Vol. 80/No. 14 April 11, 2016
25, 50, and 75 Years Ago
April 12, 1991
In an interview published in the March 11 New Republic, [Gen. Norman] Schwarzkopf said the greatest lesson of the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada was “never underestimate your enemy.”“What started as a highly conventional operation went sour right away,” he said. “And it went sour because of the assumption that the Cubans weren’t going to fight. We had 800 Cubans on the island who were well armed and damned sure were going to fight.”
The Cubans had volunteered to help build a public airport in Grenada during the 1979-1983 revolution led by Grenada Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. Bishop’s overthrow and murder by a Stalinist clique led by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard handed Washington an opportunity to invade and assert its domination over the island. The Cuban construction workers, attacked by the invading U.S. troops, fought back despite overwhelming odds.
April 11, 1966
It appears that [south Vietnamese] Premier Nguyen Cao Ky’s noisy threats and the U.S. air-lifted troop movement to Danang have failed to end the virtual insurrection in that city, leaving Danang and her sister city of Hué still in the hands of anti-Ky forces. Meanwhile, violent anti-government student demonstrations in Saigon have entered their fourth day in spite of police attempts on the previous three days to break them up with clubs, tear gas and smoke bombs.These developments have completely exposed the fraudulence of Washington’s pretense for involvement in south Vietnam — pretense that the U.S. is fighting for the south Vietnamese people’s freedom. The Ky regime stands exposed as a U.S. puppet, and as a hated military dictatorship which not only the peasants in the countryside oppose, but the masses in the cities as well.
April 12, 1941
The 400,000 striking soft coal miners of the eight-state Appalachian region appear to be headed toward a major victory. This was indicated in the announcement Sunday that the Northern operators, employing at least 65 percent of the miners, have agreed to sign a contract granting demands of the United Mine Workers (CIO) for a general dollar a day wage increase and paid vacations.The gains already known to be won have confirmed the soundness of the UMW position on the Mediation Board. Within less than a week, this strike has won improved wages and conditions which unquestionably would have been delayed for months or lost altogether had the miners yielded to Roosevelt’s and the bosses’ pressure and continued to work while the question of their contract was left in the hand of the employer-dominated Mediation Board.