Volume 270 | No. 7

2010—H. Kissinger apologizes for having told R. Nixon in 1973, “[if the Soviets] put Jews into gas chambers…it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” 2002—Americans learn a new euphemism from the Washington Post: “extraordinary rendition” means kidnapping and torture. A trial? Hah! 1996—U.S. Media pick JonBenet Ramsey to be the most celebrated of the 2,500 children murdered this year. 1991—The Supreme Soviet meets one last time and dissolves the USSR. 1971—Disgruntled Vietnam veterans occupy the Statue of Liberty. 1969—Having fought a shifting cargo of bombs, missiles, and mines for nine days in heavy seas, the crew of the freighter SS Badger State …

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1989—Romania celebrates Christmas and freedom by putting former President Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife Elena before a firing squad. 1956—Civil rights activist Fred Shuttlesworth survives the Klan bombing of his Birmingham, Ala., home. 1951—Fifty drunken LAPD cops celebrate Christmas by giving severe beatings to six Chicano prisoners. 1951—In Mims, Fla., a bomb explodes under the home of NAACP leaders Harry T. and Harriette Moore on the night of their 25th anniversary. Both die; no one is indicted; 55 years later the state concludes that four long-dead Klansmen did it. 1914—German and British troops leave trenches, sing Christmas carols, shake hands, and share smokes. 1868—President Andy …

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2003—Responding to “credible intel,” Mike Hayden tells his British counterpart to take over his NSA duties if al-Qaeda nukes D.C. on Xmas. 1992—George Herbert [Hoover] Walker Bush pardons Caspar “Cap” Weinberger, Bob McFarlane, and 4 other Iran-Contra creeps, coincidentally protecting his own sorry self. 1979—The Soviet Army enters Afghanistan to prop up the Marxist government. Oops. They correct their mistake after just nine years. 1971—Her airliner having fallen apart after being hit by lightning two miles above the Amazon, Juliane Koepcke, 17, falls into the jungle. She survives with minor injuries. 1963—Top CIA counterspy and Friend-of-the-Mob James Jesus Angleton shuts down the Agency’s investigation of …

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2019—After crashes kill 346, Boeing CEO Dennis A. Muilenburg gets a $62.2 million golden parachute. 2004—NASA gives odds of 1 in 233 that an asteroid will hit Earth in 2029. 1994—Tipped off by a Boston FBI agent that he’s about to be arrested, James “Whitey” Bulger takes a powder. He’s on the lam for 16.5 years. 1986—The airplane Voyager completes its nonstop circumnavigation. 1971—Nixon lets Jimmy Hoffa out of prison but bars him from running against Frank Fitzsimmons, whose Teamsters then back Nixon. 1963—FBI officials begin scheming to “neutralize” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with wiretapping, bugging, infiltration, sabotage, and blackmail. 1955—James Kutcher, a legless …

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2001—Richard Reid’s shoe-bomb fizzles, but all air passengers must still remove shoes before boarding. 1984—Asked for money on a New York subway, Bernhard Goetz dishes out some lead instead. Then he flees to—where else?—New Hampshire. 1974—Seymour Hersh exposes the CIA’s Operation Chaos in the New York Times: 10,000 Americans under illegal surveillance since 1967. 1973—“Dick” Nixon’s paranoid agitation at a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting leaves four-stars wondering, “did he just ask us if we’d back a coup?” 1967—The CIA hands the President a second report on its illegal surveillance of anti-war activists. Again, it finds no evidence supporting his belief in foreign influence. LBJ …

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