Problem: Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel (; born May 13, 1930) is an American politician who was a Democratic United States Senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981 and a candidate in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, by French-Canadian immigrant parents, Gravel served in the U.S. Army in West Germany, and he later graduated from the Columbia University School of General Studies. He moved to Alaska in the late 1950s, becoming a real estate developer and entering politics. He served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963 to 1966 and also became Speaker of the Alaska House.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the U.S. Department of Defense was in the process of performing tests for the nuclear warhead for the Spartan anti-ballistic missile. Two tests, the "Milrow" and "Cannikin" tests, were planned, involving the detonation of nuclear bombs under Amchitka Island in Alaska. The Milrow test would be a one megaton calibration exercise for the second, and larger five megaton, Cannikin test, which would measure the effectiveness of the warhead. Gravel opposed the tests in Congress. Before the Milrow test took place in October 1969, he wrote that there were significant risks of earthquakes and other adverse consequences, and called for an independent national commission on nuclear and seismic safety to be created; he then made a personal appeal to President Nixon to stop the test.  After Milrow was conducted, there was continued pressure on the part of environmental groups against going forward with the larger Cannikin test, while the Federation of American Scientists claimed that the warhead being tested was already obsolete. In May 1971, Gravel sent a letter to U.S. Atomic Energy Commission hearings held in Anchorage, in which he said the risk of the test was not worth taking. Eventually a group not involving Gravel took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to issue an injunction against it, and the Cannikin test took place as scheduled in November 1971. Gravel had failed to stop the tests (notwithstanding his later claims during his 2008 presidential campaign).  Nuclear power was considered an environmentally clean alternative for the commercial generation of electricity and was part of a popular national policy for the peaceful use of atomic energy in the 1950s and 1960s. Gravel publicly opposed this policy; besides the dangers of nuclear testing, he was a vocal critic of the Atomic Energy Commission, which oversaw American nuclear efforts, and of the powerful United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which had a stranglehold on nuclear policy and which Gravel tried to circumvent. In 1971, Gravel sponsored a bill to impose a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction and to make power utilities liable for any nuclear accidents; in 1975, he was still proposing similar moratoriums. By 1974, Gravel was allied with Ralph Nader's organization in opposing nuclear power.  Six months before U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's secret mission to the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) in July 1971, Gravel introduced legislation to recognize and normalize relations with China, including a proposal for unity talks between the P.R.C. and the Republic of China (Taiwan) regarding the Chinese seat on the U.N. Security Council. Gravel reiterated his position in favor of recognition, with four other senators in agreement, during Senate hearings in June 1971.

Tell me something noteworthy about Mike Gravel and  Nuclear Issues and the COld War?

Answer with quotes: Gravel sent a letter to U.S. Atomic Energy Commission hearings held in Anchorage, in which he said the risk of the test was not worth taking.


Problem: Victor Jara was born in 1932 in Lonquen, near Santiago, to two peasants, Manuel Jara and Amanda Martinez. His father was illiterate and encouraged his children to work from an early age to help the family survive, rather than attend school. By the age of 6, Jara was already working on the land. His father could not support the family on his earnings as a peasant at the Ruiz-Tagle estate, nor was he able to find stable work.

After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a choir-mate to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and earned a scholarship for talent. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life.  In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile away from the rote reproduction of rural materials toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called penas to incorporate folk music into the everyday life of modern Chileans. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumen, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music. He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda.  In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Pena de Los Parra, owned by Angel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva Cancion movement of Latin American folk music. He released his first album, Canto a lo humano, in 1966, and by 1970, he had left his theater work in favor of a career in music. His songs were inspired by a combination of traditional folk music and left-wing political activism. From this period, some of his best-known songs are "Plegaria a un Labrador" ("Prayer to a Worker") and "Te Recuerdo Amanda" ("I Remember You Amanda").

What plays?

Answer with quotes:
Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, a depiction of the hardships of lower-class life.