Vol. 80/No. 24      June 20, 2016

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

 

June 21, 1991

The June 4 resignation of the Communist Party-dominated government brought an end to 47 years of rule by Albania’s Stalinist party. A country of 3.5 million, Albania borders Greece and Yugoslavia.

A four-week general strike and massive demonstrations in Albania’s capital, Tirana, forced the government’s resignation. On leaving office, Prime Minister Fatos Nano announced a “nonpartisan” interim government would be formed and new elections scheduled.

The leadership of the recently formed Union of Free and Independent Trade Unions, which had mobilized hundreds of thousands of workers in the general strike, said it would recommend going back to work as soon as the new government took office.

June 20, 1966

There are a number of interesting aspects to the admission by Clifton Daniel, managing editor of the New York Times, that his paper deliberately helped deny the American people the facts about the impending invasion of Cuba in 1961.

Ten days before the slated invasion, it deliberately played down and emasculated a report on it by its correspondent Tad Szulc. The New Republic killed a similar story.

Both instances of self-imposed censorship were justified as in the “national interest” and to avoid aiding the “enemy.” This is so much hogwash. Cuba had competent intelligence and had been warning the world for months that the attack was coming and detailed the invasion build-up areas. The ones the Times and New Republic didn’t want to tip off were the American people.

June 21, 1941

CLEVELAND — The Future Outlook League, Cleveland’s militant Negro organization, won another victory when it forced the Ohio Bell Telephone Company to agree to the hiring of 25 Negro men and women in semi-skilled jobs.

The FOL maintained a strong picket line for weeks before the company’s downtown offices was bombarded with phone calls. One of the banners read: “We want to work with democracy before we have to die for it.”

The company at first refused to negotiate with the FOL while they were being picketed, bombarded with phone calls and, the company alleged, suffering from wire cutting by “unknown” parties. Finally after the NAACP and the Urban League had lined up solidly with the FOL, the company capitulated.  
 
 
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