ) 1933- . Emperor, 1989 to the present. CHINA Mao Zedong 1893-1976. Deng Xiaoping 1904-1997. Began the liberalization of the Chinese economy in 1978. Jiang Zemin 1926-  . President of China, 1993-2003.   General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, 1989-2002. Zhu Rongji 1928-  . Prime Minister of China, 1998-2003. INDIA Jawaharlal Nehru (1947-1964) 1889-1964. Head of the Indian Congress Party and Indian Prime Minister, from India's independence in 1947 until his death in 1964. Indira Gandhi (1966-77; 1980-84) 1917-1984. Daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru (no relation to Mahatma Gandhi; "Gandhi" was her married name).  At the death of her father in 1964 she became head of the Indian Congress Party.  Two years later she became Indian Prime Minister, serving during the periods 1966-1977 and 1980-1984.  She  died in office at the hands of a Sikh assassin. Sanjay Gandhi 1946-1980. The younger son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi.  He became very active in his mother's cabinet--one of the more radical voices in her government and perhaps the driving force behind her national state of emergency, 1975-1977.  It was clear that he was being groomed to inherit the political "dynasty" begun by his grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, when Sanjay died in a plane crash in 1980. Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989) 1944-1991. Head of the Indian Congress Party, 1984-1991, and Indian Prime Minister, 1984-1989. Rajiv was the older son of Indira and Feroze Gandhi.  Rajiv was quite content to let his younger brother Sanjay take the lead in promoting the family's political fortunes--until his brother's death in 1980. At this point Rajiv was brought forward to take his brother's political place.  When his mother was assassinated in 1984 Rajiv Gandhi was immediately appointed head of the Indian Congress Party and became India's new Prime minister. His governance was not strong and he was not effective in handling two of India's major regional problems:  separatism in the Punjab and in Kashmir.  His governemnt was also plagued by financial scandals--and in 1989 he stepped down as Indian Prime Minister. He remained head of the Indian National Congress--and in 1991, as he was campaigning in South India, he was assassinated by a woman with possible (but unproved) links to a radical Tamil separatist group. OTHER ASIA Chiang Kai Shek Syngmun Rhee Kim Dae Jung Kim Il Sung Ferdinand Marcos Ho Chi Minh (1941-1969) 1890-1969. Ngo Den Diem Prince Norodim Sihanouk Pol Pot Hun Sen Sukarno Suharto    Tenzin Gyatso - The Buddhist Dalai Lama (since 1940) 1935- .  Born in Tibet as Lhamo Thondup.  Went into exile in 1959 due to the Chinese Communist takeover of Tibet. THE MIDDLE EAST Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1979-1989) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Muhammad Khatami President of the Islamic Republic (Iran), 1997- .   Saddam Hussein 1937- . President of Iraq and leader of the Baath Party in Iraq. Hafez Assad King Hussein of Jordan Yassir Arafat 1929- . Palestinian Leader. David Ben Gurion (1948-53, 1955-63) 1886-1973. Levi Eshkol (1963-1969) 1895-1969. Golda Meier (1969-1974) 1898-1978. Yitzhak Rabin (1974-77; 1992-95) 1922-1995. Menachem Begin (1977-1983) 1913-1992. Shimon Perez (1984-86; 1995-96) 1923- . Binyamain Netanyahu (1996-1999) 1949- . King Faisal of Saudi Arabia Gamel Abdul Nasser Anwar Sadat Hosni Mubarak Muammar Qaddafi King Hassan of Morocco (-1999) SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Ras Taffari Haile Selassie 1891- .  Emperor of Ethiopia, 1930-  (but exiled by the Italian authorities, 1936-1941). Mengistu Haile Mariam (1974-1991) Marxist dictator who overthrew the rule of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.  He was forced out of power in 1991 and is in exile in Zimbabwe. Kwame Nkrumah (1960-1966) 1909- .  First President of the Republic of Ghana. Jomo Kenyatta 1893- .  Anthropologist, teacher, leader of Kenyan independence movement and first President of the Repubic of Kenya. Daniel arap Moi President of Kenya Idi Amin General and dictator of Uganda, whose regime killed approximately 300,000 people. Now in exile in Saudi Arabia. Mobutu Sese Seku Robert Mugabe President of Zimbabwe. Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (1949-1966) 1901-1966.  Born in the Netherlands.  Major architect of the apartheid (separateness) policy undertaken after the electoral victory of the National Party in 1949.  Became South African Prime Minister, 1958-1966.      Pieter W. Botha F.W. de Klerk (1988-1994) President of South Africa,  -1994.   Desmond Tutu Anglican Archbishop.  Winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Long-time leader in the battle against the Afrikaner policy of apartheid. Chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (created in 1995) that called upon South Africans of all races to step forward and admit their roles in the racial turmoil of the 1949-1994 apartheid era--as part of a national healing process.  The fact that Tutu did not spare Black perpetrators of violence, even though the violence was done in the name of liberation, was itself a point of deep tension between Tutu and the ANC. Nelson Mandela (1994-1999) 1918- .  President of the Republic of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 For more information on Mandela   Mandela's speeches: "No Easy Walk to Freedom" Presidential Address (1953) "I am Prepared to Die" (Nelson Mandela's statement from the dock)       (from the Rivona Trial) Freedom (reflections just prior to release from prison) Nelson Mandela: Inaugural Address, May 10, 1994 THE UNITED NATIONS Dag Hammarskjold 1905-1961.  Swedish statesman.  United Nations Secretary-General, 1953-1961. Winner of Nobel Peace Prize in 1961 (working to settle the Congo crisis that marched the world up to the brink of war between the Soviet Union and the United States).  Was killed when his plane crashed while on a diplomatic peace mission in Africa in 1961. U Thant THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY:  A FULL HISTORY Cold War The 1960s and First half of the 1970s The Second half of the 1970s to the End of the 1990s Go on to the next section:  The 21st Century   Miles H. Hodges