History Diaries

Photograph: President John F. Kennedy (in group at center left) observes a moment of silence after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, November 11, 1963. Also pictured: Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, General David M. Shoup; Commanding General of the Military District of Washington, Major General Philip C. Wehle; Administrator of the Veterans Administration (VA), General John S. Gleason; Military Aide to the President, General Chester V. Clifton; Air Force Aide to the President, Brigadier General Godfrey T. McHugh; Naval Aide to the President, Captain Tazewell Shepard; President of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, Luther Skaggs, Jr.; Sergeant Allen Eldredge; Assistant Press Secretary, Malcolm Kilduff; White House correspondent for United Press International (UPI), Helen Thomas; White House Secret Service agents, Emory Roberts and Jack Ready.

Two military appointments have indicated to United States military men that the governing South Vietnamese junta intends to prosecute the war against the communist guerrillas more aggressively than was the case under the Ngô Đình Diệm regime. Both appointments are to command assignments in the Mekong Delta, the scene of most of the fighting. The Communists, or Viet Cong, have had much of the initiative there in recent months.

One of the new commanders is Brigadier General Nguyễn Hữu Có, 39. He will command the 4th corps, which is responsible for about two-thirds of the delta. He played an active part in the coup d’état that toppled the Ngô family from power on November 1. The other new commander is Colonel Phan Văn Đông, 44. He is perhaps the most aggressive field commander in South Vietnam’s army. He was appointed commander of the 7th division. Nguyễn Hữu Có replaces General Huỳnh Văn Cao, who was cautious in tactics on orders from the palace. Colonel Phan Văn Đông replaces a Huỳnh Văn Cao appointee. The 7th division is in an area that includes two rich and heavily populated rice growing areas where the Communists have made a successful military effort in recent months.

The Mekong Delta is a flatland where half of the Republic of South Vietnam’s 15 million people live and where most of the country’s agricultural resources are situated. There has been a vast improvement in Viet Cong armament in the delta and an increase in guerrilla aggressiveness. American field officers are elated over the new appointments. They see it as a chance to begin fighting the war and they believe both men are receptive to American advice.

Britain’s new prime minister, Alec Douglas-Home, in his first public speech tonight dedicated his government to what he called “a crusade to reverse the thinking of all men away from war,” “Our message must be that men must stop fighting wars,” he said, speaking at a formal banquet given by London’s new lord mayor, Clement Harman, at the ancient Guildhall. “We must put our bad habits behind us. The aggressive instinct must give way to self preservation. This may mean the biggest diplomatic mission of all time, but we must do it. There is no other choice before us,” Home said.

Home chided Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev for his remarks last week to visiting American businessmen about the Russian-halted American convoy on the road to Berlin. “With respect to Mr. Khrushchev, statesmen must not use words like ‘over our dead bodies,’ because that means war.” But Home said he believes “the truth about nuclear war is as clear to Mr. Khrushchev as it is to us.”

The acceptance by Somalia of substantial Soviet arms aid has exploded a coordinated aid program by the United States, West Germany, and Italy for that nation on the strategic African horn. United States officials said today an American military aid shipment ordered in June by President Kennedy after long hesitation has been stopped as a result of the Somali-Russian deal. One report estimated the Soviet aid arrangement at nearly 50 million dollars. The coordinated western program, in which Germany would play the major role, would have cost about 10 million dollars over five years. Last May, Brigadier General Stephen O. Fuqua Jr., military aid director for the near east, south Asia, and African region, told a congressional hearing that countries in the horn of Africa were of strategic significance to the United States. He said they control the approaches to eastern and southern Africa and the Middle East.

Konrad Adenauer, retired German chancellor, tells visiting American business men that the west should capitalize on the food shortage in the Soviet Union as a weapon in the cold war. He notes that in medieval times besieged cities gave up when they had no more food. “The question is whether the free world will avail itself of this way to solve the problem,” he says.

Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York argues that the pope has no need of a special body of bishops to help him govern the church as proposed by one group within the ecumenical council. “The pope alone has full power over the entire church,” Spellman says in supporting the views of Italian Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani.

Communist terrorists in Venezuela break into a hospital in Barquismeto, 165 miles west of Caracas, and liberate a wounded Red leader being held under police guard. In the attack, the gunmen, identified as members of the Armed Forces for National Liberation, kill a physician and two policemen and critically wound a third officer.

In Vienna, Volksstimme, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Austria (KPO), broke the news story of the discovery of Karl Silberbauer, the man who had arrested Anne Frank. Silberbauer, whom Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal had identified to the Vienna police as one of their inspectors, had been suspended from the force on October 4 after admitting that he had been the SS officer who arrested the Frank family on August 4, 1944, in Amsterdam.

The Seafarers International union announces a three-pronged attack against the Canadian union trusteeship law recently enacted to permit government seizure of maritime unions. Action is to be filed today in a Montreal court asking nullification of the law as unconstitutional, and the union also plans to arouse sympathy among Congress’ friends of labor. An expansion of ship picketing also is planned.

In Kano, in the autonomous Northern Region of Nigeria, Muslim scholar and politician Mudi Salga founded Fityan al-Islam (Heroes of Islam), a fundamentalist group, to challenge the modernization efforts of the Region’s leader, Ahmadu Bello. The group would become “the most dynamic Islamic organization in Northern Nigeria”, and open thousands of schools and mosques throughout the Nigerian nation.

Seventy-year-old adventurer William Willis stepped ashore at Falulela on the island of Upolu in Samoa, along with his two cats, Kiki and Aussie, after a voyage of 130 days and 7,540 miles (12,130 km) on his trimaran boat, Age Unlimited. On July 5, he had set off from Callao, Peru and set off for Australia, hoping to reach Sydney, and had been considered missing since that time. On his third try, in 1964, Willis would succeed in his Peru to Australia trip. Finally, in 1968, Willis would set off from Montauk, Long Island, in hopes of reaching Plymouth, England, but would disappear after being forced to abandon his boat.

President Kennedy went to Arlington National Cemetery to attend the annual memorial ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He placed a red, white, and blue wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. It was a beautiful fall day when he went there and on a whim, he had decided to take his young son and namesake with him. In an otherwise solemn day, there was a whimsical moment (when the ceremonies were concluded) when the son (dressed in a white jacket, sky-blue short pants and red shoes), marched up to his father, and grasped his leg in affection and tenderness. When the son marched, he did so with his hands behind his back, as a token of politeness his mother had taught him (and also as a means of keeping his legendary fidgetiness under control). The little boy who loved playing soldier marched up to his father who had once been a real one and whose job (among others) was as Commander in chief of the nation’s armed forces. Both father and son smiled at each other in that moment, amidst the historical pageantry of a solemn day. And in another unscripted instance, President Kennedy surveyed the loveliness of the solemn scene, amid the acres of green grass that was the final resting place of so many. He turned to a congressman who stood next to him and remarked: “This is one of the really beautiful places on earth. I could stay here forever.”

John F. Kennedy could not have known it that day, but in a little more than two weeks later after he make that statement and admired the peaceful stillness of that landscape, he, too, would be buried there — forever — amongst fellow veterans, on a slope not far from the historic Custis-Lee Mansion.

Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon tonight reiterated that he is not a candidate for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. He said the views expressed yesterday by former President Eisenhower had not changed his mind. He said he appreciated the generous comments and added that he believed he could best serve the country by remaining a “constructive critic.” Eisenhower said on a television program that if the Republican convention should become deadlocked, the logical man to look to would be Nixon. Cites His Responsibility Nixon said that he believed it to be the responsibility of a man who served in public life as long as he did to speak out on the issues of the day. But this does not indicate that he wishes to become a candidate, he said.

The headwaiter of the House of Representatives restaurant who was taken to Paris to pour the drinks for a group of junketing congressmen is disclosed to have drawn $30 a day in expense money for the trip. Ernest Petinaud draws the same amount in foreign aid funds to pay his expenses as do the congressmen he has been serving. Petinaud accompanied Rep. Wayne Hays (D-Ohio) and Hays’ staff to Paris for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization parliamentarians conference.

Nelson Rockefeller, candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination, says he still opposes a federal right-to-work law. Answering a letter from the National Right to Work committee, he says the proposed law “would only serve to project more federal intervention into our labor and management problems, thus whittling down and interfering with the rights of both labor and management to conduct responsible collective bargaining.”

Christine Simko, 14, loses her right leg in a five-hour operation to save her life from the spread of a malignant tumor. Permission for the operation is granted by a Cleveland Juvenile court judge, Walter G. Whitlatch, over objections of Christine’s mother, Mrs. Lilly Simko. Up to the last moment before the operation, Mrs. Simko refuses to sign a paper consenting to the surgery. The head of the four-man surgical team says the possibility of removing the tumor was explored until it became evident the limb would have to be amputated.

Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, chief of strategy for southern Democrats, charges in a Veterans Day speech that the House Republican leader, Charles Halleck (R-Indiana) is doing his best to qualify as a New Frontiersman — perhaps with medals for exceeding the call of duty — with his support of the Kennedy civil rights bill.

Three robbers trick their way into the apartment of Jack Rubin, a diamond merchant in New York City, and steal jewelry worth an estimated $37,000. It is the latest in a wave of jewel thefts and burglaries that in the last four days has totaled more than 3 million dollars in estimated value. A diamond valued at $10,000 is taken from the Rubins’ daughter, who had been visiting her parents.

The first interplanetary probe in the Soviet Union’s Zond program, designated Kosmos 21, failed to escape Earth orbit after a misfiring of a rocket and a failure of proper attitude control.

Tokyo Electron, an electronic equipment manufacturing brand in Japan, was founded.

Brian Epstein and Ed Sullivan sign a 3 show contract for appearances by The Beatles. They will make their debut in February 1964.

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 753.77 (+2.96).

Born:

Rey Quinones, Puerto Rican MLB shortstop (Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners, Pittsburgh Pirates), in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico.

Jevetta Steele, American R&B, session, and gospel music singer (“Calling You”), in Gary, Indiana.

Died:

André Le Troquer, 79, French lawyer and politician.