Volume 269 | No. 21

1986—Reagan’s A.G., Ed Meese, finagles quasi-legislative status for Presidential Signing Statements, which previously had had little impact, merely by persuading West Publishing to include them in law books. 1972—Near Danang, Battery B of the 82nd Field Arty. takes out four men from the 196th Inf. Bde. in the last major friendly fire incident of the war. 1967—His Tet Offensive plan OK’d by the Politburo, Gen. Nguyen Chi Thanh, 53, parties himself to death. 1954—As puppet Premier Diem arrives in Saigon, U.S. Gen. John W. O’Daniel, says “the war in Vietnam can be won without bringing in one single American soldier to fight.” 1950—FBI Chief J. …

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2013—A runaway fuel train derails and burns, destroying half of downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec. 2001—Ex-FBI Special Agent, devout Catholic, patron of strippers, and exhibitionist Robert Hanssen pleads guilty to selling U.S. secrets to the U.S.S.R., then to the Russians. 1971—President Nixon sets up a “Plumbers Unit” to stop leaks. 1962—To test its dirt-moving capacity, the AEC sets off a buried nuke in Nevada. It creates Sedan Crater—the nation’s biggest—and irradiates more Americans than any other test. 1924—Democrats “deplore and condemn…religious or racial dissension” during the longest convention ever held, but balk at naming the Klan. 1916—Major Douglas MacArthur, newly-appointed censor at the War Department, says …

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1984—The Miami Herald exposes Rex 84, a gummint plan to jail thousands of citizens if they get too unruly. 1968—Khe Sanh, where 737 Marines died in 78-day siege, is abandoned. 1968—Congress tramples on the First Amendment while falsely claiming it’s somehow “protecting” the flag. 1960—Isabel “Dimples” Cooper, 46, is buried in Culver City, Calif., a suicide. The former showgirl had become the mistress of Gen. “Dugout Doug” MacArthur in Manila in 1930, but her later Hollywood career had stalled. 1950—Ill-trained, poorly equipped, and outnumbered, Task Force Smith is decimated by North Koreans at Osan. Gen. “Dugout Doug” MacArthur blames the troops for his loss. 1937—IBM …

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1986—U.S.M.C. LCpl. Howard Foote, a mechanic, safely lands an A-4M Skyhawk fighter jet at El Toro Air Station after a 30-min. joyride. He gets four months in the brig. 1973—R. Nixon’s psychiatrist writes in the N.Y. Times that candidates ought to have their heads examined. 1970—At “Honor America” day in D.C., Billie Graham and Bob Hope preach and joke, protestors smoke pot atop a truck shoved into the Reflecting Pool, and neo-Nazis snarl and jeer. 1947—The Boozefighters, a subset of “The Greatest Generation®,” take over Hollister, Calif. Three days of debauchery inspire The Wild One and spawn a generation of poseurs. 1924—Four thousand Klansmen march …

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1994—The Mayor of Boulder, Colo. declares it’s “Allen Ginsberg Day.” 1993—In just leather jacket, dog collar, and jockstrap, punk rocker G.G. Allin is laid to rest at St. Rose Cemetery in his hometown, Littleton, N.H. 1988—The USS Vincennes, in Iranian waters, shoots down an Iranian airliner ascending within a commercial air corridor; 290 civilians die. 1979—President Carter OKs covert aid to the mujahideen, despite Z. Brzezinski’s warning it will spur a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 1978—The Supreme Court rules that seven words—which it uses in its ruling—are too filthy to broadcast. 1971—R. Nixon tells B. Haldeman, “Jews are all through the government…you can’t trust the …

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