Pop Culture Happenings: March

Photo by Lance Anderson

The month of March 50, 40 and 25 years ago saw the beginning of the end of a police action in Vietnam, the ramping up of the Cold War between the U.S. and USSR, and a papal apology for inaction during the Holocaust.

1973

50 Years Ago

On March 29, 1973, two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement in Paris, the last U.S. combat troops left South Vietnam, ending direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. As part of the peace agreement, Hanoi freed many of the remaining American prisoners of war held in North Vietnam, including future U.S. senator John McCain, who was released on March 14 after spending more than five years in a POW camp. Although the direct eight-year conflict was at an end, U.S. marines and military advisors remained to protect U.S. installations, and combat between the North and South Vietnamese continued. It wasn’t until April 30, 1975, that the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese.

1983

40 Years Ago

On March 8, 1983, President Reagan gave what has become known as his “Evil Empire” speech. He was speaking to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Fla., and referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and as “the focus of evil in the modern world.” In his speech, Reagan urged his listeners to resist “the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault … to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.” Later that same month, on March 23, Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also nicknamed “Star Wars.” The SDI was intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons. Reagan called upon American scientists and engineers to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete.

1998

25 Years Ago

On March 16, 1998, in a publication entitled “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” Pope John Paul II formally apologized, on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church, for failing to take more decisive action in challenging the Nazi regime during World War II to stop the extermination of more than 6 million Jews. In the preface to the document, the pope expressed hope that the declaration of repentance by the Vatican about Catholic shortcomings in dealing with the Holocaust “will indeed help to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices.” The apology was met with mixed reactions. Some said it was a step in the right direction toward the healing of Catholic-Jewish relations. Others said the apology fell short of what was hoped for.