A Short Decade Begins

January

January 10: Vietnam mounts offensive against remaining Khmer Rouge guerillas, overrun Thailand, China re-invades Vietnam. Dalai Lama urges India to sieze opportunity to free Tibet by invading China. Sen. Edward Kennedy releases a statement condemning China and Vietnam, but noting that Pol Pot's government had murdered millions of Cambodians prior to Vietnamese intervention. Opinion polls next day reveal that Kennedy slips a further ten per cent against President Carter.

January 15: Carter wins Iowa precinct caucuses, getting 1143 votes to Kennedy's 853. California governor Jerry Brown gets 25 votes and claims a moral victory because he only opened campaign headquarters in Des Moines two weeks prior to the caucuses.

January 31: On the first day of the new term the History Department at Harvard University announces that the vacationing American historians will be joined by the entire corps of European specialists who will begin a cooperative research effort at the Casino at Monaco.

February

February 11: On the 100th day of the Iranian hostage crisis, a crowd of 18 angry street peddlers gathers outside the American embassy in Teheran, shouting "Death to the Shah." A Los Angeles Times correspondent delivers the last of the Christmas cards to the hostages. Iranian Foreign Minister Ghotzbadeh hints the Iranians are willing to make a deal exchanging the hostages for Kissinger, former CIA director Colby and $200,000.

February 18: The Connecticut Yankee nuclear plant fuel core partially melts down, releasing a cloud of radioactive gas which blows over New Haven. Plant officials term the meltdown a "routine operating failure, one that proves the safety of nuclear power because 60 per cent of the concrete wall remained unaffected." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announces the formation of a review committee headed by former Chief Justice Earl Warren.

February 23: Republican Presidential candidate John Connally in the latest of a series of foreign policy statements calls for an American "incursion" into Mexican oil fields, claiming that America must take strong action to end the energy crisis. Connally also promises to name future targets for American investment.

March

March 4: South African Prime Minister Botha admits that South Africa has developed nuclear weapons, thanking IBM, GE and the Bell Laboratories for their assistance in the project. In neighboring Zimbabwe/Rhodesia Popular Front guerrillas resume attacks in the civil war. Botha calls for an immediate end to the combat, threatening to "turn Mozambique into a parking lot."

March 13: Treasury Secretary Miller announces that the February inflation rate pushed the annual rate over 20 per cent. Federal Reserve Chairman Volcker in response raises the prime rate to a record 19 per cent. President Carter during a nationally televised address calls inflation the moral equivalent of the energy crisis; asks American to burn money.

OPEC oil minister announces that they will no longer accept U. S. dollars for oil. Instead payments can only be made with American cigarettes, nylons and chocolate bars.

March 25: On the 134 ballot the Cambridge City Council breaks its deadlock by electing Alfred Vellucci Mayor. Velucci promises to push for the conversion of Harvard Yard into low-cost condominiums for the working people of Cambridge.

April

April 1: On Census day, government statisticians discover that the number of undocumented aliens has leaped to over 50 million. Due to rising oil costs, however, 30 million Americans, termed zweibacks, have crossed the border to seek work in Mexican oil fields.

April 13: As expected, Senator Kennedy trounces Carter and Brown in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary. Amy Carter, prompted by her grandmother, tells the Washington press corps that she hoped no one would mention Kennedy's dating habits as it might upset his troubled wife.

April 15: Major oil companies register record first quarter profits with industry leader Mobil weighing in with a 200 per cent jump over 1979. The seven largest oil copmpanies agree to ease the fiscal crunch faced by the U.S. Government by buying the Interior Department.

April 29: President Bok, dismayed by the lackluster results of Harvard's capital fund drive announces his conversion to born-again Christianity. Singer Bob Dylan donates all the profits from his last album and asks that the next available library be named after Him.

May

May 12: Salt II treaty remains on the Senate floor as Southern senators filibuster. Sam Nunn of Georgia declares that his colleagues' latest demand was to exchange SALT II for the death of Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev. Meanwhile, facing growing criticism on the left, Kennedy announces that he will solve the urban mass transit crunch by placing the MX subterranean missile system on city subways.

May 21: Faced with near total international isolation, the Iranian government appoints Harvard's Rev. Peter Gomes honorary Ayatollah. Gomes is the first black, non-muslim to serve in Iran's Revolutionary Council.

May 24: The investigating committee headed by Earl Warren brings in its report on the Connecticut Yankee meltdown. The report claims that a single neutron which passed through all 54 graphite damping rods, the containment vessel, the cooling system and 3 technicians caused the chain reaction leading the the meltdown.

June

June 5: The Shah of Iran is the surprise speaker at Harvard's Commencement. Clutching a Harvard honorary degree in his withered claw, the cancerridden ex-dictator cites the moral decline of the West as the reason for his downfall, calling for the re-instatement of ROTC at Harvard. President Bok dinies rumors that the Shah was chosen only after both Hubert Humphrey and John Wayne turned down invitations to speak.

June 12: Margaret Thatcher, dubbed Attila the Hen by critics, loses a vote of confidence in the House of Commons. A mysterious fire sweeps through the Parliament building. Citing the danger of ceding control of new American missiles in Europe to the "pink forces within the Labor Party," Thatcher imposes martial law and seizes power for an indefinite period.

June 19: Indira Gandhi consolidates her hold on the Indian electorate. Pointing to the dangers posed by Vietnamese troops who have expanded their drive to include an advance on Bangladesh, she reimposes martial law and orders a speedup in nuclear weapons production, threatening to "turn Hanoi into a parking lot."

June 24: As candidates scramble for last minute support before the nominating conventions, Harold Stassen, with three committed delegates, is termed key to Republican contest. Campaigning for the crucial gay vote, Kennedy drives a male campaign worker safely across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan.

July

July 2: Menachem Begin, piqued into action upon learning that six of the American hostages in Iran are Jewish declares martial law and seizes the Dome of the Rock Mosque--the third holiest spot in Islam--in Jerusalem.

July 18: Carter announces second cabinet shakeup, to prepare for his campaign. He removes all current officeholders. Kim Jae Kyi, former head of the Korean CIA is made head of Justice Department. Former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo becomes Secretary of Defense, Idi Amin is named Secretary of State. Miz Lillian takes over the U.N. Ambassador slot.

July 26: Brezhnev dies. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn is swept into power in huge street demonstrations by Eastern Orthodox Christian militants. Solzhenitsyn announces the formation of a Christian republic, imposes martial law.

August

August 11: At the Democratic National Convention in Madison Square Garden, President Carter wins renomination on the third ballot. He surprises observers by selecting Pope John Paul II as his running mate. Calling the Constitutional principle of separation of Church and state "outdated and unnecessary," Carter defends his move by saying, "At least now we'll really have God on our side."

August 15: Continuing its Four Modernizations campaign, China allows commercial advertising on national television. The First commercial ever broadcast is a MacDonald's ad for its new product, the Big Mao. China also announces that it is negotiating with the state of Texas for the sale of the Great Wall, to be installed on the Texas-Mexico border.

August 27: Dean Rosovsky releases his long awaited response to born-again Bok's call for a complete overhaul of the Core curriculum "to provide a Christian education at Harvard, like it was always meant to be." Before hundreds of screaming supporters at the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel, Rosovsky calls for the formation of an autonomous Harvard Yeshiva.

August 30: The Republican Convention finally breaks its deadlock, and nominates Ronald Reagan. Reagan, in the excitement of the moment, suffers a fatal heart attack. Unwilling to deliberate further, and ignoring Constitutional provisions barring his election to a third term, the exhausted Convention selects Richard Nixon as its standard bearer. Not to be outdone by Carter, Nixon chooses the Dalai Lama as his running mate, saying that he hopes having an incarnate Buddha on the ticket will "allow the Republican Party to escape the wheel of death and rebirth."

September

September 16: Ayatollah Gomes denounces Harvard's Government department, calling it a CIA front. Student mobs invade Littauer Hall and take four professors and 39 students hostages. The militants demand the return of former Government faculty members Henry Kissinger and Daniel Patrick Moynihan to Harvard.

September 20: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, discovering that the visas of the American hostages have run out, releases them all. "People lost interest in it all." he says.

October

October 4: With former Harvard President Nathan Pusey at his side, Secretary of Defense Rizzo orders a B-52 strike on Harvard Yard. "Now you can finally park you car in Harvard Yard," Rizzo says. Bok condemns "unwarranted interference with out internal affairs," demands U.N. sanctions against all of the United States, except New England.

October 12: Major oil companies announce third quarter profits rise an average of 310 per cent. Mobil buys Venezuela. Secretary of the Treasury Amin calls in oil company presidents, shoots and eats them.

alliance between India and China to stave off the Vietnamese threat. The Two nations launch a preemptive strike on Hanoi, form parking lot. Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaphong comments "they were obviously insane. We had to bomb them to save them."

October 30: Lawyer Mark Lane calls for Congressional investigation into the Warren report on the Connecticut Yankee disaster, claiming that he has incontrovertible photographic evidence that a second neutron was involved.

November

November 7: Spurred on by his running mates diplomatic success, Richard Nixon sweeps 47 states in a landslide over Democrat Jimmy Carter.

November 8: Jimmy Carter, citing constitutional crisis caused by Nixon's victory, imposes martial law and arrests his opponent, promising, "Now you really won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore. Besides--you keep asking for strong leadership."

November 9: Pope John Paul II announces doctrine of Presidential infallibility. The Electoral College convenes in the Sistine Chapel to ratify decision.

November 15: California, Massachusetts and Texas secede from Union. Presidents Brown, Kennedy and Connally vow to continue fight against Carter, form Triple Alliance.

November 21: Soviet leader Alexandr Solzhenitsyn praises "revival of moral fiber of the West." Begin, Thatcher, Gandhi, Marcos and Botha send messages of support to Carter.

December

December 1: Presidents Connally, Kennedy and Brown announce they are joining the India-China alliance to combat "Washington's creeping fascism." Iran, Canada, and Mobil-Venezuala also join.

December 8: Linda Ronstadt's kidnapping by American intelligence agents forces a crisis. Both sides put forces on world wide alert. Secretary Rizzo threatens to "turn Sacramento into a parking lot."

December 16: The Brown-Kennedy-Connally coalition demands return of Ronstadt and a guarantee of secure borders. American embassies seized in United Arab Emirates, Tanzania, Quebec, Mongolia, Jamiaca, Pitcairn Island and Houston. Rizzo says, "I'm not kidding."

December 23: Connecticut Yankee nuclear facility blows up during clean-up operations. Rizzo, seizing power from vacillating Carter White House claims the explosion is part of a Kennedy plot, orders full scale attack on Boston.

December 24: Kennedy retaliates by launching an MX missile attack from the Red Line. Washington Burns. Again.

December 30: Ayatollah Gomes declares Jihad against Carter/Rizzo forces. Pope John Paul II counters by ordering a world wide crusade.

December 31: Nuclear holocaust spreads. Life on earth reduced to french fries and cockroaches.