Flashback 1978: Dan White Assassinates George Moscone and Harvey Milk

Two weeks ago, I covered the 45-year anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre, which occurred on the date [Saturday,] November 18, 1978. This massacre ended the lives of a visiting member of the United States House of Representatives, Leo Ryan, and more than 900 other individuals and members of The People’s Temple. They were murdered by Reverend Jim Jones.

This week has a connection to that history. 

Nine days later, on Monday, November 27, 1978—the calendar was the same in 1978 as it is here in 2023—San Francisco, California, which was the home city for The People’s Temple, was rocked again.

Former City Hall supervisor Dan White (born September 2, 1946), who resigned his elected position (and wanted it back), accessed the building through a basement window. He approached 49-year-old mayor George Moscone (born November 24, 1929) and assassinated him. Afterward, White approached 48-year-old supervisor Harvey Milk (born May 22, 1930) and also assassinated him.

Dan White, after a phone call with his wife, surrendered. While on trial, his defense attorney made an argument which became known as “The Twinkie Defense.” White, who was convicted of manslaughter and served five years on a seven-year sentence, was paroled January 7, 1984. He returned to his wife and their home, in San Francisco, and committed suicide at age 39 on October 21, 1985.

This horrible history catapulted Dianne Feinstein to higher office. Born June 22, 1933, then-45-year-old Feinstein was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Just after the assassination of Moscone, she became the city’s acting mayor. (She ran for mayor against Moscone, and lost to him, in 1975. Milk and White were elected in 1977.) Feinstein won a full-term election in 1979 and re-election in 1983. She was the Democratic Party’s 1990 nominee for Governor of California, did not win, but prevailed with her first term for U.S. Senate in 1992. Feinstein, the longest-serving female member in the history of the United States Senate, died at age 90 on September 29, 2023.

The life of George Moscone has not really been given much attention over the years. He was known as a mayor with a progressive vision for change. Harvey Milk, more obviously, was known for being an important and leading activist for rights for persons who are among the community of LGBT. A documentary about him, The Times of Harvey Milk, won the 1984 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. The 2008 film Milk—released 30 years after these assassinations—was directed by fellow LGBT Gus Van Sant. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor Josh Brolin (for playing Dan White). It won Oscars for Best Original Screenplay Dustin Lance Black and, in his second win (for portraying Harvey Milk), Best Actor Sean Penn.

I recommend the following reading and videos:

• Wikipedia — ‘Milk–Moscone assassinations’

• Wikipedia — Dan White

• Wikipedia — George Moscone

• Wikipedia — Harvey Milk

• Wikipedia — Dianne Feinstein

 I

Flashback: 1963: JFK Assassinated

Wednesday, November 22, 2023 will mark the 60-year anniversary of the assassination of 35th president of the United States John Kennedy.

This occurred in Dallas, Texas on Friday, November 22, 1963.

Shortly following Kennedy’s death, then-U.S. vice president Lyndon Johnson was administered the Oath of Office as the 36th president of the United States.

There will be plenty of coverage on JFK with this anniversary. (I may come across videos and post in the Comments. If I do not…others are welcomed to do so. I consider this may not happen due to the timing of this being a holiday week.)

I am sure there will be coverage by media sources. What I don’t think will be mentioned—let alone properly argued or defended—is that the assassination of Kennedy was the start of sinister power showing they could pull this off with enough acceptance of the official report by The People.

I was not born until eight years later. Had I been born, say, twenty years earlier…I would not have bought into this. My sympathies to people who lived through this and were badly affected. 

Flashback 1978: The Burger Chef and Jonestown Murders

Next weekend will mark the 45-year anniversary of the multi-murders and mass-murders in Indiana and Guyana. 

(I will quickly note that the calendar, in 1978, was the same as this current year 2023. The date of this blog topic, here in 2023, was on the same day of the week back in 1978.)

On Friday, November 17, 1978, four employees at a Burger Chef in Speedway, Indiana were kidnapped, around closing time of the store location. Their bodies were discovered Sunday, November 19, 1978 in a wooden area in Johnson County, Indiana.

The Burger Chef Murders victims ranged between ages 16 to 20. The store manager, Jayne Friedt (b. May 2, 1958), the eldest, was age 20. Working under her were 17-year-old Ruth Shelton (b. December 19, 1960) and 16-year-olds Mark Flemmonds (b. December 31, 1961) and Daniel Davis (b. September 6, 1962).

Law enforcement made the mistake of assuming that, with the store abandoned, the four were being irresponsible—attributed to young age—and did not consider the Burger Chef location a crime scene. So, they allowed business to resume the next day. To this date, the murders are still not solved.

It is suspected, by some, that Friedt was targeted. That this may have been motivated by drugs and money. After 45 years, with some suspects dead, and with a crime scene cleaned up, it may never get solved.

Burger Chef was a defunct burger chain restaurant which began in 1954 Indianapolis, Indiana. It was headquarters for Burger Chef. This is Marion County, Indiana. This is the county in which this Speedway store was located.

For a video recommendation, on the Discovery+ app is Murders at the Burger Joint. 

Also…

Recommended reading:

Wikipedia — Burger Chef murders

Next In Line: The Burger Chef Murders

◾️🔷◾️ 🔷 ◾️

 

On Saturday, November 18, 1978, the Reverend Jim Jones murdered over 900 of his followers from the People’s Temple, formerly located in San Francisco, California, in Guyana. (Some of the members did commit suicide.)

The body count, from initial reports, was woefully underestimated. Days into recovering the victims is when it was discovered that more than 700 were among the dead. That number turned out to be 918. Among the dead included roughly 300 children. Multiple numbers of actual family members were among the victims. Members of Jones’s family were also among the victims. Jim Jones (born May 13, 1931) himself was among the dead.

Leading up to the massacre, there were growing concerns from people concerned about what was going on with the People’s Temple and their members. With a visit in Guyana by Leo Ryan (born May 5, 1925), a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives (whose district partly included San Francisco), he agreed to look into the People’s Temple and investigate Jones. Ryan was joined by members of his staff and, among others, NBC News correspondent Don Harris (b. September 8, 1936) and cameraman Bob Brown (b. February 8, 1942) as well as San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robertson (b. October 21, 1951). Several members of the People’s Temple let Ryan know they wanted out of Guyana. 

As the group and Ryan’s people were at the airstrip in Port Kaituma, a village less than 10 miles from the commune, other members of People’s Temple ambushed the group and gunned down four. Ryan, Harris, Brown, and Robertson were all dead. So, too, was People’s Temple member Patricia Parks (b. April 29, 1934). She and her family—including her husband, their daughters, her mother-in-law—were attempting to leave. 

Surviving the attack were several who either pretended to be dead or, on foot, fled. One who survived, even though she was shot numerous times, was Ryan staffer Jackie Speier. Born in 1950, she was age 28 in 1978, Speier later won election to Ryan’s congressional seat in 2008, won re-elections through 2020, and served in the United States House of Representatives from 2009 to 2022.

Jim Jones was a con man. He convinced people, for years, he was a charismatic and powerful man of God. He was, perhaps, psychotic and a different form of evil. It may be that members of the People’s Temple thought Jones offered them salvation. He brought them death.

Recommended reading:

Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple

Note: I may post additional videos, in the Comments, on these murders. I did not want to overwhelm this blog topic post with too many. I do recommend the embedded video on the Jonestown Massacre, titled “1978-1982 Special Report: Jonestown Aftermath” (Part I), which YouTube is not allowing to appear outside its website. It is by Hezakya Newz & Films. This a source which has hundred of historically and culturally relevant videos which show how the nation and the lives of its people were affected.

… Tossups and Trifecta

The week’s topic is the sixth and last on electoralism as related to next year’s United States presidential election. There is plenty more to consider. But, I will move on from this beginning next week. And, for what more I want to address, I will return to some more electoral-related topics when we are in 2024.

This blog topic is published a full 52 weeks from the [Tuesday,] November 5, 2024 United States presidential election.

Election 2024 will be the 60th quadrennial United States presidential election. The first was in 1789. We have had U.S. presidential elections with leap years since 1792.

To make any predictions a year in advance can be interesting…just to see, once that time arrives, whether anything predicted a year out actually materializes. 

I do not feel, not at this time, any strong sense of which of these two major United States political parties will prevail. I consider Inflation. I consider the Ukraine War. I consider the Israel–Hamas Conflict. I consider Abortion. And there are other things I consider.

While Democratic incumbent Joe Biden has a job-approval rating which is struggling for 40 percent so, too, did a 2011 Barack Obama and a 2019 Donald Trump one year in advance of their coming elections. In each case—re-election for Obama; unseating for Trump—the results were different.

My sense is that Election 2024 is a Tossup.

Tossups.

Tossups for the Trifecta: U.S. President, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House.

I will explain.

A review of the most recent election cycles:

ELECTION 2020: Solid shades are 2016-to-2020 party holds. Light shades are 2016-to-2020 party pickups.

U.S. President

• 2020 Outcome: Democratic pickup for Joe Biden
• 2020 U.S. Popular Vote: Democratic [Biden] 51.26%
• 2020 Consideration: A map with 25 carried states, with 50 percent of the nation’s states, and 306 electoral votes. The 2016 Democratic-carried states held. (They were worth, at the time, 232 electoral votes.) Pickups, as indicated on the above map in a light shade, and in order of best-performed were: Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District; Michigan (party’s No. 20 best state at a cumulative 243 electoral votes); Pennsylvania (No. 22 best state at 269 electoral votes); Wisconsin (No. 23 best state—and the Tipping-Point State—at 279 electoral votes); Arizona (No. 24 best state at 290 electoral votes); and Georgia (No. 25 best state at a cumulative 306 electoral votes)
• 2016 Donald Trump and 2020 Joe Biden Common Bonds: They both carried two states beyond their Tipping-Point State (in both cases it was Wisconsin). Trump carried 30 states and his Tipping-Point State, his 28 best state at 270 electoral votes, was followed by two additional pickup states to finish with the same original electoral-vote score as Biden. Both a 2020 Trump and a 2024 Biden had/have this position: Lose anything carried on the map…lose one’s bid for re-election
• 2024 Rating (11.06.2023): Tossup

U.S. Senate
• 2022 Outcome: Democratic [Hold for Majority] 51 seats
• 2022 Percentage of Seats (Established Thereafter): Democratic 51.00%
• 2022 Consideration: Under Joe Biden’s presidency, the midterm elections of 2022 marked the first time a Democratic-affiliated president’s party held every seat with re-elections for all their incumbent senators since 1934 Franklin Roosevelt
• 2024 Rating (11.06.2023): Tossup

U.S. House
• 2022 Outcome: Republican [Pickup for Majority] 222 seats
• 2022 U.S. Popular Vote: Republican [Pickup] 50% to 51% (conflicting numbers by Wikipedia)
• 2022 Percentage of Seats (Established Thereafter): 51.03%
• 2022 Consideration: While the White House opposition Republican Party won the overall net gains in seats in Congress, with the 2022 midterm elections, they underperformed historic norm. They went in with 213 U.S. House seats and won a national average of +1.5 seats with each nationally shifted percentage point (from 2020). Normal level is between +3.5 to +4. The 2022 U.S. House Republicans should have ended up with 234 to 237 seats. In increments of five, they should have reached 235. They didn’t even arrive at 225
• 2024 Rating (11.06.2023): Tossup

Conclusion

There are plenty of historic facts to point out. One such example is this: Since 2000, the party which won the U.S. Popular Vote for U.S. House also prevailed for U.S. President. Another such example is this: When one or both houses of Congress switches party control, in what is also a United States presidential election, the pickup party is the same party which also won at the level of U.S. President. (This just happened in 2020 with Democratic pickups for both U.S. President and U.S. Senate.) And I think a number of the long-established patterns will, once again, hold with the overall outcome of Election 2024.

At this time, I don’t feel confidence with predicting either a Democratic hold or a Republican pickup of the presidency of the United States in 2024. The U.S. House Republicans are vulnerable. The U.S. Senate Democrats are vulnerable. The Democratic-affiliated, incumbent United States president—and, with that, the White House party—is vulnerable.

I can pretty such say this: Due to those previous election cycles’s average of 51 percent (and same percentage of established seats in both houses of Congress), the most confidence I can have is with the achievement for a Trifecta. 

Yes, the same party may very end up winning all three of U.S. President, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House.

Republican pickup for U.S. Senate? Not without also winning a pickup for U.S. President.

Democratic pickup for U.S. House? Then the Republicans will not win a pickup—while the Democrats will indeed win a hold—for U.S. President.

It is basically a guess, at this point, as to where—for which of the two major parties—the chips will fall.