December 18, 1981
President Reagan, who campaigned on a promise to "get the government off the backs of the people," has granted the political police expanded powers to spy on us and disrupt our lives. On December 4, Reagan signed an executive order replacing an earlier version issued by President Carter in January, 1978.

Reagan declared that "an approach that emphasizes suspicion and mistrust of our own intelligence efforts can undermine this nation's ability to confront the increasing challenge of espionage and terrorism."

The new executive order drops some of the very mild limits that the Carter order had publicly imposed on the activities of the secret police. However, the real guidelines and procedures governing the FBI and CIA have been and remain classified information.

December 17, 1956
The third all-out attempt of the Kremlin to smash the Hungarian Revolution has failed of its primary objective—prevention of the 48-hour general strike called by the Budapest Workers Council for Dec. 11 and 12. The strike was a resounding success, more complete than any previous strike in Hungarian history. Flying squadrons of pickets, boldly operating one step ahead of Soviet troops and the reconstituted police of the puppet Kadar regime, even closed stores, government agencies and stopped streetcars and buses that were operating with military escorts.

The strike was called for 48 hours but has already lasted longer, since tens of thousands of workers jumped the gun and shut down Budapest's industries early on Dec. 10 rather than wait for the midnight deadline. Now the big question is how and when the strike will end.

December 19, 1931
The verdict of guilty in the case of William B. Jones, Harlan County miners' leader, with the accompanying sentence of life imprisonment, again brings this historic struggle sharply before the working class and warns against any further delay in organizing a genuine national movement in behalf of the indicted men. More than a score of workers are yet to be tried. Their lives are in danger, and with them the life of the organized labor movement in the Kentucky mine fields. The intervention of a powerful workers' protest in the affair is one of the most important questions of the day. Here is a case of vindictive persecution, not of a few individuals merely but on a wholesale scale. The object is to wipe out unionism and terrorize all of its advocates by a fearful example of class "justice" and revenge. Can that be allowed to happen in comparative silence?  
 
 
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