March 8, 1957 – The Suez Canal Re-Opens

Sunken and listing ships block the Suez Canal on November 12, 1956

On March 8, 1957, President Gamal Abdel Nasser officially re-opened the Suez Canal.  The roughly 110 mile long, 50 foot deep salt-water passage between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea had been the focus of international attention, and the United Nations’ first peace-keeping force, when Egypt nationalized the vital waterway in July 1956 hoping to get rich quick by charging shipping tolls.  Israel, Britain, and France had invaded in October and November to regain control of the area; the United Nations pressured them to withdraw; and Egypt eventually regained the upper toll-taking hand.

Today the canal was open for business, but wouldn’t really be navigable until Nasser picked up his “toys”.  “Closing” the canal hadn’t been as simple as shutting a gate or two; orders from on high to both intentionally damage the passage and litter it with sunken ships and other wreckage clogged the trade lifeline to anything large enough to carry oil or freight.  The United Nations helped Egypt clean up their mess and, by April, commerce commenced.

March 6, 1957 – Ghana Joins the Nations

Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah, seated at center, with other new government officials at the time of Ghana's independence

On March 6, 1957, in striking contrast to India’s experience with the Raj, the colonies of Gold Coast and British Togoland declared their independence from the British Empire.  Joining forces to become the nation of Ghana, the new 92,00 square mile entity was the first to gain its autonomy in the sub-Saharan region of Africa.  “Ghana” meant Warrior King, the title held by rulers of the ancient, medieval territory known as the West African Ghana Empire.  Located in the northwestern area of the African continent now bordered by Cote d’Ivoire on the west, Burkina Faso on the north, Togo on the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south, Ghana had a long history of occupation and exploitation that would hopefully end with this new beginning.

After its discovery by Portuguese explorers in the 1400′s, the region’s natural harbors and plentiful resources of gold, salt, ivory, and slaves made it a coveted location for European trade and settlement.  Dutch, British, and Spanish traders and troops followed the Portuguese, building forts and castles and digging lots of malaria-inspired graves.  It was the British who named the area “The Gold Coast” and, after the Dutch withdrew in 1874, made the land into a protectorate.

Many wars and skirmishes occurred over the centuries, but in the wake of World War II movements toward de-colonization became more intense.  In 1947, the United Gold Coast Convention had been formed and called for “self-government within the shortest possible time”.  During the next ten years, amidst anti-British riots, boycotts, strikes, and other forms of civil disobedience, the Convention People’s Party led by Kwame Nkrumah gained the widespread support of working class and rural Gold Coast native peoples.  An election in 1952 which gave Nkrumah’s party a majority of the seats in the Legislative Assembly resulted in the British releasing Nkrumah from prison (where he was serving time for seditious activity) and appointing him to a high government post.  Negotiations continued and resulted in the Ghanaian’s red (blood shed for independence), green (rich agriculture), and gold (mineral wealth) flag with a black star (symbolic of African emancipation) flying over the new capital city of Accra as of midnight on this day.

Ghana began as a parliamentary democracy, but has spent time under both military and civilian governments.   It has experienced devastating coups, decline, and recovery.  Relatively stable compared to other freed former African colonies, Ghana currently appears to be a functioning democracy, with a peaceful transfer of power from one legitimately elected leader to another achieved for the second time in 2009.

February 26, 1957 – Free the Cuban Presses!

On February 26, 1957, Cuban Minister of the Interior Dr. Santiago Rey announced that scissors and ink-rollers would be put away today to allow resumption of freedom of the press in the island nation.  First put in place on January 15th, the 45-day press coverage censorship would be lifted early, Rey’s statement read, as “evidence of the feelings and desires of the Chief of State [President Fulgencio Batista] and his sincere devotion to the liberty of the press and freedom of expression.”  Dr. Rey was also able to share the happy news that rebel attempts to disrupt the sugar harvest and tourist industry “have been frustrated by the energetic and efficient action of the armed forces”.

The New York Times, one of the United States’ leading newspapers, had been the frequent target of government ink- and cut-out.  Among the articles selected for elision were Herbert L. Matthews’ recent trilogy containing his interview with M-26-7 leader Fidel Castro, and including his assessment of the troubled state of affairs for the official government of Cuba.

February 24, 1957 – New York Times Exclusive Interview with Fidel Castro

New York Times reporter Herbert L. Matthews interviews Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestre mountains; February, 1957

On  February 24, 1957, the New York Times published the first of three articles on the state of affairs in Cuba by ace reporter Herbert L. Matthews.  Americans now had the word of the venerable NYT rag that Fidel Castro was alive and well and living (and fighting) in the Sierra Maestre range in Cuba’s eastern Oriente Province.  Hundreds of youthful followers had joined Castro’s M-26-7 forces there, instigating bombings and other attacks on President Fulgencio Batista’s army, which was trying to surround and contain the rebel threat.

Following government censorship of the press declared January 15th, no one either in Cuba or in the international community could be sure what was happening on the strife-torn tropical island.  Intrepid Matthews, posing as a tourista fisherman and accompanied by his wife, endured long, tortuous, cloak-and-dagger maneuvers in order to find himself in a muddy jungle in the presence of charismatic Castro.

The highly educated son of a self-made sugar plantation owner, 30-year-old Fidel had hated Batista since his student days when the General had staged an army revolt, cancelled elections, and seized power.  Current reports that government forces were taking the upper hand, Matthews discovered, were highly exaggerated.  With hostile army units almost within “breathing” distance, Matthews conducted a whispered interview in which Castro claimed that his increasingly-disruptive movement was for “nationalism, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism”, with “no animosity toward the United States”, “no hatred for the Army, for we know the men are good”, and that they were “fighting for a democratic Cuba”.  Money coming in to finance his operations was being used, among other things, to pay Army soldiers better wages than Batista could offer.

Matthews updated the world in his second and third articles on the state of Cuba’s economy (“good”), the violence and counter-terrorism engaged in by the Army, and the strong resistance among the people, particularly in Oriente.  “Communism,” he wrote, “has little to do with the opposition to the regime.”  Mothers were demonstrating in the streets, the government was deeply corrupt, and Cubans’ “anger and disappointment have been rising steadily”.  The United States’ sales of arms, the high-profile meetings between Batista and U.S. Ambassador to Cuba Arthur Gardner, the official visit of the U.S. aircraft carrier Leyte in support of the government with a four-destroyer contingent, had made the Cuban people bitterly anti-U.S..  American tourists, Matthews contrasted, were met with “unfailing friendliness” and not held responsible for Yanqui betrayal.

A multitude of groups – orthodox, radical, businessmen, women, civic leaders, students – opposed Batista and wanted him gone.  Thanks to Herbert Matthews, and the New York Times, the world could now hear their story.

February 8, 1957 – Cuba’s Conflicting Voices

Fidel Castro as a teen, the age of many of his cause's converts

On February 8, 1957, Peter Kihss of the New York Times filed an article about the current state of affairs in Cuba.  Three opposition leaders claimed that bombings and other hostilities were occurring on a continuing basis.  Cuban government officials denied the charges.

According to Accion Civica Cubana chairman Angel Perez Vidal, rebel leader Fidel Castro had 500 men raiding government barracks in the Sierra Maestre range of Oriente Province, 200 of Batista’s soldiers had been killed since November 30th, and another 200 had been arrested for refusing to fight.  Bombings continued to target power installations, disrupting electrical service in Havana and other cities.  Sergio Aparicio, General Secretary of Accion Revolucionaria Cubana, had heard from people on the ground that Army troops had beheaded two sick rebel M-26-7 troops for whom Castro had negotiated safe surrender, displaying their heads from a Jeep in Santa Cruz.  General Secretary of the Comite Ortodoxo Arnaldo Barron reported that he had recently presented the United Nations a petition from the Cuban Orthodox party naming fifty youths who had been tortured and killed.  Old line opposition leaders were, for the moment, refraining from hostile action while the valuable sugar cane crop was being harvested.  Young men in their teens and early twenties were joining Castro’s cause in great numbers, “those regarding him as an idealist fighting against dictatorship, reinforced recently by reaction to some ruthless killings by government forces seeking to suppress violence.”

Cuban Consul General Alfredo Hernandez, speaking for the regime of President Fulgencio Batista, denied the reports.  Peace ruled throughout Cuba, he maintained; “only a few soldiers” had been killed, and that Communists had been behind the “few” bombings in Havana.

Batista had suspended constitutional guarantees on January 15th; press reports were to be reviewed and cleared by government censors.  Since that time, news from Cuba had slowed to a trickle.  But Consul Hernandez insisted that foreign correspondents were welcome to visit Cuba to verify his version of events.  They would be “free to write anything they want”, he claimed, without censorship.

Who did the American people believe?

February 6, 1957 – American Aid for Hungarian Refugees

On February 6, 1957, devoted daily diarist Eleanor Roosevelt recorded her attendance at an American Hungarian Medical Association fundraising dinner to benefit Hungarian refugees.  She observed:

“This association helps in Europe as well as in this country, and I am glad it does, for the refugee burden on Austria and Yugoslavia must be great.

“[Chairman of the president's committee for Hungarian relief, Tracy S.] Voorhees told me that efforts were being made not only to move Hungarian refugees out of Camp Kilmer, N.J. quickly, but to give them an opportunity to learn the language and to get them into work similar to that which they were doing in their own country.

“He also mentioned that attempts were being made to bear in mind the needs of refugees in accustoming themselves to the change they face when leaving Europe and entering into the different atmosphere and culture of the United States.

“This is no easy situation, and the committee is trying to do a remarkable piece of work in meeting the refugees’ social and spiritual needs as well as their bread-and-butter problems.

“Concern for the Hungarian refugees in this country has been very great.  And I think that this is because we are readily moved by people who fight for freedom.”

The post-World War II history of Hungary began with Soviet occupation, then moved to a more subtle domination under the national Communist government of Matyas Rakosi.  The Warsaw Pact of 1955, which touted the principles of “respect for the independence and sovereignty of states” and “noninterference in their internal affairs” formally bound Hungary and other eastern European states as satellites to Mother Russia.  When Austria was declared a neutral country that same year, and Poland won some limited autonomy for its national government in June of 1956, Hungarian citizens began to hope for change.

Rakosi, who had risen to Hungary’s General Secretary of the Communist Party, was deposed in July.  Students, writers, and journalists felt the muzzle lifted and began to write and speak out in criticism of the economically and spiritually crushing status quo.  On October 23rd, demonstrations began, the State Security Police responded with bullets, government officials requested Soviet military assistance, and the next day saw Soviet tanks in the streets of Budapest.  Resistance continued until a cease-fire was put in place on October 28th.  The day before, a new Hungarian government had been constituted with the beginnings of reform on the horizon.

The Soviets were not amused.  By November 1st, Khrushchev began informing his allies of his plans for more forceful intervention in rebellious Hungary.  Through the first ten days of November, Soviet troops effectively took Hungary back under control.  When the ceasefire took effect on November 10th, over 2500 Hungarian citizens and 700 Soviet fighters had been killed, with many more wounded.  In the aftermath, many thousands of Hungarians were arrested.  Records seem to indicate that 26,000 were brought into court, with 22,000 sentenced, 13,000 imprisoned, several hundred executed, and hundreds deported, probably to the gulags of the Soviet Union.  Masses of refugees – more than 200,000 souls – fled their motherland.

The United States’ response to the Hungarian crisis was complicated by events at the Suez Canal.  “We couldn’t, on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against Nasser,” Vice President Richard Nixon later explained.  Time magazine, less inhibited by international opinion, named the Hungarian Freedom Fighter as its Man of the Year for 1956.  The United Nations created a Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary in January of 1957 to determine the  whether human rights had been violated.  Representatives from five member nations conducted refugee interviews and studied documents, newspapers, and other records.  The new Hungarian - and the old Soviet - governments refused access and requests for information.

Meanwhile, the refugees were making their way across Europe and many came to the United States.  Relief efforts on their behalf by the American Hungarian Medical Association, and other organizations, hoped to aid displaced families and individuals as they joined the melting pot that has helped make America strong.

January 28, 1957 – Cuba Under Crackdown

Hotel Nacional, on the Havana waterfront

On January 28, 1957, Time magazine kept Americans posted on the developments in Cuba following President Fulgencio Batista’s recent suspension of civil rights and imposition of censorship on the press.  Batista had acted in response to island-wide terrorist bombings, sabotage, and bloodshed by groups including Fidel Castro’s M-26-7 cell, operating from the Sierra Maestra range in southeastern Oriente Province.  Had anything changed?

“Many a Cuban,” Time reported, “though he could no longer read about the bombs, could still hear the noisy blasts they made.”  In case anyone needed help setting their clocks, the rebel groups responsible were regularly setting off bombs at 8:30 PM in downtown Havana in close proximity to the Hotel Nacional, a favorite of foreign tourists.  Fighting also continued in Oriente, where four Cuban army garrisons were attacked and 28 soldiers and insurgents were reportedly killed.  Saboteurs also continued to set fires in ripening fields of sugar cane, the valuable crop forming the basis of Cuba’s economy.

What would be Batista’s next move in this deadly game?

January 23, 1957 – Monaco Welcomes Princess Caroline

On January 23, 1957, a 21-gun salute, harbor whistles, bonfires, street dancing, and “torrents” of free champagne marked the birth of Caroline Louise Marguerite Grimaldi.  The parents of Princess Caroline, tiny heiress presumptive to the crown of Monaco, were each royal in their own way.  Her father was Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi, otherwise known as His Serene Highness Rainier III, Sovereign Prince of Monaco and Count of Polignac.  Rainier III ruled of the Principality of Monaco, which lies on the northern central coast of the Mediterranean Sea, its three-quarter-square-mile dominion surrounded on three sides by France.  Caroline’s mother was the equivalent of American royalty: the Academy-Award-winning actress and Philadelphia beauty Grace Kelly.

From High Noon in 1952, to Mogambo (1953), Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), The Country Girl (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), and finally High Society (1956), blonde, patrician Grace had taken Hollywood by storm.  Her leading men were a stellar group that included Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, James Stewart, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, and Frank Sinatra.  She met her lifelong leading man – Prince Rainier - when she attended the 1955 Cannes Film Festival in April at the invitation of the French government.  At age 31 and unmarried, the Prince and his principality needed an heir and Grace felt it was time she found a husband.  Rainier visited Grace and her wealthy, properly respectable  family in Philadelphia in December, proposed, and, after her father provided a $2 million dollar dowry, they were married in “The Wedding of the Century” on April 19, 1956.  Thousands of fans in both America and Europe avidly followed the fairy tale story that was to end “happily ever after” with Grace retiring from acting and taking on her final role as Princess Consort.

Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, caught unprepared without her bag (will large sunglasses do?)

In 1957, when Grace became pregnant with Caroline, all Monaco celebrated and eagerly awaited the appearance of an heir to the House of Grimaldi.  Press coverage of Grace’s progress seemed to fluster the cool and private princess, as hoards of paparazzi followed her with flash bulbs popping.  Grace took to shielding her expanding middle with her chic Hermes handbag.  The publicity-grateful company responded by naming the iconic and still-best-selling purse, “The Kelly”.

January 21, 1957 – Inauguration Day

1957 Inauguration, White House East Portico

On January 21, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower began his second term as President of the United States by repeating the oath of office in a public ceremony on the east portico of the White House.  The 20th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1938, specified January 20th as the official inaugural date in order to reduce the length of lame-duck presidential terms.  When January 20th fell on a Sunday, however, as it did in 1957, the President-elect and Vice President-elect took the oath of office privately on that date and then repeated it the next day, accompanied by all the festive public celebration.  Accordingly, Chief Justice Earl Warren performed his swearing-in duties twice this year: once in the East Room of the White House; once outside on the east portico.

Dressed in a morning coat, striped trousers, and a Homberg hat, President Eisenhower made the oath by placing his hand on his personal West Point bible, open to Psalm 33:12 – “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!”.  Vice President Richard Nixon, his wife Pat, Eisenhower’s wife Mamie, and many officials, dignitaries, and guests witnessed the historic moment amid light snow flurries.  Marian Anderson sang; President Eisenhower gave a stirring inaugural address; and luncheon was served in the Old Supreme Court chamber, broadcast live on television.  Chilled well-wishers feasted on a buffet of shrimp cocktail, hearts of lettuce, olives, pickles, radish roses, roast tenderloin of beef au jus, baked sugar-cured ham, Maine lobster Newburg, rice piamontaise, French-cut green beans, tossed green salad, assorted glace, and “plenty of coffee”.

President Eisenhower, with grandchildren Anne and David, and Vice President Nixon, with daughters Julie and Tricia, watching portions of the Inaugural Parade

Over 750,000 spectators, with a privileged 65,800 in grandstands, took in the 3 1/2 hour inaugural parade in the afternoon.  Stretching over a three-mile route, the parade participants included Eisenhower and Nixon waving from limousines, 17,000 marchers in 47 units (11,757 in military service), 52 bands, 10 drum and bugle corps, and an enormous float 408 feet long and mounted on 164 wheels brandishing the theme “Liberty and Strength Through Consent of the Governed”.

Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, with son John and his wife Barbara, celebrate the momentous day at an Inaugural Ball

Later in the evening, the Armory, the Mayflower Hotel, the Statler Hotel, and the Sheraton-Park Hotel hosted the four most-coveted invites in town as all of Washington’s elite got dressed up and stepped out to the Inaugural Balls.

January 17, 1957 – Golda Meir at the United Nations

Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir addresses the United Nations General Assembly, January 17, 1957

On January 17, 1957, Israeli Prime Minister [Correction: Foreign Minister; please see below] Golda Meir spoke before the United Nation General Assembly on the current situation at the Suez Canal.  Long controlled by the United Kingdon, the canal had recently been turned over to administration by President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt with the withdrawal of the last British troops in July of 1956.  But with overtures by Nasser to the Soviet Union and the perceived threat of loss of access for world shipping through the vital link between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, the United Kingdom, France, and Israel had responded with troops.  In October, Israel’s army invaded the Sinai peninsula by land, and the UK and France provided support by air.  The invading forces had some success on the ground, but suffered political near-disaster internationally.

On November 4, 1956, the United Nations had voted in favor of creating its first peacekeeping mission to help resolve what came to be called the Suez Crisis.  UN troops would guarantee canal neutrality by occupying the Suez region until both Israel and Egypt withdrew their forces.  Meir’s appearance before the gathered world representatives recounted Israel’s actions to comply with UN mandates.  The major part of the Sinai Desert had been evacuated by Israeli troops, she reported.  Israel was following the specified timetable.  But Egypt, she maintained, was not.

“Throughout these weeks, during which Israel has cooperated actively with the United Nations on the withdrawal of troops,” Golda stressed, “there has not been one single act of compliance by Egypt with the recommendations of policies of the international organization, to which she has looked for protection against the consequences of her own belligerency.”

As part of the Suez crisis, Nasser had intentionally sunk ships in the canal itself; those actions combined with damage during area combat had led to the canal’s closure.  The UN’s resolution of November 2nd had called for steps to be taken to reopen the canal and restore freedom of navigation in the area.  Meir pointed out that “this objective, so vital for the security and economic welfare of many countries, has been subjected by Egypt to every kind of obstruction and delay; conditions and provisos have been attached to every phase of its implementation.  No action has been spared which might slow the process down”.  In many other ways, as well, Meir elucidated, Egypt was thumbing its nose at the world.  Illegal raids, violation of fundamental human rights, persecution of Jews residing in Egypt – Nasser was not to be trusted.

Meir went on to brief the assembly on the situation in the Straits of Tiran and the Gaza Strip.  Israel found itself at a sensitive juncture.  The country’s security was at stake, Golda stressed, and if continued compliance with the UN plan left her vulnerable to “renewed belligerency” by Nasser, certain “tension and hostility” would inevitably follow.

So, Golda asked the peace-loving organization, how were they going to respond to the bully in her backyard?