October 21

1959: The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum opens. Guggenheim had been an American businessman as well as collector of art. His family had mining businesses including the Yukon Gold Company in Alaska. He married Irene Rothschild and they had three daughters. Guggenheim began collecting old masters in the 1890s and by 1919 at the age of 50 he retired from business to spend more time collecting art. In 1930, he began displaying his private collection which now included not just old masters, but modern artists, as well. His collection was in his apartment and in 1937 he formed the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation to help increase interest in modern art.

As his collection grew, he needed more space and in 1945 moved to the Museum of Non-Objective Painting. His collection continued to grow and it became obvious he needed a larger, more permanent space. He commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright, the legendary architect, to design a new space – the Guggenheim Museum, in 1948. Hilla Rebay had been managing his collections for some time before she was able to work with Wright to create the space for the ever expanding collection. She asked Wright to create a space as a “temple of the spirit” allowing visitors to view modern art in a new way. Wright produced four different sketches for the initial design.

The design of the space is a continuous spiral, rather than separate floors. It contained a variety of geometric shapes, each with their own meaning to the architect. The original plans included an adjoining tower with studios for artists, but it was never built. The building opened in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, ten years after Guggenheim died and just months after Wright died. There was controversy even on opening day with some concern over whether the building itself would overshadow the works it was built to display. It had stood the test of time and had grown organically since opening day.

The permanent collection continues to grow. The nearly 2 million visitors each year are also given opportunities to seen exhibitions on loan from other establishments or private collections. There are also Guggenheim Museums in Venice, Abu Dhabi, and Bilbao. Guggenheim’s original collection has been added to with several major acquisitions and bequests, allowing for a breathtaking experience. The works are not displayed by type or era, but as a continuous feast for the eyes, mind, and heart. The building itself is part of the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness. – Joan Miro

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works: if from the head, almost nothing. – Marc Chagall

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. – Edgar Degas

Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body. – Wassily Kandinsky

 

 

October 20

1968: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis. Jackie was born in 1929 to a Wall Street stockbroker. After graduating from George Washington University, she went to work for the Washington Times-Herald as a photographer. She met Congressman John F. Kennedy in 1952 and they were married in 1953. They had four children, two of them dying in infancy. Kennedy was elected as US President in 1960 and assassinated in 1963. Jackie was riding in the open convertible when her husband was shot. She withdrew from public life after his funeral. Her brother-in-law, Robert Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 as he made a bid for the presidency. Jackie was concerned that with more murders within the Kennedy clan, she and her children were in danger. She opted to marry her longtime friend, Onassis, in a bid for privacy and safety.

Onassis was born in 1906 in Karatas, in what is today Turkey. The area where the Onassis family held considerable wealth came under a host of different government bodies and in 1922 they were forced to flee as refugees. Onassis became a shipping magnate and built up his wealth while living in Buenos Aires. At the age of 40, he married 17 year old Athina Livanos, daughter of another shipping magnate and the couple had two children, both born in New York City. They divorced in 1960. Onassis had a well publicized affair with opera singer, Maria Callas, but they never married.

On this day, he and Kennedy were married on Skorpios, a private Greek island owned by Onassis in the Ionian Sea. Kennedy changed her name to Onassis and gave up her Secret Service protection, something due to the widow of a US President. She faced considerable backlash for her new marriage in part because Onassis was divorced, something against the Roman Catholic Church’s rules. There was speculation she might be excommunicated, but she was not. The couple lived in six different residences during their brief marriage. Two were in the US, two were in Greece, one in Paris, and the last was aboard Onassis’s yacht, Christina O.

Alexander Onassis was killed in a plane crash in 1973 and his father’s health rapidly declined. He died of respiratory failure in Paris in 1975. Jackie, as a non-Greek spouse had limited access to her husband’s estate. After two years of legal battles, she accepted a $26 million settlement from Christina Onassis, the daughter and sole survivor of Aristotle. Jackie returned to the US and lived the rest of her life there. She became a consulting editor at Viking Press and then moved to Doubleday. She was diagnosed with cancer and within the year had died at the age of 64.

If they’re killing Kennedys, then my children are targets … I want to get out of this country. – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all. – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

If women didn’t exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning. – Aristotle Onassis

After a certain point, money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal. The game is what counts. – Aristotle Onassis

 

 

October 19

1950: The government of Iran is the first to benefit from the Point Four Program. Harry Truman’s inaugural address was given on January 20, 1949. He listed four primary objectives within his foreign policies. The fourth of these was to offer technical assistance programs to “developing countries” who were willing to enter into bilateral agreements with the US. At the conclusion of World War II, the USSR and US found themselves in what came to be known as the Cold War. Truman wished to win over the “hearts and minds” of the developing world by offering them a way to move forward after the devastation of the global conflict.

His plan was to offer US know-how in a variety of fields, but especial in agriculture, industry, and health. Countries from the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Africa had complained that help from the US was mostly given to European countries. In order to help what was then called “third world” countries, Truman offered US help with the hope that it would build stronger economies in these underdeveloped countries as well has show that democracy and capitalism could provide for the welfare of the individual. It was not a program of economic aid but rather built on giving technical advice to those countries willing to accept the offer. It was not a colonial venture, according to Truman, but an offer to help with recovery after the War.

Point Four was the first global US foreign aid program but it drew inspiration from the wartime Office of the Coordinator of the Inter-American Affairs which had offered aid to Latin American countries during the previous decade. Secretary of State Dean Acheson urged Truman to make the same benefit to the third world countries of the day. A new committee was created on February 9, 1949 within the Department of State and chaired by Samuel Hayes. The Technical Assistance Group obtained funding of $25 million for the 1950/51 fiscal year.

The Technical Cooperation Administration (TCA) gained Congressional approval on October 27, 1950. Even before this, Iran entered into a partnership with the US to gain assistance in their quest to generally improve their economy. It was never meant to be for a single area, but a global effort and offers were extended to a variety of countries around the world. President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the name, but kept the program itself, and placed it under the auspices of the Foreign Operations Administration. Successive programs include the International Cooperation Administration and the Agency for International Development.

Communist propaganda holds that the free nations are incapable of providing a decent standard of living for the millions of people in under-developed areas of the earth. The Point Four program will be one of our principal ways of demonstrating the complete falsity of that charge.

The old imperialism—exploitation for foreign profit—has no place in our plans. What we envisage is a program of development based on the concepts of democratic fair-dealing. All countries, including our own, will greatly benefit from a constructive program for the better use of the world’s human and natural resources.

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. – all from Harry S Truman

 

 

October 18

1558: King Sigismund II grants the right to establish a postal service. Cracow, Poland was a bustling commercial center in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. They needed reliable communication networks with their marketing partners in Germany as well as Italy. The Fugger family established a copper trade in the city and began a private service, the Fugger Post. Although initially used only for their own business dealings, eventually the king, queen, and vice-chancellor were also using the service. A second service, the Seweryn Boner’s post, was used for private correspondence between individuals. They partnered with two other private postal services and attempted to create regular postal service in Cracow, but after the death of Seweryn, the service shut down.

Queen Bona Sforza, was the impetus behind the royal decree issued on this day. She was interested because King Sigismund needed regular and reliable correspondence with Italy in order to collect his inheritance. The decree gave the right to establish and manage the post to the Italian Prospero Provana. The services ran from Cracow to Venice and could be used by private people even though the entire cost of the service was borne by the King. There was trouble and in Provana, they had issues with other Thurn and Taxis who carried mail to Austria, Hungary, and throughout Italy. After four years, the King withdrew the benefit granted to Provana.

There is evidence of early royal couriers who were in charge of Egyptian Pharaoh’s correspondence and decrees from as early as 2400 BC. The idea may have been in use for far longer and there is no actual beginning date for moving messages. By the time of the Persian Empire, an early postal system was in use along the Royal Road. The Princely House of Thurn and Taxis began regular mail service from Brussels in the 1500s and directed the Imperial Post of the Holy Roman Empire. The oldest functioning post office is located on High Street in Sanquhar, Scotland (according to the British Postal Museum). When there is an official method of sending messages, there is often also an associated issue with intercepting and censoring the messages and in France, these offices were Cabinets noirs.

At one time, it was necessary to take any correspondence to the local post office, buy the right to have it shipped, and then sending it on. Or you might send it on and the person receiving it would pay the cost (or not). Then the postage stamp was created. These were small pieces of paper issued by the service for a set fee which could be attached to correspondence and then dropping it off via a mailbox or at a centralized collection area. It would then be delivered to the addressee. These came on the scene in the 1840 when England issued the Penny Black. It wasn’t long before collectors began to amass the various versions of stamps and philatelists began to help preserve the history of the mail systems.

Well, the post office is probably not the place you want to go if you want to be infused with patriotism and a renewed sense of vigor. – Adam Carolla

Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas. – Johnny Carson

I don’t buy a lot when I travel, but when I do, I like to send gifts from wherever I am. It’s fun to find the local post office. – Juliana Hatfield

The way I understand it, the Russians are sort of a combination of evil and incompetence… sort of like the Post Office with tanks. – Emo Philips

 

 

October 17

1956: Donald Byrne meets Bobby Fischer at the Marshall Chess Club. Byrne was 26 years old at the time and an acclaimed American chess master. He was playing in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in New York City when he came up against the 13 year old Fischer. Byrne played White and opened with a noncommittal move. Fischer, playing Black, responded with a “hypermodern” principle-based plays. Byrne made what seemed to be a small mistake on move 11 but Fischer capitalized on it and eventually won the game on move 38 even after sacrificing his queen over 20 moves earlier. The match was called the “Game of the Century” by Hans Kmock in Chess Review.

Byrne was born in 1930 and was one of the strongest chess players in American in the 1950s and 1960s. He won the US Open Chess Championship in 1953 and went on to play or captain in five US Chess Olympiad teams between 1962 and 1972. He was awarded the International Master title by the World Chess Federation in 1962. During this particular game, it was obvious Fischer was winning and in a game between two masters, the losing player would normally resign but instead, at the urging of his friends as a “tip of the hat” to the teenager, they played out the game allowing Fisher to checkmate the more advanced player. Byrne died in 1976 at the age of 45 from complications of lupus.

Fischer was born in 1943 and became a grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. Some consider him to the greatest chess player of all time. He appears first on a number of different ranking lists. While a brilliant chess player, Fischer ran into problems with other players and eventually went into semi retirement in the mid-1960s. He returned to the game and played well until he disappeared from the scene in 1972. He remained hidden for twenty years until in 1992, he met with Boris Spassky, beating him. However, US President HW Bush had imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia and warned Fischer not to play. Now a fugitive, Fischer took up residence in Hungary. He moved around and was in Iceland when he died in 2008 at the age of 64.

Chess is a game played on a 64-square board. The game is old and based on prior similar games. By 1200 rules were changing to make it more of the modern game we know today. Around 1475 several new rules were added which turned into what we know today. The Fédération Internationale des Échecs or World Chess Federation (FIDE) was formed in 1924 and has been the arbiter of international chess competitions since. Founded in Paris, it oversees the 185 national associations. The current champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway who took the title in 2013 and has successfully defended it in 2014 and again in 2016.

I just made the moves I thought were best. I was just lucky. 0 Bobby Fischer, after winning the Game of the Century

You have to remember, Bobby wasn’t yet Bobby Fischer at that time. – Donald Byrne, reminiscing about the game

When I won the world championship, in 1972, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, a baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country. – Bobby Fischer

All that matters on the chessboard is good moves. – Bobby Fischer

 

 

October 16

1968: The Rodney riots begin. Walter Rodney was born into a working class family in British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1942. He was a good student and after attending Queen’s College, he went on to the University College of the West Indies in Jamaica. He graduated in 1963 with a History degree and won the Faculty of Arts prize. He earned a PhD in African History in 1966 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London at the age of 24 with his dissertation on the slave trade on the Upper Guinea Coast. A History of the Upper Guinea Coast 1545-1800 was published in the Oxford University Press in 1970 and was well received.

Rodney traveled and became well known internationally as both an activist and a scholar as well as a brilliant orator. He first taught at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania from 1966-67 and then later moved to Jamaica where he taught at his alma mater. He was vocal in his disdain for the middle class and the role they played in the post-independence era in the Caribbean. He believed socialism offered a better system than capitalism and advocated for the former. He attended a black writers’ conference in Montreal, Canada and in his absence he was banned from returning to Jamaica. His socialist ties were cited along with his visits to Cuba and the USSR.

The banning took place on October 15 and when the people of Kingston learned of it, they were outraged and took to the streets on this day. The riots began with the students of UWI, Mona (where Rodney taught) under the leadership of the Guild of Undergraduates. They closed down the campus and then began to march toward the prime minister’s house. They moved on toward the parliament building in Kingston. On the way, many more people joined and the march became violent. The march spread across the city and ended with several people dead and millions of dollars in property damages.

The riots increased political awareness even outside Jamaica and spread across the Caribbean but held a special place in the Rastafarian sector of Jamaica. In 1969, Rodney returned to the University of Dar es Salaam and was a Professor of History there until 1974. He remained a voice for the Caribbean and North American Black Power movement. In 1974 he returned to Guyana after accepting a position at the University of Guyana, but the government prevented his appointment. Rodney became ever more active in politics and found the Working People’s Alliance which posed a threat to the established government of Guyana. In 1980 he was killed by a bomb placed in his car. He was 38. It was widely believed, although unproven, the bombing was set up by then President Linden Burnham.

If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. – John F. Kennedy

If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. – J. K. Rowling

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. – Alexis de Tocqueville

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others. – Will Rogers

 

 

October 15

1894: Alfred Dreyfus is arrested. He was born in 1859 in Mulhouse, Alsace and was the youngest of nine children born to a prosperous Jewish textile manufacturer. The Franco-Prussian War broke out when Alfred was ten and forced the family to move to Paris. This pivotal act led the young boy to pursue a life in the military. He entered military schools and rose through the ranks. He graduated ninth in his class at École Supérieure de Guerre or War College. He was expected to do well in the final examinations but General Bonnefond felt “Jews were not desired” on the staff and gave Dreyfus poor marks for a category we might call “likeability”. This would later prove damning since the stated belief of the French military was that Jews were not discriminated against.

In 1894, it was found that information regarding new artillery parts was being passed to the Germans by a highly placed spy, mostly likely on the General Staff. Dreyfus was suspected and arrested on this day. On January 5, 1895 he was convicted in a secret court martial and publicly stripped of his rank with humiliating public ceremony before being sent to Devil’s Island to serve out a sentence of life imprisonment. In August 1896, the new head of French military intelligence, Lt. Col. Georges Picquart, reported he found no evidence of Dreyfus’s guilt and believed Major Ferdinand Esterhazy to be the real traitor. Picquart was silenced and sent to Tunisia within months.

News of the miscarriage of justice against Dreyfus found its way into the press along with military tolerance of anti-Semitism even at the highest levels. This was appalling to citizens who believed in equal rights for all citizens. Esterhazy was found not guilty in another secret court martial but immediately fled to England. A cadre of supporters began to campaign for Dreyfus’s release and exoneration. Emilie Zola was one of the most vocal of the these and Dreyfus was given a second trial in 1899 and once again found guilty despite evidence in favor of his innocence.

President Emilie Loubert offered Dreyfus a pardon in 1899 as a way to save face for the military miscarriage of justice. If Dreyfus did not accept the pardon, he would have had to return to Devil’s Island which he couldn’t face. So he accepted the pardon, but was still officially a traitor. He lived in a state of house arrest with one of his sisters after his release. On July 12, 1906, Dreyfus was officially exonerated by a military commission and readmitted into the army with a promotion in rank. He served in the army during World War I, as did his son with both of them receiving honors. Dreyfus died in Paris in 1935 at the age of 75. The Dreyfus affair remains one of the most egregious political dramas in French history.

The government of the Republic has given me back my freedom. It is nothing for me without my honor. – Alfred Dreyfus, speaking of his pardon

As you know, I am a novelist, and I really want to write novels. But I knew enough about the Dreyfus case to understand immediately why what happened to Dreyfus was not merely a cause celebre from the end of the 19th century, but an event that could be shown to teach us lessons of the greatest importance for our own time. – Louis Begley

Racial prejudice, anti-Semitism, or hatred of anyone with different beliefs has no place in the human mind or heart. – Billy Graham

Anti-Semitism has no historical, political and certainly no philosophical origins. Anti-Semitism is a disease. – Daniel Barenboim

 

 

October 14

1944: Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, commits suicide. On July 20, 1944, an attempt was made to kill Adolf Hitler. It was unsuccessful. Claus von Stauffenberg was able to detonate a suitcase bomb but it failed in killing Hitler, although four men were killed during the event. Rommel was implicated in the plot, but his involvement remains contested. World War II was going badly for Germany and there was resistance within the ranks. The hope was for Hitler to die and then cooler heads to take control of the government in order to sue for peace with the Allies.

After the War was over, three of Rommel’s friends confessed to trying to bring Rommel into the resistance in early 1944. The conspirators felt it was to their benefit to have a field marshal on active duty among their ranks. Erwin von Witzleben would have taken over as commander-in-chief if the plot had been successful, but he was inactive as of 1942, so Rommel was wooed to take on the role should the plot succeed. Plans were made with Rommel, at least at the beginning, against assassinating Hitler. There is speculation he may have later changed his mind. His widow claims he did not and believed it would have led to civil war in Germany and Austria and made Hitler a martyr.

On July 17, Rommel was incapacitated by an Allied air attack, changing the outcome of the plot – or so it is believed by some historians. A week after the attempt, Rommel was under Gestapo surveillance. He was brought before a “Court of Military Honour” and found guilty. However, he was a national hero and having him tried and executed could have been devastating to military morale. Instead he was given the option of killing himself and a cyanide capsule was provided. On this day, he was driven to a remote area and left alone in order to kill himself.

He was said to have died with a smile of contempt on his face, something never seen in life. The official report of his death was that he had either had a heart attack or complications from a skull fracture he had sustained during an earlier incident. A day of official mourning was declared and he received a state funeral, but it was held in Ulm rather than Berlin which was not part of the deal Rommel had made to go quietly to his death. Hitler did not attend the funeral, but sent Field Marshal von Rundstedt in his place. The truth behind Rommel’s death was learned only after the war when his wife was interviewed by an Allied intelligence officer and letters to his son were also produced, explaining the reason behind his suicide.

Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.

In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.

But courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.

Anyone who has to fight, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage against modern European troops, under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success. – all from Erwin Rommel

 

 

October 13

1710: The Siege of Port Royal comes to an end. It was also known as the Conquest of Acadia. Acadia was part of New France and included parts of eastern Quebec, what is today New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island of Canada and part of the US State of Maine. The British and French were contesting control over the area where Port Royal was the capital. The British were joined by the Iroquois and led by Francis Nicholson while the French and the Wabanaki Confederacy were led by Daniel d’Auger de Subercase. Port Royal had been the main city in the region since the French arrived in 1604 and was often the focal point during British/French confrontations. The British burned it to the ground in 1613 and after it was rebuilt, they again captured it in 1690 although it was restored to the French by the Treaty of Ryswick.

The War of the Spanish Succession began in 1702 and both British and French colonists were again thrust into European wars. Port Royal began building a fort even before war broke out and it was nearly finished by 1704. The French raided Deerfield on what was then the Massachusetts frontier in February 1704 and the British retaliated with an expedition to the region in May. Their first point of attack was not Port Royal. Subercase became governor of Acadia in 1706 and went on the offensive and encouraged Natives to raid British targets in New England. He also supported privateering or legalized piracy against British ships. Boston and Port Royal had long been trading partners and for some time, trade managed to continue.

Over the next few years, battles went back and forth between the two powers. Finally, a British fleet sailed north and by October 5, the fleet had arrived at Goat Island, about 6 miles below Port Royal. One ship was lost as they gathered. The next day, marines landed both north and south of Port Royal and they were joined by four regimens of New England troops. The men surrounded the fort and laid siege with support from the cannons of the ships in the harbor. Land weaponry was able to advance under cover of the cannon from the water and by this date, they were with 300 feet of the fort and opened fire. They demanded Subercase surrender. Negotiations for a surrender began and by nightfall, the details were worked out.

The men in the garrison were given permission to leave with the “honours of war”. The British took occupancy of the fort and renamed it Annapolis Royal. It was one of the key issues in the treaty negotiations between France and Great Britain. It led to the conquests by British forces of both Louisbourg and Quebec and it was one of the precipitating factors of the end of French power in North America in a more general state. By taking over the region, a new colony was created – Nova Scotia. The final attempt to take the city profoundly affected the region for at least the next 50 years.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. – Sun Tzu

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war. – Napoleon Bonaparte

We make war that we may live in peace. – Aristotle

Love has its place, as does hate. Peace has its place, as does war. Mercy has its place, as do cruelty and revenge. – Meir Kahane

 

 

October 12

1960: Nakita Khrushchev loses his temper. Lorenzo Sumulong was the head of the Filipino delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. He was also the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee giving him the right to speak at the 902^nd Plenary Meeting held on this day. His political career began in 1946 and he moved through the ranks eventually making his way as a representative to the UN. His first hand experience of being a colonial nation under the rule of a foreign land, gave him insight into the plight of those who are not free to govern themselves. His remarks are in the quote below.

Khrushchev was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR and held that position from 1953 to 1964. There is some controversy over his reaction to the statements of Sumulong. It is agreed upon that Khrushchev was incensed and came to the rostrum demanding recognition on a Point of Order, a parliamentary procedure to draw attention to a rules violation. He brushed Sumulong aside, without physically touching him, and began a diatribe against Sumulong’s speech, calling him “a jerk, a stooge, and a lackey” as well as a “toady of American imperialism”. He demanded Assembly President Frederick Boland of Ireland to call Sumulong to order. Boland warned Sumulong to avoid provocative language, although no mention of warning Khrushchev is noted.

Sumulong was given permission to continue speaking as Khrushchev went back to his seat. Khrushchev pounded his fists on his desk and may or may not (reports vary) have pounded his shoe on his desk. Sumulong’s speech was interrupted again as Mezincescu of Romania chimed in. Boland was unable to gain control of the floor and turned Mezincescu’s microphone off but the meeting continued to devolve. Finally, Boland abruptly adjourned the meeting. He struck the gavel so hard, it broke.

Khrushchev was proud of his outburst and claimed he did, in fact, bang his shoe on the desk to add vigor to his protest. The behavior was seen by his contemporaries, as embarrassing. There is some discrepancy in Khrushchev’s memory as he claimed it happened as a response to the Franco regime, but that outburst took place earlier in the month. The story, according to his granddaughter, was that Khrushchev was wearing tight and uncomfortable shoes and took them off while seated. While banging on the table, his watch fell off and when he bent to pick up his watch, he noticed his shoes, which would make even more noise than just banging his fists. Photographic evidence is scant. Regardless of whether or not a shoe was used, Khrushchev did lose his temper, and eventually his control of the USSR because of it.

My delegation, the Philippine delegation, attaches great importance to this item entitled “Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples“, the allocation of which is now under discussion.

We have been a colonized country. We have passed through all the trials and tribulations of a colonized people. It took us centuries and centuries to fight, to struggle, and to win our fight for the recognition of our independence, and, therefore, it would only be consistent with our history, our experience and our aspirations as a people that we vote in favour of having this item referred to the highest possible level of the General Assembly.

While this is not the occasion to discuss the substance of the item, I would like to place on record my delegation’s view on the import as well as on the scope, the extent, the metes and bounds of this item. We feel this to be necessary in view of the statements made at the start of our meeting by the Premier of the Soviet Union.

It is our view that the declaration proposed by the Soviet Union should cover the inalienable right to independence not only of the peoples and territories which yet remain under the rule of Western colonial Powers, but also of the peoples of Eastern Europe and elsewhere which have been deprived of the free exercise of their civil and political rights and which have been swallowed up, so to speak, by the Soviet Union. – all from Lorenzo Sumulong