The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACSOC) was secretly established by the United States to conduct covert unconventional warfare operations prior to and during the Vietnam War.
South Vietnamese Government forces said today that they killed 76 Communist Viet Cong guerrillas, captured 53 and seized 106 suspects in a major combined operation launched last Friday in the Mekong Delta area. Six United States helicopter airmen were lost in the fighting. A military spokesman said government forces had suffered 15 killed and 27 wounded, not including the Americans lost in two helicopters and a British observer. A United States spokesman said the guerrillas had stepped up their activities and caused a sharp rise in casualties in the week ended Wednesday. The spokesman said Viet Cong incidents totaled 418 compared with 389 in the previous week.
Several hundred soldiers of the 11th battalion of the Kenya Rifles mutinied at their base in Lanet, near the city of Nakuru, and arrested the British officers within the unit. The rebellion was put down by the next day, however, because there were 5,000 troops from the British Army who were stationed elsewhere in Kenya and came in at the request of President Jomo Kenyatta. Afterward, 43 of the Kenyan rebels were court-martialed, 16 of whom were sentenced to prison terms averaging 12 years, and the 11th battalion was disbanded.
Within minutes of the mutiny at the camp at Langata, three miles west of Nairobi, British troops fanned out to strategic points in the city. They blocked off the radio station, the telephone exchange, the overseas cable office, important government buildings and Embakasi Airport, East Africa’s major international air terminal. More than 2,100 British troops were involved in the build‐up designed to guard against further insurrections in East Africa. The build‐up was in response to a request for help from Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta. The build‐up included British land, sea and air forces. As darkness fell the Royal Navy carrier HMS Centaur reached Kenya’s Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. The carrier had aboard 600 Royal Marine commandos and an unspecified number of jet aircraft. In addition, 700 British commandos were on their way in an airlift from Britain with 75,000 pounds of equipment and 20 vehicles.
Four British warships, including the Centaur, were lying off Kenya and Tanganyika. The others were the frigate HMS Rhyl, the survey ship HMS Owen, and a destroyer as yet unidentified. A United States destroyer, the USS Manley, also was lying offshore. The Manley had rushed to the area from Mogadishu, capital of Somalia. About 120 members of the Staffordshire Regiment in full battle dress were taken off the Rhyl and flown to Nairobi, the staging area for the build‐up. Kenya announced, meanwhile, that she would increase her own army by 1,000 men in a recruiting campaign to start within a few weeks.
The request for British military help was the second in two days. Prime Minister Milton A. Obote of Uganda called in British troops based here last night to protect his country’s airfields, communications and other strategic services. He acted after about 350 members of the Uganda Rifles based at Jinja had detained their British officers and Uganda’s Minister of Home Affairs. The minister, Felix Onama, was held in a guard room for an hour by the troops, who were “striking” for higher pay. The two countries requested British help under agreements reached when they became independent of Britain. Uganda became independent in October, 1962, and Kenya last December 12.
Cautious hopes for an early settlement of the United States-Panama dispute were raised here tonight after a full day of intense diplomatic activity. But all parties, including the mediators of the Inter‐American Peace Committee, agreed that further negotiations were required before a mutually acceptable formula for the resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and Panama could be hammered out. The committee, a body of the Organization of American States, scheduled a closed meeting for 9 A.M. tomorrow with United States and Panamanian representatives to take up the draft of an agreement submitted last night by Ambassador Manuel Trucco of Chile. A meeting of the five-nation committee called for this afternoon was canceled at the last moment to allow diplomats here to hold additional private discussions and to give the United States and Panama more time to study the Trucco draft. This draft was intended to serve as a new point of departure for the negotiations after it was recognized yesterday that the initial agreement, worked out in Panama by the committee January 15, should be set aside.
U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, faced with British skepticism about his efforts to mediate the Indonesian‐Malaysian dispute, expressed confidence today in President Sukarno’s good faith. Mr. Kennedy said on his arrival here from the Far East that he thought President Sukarno and the Indonesians would like to settle the dispute and reach an understanding with Malaysia and the Philippines. At President Johnson’s request, Mr. Kennedy visited the three countries in the last week. A cease‐fire in the border war was announced by President Sukarno in Jakarta yesterday, but a few hours later, after Mr. Kennedy had left, the Indonesian leader said the “confrontation” to “crush Malaysia” must continue, though “tactics may change.”
When Mr. Kennedy was asked if he thought an agreement by the heads of state of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines was still possible after this, he said, “Yes.” He said at an airport news conference that he thought President Sukarno was “genuinely willing” to try to resolve the dispute. “Perhaps it will not be possible,” Mr. Kennedy added, “but I personally believe it will be.” Asked if he thought Mr. Sukarno could be trusted, he replied, “Yes, I think so.”
Mohieddin Fikini was fired from his position as Prime Minister of Libya and his other responsibilities as Libya’s Foreign Minister, after a clash with the Cyrenaica Defense Force commander, General Mahmud Buguaitin over the killing of student protesters. King Idris I refused to fire Buguaitin, whom he valued as a loyal friend.
Ghanaians went to the polls today in the first phase of a referendum on whether their country should become an official one‐party state. A check of wards in Accra showed a spotty voting pattern. In some wards polling officers said that nearly 100 percent of those registered had appeared, but a check of the books in three other districts showed that more than 50 percent had voted. Voting was confined to the capital of Accra and the far northern regions. The official results will not be known until tomorrow.
The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution goes into effect and citizens’ voting rights could not be denied by the state due to failure to pay taxes. Three Republican Governors accused President Johnson today of “hypocrisy” on the poll‐tax repeal issue. As a member of Congress, they said, Mr. Johnson “refused 12 times since 1942 to vote for abolishing the tax.” “We are appalled at his hypocrisy in announcing yesterday his ‘great delight’ that the job has at long last been accomplished,” they declared. The three men, members of the executive committee of the Republican Governors Association, were Robert E. Smylie of Idaho, John A. Love of Colorado and William W. Scranton of Pennsylvania. An amendment barring the payment of a tax as a condition of voting for Federal office candidates was ratified yesterday.
President Johnson urged Senators today to withhold extraneous amendments to the Administration’s tax bill in the interest of speedy action. The sponsors of such amendments declared, however, that they still intended to press for favorable Senate action. The President issued a statement commending the Senate Finance Committee for its “vigor and dispatch” in approving the $11.5 billion measure for tax reduction and reform. “I am confident that the entire Senate will now move with equal dispatch,” he said. “Each day’s delay in the passage of this bill withholds from our economic bloodstream $30 million that could be pumped into the economy daily by lowering withholding rates from 18 per cent to 14 per cent.”
A Presidential Advisory Commission called yesterday for major revision of enforcement of narcotics laws, including a controversial recommendation to dismantle the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The bureau, which has been under fire from Federal judges and the New York Academy of Medicine, has influential friends in Congress and in law enforcement agencies. The Police Commissioner of New York City, which contains half the country’s estimated 50,000 narcotics addicts, was among the first to defend the bureau. Commissioner Michael J. Murphy said that any move to subdivide the functions and responsibilities of the bureau would “seriously impair” the efficient teamwork that he said existed between his department and federal narcotics agents. The commission asserted that the Bureau of Narcotics was an anomaly in the Treasury Department. It recommended that the bureau’s police work in the investigation and control of illicit traffic in narcotic drugs be transferred to the Department of Justice.
Robert G. Baker’s purchase of a cooperative house in southwest Washington was explored by the Senate Rules Committee today. An effort to discover whether the former Senate aide had employed deception in the transaction, which was insured by the Federal Housing Administration, was inconclusive. Senator Barry Goldwater, meanwhile, criticized President Johnson for accepting a stereophonic phonograph as a gift from Mr. Baker when Mr. Johnson was majority leader of the Senate and Mr. Baker was secretary to the Democratic majority. However, the Arizona Republican declined to call the gift “improper.” At the Rules Committee session, it was made clear that the house purchased by Mr. Baker had been furnished and decorated and turned over to two young women. According to testimony, Mr. Baker never lived in the house as required by the purchase contract.
CBS purchases the 1964 & 1965 NFL TV rights for $28.2 million. The figure is more than triple the $9.3 million CBS paid under a two‐year contract that expired last month. The American Broadcasting Company bid $26,106,000 and the National Broadcasting Company $21.5 million. It was the first time the professional league had invited competitive bidding. The former contract with CBS had been established by negotiation. The winning bid ran far ahead of most speculation in the television industry. One who expressed surprise was Pete Rozelle, NFL commissioner, who smiled as he said he had not expected the top bid to be as high as it was.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, will campaign in California this weekend for a friend, John V. Tunney, who is running for the House of Representatives.
A California defense contractor asks the United States government to pay for a free night at Disneyland for 12,000 employees and their families. The company is the Aerojet General corporation, a division of the General Tire and Rubber company, which operates defense plants in southern California. Neither the navy nor the company will say how much money is involved.
Senator Barry Goldwater’s name is entered in the Illinois preferential Presidential primary. Petitions are filed by Mrs. Patricia Hutar, co-chairman of the Illinois Volunteers for Goldwater. A test of voter sentiment is expected with the filing Monday of petitions entering Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) in the primary.
Clayton Smith, publisher of the Tombstone Epitaph, and two prominent educators are found dead in the wreckage of a small plane. The aircraft, piloted by Smith, is found about 15 miles southwest of Benson, Arizona, in the Whetstone mountains. The other victims were T. C. Johnston, 44, president of the Cochise County Junior College near Douglas, Arizona, and Donald Ensign, 49, superintendent of schools at Sierra Vista, Arizona.
The Defense Department asks Congress to approve more than 32 million dollars for construction work on Kwajalein atoll, a 600-acre speck in the Pacific where the army is testing anti-missile missiles. Experts estimate the cost of developing an effective, reliable anti-missile missile may run 12 to 20 billion dollars or more.
Union officials representing 200,000 dairy workers vote unanimously for a resolution urging milk dating laws in every state. The action is taken at a conference in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, after a plea from Thomas J. Haggerty, secretary-treasurer of the Chicago Milk Wagon Drivers union. He asks for cooperation in getting a dating law restored in Illinois.
Rep. Paul Findley (R-Illinois) accuses President Johnson of giving “unconscionable preferential advantages” in pushing his program to sell wheat to Russia and its satellites. He says it is costing the American taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and that shippers lose money in keeping their vessels involuntarily idle, while waiting for cargoes.
January tornadoes deal death and destruction in the south and blizzards on the northern plains bring up to eight inches of snow. The tornadoes hit in Alabama, where at least eight persons are killed, and in scattered communities in the middle Mississippi valley. Eight inches of snow blanket southeastern South Dakota and blizzard warnings are issued in North Dakota and northern Minnesota.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 783.04 (+0.18).
Born:
Rob Dibble, MLB pitcher (World Series Champions-Reds, 1990; All-Star, 1990, 1991; Cincinnati Reds, Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee Brewers), in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Timmy Smith, NFL running back (NFL Champions, Super Bowl XXII-Redskins, 1987; Washington Redskins, Dallas Cowboys), in Hobbs, New Mexico.
History Diaries 