Part II of a review of why 1979 was a year that would test any President and more evidence that President Carter is vastly underrated.
Part I is here. As wild as the first half of the year was, it was tame compared to part duex.
Apologies for the day delay. Life got in the way :)
The second half of 1979 started with one of those things the public knew nothing about. On the 3rd of July President Carter authorized secret aid to the Afghan opposition. Stay with me, this gets complicated - we funded the anti-Soviet Afghans. The Soviets thought we were going to be successful and "turn" the government to a pro-Western stance. This would trigger the December invasion of a nominally pro-Soviet country by the Soviet union. In modern terms, the Soviets unfriended the Afghans before they could be unfriended. More importantly, despite popular fiction, it was President Carter - NOT Reagan - who started aid to Afghan rebels.
While we didnt know about that, we did know that the sky(lab) was falling. On 11 July our first space station, Skylab, returned to early in a ball of fire. Even as a kid I remember this event overshadowing 4th of July and it seemed like everything good about our country was literally falling apart.
On the 16th of July Iraq got a new leader - some guy named Saddam Hussein.
The next day our man in Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza, fled to Miami. The seeds of Iran-Contra were not completely planted.
The rest of the month and August are relatively calm. On 27 August the Irish Republican Army killed Lord Mountbatten and 3 others while simultaneously killing 18 British soldiers. I remember this as a trigger for the debate over support for the IRA in the US that raged most of the 80's.
- Another two months down and an already unsettled world got filled with more uncertainty. Afghanistan was already pro-Soviet. No one knew how Iran was going to end up and now Iraq had a new wild card. Had they all "turned" to the Soviet camp there would be Russian's sitting on the border with Saudi Arabia and at the tip of the Straits of Hormuz. This would help trigger the 1979 oil crisis and on 15 July the infamous "malaise" speech (where he never used the word). Gas prices were almost identical to today in inflation adjusted dollars - About $1 a gallon when minimum wage was $2.90, the average vehicle on the road got 16mpg and the average new vehicle got 24mpg.
September and October were the calm before the storm. In fact, the biggest events were storms - tornado in Conneticut and a typhoon Japan. On 26 October Park Chung-hee, the President of South Korea, is assassinated by KCIA director Kim Jaegyu. That seemed like a big deal for about a week.
On the 1st of November Ayatollah Khomeini called for people to protest against America an on the 4th 3000 "students" stormed the US Embassy. The Iran Hostage Crisis had begun.
3 Days later Ted Kennedy announced he would challenge a sitting President forthe nomination of his own party.
On the 9th of November NORAD gets a false alert of a soviet nuclear strike. Only a second check of an alternate site keeps the US from launching its own counter strike.
On the 12th President Carter suspends imports of Iranian oil sending gas prices even higher.
On the 20th of November a man claiming/believing to be the Mahdi takes over the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The Saudis initially believe that Iranian sponsored Shia are responsible. The next day after Iranian fed rumors circulate that the US is responsible, the US Embassy in Pakistan is attacked and burned to the ground, killing 4.
November 28 – Air New Zealand Flight 901 - another DC-10 killing 257. My mom refuses to fly on any Douglas aircraft.
2 December - US Embassy in Libya attacked by mobs believing US forces occupy the Grand Mosque.
12 December - South Korean General Chun Doo-hwan orders the arrest of Army Chief of Staff General Jeong Seung-hwa without authorization from President Choi Kyu-ha, alleging involvement in the assassination of ex-President Park Chung Hee. South Korea will be ruled by a military government for the next 8 years.
27 December – The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.
- I cannot imagine what it must have been like in the National Security Counsel at this time. The Crisis in Iran was enough to occupy everyone but what was happening in Mecca was far more significant. While few in this country paid any attention, the President was well aware of what was going on. The US military was/is deeply embedded in the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) and it was the SANG who were sent to retake the Grand Mosque. Unofficially causalities have been estimated north of 4000 in a battle that lasted weeks and eventually required help from French Special Forces personnel. What was less well known at the time was the extent of concessions the King had to make to get a fatwa from the Ulama in order to use force in Mecca (something the Prophet had forbidden). The most extreme portions of the clergy were granted freedom and funding to spread and enforce the strictest form of Islamic beliefs. Riyadh went from moving toward being the next Beirut (or Dubai before Dubai) to being the center of conservationism. Clubs, movie theaters and anything "western" disappeared almost overnight. Billions flowed into religious education and all of it was extreme. Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members were given homes and jobs as teachers and one of their students was a young Osama Bin Laden. The "takfir" teachings of Sayyid Qutb now had $audi backing and an object lesson (taking back the Grand Mosque). Al Queda may never have existed had one man not believed he was the "redeemer of Islam."
While this was going on, South Korea, where tensions were still high after the "Axe Murder Incident" had become a complete mess. In almost any other time, fixing this an ensuring a democracy would have been a high priority but we were so engaged else ware it was allowed to stand.
By the time the Soviets invaded it must have seemed like the year with no end. To this day no one really understands why the Soviets decided to invade. My counterpart in Afghanistan was a young Afghan Army Officer at the time and literally found himself fighting people who had been his advisers the day before and would be his "partners" weeks later. In high school terms, the Soviets invaded because they thought the Afghans "liked" the US and the Afghans were "yeah we like them but not in that way" and were very confused when their Soviet "boyfriend" started beating them up. In the end the entire invasion may have happened because know one really knew what was going on. What we did know was that the Soviet 40th Army had only Iran between it and the Persian Gulf and no one knew if the Iranians would invite them in or fail to resist if they forced their way in. Either way, we were in no position to help even if asked and no one was asking which would later lead us to "friending" Saddam Hussein when he wanted to be the enemy of our enemy (Iran) while also dating our other enemy (Soviet Union) and supporting the enemy (PLO) of our friend (Israel).
In our own backyard pool the Soviets and Cubans were popping up all over the place and Castro was about to empty his jails into Florida.
Gas prices were going through the roof and food prices with it. Chrysler was broke, their internal problems not helped by the 10 day truck drivers strike that shut down most of their plants.
And these were "just" the big things. There was so much more that impacted the Americans and by extension the President. Every time he told us the hard truth, we liked him a little less. But the fact is the times were flat out crazy. Looking back it is tough to see how anyone managed to keep things straight let alone act in a positive way. So next time you think things are bad, that we have too many issues, be glad its not 1979 and you are not in charge.