タグ: “1964 Tokyo Olympics”

50 years–If you are young it is forever, if you are old, it’s just last week.

                                by David Parmer

 In 1964 Japan hosted the Summer Olympics in Tokyo from October 10-24. If ever there was a symbolic meaning to the venue of the games, this was it. In Just 19 years from 1945, Japan had transformed herself from a defeated, bombed-out shell of a country into a world economic power, respected for its hi-tech products of unquestionable quality, whose names like Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, Toshiba and Honda were known worldwide. Domestically, the Japan National Railways (JNR) ran the Shinkansen or Bullet Train from Tokyo to Osaka. It was another amazing feat of post-war Japanese engineering and technology. Also, in 1964 Japanese citizens were again given the right to travel abroad, and travel they did in flag-following groups to all parts of the world.

In 1964, China too made its mark on the international stage. On  October 16, 1964 China exploded its first 22 kiloton nuclear device in the Xinjiang region of western China. China thus became the fifth member of the nuclear club after the U.S., Soviet Union, Britain and France. The year saw China launch what might be called a foreign-relations offensive by establishing ties with a host of countries around the world. Premier Zhou Enlai travelled to Burma, Pakistan, Ceylon and several countries in Africa. The jewel in this particular crown was the normalization of ties and recognition of the PRC by France, the first western power to do so.

In the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater for the Presidency. In 1964, the United States faced three big issues: the Civil Rights Movement, the Space Race and The Cold War. On July 2, 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed abolishing segregation. (In might be noted in passing that this was roughly 100 years after President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation proclamation freeing the slaves.) On November 28, 1964 the US launched Mariner 4, one of the first in a long series of Mars probes that continues even until today. The Space Race was an unofficial completion with the Soviet Union, which they led off by launching a basketball-sized satellite in 1958, and which would culminate with an American Moon landing in 1969. The Cold War with the Soviet Union took a new face in 1964 when Nikita Khrushchev was ousted and a collective leadership was put in place under Leonid Brezhnev. The following years came to be known as the Brezhnev Era, which was noted for its economic stagnation but significant military strengthening. On August 7, 1964 the US congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving the president war powers to deal with North Vietnam after an attack on a US naval vessel. The US also sent an additional 5,000 advisors to South Vietnam, bringing the number of Americans on the ground to 21,000.

Finally, in 1964, French writer John Paul Sartre won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize.