Hist Final Part 5

• · Increasingly dependent on by Iran
• · Provided food to Iran under the PL480 (Food for Peace Program)

· other nations that could provided defense for themselves and their region. Looked to the Shaw of Iran in the Middle East. So during the 70's US provided the most sophisticated equipment to the Shaw (planes, tanks, etc.)

• · Regardless of all the weapons we sold the Shaw.
• · Feb 1979, led by Islamic critics of the Shaw government
• · lead to hostage crisis, and problems for Jimmy Carter

• · During 1960's and 1970's Iran undertook a land reform program. Moderate agriculture. Land reform benefited major foreign corporations more than the peasants. Chase manahattan bank, Bank of America, John Deere, Shell Oil, etc. benefited from the land reform program. Also benefited from new irrigation, dams constructed, and was given to foreign controlled land more than the peasants
• · Created agricultural production, but peasants could not take food to the bazzar and trade. Marginalized the peasants.
• · After 1973 and all the money the Iranians made from the oil embargo, the Iranians began to buy American grain in large quantities

• · Shaw used to buy grain
• · flowed into the US from other oil producing countries as well after the oil embargo was lifted in 1974
• · Latin American countries got into debt after spending all their petro dollars

• · led to anti Americanism because peasants were losing out
• · created a favorable support base for the Islamic revolution

• · Shaw was suffering from cancer, wanted to come to US to get best medical care possible
• · turned to Henery Kissinger and rockafeller who turned to Jimmy Carter to allow Shaw to come into the country
• · There was some doubt because this may suggest the US was trying to put the Shaw back in power in Iran
• · led to students protesting the American relationship with the Shaw and a hostage crisis

• · Nov 4
• · 65 hostages, 13 were released and 52 remained under the control of the students until the end of the Carter administration

• · the shaw could not stay in power
• · lack of food to peasants helped to undermine his government
• · torture used by the Iranian equivalent of CIA helped make the Shaw unpopular. all combined led to Iranian revolution

· Breschnev began to look towards the west for food. Nixon encouraged this. In June 1941 ended the retirement for licensing for grain exports to communist countries. also ended the 50/50 provisions for carrying of grain cargo which said at least half of grain exports had to be on American ships. Now any ships could carry US grain.

• · Announcement of this deal was made July 8, 1972
• · Grain deal came up at the summit conference

• · Richard Nixon and Henery Kissinger Leonid Brezhnev
• · SALT 1 Defensive missile treaties from a couple lectures ago
• · In this mix, grain was an important part.

• · July 5-20 and later in August Soviets purchased 19 million tons of grain through national grain exports. Were not announced by grain companies.
• · Soviets would buy a bunch of grain at a price, grain prices would sky rocket after people found out. Led to inflation of food prices a little.

• · became politically concerned. knew he was in trouble with Watergate
• · imposed an embargo June 27, 1973 on the sale of soy beans
• · Didn't have to live with all of the consequences of this decision because Nixon up and left.

• · 1971 - imposed a new 10% tariff on imports because of the problems of balance of trade in the US
• · 1972 - Trip to china without letting Japanese know.
• · Last was soy bean embargo because soy beans were used for many food products that the Japanese consumed. most of soy beanscame from US.

Brazil, bought soy beans from there and elsewear

• · stagflation - high unemployment while high inflation where typically you only had one or the other
• · Ford required after nov 1974 approval from ag department before large grain sales could be made
• · Ford needed votes so in march 1975 he lifted these restrictions
• · In July 1975 soviets purchased 10 million tons of grain which contributed to inflation

• · international longshoremans association would reduce the load of grain ships bound for Russia
• · August 11, 1975 administration said they would suspend sale of grains to soviet union

• · wanted to sell grain without translating into inflation.
• · Grain agreement oct 20 1975 by Ford administration- soviets would purchase annually at least 6 million tons of wheat and corn. Guarantee ag sales. added an upper limit. could not purchase more than 8 million tons without prior approval.

· handling of grain was a big issue

• · 1976 selected Bob Dole from Kansas as his running mate
• · Ford was trying to get agricultural support. Gerald Ford made mistakes in presidential debates so Jimmy Carter came in

· wanted to win more support in the farm states. Made one of the worst decisions of his entire presidency

• · Carter authorized the sale 25 million tons of wheat and corn to soviet union. Vastly beyond the 8 million tons. thought this would win support for farm states and it did but only temporarily.
• · At this same time carter was dealing with the crisis of soviet combat troops in cuba. In the middle of this crisis he authorized this grain

· Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

• · Jan 4 1980 announced he canceled that order to the soviet union
• · Carter did not empose a total embargo on grain sales, all he did was cut it back to 8 mil from the grain agreement.
• · Republicans touted the grain embargo as if it was a total embargo, so Carter seemed to do much worse for farmers than he in fact did.
• · Carter did not impose a total grain embargo, just went back to the agreement of 1975.
• · April 24, 1981 after regan defeated carter, regan announced the end of the grain embargo, as if there was actually a grain embargo. In fact grain was sold to the soviet union all along.

• · congress cut off money to south Vietnamese gov. Nixon and Kissinger administration began to use food as a substitute for money
• · 1973 south Vietnam was the greatest recipient of PL480 grain. Saigon gov took that money, sold it, and bought arms from the US.
• · Nixon and Kissinger used PL480 to sustain the war

• · 1970 Salvador Allende took office with a socialist government. all kinds of assistance, including PL480 were cut off
• · Embargo of agriculture equipment
• · Administration also did not allow loans to go to Chile, in 1973 when Augusto Pinochet over, all of the restrictions were lifted

• · Tongsun Park was a young Korean student at geogetown
• · Congressman Richard Hanna of California went to Korea August 1968 to promote sale of US and Cali rice. He was
• accompanied by Tongsun Park.
• · Met with KCIA which was under the new dictator Park Chung Hee

• · Tongsun Park was named as the rice agent for south Korean government. would negotiate deals on behalf of south Korean government. He returned to US where he became broker for rice growers association of California. He would get commissions on sales and purchases. Nixon in 1970 approved under PL480 for 80 million dollars for sale of rice to korea. March 1972 nixon named Tongsun park as the sole intermediary handling PL480 funding. So he had 3 positions. Arranged funding, sold rice with funding from PL 480, then bought the rice from himself. He used profits to host parties to keep all of this going. Contributed substancially to members of congress when they were running.
• · Worked well for a couple years but in late 1976 Washington Post published a story outlining Park's use of money to corrupt congress. Investigation started, and a grand jury indictment of Richard Hanna and Oto Passman (loisianna gov.)
• · Park decided his career as a student was done, fled to korea.