Renewed International Tension
DECEMBER 1979 Soviet Union Invades Afghanistan
Figure 62. Many Vietnamese refugees arrived in the United States via MCAS El Toro. Image courtesy of John Scire and University of California.
FEBRUARY 1979 Shah Overthrown in Iran
commitments in three key areas, or “baskets”: security, economic cooperation, and human rights. Initially the United States was indifferent to the conference and the Soviet Union focused only on the first two baskets, but western European countries insisted that a commitment to human rights was essential. Ultimately the promises of the third basket became the most dynamic part of the arrangement, as dissidents in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union set up Helsinki monitoring groups to draw international attention to violations. Follow-up CSCE conferences in Belgrade, Madrid, and Vienna introduced a review process that enabled dissidents to act and speak more openly, contributing to widespread political and social change and undermining communist dominance in Eastern Europe. MID 1970S Emergence of the Computer Industry The arrival of the microelectronics and semiconductor industries in California after World War II initiated a reconfiguration of the state’s economy which took it from its traditional manufacturing base into the “information age.” The military, as a major consumer of electronics, communications systems, and synthetic materials, played a crucial role in this restructuring. In the 1950s and 1960s William Shockley’s efforts to commercialize a new transistor began the transformation of cities north of San Jose into the “Silicon Valley,” ultimately the nation’s center of electronics innovation. In 1976, when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple in Palo Alto, the Bay Area entered the computing world’s major leagues. Between 1960 and 1980, 400,000 new jobs were created in that region. Orange County was a rival for this new computer industry, and a high-tech phase of economic development also began here in the 1970s. Since then Orange County’s labor force has been heavily concentrated in what is called “the information sector,” producing information technology (hardware) and advanced information systems (software).
LATE 1970s Growth of Megachurches in Orange County
NOVEMBER 1978 Tax Revolt and Proposition 13 in California
SPRING AND SUMMER 1975 MCAS El Toro Serves as Gateway for Vietnamese Refugees The Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro was the place where tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees fleeing their war-ravaged country first set foot on American soil after the fall of Saigon to communist forces in April 1975. Many still refer to the former base as the “Vietnamese Ellis Island.” Upon arriving by air transport at MCAS El Toro, the refugees were taken by bus to hastily constructed relocation camps at Camp Pendleton, located 30 miles south of El Toro. Ultimately, eight separate camps complete with plumbing and wiring for communications were built in the northern portion of that base. Other refugee centers were set up at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, and Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania. Many who initially lived in the camps at Camp Pendleton later settled in central Orange County, where more than 150,000 new Americans established the largest Vietnamese community outside Southeast Asia. SEE FIGURE 62 AUGUST 1975 Helsinki Agreements on Human Rights An offspring of détente and especially of the Soviet desire for recognition of the national borders established after World War II, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) convened in Helsinki in the summer of 1975. The agreement finalized there, signed by 35 nations including the United States, Canada, and every European nation, included
SEPTEMBER 1978 President Carter Sponsors the Camp David Accords
MAY 1977 Donald Bren and Consortium Purchase the Irvine Company
SEPTEMBER 1976 Mao Zedong Dies
MID 1970s Emergence of the Computer Industry
AUGUST 1975 Helsinki Agreements on Human Rights
SPRING & SUMMER 1975 MCAS El Toro Serves as Gateway for Vietnamese Refugees
RENEWED INTERNATIONAL TENSION
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