Fire breaks out shortly before midnight on the 22nd on the Greek liner Lakonia west of Portugal, and 128 die. Nearly 900 people are rescued. The British aircraft carrier HMS Centaur is on the scene searching for the missing. As the fire spread, alarms sounded too softly to be heard by most people aboard. At the time the fire was discovered, most of the passengers were in the ship’s ballroom, called the Lakonia Room, dancing at the “Tropical Tramps’ Ball.” Passengers began to notice the smell of smoke, but most dismissed it as strong cigar smoke. Captain Zarbis, who had been notified of the fire, tried to make an announcement on the ship’s public address system, but the fire had disabled it. As smoke began to fill the ballroom at about 11:30, the band stopped playing and cruise director George Herbert ushered the frightened passengers to the boat deck. The upper deck was ablaze within 10 minutes. A six-man fire crew tried to fight the blaze, but the fire spread too quickly to be contained. Boilers began to explode, filling the rooms and hallways with thick, black smoke, and the suffocating passengers were forced on deck. Evacuation was hampered by the overcrowding of lifeboats and the loss of several boats to fire. Some deaths were caused by the fire itself, others by accidents when abandoning ship, and others by exposure or drowning in the sea. Lakonia’s crew successfully launched just over half of her lifeboats. Some passengers were able to reach the water via gangways and rope ladders. Two ships alerted by distress signals managed to save most of the others.
On 24 December ocean tugs took Lakonia in tow and tried to tow her to Gibraltar. But the ship had developed a list and on 29 December she sank in the Atlantic. A board of inquiry traced the fire to faulty electrical wiring, but strongly criticized the maintenance of equipment, thoroughness of lifeboat drills, and the standard of supervision. The Greek Merchant Marine Ministry conducted a two-year investigation into Lakonia disaster. The board of inquiry maintained that Lakonia should not have passed safety inspections before sailing. Lifeboat davits were rusted and lockers containing lifesaving equipment failed to open. The drain holes in many of the lifeboats lacked stoppers, so that passengers had to constantly bail water. Eight of the ship’s officers were charged with negligence.
South Vietnamese armored units smashed their way today into an area south of Saigon virtually taken over by communist guerrillas after the November 2 coup and uncovered an estimated seven tons of ammunition. The huge supply of river mines, grenades, and gunpowder was the biggest haul of its kind in months in South Vietnam. It proved a shot in the arm for government units trying to win back the offensive from the communist Viet Cong.
In the dramatic seven weeks that followed the toppling of the regime of President Ngô Đình Diệm, a total of 3,304 combatants have died on the battlefields of South Vietnam. Diệm’s ouster and death on November 2 set the stage for a bloody upsurge in the war with communist guerrillas striking at the heart of the Vietnamese armed forces. Casualty totals for both sides in those seven weeks number 8,250. They have been split evenly between communist and government forces.
Farther south, however, Communists continued to roll up gains. Eight government self-defense corpsmen betrayed their post 130 miles southwest of Saigon Saturday and guerrillas sacked the weapons there. Last week Communists blew up a gasoline dump beside a government air strip on Vietnam’s southern tip. Statistics put together by the American high command in Saigon picture a period of violent activity since the coup, particularly in the Mekong delta, Vietnam’s rice bowl.
Greek and Turkish Cypriots kept up their gunbattles in Nicosia streets today despite appeals for calm by government leaders broadcast every 15 minutes on Cyprus radio. The fighting capped tension stemming from Turkish Cypriot opposition to proposed changes in the island republic’s constitution. Tension spread to Larnaca Town in South Cyprus where two Britons entering the Turkish sector were mowed down by machine gun fire. A police broadcast said the two “fell heavily wounded or dead.” It said continuing gunfire prevented attempts to approach the scene. In the capital pleas for an end to the violence went unheeded.
The joint appeal from Cyprus President Archbishop Makarios, a Greek, and Dr. Fazil Kutchuk, Turkish Cypriot vice president, was aired in English and Greek only. The Turkish staff failed to report to the radio station. Archbishop Makarios ordered police to drive the first available Turkish speaking person to the station to broadcast the appeal in Turkish. The appeal resulted from a heated 2½ hour conference of the two Cypriot leaders. At one point the talks were drowned out by gunfire less than 100 yards away.
Anger and bitterness replace patience as thousands of West Berliners, waiting for wall crossing permits, see their hopes of Christmas visits vanish. Loud speakers at 12 schools where permits are issued announce that continued waiting is useless. The offices will not open again until tomorrow — too late to apply for and receive passes for use on Christmas. Mayor Willy Brandt of West Berlin and the East Germans were criticized for the delays in processing applications for holiday visits to East Berlin. In four days only 38,000 had made the trip.
The Canadian government decided to reimpose tolls on Welland Canal shipping, starting April 1, to help defray the cost of twining the Welland locks around Niagara Falls. Canada proposes to spend about 180 million dollars on work starting this winter to twin five one-story locks that will permit shipping to travel in both directions at the same time, avoiding the traffic congestion inherent in a one-way locking system.
Pope Paul VI, in his first Christmas message to the world, appeals for Christian unity, stressing his intention to make his forthcoming pilgrimage to the Holy Land a crusade for religious unity among all Christian peoples.
Foreign ministers of the six Common Market nations, meeting in Brussels, agreed in principle on European agricultural policy and took their first move toward a unified position on next spring’s round of tariff negotiations with the United States.
Ney Galvao, Brazil’s new finance minister, announced that he will make an attempt to strengthen the value of the nation’s basic money unit, the cruzeiro.
Despite administration pressures, the House fails by a three-vote margin to take a ballot on the foreign aid bill with its modified ban on credit for Russian purchases of American wheat. The congressmen agree to meet at an unprecedented 7 a.m. session today to take up the measure. Republicans, snow, and the funeral of a congressman combined today to deal the Johnson administration another stinging blow in the House today in its fight to sell wheat on credit to Russia. After another uproarious session and a Republican victory by a 3-vote margin, the House agreed to meet at the unusual hour of 7 a.m. tomorrow and adjourn early for a House member’s funeral. In its pre-dawn session, the House will decide for the third — and members hope the final time — whether to ban assistance to Russia to buy American wheat in the foreign aid money bill which appropriates 3 billion dollars to fight the spread of communism. The latest setback to the Johnson forces came after Speaker John McCormack (D-Massachusetts), House Democratic Leader Carl Albert (Oklahoma), and House Democratic Whip Hale Boggs (Louisiana) spent all yesterday in the White House telephoning absent House Democrats to rush back to Washington.
President Johnson throws an eggnog party — complete with mistletoe decorations — for House members who have supported his foreign aid drive — and a few members who have not. Johnson tells the congressmen, kept in Washington by the legislative tangle, they should be honored for having “labored in the vineyard and plowed through the snow.”
President Johnson and his family plan to leave for their ranch in Texas tomorrow morning, the White House announced tonight. Johnson’s plan to go home for Christmas had been disrupted temporarily by the congressional battle over foreign aid. Tonight, however, the White House disclosed that Johnson will leave by plane at 9:45 a.m. for Philadelphia, where he will attend the funeral of Rep. William J. Green (D-Pennsylvania) before flying on the LBJ ranch near Johnson City, Texas.
Johnson had dovetailed a heavy working schedule today with his efforts to push the foreign aid bill through Congress. Details of his scheduled meeting with Chancellor Ludwig Erhard of West Germany, conferences with staff members on the budget, and drafting work on the state of the Union message to Congress dominated Johnson’s day. A White House spokesman said there will be two central points of discussion between the President and Erhard.
The first was described as the status of east-west relations and exploration of further German-American steps which might improve the central European situation and strengthen peace. The second is development, improvement, and strengthening of the Atlantic partnership. Particular emphasis is expected to be given to United States relations with the European Common Market. One of several other points expected to be covered, the spokesman said, is the structure of European-American common military defense. Johnson is scheduled to confer with Erhard at the President’s ranch Saturday and Sunday.
Top FBI officials, led by Assistant Director William C. Sullivan, met at the Washington headquarters to discuss plans for “neutralizing Martin Luther King Jr. as an effective Negro leader”, primarily by using wiretapping of hotel rooms to gather evidence of his extramarital affairs, and then to leak the tapes to the press.
An assistant White House press secretary discloses that President Johnson ordered the news of President Kennedy’s death in Dallas held up because he saw in the assassination a possible conspiracy against the lives of the new President and others in the line of succession. The death was not disclosed until Johnson left for the Presidential plane.
Jack Ruby’s attorney asks a Texas judge to shift his trial to another city, contending it is impossible for the slayer of Lee Harvey Oswald to get a fair trial in a Dallas court. The judge orders Ruby, charged with gunning down President Kennedy’s assassin, returned to jail without bond until January 10, when the question of bond and venue change will be considered.
The will of the late President Kennedy was filed for probate in Boston today. It gives the bulk of his estate to his wife and children. The 17-page will, dated June 18, 1954, was filed one month and a day after Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The value of the estate was not told, and no bond was filed that might indicate it. However, it was believed the estate would total several million dollars. The will was filed by Edward Hanify of the Boston law firm of Ropes, Gray, Best, Coolidge and Rugg.
Two explosions in midair destroy a B-52 bomber of the strategic air command minutes after take-off from its Mississippi base, killing all nine aboard. Wreckage is scattered over a three-mile area of snow-covered piney woods and swampland. The craft was on a training mission and carried no nuclear weapons. Authorities decline comment on the suggestion stormy weather may have caused the crash.
A massive pre-Christmas storm swirled through the east last night, dumping foot-deep snows after leaving the south buried and crippled under some of its heaviest snowfalls of the 20th century. A foot of snow hit southwestern Virginia, 11½ inches were recorded at Kearneysville, West Virginia, and depths ranged up to 11 inches in the Shenandoah valley. Blinding snow blew into the New York metropolitan area. It forced New York’s official tree-lighting ceremony indoors for the first time in the memory of city hall officials, greatly curtailed flight operations at Kennedy and La Guardia airports and slowed rush hour traffic.
The New York traffic department declared a snow emergency. Nearly 500 sanitation trucks equipped with 11-foot plow blades were thrown into action. The storm dumped 5 to 7 inches of snow on New York before tapering off into flurries, sleet, and rain. The snow plagued homebound commuters and 70 percent of the airline flights in and out of the city’s three major airports were canceled or diverted. Thirteen flights inbound from Europe and three from the Caribbean were diverted from Kennedy airport to Montreal. Officials in the Canadian city said 2,100 travelers were stranded there.
The Beach Boys make their first appearance on “Shindig.”
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 758.30 (-3.78).
Born:
Jim Harbaugh, NFL quarterback (Pro Bowl 1995; Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, Baltimore Ravens, San Diego Chargers) and coach (Stanford 2007–2010; San Francisco 49ers 2011–2014; Michigan (2015–), in Toledo, Ohio.
Milton Barney, NFL wide receiver (Atlanta Falcons), in Mississippi.
Nick Durandt, South Africa’s highest achieving boxing trainer, credited with 95 national champions and 27 world champions in various categories; in Wolverhampton, England, United Kingdom (killed in motorcycle accident, 2017).
Jess Harnell, American voice actor, in Englewood, New Jersey.
Donna Tartt, American novelist, in Greenwood, Mississippi.
History Diaries 