Ronald Reagan is known as the movie junkie president. He was, after all, an actor before getting into politics. But do you know who watched even more movies than Reagan while in office? Jimmy Carter. And Carter only served a single term.

After painstakingly going through the President’s daily journal, which outlined his tasks for each day, I’ve made a list of every movie Carter watched while in office from January 20, 1977 until January 20, 1981. And man, he really did watch a lot of films.

Part of my fascination with the movies that presidents watch is just cheap voyeurism. But the other part is an earnest belief that popular culture influences things in the real world. President Nixon was obsessed with the film Patton during the Vietnam War. President Reagan urged Congress to take computer security seriously after seeing War Games in 1983.

So what can we glean from the list I’ve compiled of President Carter’s viewing habits? Well, he certainly watched the major movies of his time that dealt with energy concerns like 1979’s nuclear-phobic The China Syndrome. He was also screening plenty of war films. The former president hosted an early private White House screening of Apocalypse Now with director Francis Ford Coppola and about 75 other people on May 10, 1979. It wasn’t released in theaters until August.

But it wasn’t all modern gloom and doom. Jimmy and the First Lady, Rosalynn, watched plenty of Westerns like Shane and A Fistful of Dollars. And they’d watch a goofy comedy now and again. (Animal House, Airplane, Caddyshack and Meatballs are all on the list). They even watched some films that might be considered horror, like the 1978 film Magic or the 1980 movie The Changeling. And they watched plenty of Humphrey Bogart movies.

It seems like Carter would watch anything and everything, with over 400 movies screened at the White House and Camp David while he was in office. Some of the screenings were private affairs with just the President and First Lady. Other times a movie was that night’s entertainment for guests at the White House. An April 30, 1979 screening of the Ingmar Bergman film Autumn Sonata notes that there were “approximately 48 members of the White House staff” on hand to watch.

In one of the most interesting screenings I came across, Carter watched Star Wars with Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, on February 4, 1978 at Camp David. That meeting was actually a secret strategy session for peace in the Middle East that would pave the way for the historic Camp David Accords in September of 1978 between Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Do I think movies had a direct impact on President Carter’s decision making? Of course not. After he watched Alien in June of 1979 I doubt it had any affect on public policy. But the media we consume do matter. And the list shows that there were screenings that reflected the political and business climate of the Cold War. For instance, President Carter watched the 1979 Soviet spy thriller Avalanche Express with a large group of Congressmen. And in 1980 he watched a movie called The Formula about a conspiracy by the oil companies to keep secret a revolutionary synthetic fuel that would put them out of business.

The list below was compiled by combing through Carter’s public daily agendas, and I believe I’ve found most of the movies he watched while in office. But if you do your own research and find more, please let me know. The movies are in the order that he watched them and include links to his full agenda for that particular day. So, for instance, if you’re curious what President Carter was doing before he watched The Cat From Outer Space on November 18, 1978, you can click through and see. (He had dinner with his family and talked with his Assistant of Communications Gerald Rafshoon.)

Sometimes President Carter watched movies immediately when they hit theaters. For instance, he watched The Empire Strikes Back five days after it had been released. Other times, there didn’t appear to be much urgency. The first movie Carter saw in the White House theater? All the President’s Men. The night after he lost his re-election campaign to Ronald Reagan he watched the 1967 film The Bandits.

President Carter had a reputation as a bit of a prude, given his deeply religious background. He once told Playboy magazine that he had lust in his heart, and this itself was a sin. But he watched plenty of films with risque material for the time, including stuff like Hardcore and Midnight Cowboy, the first X-rated movie to be screened in the White House.

Although perhaps there was some guilt/atonement built in to some of these screenings. For instance, on January 25, 1980 Jimmy watched the sex comedy 10 starring Bo Derek with members of his staff. The following day Jimmy watched a movie called Jesus with the First Lady.

I’ve done my best compiling the list below but if it was unclear which version of a film that Carter may have watched, I’ve included all possible dates up to that point. For instance the agenda notes that Carter watched A Star is Born but doesn’t specify which one. It was made three times, in 1937, 1954, and 1976. We can probably assume that he watched the most recent one, but you never know!

And yes, I have freedom of information requests out for Bill Clinton, the first Bush and George W. The last of which I got an update for recently. They said I can expect the list in 46 months. No joke. But at least you can see President Reagan’s list here. [Update: Here’s Nixon’s list as well.]

Looking at the movie viewing habits of a given president may not provide profound insights about their policies. But it does give us a unique lens through which to see how a president fit into, or even fought against, mainstream American culture during their time in the White House.

Carter is sworn into office January 20, 1977

All the President’s Men (1976) – January 22, 1977
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) – January 28, 1977
Network (1976) – February 5, 1977
Rocky (1976) – February 19, 1977
The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)- February 25, 1977
Bambi (1942)- February 26, 1977
The Godfather (1972) – March 3, 1977
The Magic Christian (1969) – March 5, 1977
Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976) – March 12, 1977
Casablanca (1942) and Young Frankenstein (1974) – March 25, 1977
The Bad News Bears (1976) – March 26, 1977
The Shootist (1976) – March 27, 1977
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) – April 2, 1977
Harry and Tonto (1974) – April 7, 1977
Nashville (1975) – April 22, 1977
Chinatown (1974) – April 26, 1977
Blazing Saddles (1974) – April 28, 1977
Lucky Lady (1975) – April 29, 1977
Annie Hall (1977)- May 13, 1977
African Queen (1951) – May 13, 1977
The Last Tycoon (1976) – May 14, 1977
The Island of Allah (1956) and Herbie Rides Again (1974) – May 21, 1977
Paper Moon (1973) and The Hungry Planet – June 4, 1977
Zorro (1940 or 1975?) and The Hungry Planet – June 9, 1977
The French Connection (1971) – June 12, 1977
Star Wars (1977)- June 17, 1977
Tomahawk (1951) and Right on Course? – June 17, 1977
True Grit (1979)- June 18, 1977
Silver Streak (1976) – June 24, 1977
Rocky (1976) – June 25, 1977
The Caine Mutiny (1954) – June 27, 1977
Camelot (1967) – June 30, 1977
The Cassandra Crossing (1976) – July 1, 1977
Silent Movie (1976) – July 2, 1977
The Littlest Horse Thieves (1976) The Late Show (1977) and Star Wars (1977)- July 3, 1977
MacArthur (1977) – July 6, 1977
Islands in the Stream (1977) – July 10, 1977
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) – July 15, 1977
Logan’s Run (1976) and Ecuador? – July 16, 1977
Jaws (1975) – July 22, 1977
Music Man (1962) – July 23, 1977
A Star is Born (1937, 1954, or 1976?) – July 29, 1977
The Deep (1977) – July 31, 1977
American Graffiti (1973) and Bridge On the River Kwai (1957) – August 2, 1977
Smokey and the Bandit (1977) – August 12, 1977
The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) – August 15, 1977
Orca (1977) – August 16, 1977
The Rescuers (1977) – August 17, 1977
The Sting (1973)- August 18, 1977
Harry and Walter Go To New York (1976) – August 20, 1977
High Noon (1952) – August 27, 1977
Gnome Mobile (1967) – August 30, 1977
That’s Entertainment (1974) – August 31, 1977
Ode to Huck Finn? – September 2, 1977
Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973) The Pink Panther (1963) – September 3, 1977
2001: A Space Odyssey – September 4, 1977
Tentacles (1977) – September 5, 1977
Cabaret (1972) – September 9, 1977
What’s Up Doc? (1972) – September 11, 1977
W.C. Fields and Me (1977) – September 16, 1977
The Man Who Would Be King (1975) – September 17, 1977
Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) – September 18, 1977
The Longest Yard (1974) – September 21, 1977
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977) – September 23, 1977
Sounder (1972) – September 26, 1977
One on One (1977) – September 30, 1977
The Amazing Dobermans (1976) – October 1, 1977
Citizen Kane (1941) – December 3, 1977
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and the Maltese Falcon (1941) – October 6, 1977
Rooster Cogburn (1977) – October 7, 1977
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) – October 8, 1977
The Hustler (1961) – October 15, 1977
The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977) – October 18, 1977
Frankenstein (1931) – October 19, 1977
The Bears and I (1974) – October 20, 1977
On the Waterfront (1954) – October 23, 1977
The Wind and the Lion (1975) – October 26, 1977
Three Days of the Condor (1975) – October 28, 1977
Murder by Death (1976) – October 29, 1977
Fiddler on the Roof (1971) – November 4, 1977
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) – November 9, 1977
Man With the Golden Gun (1974) – November 10, 1977
Island at the Top of the World (1974) – November 11, 1977
The Turning Point (1977) – November 13, 1977
Black and White in Color (1976) – November 16, 1977
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) – November 19, 1977
Goodbye Columbus (1969) – November 22, 1977
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) – November 23, 1977
Oh God (1977) – November 24, 1977
The Eagle Has Landed (1976) – November 25, 1977
Bound For Glory (1976) – November 26, 1977
Citizen Kane (1941) – December 3, 1977
Funny Girl (1968) – December 8, 1977
A Bridge Too Far (1977) – December 9, 1977
The Goodbye Girl (1977) – December 10, 1977
New York, New York (1977) – December 12, 1977
The Maltese Falcon (1941) – December 19, 1977
Live and Let Die (1973) – December 26, 1977
Midnight Cowboy (1969) – December 27, 1977

1978

Love in the Afternoon (1957) — January 7, 1978
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976) — January 8, 1978
Breakheart Pass (1975) — January 10, 1978
The Graduate (1967) — January 12, 1978
Roman Holiday (1953) — January 24, 1978
Best Years of Our Lives (1946) — January 25, 1978
Julia (1977) and A Town Called Plains — January 27, 1978
Semi-Tough (1977) — January 28, 1978
Sabrina (1954) — January 30, 1978
King Kong (1976) — January 31, 1978
Star Wars (1977) — February 4, 1978
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) — February 6, 1978
Papillon (1973) — February 9, 1978
Citizens Band (1977) — February 14, 1978
Jeremiah Johnson (1972) — February 15, 1978
Wait Until Dark (1967) — February 16, 1978
The Big Sleep (1946) — February 18, 1978
High Anxiety (1977) — February 20, 1978
Airport ‘77 (1977) — February 21, 1978
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) — February 23, 1978
The Twelve Chairs (1970) — February 25, 1978
Unconquered (1947) — February 27, 1978
The Guns of Navarone (1961) — March 1, 1978
Gray Lady Down (1978) — March 2, 1978
Kid Galahad (1962) — March 8, 1978
She Done Him Wrong (1933) — March 11, 1978
Reap the Wind Wild (1942) — March 12, 1978 (mislabeled as Keep the Wind Wild in the daily diary?)
The Roaring Twenties (1939) — March 13, 1978
South Pacific (1958) — March 22, 1978
A Touch of Class (1973) — March 26, 1978
Cactus Flower (1969) — April 4, 1978
The World’s Greatest Lover (1977) — April 5, 1978
Horse Feathers (1932) — April 11, 1978
Georgy Girl (1966) — April 13, 1978
Annie Hall (1977) — April 16, 1978
Tin Star (1957) — April 19, 1978
In Harm’s Way (1965) — April 20, 1978
For Pete’s Sake (1974) — April 22, 1978
Come Back Little Sheba (1952) — April 24, 1978
Operation Petticoat (1959) — April 27, 1978
The Apartment (1960) — May 6, 1978
Born Yesterday (1950) — May 8, 1978
Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957) — May 10, 1978
One, Two, Three (1961)— May 15, 1978
Key Largo (1948) — May 16, 1978
Bend of the River (1952) — May 18, 1978
Dial M for Murder (1954) — May 19, 1978
Patton (1970) — May 22, 1978
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) — May 27, 1978
Life with Father (1947) — May 28, 1978
Cool Hand Luke (1967) — May 31, 1978
Gunga Din (1939) — June 1, 1978
President’s Lady (1953) — June 6, 1978
Life of Emile Zola (1937) — June 7, 1978
Red River (1948) — June 12, 1978
Cowboy (1958) — June 14, 1978
To Have and Have Not (1944) — June 17, 1978
Topkapi (1964) — June 22, 1978
To Catch a Thief (1955) — June 24, 1978
Teacher’s Pet (1958) — June 25, 1978
Pete and Tillie (1972) — June 26, 1978
Cheap Detective (1978) — June 28, 1978
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) — June 29, 1978
From Here to Eternity (1953) — July 18, 1978
Heaven Can Wait (1978) — July 20, 1978
Casey’s Shadow (1978) — July 23, 1978
Marty (1955) — August 1, 1978
West Side Story (1961) — August 5, 1978
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) — August 6, 1978
Hooper (1978) — August 14, 1978
Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) — August 16, 1978
Magnificent Yankee (1950) — August 30, 1978
Hang ‘Em High (1968) — September 4, 1978
Shane (1953) — September 6, 1978
Sleuth (1972) — September 8, 1978
My Darling Clementine (1946) — September 9, 1978
Save the Tiger (1973) — September 10, 1978
New Voyager (1942) — September 12, 1978
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) — September 14, 1978
The Candidate (1972) — September 21, 1978
Mildred Pierce (1945) — September 24, 1978
Paint Your Wagon (1969) — September 28, 1978
The Mouse That Roared (1959) — September 29, 1978
Coming Home (1978) — October 3, 1978
Garden of Evil (1954) — October 6, 1978
Johnny Belinda (1948) — October 9, 1978
Boys from Brazil (1978) — October 10, 1978
A Wedding (1978) — October 11, 1978
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) — October 12, 1978
Days of Heaven (1978) — October 13, 1978
Tennessee Johnson (1942) — October 14, 1978
Jezebel (1938) — October 17, 1978
From Russia With Love (1963) — October 18, 1978
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) — October 25, 1978
Mrs. Miniver (1942) — October 27, 1978
Wilson (1944) — November 1, 1978
The Cat From Outer Space (1978) — November 8, 1978
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) — November 9, 1978
Animal House (1978) — November 10, 1978
The Last Hurrah (1958) — November 11, 1978
Lost Horizon (1937 or 1973?) — November 12, 1978
Dodge City (1939) — November 15, 1978
Children of Sanchez (1978) — November 16, 1978
Separate Tables (1958) — November 20, 1978
Dangerous (1935) — November 28, 1978
Force 10 From Navarone (1978) — November 29, 1978
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956) — November 30, 1978
Elmer Gantry (1960) — December 1, 1978
Northwest Mounted Police (1940) — December 4, 1978
East of Eden (1955) — December 9, 1978
Superman (1978) — December 10, 1978
A Thousand Clowns (1965) — December 14, 1978
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) — December 21, 1978

1979

Gold Rush (1925) — January 2, 1979
Lord of the Rings (1978) — January 12, 1979
California Suite (1978) — January 13, 1979
Grand Hotel (1932) — January 15, 1979
Heiress (1949) — January 16, 1979
Zorba the Greek (1964) — January 18, 1979
Sergeant York (1941) — January 24, 1979
Stalag 17 (1953) — January 25, 1979
The VIPs (1963) — January 30, 1979
The Devil’s Disciple (1959) — February 23, 1979
Every Which Way But Loose (1978) — February 24, 1979
Magic (1978) — February 25, 1979
Darling (1965) — February 28, 1979
All About Eve (1950) — March 6, 1979
The Rare Breed (1966) — March 14, 1979
The Red Badge of Courage (1951) — March 20, 1979
The Bells of St. Mary (1945) — March 21, 1979
Ice Castles (1978) — March 23, 1979
Hair (1979) — March 28, 1979
Same Time Next Year (1978) — March 29, 1979
The Last Picture Show (1971) — April 4, 1979
Viva Max (1969) — April 9, 1979
Lone Star (1952) — April 10, 1979
Rebel Without a Cause (1955) — April 13, 1979
Bullitt (1968) — April 14, 1979
Enemy Below (1957) — April 26, 1979
Captains Courageous (1937) — April 27, 1979
Autumn Sonata (1978) — April 30, 1979
Manhattan (1979) — May 6, 1979
Apocalypse Now (1979) — May 10, 1979
Beau Geste (1939) — May 17, 1979
The Road to Bali (1952) — May 19, 1979
Manhattan (1979) — May 23, 1979
Phantom of the Opera (1925, 1943, or 1962?) — May 24, 1979
A Very Big Withdraw (1979) — May 25, 1979
Dixie (1943) and Prisoner of Zenda (1979) — May 26, 1979
Friendly Persuasion (1956) — May 27, 1979
Dear Inspector (1977) — June 1, 1979
Fahrenheit 451 (1966) — June 3, 1979
You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (1939) — June 4, 1979
Alien (1979) — June 13, 1979
The Kentuckian (1955) — June 19, 1979
The China Syndrome (1979) — June 20, 1979
My Little Chickadee (1940) — June 22, 1979
The In-Laws (1979) — July 14, 1979
The Robe (1953) — July 17, 1979
Rocky II (1979) — July 18, 1979
To Each His Own (1946) — July 20, 1979
The In-Laws (1979) — July 23, 1979
The Angel and the Badman (1947) — July 24, 1979
The Jazz Singer (1927 or 1980?) — July 26, 1979
Blue Skies (1946) — August 2, 1979
Meatballs (1979) — August 3, 1979
Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) — August 4, 1979
Break-Out (1975) — August 7, 1979
Escape to Athena (1979) — August 13, 1979
For A Few Dollars More (1965) — August 14, 1979
3:10 to Yuma (1957) — August 15, 1979
Don Juan (1926 or 1948?) — August 24, 1979
North Dallas Forty (1979) — August 25, 1979
Dracula (1979) — August 26, 1979
Lost and Found (1979) — August 27, 1979
Ride the High Country (1962) — August 28, 1979
The Horse Soldiers (1959) — September 4, 1979
Avalanche Express (1979) — September 5, 1979
Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) — September 6, 1979
St. Louis Blues (1958) — September 9, 1979
The Misfits (1961) — September 14, 1979
Lost Horizon (1937 or 1973?) — September 15, 1979
Bonjour Tristesse (1958) — September 16, 1979
Two Years Before the Mast (1946) — September 18, 1979
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966) — September 20, 1979
Inherit the Wind (1960) — September 21, 1979
Miracle on 34th Street (1947) — September 24, 1979
Time After Time (1979) — September 29, 1979
The King and I (1956) — October 4, 1979
Torn Curtain (1966) — October 5, 1979
10 (1979) — October 6, 1979
The Gunfighter (1950) — October 11, 1979
Gorgeous Hussy (1936) — October 16, 1979
Sheep Man (1958) — October 20, 1979
The Onion Field (1979) — October 21, 1979
Shenandoah (1965) — October 22, 1979
Legends of Frank Woods (1977) — October 27, 1979
MacKenna’s Gold (1969) — October 30, 1979
Thunderball (1965) — November 2, 1979
Sahara (1943) — November 4, 1979
Running (1979) — November 9, 1979
Big Country (1958) — November 11, 1979
If I Had a Million (1932) — November 16, 1979
Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) — November 17, 1979
An American in Paris (1951) — November 19, 1979
Bloodline (1979) — November 20, 1979
Hanover Street (1979) — November 21, 1979
Anne of a Thousand Days (1969) — November 22, 1979
Spencer’s Mountain (1963) — November 23, 1979
Julius Caesar (1953) — November 24, 1979
The Picture Show Man (1977) — November 30, 1979
Bus Stop (1956) — December 1, 1979
Mary Queen of Scots (1971) — December 3, 1979
Star Trek (1979) — December 12, 1979
MASH (1970) — December 15, 1979
The Black Hole (1979) — December 18, 1979
Kramer vs Kramer (1979) — December 21, 1979
The Electric Horseman (1979) — December 22, 1979
The Rose (1979) — December 23, 1979
Chapter Two (1979) — December 24, 1979
The Black Stallion — December 25, 1979
Going in Style (1979) — December 26, 1979
Advise and Consent (1962) — December 27, 1979
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) — December 29, 1979
Luv (1967) — December 30, 1979

1980

The Good Earth (1937) — January 9, 1980
Being There (1979) — January 14, 1980
The Bank Dick (1940) — January 16, 1980
The European (1979) — January 18, 1980
Harper (1966) — January 19, 1980
10 (1979) — January 25, 1980
Jesus (1979) — January 26, 1980
The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) — January 29, 1980
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) — February 2, 1980
Rio Grande (1950) — February 3, 1980
A Little Romance (1979) — February 8, 1980
All That Jazz (1979) — February 10, 1980
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) — February 12, 1980
Night of the Iguana (1964) — February 16, 1980
Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) — February 18, 1980
Broken Lance (1954) — February 19, 1980
Agatha (1979) — February 23, 1980
Fedora (1978) — February 27, 1980
The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) — February 29, 1980
My Brilliant Career (1979) — March 1, 1980
Barry Lyndon (1975) — March 2, 1980
Arabesque (1966) — March 7, 1980
Scalp Hunters (1968) — March 15, 1980
Hide in Plain Sight (1980) — March 22, 1980
Watch on the Rhine (1943) — March 21, 1980
The Petrified Forest (1936) — March 23, 1980
Mr. 880 (1950) — March 24, 1980
Cinderella Liberty (1973) — March 28, 1980
The Paper Chase (1973) — March 29, 1980
Simon (1980) — April 1, 1980
Oklahoma Crude (1973) — April 3, 1980
The Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Movie — April 4, 1980
When Time Ran Out (1980) — April 5, 1980
Five Easy Pieces (1970) and They Came to Cordura (1959) — April 6, 1980
High Society (1956) — April 11, 1980
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) — April 12, 1980
The Human Factor (1979) — April 13, 1980
Baltimore Bullet (1980) — April 19, 1980
The Undefeated (1969) — April 20, 1980
Klute (1971) — April 25, 1980
Ffolkes (1979) — April 26, 1980
Laura (1944) — April 27, 1980
Barefoot Contessa (1954) — May 2, 1980
Kramer vs Kramer (1979) — May 3, 1980
The Black Marble (1980) — May 4, 1980
The Jerk (1979) — May 5, 1980
Bronco Billy (1980) — May 9, 1980
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) — May 10, 1980
Anastasia (1956) — May 12, 1980
Splendor in the Grass (1961) — May 13, 1980
The Devil at Four O’Clock (1961) — May 15, 1980
Strangers on a Train (1951) — May 16, 1980
The Last Married Couple in America (1980) — May 17, 1980
Silent Partner (1978) — May 20, 1980
Blue Lagoon (1980) — May 23, 1980
Fastest Gun Alive (1956) — May 24, 1980
The Man Who Loved Women (1977) — May 25, 1980
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) — May 26, 1980
Cass Timberlane (1947) — May 30, 1980
The Final Countdown (1980) — May 31, 1980
All Quiet on the Western Front (1979) — June 5, 1980
In Praise of Older Women (1978) — June 6, 1980
The Shining (1980) — June 7, 1980
The Long Riders (1980) — June 13, 1980
Brubaker (1980) — June 27, 1980
Urban Cowboy (1980) — June 28, 1980
Nothing Personal (1980) — June 29, 1980
The Searchers (1956) — July 11, 1980
A Fine Madness (1966) — July 12, 1980
Little Miss Marker (1980) — July 13, 1980
Flower Drum Song (1961) — July 18, 1980
The Big Red One (1980) – July 25, 1980
Dressed to Kill (1980) – August 8, 1980
Touch of Love (1969) – August 17, 1980
Hopscotch (1980) — August 18, 1980
The Changeling (1980) — August 21, 1980
The Lady Vanishes (1938) — August 22, 1980
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980) — August 26, 1980
The Hunter (1980) — August 29, 1980
Caddyshack (1980) — August 30, 1980
The Flim Flam Man (1967) — September 2, 1980
Fame (1980) — September 5, 1980
Robin and Marian (1976) — September 8, 1980
The Great Santini (1979) — September 6, 1980
Mountain Men (1980) — September 12, 1980
Diamond Head (1962) — September 24, 1980
Resurrection (1980) — September 26, 1980
Oh God Book II (1980) — September 27, 1980
Ordinary People (1980) — October 11, 1980
My Bodyguard (1980) — October 17, 1980
Gloria (1980) — October 18, 1980
The Stunt Man (1980) — October 26, 1980
The Bandits (1967) — November 5, 1980
The First Deadly Sin (1980) — November 7, 1980
Loving Couples (1980) — November 8, 1980
The Brothers Karamazov — November 9, 1980
Goldfinger (1964) — November 11, 1980
Airplane (1980) — November 12, 1980
Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1955) — November 13, 1980
A Change of Seasons (1980) — November 15, 1980
Many Rivers to Cross (1955) — November 17, 1980
It’s My Turn (1980) — November 18, 1980
[Film unknown] — November 19, 1980
The Blues Brothers (1980) — November 20, 1980
Tribute (1980) — November 22, 1980
Nine to Five (1980) — November 26, 1980
Any Which Way You Can (1980) — November 27, 1980
Stir Crazy (1980) — November 28, 1980
The Island (1980) — November 29, 1980
Tribute (1980) — December 3, 1980
Irma La Douce (1963) —December 4, 1980
It Seems Like Old Times (1980) — December 5, 1980
It’s Grit (True Grit?) and Raging Bull (1980) — December 6, 1980
The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (1976) — December 10, 1980
The Competition (1980) — December 12, 1980
Kagemusha (1980) — December 13, 1980
Private Benjamin (1980) — December 19, 1980
The Formula (1980) — December 20, 1980
Two Rode Together (1961) — December 31, 1980

1981

The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) — January 2, 1981
Popeye (1980) — January 3, 1981
Fools’ Parade (1971) — January 5, 1981

Carter leaves office January 20, 1981

As the U.S. declares a new government in Venezuela, we look back at how the Reagan administration promoted human rights violations in Guatemala, including genocide inflicted on Indian villages, as the late Robert Parry reported on Feb. 21, 2013.

Soon after taking office in 1981, President Ronald Reagan’s national security team agreed to supply military aid to the brutal right-wing regime in Guatemala to pursue the goal of exterminating not only “Marxist guerrillas” but their “civilian support mechanisms,” according to a newly disclosed document from the National Archives.

Over the next several years, the military assistance from the Reagan administration helped the Guatemalan army do just that, engaging in the slaughter of some 100,000 people, including what a truth commission deemed genocide against the Mayan Indians in the northern highlands.

Recently discovered documents at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, also reveal that Reagan’s White House was reaching out to Israel in a scheme to circumvent congressional restrictions on military equipment for the Guatemalan military.

In 1983, national security aide Oliver North (who later became a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal) reported in a memo that Reagan’s Deputy National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane (another key Iran-Contra figure) was approaching Israel over how to deliver 10 UH-1H helicopters to Guatemala to give the army greater mobility in its counterinsurgency war.

According to these documents that I found at the Reagan library and other records declassified in the late 1990s it’s also clear that Reagan and his administration were well aware of the butchery underway in Guatemala and elsewhere in Central America.

The relaxed attitude toward the Guatemalan regime’s brutality took shape in spring 1981 as Reagan’s State Department “advised our Central American embassies that it has been studying ways to restore a closer, cooperative relationship with Guatemala,” according to a White House “Situation Room Checklist” dated April 8, 1981.

The document added: “State believes a number of changes have occurred which could make Guatemalan leaders more receptive to a new U.S. initiative: the Guatemalans view the new administration as more sympathetic to their problems [and] they are less suspect of the U.S. role in El Salvador,” where the Reagan administration was expanding support for another right-wing regime infamous for slaughtering its political opponents, including Catholic clergy.

“State has concluded that any attempt to reestablish a dialogue would require some initial, condition-free demonstration of our goodwill. However, this could not include military sales which would provoke serious U.S. public and congressional criticism. State will undertake a series of confidence building measures, free of preconditions, which minimize potential conflict with existing legislation,” which then barred military assistance to Guatemala because of its long record of human rights crimes.

The “checklist” added that the State Department “has also decided that the administration should engage the Guatemalan government at the highest level in a dialogue on our bilateral relations and the initiatives we can take together to improve them. Secretary [of State Alexander] Haig has designated [retired] General Vernon Walters as his personal emissary to initiate this process with President [Fernando Romeo] Lucas [Garcia].

“If Lucas is prepared to give assurances that he will take steps to halt government involvement in the indiscriminate killing of political opponents and to foster a climate conducive to a viable electoral process, the U.S. will be prepared to approve some military sales immediately.”

But the operative word in that paragraph was “indiscriminate.” The Reagan administration expressed no problem with killing civilians if they were considered supporters of the guerrillas who had been fighting against the country’s ruling oligarchs and generals since the 1950s when the CIA organized the overthrow of Guatemala’s reformist President Jacobo Arbenz.

Sparing the ‘Non Politicized’

The distinction was spelled out in “Talking Points” for Walters to deliver in a face-to-face meeting with General Lucas and his senior advisers. As edited inside the White House in April 1981, the “Talking Points” read:

“The President and Secretary Haig have designated me as [their] personal emissary to discuss bilateral relations on an urgent basis.

“Both the President and the Secretary recognize that your country is engaged in a war with Marxist guerrillas. We are deeply concerned about externally supported Marxist subversion in Guatemala and other countries in the region. As you are aware, we have already taken steps to assist Honduras and El Salvador resist this aggression.

“The Secretary has sent me here to see if we can work out a way to provide material assistance to your government. We have minimized negative public statements by US officials on the situation in Guatemala. We have arranged for the Commerce Department to take steps that will permit the sale of $3 million worth of military trucks and Jeeps to the Guatemalan army.

“With your concurrence, we propose to provide you and any officers you might designate an intelligence briefing on regional developments from our perspective. Our desire, however, is to go substantially beyond the steps I have just outlined. We wish to reestablish our traditional military supply and training relationship as soon as possible.

“As we are both aware, this has not yet been feasible because of our internal political and legal constraints relating to the use by some elements of your security forces of deliberate and indiscriminate killing of persons not involved with the guerrilla forces or their civilian support mechanisms. I am not referring here to the regrettable but inevitable death of innocents though error in combat situations, but to what appears to us a calculated use of terror to immobilize non politicized people or potential opponents.

“If you could give me your assurance that you will take steps to halt official involvement in the killing of persons not involved with the guerrilla forces or their civilian support mechanism we would be in a much stronger position to defend successfully with the Congress a decision to begin to resume our military supply relationship with your government.”

In other words, though the “talking points” were framed as an appeal to reduce the “indiscriminate” slaughter of “non politicized people,” they amounted to an acceptance of scorched-earth tactics against people involved with the guerrillas and “their civilian support mechanism.” The way that played out in Guatemala as in nearby El Salvador was the massacring of peasants in regions considered sympathetic to leftist insurgents.

Cables on Killings

As reflected in the “Talking Points” and as confirmed by other U.S. government documents from that time period, the Reagan administration was well aware that the Guatemalan military was engaged in mass killings of Guatemalan civilians.

According to one “secret” cable also from April 1981, and declassified in the 1990s, the CIA was confirming Guatemalan government massacres even as Reagan was moving to loosen the military aid ban. On April 17, 1981, a CIA cable described an army massacre at Cocob, near Nebaj in the Ixil Indian territory, because the population was believed to support leftist guerrillas.

A CIA source reported that “the social population appeared to fully support the guerrillas” and “the soldiers were forced to fire at anything that moved.” The CIA cable added that “the Guatemalan authorities admitted that ‘many civilians’ were killed in Cocob, many of whom undoubtedly were non-combatants.” [Many of the Guatemalan documents declassified in the 1990s can be found at the National Security Archive’s Web site.]

In May 1981, despite these ongoing atrocities, Reagan dispatched Walters to tell the Guatemalan leaders that the new U.S. administration wanted to lift the human rights embargoes on military equipment that former President Jimmy Carter and Congress had imposed.

In essence, Walters was giving a green light to Guatemala to continue the practice of slaughtering guerrillas and their civilian supporters, a counterinsurgency strategy that was practiced during some of the darkest days of the Vietnam War in such infamous incidents as the My Lai massacre.

The “Talking Points” also put the Reagan administration in line with the fiercely anti-communist regimes elsewhere in Latin America, where right-wing “death squads” operated with impunity liquidating not only armed guerrillas but civilians who were judged sympathetic to left-wing causes like demanding greater economic equality and social justice.

In the 1970s, Argentina, Chile, Brazil and other South American countries even banded together in a cross-border assassination program that hunted down leftist and other political opponents around the world, including inside the United States.

Called “Operation Condor,” the wave of assassinations reached Washington D.C. on Sept. 21, 1976, when Chilean intelligence assets exploded a car bomb killing former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and American co-worker Ronni Moffitt as they drove down Massachusetts Avenue through an area known as Embassy Row.

The original cover story for the assassination plot had been a meeting at the CIA with Vernon Walters, who was then deputy CIA director under CIA Director George H.W. Bush. Walters also had served as U.S. military attache to Brazil at the time of a right-wing military coup in 1964.

Reagan again turned to Walters in 1981 to serve as the President’s ambassador-at-large. One of his key roles was coordinating with right-wing governments across Latin America in their escalating wars against leftist insurgencies.

Right-Wing Butchery

Despite his aw shucks style, Reagan found virtually every anticommunist action justified, no matter how brutal. From his eight years in the White House, there is no historical indication that he was morally troubled by the bloodbath and even genocide that occurred in Central America while he was shipping hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the implicated forces.

The death toll was staggering, an estimated 70,000 or more political killings in El Salvador, possibly 20,000 slain from the Contra war in Nicaragua, about 200 political “disappearances” in Honduras and some 100,000 people eliminated during a resurgence of political violence in Guatemala. The one consistent element in these slaughters was the overarching Cold War rationalization, emanating in large part from Ronald Reagan’s White House.

Despite their frequent claims to the contrary, the evidence is now overwhelming that Reagan and his advisers had a clear understanding of the extraordinary brutality going on in Guatemala and elsewhere, based on their own internal documents. As they prepared to ship military equipment to Guatemala, White House officials knew that the Guatemalan military was engaged in massacres of the Mayans and other perceived enemies.

According to a State Department cable on Oct. 5, 1981, when Guatemalan leaders met again with Walters, they left no doubt about their plans. The cable said Gen. Lucas “made clear that his government will continue as before, that the repression will continue. He reiterated his belief that the repression is working and that the guerrilla threat will be successfully routed.”

Human rights groups saw the same picture. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission released a report on Oct. 15, 1981, blaming the Guatemalan government for “thousands of illegal executions.” [Washington Post, Oct. 16, 1981]

But the Reagan administration was set on whitewashing the ugly scene. A State Department “white paper,” released in December 1981, blamed the violence on leftist “extremist groups” and their “terrorist methods” prompted and supported by Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

What the documents from the Reagan library now make clear is that the administration was not simply struggling ineffectively to rein in these massacres as the U.S. press corps typically reported but was fully onboard with the slaughter of people who were part of the guerrillas’ “civilian support mechanisms.”

More Massacres

U.S. intelligence agencies continued to pick up evidence of these government-sponsored massacres. One CIA report in February 1982 described an army sweep through the so-called Ixil Triangle in central El Quiche province.

“The commanding officers of the units involved have been instructed to destroy all towns and villages which are cooperating with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor [the EGP] and eliminate all sources of resistance,” the report said. “Since the operation began, several villages have been burned to the ground, and a large number of guerrillas and collaborators have been killed.”

The CIA report explained the army’s modus operandi: “When an army patrol meets resistance and takes fire from a town or village, it is assumed that the entire town is hostile and it is subsequently destroyed.” When the army encountered an empty village, it was “assumed to have been supporting the EGP, and it is destroyed. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of refugees in the hills with no homes to return to.

“The army high command is highly pleased with the initial results of the sweep operation, and believes that it will be successful in destroying the major EGP support area and will be able to drive the EGP out of the Ixil Triangle. The well documented belief by the army that the entire Ixil Indian population is pro-EGP has created a situation in which the army can be expected to give no quarter to combatants and non-combatants alike.”

On Feb. 2, 1982, Richard Childress, another of Reagan’s national security aides, wrote a “secret” memo to his colleagues summing up this reality on the ground:

“As we move ahead on our approach to Latin America, we need to consciously address the unique problems posed by Guatemala. Possessed of some of the worst human rights records in the region, it presents a policy dilemma for us. The abysmal human rights record makes it, in its present form, unworthy of USG [U.S. government] support.

“Beset by a continuous insurgency for at least 15 years, the current leadership is completely committed to a ruthless and unyielding program of suppression. Hardly a soldier could be found that has not killed a ‘guerrilla.’”

The Rise of Rios Montt

However, Reagan remained committed to supplying military hardware to Guatemala’s brutal regime. So, the administration welcomed Gen. Efrain Rios Montt’s March 1982 overthrow of the thoroughly bloodstained Gen. Lucas.

An avowed fundamentalist Christian, Rios Montt impressed Official Washington where the Reagan administration immediately revved up its propaganda machinery to hype the new dictator’s “born-again” status as proof of his deep respect for human life. Reagan hailed him as “a man of great personal integrity.”

By July 1982, however, Rios Montt had begun a new scorched-earth campaign called his “rifles and beans” policy. The slogan meant that pacified Indians would get “beans,” while all others could expect to be the target of army “rifles.” In October, Rios Montt secretly gave carte blanche to the feared “Archivos” intelligence unit to expand “death squad” operations. Based at the Presidential Palace, the “Archivos” masterminded many of Guatemala’s most notorious assassinations.

The U.S. embassy was soon hearing more accounts of the army conducting Indian massacres. On Oct, 21, 1982, one cable described how three embassy officers tried to check out some of these reports but ran into bad weather and canceled the inspection. Still, the cable put the best possible spin on the situation. Though unable to check out the massacre reports, the embassy officials did “reach the conclusion that the army is completely up front about allowing us to check alleged massacre sites and to speak with whomever we wish.”

The next day, the embassy fired off its analysis (which the Reagan administration knew to be contradicted by the facts) that the Guatemalan government was the victim of a communist-inspired “disinformation campaign.” Dated Oct. 22, 1982, the analysis concluded “that a concerted disinformation campaign is being waged in the U.S. against the Guatemalan government by groups supporting the communist insurgency in Guatemala.”

The Reagan administration’s disingenuous report claimed that “conscientious human rights and church organizations,” including Amnesty International, had been duped by the communists and “may not fully appreciate that they are being utilized. The campaign’s object is simple: to deny the Guatemalan army the weapons and equipment needed from the U.S. to defeat the guerrillas.

“If those promoting such disinformation can convince the Congress, through the usual opinion-makers, the media, church and human rights groups, that the present GOG [government of Guatemala] is guilty of gross human rights violations they know that the Congress will refuse Guatemala the military assistance it needs. Those backing the communist insurgency are betting on an application, or rather misapplication, of human rights policy so as to damage the GOG and assist themselves.”

Hailing the Dictator

Reagan personally joined this P.R. campaign seeking to discredit human rights investigators and others who were reporting accurately on human rights crimes that the administration knew, all too well, were true. On Dec. 4, 1982, after meeting with Rios Montt, Reagan hailed the general as “totally dedicated to democracy” and added that Rios Montt’s government had been “getting a bum rap” on human rights. Reagan discounted the mounting reports of hundreds of Maya villages being eradicated.

On Jan. 6, 1983, Rios Montt was informed that the United States would resume military sales to Guatemala. The dictator expressed his thanks, according to a cable from the U.S. Embassy, “saying that he had been convinced that the USG had never abandoned Guatemala. He commented that the guerrillas in country and its propaganda machine abroad would now launch concerted attacks on both governments.”

On Jan. 7, 1983, Reagan formally lifted the ban on military aid to Guatemala and authorized the sale of $6 million in military hardware. Approval covered spare parts for UH-1H helicopters and A-37 aircraft used in counterinsurgency operations. Radios, batteries and battery charges were also in the package.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s cover-up of the Guatemalan bloodshed continued. State Department spokesman John Hughes said political violence in Guatemalan cities had “declined dramatically” and that rural conditions had improved too.

In February 1983, however, a secret CIA cable noted a rise in “suspect right-wing violence” with kidnappings of students and teachers. Bodies of victims were appearing in ditches and gullies. CIA sources traced these political murders to Rios Montt’s order to the “Archivos” in October to “apprehend, hold, interrogate and dispose of suspected guerrillas as they saw fit.”

Despite these grisly facts on the ground, the annual State Department human rights survey praised the supposedly improved human rights situation in Guatemala. “The overall conduct of the armed forces had improved by late in the year” 1982, the report stated.

A different picture, far closer to the secret information held by the U.S. government, was coming from independent human rights investigators. On March 17, 1983, Americas Watch condemned the Guatemalan army for human rights atrocities against the Indian population.

New York attorney Stephen L. Kass said these findings included proof that the government carried out “virtually indiscriminate murder of men, women and children of any farm regarded by the army as possibly supportive of guerrilla insurgents.”

Rural women suspected of guerrilla sympathies were raped before execution, Kass said, adding that children were “thrown into burning homes. They are thrown in the air and speared with bayonets. We heard many, many stories of children being picked up by the ankles and swung against poles so their heads are destroyed.” [AP, March 17, 1983]

Involving Israel

Publicly, senior Reagan officials continued to put on a happy face. In June 1983, special envoy Richard B. Stone praised “positive changes” in Rios Montt’s government, and Rios Montt pressed the United States for 10 UH-1H helicopters and six naval patrol boats, all the better to hunt guerrillas and their sympathizers.

Since Guatemala lacked the U.S. Foreign Military Sales credits or the cash to buy the helicopters, Reagan’s national security team looked for unconventional ways to arrange the delivery of the equipment that would give the Guatemalan army greater access to mountainous areas where guerrillas and their civilian supporters were hiding.

On Aug. 1, 1983, National Security Council aides Oliver North and Alfonso Sapia-Bosch reported to National Security Advisor William P. Clark that his deputy Robert “Bud” McFarlane was planning to exploit his Israeli channels to secure the helicopters for Guatemala. [For more on McFarlanes’s Israeli channels, see Consortium News “How Neocons Messed Up the Mideast.“]

“With regard to the loan of ten helicopters, it is [our] understanding that Bud will take this up with the Israelis,” wrote North and Sapia-Bosch. “There are expectations that they would be forthcoming. Another possibility is to have an exercise with the Guatemalans. We would then use US mechanics and Guatemalan parts to bring their helicopters up to snuff.”

However, more political changes were afoot in Guatemala. Rios Montt’s vengeful Christian fundamentalism had hurtled so out of control, even by Guatemalan standards, that Gen. Oscar Mejia Victores seized power in another coup on Aug. 8, 1983.

Despite the power shift, Guatemalan security forces continued to murder with impunity, finally going so far that even the U.S. Embassy objected. When three Guatemalans working for the U.S. Agency for International Development were slain in November 1983, U.S. Ambassador Frederic Chapin suspected that “Archivos” hit squads were sending a message to the United States to back off even mild pressure for human rights.

In late November, in a brief show of displeasure, the administration postponed the sale of $2 million in helicopter spare parts. The next month, however, Reagan sent the spare parts anyway. In 1984, Reagan succeeded, too, in pressuring Congress to approve $300,000 in military training for the Guatemalan army.

By mid-1984, Chapin, who had grown bitter about the army’s stubborn brutality, was gone, replaced by a far-right political appointee named Alberto Piedra, who was all for increased military assistance to Guatemala. In January 1985, Americas Watch issued a report observing that Reagan’s State Department “is apparently more concerned with improving Guatemala’s image than in improving its human rights.”

According to now declassified U.S. records, the Guatemalan reality included torture out of the Middle Ages. A Defense Intelligence Agency cable reported that the Guatemalan military used an air base in Retalhuleu during the mid-1980s as a center for coordinating the counterinsurgency campaign in southwest Guatemala.

At the base, pits were filled with water to hold captured suspects. “Reportedly there were cages over the pits and the water level was such that the individuals held within them were forced to hold on to the bars in order to keep their heads above water and avoid drowning,” the DIA report stated. Later, the pits were filled with concrete to eliminate the evidence.

The Guatemalan military used the Pacific Ocean as another dumping spot for political victims, according to the DIA report. Bodies of insurgents tortured to death and of live prisoners marked for “disappearance” were loaded on planes that flown out over the ocean where the soldiers would shove the victims into the water.

Regional Slaughter

Guatemala, of course, was not the only Central American country where Reagan and his administration supported brutal counterinsurgency operations, and then sought to cover up the bloody facts.

Reagan’s attempted falsification of the historical record was a hallmark of the conflicts in El Salvador and Nicaragua as well. In one case, Reagan personally lashed out at an individual human rights investigator named Reed Brody, a New York lawyer who had collected affidavits from more than 100 witnesses to atrocities carried out by the U.S.-supported Contra rebels in Nicaragua fighting to overthrow the country’s leftist Sandinista government.

Angered by the revelations about his pet “freedom-fighters,” Reagan denounced Brody in a speech on April 15, 1985. The President called Brody “one of dictator [Daniel] Ortega’s supporters, a sympathizer who has openly embraced Sandinismo.”

Privately, Reagan had a far more accurate understanding of the true nature of the Contras. At one point in the Contra war, Reagan turned to CIA official Duane Clarridge and demanded that the Contras be used to destroy some Soviet-supplied helicopters that had arrived in Nicaragua. In his memoir, Clarridge recalled that “President Reagan pulled me aside and asked, ‘Dewey, can’t you get those vandals of yours to do this job.’” [See Clarridge’s A Spy for All Seasons.]

It was not until 1999, a decade after Ronald Reagan left office, that the shocking scope of the grisly reality about the atrocities in Guatemala was revealed by a truth commission that drew heavily on documents that President Bill Clinton had ordered declassified.

On Feb. 25, 1999, the Historical Clarification Commission estimated that the 34-year civil war had claimed the lives of some 200,000 people with the most savage bloodletting occurring in the 1980s. The panel estimated that the army was responsible for 93 percent of the killings and leftist guerrillas for three percent. Four percent were listed as unresolved.

The report documented that in the 1980s, the army committed 626 massacres against Mayan villages. “The massacres that eliminated entire Mayan villages are neither perfidious allegations nor figments of the imagination, but an authentic chapter in Guatemala’s history,” the commission concluded.

The army “completely exterminated Mayan communities, destroyed their livestock and crops,” the report said. In the northern highlands, the report termed the slaughter “genocide.” [Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1999]

Besides carrying out murder and “disappearances,” the army routinely engaged in torture and rape. “The rape of women, during torture or before being murdered, was a common practice” by the military and paramilitary forces, the report found.

American Blame

The report added that the “government of the United States, through various agencies including the CIA, provided direct and indirect support for some [of these] state operations.” The report concluded that the U.S. government also gave money and training to a Guatemalan military that committed “acts of genocide” against the Mayans.

“Believing that the ends justified everything, the military and the state security forces blindly pursued the anticommunist struggle, without respect for any legal principles or the most elemental ethical and religious values, and in this way, completely lost any semblance of human morals,” said the commission chairman, Christian Tomuschat, a German jurist.

“Within the framework of the counterinsurgency operations carried out between 1981 and 1983, in certain regions of the country agents of the Guatemalan state committed acts of genocide against groups of the Mayan people,” Tomuschat added. [NYT, Feb. 26, 1999]

The report did not single out culpable individuals either in Guatemala or the United States. But the American official most directly responsible for renewing U.S. military aid to Guatemala and encouraging its government during the 1980s was Ronald Reagan.

The major U.S. newspapers covered the truth commission’s report though only fleetingly. The New York Times made it the lead story the next day. The Washington Post played it inside on page A19. Both cited the troubling role of the CIA and other U.S. government agencies in the Guatemalan tragedy. But, again, no U.S. official was held accountable by name.

On March 1, 1999, the Washington Post’s neoconservative editorial board addressed the findings but did not confront them, except to blame President Carter for having cut off military aid to Guatemala in the 1970s, thus supposedly preventing the United States from curbing Guatemala’s horrific human rights conduct.

The editorial argued that the arms embargo removed “what minimal restraint even a feeble American presence supplied.” The editorial made no reference to the substantial evidence that Reagan’s resumption of military aid in the 1980s made the Guatemalan army more efficient in its slaughter of its enemies, armed and unarmed. With no apparent sense of irony, the Post editorial ended by stating: “We need our own truth commission” though there was no follow-up of that idea.

During a visit to Central America, on March 10, 1999, President Bill Clinton apologized for the past U.S. support of right-wing regimes in Guatemala dating back to 1954. “For the United States, it is important that I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake,” Clinton said. [Washington Post, March 11, 1999]

However, back in Washington, there was no interest, let alone determination, to hold anyone accountable for aiding and abetting the butchery. The story of the Guatemalan genocide and the Reagan administration’s complicity quickly disappeared into the great American memory hole.

For human rights crimes in the Balkans and in Africa, the United States demanded international tribunals to arrest and to try violators and their political patrons for war crimes. In Iraq, President George W. Bush celebrated the trial and execution of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for politically motivated killings.

Rios Montt (who died on April 1, 2018 at 91), after years of evading justice under various amnesties, was finally indicted and put on trial. (He was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2013, but a higher court, filled with political allies, overturned his conviction.)

Yet, even as Latin America’s struggling democracies have made tentative moves toward holding some of their worst human rights abusers accountable, no substantive discussion has occurred in the United States about facing up to the horrendous record of the 1980s and Reagan’s guilt.

Rather than a debate about Reagan as a war criminal who assisted genocide, the former president is honored as a conservative icon with his name attached to Washington National Airport and scores of other public sites. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has gushed over Reagan as “one of the all-time greats,” and Democrats (including Barack Obama) regularly praise Reagan in comparison to modern right-wing Republicans.

When the U.S. news media does briefly acknowledge the barbarities of the 1980s in Central America, it is in the context of how those little countries are bravely facing up to their violent pasts. There is never any suggestion that the United States had a big hand in it and should follow suit.

Not only are we over-explaining the exam on YOU, but I’m going to demonstrate on ME how a lot of these tests work: percussion, where the stethoscope goes, anatomical guides to muscles and structures, that sort of thing. It’s a full body exam with the added bonus of showing you what a lot of it would look like on you.

Welcome to Your Exam: 00:00
Chest Palpation: 00:38
Percussing the Chest: 02:40
Listening to the Heart & Lungs: 04:35
Abdominal Exam: 10:39
Palpating Muscles & Joints in the Face: 14:43
Sinus Percussion: 17:45
Skin Inspection: 19:59
Palpating & Auscultating Temporal Pulse: 21:27
Eye Exam: 23:19
Ear Exam with Palpation & Otoscope: 27:26
Nose, Mouth, & Throat: 33:15
Neck Exam: 37:16
Examining Your Extremities: 42:33
Wrapping Up: 46:12

Triggers include: soft speaking, whispering, explaining, palpation, percussion, sticky stethoscope, guided deep breathing, narrating actions, skin inspection, light triggers, eye exam, follow my finger, accommodation reflex test, indication trigger, fuzzy windscreen stroking, ear exam, otoscope, lymph node check, rain sounds, and test demonstrations.

West Pender Street is a key artery in Downtown Vancouver, running parallel to East Pender Street but situated closer to the central business district. It’s a hub for commerce, education, and historical architecture, blending Vancouver’s modern growth with its rich past.

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West Pender Street is part of Vancouver’s central business district, with numerous office buildings, including 905 West Pender Street. This reflects the street’s role as a commercial hub, attracting businesses, law firms, and tech companies.

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