The Bonn defense minister, returning from talks in Washington, announces that West Germany and the United States will proceed with plans for launching and manning a test vessel of the type to be used in the multinational nuclear-armed surface fleet proposed by the United States as a NATO project. Not all NATO nations have accepted the idea.
Cambodia orders all United States military, economic, and cultural missions out of the country before January 15. The government announcement criticizes America’s abrupt cancellation of aid projects in operation. The United States recalls Ambassador Philip D. Sprouse.
The General Assembly decided today that oppression of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese Government had ceased to be an issue since the overthrow of the regime of President Ngô Đình Diệm on November 1.
Bolivian government troops were reported nearing the mining district where a score of hostages, including four Americans, are being held by Communist-led miners.
Bolivia’s leftist vice president offers to resign and face possible criminal charges in order to effect the simultaneous release of three jailed Communist party leaders and 21 hostages held by Bolivian tin miners. Vice President Juan Lechin, who heads the miners federation, asks Archbishop Abel Antesana to mediate the political conflict.
Terrorists hurl a fire bomb from a speeding auto in Caracas, setting fire to the building housing the American-owned Spanish language edition of Reader’s Digest.
The United States has decided to resume diplomatic relations with Honduras and the Dominican Republic.
Smoldering relations between Red China and the Soviet Union erupt in the United Nations and force cancellation of an important meeting of the general assembly’s special political committee. The furor is touched off by a Red Chinese broadcast giving the lie to statements by Nikolai Fedorenko, Russian delegate, purportedly expressing the views of the communist regime in Peking.
A top State Department official said in a talk regarded as highly significant that the United States is pursuing an open-door policy toward Communist China.
The United Nations approved General Assembly Resolution 1962 (XVIII), The Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Uses of Outer Space, the first of five declarations governing the nations’ exploration of outer space. Among the nine principles contained in the declaration were that no nation could lay claim to sovereignty of any portion of space or celestial bodies, but that each nation would have jurisdiction over its own objects in outer space regardless of where they returned to Earth, and that exploration would be “in the interests of all mankind” and nations would regard astronauts as “envoys of mankind” to be rendered aid in the event of an emergency, regardless of nationality.
President Johnson, in a get-acquainted session with the envoys of 112 foreign nations, says “we must move forward together” because there is no alternative in this small world. He assures the diplomats the United States will “go our full share of the way toward peace, good will, and progress.”
President Johnson is reported on the point of naming a fellow Texan as Undersecretary of State for Latin American Affairs — a new post in the State Department. The Texan is Thomas C. Mann, 51, ambassador to Mexico. The Alliance for Progress would be his main headache.
A day after the Department of Defense announced it was closing 33 military installations, Congress passed and sent to the White House a bill appropriating $1,585,000,000 for military construction. The bill, a compromise between amounts voted by the two, was approved by the House 300 to 4, and went through the Senate on a voice vote with no opposition. The House gave approval by a vote of 300 to 4 after Rep. Robert F. L. Sikes (D-Florida) assured the members there is no money in the bill for construction at any of the installations affected by the Defense Department order with one exception.
A House Appropriations subcommittee today voted to reduce to approximately 3 billion dollars the annual flow of American financial aid to 107 foreign nations. This was almost 2 billion dollars less than the late President Kennedy proposed for foreign aid last January. It was $600 million less than the 3.6-billion-dollar maximum authorized in legislation sent to the White House today. The Senate vote in favor of the authorization bill was 61 to 26. The debate featured lamentations about waste in the aid program and warnings that the program must be completely revised with a view to ending it in a year or two.
President Johnson warned business and labor to avoid policies which would renew the upward spiral of wages and prices and endanger domestic expansion.
The United States Court of Military Appeals dismisses spy conspiracy charges against Captain Joseph P. Kauffman of the U.S. Air Force, upholding a lower court ruling and blasting illegal proceedings in his court-martial. The court affirms that part of his conviction which covers his failure to report attempts by enemy agents to recruit him as a communist spy. This conviction carries a maximum punishment of about two years in prison, most of which Kauffman has served at Leavenworth, Kansas.
The Senate Finance Committee approves a new method of computing income taxes for 14,000 persons in the higher brackets. It approves an optional plan under which the taxpayer may remit 40 percent of the first $50,000 of income and 50 percent on the balance. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Russell Long (D-Louisiana), specifies that once the taxpayer adopts the plan, he must use it for five years.
Three men have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr., and nearly all of the $240,000 ransom money has been recovered, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced. The three men were identified, in an announcement released here and in Washington, as John W. Irwin, 42, of Hollywood, Barry W. Keenan, 23, of Los Angeles, and Joseph Clyde Amsler, 23, of Playa del Ray, California.
Keenan, coincidentally, graduated from University High school in Beverly Hills in the same class as Nancy Sinatra, sister of the kidnapped boy. Sinatra Sr. got the news of the arrests at the home of his ex-wife, Nancy in Bel-Air. Through a spokesman, he released this statement: “Thank God it’s over. “Credit must go to the FBI for a masterful operation. “Our only hope is that the rapidity with which they were apprehended will act as a deterrent to others with such thoughts in the future.”
Frank Jr., 19, a singer like his famous father, was abducted last Sunday night from a motel room at a Lake Tahoe resort near the California-Nevada border. He had a singing engagement at a casino there. Fifty-four hours later he turned up at his mother’s home after being released unharmed about two miles away. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover said $47,938 of the ransom money was recovered when Irwin was arrested about 9 A.M. in Imperial Beach, California. Hoover said most of the remainder of the $240,000 was found in Amsler’s apartment when he was arrested at Culver City, a Los Angeles suburb, shortly after midnight. Kennan was taken into custody at La Canada, another Los Angeles suburb, shortly before 11 P.M.
A Senate committee heard conflicting opinions on the desirability of federal laws curbing sales of guns by mail order as advocated by Senator Thomas J. Dodd (D-Connecticut).
Angelo Bruno, 53, reputed Cosa Nostra overlord in Philadelphia, was arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents on federal conspiracy charges today as he stepped off an airliner from Italy. “Are you Angelo Bruno?” asked FBI Agent Thomas J. Jenkins as Bruno descended from a Pan American airliner at Logan International airport. “I’m Bruno,” said the suspect, a short, stocky man with a black mustache. Jenkins and seven other FBI agents hustled Bruno through customs and took him, handcuffed, to the federal building in downtown Boston. Bruno had been living in Italy since September. But Italian police made his life miserable since a bench warrant was issued after he was indicted October 31 by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia. The indictment charges that Bruno conspired to violate a federal law prohibiting interstate travel to commit extortion. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover said 10 others were arrested previously in connection with the case.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration curtailed today its program for unmanned exploration of the moon by canceling flight plans for five Ranger spacecraft. These flights, canceled in an economy move, had been scheduled in 1964 and 1965. They were to have made the first landings of American instruments on the moon, a task that will now fall to launchings in later programs. The cutback will also add to the uncertainty over the design of the spacecraft now being built to land men on the moon late in this decade. Since its inception nearly five years ago, the Ranger program has been beset by technical difficulties and repeated delays, The NASA announcement made clear, however, that its action today was prompted largely by budgetary rather than technical considerations. The announcement said that canceling the five Ranger flights would “contribute to necessary economies” in the overall space program. The savings were estimated at $90 million.
Strong winds whipped snow into drifts and temperatures dropped far below zero on the Northern Plains.
The Beatles made the last of their 34 appearances on their autumn tour of the UK and Ireland, wrapping up at the Gaumont Cinema in Southampton, before breaking for Christmas.
Capital records signs right of first refusal agreement with The Beatles.
For the first time in six sessions the stock market showed a clear-cut advance. Volume was moderate.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 760.17 (+2.74).
Born:
Donnie Elder, NFL kick returner and defensive back (New York Jets, Detroit Lions, Pittsburgh Steelers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Diego Chargers), in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Tony Sweet, NFL tight end (New York Jets), in New Jersey.
Died:
Stan Jones, 49, American singer-songwriter (“Ghost Riders in the Sky”), and actor (“Rio Grande”; “Ten Who Dared”), of cancer.
Hubert ME Pierlot, 79, Belgian advocate/premier (1939-1945).
Filippo Anfuso, 62, Italian diplomat and fascist hierarch who served as the Italian Social Republic’s Ambassador to Nazi Germany.
History Diaries 