On August 19th, 1989, near the city of Sopron, Hungary, thousands of people called for an end to the cold war at an event dubbed the Pan-European “Freedom” Picnic. However, if you think the picnic is remembered because it was a highly organized event analogous to the highly publicized Dîners en Blanc ¹ so popular today, you would be wrong.

The gathering was intended as an informal meeting of Austrians and Hungarians at a border meadow.  It was arranged by members of the Hungarian Democratic Forum, one of the country’s emerging parties, with the backing of reform-minded communist minister Imre Pozsgay and the last crown prince of the Austrian empire and a member of the European Parliament Otto von Habsburg.  Miklós Németh, then Hungarian Prime Minister,  also promoted the idea.

The official emblem of the picnic was a pigeon breaking through the barbed wire, symbolizing permission to open the border station for three hours. The opening was granted so that pedestrians from both countries could experience Europe without borders.  Music and speeches were in the offing as was wine, beer, grilled food, and goulash.²

However, things didn’t go as organizers had planned. Gorbachev’s perestroika was in full swing, serving as a backdrop to the so-called ‘Sinatra Doctrine’ which allowed eastern bloc states to do things “their way” without fear of Red Army intervention. The Soviet government used the name jokingly to describe its policy of allowing neighboring Warsaw Pact states to determine their own internal affairs.

Interestingly, Paul Anka — not Sinatra — sang the song at Gorbachev’s 80th birthday celebration. You can watch his version below.

According to The Irish Times:

tens of thousands of East Germans had gathered [in parks and campsites] in Hungary – where “goulash communism” was softer than their own brutal police state – in the hope of finding a chink in the Iron Curtain through which they could escape to the West.

A border guard on the Hungarian-Austrian border is reported as saying:

Naturally we saw the picnic as potentially problematic. There were so many East Germans in Hungary looking for a way out, and the organizers of the picnic planned to open a border crossing for a few hours so the Hungarian and Austrian delegations could meet. I wondered how we would deal with it, if a situation arose.

The plan:

. . .to open an old border gate that hadn’t been opened since 1948, and the slogan we put on leaflets for the picnic was ‘Break it and take it’ – we wanted people to cut bits of the border fence and take it away, recalled Laszlo Magas, one of the chief organisers . . . We thought a lot of Hungarians and Austrians would come because everyone hated the Iron Curtain, but we didn’t expect anything to happen with the East Germans.

It was soon evident that the plan wasn’t going to hold. As hundreds of East Germans neared the border posts, the guard in command decided that “in order to avoid a catastrophe” he would let them through. The Hungarian border guards were ordered to only deal with arrivals from Austria, not with those leaving. Consequently, more than 600 East Germans crossed peacefully into Austria that day.

As a follow-up:

• On August 31, 1989:, Hungary’s foreign minister informed East Germany’s leadership that, unless they would allow travel and immigration freedom, Hungary would open its borders.
• On September 11, 1989, Hungary opened its borders to those fleeing East Germany without obtaining Moscow’s approval.

(If you’d like a comprehensive overview of events leading up to the end of the cold war click here: The End of the Cold War: A Timeline.)

It’s interesting to note that there is now a fence marking Hungary’s southern boundary. Organizers of the picnic approve of today’s fence, rejecting suggestions that current policies betray the spirit of 1989 and its fight for democracy.

The difference lies in who built the fence, and why, says Ferenc Ivanics, a member of Orban’s Fidesz party since 1988 and a former deputy. . . . In 1989, that fence was a prison and an iron curtain. The fence we have now gives us the protection of our own territory.

What do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments.

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¹Per Wikipedia, Dîner en Blanc (“Dinner in White” in French) is a worldwide event spanning six continents in which people have a meal dressed in white in a temporary dining setup in a public space. Diners are required to provide their own food, tables, chairs and tablecloths. Only a select number of participants who have previously signed up are made privy to the location the day of the dinner, and generally converge in an iconic urban location.

² Hungry?

Click here for a recipe for Traditional Hungarian Goulash.

The wine was called Bull’s Blood. You can read all about it here.

Sources:

The Irish Times

Wikipedia

Late 1990 and early 1991: Washington turns its focus toward the Gulf after Iraq invades Kuwait.

Gorbachev becomes increasingly concerned about separatist movements and gives the head of the KGB permission to proceed violently.

1991: Gorbachev asks capitalist countries for huge loans. They say no.

January 12-13, 1991: Soviet troops enter Lithuania to take back property for the Soviet state. Lithuania fights; Soviet tanks attack.

In Moscow, thousands march to protest the crackdown. Gorbachev defends the return to ‘old ways’.

January 13,1991: “Bloody Sunday” in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Tanks attack protesters; Gorbachev’s image is further damaged.

January 15, 1991:  President Bush sets a deadline for Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions for a withdrawal from Kuwait. Gorbachev tries to extend the deadline, but Bush refuses.

Hussein does not comply with the deadline. A US-led coalition begins an air attack the following day.

February 1991: The Warsaw Pact declares an end to its military activities.

Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland establish “Visegrad cooperation,” a three-way partnership meant to coordinate their appeals to the European Commission and NATO.

April 29, 1991: The CIA reports that “all the ingredients are now present” for rapid regime change in the Soviet Union. This could “quickly sweep away the current political system.”

May 1991: Bush speculate about the consequences of diminishing Soviet power with the Hungarian president.

June 1991: Violence is rising in Yugoslavia. Slovenia and Croatia declare independence, prompting an attack by Serbia. The region spirals into war.

June 12, 1991: Russia holds its own election even though it is still part of the USSR. Yeltsin wins and is now the Russian president-elect. Even before the election, he makes a televised call for Gorbachev’s resignation.

June 20, 1991:  Bush receives president-elect Yeltsin in Washington.

July 15, 1991: At a meeting of the Group of 7 (G-7) in London, Bush remains reluctant to provide financial support to the Soviets. He expresses concern over “long-range missiles . . . aimed at the United States, and about the ongoing Soviet biological weapons program.” This view diverges from that of Bonn, Paris, and London.

August 1, 1991: Bush visits Ukraine in a pre-coup trip to the Soviet Union.

On this trip, he signs the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

Bush is primarily interested in shoring up Gorbachev and maintaining central authority in the USSR.

August 18, 1991: Gorbachev is placed under house arrest in Crimea.

August 19-21, 1991: A “coup” forces Gorbachev out of office. He is unable to contact the outside world.

Yeltsin becomes the symbol of a ‘free Russia’, and defends Gorbachev and the constitution. The “coup” doesn’t succeed in seizing power outright.

August 22, 1991: Yeltsin, now in command, sends a plane to bring Gorbachev back to Moscow.

Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary of the Communist Party.

August 29, 1991: In a show of nuclear independence, the leader of Kazakhstan decrees that he is closing a Soviet nuclear test facility (the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site) on Kazakh territory.

Autumn 1991: The US National Security Council (NSC) concludes that chances of “a long-term role for Gorbachev” are “nil.”

September 1991: Bush is focused on the status of Soviet nuclear weapons.

September 25, 1991: The Ukrainian leader visits Washington. Before his trip, the Ukrainian parliament passes a declaration of independence and schedules a public referendum on that declaration.

October 1991: Brent Scowcroft, Director of the NSC, begins assessing what Soviet disintegration will mean for NATO’s future. The coming Soviet collapse is expanding NATO’s opportunities.

November 26, 1991: Bush receives a letter from Yeltsin announcing that “Russia is breaking with the Communist past.”

November 27, 1991: The US Senate passes the Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act.

December 1, 1991: Ukraine holds a presidential election as well as a referendum on the declaration of independence.

Yeltsin tells Bush that if Ukrainians vote for independence by a margin of greater than 70 percent, he will immediately recognize Ukraine as a separate state.

With a turnout of 84 percent, 90 percent of Ukrainians vote for independence. No single district came in below 50 percent support, including parts of the country that Gorbachev had predicted would resist independence.

Bush announces that he will recognize Ukraine.

December 8, 1991: Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine act to dissolve the Soviet Union and set up a ‘commonwealth of independent states. They notify President Bush before they let Gorbachev know what they have done.

December 12, 1991: The Soviet Nuclear Threat Reduction Act goes into effect. This is meant to facilitate the transportation, storage, safeguarding, and elimination of Soviet weapons.

December 16, 1991: Secretary of State Baker meets separately with both Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

December 25, 1991: Gorbachev resigns.

Russia becomes the successor state to the USSR in the UN and other organizations.

End of 1991: The US insists that Moscow is responsible for all Soviet debt – estimated at $65 billion.

Beginning of 1992: Russia receives bilateral assistance from the US along with an International Monetary Fund (IMF) aid package.

February 1, 1992: During Yeltsin’s visit to Bush at Camp David, the two leaders announce that the US and Russia are no longer adversaries and that the Cold War has ended peaceably.

March 1992: An internal Pentagon strategy paper is leaked to the New York Times. It says that the US post-Cold War mission is not to cooperate with Russia but “to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge.”

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Want to learn more about the last days of the Cold War. Check out our post titled The End of the Cold War: A Cold War Timeline. You can read it here.

Follow with The End of the Cold War (1990): The Last Days of the USSR. Read it here.

This timeline draws from Not One Inch: America, Russia, and The Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate by M.E. Sarotte.

Featured Photo: Public Domain, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33285605

1990 was an event filled year, culminating in the unification of East and West Germany, and the eastward expansion of NATO. Some of you may have been following the debate between those who feel Putin was threatened by NATO’s expansion and those who say the enlargement of NATO served as a deterrence to Putin’s ambitions.

An argument in favor of further NATO expansion was published by Brookings in 1997. You can read Enlarging NATO: A Questionable Idea Whose Time Has Come here.   The article (by Richard Haas) lays out the pros and cons of expansion and concludes that “. . . the right answer may be qualified, even wistful, but it is “yes” nonetheless.”

Perhaps the most vocal proponent of the more provocative direct threat argument, John Mearsheimer is a distinguished professor in the political science department at the University of Chicago, and has been described as the most influential realist of his generation. He’s known as  one of the most famous critics of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, and his lectures  on You Tube regularly see over a million viewers. Here’s a link to his 2014 lecture titled Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? 

Which view do you favor?  Perhaps this fact based timeline will provide more context. Want to start at the beginning? Read our first post on The End of the Cold War here.  Then come back for a follow-up.

Background on NATO

April 4, 1949: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Pact, was signed on April 4, 1949. Its underlying premise was that European defense could not be entrusted to the United Nations.

NATO, therefore, was designed to “create not merely a balance of power, but a preponderance of power” to deal with the Russians from “positions of strength.”

Twelve nations signed the pact including the US, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Norway, Great Britain, and the Benelux. These nations pledged to use force only in self-defense and to develop “free institutions,” particularly through the encouragement of “economic collaboration between any or all” of the parties.

Article 5 of the agreement was central. It stated:

The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all, and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them . . . will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.

Article 11 modified this commitment by adding that the pact’s provisions “shall be carried out in accordance with each nation’s constitutional processes.’” $11.2 billion for European military aid was the immediate financial price for the NATO commitment.

1952: Greece and Turkey are added to NATO.

May 1955: West Germany is added to NATO.

Later in the month, the Soviet Union forms its own collective security alliance, the Warsaw Pact.

1982: Spain joins NATO.

The Last Days of the Soviet Union: 1990

(NOTE: In the timeline below, NATO related activities will be italicized. The timeline draws on Not One Inch: America, Russia, and The Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate by M.E. Sarotte.)

1990: According to Robert Gates (Assistant to the US President and Deputy National Security Advisor), 1990 is marked by one overarching objective: to bribe the Soviets out of Germany.

West Germany offers the Soviets a great deal of money to agree to

the unification of Germany fully in NATO, meaning the extension of Article 5 to its eastern region . . . the fight for German unity and the fight for NATO’s future beyond the old inner-German dividing line became one and the same.

The United States advances proposals designed to make “unification in NATO” acceptable to Gorbachev. The idea is to give him something he can use to quiet his domestic critics.

The US is adamant that “NATO’s ability to extend Article 5 across all of Germany must not come at the cost of having to move nuclear weapons out of the country.”

Central and Eastern European leaders realize that Europe will remain divided between NATO and non-NATO states. They choose sides.

1990: Divided Germany has the highest concentration of nuclear arms per square mile of anywhere on the planet.

Early 1990: A quarter million people protest in Moscow for greater democracy and more regional autonomy.

Winter 1990: The Soviet led order is disintegrating at home and abroad. Economic problems lead to widespread misery in the USSR.

Discontent and strike threats are so severe that Gorbachev announces the cancellation of all foreign commitments so that he can focus on domestic problems.

January – February 1990

January 23, 1990: Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth of Hungary announces Moscow’s pullback of all troops in his country. The actual withdrawal begins in March 1990, with the last troops withdrawn on June 19, 1991.

February 1990: Chancellor Kohl of West Germany agrees to go to Moscow for bilateral negotiations with the Soviets. He doesn’t inform Washington.

With the Wall gone, the East German economy is crumbling.

The massive flow of Easterners to the West is causing overwhelming problems for West Germany.

The East German regime is collapsing, and the state-centered economy is collapsing as well.

March 1990

March 1990: Polish leaders call for “billions in reparations” for World War II.

March 7, 1990: Speaking to an interviewer, Gorbachev absolutely rules out membership for a united Germany in NATO.

Meanwhile the US State Department is beginning to put NATO into its thinking on Central and Eastern Europe. They are learning that Central and Eastern Europeans will not feel secure until they are in NATO.

March 18, 1990: With more than 93 percent voter participation overall,  an election in East Germany is a game changer.

According to the West German ambassador in Moscow, the voting results make clear to the Soviets that

the political system of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which they had built up over decades, had no democratic legitimacy.

March 21, 1990: The Polish foreign minister pays a visit to NATO headquarters, spurring a sequence of contacts between alliance leaders and Central and Eastern European representatives.

March 23-24, 1990: A number of Central and Eastern European foreign ministers take part in a special European Community (EC) ministerial meeting in Lisbon. They want to see what forms of Western affiliation might be open to them.

April – May 1990

April 1990: The West German embassy in Moscow reports that a high level Soviet official says:

the collapse of the Warsaw Pact was not a decisive issue for the Soviet Union. . . . It made no difference to them what Hungary, the Czechs, and possibly even the Poles did.

East Germany, on the other hand, is a different  matter.

Separatist movements are putting additional pressure on Soviet leadership. A Lithuanian push for independence is particularly undermining Gorbachev.

May 1990: Boris Yeltsin becomes the elected leader of the Russian republic.

May 18, 1990: In a meeting with US Secretary of State James Baker, Gorbachev complains about his Warsaw Pact allies wanting to join NATO.

May 31, 1990: A US-Soviet summit begins in Washington DC.

After the main session in DC, Gorbachev and Bush fly to Camp David by helicopter. The leaders discuss Germany, the future of Europe, and Moscow’s economic problems.

The Washington summit does not finalize German unification but Bush and his advisors succeed in getting Gorbachev to confirm that the future of European security will follow the Helsinki principle.

The Helsinki principle was granted to all signatories of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 which said that all could choose their own military alliances. On paper, the Soviet Union is committed to this principle.

Per the Helsinki principle, the choice about NATO is up to Germany itself.

June 1990

June 1990:  Upon his return home after the summit, Gorbachev is required to contend with Boris Yeltsin’s rise to prominence.

June 7, 1990: The Hungarian prime minister calls for the “immediate liquidation” of the Warsaw Pact’s military organization.

June 25, 1990: West Germany commits to pay 1.25 DM in “stationing costs” for Soviet troops in the second half of 1990. In other words, East Germany will continue to be occupied by the USSR even after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

July – August 1990

July 1990: Yeltsin announces that he is leaving the Communist Party.

July 1, 1990: German economic and monetary unification occur. This is well in advance of political unification.

July 5-6, 1990: NATO holds a summit.

July 2-14, 1990: The Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union holds a meeting.

July 16, 1990: Gorbachev says he will allow German unity if NATO agrees that no nuclear weapons, and only German troops, can be stationed in East Germany after a Soviet withdrawal.

August 1990: Gorbachev raises the possibility that the Soviet Union might dissolve.

August 2, 1990: Iraq, a Soviet ally, invades Kuwait, resulting “in the First Gulf War in 1991 and decades of US fixation on the region.”

September – October 1990

September 5, 1990: The US national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, informs President Bush that “a major problem has arisen in the negotiations for a final settlement document on German unification.”

September 9, 1990: Bush meets Gorbachev in Helsinki for a brief summit to discuss the crisis in the Gulf.

September 13, 1990: Gorbachev asks US Secretary of State Baker for a no-interest credit of $1 to $1.2 billion. Baker suggests asking a third country instead of the US.

October 3, 1990: Germany unifies as planned.

NATO’s full legal jurisdiction, including Article 5, is extended immediately to cover all of East Germany. The alliance has started its post-Cold War expansion to the east.

October 15, 1990: The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Gorbachev.

October 22, 1990: The US State Department produces an analysis of “Eastern Europe and NATO.” The main conclusion:

It is not in the best interest of NATO or the US that these states be granted full NATO membership and its security guarantees. . . the United States should expressly refrain from organizing an anti-Soviet coalition whose frontier is the Soviet border.

November 1990

November 1990: Gorbachev signs a new treaty of friendship and cooperation with Germany.

November 7, 1990: Economic conditions within the USSR are terrible and discontent is high. Shots are fired at Gorbachev during the October Revolution Day Parade in Red Square.

November 19, 1990: Gorbachev attends the summit of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, hoping the CSCE will become the heart of a pan-European security system involving both Western and Eastern states. While there, he signs the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.

The treaty eliminates the Soviet Union’s advantage in conventional weapons in Europe.

December 1990

December 1990: Shevardnadze resigns, warning of a hardline coup. Gorbachev changes tactics and brings hardliners into the government.

December 20, 1991: Shevardnadze abruptly resigns as Soviet foreign minister.

End of 1990: The legal process of uniting East and West Germany concludes.

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Featured Photograph titled Berlin: Brandenburg Gate is by Jorge Franganillo (Flickr)

NATO flag: Photo: © Crown Copyright 2014; Photographer: Sergeant Paul Shaw LBIPP (Army); Image 45157525.jpg from www.defenceimages.mod.uk

New York Times – Gorbachev resigns: nsarchive.gwu.edu

Fall of Berlin Wall: Gavin Stewart (Flickr)

War Memorial – Old Town Warsaw: Jerry Clack (Flickr)

NATO and Warsaw Pact map: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Boris Yeltsin: NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s photostream (Flickr)

Kuwait War: airborneshodan  (Flickr)

Gorbachev – Nobel Peace Prize: Wikicommons

Germany Unifies – By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1990-1003-400 / Grimm, Peer / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5425931

I’ve just finished reading Missing by Thomas Hauser.  First published in 1978, the book tells the gripping story of Charles Horman, a young American who disappeared shortly after Chile’s successful military coup on September 11, 1973. With CIA involvement, General Augusto Pinochet came to power, soon ordering the mass arrest of thousands of leftist dissidents and other suspected opponents. Based on real events, the book is most accurately  described as an exceptionally detailed work of creative non fiction.

After Horman vanishes, and unable to uncover satisfactory information from his home in New York, Horman’s father, Ed, a patriotic American businessman, travels to Santiago, Chile.  Officials in the American embassy there, led by the ambassador himself, offer to help him search for the son he believes has simply disappeared. The author goes on, however, to present evidence of the arrest and murder of Horman as well as proposing US involvement in the actual coup.

At the end of Missing, Ed Horman is left with three questions:

• Was Charles Horman executed by the Chilean military?
• Was there a United States cover-up?
• Did anyone in the American military, diplomatic, or intelligence community have foreknowledge of – or perhaps order – the execution of Charles Horman?

Unfortunately, Charles Horman’s experience was commonplace in the Southern Cone of the mid 1970s. “The disappeared,” as the missing and executed were most often called, can be counted in the thousands. Military regimes in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina rounded up those suspected of affiliations with leftist movements and put them in concentration camps and secret detention centers where they were tortured, interrogated, executed, and secretly buried.**

Argentina

The Argentine armed forces set up their version of a bureaucratic authoritarian state in 1955. The military’s goals were:

• to eliminate any revolutionary threat
• to hold down wages
• to encourage foreign investment.

Official policy also included a commitment to anti-communist repression. To counter the above forces, the Argentine military turned to brutality. Killing began in the late 1960s and escalated throughout the 1970s. The military responded with deathsquads that claimed the lives — or disappeared — at least 9,000 and, perhaps, as many as 30,000 people.

This anti-communist terror was officially called the Process of National Reorganization by the military junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983. More commonly known as the Dirty War, it was a comprehensive campaign aimed at eliminating communists and others seen as “subversives.”

You can read much more about military repression in Argentina in our post titled  Cold War Argentina: The Dirty War.

Chile

In September 1973, Chilean army tanks rolled into the streets of Santiago, removing the country’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, from office. The military dictatorship that claimed power governed by decree for the next 17 years.

The Chilean coup turned out to be the bloodiest coup in the history of Latin America. Thousands of supporters of the Popular Unity coalition were herded into the Santiago soccer stadium. As in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, many of the detainees were subject to torture and murder, their bodies transported to mass graves.

The Chilean dictatorship was basically a bureaucratic-authoritarian regime, except that the leader of the 1973 coup, General Augusto Pinochet, had a leading role unparalleled in Brazil or Argentina. Chile had become the epitome of the Latin American trend toward military dictatorship.

You can read more about Chile in the post titled Cold War Chile. It’s Cold War Studies’ most popular post ever. And if you want more background on bureaucratic authoritarian regimes, read our post titled Bureaucratic Authoritarianism.

Brazil

In April 1964, with the knowledge and collaboration of American officials, and with US naval support standing offshore, Brazilian generals seized control of their country. The new regime was intended to be transitory but it gradually became a full dictatorship, ruling Brazil undemocratically for the next twenty years.

Repression against opponents, including urban guerrillas, was harsh, but not as brutal as in other Latin American countries. Due to extraordinary economic growth, known as an “economic miracle,” the regime reached its highest level of popularity during the years of repression.

You can read more about this period of time in Brazil’s Military: Repression to Ruin or in Military Rule in Cold War Brazil.

Uruguay

Formed in 1964, the Tupamaro urban guerilla movement, was directly inspired by the example of the Cuban Revolution.

In 1967, the Uruguayan president declared martial law to fight the Tupamaros. The military began a gradual takeover which was completed in 1973. The Tupamaros were quickly cornered once torture penetrated their cover.

By the end of the 1970s, Uruguay had more political prisoners, relative to its size, than any other country in the world.

You can read more about this in our post titled Cold War Military Repression in Uruguay.

Operation Condor

Many detainees who escaped their home countries to avoid detainment were located, captured, and interrogated through the efforts of Operation Condor, a multinational intelligence organization.

In an investigation of their country’s participation in Operation Condor, Brazilian authorities ordered the declassification of military documents.

The US government has also declassified many long-secret files, but the new information is also confirming a more active cooperation with repressive activity than has previously been acknowledged.

If you’d like to learn more about Operation Condor, you can check out a book by John Dinges, a Columbia University journalism professor. The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents is highly rated, and available on Amazon. (As always, if you purchase the book or DVD through our affiliate link on Amazon, Cold War Studies receives a very small donation. Thank you.)

Don’t Like to Read

For those of you who would rather watch than read, you may want to stream The Judge and The General on YouTube. Some of you may find it very uncomfortable viewing for some, but it shows the work of the Chilean judge, Juan Guzmán, who investigated Pinochet. Guzmán had supported Pinochet’s 1973 coup, but in the end held the dictator accountable. One result: in May 2000 an appeals court stripped Pinochet of his immunity as a former president and senator. Before his death  in 2006, he faced more than 100 separate charges of ordering torture and disappearances.

US Involvement

Remember the three questions I listed at the beginning?

• Was Charles Horman executed by the Chilean military?
• Was there a United States cover-up?
• Did anyone in the American military, diplomatic, or intelligence community have foreknowledge of – or perhaps order – the execution of Charles Horman?

As Ed Horman discovered, answers are hard to come by, and readers may have different takes. My suggestion is that you find a copy of the book, read it, and decide for yourself. I bought my copy on Amazon. As the author concludes:

The line between United States involvement in the coup and responsibility for the death of Charles Horman is difficult to draw.

** I’m sure some of you who are familiar with the 1983 Oscar nominated film starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek are asking “why didn’t you just stream the movie?” Well, that’s what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, the film isn’t available for streaming in the US because of a libel suit filed back in the 1980s. Even though the libel action by three United States government officials was dismissed, the book was out of print for a period of time too. As I mentioned before, I picked up my copy on Amazon.

The film received four nominations at the 55th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (for Lemmon), and Best Actress (for Spacek). It won Best Adapted Screenplay.

According to Wikipedia, “In 1983, a year after the film’s theatrical release, both the film (then in the home video market) and Thomas Hauser’s book The Execution of Charles Horman were removed from the United States market following a lawsuit filed against Costa-Gavras and Universal Pictures’s (then) parent company MCA by former ambassador Nathaniel Davis and two others for libel. A lawsuit against Hauser himself was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired. Davis and his associates lost their lawsuit, after which the film was re-released by Universal in 2006 . . . . The film created significant controversy in Chile and was banned during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, even though neither Chile nor Pinochet is ever mentioned by name (although the Chilean cities of Viña del Mar and Santiago are).”

If you’re a big spender, you can buy the DVD on Amazon. You can watch the original trailer below.

Featured photo by Pedro Encina (Flickr)

Brazil Photo by Luis Fernando Reis (Flickr)

Do you enjoy solving crossword puzzles?

If so this week’s post should be right up your alley. It’s my first attempt to create a puzzle for you. Here’s just a taste of the clues.

Just click on the link below to start the puzzle. You’ll find the clues below the puzzle.

Or you can download a pdf here.

Want the answers? Click here for the key.

PS: For some reason, the type on the first clue is small. Sorry about that. The rest are easier to read. And if you have questions or problems, post them in the comments. I don’t know if I’ll be able to help, but I’ll try.

Still looking for Christmas presents? Maybe you can get some toy ideas for girls from the Cold War!

According to American Cold War ideology, homemakers in the United States were a bulwark against communism, fortifying the family social unit that was basic to a democratic society. In contrast, in the Soviet Union, communism drove women out of the home and put them to work, forcing children into state-run daycare centers and assaulting the family.

In response, postwar American society emphasized the importance of the “traditional” family structure which had a male wage-earner and a female housewife and mother. This placed the domesticated woman at the center of American values and viewed her domesticity as a weapon against any subversive communist influences. According to US Census data, in 1950, 23.8% of American married women had jobs outside the home; the figure climbed to 30.5% by 1960, and 39.6% by 1969.

An article in Life Magazine in 1953 tied working women to the consumer society, saying she worked “to increase her buying power as a consumer, for herself and particularly for her family.”

The bottom line was that, for most women, life was home centered. Women cared for their homes and for the emotional and nutritional needs of their families. They nursed, cooked, cleaned, decorated, and shopped. Girls and their toys mimicked the activities of their mothers.

Women’s housekeeping tasks were faithfully reproduced by their daughters who played with their own child-sized sweepers, vacuums, and pots and pans, Some of these were made by the same companies who manufactured the working appliances their moms used. Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company sold versions for real use and also the “Little Queen Carpet Sweeper” for girls, a good way to instill brand name loyalty at an early age.

The Kenner “Easy Bake” and Deluxe Topper Corporation’s “Suzy Homemaker” toy ovens were also popular. They used a light bulb as a heat source that could bake real, but tiny, cakes. Packaged cake mixes from Betty Crocker were sold especially for this use. The Easy Bake slogan promised little girls that they could make “Food as Good as Mom’s.”

Lessons in gender roles were seamlessly linked to lessons in the growing consumer economy. In the early 1950s, Americans began to spend more of their disposable income on food, not because of a rise in food prices, but because of marketing of new kinds of convenience foods. Toys reinforced the message that most food could be found packaged and processed.

The most important girl’s toy to come out of the Cold War era was the “Barbie” doll, introduced by Mattel in 1959. Barbie was sold as a fashion doll and ads promised:

Girls of all ages will thrill to the fascination of her miniature wardrobe of fine-fabric fashions . . . . Feminine magic! A veritable fashion show, and every girl can be the star!

Barbie didn’t cost very much when she was first introduced — only about $3 — but her clothes and accessory add-ons earned Mattel very healthy profits.

Barbie provided a contrast to then popular board games because some of the board games actually allowed for the possibility that women might be more than just a fashion object. She might, in fact, work outside the home, but only within a very narrow spectrum of possibilities.

The Selchow and Righter Company made a board game called What Shall I Be in two versions, one for boys and one for girls. Interestingly, there was no overlap between the careers offered to each. Girls choices in the 1966 version included the “helping” professions, like teacher or nurse, with some very glamorous options like stewardess, ballerina, actress, and model. In the 1968 version, boys could try out becoming doctors, engineers, astronauts, scientists, athletes, and statesmen. Neither of the options touched on the majority of real women’s jobs, the “pink collar ghetto” of secretaries, clerks, and waitresses.

Selchow and Righter Board Game for Girls

Selchow and Righter Board Game for Boys

It’s interesting to note that, according to a recent article in The Atlantic, the marketing of toys is more gendered today than it was 50 years ago when gender discrimination and sexism were the norm. But that’s another story.

Cover photograph by James Vaughan (Flickr).