"How does on account for the variance in the years 1965-1985? That would seem to be the years when our worst polution would have occurred. Yet, only after some controls were adopted does the chart seem to shoot up. Does it tie into rising polution levels in places other than here?"

Unless by pollution you mean CO2, unhealthy smelly pollution doesn't have any affect on Global temp. Volcanic eruptions which put lots of particles into High atmosphere can have a very significant and easily measurable affect [at least supposively, over 1 C for short periods- years]. For instance, it was thought that the burning oil fields of Kuwait would significant lower global temperature, but no measurable affect could determined to occur on Global temperature.
And as far as CO2 levels they have risen consistently during this period- they started accurately measuring CO2 in 1958 at Mauna Loa:
http://www.global-warming.net/maunaloa.htm

I think the important thing to keep in mind is the graph shows a rise of about .8 C from start to end of period. First this is higher end than most commonly given estimates of .6 +/- .2 C. Second it a small amount and is a measuring average of different locations around the world which, relative to .6 C, is having HUGE temperature fluctuation- daily, seasonal, yearly. So, while is fairly safe to say global have been rising over last Century it's accurate to say it's risen .4 or .8 in other the error margin is fairly large in comparison what is being shown on graph as an increase.