On Sept. 15, 1959 Nikita Khrushchev, General Secretary of the Communist Party and Premier of the Soviet Union (also known as the Butcher of Budapest), and his wife, Nina, arrived in Washington for a summit meeting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. This was during the Cold War when the U.S. feared a nuclear war with Russia and children were taught to duck under their desk and cover their heads when they heard the sirens.
Khrushchev wanted to visit Disneyland, so a trip to Los Angeles and a tour of Twentieth Century Fox was arranged. Shirley McLaine greeted Khrushchev on the set of the movie “Can-Can” and Frank Sinatra served as host. Then, they dropped the bomb. Khrushchev was told he could not go to Disneyland because they could not guarantee his security. Khruschev exploded with anger and some very choice words, many in Russian. Khruschev was known for outbursts of anger and had reportedly taken off his shoe once and banged it on his desk.
About eight months later, in May, 1960, U.S. pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was shot down (in his U-2 spy plane) and captured by the Russians – and the cold war got a lot colder.
Everyone is so nostalgic about the ‘50s but the ‘50s were as dull as their black and white TVs, poodle skirts and saddle shoes. Women were repressed and depressed by the constricted and somber lives they led. Unmarried women couldn’t get a credit card, and if she was married, her husband had to co-sign it. Some states would not allow a woman to serve on a jury because it was felt women were too fragile to hear the grisly details of a crime and too sympathetic to be able to remain objective. It wasn’t until 1973 that women could serve on juries in all 50 states.
Women earned 59 cents for every dollar that men earned (in 2022, women earned an average of 82 percent of what men earn, according to PEW Research). A woman could be fired if she gained too much weight or got pregnant. A woman was not even allowed to decide when to have children because contraceptives were illegal in most states. If things weren’t dismal enough, there were no cell phones, ATMs, or fast-food places.
When the ‘60s and ‘70s rolled in, life started to get a lot more colorful than just the TV shows. The “pill” was introduced in 1960 but was illegal in some states and could only be prescribed to married women. Many people believed contraceptives were immoral and promoted prostitution. But, the Supreme Court ruled that access to birth control was a fundamental right.
Loretta Lynn was a coal miner’s daughter who turned her “hard-knocks” life into country songs. Lynn married at 13 and had four kids before she was 18. In 1975, she released “The Pill” and shocked the conservative country-music industry when she sang “This old maternity dress I’ve got is going in the garbage, the clothes I’m wearing from now on won’t take up so much yardage.“ It was Lynn’s salute to freedom and the sexual revolution — and the song was promptly banned by 60 radio stations. “The Pill” didn’t suffer, it reportedly sold 15,000 copies each week and reached No. 5 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.
The ‘60s were all about protests. African Americans demonstrated with sit-ins, freedom rides, and marches. Women demanded equal job opportunities and an end to sexual discrimination. Mini-skirts and go-go boots replaced poodle skirts and saddle shoes — and then the Beatles burst onto the scene.
Lynda thinks the ‘60s were groovy. She can be reached at lyndaabegg@charter.net. Opinions expressed in this column are reflective of the writer only and are not necessarily shared by the newspaper.