Vol. 76/No. 14 April 9, 2012
April 10, 1987
BISMARCK, N.D.—For 10 years, Leonard Peltier has fought for a new trial. An activist in the American Indian Movement, he is now serving two life sentences, having been framed up for the 1975 deaths of two FBI agents.The agents were killed during a government attack on Indians at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. An Indian rights activist was also killed.
Recently, Peltier filed for reconsideration of his appeal for a new trial by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last December, the appeals court had conceded that the main evidence used to convict Peltier was invalid and that the government prosecutors knew this and concealed it from the jury. But the court ruled that Peltier must continue doing life anyway.
April 9, 1962
American troops, sent to Vietnam to save the tottering regime of Dictator Ngo Dinh Diem, have been given the dirty work of organizing “Operation Sunrise,” a brutal campaign of driving peasant families from their homes and villages and forcibly resettling them elsewhere in prison camps. This campaign similar to that tried by the French in Algeria, is intended to isolate the Viet Cong guerrillas.“Operation Sunrise” gives the lie to Washington’s official pretext for intervention—the claim that the guerrillas fighting Dictator Diem are “invaders” from North Vietnam. The campaign of forced resettlement is a damning admission that the only hope for victory over the small Viet Cong force is to imprison the peasant population, the main source of guerrilla strength.
April 17, 1937
Pushing ahead with its history-making campaign, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee signed 51 steel companies to union contracts in the month following the signing by U.S. Steel.The rush of membership drove the total far past the 200,000 mark. In the ten days following March 2 approximately 35,000 new members signed. In the Bethlehem mills followers of the steel union virtually captured the company unions.
What the new steel union has brought to the steel workers in money alone was shown by a report of the American Iron & Steel Institute. Payrolls of the industry increase[d] approximately $130,000,000 when union contracts became effective.
The average hourly earnings exceed the 1929 average of 65.4 cents an hour by 28 percent, the Institute reported.
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