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Vol. 80/No. 14 April 11, 2016
25, 50, and 75 Years Ago
April 12, 1991
In an interview published in the March 11 New Republic, [Gen. Norman]
Schwarzkopf said the greatest lesson of the 1983 U.S. invasion of
Grenada was “never underestimate your enemy.”
“What started as a highly conventional operation went sour right away,”
he said. “And it went sour because of the assumption that the Cubans
weren’t going to fight. We had 800 Cubans on the island who were well
armed and damned sure were going to fight.”
The Cubans had volunteered to help build a public airport in Grenada
during the 1979-1983 revolution led by Grenada Prime Minister Maurice
Bishop. Bishop’s overthrow and murder by a Stalinist clique led by
Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard handed Washington an opportunity to
invade and assert its domination over the island. The Cuban construction
workers, attacked by the invading U.S. troops, fought back despite
overwhelming odds.
April 11, 1966
It appears that [south Vietnamese] Premier Nguyen Cao Ky’s noisy threats
and the U.S. air-lifted troop movement to Danang have failed to end the
virtual insurrection in that city, leaving Danang and her sister city of
Hué still in the hands of anti-Ky forces. Meanwhile, violent
anti-government student demonstrations in Saigon have entered their
fourth day in spite of police attempts on the previous three days to
break them up with clubs, tear gas and smoke bombs.
These developments have completely exposed the fraudulence of
Washington’s pretense for involvement in south Vietnam — pretense that
the U.S. is fighting for the south Vietnamese people’s freedom. The Ky
regime stands exposed as a U.S. puppet, and as a hated military
dictatorship which not only the peasants in the countryside oppose, but
the masses in the cities as well.
April 12, 1941
The 400,000 striking soft coal miners of the eight-state Appalachian
region appear to be headed toward a major victory. This was indicated in
the announcement Sunday that the Northern operators, employing at least
65 percent of the miners, have agreed to sign a contract granting
demands of the United Mine Workers (CIO) for a general dollar a day wage
increase and paid vacations.
The gains already known to be won have confirmed the soundness of the
UMW position on the Mediation Board. Within less than a week, this
strike has won improved wages and conditions which unquestionably would
have been delayed for months or lost altogether had the miners yielded
to Roosevelt’s and the bosses’ pressure and continued to work while the
question of their contract was left in the hand of the
employer-dominated Mediation Board.
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