MDN at 130: 1959 saw new states join U.S., Castro take control of Cuba

Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro marched into Havana on Jan. 1, ousting Fulgencio Batista, who had run the country since 1952, enriching himself and his cronies as he did so. Castro initially insisted he was not a Communist, but later events proved otherwise. The embargo of the island nation imposed by then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower in October 1960 is still in place, the longest lasting such embargo in history.

Television was in high gear, with Americans devoting an estimated 42 hours of their week to watching it. Several long-running shows debuted in 1959, including "Rawhide," with Clint Eastwood in the role of Rowdy Yates; "Bonanza," with Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker; Rod Serling's spooky, quirky "Twilight Zone"; "The Untouchables," with Robert Stack as Elliot Ness; "Rocky & his Friends," with cartoon characters Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose providing amusement for both children and their parents; and "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," with Bob Denver as Maynard Krebs.

Quiz shows were big in the 1950s, but in the wake of Charles Van Doren's admission at a Congressional hearing that he had been given answers in advance for his appearances on "Twenty-One," disappeared from prime time television altogether for 40 years. Van Doren, then a professor at Columbia University, was only one contestant among many who'd been coached.

The snowy, stormy evening of Feb. 3 became "The Day the Music Died," when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson died in the crash of their small plane near Clear Lake, Iowa, after a performance at the Surf Ballroom. Holly was 22, Richardson was 28 and Valens only 17; all three were just hitting their stride as performers. Country artist Waylon Jennings missed the flight when he gave up his seat to Richardson.

George C. Marshall, one of the great generals of World War II, died in 1959. Marshall was the author of the 1947 European Recovery Program, eventually known as The Marshall Plan. He served as secretary of state in the Eisenhower administration and was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1953.

Billie Holiday died young at age 44 in New York City, of liver and heart disease. As she lay dying in her hospital bed, she was arrested for drug possession. Despite her lack of vocal training, she was one of the premier jazz and blues singers of her day. Holiday once said of her singing, "Singing songs like the 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck. I've lived songs like that."

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was 92 when he died in 1959. The eccentric but brilliant Wright was born in Wisconsin, where he founded Taliesin, and died in Arizona, where he founded Taliesin West. Although he was well known for his home designs, he also designed the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Raymond Chandler, who gave birth to Detective Philip Marlowe in "The Big Sleep," also died in 1959. Chandler set the standard for the modern detective novel, but complained about what critics demanded of him, saying, "... when I write something that is tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, I get panned for being tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, and then when I try to tone down a bit and develop the mental and emotional side of a situation, I get panned for leaving out what I was panned for putting in the first time."

Hollywood lost filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille at age 77. DeMille is probably best known for "The Ten Commandments," which starred Charlton Heston as Moses, and other Biblical films such as "Samson and Delilah" and "The Sign of the Cross."

Actors and actresses, singers and dancers, sports stars and politicians, architects and royalty were born in 1959, including Kevin Spacey, David Hyde Pierce, Rosanna Arquette, Emma Thompson, Randy Travis, Bebe Neuwirth, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Florence Griffith Joyner, Eliot Spitzer, Maya Lin and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York.

The U.S. space program was taking big strides, logging a number of "firsts" in 1959, including the first test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile from Cape Canaveral; the launching of Vanguard II, the first weather station in space; the first launch of a missile-carrying submarine; and the launching of Pioneer IV into solar orbit.

Seven men who had "The Right Stuff" were named to the Mercury program, which expected to send a man into orbit in 1962. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald "Deke" Slayton were selected for space travel. All seven eventually made it into space; Grissom died in 1967 during testing for the Apollo missions.

Despite American's best efforts to get there first, the landing of Luna 2 on the moon's surface temporarily gave the "space race" to the Soviet Union. The U.S. would be the first to put a man on the moon 10 years later.

Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev stood in a model kitchen at the U.S. exhibit in a Moscow trade fair and argued over the merits of capitalism and communism. This "kitchen debate," coming during the height of the Cold War, was instrumental in enhancing Nixon's image as a statesman, and probably helped him gain the Republican presidential nomination in 1960.

Later in the year, Khrushchev visited the U.S. and was disappointed when he wasn't allowed to tour Disneyland. The Soviet leader met with President Eisenhower at Camp David, debated Nixon again and spent time on an Iowa farm before returning to the Soviet Union.

"Barbie," produced by Mattel, was born in March. Barbie was the first doll to have a distinctly adult shape. Her vital statistics, if translated into human form, would yield a woman 5 feet, 9 inches tall, measuring 36-18-33, which critics said would make her not only slender but anorexic. Despite her critics, however, Barbie has remained a bestseller for Mattel, with legions of devoted fans and avid collectors.

When they weren't buying Barbie dolls, American consumers bought 100 million Hula Hoops in 1959 and were introduced to Honda motorcycles and pantyhose. One thing they didn't buy was the Ford Edsel, which went out of production that year, after sales of a little more than 100,000.

In Oklahoma, folks were presumably buying liquor, when prohibition was finally repealed in that state after 51 years.

Johnny Cash wrote that he "shot a man in Reno," and Chubby Checker introduced "The Twist." Motown Records and the Grammy Awards were born, along with the Newport Folk Festival, which launched the career of Joan Baez.

Around the world, events were taking place that would eventually have great impact in the U.S. In the Soviet Union, a young American defector named Lee Harvey Oswald announced he would never return to the U.S. Less than two years later, he wrote in his diary, "I have had enough" of the Soviet Union and returned to the U.S. the following year.

Yasser Arafat, with other Palestinians, formed Al-Fatah.

In Europe, the signing of an agreement among Austria, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland formed the European Free Trade Association.

And in Vietnam, the first American advisors arrived, signaling the beginning of a long and costly conflict that divided the U.S. far into the future and killed more than 58,000 American soldiers.

In Marshall, Saline county officers were taking up their new terms at the beginning of January. According to the Jan. 2 edition of The Daily Democrat, J. P. Kays, the new county clerk, served coffee and cookies in his office in the courthouse.

The city had grown to just under 10,000. The main businesses in town produced shoes, feed, meat, seed corn and eggs, and farm income was approximately $20 million.

Volney Ashford's Missouri Valley Vikings were out of town again, to play in the Little All-American game in Tucson, Ariz., sponsored by Tucson's Optimist Club. The team had just finished an appearance at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Fla. Ashford was to be honored that year by the Football Writers of America for his long record of service to small colleges, according to the front-page story in the paper.

The front page also carried the news that Dan Devine, coach of University of Missouri's Tigers, would be the keynote speaker at a football recognition luncheon to be held later in January.

Crop production had been good in the previous fall, according to another story, despite late rains and flooding. Statewide, corn and oats production were down and wheat production was a little larger. Soybean crops set records for production, acreage and yield.

The spring pig crop was expected to be a good one, and winter wheat production was higher than the previous year.

Farmer's Home Administration (FHA) announced an increase in the interest rate charged for farm ownership and soil and water conservation loans from 3.5 percent to 4 percent.

Nine vocational agricultural students at Marshall High School won awards presented by Gulf, Mobile & Ohio at a Kiwanis luncheon. The awards were based on work by the students during the previous year, "in getting established in farming, community service and scholarship." The winners were sophomores Wayne Buck, Tommy Baker and Billy Vardiman; juniors Bobby Lemmon, John Howard and Edwin Eaheart; and seniors Henry Deal, Delbert Miles and Larry Morgan.

The newspaper itself had survived a serious fire in 1957, and didn't miss even one day of publication in the following months. By late August 1958, the paper was once again in business at its current location on the corner of Marion Street and Lafayette Avenue.

Contact Kathy Fairchild at marshalleditor@socket.net

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