Republic of Congo - June 30, 1960

The Belgian Congo achieved independence on June 30, 1960 under the nationalist leadership of Patrice Lumumba of the the "Mouvement National Congolais" or MNC Party.  The new African nation initially took the name "Republic of Congo", changing it to "Democratic Republic of the Congo" in 1964 to distinguish it from the former French Congo which also took the name "Republic of Congo".

June 30, 1960 marked the end of a long colonial period that included the brutal "Congo Free State", a private holding of King Leopold II of Belgium, and the "Belgian Congo", a slightly more enlightened arrangement overseen by the Belgian parliament.

These words from newly elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba expressed the hope of the fledgling nation.

"The Republic of the Congo has been proclaimed, and our country is now in the hands of its own children.
Together, my brothers, my sisters, we are going to begin a new struggle, a sublime struggle, which will lead our country to peace, prosperity, and greatness.
Together, we are going to establish social justice and make sure everyone has just remuneration for his labor.
We are going to show the world what the black man can do when he works in freedom, and we are going to make of the Congo the center of the sun's radiance for all of Africa...
We are going to do away with all discrimination of every variety and assure for each and all the position to which human dignity, work, and dedication entitles him.
We are going to rule not by the peace of guns and bayonets but by a peace of the heart and the will ."   Patrice Lumumba  June 30, 1960

Unfortunately, the end of Belgian colonialism did not mean the end of troubles for the Congolese people.  Tribal infighting, cold-war politics, resource conflicts, dictatorships, and civil war have plagued the "Democratic Republic of the Congo" from day one to this very day. 

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Today we mark the 50 year anniversary of the formation of the "Democratic Republic of the Congo".  In so doing we remember the oppressive era of colonial Africa, the great African independence movement of the 1960's, and the ongoing struggle for peace, freedom and unity faced by so many African nations today.

Remembering and reflecting... Rob; in Vancouver

"The Congo's independence marks a decisive step 

towards the liberation of the entire African continent."

Patrice Lumumba

"Patrice Émery Lumumba" - Elijah Kalswe

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"Chain Gang" - Sam Cooke 1960

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1960 Cold War Realities

I was just a pup in 1960 and have no real appreciation of the Cold War realities that the world faced at the time.  Even a study of the history of that period fails to give a full sense of the risks and perils inherent in the nuclear arms race.

Doomsday Clock

1960 was actually a bit of a lull in the arms race.  So much so that the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" adjusted their "doomsday clock" from 2 minutes to midnight to 7 minutes to midnight in response to the "belief that a new cohesive force has entered the interplay of forces shaping the fate of mankind, and is making the fate of mankind a little less foreboding."  

Nuclear Tests

The United States and Soviet Union had even managed to observe a moratorium on nuclear testing for 1959 and 1960.  The moratorium would ultimately be broken in 1961 as relations between the superpowers deteriorated and a new and aggressive period of testing would begin.

"Plumbbob"

I find it personally interesting to note the extensive series of nuclear tests conducted under the code name "Plumbbob" at the Nevada Test Site in 1957.  Being born in Arkansas in October 1957, I find it noteworthy to consider what was going on back "in the day".

Operation Plumbbob was a series of nuclear tests conducted between May 28 and October 7, 1957, at the Nevada Test Site, following Operation Redwing, and preceding Operation Hardtack I. It was the biggest, longest, and most controversial test series in the continental United States.

• The operation was the sixth test series and consisted of 29 explosions…
• Almost 1,200 pigs were subjected to bio-medical experiments and blast-effects studies during Operation Plumbbob…
• Approximately 18,000 members of the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines participated in exercises Desert Rock VII and VIII during Operation Plumbbob…
• Plumbbob released 58,300 kilocuries (2.16 EBq) of radioiodine (I-131) into the atmosphere. This produced total civilian radiation exposures amounting to 120 million person-rads of thyroid tissue exposure (about 32% of all exposure due to continental nuclear tests)…
• Statistically speaking, this level of exposure would be expected to eventually cause between 11,000 and 212,000 excess cases of thyroid cancer, leading to between 1,000 and 20,000 deaths.

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Our Morgan was not impressed that one of the nuclear shots during "Operation Plumbbob" was code-named "Morgan"!

What a wonderful world... we are so lucky to still have it!

Be well... Rob; in Vancouver

"The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable."
J. Robert Oppenheimer

"Operation Plumbbob"

50 Years Ago Today - Japan and Okinawa

June 19, 1960: Japan-U.S. Security Pact

"The controversial Japan-United States Security Treaty got the automatic approval of the Diet on June 19 despite demonstration by nearly 300,000 people in Tokyo to prevent the ratification of the Treaty. The Treaty was automatically approved when the ruling Liberal Democratic Party decided not to call a plenary session of the House of Councillors (Upper House of the Diet) on June 18 as had been planned. Under the Japanese Constitution a treaty passed by the Lower House gets the automatic approval of the Diet if the Upper House fails to act on it within 30 days of its passage by the Lower House."  The Hindu

Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi was ultimately forced to resign over the treaty.  He is pictured below with Dwight Eisenhower.

June 19, 1960:  Protests Mar Ike's Okinawa Visit

President Eisenhower was met by angry protesters during a brief visit to Okinawa on his Far East tour.  A planned visit by the President to Japan had already been canceled at the the request of the Japanese in response to mounting protests over the Japan-U.S. Security Pact.  In Okinawa the residents had more local concerns, namely, the continued occupation and administration of Okinawa by the U.S. and the extensive U.S. military bases built on misappropriated land.

50 Years Later

The most recent protests against American bases in Okinawa were held this past April when 90,000 people gathered to oppose the continuation of U.S. military bases.   U.S. bases have been an ongoing sore spot in Japan - U.S. relations.  Okinawans complain of the noise, violence by U.S. military personnel, and the large amount of land tied up in the bases.

With continued tensions in Korea and unresolved issues between China and Taiwan it is unlikely that the U.S. will be drawing down it's military presence in Okinawa anytime soon.  Alas for the Okinawans!

Remembering and reflecting... Rob 

“The natives on Okinawa are growing in number and 

are very anxious to repossess the lands they once owned.”  

 President Dwight Eisenhower, 1958

Patsy Cline - "Lovesick Blues" - June 1960

Patsy Cline was at the height of her career in 1960. 

June 16, 1960 - "Psycho"

Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller "Psycho" was released 50 years ago today.   Starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Psycho is remembered as one of Hitchcock's best films.

Based on the 1959 novel of the same name, "Psycho" is loosely based on the story of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein. Ed Gein was arrested in 1957 at which time he confessed to the killing of two women and digging up the remains of others.

Gein's grotesque practice of creating a "woman's suit" from the tanned skins of his exhumed victims also became the basis for the "Buffalo Bill" character in the 1991 film "The Silence of the Lambs".    Gein was also the model for the killer "Leatherface" in the 1974 film "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".  Gein was convicted of murder and spent the rest of his life in a mental health hospital.

Defying Tradition...

"Psycho" was a ground-breaking film in terms of challenging the censor codes that governed American film making in its day.  From Wikipedia... "Psycho is a prime example of the type of film that appeared in the 1960s after the erosion of the Production Code. It was unprecedented in its depiction of sexuality and violence, right from the opening scene where Sam and Marion are shown as lovers sharing the same bed. In the Production Code standards of that time, unmarried couples shown in the same bed would be taboo. In addition, the censors were upset by the shot of a flushing toilet; at that time, the idea of seeing a toilet onscreen — let alone being flushed — was taboo in American films and television shows."  read more

A number of sequels, a prequel, and a remake couldn't quite hold a candle to the original "Psycho", directed by the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock.

Enjoy the clips below.

Retrospectively yours... Rob; in Vancouver

"A boy's best friend is his mother."

Norman Bates

Psycho - 1960

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Retro Field Trip - The Buddy Holly Story

Historical research requires the occasional field trip!  I did just that on Saturday with Pam and our friends Dee, Harry, Amanda, and Chris as we took in the local stage production of "Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story".   "Buddy" was an awesome musical show that told the story of Buddy Holly's short musical life starting with his first recording sessions and ending with his final concert on the 1959 "Winter Dance Party" tour in Iowa.

Buddy Holly was an amazing musician who influenced many of the rock and roll bands and singers that were emerging in the late 50's and early 60's.  He was a significant influence on the Beatles, who were playing as "The Quarrymen" while "Buddy Holly and The Crickets" were touring England in 1958.  The Beatles took their name as a tribute to Holly's "Crickets"

The Day the Music Died
Buddy Holly (22) died in a plane crash on February 3, 1959, along with early "rockers"  Ritchie Valens and JP Richardson, aka "The Big Bopper".  This day would go down in history as "the day the music died" thanks to Don McLeans 1971 classic hit "American Pie".

The post below includes some of the hits that would have been played at the "Winter Dance Party" in February 1959.  Enjoy. Link here

Retro Reporting from  Vancouver... Rob

"Death is very often referred to as a good career move."
Buddy Holly

The Day the Music Died

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Rocky and Friends - 1960

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1960 - The Year of Africa

1960 has been known as "The Year of Africa".  Decolonization was in full swing with 17 African nations declaring independence in 1960.

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Wikipedia records the 1960 African independence progress as follows...

Granted independence in 1960 from France...

• Mauritania
• Mali Federation (split into Mali and Senegal on August 20)
• Gabon
• Republic of Congo
• Central African Republic
• Chad
• Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire)
• Upper Volta (renamed to Burkina Faso in 1984)
• Niger
• Dahomey (renamed to Benin in 1975)
• Madagascar
• Togo (formerly French Togoland)
• Cameroon (Cameroun, joined with the British Cameroons in 1961)

Granted independence in 1960 from the United Kingdom...

• Somalia  (British Somaliland and the Trust Territory of Somalia)
• Nigeria

Granted independence in 1960 from Belgium...

• Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly the Belgian Congo) 

CBC News has posted a short article on Africa in 1960 with particular reference to Kenyan Author Ngugi wa Thiong'o.  CBC Article

In South Africa it was the year of the Sharpeville Massacre and the year in which the ANC was "outlawed".  Elsewhere in Africa there was "cold war chaos" as the US and USSR engaged in all manner power struggles and "proxy wars", with scant regard for the welfare of the budding new nations.  Nowhere was this chaos more pronounced than in the Congo of 1960.  The violence in the Congo from '60-'67 would claim over 100,000 lives including Patrice Lumumba.

TTFN... Rob

"Don't weep my love. One day history will have its say. Not the history they teach in Brussels, Paris or Washington, but our history. That of a new Africa."  Patrice Lumumba

Louis Armstrong in the Congo - 1960

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Alley-oop

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Tommy Douglas Wins Again

June 8, 1960 - Saskatchewan General Election

Tommy Douglas and his Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, or CCF,  party rolled to its 5th consecutive majority victory on June 8, 1960.  The CCF elected 37 members of the 54 seat legislature with Ross Thatcher's Liberals electing the remaining 17 seats.  Douglas, a Baptist minister, was the premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 until he retired from Provincial politics in 1961.  

Innovations under his visionary leadership included:

• the creation of the publicly owned Saskatchewan Power Corp., successor to the Saskatchewan Electrical Power Commission, which began a long program of extending electrical service to isolated farms and villages;
• the creation of Canada's first publicly owned automobile insurance service;
• the creation of a large number of Crown Corporations, many of which competed with existing private sector interests;
• legislation that allowed the unionization of the public service;
• a program to offer free hospital care to all citizens—the first in Canada.
• passage of the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, legislation that broke new ground as it protected both fundamental freedoms and equality rights against abuse not only by government actors but also on the part of powerful private institutions and persons. (The Saskatchewan Bill of Rights preceded the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations by 18 months).  Wikipedia

Canadian Medicare

Douglas won the 1960 election on the promise of a Province-wide medical care system.  The Provincial program put in place in Saskatchewan became the model for the National medicare program implemented by Lester Pearson later in the decade.

Social Gospel
Tommy Douglas was a man of spiritual faith.  His political activism and his passion for human rights, social justice, and freedom were born of the powerful impulse of human compassion and the resultant desire to alleviate suffering.  

It would be nice to see some political leadership along those same lines today!

Remembering and reflecting... Rob; in Vancouver

“The religion of tomorrow will be less concerned with the dogmas of theology and more concerned with the social welfare of humanity.”  Tommy Douglas

Classic Tommy Douglas

On Medicare - 1983

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The Cream Separator

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On Jobs and the Environment - 1983

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"The Beast is in Chains"

A Snapshot in TIME - June 6, 1960

"The beast is in chains". With these coded words Israeli agents operating in Argentina informed Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was apprehended.  A few weeks after being covertly taken in Buenos Aries Eichmann was smuggled out of the country and transported to Israel.  

From TIME Magazine... "The Israeli Parliament assembled last week for a humdrum budget debate. Then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion rose and, in a voice breaking with emotion, said: "I have to inform the Knesset that one of the greatest Nazi war criminals, Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible together with the Nazi leaders for what they called the 'final solution' of the Jewish question—that is, the extermination of 6,000.000 of the Jews of Europe—is under arrest in Israel and will shortly be placed on trial in Israel."   Read more

Eichmann was tried, found guilty, and hanged on May 31, 1962.

THE BANALITY OF EVIL

Historian Hannah Arendt, who covered the Eichmann trial for The New Yorker, coined the phrase "banality of evil" in an attempt to account for the committing of unspeakable atrocities by people who seem not to be fanatical, malevolent, or otherwise "beastly", but who rather seem quite sane and normal.  She points to a lack of self-reflective thinking and an uncritical acceptance of state authority as factors in the erosion of personal autonomy and morally responsible judgment. 

"The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together." Hannah Arendt

Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton picks up on this theme in his 1964 essay entitled "A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann".  Merton points to the same factors at work in the machinations of strategic nuclear war planners.

"One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt it all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing.  If all the Nazis had been psychotics, as some of their leaders probably were, their appalling cruelty would have been in some sense easier to understand. It is much worse to consider this calm, "well-balanced," unperturbed official conscientiously going about his desk work, his administrative job which happened to be the supervision of mass murder. He was thoughtful, orderly, unimaginative. He had a profound respect for system, for law and order. He was obedient, loyal, a faithful officer of a great state. He served his government very well...

...No, Eichmann was sane. The generals and fighters on both sides, in World War II, the ones who carried out the total destruction of entire cities, these were the sane ones. Those who have invented and developed atomic bombs, thermonuclear bombs, missiles; who have planned the strategy of the next war; who have evaluated the various possibilities of using bacterial and chemical agents: these are not the crazy people, they are the sane people."  Thomas Merton

Merton and Arendt help us to become more aware of the true nature of systemic evil and of our inextricable complicity in it.  Alas!

Remembering and reflecting...  Rob

"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."  Hannah Arendt

60's Newsreel - Eichmann Trial

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"Only the Lonely" - Roy Orbison

The hits just keep coming!  Here's Roy Orbison in his signature sunglasses singing a classic hit from 1960...

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"The Quarrymen" Become "The Beatles"

1960 saw John Lennon's young Liverpool band known as "The Quarrymen" emerge as "The Beatles". They even spent a couple of months as "The Silver Beatles" before settling on the final, shorter version. 

The Quarrymen were originally formed by Lennon in 1957 with Paul McCartney and George Harrison joining shortly after.  It would be a couple of more years before Ringo joins as the drummer.

For a brief history of these early days check out the BBC article here...

"The Quarrymen"

TTFN... Rob


"Once upon a time there were three little boys called John, George and Paul, by name christened. They decided to get together because they were the getting together type. When they were together they wondered what for after all, what for? So all of a sudden they grew guitars and fashioned a noise."  John Lennon 1960

 

"That'll Be the Day" - The Quarrymen

In their early days the Beatles were heavily influenced by Buddy Holly.  Even the name of the band is a tribute to Holly's "Crickets".  Here is a 1958 recording of the Quarrymen singing a Buddy Holly classic.  Enjoy the pictures from the "early days".

"Words of Love" - Buddy Holly and the Beatles

Buddy Holly - 1960

The Beatles - 1964

Happy Birthday Marilyn - June 1, 1960

Marilyn Monroe turned 34 on June 1, 1960.  I was just a kid! 

"And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in
And I would have liked to have known you
But I was just a kid
Your candle burned out long before
Your legend ever did"

Bernie Taupin

"Candle in the Wind" - Elton John