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Page 12
2 —Griffin Daily News Thursday, December 30,1976
YEAR END REVIEWS
The Top 10 Stories of the
Year seleetions are determined
by ballots returned by editors
of Associated Press member
newspapers and radio and TV
stations. Editors annually are
asked to vote for the news
stories of greatest impact, im
port and use during the year.
Seleetions do not necessarily
indicate support for policies
carried out in stories chosen.
They merely indicate the year's
top news stories.
By RANDI ROSENBLUM
AP Newsfeatures Writer
In November James Earl
Carter narrowly defeated Presi
dent Gerald R. Ford to become
the first president elected from
the Deep South since before the
Civil War. The story of his elec
tion and the campaign preced
ing it was voted the top news
story of 1976 by the editors and
news directors of Associated
Press member newspapers, ra
dio and TV stations.
The other top stories in order
were: (2) the deaths of Mao
and Chou and the changes in
China that followed; (3) the Bi
centennial celebrations; (4) the
U.S. economy; (5) the legion
naires’ Disease; (6) the Mars
landing; (7) the Washington
sex scandals; (8) the Patty
Hearst trial; (9) the Israeli
raid on Entebbe airport; (10)
the California school bus kid
napping.
1. After a 22-month-long cam
paign, Jimmy Carter was elect
ed the 39th president of the
United States. Just two years
ago, the ex-governor of Georgia
was all but unknown outside his
home state, but with grim de
termination and a campaign
strategy mapped out by young
aide Hamilton Jordan, he won
the Democratic party nomi-
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nation. It had been the longest
primary contest in the nation s
history.
After the Democratic Con
vention in July, his popularity
reached a high of 62 per cent,
according to the Gallup Poll,
against President Ford's 29 per
cent. Many people felt that his
33 point lead meant an easy
victory.
But with the hoopla of the
conventions and the divisive
challenge from Ronald Reagan
past, Ford’s popularity began
to climb, and some saw him
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staging a Truman-like come
back, It was not to be.
Many of Ford’s problems
were not of his own making. He
was haunted by the legacy of
Watergate and the slow-to-end
Vietnam War. He had to fight
the image of himself as an ac
cidental president and to cope
with the lingering angry reac
tion to his pardoning of Richard
Nixon.
As elections drew near, he
had problems with subordinates
such os butz and Brown, who
made inopportune remarks.
Sometimes, as during the sec
ond debate when he declared
that Eastern Europe was not
under Soviet domination, the in
opportune remark was his own.
Carter was not free from
campaign blunders either. His
remarks on Lyndon Johnson’s
character and his comments to
Playboy on lust cost him sup
port.
The three televised debates,
the first ever between an in
cumbent president and his chal
lenger, showed the American
voters two evenly matched can
didates, most analysts agreed,
and on election eve the major
polls had Ford and Carter run
ning neck and neck.
Carter was no doubt helped
by his choice of running mate.
Walter Mondale, the liberal
senator from Minnesota, helped
pull votes for Carter in the in
dustrial Northeast. His con
frontation with Robert Dole in
the first vice presidential TV
debate was a successful one
and an NBC poll taken a week
before the election showed
Mondale running 18 points
ahead of his opponent.
The election was nevertheless
a close one and it wasn’t until
after 4 a.m. (EST), when elec
tion results gave Mississippi’s 7
electoral votes to Carter, that
he made a victory statement to
the waiting crowds in Atlanta.
President Ford, who had
gone to bed at 3 a.m., conceded
the election the next day, giv
ing Carter “my complete and
wholehearted support.”
Carter won 297 electoral
votes from 23 states, putting
the old Democratic formula of
industrial Northeast with the
solid South back together. Ford
carried every western state ex
cept Texas and Hawaii, 241
electoral votes from 27 states.
Nevertheless, Carter won by al
most 2 million popular votes —
51 per cent to 48 per cent for
Ford.
In spite of predictions of an
extremely light voter turnout,
80 million Americans went to
the polls to choose their next
president. Os those eligible to
vote, 53 per cent did so, down
from the 55 per cent turnout in
1972.
According to an AP election
day poll, most voters said they
chose the candidate they voted
for because they agreed with
his stand. But most Carter vot
ers, according to the poll,
agreed that although the choice
was difficult, it was time for a
change.
2. China was already in
mourning for two leaders who
died earlier in the year—
Premier Chou En-lai and Chu
Teh, founder of the Chinese
Red Army. But the nation
plunged into a frenzy of grief
when Hsinhua News Agency
announced that Mao Tse-tung
was dead.
Election voted top
Mao had been ill for some
time and Chu, in fact, had tak
en over many duties for the ail
ing chairman. No cause was
given for his death, although
medical experts who studied
films of his most recent ap
pearances said he showed
symptoms of Parkinson’s dis
ease.
As the government began
preparations for the mourning
ceremonies, tens of thousands
of his countrymen gathered be-
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fore Mao’s portrait in Tien An
Men square, holding the Chi
nese symbol of mourning, a
white flower. It was in this
square in 1949 that Mao
watched his victorious soldiers
parade after winning the civil
war against Chiang Kai-shek’s
Kuomintang.
Mao was the last of the Great
Communist Revolutionaries,
outlasting Stalin and
even his old arch-enemy,
Chiang. He was born in Hunan
Province in 1893 and joined Sun
Yat-sen’s revolt against the
Manchu Dynasty as a young
man. A few years later he be
came one of the 13 founding
members of the Chinese Com
munist Party.
Mao assumed party lead
ership in 1935 and led the en
circled Communists on the
Long March, 8,000 miles to the
safety of the caves of Yenan.
Said AP writer John Roder
ick, who knew Mao from the
Yenan days: “Mao Tse-tung —
like George Washington, Napo
leon, Lenin and Gandhi — be
longs to that unusual breed of
men who combine action with
thought. No one of such stature
and broad vision survives him
in today’s China.”
China was already in a state
of political unrest following the
January death of Premier Chou
En-lai. Chou, second in power
only to Mao, had run the day
to-day affairs of China. It was
he who took the lead in rap
prochement with the West, first
inviting the American ping
pong team to visit and finally
playing host to President Rich
ard Nixon.
After his death, Hua Kuo
feng, a sixth vice-premier and
little known outside China, was
named his successor. Most re
garded him as a compromise
between the radicals, led by
President Gerald Ford and President-elect Jimmy Carter
confer on the transition between administrations in
Washington three weeks after the election. Said Carter,
“There could not have been a better demonstration of
friendship and unity and good will than shown me by
President Ford."
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Mao’s wife, Chiang Ching, and
the moderates. Most observers
felt that Chiang Ching was a
force to be reckoned with in
post-Mao China.
After Mao’s death, Premier
Hua moved quickly to consoli
date his position. Chiang Ching
and her radical proteges,
Chang Chun-chiao, Yao Wen
yuan and Wang Hung-wen,
were arrested, and a poster
campaign against them deco
rated the walls of China’s
news story of 1976
cities. After the arrests, Hua
was named the new chairman
of the Chinese Communist Par
ty.
3. As the man said, it only
happens once every 200 years,
so America went all out for her
Bicentennial. Celebrations went
on all year as local and nation
al committees began projects
designed to help Americans re
member their heritage. Even
the Liberty Bell got a new
home — in Liberty Pavilion,
near Independence Hall in
Philadelphia.
Good wishes and gifts, in
cluding works of art and music,
funds for commemorative
buildings, special books and
special exhibits, arrived along
with thousands of foreign vis
itors, who included royalty and
heads of state. Queen Elizabeth
II and her husband, Prince
Philip, spent six weeks in Brit
ain’s former colony.
Although celebrations had
been going on for a year, it was
a Fourth of July to remember.
Seven million people, together
with President Gerald Ford and
Vice President Nelson Rock
efeller, watched as the U.S.
Coast Guard training ship
Eagle led 15 tall sailing ships
and a flotilla of 200 smaller
craft up the Hudson to wish
America a happy birthday. At
the Miami Beach Convention
Center 7,141 people recited the
Pledge of Allegiance to become
the country's newest citizens.
The guns of the U.S.S. Con
stitution, “Old Ironsides,” were
fired for the first time in a cen
tury. Time capsules were bur
ied containing everything from
signatures of famous people
and Bicentennial coins to a
Frisbee and a pair of cut off
blue jeans.
After a turbulent decade of
unrest caused by Watergate
and the Vietnam War, the Bi
centennial offered Americans
an opportunity to reaffirm their
faith in themselves. Said one
young celebrant, “Somehow I
feel more American at this mo-
The top ten stories
1. The presidential election, the campaign and the pri
maries
2. Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai die; China changes
3. Bicentennial celebrations
4. U. S. economy: Recovery, unemployment, inflation
5. Legionnaires' disease
6. Mars landing
7. Washington sex scandals
8. Patty Hearst trial
9. Air France hijacking and the Entebbe raid
10. Chowchilla, Calif., school bus kidnapping
ment than ever before.”
4. Once again Americans
were concerned by the state of
their financial affairs. After
early optimism, the nation’s
economy stumbled badly at
mid-year, leaving many won
dering what had gone wrong.
The nation’s Gross National
Product, which showed a
healthy 9.2 per cent increase in
the first quarter of 1976, slipped
to 3.9 per cent in the third. This
rate of advance was below the
level needed to reduce unem
ployment, and the jobless rate
rose to 7.9 per cent by October.
Economists said it could be
over 8 per cent by the end of
the year.
The only true bright spot in
the economy was a steady eas
ing of the nation’s inflation
rate. Consumer prices in
creased only three tenths of one
per cent in October, the smal
lest increase in seven months.
The problems, economists
said, stemmed largely from a
failure by business to invest
sufficiently in new plants and
equipment, while consumer
buying also trailed off after
strong gains early in the year.
5. Not long after the Ameri
can Legion held its national
convention in Philadelphia at
the end of July, many of those
who had attended it were
stricken with a strange ail
ment. The symptoms were sim
ilar to viral pneumonia, but of
the 180 persons infected, 29
died. The death rate of 17 per
cent was considered unusually
high.
The disease was a mysterious
one for many reasons. The
middle of the summer was
hardly the flu season. And all *
the victims were in some way
connected with the American
Legion convention.
At first health officials feared *
that it might be an outbreak of
the dreaded swine flu but this
proved a false alarm. Other
doctors lay the high death rate v
to the fact that most of the Le
gionnaires were over 40 and
therefore not as able to resist
any virus. But the actual cause ,
remained unknown.
“There’s an outside chance
we may never find out the
cause,” said Dr. David J. Sen
cer, director of the Center for ’
Disease Control in Atlanta.
“There are times when dis
eases baffle all of us.”
In November, as medical re- ‘
searchers still looked for the
culprit, the Legionnaires’ Dis
ease claimed its 30th victim —
the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, •
which had hosted the con
vention. The hotel, for 68 years
innkeeper to Philadelphia’s
Main Line, had been given a .
clean bill of health. But the sur
rounding publicity was too
much for the "Grand Old Lady
of Broad Street.”
(To be continued)