(If you were in the South Vietnamese Army in 1970 you wouldn't be happy either)
Forty years ago today. The Paris Peace Talks were slogging ahead at a crawl. The Cooper-Church Amendment ending the Cambodian excursion didn't pass the House because Nixon threatened to kill it if it did, and he twisted arms to prove it. Casualties in the Vietnam War were down this week because the South Vietnamese Army was taking more of a role and they made up for the casualties jamming triage the week of July 9th. School Desegregation was still high on the list and the South was, as usual, slow to act. H.E.W. Secretary James Farmer was threatening to quit, citing the great divide in America over race.
James Farmer: “I think this is a time in the nation’s history when one has to be careful about the words that he uses. Be careful about his rhetoric and the invective. Because such invective, whether it comes from people outside the government or people inside the government may indeed further the polarization in an American society.”
Seems inflammatory rhetoric and the lunatic fringe were just as alive and well and living inside their heads as they do now.
And the Soviet Union offered their version of a Middle East Peace settlement, in answer to the seemingly endless number of skirmishes going on.
All in all, a day not too much different than this one.
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