In his formal report to President Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara calls Operation HARDNOSE, which provides intelligence and disrupts Viet Cong movements along the Laos corridor “remarkably effective,” and urges its expansion. Concluding that his appraisal of the Vietnamese situation may be overly pessimistic, he remarks, “We should watch the situation very carefully, running scared, hoping for the best, but preparing for more forceful moves if the situation does not show early signs of improvement.” Air Force Commander General Curtis LeMay has already suggested bombing North Vietnam, and others in the military promote no less drastic moves.
Cambodia offered new assurances to the United States today that an international conference to guarantee Cambodian neutrality would not be used as a forum to criticize policies of the United States and its allies in southeast Asia. In a special bulletin, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the prime minister, said the only purpose Cambodia had in calling for the conference was “to obtain international recognition de jure of her neutrality” and to obtain more supervision of any such guarantee by an international commission. A conference of the United States, Britain, France, Soviet Union, China, Laos, Cambodia, and North and South Vietnam pledging support for Cambodia’s territorial integrity has been a prime objective of Sihanouk’s recent foreign policy. These nations, meeting in Geneva in 1962, agreed on the neutrality of Laos, Cambodia’s northern neighbor. While Sihanouk has brusquely ended all United States technical and military aid, which this year amounted to 30 million dollars, he has been pressing the United States to agree to a conference.
The shooting of a Turkish-speaking couple by a Greek-speaking police officer in Nicosia, Cyprus, was the start of a ten-day period in which at least 92 Turkish Cypriot civilians, and an unknown number of Greek Cypriots, were killed before British troops intervened. According to Turkish Cypriot sources, police within the Greek Cypriot community, along with members of the guerilla group EOKA that had sought union with Greece, attacked 109 Turkish villages on the island of Cyprus, and 25,000 of the Turkish minority fled to the northern side of the island, while Green Cypriot sources say that members of the paramilitary Turkish Resistance Organisation (Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı or TMT) attacked Greek Cypriot families in the suburb of Omorfita.
Thousands of West Berliners sadly returned home early today after reunions with their relatives in East Berlin on the other side of the communist wall that had separated them for more than two years. About 8,000 West Berliners, granted day passes by East Berlin authorities, experienced the joy of reunion and the pain of parting. But they were solaced by hints they may be able to make regular visits in the future. Egon Bahr, press spokesman for West Berlin’s mayor, Willy Brandt, dropped such a hint in a broadcast.
The present Christmas arrangement — passes for three visits of one day each — runs out January 5. But Bahr said if the experiment succeeded there was no reason why what was possible before January 5 should not be possible afterward. The communist propaganda machine has been saying that only good could come from negotiating with the East German regime. It was evident that the Communists were plugging for negotiations on a broader basis. Their object was clearly to win more prestige for their soviet puppet regime which is not recognized by the west.
Foreign ministers of six Common Market nations appeared to have averted a French boycott of the “Kennedy round” tariff negotiations with the United States.
The Soviet Union made a double-handed gesture to improve its position among the African states where Communist Chinese Premier Chou En-lai is on an extended tour. Meanwhile, the dispute in Moscow between hundreds of students from Ghana, and Soviet authorities, continues.
Premier Chou En-lai of Red China was properly greeted in Algeria but President Ahmed Ben Bella made it clear he prefers Moscow’s co-existence to Peking’s hard line.
A top Bulgarian communist diplomat at United Nations headquarters in New York has confessed in full to spying for the United States for $200,000 he spent on an immoral life involving “many women,” the Bulgarian news agency said tonight. The official agency identified him as Ivan-Assen Christov Georgiev, 56, a high-ranking diplomat and international lawyer and said he gave important secrets to the Central Intelligence Agency over a seven-year period. His arrest was first announced November 9 in Sofia but his full identity was withheld. Today the Bulgarian news agency gave details of his confession and his life of sin during which he used his pay to support several mistresses at home and abroad.
The agency reported he was being held in a maximum security jail in the Bulgarian capital awaiting trial. It called him a “malicious enemy and traitor to the Bulgarian people” who had received a diploma from American intelligence officials for his efficiency. The agency said he would go on trial next Thursday on charges of giving the CIA political, economic, and military secrets while serving as counselor of the Bulgarian U. N. mission — a high position second only to the ambassador.
Monsignor Linzo Zanini, the Roman Catholic apostolic delegate in Jerusalem, today disclosed first official details of Pope Paul’s proposed pilgrimage to the Holy Land January 4-6. He emphasized that the schedule is subject to change “until the last moment.” The schedule was much the same as had been anticipated. It was noted that time is allowed in the crowded schedule for a possible meeting with Archbishop Athenagoras, patriarch of the Greek Orthodox church, if Athenagoras comes to Jerusalem. As the itinerary now stands, Pope Paul will leave Rome on January 4 and fly to Amman, the Jordanian capital. He will be met by King Hussein and other government officials, as well as church dignitaries. There will be a pause at the airport for a private talk between the pontiff and the king. The two then will ride in a motorcade through Amman, and the pope then will continue to Jerusalem, 50 miles away.
Comedian Bob Hope left Los Angeles by air today en route to Ankara, Turkey, where he plans to join the other members of his annual Christmas tour to entertain American servicemen. Hope was packed and ready to leave Thursday morning, but his physician advised that he stay in Los Angeles to rest a few days after treatment for an eye ailment. Members of the tour include Jerry Colonna, singer Anita Bryant, Actress Tuesday Weld and the Les Brown band. This will be Hope’s 12th overseas tour. All told, he has spent 22 Christmas seasons with service personnel — 10 at bases in the United States.
The slow-moving Latin American Alliance for Progress program is now headed for a major reorganization under the Johnson administration because, in part, it was oversold during the years under President Kennedy.
President Joao Goulart of Brazil called an emergency cabinet meeting for Monday, possibly to outline his program to stave off political and economic chaos.
Bolivia came to the brink of civil war this month, but the crisis is over and there is hope that lack of armed conflict may prove a spur to a new democratic tradition in the turbulent Latin republic.
Congress appeared headed toward adjournment early today after compromising on a 3-billion-dollar foreign aid money bill with curbs on wheat sales to Russia after an all-day wrangle. The agreement was reached last night in the last four protracted sessions between Senate and House conferees appointed to compromise differences in the aid bills voted by the two houses. Chairman Otto Passman (D-Louisiana) of the House conferees, who refused to bow to President Johnson and Senate pressure on giving more than 3 billion dollars in new money for the aid program, told reporters: “It’s a victory for the American taxpayers — not for me.”
But later Congress, despairing of efforts to pass a 3-billion-dollar foreign aid bill and adjourn sine die, tonight postponed action on the measure until next week. After an exchange of sharp debate sprinkled with shouts and applause, the House quit until Monday. The Senate adjourned until next Tuesday with an agreement that no legislative action will be taken until next Friday. The House faced the possibility that it may be occupied on Christmas eve and even Christmas day with the bill which has produced more hostility than any other measure in recent history.
After an exhausting all-night session, marked by a signal rebuff to President Johnson, the two Houses reconvened at noon. Democratic leaders planned another vote-the third-on a rider to the foreign aid appropriation bill which banned the use of American dollars to guarantee the credit of communist nations. They had lost the first two test votes. Shortly before dawn, the House had voted 141 to 136 to keep this prohibition in the bill. The Senate had knocked it out. This action was taken in the face of repeated statements by the President that the ban was an infringement on his constitutional authority in the foreign policy field. Democratic leaders, by telephone and telegraph, summoned absentee Democrats back to Washington and claimed they had the votes to reverse this White House defeat.
But the parliamentary rules of the House demanded that the House rules committee, to which the bill is returned from conference, approve a special rule permitting immediate floor consideration. There are 15 members of the committee and a quorum of eight is necessary to transact business. Only six Democrats could be found and no Republicans. For more than five hours, the two Houses waited as the search for a quorum went on. There was a growing sentiment for sine die adjournment to permit members a brief Christmas holiday before returning to Washington for the second session of the 88th Congress on January 17. President Johnson was consulted by Speaker John W. McCormack (D-Massachusetts) and he laid down an ultimatum. The foreign aid bill, with the communist credit ban deleted, had to be passed at this session.
The joint Senate-House Atomic Energy Committee issued a report today highly critical of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara for not ordering nuclear power for the navy’s newest aircraft carrier. The committee, headed by Senator John Pastore (D-Rhode Island), said that “it is an indisputable, demonstrated fact, that nuclear propulsion increases the combat effectiveness” of the navy’s ships. The committee said that if McNamara chose conventional power rather than nuclear propulsion because it cost less, he “could create an intolerable peril to our national security.”
President Johnson ordered the heads of nine government departments and agencies to establish a committee to study the impact of changes in defense spending on the nation’s economy.
Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona is still running strong as the favorite among the Republicans for the Presidential nomination but his chances of winning the election have been dimmed, political experts believe, by the fact that President Johnson, a Texan, will be his opponent.
Governor William Scranton of Pennsylvania said he would give serious consideration to the possibility of seeking the GOP Presidential nomination because of a request by General Eisenhower.
Two Union Pacific streamliners — one the City of Los Angeles — derailed in the snow in Iowa and Wyoming, tying up rail lines jammed with Christmas holiday travelers and injuring at least 43 persons.
Rep. William J. Green (D-Pennsylvania), who rose from the rough and tumble of Philadelphia ward politics to become a confidant of Presidents, dies at 53.
There is nothing small about the air pollution problem except the efforts to control it, a survey shows.
TIROS-8 was launched into orbit, and became the first weather satellite to relay digital images back to Earth at the same time that they were being recorded, using the new technology of automatic picture transmission. The first photos were sent to Earth at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time as it passed over the east coast of the United States on its fourth orbit, and showed the cloud cover along the Atlantic seaboard.
France got a second television network when RTF Télévision 2 began broadcasting.
“The Daleks”, a serial that began with the fifth episode of the Doctor Who science fiction television series, saw the introduction of the Dalek creatures, the most famous of all the nemeses in the program’s history. In the episode “The Dead Planet”, the Doctor and his three companions arrived in the TARDIS on the planet Skaro, although viewers would not see what a Dalek looked like until the December 28 show.
Born:
John Klingel, NFL defensive end (Philadelphia Eagles), in Marion, Ohio.
Died:
William J. Green, Jr., 53, U.S. Congressman for Pennsylvania, from peritonitis following emergency surgery.
Sir Jack Hobbs, 81, English cricketer whose career record of 61,760 runs and 199 centuries between 1908 and 1930 remain a professional critic superlatives.
History Diaries 