Duncan Sandys, British commonwealth relations secretary, arrived in Nicosia on the strife-torn island of Cyprus today on an emergency peace mission sparked by reports that a Turkish invasion fleet had been sailing toward Cyprus. Turkey officially denied the British Royal Air Force reports and said the fleet 20 miles off the northern coast was on North Atlantic pact maneuvers. But scattered shots today and the roar of three jet fighters buzzing Nicosia at rooftop level just after dawn sent a shiver of fear through the tense city. Sandys, who arrived with a contingent of British troop reinforcements, made the emergency flight from London after conferring by telephone with Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home in Scotland. It was reportedly prompted by fears that the strife between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in this former British colony might lead to a conflict between two NATO allies, Greece and Turkey. President Makarios of Cyprus indicated after a meeting with Sandys that Cyprus might reject the help of Greece and Turkey to end its communal strife and rely on Britain alone. The archbishop, himself a Greek Cypriot, told reporters, “I think it would be better if Cyprus accepts only the help of Great Britain.” He said that was because Greece and Turkey have direct interests at stake in the island.
Cyprus accused Turkey at an emergency meeting of the United Nations security council in New York early today of terrorizing the Greek Cypriots by sending a dozen warships toward Cyprus. But Turkey denied the charge. The Cyprus delegation announced in New York that it would ask another emergency meeting of the security council on the island’s crisis. It said last night’s session did no good. In Athens Premier George Papandreou issued a statement welcoming the easing of tension. He denied reports that Greek military forces had mobilized and said the situation in Cyprus “is becoming daily less abnormal.”
He welcomed Turkish assurances that Turkey planned no landing and urged the Greek press to check the veracity of all reports in order to avoid spreading alarm. Greece is prepared to attend a top level conference to consider the Cyprus issue, it was authoritatively disclosed in Athens. British Ambassador Sir Ralph Murray sounded Foreign Minister Sophocles Venizelos on whether Greece would attend a conference of the foreign ministers of Britain, Turkey, Greece. Sandys met immediately with the British high commissioner, Sir Arthur Clark, and Major General Peter Young, overall commander of the British, Greek, and Turkish troops on Cyprus.
President Johnson and Chancellor Ludwig Erhard of West Germany agreed today to continue to try to improve relations with Russia, altho the German leader assessed the Soviet Union’s responses to these efforts over the last year as “not very encouraging.” The President and Erhard today completed their first round of discussions of world issues — talks which will be devoted largely to east-west relations — at the chief executive’s Texas ranch.
Welcoming the German chancellor to the United States shortly before the start of the discussions, President Johnson said that their meetings today and tomorrow will deal with the major tasks of the future at a time when “historic dangers have been turned back” and hope for the future of freedom has been strengthened. Reporting on today’s meetings between President Johnson and Erhard and their advisers, Karl G. von Hase, press spokesman for the West German government, said the chancellor gave his views on the current state of relations between Russia and the western allied nations. Von Hase said that Erhard, taking into account the efforts of the west to reach amicable relations with the Soviet Union and Russia’s responses to these approaches during the last year, considers the net situation “not very encouraging.”
Pierre Salinger, White House press secretary, said President Johnson did not give his assessment of the state of east-west relations at today’s meetings. The President said yesterday the United States is willing to explore any avenue which might lead to improved relations with Russia and world peace. Salinger said today’s afternoon discussions covered, in addition to Erhard’s views on east-west relations, the multi-nation nuclear strike force and economic and trade subjects. The latter included United States relations with the European Common Market countries, Salinger said. Von Hase said the chancellor reaffirmed West Germany’s continued interest and participation in the planned nuclear strike force.
A record number of West Berliners today filed through the five openings in the Berlin wall, despite growing uneasiness that the price of this privilege may be more than was bargained for. Many had reunions with relatives they had not seen since the Communists sealed off their sector of Berlin 28 months ago. The visits began last week after an agreement between the West Berlin city government and the communist East German regime enabled West Berliners to pay family visits in East Berlin until January 5. It is expected that visits will reach a peak this weekend. East Berlin authorities said that 69,000 West Berliners had been registered at the five new crossing points by 4 p.m. today, bringing the total to 250,000 since the wall was opened a week ago.
Representatives of both the East German regime and the West Berlin senate today indicated a readiness to discuss similar family reunion schemes after the present one expires. Alexander Abusch, East German deputy premier, told an East Berlin weekly that his government was ready to confer with “authorized representatives” of the West Berlin city government on all questions pertaining to the “normalization of relations” between West Berlin and East Germany after the January 5 deadline. Egon Bahr, chief spokesman of the West Berlin senate, told a press conference that the aim of the agreement had been to alleviate the inhumane effects of the wall in both parts of the city.
He was careful to explain that no further steps toward extension of the reunion scheme would be taken without the consent of the western allies — France, Britain and the United States — and the Bonn West German government, which approved the present agreement. Bahr warned against any interpretation of the agreement that would imply a change in the legal status of West Berlin.
The East German government is demanding autonomous powers for West Berlin if the Communists are to keep the Berlin Wall open to visitors from the West.
For the first time in 491 years, leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church agreed to a meeting. Pope Paul VI met for 30 minutes with the Metropolitan Bishop Athenagoras of Thiatiron, an envoy of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I and an agreement was reached for the two church leaders to meet in Jerusalem in January. In 1472, the Patriarch Dionysius I had broken with Pope Sixtus IV over disagreements concerning the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk sees no “significant change” in Red China’s hostile relations with the West but seems hopeful that relations with the Soviet Union will improve.
Bulgaria assured the United States it will prevent further anti-U.S. demonstrations in Sofia following protests by an American official there.
Hysterical crowds of weeping and wailing Muslims, rioting in Kashmir over the theft of a strand of hair of the prophet Mohammed, were subdued by police gunfire.
TV Malaysia began broadcasting from Kuala Lumpur as “The First Channel” and the first such station in that city, televising programs in black and white. At the time, Singapore, with two television stations, was still part of Malaysia, until its separation in 1964, “The First Channel” would become the only Malaysian station.
The titanium alloy keel for the Soviet submarine K-162 (Project 661 “Anchar”, renamed to K-222 in 1978; NATO reporting name: Papa-class) was laid down at the shipyard at Severodvinsk, as part of Project 661 to construct the world’s fastest submarine. K-162 would not be commissioned until six years later, on December 13, 1969, and would reach a top speed of 44.7 knots (more than 51 miles per hour). The K-162 was armed with 10 short-range, anti-ship cruise missiles and four torpedo tubes to carry out her mission of destroying American aircraft carriers. These missiles could be fitted with either conventional or nuclear warheads. The submarine served in the Soviet Red Banner Northern Fleet through the 1970s, but the discovery of hull cracks led to a lengthy repair period from 1972 to 1975. After an accident with K-222’s nuclear reactor in 1980, the submarine went on her final operational patrol in 1981. She was removed from service in 1988 and scrapped in 2010.
U.S. Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz asserted today that surging population and driving technology are splitting the American labor force into tens of millions of “haves” and millions of “have-nots.” “In our economy of 69 million jobs those with wanted skills enjoy opportunities and earning power,” Wirtz said in a year-end statement. “But the others now face a new and stark problem-exclusion on a permanent basis, both as producers and consumers. This division of people threatens to create a human slag heap.” The secretary said the United States cannot tolerate the development of a separate nation “of the poor, the unskilled, the Jobless, living within another nation of the well-off, the trained, and the employed.
“Prosperity must mean, for 1964, extending now the general economic well-being to those it so far has not reached,” Wirtz said. “This will be measured most clearly in the reduction of unemployment rates, especially among younger workers, the members of minority groups, and those in the remaining distressed areas.” He said 1963 has been a year of unprecedented prosperity by many measures, and that America’s workers as a whole participated in this prosperity, with 69 million employed and average earnings at a record high of nearly $100 a week. “Yet, because the workforce is growing so fast, the unemployment rate stays at over 5½ percent — as high as in the recession year of 1954,” he said. “Continued high unemployment at a time of general prosperity is evidence that the economy is contending with two massively powerful forces.”
Senator John Sherman Cooper (R-Kentucky) warns the Johnson administration to clean up foreign aid or Congress will abolish the programs.
The Senate’s stormy TFX (later the F-111) probe is expected to end in February with testimony by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and former Navy Secretary Fred Korth but without charges of wrong-doing against anyone. With Korth’s Texas mentor, Lyndon B. Johnson, now in the White House, the prospect is that the Senate permanent investigations subcommittee headed by Senator John McClellan (D-Arkansas), will wind up the hearings as swiftly and quietly as possible. Sources close to the subcommittee reported Saturday that they expect McNamara to be summoned as the final witness to explain why the Pentagon awarded the multi-billion-dollar TFX (Tactical Fighter, experimental) contract to the General Dynamics Corp. of Ft. Worth, rather than to the Boeing Co., of Seattle, a low bidder.
The much-abused 88th Congress provides one ray of light for taxpayers. It hacks nearly 6 billion dollars from the budget submitted by the administration.
A State Department official said in testimony made public today that a new training program is being developed in hopes of bringing more Blacks into the career foreign service. William J. Crockett, deputy undersecretary of state for administration, said that 25 students, “principally Negroes,” are being selected from various colleges for the special training program sponsored by the Ford Foundation. The State Department official said, “It is one of our continuing problems that the very toughness of the foreign service entrance examination excludes many Negro candidates.” Crockett said, “We have virtually no successful candidates from southern Negro colleges simply because their training has not been oriented toward successfully preparing for the entrance examinations.”
Fifty of the nation’s giant utility firms were accused today of discriminating against Jews and other minority groups in selecting executive personnel. The accusation was made by A. M. Sonnabend, president of the American Jewish committee and a Boston industrialist. He said very few of the utilities practice discrimination as a specific policy. Nevertheless, he said, they “maintain a personnel practices climate that discourages Jewish candidates and members of other religious and ethnic minority groups.” The Jewish committee has been sponsoring and cooperating with studies of promotion barriers, conducted for the last two years at Harvard, the University of Michigan, and the University of California at Los Angeles.
James R. Hoffa, boss of the Teamsters Union, said yesterday he was “optimistic that everything will be worked out” in time to head off a threatened strike of 50,000 truck drivers employed by 2,000 Chicago-area trucking firms. “There’s not going to be any strike,” Hoffa said in St. Louis, where he is visiting relatives. “There will be no stoppage of work. Negotiations will continue, starting at 10 a.m. Thursday.” Union officials had said earlier that they would call a strike if the trucking companies failed to come up with an agreement by midnight Tuesday, when present contracts expire. Such a strike by the drivers, all employed by short haul and local cartage firms, would paralyze deliveries of food and other necessities.
President Johnson’s economies are bringing a small flood of protesting letters to the White House which, ironically, usually receives at this season complaints about heavy government spending.
The United States will launch within the next few months a 600-mile-high satellite which will serve to test beams of light from the new laser devices.
Effects of birth control, both good and bad, have been told to scientists meeting in Cleveland by a University of California professor.
“Double Dublin” closes at Little Theater NYC after 4 performances
“Jennie” closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 82 performances.
Merle Haggard’s 1st appearance on country music chart with “Sing a Sad Song.”
Scottish Lotus driver Jim Clark wins his record 7th Grand Prix of the F1 season, the South African event at Prince George Circuit; first Scotsman to win the World Drivers Championship.
Davis Cup Men’s Tennis, Adelaide: American Chuck McKinley beats Australia’s John Newcombe 10-12, 6-2, 9-7, 6-2 in the deciding rubber to give US a thrilling 3-2 victory.
East-West Shrine Game, San Francisco, California: East 6, West 6. Dave Parks of Texas Tech blocked Rick Leeson’s fourth quarter conversion attempt today and preserved the West’s 6—6 tie with the East in the 39th annual Shrine charity all-star football game. With 4 minutes 12 seconds to play, Michigan State’s 156-pound all-America halfback, Sherman Lewis, ran around right end for 10 yards and the tying touchdown, Leeson of Pittsburgh, who had missed two first-half field goal attempts, lined up for the conversion kick, Parks, the first man chosen in the recent National Football League draft and signed by the San Francisco. 49ers, rushed across unchecked and blocked the attempt. Pete Liske, Penn State’s quarterback, engineered the scoring drive, a 98-yard advance taking 13 plays. Early in the drive, the East was pushed back less than a yard from its goal. Then came the key play, a 33-yard pass from Liske to Paul Warfield of Ohio State, and the East was en route to the fifth tie of the series.
Blue-Gray Game, Montgomery, Alabama: Gray 21, Blue 14. The best passer in Dixie led the Rebels to a 21—14 victory over the Yanks today in the 26th Blue-Gray football game. Larry Rakestraw of Georgia snapped bullet passes to a Tennessee halfback, Mallon Faircloth, in the flat and over center to shatter the Blue defense. The Georgia quarterback, the leading passer in the Southeastern Conference last fall, hit Faircloth with scoring passes of 44 yards and 10 yards. Faircloth was the leading rusher for Tennessee this season, gaining 1,161 yards.
[NBC, which had televised the Blue-Gray Game for much of its run, dropped it from the schedule this year when the Montgomery Lions Club refused to integrate it. Civil rights leaders claimed that the contest was racist because its poor history of integration was reflective of slavery and the era of Jim Crow. The game desegregated in 1965, which in turn convinced CBS to carry a telecast. From then on, the Classic showcased many African American stars from smaller, lesser-known schools (including many historically black colleges and universities). Jerry Rice played in the 1984 game and was named the Most Valuable Player.]
Gator Bowl, Jacksonville, Florida: North Carolina 35, Air Force 0. The North Carolina Tar Heels, led by Ken Willard and Junior Edge, today defeated the Air Force Academy, 35—0, in the most one-sided game in the 19-year history of the Gator Bowl. Willard, a 220-pound junior halfback from Richmond, Virginia, tore through the Air Force defenses as if they were made of tissue paper. Edge, a 205-pound senior quarterback from Fayetteville, North Carolina, was brilliant with his option play. The Tar Heels, the co-champions in the Atlantic Coast Conference, had completely out-classed the Air Force, which based its attack on Terry Isaacson, a triple-threat back, But Isaacson was ineffective most of the game.
AFL Eastern Division Playoff Game:
The Boston Patriots, runners-up in the Eastern Division of the American Football League the last two years, won the title today at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo by defeating the Buffalo Bills, 26—8, in a playoff. The Bills received a bad omen on the opening kickoff when Elbert Dubenion fumbled and Billy Lott recovered for Boston. Although the Pats didn’t score as Buffalo safety Ray Abruzzese intercepted a Babe Parilli pass, it was only a matter of time before the Patriots took control. Gino Cappelletti’s 28-yard field goal opened the scoring midway through the first quarter, and on Boston’s next possession Larry Garron took a swing pass and raced through the Buffalo defense for a 59-yard score. Cappelletti added two more field goals of 12 and 33 yards for a 16—0 Patriot lead at halftime.
Boston added 10 points in the second half on a 36-yard field goal by Cappelletti and a 17-yard touchdown pass from Parilli to Garron with six minutes to play. Bufalo’s score came at 13:29 of the third period on a 93-yard pass play from Daryl Lamonica to Elbert Dubenion. Dubenion caught the ball, thrown from the Buffalo 7, on his 45 and sped the rest of the way unmolested. The Bills, held to three first downs in the first half and 38 yards in total offense, spent most of the time in their territory. The Patriots, meanwhile, picked up 11 first downs and 227 yards overall. Boston’s defenders grabbed four Buffalo passes, and the Bills managed to intercept only one of Parilli’s.
Boston will meet the San Diego Chargers in the AFL title game a week from tomorrow.
Boston Patriots 26, Buffalo Bills 8
Born:
Malcolm Gets, American actor (Richard Karinsky-“Caroline In the City”), in Waukegan, Illinois.
Willow Bay, American TV host (“Good Morning America”), in New York, New York.
Mel Stottlemyre, Jr., MLB pitcher (Kansas City Royals), son of MLB pitcher Mel Stottlemeyer, Sr., in Prosser, Wisconsin.
Kenneth Johnson, NFL defensive back (Green Bay Packers), in Weir, Mississippi.
Brian McClure, NFL quarterback (Buffalo Bills), in Ravenna, Ohio.
Scott Fox, NFL linebacker (Houston Oilers), in Clinton, Texas.
Died:
Paul Hindemith, 68, German composer.
A. J. Liebling, 59, American journalist.
Joe Magliocco, 65, American crime boss, from a heart attack.
History Diaries 