Việt Cộng guerrillas stage an unusual daylight ambush on an ARVN convoy in the Saigon area, killing six soldiers and wounding nine.
A more intensive study of the situation in South Vietnam was indicated today in announcements by the U.S. Defense and State Departments. Officials stressed, however, that the Administration was not yet nearing a decision on extending the war into Communist North Vietnam. The Pentagon disclosed that Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara would visit Saigon next week to assess the military effectiveness of the new Government headed by Major General Nguyễn Khánh. The Secretary will hear some suggestions for expanding the war effort but that is not his major assignment, the officials said. The State Department announced the formation of a new interagency committee to coordinate policy on Vietnam. It will be headed by William H. Sullivan, a special assistant to W. Averell Harriman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and an expert on Southeast Asia. Mr. Sullivan will act as a special assistant to Secretary of State Dean Rusk and will coordinate policy judgments and statements with the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Information Agency.
Reliable sources reported tonight that the Secretary General, U Thant, had met with a complete deadlock in his efforts to reach agreement on an international peace‐keeping force for Cyprus. The six elected members of the Security Council — Bolivia, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Ivory Coast, Morocco and Norway — met in an effort to find a new approach for submission to the Council when it renews the debate tomorrow. It was understood that Carlos Alfredo Bernardes of Brazil, this month’s President of the Council, had decided to ask the views of the elected members because three permanent members — Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union — are actively involved in the dispute. The two others, France and Nationalist China, have not disclosed their position. Earlier, after a talk with the Secretary General, Mr. Bernardes said the meeting of the Council scheduled for tomorrow would take place. Earlier it was thought that the meeting might be postponed.
Since the parties to the dispute were heard last Tuesday and Wednesday, the Council has scheduled several meetings, then canceled them. Presumably the postponements were meant to await the outcome of Mr. Thant’s efforts to find a compromise formula. He has been trying to reconcile the opposing views of Cyprus, on the one hand, and Britain, the United States and Turkey, on the other, about the instructions to be issued by the Council to the proposed force. According to a well‐informed source, Mr. Thant conceded tonight that the disagreement was complete. He said he still hoped that a Council debate would make possible a new and more fruitful approach. The Secretary General, it was reported, feels that both sides stiffened their positions over the weekend, but he does not intend to abandon his attempt to obtain a compromise arrangement.
Enosis, the old dream of Greek Cypriotes for union of their island with Greece, has all but vanished as an important factor in the Cyprus crisis. “One thing the fighting since December has clearly demonstrated,” a senior Greek Cypriote official said, “is that the concept of enosis is dead.” Taksim, or partition of the island, is more alive than ever. It is the battle cry today of the beleaguered and outnumbered Turkish Cypriote community. Almost with the firing of the first bullets on the island in the bloody Christmas week, the red flag with white crescent and star of Turkey blossomed in the Turkish Cypriote villages and strongholds in the towns. The sight of so many Turkish flags around the island prompted one observer to comment: “They seem to have more flags than guns.”
On the walls of Greek Cypriote houses in the towns and villages can be seen faded inscriptions calling for enosis. There are no new inscriptions, and rarely does a villager talk voluntarily of enosis. The new inscriptions that most frequently greet the eye in the Greek Cypriote villages say simply “Makarios” or “Makarios is our father.” Informed foreign observers and Greek Cypriotes believe that the emotional or sentimental appeal of enosis lingers on. But intellectually the concept appears dead indeed. A foreigner dining with a leading underground gunslinger, a television executive, a newspaperman and a government official, asked each in turn if he favored enosis. The answer of each was a flat “no.”
President Johnson was reported tonight to be considering a new formula for solving the Panama crisis. Optimism was rising here that a settlement might be in sight. The formula was drafted late last week by mediators of the Organization of American States. It was discussed Saturday at a secret meeting between United States and Panamanian delegates at the Paraguayan Embassy. The conference between the United States representative, Ellsworth Bunker, and Panama’s chief delegate, Miguel J. Moreno Jr., was arranged by Paraguay’s representative, Juan I. Plate, who is chairman of a five‐nation mediation subcommittee of the inter‐American organization. It was the first contact between United States and Panamanian negotiators since the collapse 10 days ago of the last mediation effort.
The key point in the dispute, now in its seventh week, is disagreement over the wording of a public statement that would lead to resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and Panama. These ties were broken by Panama following the Canal Zone riots of January 9 and 10. The disorders stemmed from a dispute over the flying of United States and Panamanian flags in the zone. Panama has demanded a statement under which the United States would commit itself to renegotiate the 1903 treaty covering its rights in the zone. Although Washington is willing to go on record as being ready to discuss all matters pertaining to the treaty, it has refused to commit itself to a renegotiation in advance of the talks.
Prince Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister of Malaysia, criticized the leaders of Indonesia today as “utterly irresponsible” and said he saw little chance for peace with them in the near future. He was addressing the opening session of a week‐long conference sponsored by the Council on World Tensions. The council is an independent organization that draws most of its financial support from the Ford Foundation. The conference will discuss development and cooperation in this region. Meetings will continue through Saturday. The usually mild‐mannered Prime Minister declared that Indonesia’s policy of “confronting” Malaysia was dangerously near open war.
Premier Fidel Castro said here yesterday that while Cuba wanted to recover the Guantánamo Naval Base from the United States someday, “it is not an urgent question to make us feel impatient in any way.” In an interview that lasted six and a half hours, the Premier added that before there could be any improvement in United States‐Cuban relations, Washington would have to end what he called “subversive activities in Cuba and the training of counterrevolutionary elements.”
Premier Chou En‐lai of Communist China lauded Pakistan today as an emerging nation that had stood up against imperialism and big power “chauvinism.” He said Pakistan was playing an “increasingly important positive role in international affairs.” The words of praise came in a speech before the West Pakistan Provincial Assembly in Lahore before Premier Chou flew across 1,000 miles of Indian territory on his way to Dacca, capital of East Pakistan. The Premier, who yesterday sided with Pakistan in her dispute with India over Kashmir, expressed Communist China’s “sincere gratitude” for the “valuable support” given by Pakistan on the admission of the Peking regime to the United Nations.
India has lodged a complaint against Pakistan with United Nations observers in Kashmir for a breach of the cease‐fire, Defense Minister Y. B. Chavan said in Parliament today. He charged that Pakistan troops crossed the cease‐fire line Friday at Keran, near Barmamula, and ambushed an Indian police patrol of 25. Only two of them have returned, he said. Mohamedali Currim Chagla, who led the Indian delegation to the recent Security Council debate on Kashmir, also declared in Parliament that India had made clear that “we are laying the ghost of a plebiscite in Kashmir once and for all.”
President Johnson will receive King Hussein of Jordan for an “informal” meeting April 14, the White House announced today. King Hussein, who has been to the United States twice before, will be the first Middle Eastern statesman to meet with Mr. Johnson. The current controversy between the Arab States and Israel over the Jordan River’s water is expected to be the main topic at the meeting, informed sources said.
Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz proposed today that compulsory education be extended to the age of 18 and that free public education be provided two years beyond high school. He made the suggestion as a key part of any program to end unemployment. The occasion was a symposium of business and Government leaders, arranged by the American Bankers Association, on the topic of employment. The Secretary said he believed that 2 million of the 3.5 million youths between 16 and 19 who working or looking for work should be removed from the labor force and returned to school. His reason, backed by several other speakers, was not just to get them out of the labor force, but also to upgrade their skills and hence their adaptability for jobs.
President Johnson was said today to have a plan for dealing with a maritime union’s refusal to load ships carrying wheat to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Details of the plan had not yet been disclosed as the President conferred tonight with three Cabinet members and other officials in an effort to end the boycott. The conferees were Labor Secretary W. Willard Wirtz, Agriculture Secretary Orville L. Freeman, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Charles S. Murphy, Under Secretary of Agriculture, and Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., Under Secretary of Commerce.
The American Bar Association will seek to alert the nation this spring to the need for a constitutional amendment on Presidential inability and the filling of Vice‐Presidential vacancies. Plans for the nationwide educational program were disclosed today by Walter E. Craig of Phoenix, Ariz., president of the association, in testimony before a Senate subcommittee. “This nation can no longer afford to risk a period where there is uncertainty as to who is exercising the powers and duties of the Presidency,” he said.
The Senate subcommittee on constitutional amendments is conducting hearings on a number of proposals dealing with means of determining Presidential disability and with the filling of Vice‐Presidential vacancies. The bar association’s program, drawn up at a special conference last month and approved recently by its House of Delegates, calls for a constitutional amendment that would provide for these steps:
- The President, in writing, could declare his inability to perform the duties of office. In the event that the President did not make his inability known, it could be established by the Vice President or the person next in line of succession, with the concurrence of a majority of the Cabinet or by action of some other body as Congress provides by law.
- The President, in writing, could declare his ability to resume the duties of office. If the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet or other body provided by Congress did not concur, the issue could then be decided by the vote of two-thirds of the members of each House of Congress.
- When a vacancy occurs in the office of Vice President, the President could nominate someone to fill the office, upon approval by a majority of members of Congress meeting in joint session.
President Johnson will make three stops during a one-day trip to Florida on Thursday. He will fly first to the Jacksonville Naval Air Station, then go by helicopter to Palatka to dedicate the first section of a proposed cross‐Florida barge canal that would connect the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. After returning to Jacksonville by helicopter, Mr. Johnson will board his jet transport and fly to Miami, where he will address an evening fund‐raising dinner sponsored by the state Democratic committee.
Construction on the 170-mile-long (270 km) Cross Florida Barge Canal, halted since 1936, resumed. A U.S. District Court would halt construction on January 15, 1971, because of the destructive impact of the canal on the Florida wetlands, and the project would be retired still two-thirds incomplete.
Dion Tyrone Diamond, a young racial demonstrator who urged students at a Louisiana Black college to boycott classes in a protest movement, lost his case the Supreme Court today. The Court had agreed to review his conviction for disturbing the peace. It heard argument of the case just last Thursday. Then, today, it dismissed the writ of review as “improvidently granted.” The decision was unanimous. The result is to leave standing Diamond’s sentence of 60 days in jail and a $100 fine. There was no explanation from the Justices in their unsigned, two‐line order. But some close observers of the Court read into the case a warning to racial demonstrators in the South that there was a limit to they could do within the shelter of the Constitution. The facts of the Diamond case were what led to that conclusion. They went beyond the picketing or singing on public sidewalks that have characterized most of the Southern demonstrations against segregated facilities.
Dean Torrence, rock ‘n’ roll singer, provided a surprise twist to the Frank Sinatra Jr. kidnapping trial today when he admitted under oath that he had “made up” some previous testimony and said that he had advance knowledge of the kidnapping. Mr. Torrence also contradicted earlier testimony by disclosing he had received $25,000 of the $240,000 ransom. He said he had turned it back to one defendant two days later without actual participation in the scheme. The defense had said Mr. Torrence was the “mystery singer” who had financed the kidnapping last December as a publicity hoax for young Mr. Sinatra. But this morning Mr. Torrence denied any knowledge of the kidnapping.
The purchase of a closed Studebaker Corporation plant in South Bend by the Kaiser Jeep Corporation was announced today by three Indiana Legislators. The transaction, they said, will provide work for about 600 of the 7,000 persons who lost their jobs when Studebaker abandoned its United States operations in December. The purchase by Kaiser of Studebaker’s Chippewa plant was announced by Indiana’s two Senators, Vance Hartke and Birch Bayh, and by Representative John Brademas. All are Democrats. In a joint statement, they said that the Chippewa plant would produce five‐ton military trucks for the Army.
Pathologist M. Anthony Epstein examined “EB1”, the cultured cell of a sufferer from Burkitt’s lymphoma, underneath an electron microscope and, in conjunction with Yvonne Barr and Bert Achong first identified the Epstein–Barr virus.
“My Heart Skips a Beat” single released by Buck Owens (Billboard No. 1 U.S. Hot Country Singles, 1964).
Sonny Liston is listed as a 7-1 favorite in tomorrow night’s title fight against Cassius Clay.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 797.12 (+0.13).
Born:
René Arocha, Cuban MLB pitcher (St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants), in La Habana, Cuba.
Tom Welter, NFL guard (St. Louis Cardinals), in Yankton, South Dakota.
Todd Field, American actor and film director, in Pomona, California.
Died:
Frank Conroy, 73, British actor (“Midnight Mary”, “Threat”).
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