"-we need George Bush to complete what President Reagan-" -quote from Talk Radio
On October 13, 1987, George H. W. Bush announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President. He faced three main opponents for the nomination -- Senator Robert Dole of Kansas; Pat Robertson, an evangelical leader; and Representative Jack Kemp from New York. Bush stressed his service as vice president in the Reagan administration, his government experience, and his commitment to continuity. To run his campaign, Bush depended on two allies: James Baker, an old friend from Texas who had served as Reagan's chief of staff and as secretary of the Treasury; and Lee Atwater, a hard-hitting political consultant.
http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/bush/essays/biography/3
2. AIDS Epidemic
"The mailman brings me unsolicited mail, I mean, the postage stamp could have been licked by someone with AIDS. Right"
"New report on AIDS..." - quotes from Talk Radio
New York Times
November 29, 1987
By HILARY STOUT
More than 40 percent of American adults are concerned that they will contract AIDS, and fear of having the deadly disease is prompting many people to change their sexual behavior and take other precautions, the latest Gallup poll indicates.
An overwhelming number of Americans, 68 percent, believe AIDS is the nation's most serious health problem; 14 percent name cancer and 7 percent heart disease, according to the poll.
Twenty percent of American adults are "very concerned" that acquired immune deficiency syndrome will strike them personally, and 22 percent are "a little concerned" that they will contract the disease, the poll found.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/aids/112987sci-aids-2.html
3. Economic Climate
"Now back to Sidney Greenberg and 'Your Taxes and You!' "
"I'm Sidney Greenberg reminding you: 'It's not how much you make, it's how much take
...home.' " - quotes from Talk Radio
The Stock Market Crash of 1987
The stock market crash of 1987 was the largest one day stock market crash in history. The Dow lost 22.6% of its value or $500 billion dollars on October 19 th 1987! In order to understand the crash, we must first study the cause. 1986 and 1987 were banner years for the stock market. These years were an extension of an extremely powerful bull market that started in the summer of 1982. This bull market had been fueled by hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts and merger mania. Companies were scrambling to raise capital to buy each other out, in essence. The philosophy of the time was that companies would grow exponentially simply by constantly purchasing other companies. In leveraged buyouts, a company would raise massive amounts of capital by selling junk bonds to the public. Junk bonds are simply bonds that have a high risk of loss, so they pay a high interest rate. The money raised by selling junk bonds, would go towards the purchase of the desired company. IPOs were also becoming a commonplace driver of the markets. An IPO is when a company issues stock for the first time. “Microcomputers” were also a top growth industry. People started to view the personal computer as a revolutionary tool that will change our way of life, and create wonderful profit opportunities. The investing public was caught up in a contagious euphoria, similar to that of any other bubble and market crash in history. This euphoria made people, once again, believe that the market would always go up.
http://www.stock-market-crash.net/1987.htm
4. Jews and the World of 1987
"You know there are two kinds of Jews-"
""The sneaky, quiet types and the big-mouthed types." - quotes from Talk Radio
Special Delivery from the Pope
Time Magazine
By Richard Lacayo.;Cathy Booth/Rome and Wayne Svoboda/New York
Monday, Aug. 31, 1987
But the tension level dropped considerably last week following publication of a remarkable papal letter that was as affectingly written as it was astutely timed. The subject: the "terrible experience" of the Holocaust and its lessons for Christians. The three-page missive was addressed to Archbishop John L. May of St. Louis, president of the U.S. conference of Roman Catholic bishops, thanking May for sending him a newly published collection of the Pontiff's statements on Jews and Judaism. While the letter was ostensibly routine, its language was heartfelt. "Christians approach with fearsome respect the terrifying experience of the extermination, the Shoah, suffered by the Jews during the Second World War," wrote the Pope, "and we seek to grasp its most authentic . . . meaning." He went on, "Before the vivid memory of the extermination . . . it is not permissible for anyone to pass by with indifference."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,965347,00.html
5. African Americans and the World of 1987
"I like you blacks, everyone should own one."
"What does that make blacks? Uneducated?" - quotes from Talk Radio
Proclamation 5743 -- African American Education Week, 1987
November 17, 1987
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Because teachers are among the most important role models in our society, it is truly fitting that we set aside African American Education Week to encourage young African Americans to pursue careers in the field of education.
Americans have always deeply valued the rewards and the advancement that education makes possible. No task is more vital to the strength and security of our Nation than that of providing good education for all our citizens. So that America continues to remain a land of opportunity for all people, we should encourage a wide representation of African Americans as teachers and continued concern for African American students. The National Alliance of Black School Educators is committed to these goals. By inspiring students with a vision of excellence, we can touch the lives of countless youngsters in present and future generations for the better.
The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 174, has designated the week beginning November 15, 1987, as ``African American Education Week'' and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this week.
Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week beginning November 15, 1987, as African American Education Week. I call upon officials of government at every level, educators, private sector groups, and all Americans to observe this week with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities in support of the achievement of academic excellence among African Americans.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twelfth.
Ronald Reagan
[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 10:39 a.m., November 18, 1987]
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1987/111787c.htm
African American Women College Presidents
On July 1, 1987, for the first time in history, there were three African American women serving as Presidents of Four Year Colleges and Universities in America.They were - Dr. Niara Sudarkasa- President of Lincoln University in Pennslyvania; Dr. Johnetta Cole, President of Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia; and Dr. Gloria Randle Scott, President of Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. Dr. Sudarkasa was appointed in February of 1987; Dr. Gloria Scott appointed March 1987, and Dr. Johnetta Cole appointed in May, 1987.
http://www.blackfacts.com/fact/8072cefb-9371-49ac-91f5-0f942492bf2a
6. Communism
"What about communist countries...Red China for instance?"
""Yugoslavia is communist, it's a third-world country, so's Nicaragua, so's Cuba."
-quotes from Talk Radio
Following the death of Konstantin Chernenko (Andropov's successor) in 1985, Gorbachev was appointed general secretary of the party despite being the youngest member of the politburo. He embarked on a comprehensive program of political, economic, and social liberalization under the slogans of glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”). The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl (1986) forced Gorbachev to allow even greater freedom of expression. The government released political prisoners, allowed increased emigration, attacked corruption, and encouraged the critical reexamination of Soviet history.
In a series of summit talks (1985–88), Gorbachev improved relations with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, with whom he signed an Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) arms limitation treaty in 1987. By 1989 he had brought about the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (see Afghanistan War) and had sanctioned the end of the Communist monopoly on political power in Eastern Europe. For his contributions to reducing East-West tensions, he was awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize. By 1990, however, Gorbachev's perestroika program had failed to deliver significant improvement in the economy, and the elimination of political and social control had released latent ethnic and national tensions in the Baltic states, in the constituent republics of Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova, and elsewhere. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0821290.html
The American Experience:The Iran Contra Affair By Julie Wolf
Ronald Reagan's efforts to eradicate Communism spanned the globe, but the insurgent Contras' cause in Nicaragua was particularly dear to him. Battling the Cuban-backed Sandinistas, the Contras were, according to Reagan, "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers." Under the so-called Reagan Doctrine, the CIA trained and assisted this and other anti-Communist insurgencies worldwide. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande08.html
7. The Iran Contra Affair
"How do you think thay pay for all those covert wars? Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Air America, Iran Contra, it's a time-honored tradition." - quote from Talk Radio
The American Experience: The Iran Contra Affair By Julie Wolf
In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran made a secret request to buy weapons from the United States. McFarlane sought Reagan's approval, in spite of the embargo against selling arms to Iran. McFarlane explained that the sale of arms would not only improve U.S. relations with Iran, but might in turn lead to improved relations with Lebanon, increasing U.S. influence in the troubled Middle East. Reagan was driven by a different obsession. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. As president, Reagan felt that "he had the duty to bring those Americans home," and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists. While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan's campaign promise never to do so. Reagan had always been admired for his honesty.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande08.html
It was not until 1986 that word had gotten out about the secret transactions. The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa published a series of articles in November 1986, that exposed the weapons-for-hostages deal. On November 18th, 1987, the Congress issued a report on the affair that stated the president bore "ultimate responsibility."
Upon further investigation, Attorney General Edwin Meese verified the report and an independent special prosecutor, Lawrence E. Walsh, was assigned to investigate the deals involving the arms sale and the Contra support.
The hearings surrounding the scandals were televised from May to August in 1987. Military aide Marine Lt. Colonel Oliver North, former CIA chief William J. Casey, National Security Advisor John Poindexter, former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger, and many other high-ranking government officials were publicly investigated.
It was finally found that National Security Advisor Poindexter had personally authorized the diversion of money to the Contra rebels; all the while withholding the information from President Reagan. The CIA's William J. Casey played a part in the conspiracy, but he died during the hearings. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1889.html
8. Lebanon Hostage Crisis
"Who can stop the toxic wastes, the terrorism, the nuclear build-up, the assasinations?" -quotes from Talk Radio
1987: Peace envoy imprisoned in Beirut Reports from Lebanon say Church of England envoy Terry Waite has been kidnapped by an Islamic militia group.
Mr Waite, 47, disappeared on 20 January, eight days after arriving in the capital, Beirut, to try to free four hostages, including British journalist John McCarthy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/2/newsid_2524000/2524703.stm
Charles Glass. American television correspondent Charles Glass was seized on June 17, 1987, by a previously unknown group, the "Organization for the Defense of Free People", (believed to be one of Hezbollah's aliases) he escaped 62 days later.[14]
Rudolph Cordes and Alfred Schmidt, two citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) abducted in January 1987 by an organization calling itself "Strugglers for Freedom." The West Germans were seized shortly after the West German government arrested Muhammad Ali Hamadi, a Shia terrorist leader who allegedly masterminded the 1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacking and killed diver Robert Dean Stethem. Muhammad Ali Hammadi was not released at that time but was in 2006, "in an apparent exchange for a German hostage in Iraq."[20]
Terry Waite. Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite, who disappeared January 20, 1987, while on a negotiating mission to free the other kidnap victims, spent almost five years in captivity, nearly four years of it in solitary confinement, after he was seized by Islamic Jihad from a go-between's house in Lebanon on January 20, 1987. Before his release in November 1991 he was frequently blindfolded, beaten, and subjected to mock executions. He lived much of the time chained to a radiator, suffered desperately from asthma, and was transported in a giant refrigerator as his captors moved him about. [21] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon_hostage_crisis
9. Assassination Attempts on The Pope and President Ronald Reagan
"They tried to kill the pope, Barry!" - quote from Talk Radio
More than half the world's population was not born or was less than 10 years old when a 23-year-old Turk named Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II four times with a 9-mm pistol from a distance of 15 feet as the pope drove through a crowd of 20,000 in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981. http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/4/5/160320.shtml
Monday - March 30 (1981)
I was almost to the car when I heard what sounded like two or three firecrackers over to my left - just a small fluttering sound, pop, pop, pop. I turned and said, "What the hell's that?" Just then, Jerry Parr, the head of our Secret Service unit, grabbed me by the waist and literally hurled me into the back of the limousine. I landed on my face atop the armrest across the back seat and Jerry jumped on top of me. When he landed, I felt a pain in my upper back that was unbelievable. It was the most excruciating pain I had ever felt. "Jerry," I said, "get off, I think you've broken one of my ribs."
Little by little, though, I learned what had happened and what the situation was: I had a bullet in my lung; Service agent Tim McCarthy had been shot in the chest; policeman Tom Delehanty had been shot in the neck. All of us had been hit by the gun of a young lone assailant who was in police custody. When Jim Brady, a funny and irreverent man who was as talented and well liked as anyone in the White House, was wheeled by me unconscious on his way to the operating room, someone told me he was hit so badly he probably wouldn't make it, and I quickly said a prayer for him. http://www.ronaldreagan.com/march30.html
10. Sports: Baseball
"Hey, I disagree with you on that one, Bar! They're gonna take the pennant. Niekro's gonna win twenty!" - quote from Talk Radio
October 25 – 1987 World Series: The Minnesota Twins win despite having the worst regular season win-loss ratio for a winner, a record they hold until 2006.
The 1987 Series was remarkable in several regards: It featured the first World Series games played in an indoor stadium (the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome)[1] and the final Series game to start earlier than prime time in the eastern United States (Game 6, with a 4 p.m. ET start), and was the first World Series in which all games were won by the home team. (Four previous series had the home team winning the first six games, but in all four cases, the visiting team won Game 7). The 1987 Twins[2] set the record for the worst regular season win-loss record of any World Series championship team (85–77, .525). This record stood until broken in 2006 by the Cardinals themselves, who won the World Series after going 83–78 (.516).
Besides setting a record for the worst ever regular season winning percentage for a World Series winner (at the time) and hosting the first ever World Series game indoors, the 1987 Twins were the first team to ever enter the World Series having been outscored in the regular season. The 1987 Twins, as a team, were pretty much outnumbered in virtually every major statistical category.[citation needed] As ABC play-by-play man Al Michaels put it in the pre-game show for Game 1 "They were out everything!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_World_Series
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