[Ed: Must have given LBJ indigestion to do this. He and Bobby were far from friends or allies.]
Turkey declared today that she had decided to withdraw from the conference here that was to decide the political future of Cyprus. With renewed military activity in both Turkey and Greece, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Feridun Cemal Erkin, called on Foreign Secretary R. A. Butler and disclosed his government’s decision. Both Turkey and Greece informed the United States that they were prepared to use force if the situation continued to deteriorate.
After meeting with Mr. Butler, the Turkish Foreign Minister said: “We are withdrawing in principle because the conference has failed so far. It has been unable to achieve its purpose.” Mr. Erkin told the British Foreign Secretary, however, that he would not leave London before Thursday, and the Foreign Office took this to mean it still had two nights and a day to find a way out of the Cyprus impasse. Reuters reported Mr. Erkin said that, while Turkey had decided to withdraw, “I am not withdrawing yet.”
Mr. Butler scheduled another meeting with Mr. Erkin on Thursday. New rounds of separate meetings started tonight in an effort to get United States troops and other forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to Cyprus to take positions between the Greek and Turkish communities. Apart from relieving the strain on the British troops now on Cyprus, an allied force might serve to disengage Greece and Turkey from the conflict. The United States was considering a British proposal for the NATO force. General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, canceled plans to come from Paris to London tonight and flew instead to Ankara for talks. He planned to go tomorrow to Athens.
Turkish Army forces were reported to be concentrating in southern Turkey and at the port of Iskenderun, in a corner of the Mediterranean just to the northeast of Cyprus. Thirteen naval vessels sailed from Iskenderun today, on what officials said was a sea‐air exercise. Greek Army, Navy and Air Force units were kept on alert because of the Turkish military activity. The caretaker Premier, John Paraskevopoulos, called from Athens to tell the Greek delegation in London that further military steps were being taken as a “precautionary” measure. There were reports from Athens that Greek destroyers were ready at Suda Bay, Crete and Salamis and that the Greek Navy was carrying out landing exercises in Crete. The Greek Premier expressed hope by telephone to his London delegation that the Greek and Turkish military moves would not get out of control. After his call, it was said here that nothing short of the quick military intervention of the United States in Cyprus could prevent an outbreak of war between Greece and Turkey. This view is believed to have been relayed to Washington from the Greek Government in Athens.
Panama decided tonight to break off negotiations with the United States in the InterAmerican Peace Committee, and to seek action against the United States in the Council of the Organization of American States. Panama’s chief delegate to the O.A.S., Miguel J. Moreno Jr., suddenly requested late this evening that the five‐nation Peace Committee meet at 10 A.M. tomorrow. It was understood that he would then announce his government’s decision to take Panama’s case to the Council and charge the United States with aggression. The Panamanian move put the situation back into the state of acute crisis that existed before the Peace Committee entered the dispute two weeks ago, following riots at the Panama Canal Zone.
Three U.S. Air Force officers — Lieutenant Colonel Gerald K. Hannaford, Captain John F. Lorraine and Captain Donald G. Millard — were killed after their T-39 Sabreliner was shot down in East Germany by a Soviet MiG-19 fighter. The crew of the T-39 had taken off from the Wiesbaden Air Base at 2:00 in the afternoon in poor weather, and had strayed off course an hour later. According to Soviet reports, the U.S. jet ignored signals to land after penetrating 55 miles into East Germany, and was downed by machine gun and cannon fire. The plane struck a hill one mile outside the East German village of Vogelsberg.
The French Government rejected today a veiled Chinese Communist demand that it break relations with the Chinese Nationalist regime on Taiwan. An official spokesman denied that there was any “understanding” or “condition” that France would end diplomatic ties with Nationalist China in the agreement that enabled her to recognize the Peking regime yesterday. The Foreign Ministry in Peking said the opposite. It asserted that the agreement to establish diplomatic relations was based on an “understanding” that the Chinese Nationalists, “the old ruling group,” could no longer be regarded as China’s representatives side by side with Communist missions in “one and the same country or international organization.” The statement declared that Taiwan was “part of China’s territory” and that any attempt to detach it or “otherwise to create ‘two Chinas’ is absolutely unacceptable to the Chinese Government and people.”
A group of 12 Nationalist Chinese soldiers in Taiwan carried out the massacre of about 200 prisoners from the Communist mainland’s People’s Volunteer Army, in an apparent retaliation for the December attack on a Taiwanese village the previous month.
The Soviet Union proposed today that all bomber aircraft be destroyed without waiting for an agreement on general and complete disarmament. The proposal was contained in a memorandum that Semyon K. Tsarapkin, the Soviet delegate, submitted to the disarmament conference upon instructions from his government. Bombers are obsolete, the memorandum said, but they remain important weapons. Their destruction, it continued, would reduce the danger of war and increase the security of all peoples.
However, unless Moscow is prepared to start with a more limited step toward disarmament than Mr. Tsarapkin’s offer on bombers, there is almost no hope for an agreement, if only because France’s participation would be necessary. The nuclear striking force that President de Gaulle has made a cornerstone of his policy is built around the bomber. No one imagines that the French President, who has boycotted the disarmament conference, would consider the Soviet proposal.
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara gave a slightly more optimistic report today on the situation in South Vietnam, in contrast with an essentially gloomy appraisal to Congress yesterday. The Defense Secretary said that reports from the embattled Southeast Asian country in the last two weeks were encouraging. He repeated, however, that the situation was still “grave.” Mr. McNamara, in his annual survey before the House Armed Services Committee yesterday, reported that “considerable” inroads had been made by the Communist Viet Cong since the overthrow of the Ngô Đình Diệm regime last November. At a news conference today at the Pentagon, he stressed that the new government in Saigon had faced many political problems. The leaders have not been able to focus sufficient attention on the war against the Communists, Mr. McNamara added.
The South Vietnamese Government announced today the release of 2,418 political prisoners as part of an amnesty for the Vietnamese New Year. A four‐day celebration of New Year’s will begin February 13. An Interior Ministry spokesman identified most of the prisoners as Viet Cong guerrillas or their sympathizers who had “repented.” The Government has been working with United States experts to rehabilitate South Vietnam’s prison population. Of 28440 prisoners, 69 percent are political offenders.
President Johnson heard a cautiously optimistic report today from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy on the dispute over Malaysia. Mr. Kennedy warned, however, that if a long‐range settlement was not reached, the United States could become involved in a full‐scale jungle war. The Attorney General spent nearly an hour and a half at the White House this morning, briefing the President and other high officials and members of Congress on his 13-day peace mission. He returned to Washington last night after talks at the President’s behest with leaders of Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and Britain. Later today the 38‐year‐old Attorney General went to New York, where he spent almost an hour discussing Malaysia with the United Nations Secretary General, U Thant.
The fortunes of Robert G. Baker were revealed today as inextricably woven with those of a high officer in the Dallas‐based financial empire of Clint Murchison. Testimony this afternoon before the Senate Rules Committee showed that Mr. Baker had acquired nearly 6,000 shares of Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation, worth a total. of $157,000, simply through friendship with this officer. Mr. Baker, former secretary to the Senate Democratic majority, obtained the stock without any cash investment, the testimony showed.
President Johnson today had breakfast with Democratic Congressional leaders; met with Attorney General Kennedy, Defense Secretary McNamara, acting Secretary of State Ball, and Under Secretary of State Harriman to hear a report on the Attorney General’s Southeast Asia trip; and presented the Medal of Freedom to the widow of Herbert H. Lehman.
A Federal judge, charging undue pressure by the White House and the State Department, threw out today a zoning order permitting the Soviet Union to build a new embassy and chancery in the capital. Judge David A. Pine of the Federal District Court ordered a rehearing of the case by the District of Columbia Zoning Adjustments Board. The order was another setback for Soviet officials, who want to build a $2 million complex on a 16‐acre site in the Chevy Chase section of Washington. The order could affect United States plans to build a new embassy in Moscow.
There will be further closings of military bases by the end of March, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara announced today in a news conference at the Pentagon. However, the next list of bases to be closed will concern relatively small installations, he said. The Defense Secretary said no naval shipyards would be included in the next list, but that his personal survey of these yards would be completed by July. After that, he made it clear, certain naval shipyard activities would be terminated or consolidated. Mr. McNamara cited his statement last month that he believed the existing 11 naval shipyards had excess capacity.
McNamara said he personally favored turning over new ship construction contracts to private yards, which, he said, could do the work cheaper than government‐owned ones. On the other hand, he pointed out, naval repair and conversion work was often better left to the government yards because they had facilities for crews and other military personnel.
The United Automobile Workers is planning this year to seek its biggest contract gains since 1955 despite a call by President Johnson for moderation in labor demands, because the automobile industry is making so much money that it can swallow a large contract without raising prices. And if the companies have no reason to raise prices, this thinking goes, then the settlement cannot be considered inflationary. Top officials of the auto union have decided to hold to this position after considering the President’s plea. He warned labor against “inflationary” demands in his Economic Message last week. The union leaders believe they can still strike out for large gains despite this appeal.
A government witness testified today that he had been offered $5,000 for himself and $5,000 for his father if his father voted to acquit James R. Hoffa in Mr. Hoffa’s trial in Nashville in 1962. Carl E. Fields, son of Gratin Fields, a juror in Nashville trial, said the offer had been made by Thomas E. Parks, an employe of a national undertaker. Mr. Parks; Mr. Hoffa, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and four other men are being tried for jury tampering in United States District Court here. The Nashville case ended in a mistrial when the jury could not agree on a verdict. It had voted 7 to 5 for acquittal. Mr. Fields said that Mr. Parks had made the offer in a conversation held in Mr. Parks’s car shortly after the trial in Nashville began October 23, 1962.
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy said today that he was not interested at present in the Democratic Vice-Presidential nomination. He said at the White House, where he had gone to report to President Johnson on his efforts to ease the dispute of Indonesia and the Philippines with Malaysia, that “I have decided only that I am going to be Attorney General, and I haven’t gone beyond that.” He was asked his reaction to the Erie County, New York, Democratic committee’s endorsement of him as a potential running mate with Mr. Johnson this year. “I am not interested in any of those matters at the present time,” he said. “I am interested in being Attorney General.”
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. has resigned as special assistant to the President. He plans to write a book about the Kennedy Administration. The 46-year-old historian and former Harvard professor is the second close adviser to President Kennedy to leave President Johnson. Theodore C. Sorensen resigned as special counsel to the President 12 days ago, also to write a book about his White House years. Mr. Sorensen will depart February 29. Mr. Schlesinger’s resignation is effective March 1.
An improved version of the Air Force’s Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile was fired 5,000 miles down the Atlantic range today in a test of its more powerful and accurate second stage. The 54‐foot, three‐stage missile, heavily laden with test instruments, was flown on a more difficult path than usual to cause higher heating and greater tests of its guidance system.
The International Olympic Committee voted, 27-24, to awarded the 1968 Winter Olympics to Grenoble in France, rather than Calgary, Alberta in Canada. The vote came on the third round, after the IOC eliminated Sapporo, Japan; Oslo, Norway; and Lake Placid, New York of the United States; on the second round, Calgary had a 19-18 lead over Grenoble in a three-way race that saw 14 votes go to included Lahti in Sweden.
In an Alpine setting of breathtaking splendor, the Olympic flame will be lighted tomorrow in Innsbruck and the IX Winter Games will formally get under way. More than a thousand athletes from 37 nations will compete “in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport,” as set forth in the Olympian oath. The Olympics have served a noble purpose over the years in bringing together peoples of many racial, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The competition has often been fierce and exciting. At the same time, intense nationalism and rancor have often marred these games.
Cincinnati Reds centerfielder Vada Pinson is cleared of assault charges stemming from a September 5, 1963, incident when Cincinnati sportswriter Earl Lawson does not pursue charges further.
The fledgling American Football League received a financial boost when the NBC television network signed a contract to pay the eight-team circuit $36,000,000 for the exclusive broadcast rights for AFL games for five seasons. AFL Commissioner Joe Foss noted that the agreement would provide the league more TV revenue in a single year than it had received during its first four seasons from the ABC television network.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 787.78 (+2.44).
Born:
Dwight Stone, NFL wide receiver and running back (Pittsburgh Steelers, Carolina Panthers, New York Jets), in Florala, Alabama.
[There would be no 1960 or 1980 miracle this year. The Soviets stomped the Americans, who won only two games in the medal round and finished 6th.]
The Invasion has begun.
History Diaries 