Post by Admin on Nov 26, 2015 23:31:12 GMT
Elián González affair
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elián_González_affair
Ramifications:
Commentators have suggested that the Elián González affair may have been a factor in voters' decisions in the 2000 United States presidential election, which could have affected the close outcome in Florida. (D)Al Gore's handling of the matter may have been as great a factor as anger by the predominantly Republican Cuban community over the boy's return to Cuba. Gore initially supported Republican legislation to give the boy and his father permanent residence status, but later supported the Administration position. He was attacked by both sides in the dispute for pandering and being inconsistent.
............................................................................
The custody and immigration status of a young Cuban boy, Elián González (born December 6, 1993), was at the center of a heated 2000 controversy involving the governments of Cuba and the United States, González's father, Juan Miguel González Quintana, González's other relatives in Miami, Florida, and in Cuba, and Miami's Cuban American community.
González's mother drowned in November 1999 while attempting to leave Cuba with her son and her boyfriend to get to the United States. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) initially placed González with maternal relatives in Miami, who sought to keep him in the United States against his father's demands that González be returned to Cuba. A federal district court's ruling that only González's father, and not his extended relatives, could petition for asylum on the boy's behalf was upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, federal agents took González from his relatives and returned him to Cuba in June 2000.
Background
Further information: Cuba–United States relations
Hostility between Cuba and the United States has been persistent since soon after the Cuban Revolution ended in 1959. Since then many Cubans have tried to leave Cuba for the United States. This emigration was illegal under both Cuban and U.S. law; any Cuban found at sea attempting to reach U.S. shores will be deported by the U.S. Coast Guard or if discovered by Cuban police, ostracized and prohibited from most Cuban institutions. U.S. policy has evolved into the current "wet feet, dry feet" rule: If a Cuban is picked up at sea or walking toward shore, he/she will be repatriated by force. If he/she can make it to shore ("dry feet"), he/she is permitted to make a case for political asylum.
Cubans who make it to U.S. soil are generally allowed to remain in the country. After a year, the Cuban Adjustment Act allows them to apply for U.S. residency. This differs from U.S. immigration policy applied to refugees of all other Caribbean nations, notably Haitians. To monitor whether returned Cubans are subjected to persecution, the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, in cooperation with international organizations, maintains follow-up contact with the returned Cubans. The result of this monitoring has been a conclusion that there is no systematic legal policy of the Cuban government to persecute those Cubans who have been returned.
González's journey and the beginning of the custody battle
On November 21, 1999, González, his mother, and twelve others left Cuba on a small aluminum boat with a faulty engine; González's mother and ten others died in the crossing. González and the other two survivors floated at sea until they were rescued by two fishermen, who turned him over to the U.S. Coast Guard.
González's cousin Marisleysis said González told her the motor had broken on the boat and its passengers had tried in vain to bail out the water with nylon bags, but a storm doomed their efforts. He told her he tried to help get the water out and his mother's boyfriend placed him in an inner tube for safety. "He said afterwards that he fell asleep and that when he woke up he never saw his mother again". He said, "I think she drowned too because she didn't know how to swim". Nivaldo Fernández Ferran, one of the three survivors on the boat, said "Elizabeth protected her son to the end". According to Ferran, they set out on their trip at 4 a.m., dragging inflated rubber floats, or inner tubes, in case they needed them. As they encountered bad weather, the boat's engine failed and the craft began to fill with water. After it went under, the passengers clung to the inner tubes in cold water, with waves reaching heights of three to four meters (10 to 13 feet).
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) released González to his paternal great-uncle, Lázaro. According to the Washington Post, González's father, Juan Miguel González Quintana, had telephoned Lázaro from Cuba on November 22, 1999, to advise that González and his mother had left Cuba without Juan Miguel's knowledge, and to watch for their arrival. However, Lázaro González, backed by local Cuban-Americans, soon took the position that the boy should remain in the United States and not be returned to his father in Cuba. Marisleysis González (Lázaro's adult daughter) became Elián González's principal caretaker, and quickly became a well-known television figure. Armando Gutierrez, a local Cuban-American businessman, became the family spokesman.[citation needed] However, Juan Miguel, with the support of his nation's authorities, demanded that the boy be returned to his care.
On January 21, 2000, González's grandmothers, Mariela Quintana and Raquel Rodríguez, flew from Havana to the United States to seek their grandson's return to Cuba. While they were able to meet with the boy only once (at the Miami Beach home of Barry University president Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin), they journeyed to Washington and met with congressmen and Attorney General Janet Reno. After nine days of relentless media coverage (during which Republican lawmakers acknowledged they did not have the votes to pass a bill to give González U.S. citizenship), the two women returned to Cuba to "a hero's welcome".
On January 28, the Spanish Foreign Minister Abel Matutes called for the boy's return to Cuba, stating that international law dictated the return. Meanwhile, the Miami Gonzálezes denied allegations that they had offered Juan Miguel a house and a car if he abandoned the action and joined his son in Miami. Juan Miguel was uninterested in emigrating.
Through January and February, Juan Miguel sent a number of open letters to the U.S. Government — published in, among other places, the Cuban newspaper Granma — demanding the return of his son and refusing the Miami relatives' demands.
On March 21, a Federal judge dismissed the relatives' petition for asylum which they had filed on behalf of Elián González. Lázaro vowed to appeal. On March 29, Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas was joined by 22 other civic leaders in a speech in downtown Miami. Penelas indicated that the municipality would not cooperate with Federal authorities on any repatriation of the boy, and would not lend police assets or any other assistance in taking the boy.
On April 14, a video was released in which Elián tells Juan Miguel that he wants to stay in the United States. However, many thought that he had been coached, as a male voice was heard off-camera directing the young boy. In a September 2005 interview with 60 Minutes after being sent back to Cuba, González stated that during his stay in the U.S., his family members were "telling me bad things about [my father]", and "were also telling me to tell him that I did not want to go back to Cuba, and I always told them I wanted to."
Elián González remained a subject of media attention as he went to Walt Disney World Resort one day, then met with politicians the next. Throughout the custody battle, opinion polls showed that a majority of Americans believed Elián should be returned to his father in Cuba, and that doing so was in Elián's best interests. On April 19, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that González must stay in the U.S. until the Miami Gonzálezes could appeal for an asylum hearing in May.
Elián taken by federal authorities
Attorney general Janet Reno ordered the return of Elián to his father and set a deadline of April 13, 2000, but the Miami relatives defied the order. Negotiations continued for several days as the house was surrounded by protesters as well as police. The relatives insisted on guarantees that they could live with the child for several months and retain custody, and that Elián would not be returned to Cuba. Negotiations carried on throughout the night, but Reno stated that the relatives rejected all workable solutions. A Florida family court judge revoked Lázaro's temporary custody, clearing the way for Elián to be returned to his father's custody. On April 20, Reno made the decision to remove Elián González from the house and instructed law enforcement officials to determine the best time to obtain the boy. After being informed of the decision, Marisleysis said to a Justice Department community relations officer, "You think we just have cameras in the house? If people try to come in, they could be hurt."
In the pre-dawn hours of Easter eve, Saturday, April 22, pursuant to an order issued by a federal magistrate, eight agents of the Border Patrol's elite BORTAC unit as part of an operation in which more than 130 INS personnel took part approached the house; they knocked, and identified themselves. When no one responded from within, they entered the house. Pepper-spray and mace were employed against those outside the house who attempted to interfere. Nonetheless, a stool, rocks, and bottles were thrown at the agents. In the confusion, Armando Gutierrez called in Alan Diaz, of the Associated Press, to enter the house and entered a room with Elián, his great uncle's wife Angela Lázaro, her niece, the niece's young son, and Donato Dalrymple (one of the two men who had rescued him from the ocean). They waited in the room listening to agents searching the house. Diaz took a widely publicized photograph of a border patrol agent confronting Dalrymple and the boy.
INS also stated in the days after the raid that they had identified as many as two dozen persons who were "prepared to thwart any government operation," some of whom had concealed weapons while others had criminal records. The INS noted reported statements made by members of the Lázaro family that they were prepared to deal with any intrusion on their property by force if authorities attempted to take Elián without their consent.
Approximately 100 people protested against the raid as it took place, with some calling the INS agents "assassins!".
Public opinion about the INS raid on the Miami González's house was widely polarized. There were two major foci in media coverage of the event: the raid and the family reunions. A Time magazine issue showed a joyful photo of Elián being reunited with his father (the caption says "Papa!"), while Newsweek ran an issue that focused on the raid, entitled "Seizing Elián."
Elián returned to father's custody
Four hours after he was taken from the house in Miami, Elián and his father were reunited at Andrews Air Force Base. The next day, the White House released a photograph showing a smiling Elián reunited with his father, which the Miami relatives disputed by claiming that it was a fake Elián in the photograph. Later, Elián and his family were taken to the Aspen Institute Wye River Conference Center (formerly known as "Wye Plantation"). The media was barred from access to the family. While the family was still at Andrews, New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith, escorting the Miami González relatives, was turned away from the base by guards. The May 5, 2000, Miami Herald reported that Elián was joined by his classmates (without their parents) and his teacher from his hometown, Cárdenas. Granma released pictures of Elián in the Young Pioneer uniform of Cuba's Communist youth league. On May 6, 2000, attorney Greg Craig took Elián and Juan Miguel to a dinner in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, hosted by Smith and Elizabeth Bagley.
After Elián was returned to his father's custody, he remained in the U.S. while the Miami relatives exhausted their legal options. A three-judge federal panel had ruled that he could not go back to Cuba until he was granted an asylum hearing, but the case turned on the right of the relatives to request that hearing on behalf of the boy. On June 1, 2000, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Elián was too young to file for asylum; only his father could speak for him, and the relatives lacked legal standing. On June 28, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Later the same day, Elián González and his family returned home to Cuba.
Return to Cuba
Elián now lives with his family in Cárdenas,[citation needed] where his father, Juan Miguel, is a waiter at an Italian restaurant about 20 km northwest of Cárdenas. Elián's father was interviewed at the restaurant in 2004 by Keith Morrison of the NBC News program Dateline NBC and Cover to Cover on CNBC. Juan Miguel told Morrison that Elián feared reporters, so Morrison could not interview Elián, but Juan Miguel filmed a home video on which Elián was shown doing his arithmetic homework with Juan Miguel in their dining room, going to bed in his bedroom with his younger half-brother, and attending karate lessons. Elián's family had moved to another home to evade reporters.
Morrison's TV report also showed an 18th-century building in Cárdenas which was previously used as a fire station and which was renovated and inaugurated on July 14, 2001, as a museum, called Museo de la Batalla de Ideas ("Museum of the Battle of Ideas"), which includes an Elián exhibition room with a life-size bronze statue of Elián raising a clenched fist. The former González home in Miami has similarly been turned into a museum, with the boy's bedroom left unaltered. Juan Miguel is also a member of the National Assembly and has attended events for the Communist Party of Cuba with Elián, who has been called up to the stage to meet Fidel Castro. Castro also attended a filmed birthday party of Elián with his schoolmates. On the video of the birthday party, a female clown told Elián to blow out the birthday candles with Fidel to his right and surrounded by Elián's schoolmates.
In September 2005, Elián was interviewed by 60 Minutes and stated during the interview that Fidel Castro was a friend, and that he considers Castro "not only as a friend but as a father"; Elián's aunt, Angela González, said she doubted whether the interview represented his true beliefs because of the controls imposed by Cuba on information. In December 2006, an ill Fidel Castro was unable to attend González's 13th birthday celebration, so his brother Raúl stood in instead.
On August 16, 2006, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of an excessive force lawsuit brought by Dalrymple and others against the Federal Government and Reno.
González joined the Young Communist Union of Cuba in June 2008 shortly after graduating from junior high school. At age 15, he began military school. In a November 2013 speech, González described his time in the United States as "very sad times for me, which marked me for my whole life", asserting that the Cuban Adjustment Act led to the denial of his rights, including "the right to be together with my father, the right to keep my nationality and to remain in my cultural context".
Ramifications
The Elián González saga exposed deep divisions among the residents of Miami-Dade County. While there were large protests in favor of Elián staying in the United States, there were also a few demonstrations in favor of sending the boy back to live with his father.
Commentators have suggested that the Elián González affair may have been a factor in voters' decisions in the 2000 United States presidential election, which could have affected the close outcome in Florida. (D) Al Gore's handling of the matter may have been as great a factor as anger by the predominantly Republican Cuban community over the boy's return to Cuba. Gore initially supported Republican legislation to give the boy and his father permanent residence status, but later supported the Administration position. He was attacked by both sides in the dispute for pandering and being inconsistent.
See also:
Cuban exile
Cuba – United States relations
Operation Peter Pan (1960–1962)
Parental rights
Yossele Schumacher, a similar affair
Polovchak v. Meese, an earlier child asylum case (1980–1985), viewed by some as a precedent
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Operation Peter Pan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Peter_Pan
Operation Peter Pan (Operación Peter Pan or Operación Pedro Pan) was an exodus of children during the 1960s from Cuba when Cuban parents feared indoctrination and that the Cuban government would take away their parental authority. What is now known as Operation Pedro Pan was the largest recorded exodus of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere.[citation needed] It was supposedly through the works of Operation Pedro Pan Group, Inc. that the name Operation Pedro Pan became known throughout the US and the world. Approximately half of the minors were reunited with relatives or friends at the airport.
History
From December 1960 to October 1962, more than fourteen thousand Cuban youths arrived alone in the United States. More than half were cared for by the Catholic Welfare Bureau, directed by a 30-year-old Irish priest, Bryan O. Walsh. The children from the Cuban Refugee Children's Program were placed in temporary shelters in Miami, and relocated throughout 100 cities and 35 states in the United States. Each home the minors were relocated into As the numbers of children who arrived in the US increased, concern for the availability of shelters grew. Special homes, authorized state officials and operated by Cuban refugees, were formed in many major cities including Albuquerque, New Mexico, Lincoln, Nebraska, Wilmington, Delaware, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Jacksonville, and Orlando, Florida. Laws prevented any relocated children from being housed in any reform schools or centers for juvenile delinquents. As Operation Pedro Pan was originally established in order to protect the rights of Cuban parents and guardians, none of minors were adopted in the United States.
In 1962, the US government commissioned a documentary film created for the children who came to Miami, called The Lost Apple. The film named Cuban premier Fidel Castro as being responsible for the parents' non-appearance. According to Torres, then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy approved making the documentary as part of the US government’s campaign against Communism.
On March 12, 1999, the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, ruled in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit filed by Prof. Maria de los Angeles Torres in 1998 that “evacuation of Cuban children turned out not to be a CIA operation at all.” This ruling was based in part on the court’s review of 733 pages of documentation provided to the Court by the C.I.A. and employed by the Court in reaching an earlier decision on December 15, 1998 that “nothing in this Court's review suggests any inappropriateness in the redactive process that has been followed by CIA.”
All the unaccompanied Cuban minors who were part of the exodus, now popularly known as Operation Pedro Pan, call themselves "Pedro Pans" or "Peter Pans".
Aftermath
Amongst several famous "Peter Pans" is Florida Senator Mel Martinez. Also, Latin musician Willy Chirino, who has cultivated the Miami Sound, and his wife singer/songwriter Lissette Alvarez. The rapper Pitbull's mother and aunt were a part of Operation Peter Pan as well. Once adults, some of the participants created the charitable organization "Operation Pedro Pan Group" to help needy children and preserve the history of the Pedro Pan exodus. Ex-Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Margarita Esquiroz came to Miami in 1962 as part of Pedro Pan. Original drummer for the heavy metal music band Slayer, Dave Lombardo, discussed how his two older brothers were Pedro Pans (and the effect it had on his family) in a 2014 interview.
In culture
Carlos Eire describes his experiences in Operation Peter Pan in his memoirs Waiting for Snow in Havana, and Learning to die in Miami.
Yvonne M. Conde, also a Pedro Pan, conducted research and interviews and wrote a book titled "Operation Pedro Pan: The Untold Exodus of 14,048 Cuban Children".
Other Pedro Pans have attempted to weave their memoirs into a broader understanding of not only U.S.-Cuba relations but also Cuban Diaspora-Cuba relations. Román de la Campa's Cuba on My Mind: Journeys to a Severed Nation does this by exploring Cuba's two capitals, Havana and Miami, and the hybrid position of the "one-and-half-generation" as well as by using the Elián González affair as a cipher for understanding how adults in both countries used children to achieve the broader ideological goals of the Cold War and how those goals are faring at the so-called "end of history".
Ana Mendieta is another famous Pedro Pan refugee. She was placed in several institutions and foster homes in Iowa and returned to Cuba several times over the course of her short life to "rediscover" her cultural origins. During her visits, she established contacts with the "Volumen Uno" artists, created works in natural settings, and exhibited at the National Museum in Havana. Her work has also been showcased at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and at the Hirshhorn, a Smithsonian Museum, in Washington DC amongst many other International museums. Some of this information was taken from an article titled "A Tree from Many Shores" published by Art Journal.
Christina Diaz Gonzalez wrote The Red Umbrella (Knopf Young Readers, 2010), a young-adult novel fictionalizing her mother's exile from Cuba as a teenager during Pedro Pan.
See also:
Cuban American
Cuban diaspora
Cuba-United States relations
Mariel boatlift
Opposition to Fidel Castro
Operation Baby Lift
Polita Grau
List of Operation Peter Pan alumni
Boxing For Cuba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1959
***************************************************
March 1959
"Pioneer's Radio Voice is Silent", Oakland Tribune, March 6, 1959, p1 Yvonne M. Conde, Operation Pedro Pan, (Routledge, 2000), p11 John P. Miglietta, American
25 KB (3,332 words) - 08:04, 2 September 2015
***************************************************
March 1, 1959 (Sunday)
-- Archbishop Makarios III returned to Cyprus. Two years earlier, he had been allowed by British authorities to leave the Seychelles, where he had been kept in exile, on condition that he never return to Cyprus. An agreement in Zurich between Britain, Greece and Turkey, released Makarios from the conditions, in return for his agreement to drop his quest for "enosis", a movement to make Cyprus part of Greek territory. Later in 1959, Makarios won the election to become the first President of Cyprus.
......................................
March 2, 1959 (Monday)
-- The Balkan Pact, signed in 1953 between Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia, expired after Yugoslavia's President Tito announced that his nation would not renew it.
........................................
March 3, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- The United States launched the Pioneer IV satellite toward the moon, shortly after midnight EST. The object became the first American spacecraft to escape the Earth's gravity.
-- The Mosul uprising began in Iraq as Colonel Abd al-Shawaff staged a rebellion against the government of President Abdul Karim Qasim. al-Shawaaf was killed the next day, and after the insurrection was put down, Qasim ordered the execution of officers suspected of complicity.
-- In Tifton, Georgia, nine children, ranging in age from 5 to 15, drowned after a loaded school bus ran off a road into a farm pond.
-- In Nyasaland (now Malawi), Colonial Governor Robert Armitage declared a state of emergency after riots broke out in that Southern African nation, banning the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC).
-- At the British colonial detention camp in Hola, Kenya, where Mau Mau rebels were held, eleven prisoners were beaten to death and 20 others seriously injured by prison staff, in what later was known as the Hola massacre.
-- Died: Lou Costello, 52, American comedian (famous for his partnership with Bud Abbott)
............................................
March 4, 1959 (Wednesday)
-- Pioneer IV became the second man-made object to pass the Moon and to enter an orbit around the sun, becoming the first American-made planetary object. The Soviet satellite Lunik had achieved solar orbit on January 7. Contact with Pioneer IV was lost two days later after its batteries ran out of power.
-- The government of Cuba nationalized the Cuban Telephone Company, a subsidiary of ITT.
-- Born: Rick Ardon, Australian news anchor, in Perth; Irina Strakhova, Russian race walker, in Novosibirsk
-- Died: Maxie Long, 80, Olympic track medalist 1900
.........................................
March 5, 1959 (Thursday)
-- At Ankara, the United States agreed to defend the remaining members of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in case of attack, signing bilateral defense agreements with Iran, Turkey and Pakistan.
-- In Wrightsville, Arkansas, a fire at a dormitory for the Arkansas Training School for Negro Boys killed 21 boys. The doors had been locked, and 47 boys who survived the fire had kicked their way through heavy metal screens to escape.
-- The Federal Reserve Bank raised the interest rate half a point to 3%
-- U.S. Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy told reporters that "a surprise with missiles in the foreseeable future is almost impossible".
...................................
March 6, 1959 (Friday)
-- Pope John XXIII issued a Notificatio banning "the spreading of images and writings that propose the devotion of The Divine Mercy" that had been the work of Sister Faustina Kowalska.
-- By order of the Castro government, all rents in Cuba were reduced by 50 percent.
-- Born: Tom Arnold, American actor and comedian, in Ottumwa, Iowa
........................................
March 7, 1959 (Saturday)
-- "Wishing Won't Hold Berlin", by former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, after Acheson concluded that the Eisenhower administration was not doing enough to respond to the Soviet ultimatum that all armies withdraw from Berlin (which was surrounded by Communist East Germany).
.....................................
March 8, 1959 (Sunday)
-- The Marx Brothers made their last screen appearance, as Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx starred in "The Incredible Jewel Robbery" on the CBS anthology program General Electric Theater.
-- A 19-year-old airman at the Davis-Monthan AFB committed suicide by setting a high altitude test chamber to simulate 73,000 feet, then pulling off his oxygen mask.
-- Born: Aidan Quinn, American actor, in Rockford, Illinois
......................................
March 9, 1959 (Monday)
-- The Barbie doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York. Ruth Handler named the doll for her daughter. In 1961, her son Ken would have his name bestowed on another doll.
-- Born: Giovanni di Lorenzo, European journalist, in Stockholm
.........................................
March 10, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- When it appeared that the Dalai Lama was on the verge of arrest by the Communist government of China, a rebellion broke out as 30,000 Tibetans surrounded his palace, the Norbulingka. The Dalai Lama would say later that "That day, the people stopped my journey to the Chinese army camp ... and in the meantime, they declared the independence of Tibet.".
-- Born: Mike Wallace, American race car driver, in Fenton, Missouri
March 11, 1959 (Wednesday)
-- A Raisin in the Sun, by African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and starring Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil, made its Broadway debut, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The play ran for 538 performances.
-- The Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopter, also known as the H-3 Pelican or the S-61, was given its first flight by test pilots.
-- Died: Lester Dent, 54, creator of Doc Savage
..........................................
March 12, 1959 (Thursday)
-- By a margin of 323 to 89, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to allow Hawaii to become the 50th state, contingent upon passage by Hawaiian voters. The night before, the Senate had voted its approval, 76–15. The bill was signed into law by President Eisenhower on March 18, 1959.
-- Tomasi Kulimoetoke II became the King of Wallis Island, reigning until May 7, 2007.
......................................
March 13, 1959 (Friday)
-- The United Nations General Assembly voted 56–0, with 23 abstentions, to end the UN Trusteeship over the French Cameroons by January 1, 1960, and to schedule a plebiscite in the north and south sections of the British Cameroons.
-- With the admission of Hawaii voted so soon after the admission of Alaska, flag manufacturers asked that the adoption of the 50-star flag be postponed until July 4, 1960. Digby Chandler, president of Annin & Co, said that the industry had already manufactured 300,000 flags with 49 stars, and added, "If we are forced to throw all these away and start making 50-star flags for next July 4 there will be no flag industry left." One proposal was to add an eighth star in the middle row of the seven rows of seven stars.
..........................................
March 14, 1959 (Saturday)
- Sharaf Rashidov was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Answering only to Moscow, Rashidov ruled for 24 years with otherwise unlimited and corrupt power, lasting until his death on October 31, 1983.
........................................
March 15, 1959 (Sunday)
-- Robert Foster, 32, set a record for holding his breath, remaining underwater for 13 minutes, 42.5 seconds (13:42.5), at San Rafael, California The record stood for 48 years, until broken by Arvydas and Diana Gaiciunas in Druskininkai, Lithuania, on June 16, 2007, at almost 16 minutes (15:58). Both Foster and the Gaiciunas siblings hyperventilated with pure oxygen beforehand in order to drive carbon dioxide from their lungs. The recognized record without such preparations is 11 minutes, 35 seconds, by freediver Stéphane Mifsud on June 8, 2009
-- The prison at the Curragh Camp, where Ireland detained suspected terrorists without formal charges, was formally closed.
-- Born: Harold Baines, American baseball player, in Easton, Maryland
-- Died: Duncan Hines, 78, restaurant critic who later lent his name to a line of cake mixes
.........................................
March 16, 1959 (Monday)
-- Born Flavor Flav, American rapper (as William Jonathan Drayton, Jr.), in Roosevelt, New York, and Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway, in Oslo
-- Died: John B. Salling, 112, American Civil War veteran, in Kingsport, Tennessee. His death left one surviving veteran claimant, Walter Williams of Houston, whose age and service were later disputed.
..........................................
March 17, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, escaped Tibet and found sanctuary in India.
-- USS Skate (SSN-578) surfaced at the North Pole after setting a record by spending 12 days under the polar ice cap. In a ceremony at the pole, the ashes of polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins, who had died in 1958, were scattered at the pole
-- Born: Danny Ainge, Boston Celtics guard and Toronto Blue Jays second baseman, in Eugene, Oregon
..............................................
March 18, 1959 (Wednesday)
-- U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii Statehood Bill into law at a White House ceremony, but the process of admission was not over. "Under this legislation," said Ike, "the citizens of Hawaii will soon decide whether their islands shall become our 50th state." Voters still had to elect new officials and decide on whether to accept all of the bill's provisions, with statehood conditioned on Palmyra Island not being included.
-- Born: Luc Besson, French film director (The Fifth Element), in Paris, and Irene Cara, American singer (Fame), in New York
...........................................
March 19, 1959 (Thursday)
-- After the Beijing government ordered the Dalai Lama to report without his bodyguards, fighting broke out in Lhasa, Tibet, as Tibetans battled Chinese troops. The Chinese government stated that thousands of rebels had attacked Lhasa and had been defeated after a two-day battle by Chinese troops.
-- The Shaggy Dog was first shown.
.....................................
March 20, 1959 (Friday)
In Modesto, California, the record for phonebooth stuffing was broken as 32 "slightly built" students at Modesto Junior College packed themselves into a regulation sized booth—7 feet tall and 32 inches square. However, for safety reasons, the booth was set on its side, and the telephone had been removed. Earlier in the month, 25 students in South Africa had broken the record of 19.
-- A unidentified visitor to Lenin's Mausoleum, in Moscow, threw a hammer at the sarcophagus housing Lenin's remains, breaking the glass. The event was not reported in the Soviet press and would not be revealed until after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
-- Born: Sting (wrestler), American pro wrestler (as Steve Borden), in Omaha, and Steve McFadden, British actor (Phil Mitchell in EastEnders), in London
..........................................
March 21, 1959 (Saturday)
-- The University of California won the NCAA basketball championship, defeating West Virginia 71–70. Cal blew a 13-point lead in the second half, and the Mountaineers came within one point with 0:53 left. West Virginia did not foul until 0:02 was left. Denny Fitzpatrick's free throw missed, but the Mountaineers' Jerry West was not able to get the ball until time had run out.
-- Born: Nobuo Uematsu, composer, in Kochi, Japan
.......................................
March 22, 1959 (Sunday)
-- In a televised address, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro announced that, effective immediately, he was outlawing all racial discrimination. Previously segregated clubs, parks and beaches were opened to Cuba's black residents by law.
-- The Constitutional Assembly of Mauritania approved a democratic constitution for the African state, which would become independent of France in 1960. Provisions for a multiparty parliamentary system would last only five years, after which Governor Moktar Ould Daddah's Mauritanian People's Party became the only legal party.
-- Born: Matthew Modine, American film actor, in Loma Linda, California
........................................
March 23, 1959 (Monday)
-- Nine miners were killed in an explosion at Brimstone, Tennessee.
-- Lee Harvey Oswald earned his GED, with a passing score of 77. He had dropped out of the tenth grade of Fort Worth High School in 1956.
.........................................
March 24, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- The integrated circuit was shown off for the first time by Texas Instruments, at an electronics industry convention in New York.
-- The Imam Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, son of the Mahdi, founder of the Umma Party in Sudan, and leader of the mahdiyah sect of Islam, died after a reign of 50 years and was succeeded by his son, Siddiq al-Mahdi; who died on October 2, 1961.
-- A proposal was introduced in the City Council of New York City to study the possibility of the city seceding from the New York State and becoming its own state.
-- As Communist rebels took control in Iraq, Prime Minister Abdel Karim Kassem announced his nation's withdrawal from the Baghdad Pact. The withdrawal had been expected following the July 14, 1958, revolution that overthrew the government of King Feisel II.
..............................................
March 25, 1959 (Wednesday)
-- French President Charles De Gaulle opened his first presidential press conference with a statement that France supported German reunification "as the aim and normal destiny of the German people. provided that [they] do not question their present frontiers to the west, east, north or south." "Germany today is not a danger to us," said De Gaulle as he announced a new relationship with his World War II adversary
...........................................
March 26, 1959 (Thursday)
-- Italy and the United States signed an agreement providing for thirty medium range Jupiter missiles to be deployed on Italian soil, the first placement of the new MRBM.
-- A circus lion terrorized New York's Madison Square Garden after escaping a cage, running around the arena, then jumping a rail and walking into the main lobby. Ponto, the 800 pound star of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey big cat act was captured 15 minutes later after wandering into a blocked corridor.
-- International radio communication was blocked out for 11 hours, beginning at 5 p.m. Pacific time. It was believed that an eruption on the sun disrupted transmissions, although such disturbances normally lasted on 30 minutes.
-- Died: Raymond Chandler, 70, creator of Philip Marlowe
......................................
March 27, 1959 (Friday)
-- North Carolina became the first state in the nation to require polio vaccines for all children. The measure, already approved by the Senate passed 73–3 in the House and was signed by Governor Luther H. Hodges.
..........................................
March 28, 1959 (Saturday)
-- The government of Tibet was abolished by an order signed by Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, and the Dalai Lama was replaced by a puppet ruler, the Panchen Lama.
........................................
March 29, 1959 (Sunday)
-- Barthélemy Boganda, Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, was slated to become its first President, but was killed in the crash of a French airliner. After taking off from Berberati for the capital, Bangui, the plane crashed, killing the Prime Minister and eight other people. In celebration of the martyred founding father of the nation, March 29 is a legal holiday in the C.A.R., as Boganda Day.
-- Born: Barry Blanchard, Canadian mountaineer, in Calgary
........................................
March 30, 1959 (Monday)
-- The Dalai Lama took flight from Lhasa to the monastery of Tawang Town, a disputed territory controlled by the Indian government, with the help of CIA operatives, Tibetan guerrillas, and the government of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. With 85,000 of his co-ethnics, the Lama settled in the town of Dharamsala, in the Himachal Pradesh state of India.
-- In two decisions (Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121 and Abbate v. United States 359 U.S. 187), the United States Supreme Court ruled that a person could be charged with the same crime in both state and federal court proceedings without violating the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment ("nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb"), under the dual sovereignty doctrine.
-- Chief Judge Akio Date of the District Court in Tokyo ruled in the Sunakawa case that the stationing of United States military forces in Japan violated Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. The decision was reversed by the Supreme Court of Japan on December 14.
..........................................
March 31, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- Action Comics No. 252 (May 1959) reached newsstands, and, in a story entitled "The Supergirl From Krypton", introduced Supergirl to the world.
Busch Gardens' Dark Continent in Tampa, Florida, opened to the public following a dedication ceremony. Until it was superseded by Walt Disney World, the African safari park was Florida's leading tourist attraction.
..........................................
References:
John Springhall, Decolonization since 1945: The Collapse of European Overseas Empires (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) pp99-100
The Muslim World: A Historial Survey (Brill Archive, 1997), Vol. IV, p52
"Pioneer IV Roars on – Now Halfway to Moon", Oakland Tribune, March 3, 1959, p1
Masʻūd Bārzānī, Mustafa Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement (1931–1961) (Macmillan, 2003), pp213–14
"School Bus Flips, 9 Students Drown", Oakland Tribune, March 3, 1959, p1
"Banda, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu", Encyclopedia of African History (CRC Press, 2005) p124
Eugenia W. Herbert, Twilight on the Zambezi: Late Colonialism in Central Africa (Macmillan, 2002), pp145–146
"Pioneer IV Due to Pass Moon Today", Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1959, p1; "Pioneer's Radio Voice is Silent", Oakland Tribune, March 6, 1959, p1
Yvonne M. Conde, Operation Pedro Pan, (Routledge, 2000), p11
John P. Miglietta, American Alliance Policy in the Middle East, 1945–1992: Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia (Lexington Books, 2002), pp44–45
"21 Youths Perish in Dormitory Fire", Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1959, p1
"Bulletin", Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1959, p1
Tim Drake, Saints of the Jubilee (AuthorHouse, 2002), p95
Christopher P. Baker, Moon Cuba (Avalon Travel Publishing, 2006), p576
Douglas Brinkley, Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953–71 (Yale University Press, 1994), p96
Wes D. Gehring, The Marx Brothers: A Bio-bibliography (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1987), p94
"Airman Ends Life in Space Test Chamber", Oakland Tribune, March 20, 1959, p1
"Looking half her age: Barbie at 50", New York Times, January 5, 2009
Thomas Laird, The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama (Grove Press, 2007), pp333–334
Columbus Salley, The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential African-Americans, Past and Present (Citadel Press, 1999), p279
Stanley S. McGowen, Helicopters: An Illustrated History of Their Impact (ABC-CLIO, 2005), p118
"House Votes Hawaii In as 50th State", Oakland Tribune, March 12, 1959, p1
"Chronology", The World Almanac and book of facts 1960 (New York World-Telegram, 1959), p98
"Surplus of 49-Star Flags 'Means Ruin,' Assert Makers", Oakland Tribune, March 13, 1959, p18
Peter L. Roudik, The History of the Central Asian Republics (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007), p138
Norris McWhirter, Guinness Book of World Records (Bantam Books, 1986) p43; "Man Holds His Breath Under Water For 13 minutes, 42 Seconds", Ocala (FL) Star-Banner, March 16, 1959, p12
"Officials: Lithuanian Siblings Break Breath-Holding Record"
Shark-Freediving.com
Robert William White, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh: The Life and Politics of an Irish
"Confederate Vet's Death Cuts Roll to 1", Oakland Tribune, March 16, 1959, p1
Associated Press (20 December 1959). "Reputed Last Civil War Veteran Dies in Texas After Long Illness: Walter Williams Put His Age at 117 – Tributes Note the End of an Era". The New York Times.
p3
"Atomic Sub Drills Holes In Polar Ice", Oakland Tribune, March 17, 1959, p1
"Ike Signs Statehood for Hawaii Bill", Oakland Tribune, March 18, 1959, p1, p4
"Tibetans Battle Reds in Capital", Oakland Tribune, March 21, 1959, p1
"Reds Claim Revolt Crushed In Tibet, Install Puppet Lama", Oakland Tribune, March 28, 1959, p1
"New Booth Record— 32, But No Telephone", Oakland Tribune, March 21, 1959, p1
Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy (HarperCollins, 1994) p446
Jump up ^ "Fighting Bears NCAA Champs!", Oakland Tribune, March 22, 1959, p57
Ted Henken, Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook (ABC-CLIO, 2008), p294
Christof Heyns, Human Rights Law in Africa 1998 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2001), p350
"Nine Perish in Mile-Deep Mine Blast", Oakland Tribune, March 23, 1959, p1
Diane Holloway, The Mind of Oswald: Accused Assassin of President John F. Kennedy (Trafford, 2000), pp6, 11
Robert Slater, Portraits in Silicon (MIT Press, 1989), p170
Bernard Reich, Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Biographical Dictionary (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1990), pp319–320
"Finance-Plagued City of New York Wants to Secede", Oakland Tribune, March 25, 1959, p1
"Iraq Cuts Ties With Baghdad Pact", Oakland Tribune, March 24, 1959, p1
F. Roy Willis, France, Germany and the New Europe 1945–1963 (Stanford University Press), pp295–96
Stephen I. Schwartz, Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (Brookings Institution Press, 1998), p145
"Lion Walks Out on Act, Into Audience", Oakland Tribune, March 27, 1959, p1
"Raio Blacked Out 11 Hours In Mystery", Oakland Tribune, March 27, 1959, p1
"Polio Shots Required In New State Law", Oakland Tribune, March 28, 1959, p1
Brian Titley Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa (McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP, 2002), p16
Chase's Calendar of Events 2009 (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2009), p190
Benjamin Zachariah, Nehru (Routledge, 2004), p241
Shiv R. Jhawar, Building a Noble World (Noble World Foundation, 2004), p45
"U.S. Court OKs Double Jeopardy", Oakland Tribune, March 30, 1959, p2
Peter J. Herzog, Japan's Pseudo-democracy(Routledge, 1993), p236
"Silver Age Comics", March 31, 2009
Steve Rajtar, A Guide to Historic Tampa (The History Press, 2007), p97
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elián_González_affair
Ramifications:
Commentators have suggested that the Elián González affair may have been a factor in voters' decisions in the 2000 United States presidential election, which could have affected the close outcome in Florida. (D)Al Gore's handling of the matter may have been as great a factor as anger by the predominantly Republican Cuban community over the boy's return to Cuba. Gore initially supported Republican legislation to give the boy and his father permanent residence status, but later supported the Administration position. He was attacked by both sides in the dispute for pandering and being inconsistent.
............................................................................
The custody and immigration status of a young Cuban boy, Elián González (born December 6, 1993), was at the center of a heated 2000 controversy involving the governments of Cuba and the United States, González's father, Juan Miguel González Quintana, González's other relatives in Miami, Florida, and in Cuba, and Miami's Cuban American community.
González's mother drowned in November 1999 while attempting to leave Cuba with her son and her boyfriend to get to the United States. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) initially placed González with maternal relatives in Miami, who sought to keep him in the United States against his father's demands that González be returned to Cuba. A federal district court's ruling that only González's father, and not his extended relatives, could petition for asylum on the boy's behalf was upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, federal agents took González from his relatives and returned him to Cuba in June 2000.
Background
Further information: Cuba–United States relations
Hostility between Cuba and the United States has been persistent since soon after the Cuban Revolution ended in 1959. Since then many Cubans have tried to leave Cuba for the United States. This emigration was illegal under both Cuban and U.S. law; any Cuban found at sea attempting to reach U.S. shores will be deported by the U.S. Coast Guard or if discovered by Cuban police, ostracized and prohibited from most Cuban institutions. U.S. policy has evolved into the current "wet feet, dry feet" rule: If a Cuban is picked up at sea or walking toward shore, he/she will be repatriated by force. If he/she can make it to shore ("dry feet"), he/she is permitted to make a case for political asylum.
Cubans who make it to U.S. soil are generally allowed to remain in the country. After a year, the Cuban Adjustment Act allows them to apply for U.S. residency. This differs from U.S. immigration policy applied to refugees of all other Caribbean nations, notably Haitians. To monitor whether returned Cubans are subjected to persecution, the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, in cooperation with international organizations, maintains follow-up contact with the returned Cubans. The result of this monitoring has been a conclusion that there is no systematic legal policy of the Cuban government to persecute those Cubans who have been returned.
González's journey and the beginning of the custody battle
On November 21, 1999, González, his mother, and twelve others left Cuba on a small aluminum boat with a faulty engine; González's mother and ten others died in the crossing. González and the other two survivors floated at sea until they were rescued by two fishermen, who turned him over to the U.S. Coast Guard.
González's cousin Marisleysis said González told her the motor had broken on the boat and its passengers had tried in vain to bail out the water with nylon bags, but a storm doomed their efforts. He told her he tried to help get the water out and his mother's boyfriend placed him in an inner tube for safety. "He said afterwards that he fell asleep and that when he woke up he never saw his mother again". He said, "I think she drowned too because she didn't know how to swim". Nivaldo Fernández Ferran, one of the three survivors on the boat, said "Elizabeth protected her son to the end". According to Ferran, they set out on their trip at 4 a.m., dragging inflated rubber floats, or inner tubes, in case they needed them. As they encountered bad weather, the boat's engine failed and the craft began to fill with water. After it went under, the passengers clung to the inner tubes in cold water, with waves reaching heights of three to four meters (10 to 13 feet).
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) released González to his paternal great-uncle, Lázaro. According to the Washington Post, González's father, Juan Miguel González Quintana, had telephoned Lázaro from Cuba on November 22, 1999, to advise that González and his mother had left Cuba without Juan Miguel's knowledge, and to watch for their arrival. However, Lázaro González, backed by local Cuban-Americans, soon took the position that the boy should remain in the United States and not be returned to his father in Cuba. Marisleysis González (Lázaro's adult daughter) became Elián González's principal caretaker, and quickly became a well-known television figure. Armando Gutierrez, a local Cuban-American businessman, became the family spokesman.[citation needed] However, Juan Miguel, with the support of his nation's authorities, demanded that the boy be returned to his care.
On January 21, 2000, González's grandmothers, Mariela Quintana and Raquel Rodríguez, flew from Havana to the United States to seek their grandson's return to Cuba. While they were able to meet with the boy only once (at the Miami Beach home of Barry University president Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin), they journeyed to Washington and met with congressmen and Attorney General Janet Reno. After nine days of relentless media coverage (during which Republican lawmakers acknowledged they did not have the votes to pass a bill to give González U.S. citizenship), the two women returned to Cuba to "a hero's welcome".
On January 28, the Spanish Foreign Minister Abel Matutes called for the boy's return to Cuba, stating that international law dictated the return. Meanwhile, the Miami Gonzálezes denied allegations that they had offered Juan Miguel a house and a car if he abandoned the action and joined his son in Miami. Juan Miguel was uninterested in emigrating.
Through January and February, Juan Miguel sent a number of open letters to the U.S. Government — published in, among other places, the Cuban newspaper Granma — demanding the return of his son and refusing the Miami relatives' demands.
On March 21, a Federal judge dismissed the relatives' petition for asylum which they had filed on behalf of Elián González. Lázaro vowed to appeal. On March 29, Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas was joined by 22 other civic leaders in a speech in downtown Miami. Penelas indicated that the municipality would not cooperate with Federal authorities on any repatriation of the boy, and would not lend police assets or any other assistance in taking the boy.
On April 14, a video was released in which Elián tells Juan Miguel that he wants to stay in the United States. However, many thought that he had been coached, as a male voice was heard off-camera directing the young boy. In a September 2005 interview with 60 Minutes after being sent back to Cuba, González stated that during his stay in the U.S., his family members were "telling me bad things about [my father]", and "were also telling me to tell him that I did not want to go back to Cuba, and I always told them I wanted to."
Elián González remained a subject of media attention as he went to Walt Disney World Resort one day, then met with politicians the next. Throughout the custody battle, opinion polls showed that a majority of Americans believed Elián should be returned to his father in Cuba, and that doing so was in Elián's best interests. On April 19, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that González must stay in the U.S. until the Miami Gonzálezes could appeal for an asylum hearing in May.
Elián taken by federal authorities
Attorney general Janet Reno ordered the return of Elián to his father and set a deadline of April 13, 2000, but the Miami relatives defied the order. Negotiations continued for several days as the house was surrounded by protesters as well as police. The relatives insisted on guarantees that they could live with the child for several months and retain custody, and that Elián would not be returned to Cuba. Negotiations carried on throughout the night, but Reno stated that the relatives rejected all workable solutions. A Florida family court judge revoked Lázaro's temporary custody, clearing the way for Elián to be returned to his father's custody. On April 20, Reno made the decision to remove Elián González from the house and instructed law enforcement officials to determine the best time to obtain the boy. After being informed of the decision, Marisleysis said to a Justice Department community relations officer, "You think we just have cameras in the house? If people try to come in, they could be hurt."
In the pre-dawn hours of Easter eve, Saturday, April 22, pursuant to an order issued by a federal magistrate, eight agents of the Border Patrol's elite BORTAC unit as part of an operation in which more than 130 INS personnel took part approached the house; they knocked, and identified themselves. When no one responded from within, they entered the house. Pepper-spray and mace were employed against those outside the house who attempted to interfere. Nonetheless, a stool, rocks, and bottles were thrown at the agents. In the confusion, Armando Gutierrez called in Alan Diaz, of the Associated Press, to enter the house and entered a room with Elián, his great uncle's wife Angela Lázaro, her niece, the niece's young son, and Donato Dalrymple (one of the two men who had rescued him from the ocean). They waited in the room listening to agents searching the house. Diaz took a widely publicized photograph of a border patrol agent confronting Dalrymple and the boy.
INS also stated in the days after the raid that they had identified as many as two dozen persons who were "prepared to thwart any government operation," some of whom had concealed weapons while others had criminal records. The INS noted reported statements made by members of the Lázaro family that they were prepared to deal with any intrusion on their property by force if authorities attempted to take Elián without their consent.
Approximately 100 people protested against the raid as it took place, with some calling the INS agents "assassins!".
Public opinion about the INS raid on the Miami González's house was widely polarized. There were two major foci in media coverage of the event: the raid and the family reunions. A Time magazine issue showed a joyful photo of Elián being reunited with his father (the caption says "Papa!"), while Newsweek ran an issue that focused on the raid, entitled "Seizing Elián."
Elián returned to father's custody
Four hours after he was taken from the house in Miami, Elián and his father were reunited at Andrews Air Force Base. The next day, the White House released a photograph showing a smiling Elián reunited with his father, which the Miami relatives disputed by claiming that it was a fake Elián in the photograph. Later, Elián and his family were taken to the Aspen Institute Wye River Conference Center (formerly known as "Wye Plantation"). The media was barred from access to the family. While the family was still at Andrews, New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith, escorting the Miami González relatives, was turned away from the base by guards. The May 5, 2000, Miami Herald reported that Elián was joined by his classmates (without their parents) and his teacher from his hometown, Cárdenas. Granma released pictures of Elián in the Young Pioneer uniform of Cuba's Communist youth league. On May 6, 2000, attorney Greg Craig took Elián and Juan Miguel to a dinner in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, hosted by Smith and Elizabeth Bagley.
After Elián was returned to his father's custody, he remained in the U.S. while the Miami relatives exhausted their legal options. A three-judge federal panel had ruled that he could not go back to Cuba until he was granted an asylum hearing, but the case turned on the right of the relatives to request that hearing on behalf of the boy. On June 1, 2000, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Elián was too young to file for asylum; only his father could speak for him, and the relatives lacked legal standing. On June 28, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Later the same day, Elián González and his family returned home to Cuba.
Return to Cuba
Elián now lives with his family in Cárdenas,[citation needed] where his father, Juan Miguel, is a waiter at an Italian restaurant about 20 km northwest of Cárdenas. Elián's father was interviewed at the restaurant in 2004 by Keith Morrison of the NBC News program Dateline NBC and Cover to Cover on CNBC. Juan Miguel told Morrison that Elián feared reporters, so Morrison could not interview Elián, but Juan Miguel filmed a home video on which Elián was shown doing his arithmetic homework with Juan Miguel in their dining room, going to bed in his bedroom with his younger half-brother, and attending karate lessons. Elián's family had moved to another home to evade reporters.
Morrison's TV report also showed an 18th-century building in Cárdenas which was previously used as a fire station and which was renovated and inaugurated on July 14, 2001, as a museum, called Museo de la Batalla de Ideas ("Museum of the Battle of Ideas"), which includes an Elián exhibition room with a life-size bronze statue of Elián raising a clenched fist. The former González home in Miami has similarly been turned into a museum, with the boy's bedroom left unaltered. Juan Miguel is also a member of the National Assembly and has attended events for the Communist Party of Cuba with Elián, who has been called up to the stage to meet Fidel Castro. Castro also attended a filmed birthday party of Elián with his schoolmates. On the video of the birthday party, a female clown told Elián to blow out the birthday candles with Fidel to his right and surrounded by Elián's schoolmates.
In September 2005, Elián was interviewed by 60 Minutes and stated during the interview that Fidel Castro was a friend, and that he considers Castro "not only as a friend but as a father"; Elián's aunt, Angela González, said she doubted whether the interview represented his true beliefs because of the controls imposed by Cuba on information. In December 2006, an ill Fidel Castro was unable to attend González's 13th birthday celebration, so his brother Raúl stood in instead.
On August 16, 2006, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of an excessive force lawsuit brought by Dalrymple and others against the Federal Government and Reno.
González joined the Young Communist Union of Cuba in June 2008 shortly after graduating from junior high school. At age 15, he began military school. In a November 2013 speech, González described his time in the United States as "very sad times for me, which marked me for my whole life", asserting that the Cuban Adjustment Act led to the denial of his rights, including "the right to be together with my father, the right to keep my nationality and to remain in my cultural context".
Ramifications
The Elián González saga exposed deep divisions among the residents of Miami-Dade County. While there were large protests in favor of Elián staying in the United States, there were also a few demonstrations in favor of sending the boy back to live with his father.
Commentators have suggested that the Elián González affair may have been a factor in voters' decisions in the 2000 United States presidential election, which could have affected the close outcome in Florida. (D) Al Gore's handling of the matter may have been as great a factor as anger by the predominantly Republican Cuban community over the boy's return to Cuba. Gore initially supported Republican legislation to give the boy and his father permanent residence status, but later supported the Administration position. He was attacked by both sides in the dispute for pandering and being inconsistent.
See also:
Cuban exile
Cuba – United States relations
Operation Peter Pan (1960–1962)
Parental rights
Yossele Schumacher, a similar affair
Polovchak v. Meese, an earlier child asylum case (1980–1985), viewed by some as a precedent
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Operation Peter Pan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Peter_Pan
Operation Peter Pan (Operación Peter Pan or Operación Pedro Pan) was an exodus of children during the 1960s from Cuba when Cuban parents feared indoctrination and that the Cuban government would take away their parental authority. What is now known as Operation Pedro Pan was the largest recorded exodus of unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere.[citation needed] It was supposedly through the works of Operation Pedro Pan Group, Inc. that the name Operation Pedro Pan became known throughout the US and the world. Approximately half of the minors were reunited with relatives or friends at the airport.
History
From December 1960 to October 1962, more than fourteen thousand Cuban youths arrived alone in the United States. More than half were cared for by the Catholic Welfare Bureau, directed by a 30-year-old Irish priest, Bryan O. Walsh. The children from the Cuban Refugee Children's Program were placed in temporary shelters in Miami, and relocated throughout 100 cities and 35 states in the United States. Each home the minors were relocated into As the numbers of children who arrived in the US increased, concern for the availability of shelters grew. Special homes, authorized state officials and operated by Cuban refugees, were formed in many major cities including Albuquerque, New Mexico, Lincoln, Nebraska, Wilmington, Delaware, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Jacksonville, and Orlando, Florida. Laws prevented any relocated children from being housed in any reform schools or centers for juvenile delinquents. As Operation Pedro Pan was originally established in order to protect the rights of Cuban parents and guardians, none of minors were adopted in the United States.
In 1962, the US government commissioned a documentary film created for the children who came to Miami, called The Lost Apple. The film named Cuban premier Fidel Castro as being responsible for the parents' non-appearance. According to Torres, then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy approved making the documentary as part of the US government’s campaign against Communism.
On March 12, 1999, the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, ruled in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit filed by Prof. Maria de los Angeles Torres in 1998 that “evacuation of Cuban children turned out not to be a CIA operation at all.” This ruling was based in part on the court’s review of 733 pages of documentation provided to the Court by the C.I.A. and employed by the Court in reaching an earlier decision on December 15, 1998 that “nothing in this Court's review suggests any inappropriateness in the redactive process that has been followed by CIA.”
All the unaccompanied Cuban minors who were part of the exodus, now popularly known as Operation Pedro Pan, call themselves "Pedro Pans" or "Peter Pans".
Aftermath
Amongst several famous "Peter Pans" is Florida Senator Mel Martinez. Also, Latin musician Willy Chirino, who has cultivated the Miami Sound, and his wife singer/songwriter Lissette Alvarez. The rapper Pitbull's mother and aunt were a part of Operation Peter Pan as well. Once adults, some of the participants created the charitable organization "Operation Pedro Pan Group" to help needy children and preserve the history of the Pedro Pan exodus. Ex-Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Margarita Esquiroz came to Miami in 1962 as part of Pedro Pan. Original drummer for the heavy metal music band Slayer, Dave Lombardo, discussed how his two older brothers were Pedro Pans (and the effect it had on his family) in a 2014 interview.
In culture
Carlos Eire describes his experiences in Operation Peter Pan in his memoirs Waiting for Snow in Havana, and Learning to die in Miami.
Yvonne M. Conde, also a Pedro Pan, conducted research and interviews and wrote a book titled "Operation Pedro Pan: The Untold Exodus of 14,048 Cuban Children".
Other Pedro Pans have attempted to weave their memoirs into a broader understanding of not only U.S.-Cuba relations but also Cuban Diaspora-Cuba relations. Román de la Campa's Cuba on My Mind: Journeys to a Severed Nation does this by exploring Cuba's two capitals, Havana and Miami, and the hybrid position of the "one-and-half-generation" as well as by using the Elián González affair as a cipher for understanding how adults in both countries used children to achieve the broader ideological goals of the Cold War and how those goals are faring at the so-called "end of history".
Ana Mendieta is another famous Pedro Pan refugee. She was placed in several institutions and foster homes in Iowa and returned to Cuba several times over the course of her short life to "rediscover" her cultural origins. During her visits, she established contacts with the "Volumen Uno" artists, created works in natural settings, and exhibited at the National Museum in Havana. Her work has also been showcased at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and at the Hirshhorn, a Smithsonian Museum, in Washington DC amongst many other International museums. Some of this information was taken from an article titled "A Tree from Many Shores" published by Art Journal.
Christina Diaz Gonzalez wrote The Red Umbrella (Knopf Young Readers, 2010), a young-adult novel fictionalizing her mother's exile from Cuba as a teenager during Pedro Pan.
See also:
Cuban American
Cuban diaspora
Cuba-United States relations
Mariel boatlift
Opposition to Fidel Castro
Operation Baby Lift
Polita Grau
List of Operation Peter Pan alumni
Boxing For Cuba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1959
***************************************************
March 1959
"Pioneer's Radio Voice is Silent", Oakland Tribune, March 6, 1959, p1 Yvonne M. Conde, Operation Pedro Pan, (Routledge, 2000), p11 John P. Miglietta, American
25 KB (3,332 words) - 08:04, 2 September 2015
***************************************************
March 1, 1959 (Sunday)
-- Archbishop Makarios III returned to Cyprus. Two years earlier, he had been allowed by British authorities to leave the Seychelles, where he had been kept in exile, on condition that he never return to Cyprus. An agreement in Zurich between Britain, Greece and Turkey, released Makarios from the conditions, in return for his agreement to drop his quest for "enosis", a movement to make Cyprus part of Greek territory. Later in 1959, Makarios won the election to become the first President of Cyprus.
......................................
March 2, 1959 (Monday)
-- The Balkan Pact, signed in 1953 between Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia, expired after Yugoslavia's President Tito announced that his nation would not renew it.
........................................
March 3, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- The United States launched the Pioneer IV satellite toward the moon, shortly after midnight EST. The object became the first American spacecraft to escape the Earth's gravity.
-- The Mosul uprising began in Iraq as Colonel Abd al-Shawaff staged a rebellion against the government of President Abdul Karim Qasim. al-Shawaaf was killed the next day, and after the insurrection was put down, Qasim ordered the execution of officers suspected of complicity.
-- In Tifton, Georgia, nine children, ranging in age from 5 to 15, drowned after a loaded school bus ran off a road into a farm pond.
-- In Nyasaland (now Malawi), Colonial Governor Robert Armitage declared a state of emergency after riots broke out in that Southern African nation, banning the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC).
-- At the British colonial detention camp in Hola, Kenya, where Mau Mau rebels were held, eleven prisoners were beaten to death and 20 others seriously injured by prison staff, in what later was known as the Hola massacre.
-- Died: Lou Costello, 52, American comedian (famous for his partnership with Bud Abbott)
............................................
March 4, 1959 (Wednesday)
-- Pioneer IV became the second man-made object to pass the Moon and to enter an orbit around the sun, becoming the first American-made planetary object. The Soviet satellite Lunik had achieved solar orbit on January 7. Contact with Pioneer IV was lost two days later after its batteries ran out of power.
-- The government of Cuba nationalized the Cuban Telephone Company, a subsidiary of ITT.
-- Born: Rick Ardon, Australian news anchor, in Perth; Irina Strakhova, Russian race walker, in Novosibirsk
-- Died: Maxie Long, 80, Olympic track medalist 1900
.........................................
March 5, 1959 (Thursday)
-- At Ankara, the United States agreed to defend the remaining members of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in case of attack, signing bilateral defense agreements with Iran, Turkey and Pakistan.
-- In Wrightsville, Arkansas, a fire at a dormitory for the Arkansas Training School for Negro Boys killed 21 boys. The doors had been locked, and 47 boys who survived the fire had kicked their way through heavy metal screens to escape.
-- The Federal Reserve Bank raised the interest rate half a point to 3%
-- U.S. Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy told reporters that "a surprise with missiles in the foreseeable future is almost impossible".
...................................
March 6, 1959 (Friday)
-- Pope John XXIII issued a Notificatio banning "the spreading of images and writings that propose the devotion of The Divine Mercy" that had been the work of Sister Faustina Kowalska.
-- By order of the Castro government, all rents in Cuba were reduced by 50 percent.
-- Born: Tom Arnold, American actor and comedian, in Ottumwa, Iowa
........................................
March 7, 1959 (Saturday)
-- "Wishing Won't Hold Berlin", by former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, after Acheson concluded that the Eisenhower administration was not doing enough to respond to the Soviet ultimatum that all armies withdraw from Berlin (which was surrounded by Communist East Germany).
.....................................
March 8, 1959 (Sunday)
-- The Marx Brothers made their last screen appearance, as Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx starred in "The Incredible Jewel Robbery" on the CBS anthology program General Electric Theater.
-- A 19-year-old airman at the Davis-Monthan AFB committed suicide by setting a high altitude test chamber to simulate 73,000 feet, then pulling off his oxygen mask.
-- Born: Aidan Quinn, American actor, in Rockford, Illinois
......................................
March 9, 1959 (Monday)
-- The Barbie doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York. Ruth Handler named the doll for her daughter. In 1961, her son Ken would have his name bestowed on another doll.
-- Born: Giovanni di Lorenzo, European journalist, in Stockholm
.........................................
March 10, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- When it appeared that the Dalai Lama was on the verge of arrest by the Communist government of China, a rebellion broke out as 30,000 Tibetans surrounded his palace, the Norbulingka. The Dalai Lama would say later that "That day, the people stopped my journey to the Chinese army camp ... and in the meantime, they declared the independence of Tibet.".
-- Born: Mike Wallace, American race car driver, in Fenton, Missouri
March 11, 1959 (Wednesday)
-- A Raisin in the Sun, by African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and starring Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil, made its Broadway debut, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The play ran for 538 performances.
-- The Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopter, also known as the H-3 Pelican or the S-61, was given its first flight by test pilots.
-- Died: Lester Dent, 54, creator of Doc Savage
..........................................
March 12, 1959 (Thursday)
-- By a margin of 323 to 89, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to allow Hawaii to become the 50th state, contingent upon passage by Hawaiian voters. The night before, the Senate had voted its approval, 76–15. The bill was signed into law by President Eisenhower on March 18, 1959.
-- Tomasi Kulimoetoke II became the King of Wallis Island, reigning until May 7, 2007.
......................................
March 13, 1959 (Friday)
-- The United Nations General Assembly voted 56–0, with 23 abstentions, to end the UN Trusteeship over the French Cameroons by January 1, 1960, and to schedule a plebiscite in the north and south sections of the British Cameroons.
-- With the admission of Hawaii voted so soon after the admission of Alaska, flag manufacturers asked that the adoption of the 50-star flag be postponed until July 4, 1960. Digby Chandler, president of Annin & Co, said that the industry had already manufactured 300,000 flags with 49 stars, and added, "If we are forced to throw all these away and start making 50-star flags for next July 4 there will be no flag industry left." One proposal was to add an eighth star in the middle row of the seven rows of seven stars.
..........................................
March 14, 1959 (Saturday)
- Sharaf Rashidov was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Answering only to Moscow, Rashidov ruled for 24 years with otherwise unlimited and corrupt power, lasting until his death on October 31, 1983.
........................................
March 15, 1959 (Sunday)
-- Robert Foster, 32, set a record for holding his breath, remaining underwater for 13 minutes, 42.5 seconds (13:42.5), at San Rafael, California The record stood for 48 years, until broken by Arvydas and Diana Gaiciunas in Druskininkai, Lithuania, on June 16, 2007, at almost 16 minutes (15:58). Both Foster and the Gaiciunas siblings hyperventilated with pure oxygen beforehand in order to drive carbon dioxide from their lungs. The recognized record without such preparations is 11 minutes, 35 seconds, by freediver Stéphane Mifsud on June 8, 2009
-- The prison at the Curragh Camp, where Ireland detained suspected terrorists without formal charges, was formally closed.
-- Born: Harold Baines, American baseball player, in Easton, Maryland
-- Died: Duncan Hines, 78, restaurant critic who later lent his name to a line of cake mixes
.........................................
March 16, 1959 (Monday)
-- Born Flavor Flav, American rapper (as William Jonathan Drayton, Jr.), in Roosevelt, New York, and Jens Stoltenberg, Prime Minister of Norway, in Oslo
-- Died: John B. Salling, 112, American Civil War veteran, in Kingsport, Tennessee. His death left one surviving veteran claimant, Walter Williams of Houston, whose age and service were later disputed.
..........................................
March 17, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, escaped Tibet and found sanctuary in India.
-- USS Skate (SSN-578) surfaced at the North Pole after setting a record by spending 12 days under the polar ice cap. In a ceremony at the pole, the ashes of polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins, who had died in 1958, were scattered at the pole
-- Born: Danny Ainge, Boston Celtics guard and Toronto Blue Jays second baseman, in Eugene, Oregon
..............................................
March 18, 1959 (Wednesday)
-- U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii Statehood Bill into law at a White House ceremony, but the process of admission was not over. "Under this legislation," said Ike, "the citizens of Hawaii will soon decide whether their islands shall become our 50th state." Voters still had to elect new officials and decide on whether to accept all of the bill's provisions, with statehood conditioned on Palmyra Island not being included.
-- Born: Luc Besson, French film director (The Fifth Element), in Paris, and Irene Cara, American singer (Fame), in New York
...........................................
March 19, 1959 (Thursday)
-- After the Beijing government ordered the Dalai Lama to report without his bodyguards, fighting broke out in Lhasa, Tibet, as Tibetans battled Chinese troops. The Chinese government stated that thousands of rebels had attacked Lhasa and had been defeated after a two-day battle by Chinese troops.
-- The Shaggy Dog was first shown.
.....................................
March 20, 1959 (Friday)
In Modesto, California, the record for phonebooth stuffing was broken as 32 "slightly built" students at Modesto Junior College packed themselves into a regulation sized booth—7 feet tall and 32 inches square. However, for safety reasons, the booth was set on its side, and the telephone had been removed. Earlier in the month, 25 students in South Africa had broken the record of 19.
-- A unidentified visitor to Lenin's Mausoleum, in Moscow, threw a hammer at the sarcophagus housing Lenin's remains, breaking the glass. The event was not reported in the Soviet press and would not be revealed until after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
-- Born: Sting (wrestler), American pro wrestler (as Steve Borden), in Omaha, and Steve McFadden, British actor (Phil Mitchell in EastEnders), in London
..........................................
March 21, 1959 (Saturday)
-- The University of California won the NCAA basketball championship, defeating West Virginia 71–70. Cal blew a 13-point lead in the second half, and the Mountaineers came within one point with 0:53 left. West Virginia did not foul until 0:02 was left. Denny Fitzpatrick's free throw missed, but the Mountaineers' Jerry West was not able to get the ball until time had run out.
-- Born: Nobuo Uematsu, composer, in Kochi, Japan
.......................................
March 22, 1959 (Sunday)
-- In a televised address, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro announced that, effective immediately, he was outlawing all racial discrimination. Previously segregated clubs, parks and beaches were opened to Cuba's black residents by law.
-- The Constitutional Assembly of Mauritania approved a democratic constitution for the African state, which would become independent of France in 1960. Provisions for a multiparty parliamentary system would last only five years, after which Governor Moktar Ould Daddah's Mauritanian People's Party became the only legal party.
-- Born: Matthew Modine, American film actor, in Loma Linda, California
........................................
March 23, 1959 (Monday)
-- Nine miners were killed in an explosion at Brimstone, Tennessee.
-- Lee Harvey Oswald earned his GED, with a passing score of 77. He had dropped out of the tenth grade of Fort Worth High School in 1956.
.........................................
March 24, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- The integrated circuit was shown off for the first time by Texas Instruments, at an electronics industry convention in New York.
-- The Imam Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, son of the Mahdi, founder of the Umma Party in Sudan, and leader of the mahdiyah sect of Islam, died after a reign of 50 years and was succeeded by his son, Siddiq al-Mahdi; who died on October 2, 1961.
-- A proposal was introduced in the City Council of New York City to study the possibility of the city seceding from the New York State and becoming its own state.
-- As Communist rebels took control in Iraq, Prime Minister Abdel Karim Kassem announced his nation's withdrawal from the Baghdad Pact. The withdrawal had been expected following the July 14, 1958, revolution that overthrew the government of King Feisel II.
..............................................
March 25, 1959 (Wednesday)
-- French President Charles De Gaulle opened his first presidential press conference with a statement that France supported German reunification "as the aim and normal destiny of the German people. provided that [they] do not question their present frontiers to the west, east, north or south." "Germany today is not a danger to us," said De Gaulle as he announced a new relationship with his World War II adversary
...........................................
March 26, 1959 (Thursday)
-- Italy and the United States signed an agreement providing for thirty medium range Jupiter missiles to be deployed on Italian soil, the first placement of the new MRBM.
-- A circus lion terrorized New York's Madison Square Garden after escaping a cage, running around the arena, then jumping a rail and walking into the main lobby. Ponto, the 800 pound star of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey big cat act was captured 15 minutes later after wandering into a blocked corridor.
-- International radio communication was blocked out for 11 hours, beginning at 5 p.m. Pacific time. It was believed that an eruption on the sun disrupted transmissions, although such disturbances normally lasted on 30 minutes.
-- Died: Raymond Chandler, 70, creator of Philip Marlowe
......................................
March 27, 1959 (Friday)
-- North Carolina became the first state in the nation to require polio vaccines for all children. The measure, already approved by the Senate passed 73–3 in the House and was signed by Governor Luther H. Hodges.
..........................................
March 28, 1959 (Saturday)
-- The government of Tibet was abolished by an order signed by Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, and the Dalai Lama was replaced by a puppet ruler, the Panchen Lama.
........................................
March 29, 1959 (Sunday)
-- Barthélemy Boganda, Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, was slated to become its first President, but was killed in the crash of a French airliner. After taking off from Berberati for the capital, Bangui, the plane crashed, killing the Prime Minister and eight other people. In celebration of the martyred founding father of the nation, March 29 is a legal holiday in the C.A.R., as Boganda Day.
-- Born: Barry Blanchard, Canadian mountaineer, in Calgary
........................................
March 30, 1959 (Monday)
-- The Dalai Lama took flight from Lhasa to the monastery of Tawang Town, a disputed territory controlled by the Indian government, with the help of CIA operatives, Tibetan guerrillas, and the government of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. With 85,000 of his co-ethnics, the Lama settled in the town of Dharamsala, in the Himachal Pradesh state of India.
-- In two decisions (Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U.S. 121 and Abbate v. United States 359 U.S. 187), the United States Supreme Court ruled that a person could be charged with the same crime in both state and federal court proceedings without violating the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment ("nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb"), under the dual sovereignty doctrine.
-- Chief Judge Akio Date of the District Court in Tokyo ruled in the Sunakawa case that the stationing of United States military forces in Japan violated Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. The decision was reversed by the Supreme Court of Japan on December 14.
..........................................
March 31, 1959 (Tuesday)
-- Action Comics No. 252 (May 1959) reached newsstands, and, in a story entitled "The Supergirl From Krypton", introduced Supergirl to the world.
Busch Gardens' Dark Continent in Tampa, Florida, opened to the public following a dedication ceremony. Until it was superseded by Walt Disney World, the African safari park was Florida's leading tourist attraction.
..........................................
References:
John Springhall, Decolonization since 1945: The Collapse of European Overseas Empires (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) pp99-100
The Muslim World: A Historial Survey (Brill Archive, 1997), Vol. IV, p52
"Pioneer IV Roars on – Now Halfway to Moon", Oakland Tribune, March 3, 1959, p1
Masʻūd Bārzānī, Mustafa Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement (1931–1961) (Macmillan, 2003), pp213–14
"School Bus Flips, 9 Students Drown", Oakland Tribune, March 3, 1959, p1
"Banda, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu", Encyclopedia of African History (CRC Press, 2005) p124
Eugenia W. Herbert, Twilight on the Zambezi: Late Colonialism in Central Africa (Macmillan, 2002), pp145–146
"Pioneer IV Due to Pass Moon Today", Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1959, p1; "Pioneer's Radio Voice is Silent", Oakland Tribune, March 6, 1959, p1
Yvonne M. Conde, Operation Pedro Pan, (Routledge, 2000), p11
John P. Miglietta, American Alliance Policy in the Middle East, 1945–1992: Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia (Lexington Books, 2002), pp44–45
"21 Youths Perish in Dormitory Fire", Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1959, p1
"Bulletin", Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1959, p1
Tim Drake, Saints of the Jubilee (AuthorHouse, 2002), p95
Christopher P. Baker, Moon Cuba (Avalon Travel Publishing, 2006), p576
Douglas Brinkley, Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953–71 (Yale University Press, 1994), p96
Wes D. Gehring, The Marx Brothers: A Bio-bibliography (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1987), p94
"Airman Ends Life in Space Test Chamber", Oakland Tribune, March 20, 1959, p1
"Looking half her age: Barbie at 50", New York Times, January 5, 2009
Thomas Laird, The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama (Grove Press, 2007), pp333–334
Columbus Salley, The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential African-Americans, Past and Present (Citadel Press, 1999), p279
Stanley S. McGowen, Helicopters: An Illustrated History of Their Impact (ABC-CLIO, 2005), p118
"House Votes Hawaii In as 50th State", Oakland Tribune, March 12, 1959, p1
"Chronology", The World Almanac and book of facts 1960 (New York World-Telegram, 1959), p98
"Surplus of 49-Star Flags 'Means Ruin,' Assert Makers", Oakland Tribune, March 13, 1959, p18
Peter L. Roudik, The History of the Central Asian Republics (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007), p138
Norris McWhirter, Guinness Book of World Records (Bantam Books, 1986) p43; "Man Holds His Breath Under Water For 13 minutes, 42 Seconds", Ocala (FL) Star-Banner, March 16, 1959, p12
"Officials: Lithuanian Siblings Break Breath-Holding Record"
Shark-Freediving.com
Robert William White, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh: The Life and Politics of an Irish
"Confederate Vet's Death Cuts Roll to 1", Oakland Tribune, March 16, 1959, p1
Associated Press (20 December 1959). "Reputed Last Civil War Veteran Dies in Texas After Long Illness: Walter Williams Put His Age at 117 – Tributes Note the End of an Era". The New York Times.
p3
"Atomic Sub Drills Holes In Polar Ice", Oakland Tribune, March 17, 1959, p1
"Ike Signs Statehood for Hawaii Bill", Oakland Tribune, March 18, 1959, p1, p4
"Tibetans Battle Reds in Capital", Oakland Tribune, March 21, 1959, p1
"Reds Claim Revolt Crushed In Tibet, Install Puppet Lama", Oakland Tribune, March 28, 1959, p1
"New Booth Record— 32, But No Telephone", Oakland Tribune, March 21, 1959, p1
Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy (HarperCollins, 1994) p446
Jump up ^ "Fighting Bears NCAA Champs!", Oakland Tribune, March 22, 1959, p57
Ted Henken, Cuba: A Global Studies Handbook (ABC-CLIO, 2008), p294
Christof Heyns, Human Rights Law in Africa 1998 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2001), p350
"Nine Perish in Mile-Deep Mine Blast", Oakland Tribune, March 23, 1959, p1
Diane Holloway, The Mind of Oswald: Accused Assassin of President John F. Kennedy (Trafford, 2000), pp6, 11
Robert Slater, Portraits in Silicon (MIT Press, 1989), p170
Bernard Reich, Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Biographical Dictionary (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1990), pp319–320
"Finance-Plagued City of New York Wants to Secede", Oakland Tribune, March 25, 1959, p1
"Iraq Cuts Ties With Baghdad Pact", Oakland Tribune, March 24, 1959, p1
F. Roy Willis, France, Germany and the New Europe 1945–1963 (Stanford University Press), pp295–96
Stephen I. Schwartz, Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (Brookings Institution Press, 1998), p145
"Lion Walks Out on Act, Into Audience", Oakland Tribune, March 27, 1959, p1
"Raio Blacked Out 11 Hours In Mystery", Oakland Tribune, March 27, 1959, p1
"Polio Shots Required In New State Law", Oakland Tribune, March 28, 1959, p1
Brian Titley Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa (McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP, 2002), p16
Chase's Calendar of Events 2009 (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2009), p190
Benjamin Zachariah, Nehru (Routledge, 2004), p241
Shiv R. Jhawar, Building a Noble World (Noble World Foundation, 2004), p45
"U.S. Court OKs Double Jeopardy", Oakland Tribune, March 30, 1959, p2
Peter J. Herzog, Japan's Pseudo-democracy(Routledge, 1993), p236
"Silver Age Comics", March 31, 2009
Steve Rajtar, A Guide to Historic Tampa (The History Press, 2007), p97