One hundred and twenty-two American soldiers were killed in the Vietnam War in 1963. 15,894 U.S. military personnel were in South Vietnam on this date, down from a high of 16,752 in October before the 1,000-person reduction in U.S. military presence was announced. The South Vietnamese armed forces suffered 5,665 killed in action, 25 percent more than the total killed in the previous year.
North Vietnam had infiltrated about 40,000 cadres and fighters into South Vietnam over a period of several years. They made up about 50 percent of the VC military and 80 percent of political operatives and technical personnel. They consisted mostly of southerners who had migrated north in 1954–1955 to reside in a communist state rather than remain in South Vietnam. Units of the People’s Army of Vietnam had not yet been dispatched to South Vietnam.
Two alumni of West Point are among the walking wounded in South Vietnam’s anti-communist war. They are Brigadier General Joseph W. Stilwell Jr. (class of 1933) and 1st Lieutenant William S. Carpenter Jr. (class of 1960). Carpenter, 26, a paratroop officer who made sports history in 1959 as football’s first “lonesome end,” was hit by a Viet Cong guerrilla’s bullet near his right elbow in a skirmish Saturday in a cane field 12 miles outside Saigon.
Stilwell, 51, son of the famed World War II general nicknamed “Vinegar Joe,” was among four Americans slightly wounded by flying fragments when communist ground fire ripped into their helicopter and shattered its plexiglass bubble over the Mekong Delta yesterday. Stilwell, commander of all American army support units in Vietnam, suffered cuts on his neck.
Carpenter knocked out a communist Viet Cong position with a grenade after a bullet punctured his arm and another slammed into the radio on his back, spinning him around and felling him. “I lay there a few minutes and then threw a grenade “at their position, about 5 yards away,” he said. “One of the Viet Cong jumped up, but one of our people cut him down with a tommy gun. Later they found eight Viet Cong bodies in the area.” Carpenter, adviser to the Vietnamese airborne brigade, was one of seven Americans wounded that day. Another was killed.
President Charles de Gaulle says France will continue developing its own hydrogen bomb. In his New Year’s Eve address to the nation, de Gaulle calls his nuclear program a contribution to the maintenance of peace. Other goals listed are European unity and aiding underdeveloped countries.
Berliners on both sides of the Berlin Wall toast in the New Year with mixed feelings of hope and anxiety. Tens of thousands of West Berliners embrace loved ones in the communist sector and clink glasses in exchange of mutual wishes for togetherness, happiness, and freedom as the clock strikes midnight and church bells ring in the New Year. East Berlin authorities say 65,000 West Berliners cross through five openings in the wall during the day.
A former diplomat for Communist Bulgaria, who confessed he earned $200,000 spying for the United States, was condemned today to die before a firing squad. The supreme court of Bulgaria imposed the sentence in Sofia, closing the six-day trial of Ivan Asen Christof Georgiev. He was convicted of spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for seven years. There is no appeal. Georgiev, 56, counselor of Bulgaria’s U.N. delegation between 1956 and 1961, pleaded guilty and indicated he expected the death sentence. He said he spent the money on numerous mistresses.
Nuclear weapons arrived in Canada for the first time, the day after U.S. President Johnson had signed a memorandum authorizing the shipment of armed warheads for Bomarc missiles. The seven warheads arrived at RCAF Station North Bay in North Bay, Ontario at about 10:00 p.m. Eastern time.
Andrew Gilchrist, former British consul general in Chicago, is made a knight commander of the order of St. Michael and St. George, and henceforth is to be addressed as Sir Andrew. He is Britain’s ambassador to Indonesia. Sir Andrew’s name on the queen’s New Year honor list is recognition for his actions last September in thwarting an Indonesian mob trying to break into the strongroom of his Jakarta embassy.
The United States foreign agricultural service estimates Russia’s wheat and rye harvests are 25 percent under last year’s and below the 1955-1959 five-year average. “Russia’s estimated half billion bushel drop accounts for all of the world drop in harvests from last year’s record. New records are set in Asia, Africa, and North America.
The Soviet Union announced it would support Greek Cypriot President Makarios if he files a complaint against Turkey in the United Nations.
Malaysia asked U.N. Secretary General U Thant to help halt a new wave of attacks assertedly being launched against Malaysia by Indonesia.
French Finance Minister Valery Giscard d’Estaing claims to have won his gamble in fighting inflation without clamping down on expansion.
United States contributions to the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and related programs exceed 2 billion dollars since the founding of the U.N. in 1946. The United States pays 32.02 percent of the regular U.N. budget assessments and higher percentages for other activities.
The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was dissolved after an existence of a little more than ten years. Created on August 1, 1953, and under the leadership of Sir Roy Welensky as prime minister and the Earl of Dalhousie as governor-general, the Federation was split into what would become three nations, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Nyasaland (now Malawi).
What one author described as the “Drunkest Times Square New Year’s Eve crowd of all time”, according to the New York Police Department, took place with 300,000 people ringing in 1964. The New York Police Department assigned 400 policemen to control the revelers. It was described by the police department as the biggest and noisiest crowd in recent years. The crowd consisted mainly of the youth, with some even bringing alcohol but were quickly confiscated by the policemen. At around 48 seconds before midnight, a sound of a pre-recorded tolling bell of 300 watts of power, echoed throughout the Square. This signaled the beginning of the ball’s descent. The lighted ball, located atop the flagpole of the former Times Tower (as the tower was being renovated under Allied Chemical) was, as usual, hand pulled by a group of workers. The ball had a steady descent and had reached the bottom slightly before midnight. Then, at the exact moment of midnight, the bulbs on the ball were turned off and a sign reading “1-9-6-4” was lit up. A loud roar from the crowd was heard as the new year arrived. For this evening, the weather was an average of 22°F (-5.6°C).
President Johnson today signed into law a 4.4-billion-dollar public works appropriations act, although he objected to a provision of the measure as invalid and unconstitutional. Congress enacted the public works legislation on December 12. It was learned yesterday that the President was considering vetoing the money bill because of a provision involving the Panama Canal company. Andrew T. Hatcher, associate White House press secretary, said today President Johnson decided to approve the measure and, in effect, ignore the provision he considered unconstitutional.
The bill, commonly known as the “pork barrel” bill, was sent to the chief executive for his signature. It provides funds for public works projects in every state of the union. In a statement issued by the White House in Austin, today, the President said he had signed the public works bill, but his signature did not mean approval of that provision which prohibited the Panama Canal Company, a government corporation, from disposing of any real property or any rights to the use of such property without first obtaining the permission of appropriate Senate and House committees. The President noted that four United States attorneys general have held that such provisions are unconstitutional and a delegation to congressional committees of powers which are vested in Congress as a whole, or an attempt to confer executive powers on committees in violation of the constitutional principle of separation of such authority.
If the Presidential election were being held now, President Johnson would defeat the leading GOP candidate, Richard M. Nixon, by 3-to-1, the Gallup Poll shows.
Michigan Governor George Romney, after 18 months of denying he wants to be a Republican Presidential candidate, has scheduled a number of speeches, the first next Tuesday in Washington, on GOP policy.
Budget cutters boasted Congress last year “saved” $6.5 billion by denying funds the White House requested, but outlays during the current fiscal year which ends June 30 are expected to run $5 billion higher.
The Census Bureau comes up with bigger news for the New Year: The population of the United States exceeds 190 million, an increase of more than 2½ million in 1963, and is gaining one person every 12 seconds. For the first time there are more than one million persons 85 years old or older and there are 17½ million in the 65 and over classification.
A court today refused to ban blackface makeup in the traditional Philadelphia New Year’s Day Mummers’ parade. Blacks warned that they would use their bodies to form a human chain and blockade the nationally televised event. More than 1,000 marchers were expected to appear with their faces blacked. Police, girding for trouble, canceled all leaves and ordered uniformed patrolmen to stand by during the 64th annual spectacle. The Mummers’ parades began more than a century ago.
The Transport Workers Union, AFL-CIO, was ready to defy a court injunction and strike this morning against the New York subway system.
A fireworks explosion in Charleston, South Carolina, shattered a grocery and spewed debris and flames on shoppers and employees, killing at least five and injuring 14.
Governor and Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller announce the expected birth of a child next June. The formal announcement from the governor’s New York City office follows an afternoon newspaper’s publication of the forthcoming event disclosed by Mrs. Rocke- feller’s mother, Mrs. George E. Bartol of Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.
Mrs. John F. Kennedy has received some 700,000 messages of sympathy, a volume of mail so heavy that volunteers have stepped in to help handle it.
General David M. Shoup, for the last four years commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, handed over command to Lieutenant General Wallace M. Greene Jr.
A New Year’s Eve storm gave New Orleans its biggest snowfall of the century, dumped 12 inches of snow on sections of southern Mississippi, and spread a traffic-hobbling coating of ice across the deep south and up the middle Atlantic seaboard. Children fashioned snowmen and threw snowballs in New Orleans. A Hattiesburg, Mississippi, implement dealer sold plow handles to youngsters for use as improvised sleds. Six inches of snow at Gulfport, Mississippi, kept tourists huddled in hotel rooms.
New Orleans was virtually isolated by closing of highways, bridges, and overpasses. Traffic slowed to a crawl in Atlanta. From Louisiana to the Carolinas, authorities warned motorists to stay off roads unless travel was absolutely necessary. In the north, December bowed out with temperatures of 23 below at Johnsbury, Vermont, and 21 below at Lone Rock, Wisconsin; Watertown, New York, and Lebanon, New Hampshire. Temperatures pushed below zero from New England to the plains. Indianapolis, Chicago, and Milwaukee weather bureaus reported the coldest December in weather bureau record keeping.
The “Dear Abby” show premieres on CBS radio (runs 11 years).
Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead play music together for the 1st time at Dana Morgan’s Music Store in Palo Alto, California.
Sun Bowl, El Paso, Texas: Oregon 21, Southern Methodist 14. Oregon scored three first‐half touchdowns, two on passes by Bob Berry, then hung on for a 21‐14 victory today over Southern Methodist in the Sun Bowl football game before a crowd of 26,500 in the 30,000-seat stadium. Several S.M.U. drives stalled in Oregon territory in the first half while the Ducks were scoring on a 9‐yard run by Dennis Keller and 23- and 20-yard scoring passes from Berry to Dick Imwalle and Paul Burleson. The Mustangs, who had 15 players ill with a stomach ailment last night, dominated the last two periods. They picked up two fourth quarter touchdowns by John Roderick on passes from Danny Thomas and Mac White. The last touchdown came with only 24 seconds left. An onside kickoff attempt by S.M.U. failed, and the Ducks ran out the clock.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 762.95 (+3.05).
Born:
Ed Simmons, NFL tackle (NFL Champions, Super Bowl XXII and XXVI, 1987 and 1991; Washington Redskins), in French Camp, California.
Scott Kellar, NFL nose tackle (Indianapolis Colts), in Elgin, Illinois.
Chris McLemore, NFL running back (Indianapolis Colts, Los Angeles Raiders), in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Torin Clark, NFL defensive back (Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
Greg Liter, NFL defensive end (San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles), in Wausau, Wisconsin.
Paul Gillis, Canadian NHL centre (Quebec Nordiques, Chicago Blackhawks, Hartford Whalers), in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Scott Ian [as Scott Ian Rosenfeld], American metal musician (Anthrax – “I’m the Man”), in Bayside, Queens, New York.
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