Late 20th Century Leaders Flashcards
Konrad Adenauer
Chancellor of West Germany (1949 to 1963)
Christian Democratic Union
He led his country from the ruins of World War II to a productive and prosperous nation that forged close relations with France, Great Britain and the United States. During his years in power, West Germany achieved democracy, stability, international respect and economic prosperity (“Wirtschaftswunder”, German for “economic miracle”).
Adenauer, dubbed “Der Alte” (“the old man”), the oldest democratically elected leader in world history, belied his age by his intense work habits and his uncanny political instinct. He displayed a strong dedication to a broad vision of market-based liberal democracy and anti-communism. A shrewd politician, Adenauer was deeply committed to a Western-oriented foreign policy and restoring the position of West Germany on the world stage.
Willy Brandt
Chancellor of West Germany (1969 to 1974)
Social Democratic Party
As chancellor, he maintained West Germany’s close alignment with the United States and focused on strengthening European integration in western Europe, while launching the new policy of Ostpolitik aimed at improving relations with Eastern Europe. Brandt was controversial on both the right wing, for his Ostpolitik, and on the left wing, for his support of American policies, including the Vietnam War, and right-wing authoritarian regimes. The Brandt Report became a recognised measure for describing the general North-South divide in world economics and politics between an affluent North and a poor South. Brandt was also known for his fierce anti-communist policies at the domestic level, culminating in the Radikalenerlass (Anti-Radical Decree) in 1972.
Brandt resigned as chancellor in 1974, after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.
Helmut Schmidt
Chancellor of West Germany (1974 to 1982)
Social Democratic Party
As Chancellor, he focused on international affairs, seeking “political unification of Europe in partnership with the United States”. He was an energetic diplomat who sought European co-operation and international economic co-ordination.
Helmut Kohl
Chancellor of Germany (1982 to 1998)
Christian Democratic Union
His 16-year tenure was the longest of any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck, and by far the longest of any democratically elected chancellor. He oversaw the end of the Cold War, and is widely regarded as the main architect of the German reunification. Together with French president François Mitterrand, he is also considered the architect of the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union.
Kohl was described as “the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century” by U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Gerhard Schröder
Chancellor of Germany (1998 to 2005)
Social Democratic Party
Many perceived Schröder’s Third Way program to be a dismantling of the German welfare state. Moreover, Germany’s high unemployment rate remained a serious problem for the government and Schröder’s tax policies were also unpopular. He opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and cultivated close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Charles de Gaulle
President of France (1959-1969)
Union of Democrats for the Republic
Leader of the Free French Forces 1940-1944. President of the Provisional Government 1944–1946. Appointed President of the Council by René Coty in May 1958, to resolve the crisis of the Algerian War. He adopted a new Constitution, thus founding the Fifth Republic. Easily elected President in the 1958 election by electoral college, he took office the following month; he was re-elected by universal suffrage in the 1965 election. In 1966, he withdrew France from NATO integrated military command, and expelled the American bases on French soil. Having refused to step down during the crisis of May 1968, resigned following the failure of the 1969 referendum on regionalisation.
Georges Pompidou
President of France (1969-1974†)
Union of Democrats for the Republic
Prime Minister under Charles de Gaulle 1962–1968. Elected President in the 1969 election against the centrist Alain Poher. Favoured European integration. Supported economic modernisation and industrialisation. Faced the 1973 oil crisis. Died in office of Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, two years before the end of his mandate.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing
President of France
Independent Republicans (until 1977) Republican Party
Founder of the FNRI and later the UDF in his efforts to unify the centre-right, he served in several Gaullist governments. Narrowly elected in the 1974 election, he instigated numerous reforms, including the lowering of the age of civil majority from 21 to 18, and the legalisation of abortion. He soon faced a global economic crisis and rising unemployment. Although the polls initially gave him a lead, he was defeated in the 1981 election by François Mitterrand, partly due to the disunion within the right wing.
François Mitterrand
President of France
Socialist Party
Candidate of a united left-wing ticket in the 1965 election, he founded the Socialist Party in 1971. Having narrowly lost the 1974 election, he was finally elected in the 1981 election. He instigated several reforms (abolition of the death penalty, a fifth week of paid leave for employees). After the right-wing victory in the 1986 legislative elections, he named Jacques Chirac Prime Minister, thus beginning the first cohabitation. Re-elected in the 1988 election against Chirac, he was again forced to cohabit with Édouard Balladur following the 1993 legislative elections. He retired in 1995 after the conclusion of his second term. He was the first President elected twice by universal suffrage, he was the first left-wing President of the Fifth Republic, and his Presidential tenure was the longest of the Fifth Republic.
Jacques Chirac
President of France
Rally for the Republic (until 2002)
Union for a Popular Movement
Prime Minister 1974–1976; on resignation, founded the RPR. Eliminated in the first round of the 1981 election, he again served as Prime Minister 1986–1988. Beaten in the 1988 election, he was elected in the 1995 election. He engaged in social reforms to counter “social fracture”. In 1997, he dissolved the Assemblée nationale; a left-wing victory in the 1997 legislative elections, forced him to name Lionel Jospin Prime Minister for a five-year cohabitation. Presidential terms reduced from seven to five years. In 2002, he was re-elected against the leader of the extreme right-wing Jean-Marie Le Pen. Opposed the Iraq War. He did not run in 2007, he retired from political life and returned to the Conseil constitutionnel.
David Ben-Gurion
Prime Minister of Israel (1948-1954, 1955-1963)
Mapai (Workers’ Party of the Land of Israel)
On 14 May 1948, he formally proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, and was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he had helped to write. Ben-Gurion led Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Subsequently, he became known as “Israel’s founding father”.
Following the war, Ben-Gurion served as Israel’s first Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. Under his leadership, Israel responded aggressively to Arab guerrilla attacks, and in 1956, invaded Egypt along with British and French forces after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal during what became known as the Suez Crisis.
Golda Meir
Prime Minister of Israel (1969-1974)
Alignment (Labor)
The world’s fourth and Israel’s first and only woman to hold such an office, she has been described as the “Iron Lady” of Israeli politics. Former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion used to call Meir “the best man in the government”; she was often portrayed as the “strong-willed, straight-talking, grey-bunned grandmother of the Jewish people”. Meir resigned as prime minister in 1974, the year following the Yom Kippur War.
Yitzhak Rabin
Prime Minister of Israel (1974-1977, 1992-1995)
Alignment, Labor
He was appointed Prime Minister of Israel in 1974, after the resignation of Golda Meir. In his first term, Rabin signed the Sinai Interim Agreement and ordered the Entebbe raid. He resigned in 1977 in the wake of a financial scandal. Rabin was Israel’s minister of defense for much of the 1980s, including during the outbreak of the First Intifada.
In 1992, Rabin was re-elected as prime minister on a platform embracing the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. He signed several historic agreements with the Palestinian leadership as part of the Oslo Accords. In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with long-time political rival Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. In November 1995, he was assassinated by a Jewish Israeli religious extremist named Yigal Amir, who was opposed to peace with the Palestinians.
Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel, the only prime minister to be assassinated and the second to die in office after Levi Eshkol. Rabin has become a symbol of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.
Menachem Begin
Prime Minister of Israel (1977-1983)
Likud
Begin’s most significant achievement as Prime Minister was the signing of a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, which was captured from Egypt in the Six-Day War. Later, Begin’s government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight PLO strongholds there, igniting the 1982 Lebanon War. As Israeli military involvement in Lebanon deepened, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre, carried out by Christian Phalangist militia allies of the Israelis, shocked world public opinion,[3] Begin grew increasingly isolated.[4] As IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on Begin mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he gradually withdrew from public life, until his resignation in October 1983.
Yitzhak Shamir
Yitzhak Shamir
