At one of his first meetings with foreign policy advisors since becoming President, Lyndon Johnson rescinded President Kennedy’s plans to withdraw soldiers from South Vietnam. According to McGeorge Bundy, the National Security Advisor, Johnson told the group, “I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went.” Johnson then issued a statement reaffirming the nation’s commitment to support South Vietnam militarily and economically. President Johnson confirms the U.S. intention to continue military and economic support to South Vietnam. He instructs Lodge, in Washington for consultations following Diệm’s death, to communicate his intention to the generals.
President Johnson today reaffirmed United States support in the war against communist forces in South Vietnam and ordered all federal agencies involved to give unified assistance to the new revolutionary government of the Asian country. Continuation of the policies of the late President Kennedy in South Vietnam was disclosed after a meeting President Johnson held with top military, diplomatic, and intelligence advisers. President Johnson devoted his third day in office to official White House business, a church service with his family, and the sad duty of escorting Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy as she followed the body of her husband from the executive mansion to the Capitol.
The White House announced tonight that President Johnson will receive the visiting heads of foreign governments and other dignitaries tomorrow afternoon in the diplomatic reception rooms of the state department. Johnson will have private conferences with some of the foreign chiefs of state. These will include President Charles de Gaulle of France, Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home of Britain, and Chancellor Ludwig Erhard of West Germany. The President received a briefing earlier in his home in northwest Washington from John A. McCone, director of the central intelligence agency, and McGeorge Bundy, President Kennedy’s special assistant for international affairs. The briefing was a general intelligence rundown of the type given to President Kennedy daily.
The Soviet Union continues to laud late President Kennedy, but also charges the real killers hid behind the now-dead Lee Harvey Oswald. An International Communist party line develops from reports in Pravda blaming the assassination of Mr. Kennedy on ultra-right wingers. Red party papers in East Germany, France, and Italy quickly follow this lead and question the guilt of Oswald.
Europeans unite in prayer for the late President Kennedy. Churches of all faiths are jammed to hear clergymen praise the slain American President. A special requiem mass will be said tomorrow in St. Peter’s church, Belgrade. Spain has three days of mourning. In New Delhi, Prime Minister Nehru will attend a memorial service. The United Arab Republic puts flags at half-staff. Israel has a three-day period of mourning.
Madame Ngô Đình Nhu today sent a telegram to Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, that said the President’s death must be particularly unbearable “because of your habitually well-sheltered life.” Madame Nhu suggested that the assassination of President Kennedy was an act of God. She termed it “that ordeal which God has bestowed on you.” She compared Kennedy’s murder to the slaying of her brother-in-law, President Ngô Đình Diệm of Vietnam, and her husband. She said “even the wounds inflicted on President Kennedy were identical” to those of Diệm and her husband. Madame Nhu was in the United States on a lecture tour when the Vietnamese coup took place. Her three youngest children were brought to Rome, and she joined them here sometime later.
Here is the text of Madame Nhu’s message to Mrs. Kennedy: “Though not having the pleasure to know you or hearing from you personally I wish to tell you of my profound sympathy for you and your little ones in your time of shock and grief. Though I have said that anything happening in Vietnam will surely find equivalence in the U.S.A., truly I would not wish for anyone [to endure] what the Vietnamese and myself are now enduring while we were so near our victory against Communism. But though not being proven alike, I understand fully how you should feel before that ordeal which God has bestowed on you. I sympathize the more for I understand that that ordeal might seem to you even more unbearable because of your habitually well-sheltered life, notwithstanding how particularly incomprehensible it would be if, as reported, President Kennedy’s assassination comes from communist hands.”
Chinese newspapers today carried reports of the assassination of President Kennedy. The inside-page coverage portrayed Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, as a “firm supporter of all Kennedy’s reactionary policies.” All newspapers printed identical 300-word reports summarizing Friday’s dramatic events in Dallas, without comment, omitting only the capture of a suspect. They also carried 600-word biographical sketches of the new President with caricatures and photographs showing him grim and unsmiling. Usually-reliable sources said school children here applauded yesterday when told the news of the death of Kennedy, who they had been led to believe was the world’s wickedest man. A senior diplomat of a neutral country reported that a Chinese member of the embassy staff commented: “That’s good news. He was a very wicked man.”
Viet Cong guerrillas launched a sharp attack on government forces northwest of Saigon. Officials reported 83 government soldiers were killed or wounded, and six American servicemen are missing. Four of the Americans disappeared when the Communist guerrillas overran a strike-force camp. [Ed: Isaac Camacho, one of the four missing Americans, later became the first American to escape from a Viet Cong POW camp.] Two others were aboard a B-26 fighter-bomber which crashed while on a support mission and has not been found. The attack was part of the Reds’ stepped-up offensive which began after the coup that overthrew President Ngô Đình Diệm on November 1. An American spokesman said 37 Vietnamese troops were killed when a strike-force camp at Hiệp Hòa, 18 miles west of Saigon in Hậu Nghĩa province, was taken by guerrillas at 1 a.m. At least 20 were killed in their beds. Five guerrilla bodies were found.
An American officer was wounded three times in battle but crawled to safety. His condition was reported critical. The American spokesman said the guerrillas infiltrated the camp either because of poor security or with assistance from traitors. Of the estimated 200 troops inside, comprising a civilian irregular strike force, 37 were killed, 26 were wounded and three are missing, not including the Americans. Fifty rifles were lost, along with eight automatic rifles, several machine guns, eight shotguns and two mortars, “enough to equip a Viet Cong battalion,” one U.S. adviser said. The battle, described as “hot and tough”, lasted about 30 minutes before the defenders withdrew. The communists, about 300, had penetrated the innermost part of the camp before they opened fire on signal from a bugle.
“I jumped out of my tent when I heard firing, and there were the guerrillas all around me,” an advisor said. The Viet Cong knocked out radio transmitters, and help was late arriving. A simultaneous attack was launched on a nearby American compound, but there were few casualties there. The Americans estimate two battalions of guerrillas, 800 men, participated in the attacks. Americans in the camp were from a Special Forces team. The total of Americans now missing in action is 12.
Meanwhile, an American spokesman told newsmen the government was claiming two major kills in the Mekong River Delta over the weekend. In guerrilla-ridden Định Tường province, south of Saigon, 82 guerrillas were reported killed Saturday by air strikes. In the southern province of Vĩnh Bình, 74 guerrillas were reported killed in a four-day operation.
Iraq’s minister of guidance, Brigadier Abdel Karim Farhan, told a press conference here today that the new Iraqi government will ask Egypt to join a comprehensive as well as military union with Iraq and Syria. He said Iraq’s military union with Syria is still in force, and that a new commander-in-chief will be chosen. The fate of the Iraqi-Syrian alliance was in doubt after last Monday’s coup which ousted the Ba’ath socialist party from control in Iraq. The Ba’ath also controls the Syrian government.
Race discrimination would become a legal offense under a Labor government, Anthony Greenwood, Labor Party chairman, said today. He said the state must “take the lead in asserting that racial and religious discrimination will not be tolerated by decent people in a democratic land.”
Despite being surrounded by a crowd of officers in the Dallas Police Department headquarters, Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of John F. Kennedy, was shot and mortally wounded by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Because his imminent transfer from the police department to the Dallas County jail was being covered on live television by all the U.S. broadcast networks, millions of viewers were watching as Ruby shot Oswald in the abdomen, at point blank range, with a .38 caliber revolver. On November 24, Ruby drove into town with his pet dachshund Sheba to send an emergency money order at the Wells Fargo on Main Street to one of his employees. The time stamp was 11:17 a.m. for the cash transaction on the money order. Ruby then walked half a block to the nearby Dallas police headquarters, where he made his way into the basement.
At 11:21 a.m. CST, Dallas police Detectives Jim Leavelle and L. C. Graves were escorting Oswald through the police basement to an armored car that was to take him to the nearby county jail, when Ruby emerged from a crowd of reporters with his revolver aimed at Oswald’s abdomen and fired a single round at point blank range, mortally wounding him. Oswald screamed “No!” in pain and his manacled hands clutched at his abdomen as he slumped to the floor, moaning. Police detective Billy Combest who knew Ruby, exclaimed: “Jack, you son of a bitch!” The armored car had rolled down the ramp at the moment Ruby emerged and slightly hit Ruby’s leg almost immediately after he fired, causing him to almost lose balance as he was immediately subdued by police while Oswald was carried back into the basement level jail office. Combest asked Oswald, “Do you have anything you want to tell us now?” Oswald shook his head.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, Oswald was placed onto an ambulance and was driven to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where Kennedy had died two days earlier. Leavelle and Graves along with Frederick Beiberdorf, a 4th year medical student who was on duty, rode in the ambulance. Beiberdorf said that several blocks before reaching the hospital, Oswald started thrashing about, resisting Beiberdorf’s efforts of massaging and attempted to free an oxygen mask over his mouth. At Parkland, Oswald was treated by the same surgeons who had tried to save Kennedy; they found Ruby’s bullet entered Oswald’s left side in the front part of the abdomen and caused damage to his spleen, stomach, aorta, vena cava, kidney, liver, diaphragm, and eleventh rib before coming to rest on his right side. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m., never to face trial.
The United States paid its ultimate honor today to its martyred chief, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. With words, with guns, with drums and men — with all the pomp and dignity the Republic represents — America laid the body of the young President in state beneath the rotunda of its greatest monument, the Capitol. After brief services, servicemen stood vigil at the corners of the bier and the first of tens of thousands of the people Kennedy had served as President began to file through the great central room of the Capitol.
By late tonight an estimated 100,000 Americans had passed through the rotunda. As the sunny autumn day turned to a chilling wintry night and wore on, tens of thousands waited in lines down the slope of Capitol Hill and into the heart of downtown Washington. They had been told that so long as there were people there, the door would be open. The line was 9 miles long at a late hour. Twice during the day, the most grieved of all Americans, Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, went to her knees in the great national shrine and kissed her husband’s coffin. A little later, Mrs. Rose Kennedy, the President’s mother, arrived with other family members and knelt beside the bier. A solemn cortege of full national honor and mourning bore the coffin from the White House, where it had rested for a little more than a day, through a packed, sometimes weeping throng of citizens lining Washington’s Pennsylvania and Constitution avenues.
Bill Veeck, along with his son Mike and a nephew, is among the 250,000 people who pay their respect to John F Kennedy, lying in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. The former owner of the Phillies, Indians, Browns, and White Sox is encouraged by the slain president’s family to move to the front, but he insists he is just an ordinary citizen and keeps his place in the extreme cold as blood from his amputated leg begins to soak his trousers during the 15 hours of standing in line.
Palm prints identified as Lee Harvey Oswald’s were taken from the window sill from which the sniper fired the shots that assassinated President Kennedy, and from the barrel of the rifle used in the murder, Dallas County officials disclosed here tonight. The full preparation of evidence which proved that Oswald, 24, self-identified Marxist, killed the President during a motorcade in Dallas Friday was made public for the first time. The disclosure was made by county authorities after consultation with Washington officials who believed the American people should be told the case against President Kennedy’s murderer.
Senate investigations subcommittee members said today their stormy probe of the TFX warplane contract award may not resume until January. The investigation, seeking evidence of any favoritism or bad judgment at the Pentagon in awarding the contract to the higher bidder, has been a source of controversy with the Kennedy administration. The Defense Department estimates the contract will cost the taxpayers ultimately $5 billion to $7.5 billion, which would make it the costliest project in the agency’s history.
Thieves ransacked the hotel rooms of two of the three singing McGuire sisters early today, taking furs and jewels worth $32,000. Christine and Dorothy McGuire discovered the theft when they returned to the Sheraton Plaza Hotel after an engagement in South Boston, police said. Nothing was stolen from the room of the third sister, Phyllis. All had separate rooms on different floors. Police said $12,000 worth of furs and jewels were taken from Christine’s room, and jewelry and furs worth $20,000 were stolen from Dorothy’s room. Police said keys had been used to gain entrance.
Joann M Graff, 22, the daughter of John and Viola Graff, was discovered murdered by the Boston Strangler. Joann was found strangled in her downtown Lawrence, Massachusetts apartment. Before he was arrested and charged, Albert DeSalvo stalked and killed 13 women in the Boston metropolitan area. 23-year-old Joann Graff was a transplant to New England, having moved there earlier in 1963 after she graduated from the Chicago Art Institute. Graff seemed to mostly keep to herself in her new city but remained busy. She put her degree to work and earned her living as a designer. Graff also taught Sunday school for a class of sixth graders every week at a local Lutheran church. It is believed that she was working on a lesson plan for this class on Saturday when DeSalvo entered her apartment, as her pen and bible tracts were discovered on her dining room table.
NFL Football:
The National Football League played all seven of its Week 11 games as scheduled, at Cleveland, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, while the American Football League postponed all three of its games.
The Los Angeles Rams defeated the favored Baltimore Colts, 17—16, today on a third quarter field goal by Danny Villanueva in a National Football League game. Villanueva’s 13-yard kick came after Ben Wilson’s 39-yard run had set up the opportunity. The Colts had a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter when they drove to the Ram 17 but Jim Martin, who had already kicked three field goals, missed one from the 17. A crowd of 48,555 observed one minute of silence before the game started in memory of President Kennedy. Dick Bass of the Rams carried the ball 19 times for a total gain of 120 yards. The Colts went in front, 10—7, at the start of the second quarter after Jerry Hill scored on a 20-yard run. But the Rams bounced back with a 77-yard touchdown march. Martin kicked his second field goal just before the half. With less than two minutes gone in the third period Martin kicked a 41-yard field goal and the Colts were in front, 16—14.
Roger Leclerc’s 18-yard field goal with four and a half minutes remaining enabled the Chicago Bears to tie the Pittsburgh Steelers, 17—17, today and maintain their hold on first place in the Western Conference. But the result helped tighten the race in the Eastern Conference. Coach Buddy Parker’s Steelers, moved to within a game of the three teams tied for the Eastern lead. This was the second tie game of the year for the Steelers. They are a game behind the Giants, Browns, and Cardinals. The result was a happy one for most of the 36,465 fans at Forbes Field. They came to watch hopefully as the Steelers faced a favored Chicago team. When Lou Michaels booted an 11-yard field goal early in the fourth period, the Steelers moved to a 17—14 advantage after battling most of the afternoon to catch the Bears. This seemed, for a time, enough for the Steelers to turn in a major upset and force the Western Conference into a tie also. But a 63-yard pass play with Billy Wade throwing and Mike Ditka receiving put the ball within range for Leclerc to tie the game.
Cleveland turned two fourth period pass interceptions into touchdowns today and defeated the Dallas Cowboys, 27—17, before a crowd of 55,096. The victory moved the Browns into a tie with New York and St. Louis for the National Football League’s Eastern Conference lead. The Browns held only a 13—10 edge going into the fourth quarter. Then Ross Fichtner intercepted Don Meredith’s pass and raced 36 yards into the end zone for Cleveland. Later, Paul Wiggin and Galen Fiss intercepted passes by Meredith. The Browns’ quarterback, Frank Ryan, threw 16 yards to Gary Collins for a score after the catch by Fiss. The Cowboys got their final points in the last four seconds when Jim Brown fumbled. Cornell Green picked up the grounding ball and raced 20 yards to score.
Ryan, back at starting quarterback after having been benched for a week, completed 13 of 27 passes for 162 yards and two touchdowns. Both scoring tosses went to Collins, giving him a total of 10 for the season and bettering the club record of nine set by Dante Lavelli in 1947. Lou Groza contributed the other Cleveland points on three conversions and field goals of 24 and 10 yards. Sam Baker kicked a 20-yard field goal for the Cowboys, but missed from 26 and 52 yards. With the Dallas defenders keying on Jimmy Brown, the big Cleveland fullback was held to 51 yards in 17 attempts. Brown’s running mate. Ernie Green broke away for 87 yards in seven tries, however. Jim Brown’s 51 yards on the ground raised his league-leading total to 1,498 and left him just 29 yards short of his own league record with three games to go.
The Minnesota Vikings went 67 yards in the closing minutes today and defeated the Detroit Lions, 34—31, on Tommy Mason’s 4-yard touchdown. A rookie defensive end, Don Hultz, launched Minnesota’s winning drive by recovering a Don Lewis fumble. It was Hultz’s second recovery of the day and his eighth of the season — tying a National Football League season record for opponents’ fumble recoveries set by Joe Schmidt of the Lions in 1955. Two sparkling pass receptions by another Viking rookie, Paul Flatley, were the key gainers in the scoring march. One toss from Fran Tarkenton to Flatley went for 31 yards and another for 35. Mason ripped through right tackle to score with 22 minutes left.
The New York Giants, who had been averaging five touchdowns a game over the last eight weeks, were held to two yesterday by the St. Louis Cardinals and that was not enough as the Cardinals won, 24—17, before a capacity crowd of 63,800 at Yankee Stadium. That result, coupled with the Cleveland Browns’ victory. means that first place in the Eastern Conference of the National Football League is now shared by three teams — the Cardinals, Giants and Browns. The crowd saw the Giants win the first half decisively, scoring 10 points to 3 for St. Louis. In the second half, however, the Cardinals made three touchdowns. At that, the Cards did not exactly crack the New York defense, which limited the St. Louis offense to 177 yards, while the Giants gained 336. New York’s trouble came from mistakes — a fumble on a fair catch of a punt and an interception.
Eager to get back into title contention in the National Football League’s Western Division, the Green Bay Packers today staged a boisterous first half football demonstration before a quiet, capacity crowd of 45,905. The victim of the busy Packers was a hapless San Franciscan 49er eleven that could never get untracked. The 49ers were held to only one touchdown -and it was virtually a gift in the last four seconds-as Green Bay posted a 28—10 triumph. The big men in the Packers’ big first half were Tom Moore, the big 215-pound halfback from Vanderbilt, and Bart Starr, the club’s first-string quarterback who was appearing after an absence of five weeks. Starr had been out with a broken hand. Moore, hitting the Coast team’s line with shattering force, gained 115 yards in 13 carries in the first half. Thereafter, he was used more as a decoy and added only 4 yards in two more carries. Starr, too, seemed content to rest on his first-half laurels, during which he had staged an aerial bombardment that produced 108 yards. In the second half, he called mostly for a ground attack and went to the air only four more times. The 49ers’ touchdowns came on an 11-yard pass from Lamar McHan to Kay McFarland after Green Bay had elected to run from its end zone instead of punting on fourth down.
Norm Snead picked the defense apart to build up a first half lead today and let the Washington Redskins snap a seven-game losing streak, with a 13—10 National Football League victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. Snead, who completed 16 of 23 passes for 216 yards, did most of the damage in the first half. He completed 12 of 17 for 192 yards and a touchdown and set up a pair of first-half field goals for Bob Khayat.
Baltimore Colts 16, Los Angeles Rams 17
Chicago Bears 17, Pittsburgh Steelers 17
Dallas Cowboys 17, Cleveland Browns 27
Detroit Lions 31, Minnesota Vikings 34
St. Louis Cardinals 24, New York Giants 17
San Francisco 49ers 10, Green Bay Packers 28
Washington Redskins 13, Philadelphia Eagles 10
Born:
Lisa Howard, Canadian actress (“Days of Our Lives”, “Rolling Vengeance”), in London, Ontario, Canada.
Rick Schulte, NFL guard (Buffalo Bills), in Chicago, Illinois (d. 2008).
John McGarry, NFL guard (Green Bay Packers), in Chicago, Illinois.
Died:
Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, accused assassin of John F. Kennedy.
History Diaries 