istance Act of 1954, better known as PL-480. This facilitated the export of grain to US-aligned governments that were facing threats from Leftist agencies, either internal rebels or intimidation from a Soviet-aligned State next door. PL-480 could be used to keep recalcitrant allies, those possibly sliding towards Communism, in line. For example in 1965 US President Johnson shifted the renewal of PL-480 food aid to India from an annual to a monthly basis, threatening India with withdrawal of food aid as India’s President Shastri expressed disapproval of US bombing in Vietnam. However if Shastri abandoned Nehru’s ideas of land distribution to Indian peasants then India would receive US agricultural technology, enhancing food yields.
15/6/1954, Senator John McCarthy’s committee labelled Robert Oppenheimer, inventor of the atom bomb, a security risk because he opposed development of the Hydrogen Bomb.
10/6/1954, Charles Adams, US statesman (born 2/8/1866) died.
4/5/1954, Doug Jones, US politician, was born.
22/4/1954, A committee headed by Senator John McCarthy, the ‘Permanent Investigations Sub-Committee’, began hearings into an alleged Communist spy ring at Fort Monmouth. McCarthy’s methods started alarming hs collaegues.
7/4/1954, The USA announced that, in conjunction with Canada, it would set up a chain of almost 100 radar stations along a 3,000 mile line at the 55th parallel. On 27/9/1954 a second chain of radfar stations was announced above the Arctic Circle to warn of enemy aircraft approaching from Russia across the North Pole. This was the Distant Early Warning Line, of DEW; within a few years it was obsolete because missiles would be delivered by rockets not planes.
8/3/1954, The US and Japan signed a mutual defence pact.
25/2/1954, President Eisenhower censured McCarthy (see 9/2/1950) for his bullying tactics. See 2/12/1954.
18/2/1954 John Travolta, American film actor, was born in Englewood, New York State.
10/10/1953. President Eisenhower of the USA signed a treaty with South Korea promising military aid if North Korea attacked.
31/7/1953, Robert Taft, US Conservative politician, died aged 63.
20/6/1953, The Jewish funeral service of Ethel and Julius Rosenburg was held at Brooklyn (see 19/6/1953). The estimated 10,500 who attended were supportive of the Rosenburgs, who were seen as resisters of American imperialism.
19/6/1953. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg went to the electric chair in Sing Sing prison, 30 miles north of New York, guilty of spying for the USSR. They were the first US civilians to be executed for espionage. They had been condemned on 30/3/1951. Sing Sing prison was built between 1825 and 1828, and took its name from the local village. However the village soon changed its native-American derived name to Ossining to avoid association with the prison.
11/4/1953, The US Department of Health and Human Services was established.
5/2/1953, Walt Disney’s film Peter Pan went on general release.
2/12/1952, US President Eisenhower visited Korea.
31/10/1952, The USA exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific. The bomb was equivalent to 5 to 7 megatons (million tons of TNT) and left a hole a mile in diameter and 175 feet deep. A 5 megaton bomb would devastate about 150 square miles by blast and subject about 800 square miles to searing heat. See 9/9/2003.
25/10/1952, The USA blocked the entry of China to the United Nations for the third year running. See 25/10/1971.
24/10/1952, In the US, Eisenhower described Korea as ‘the burial place of twenty thousand Americans’ and promised that if he was elected President he would end the Korean War. Meanwhile the United Nations remained deadlocked over the issue of the return of North Korean prisoners of War. The USSR and China wanted them all returned to North Korea, but some PoWs insisted they had been forcibly drafted into the North Korean forces and wanted to settle in South Korea.
19/9/1952, The comedian Charlie Chaplin was labelled ‘subversive’ by Right-wingers in the USA.
24/7/1952, Charles Copeland, US educationalist, died in Massachusetts.
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