President Johnson said today that the United States must rely on the South Vietnamese to defend themselves against Communist guerrillas. The President implied at a news conference that he was not prepared to commit to full combat the 15,500 Americans now advising and training South Vietnam’s army. He said it was a disservice to speculate about the future strategy of the antiguerrilla forces and, specifically, about possible extension of the war into the territory of North Vietnam.
At the same time, he reiterated his warning of last week to North Vietnam, which gave life to much of the speculation. “Aggressors who intend to envelop peaceful, liberty‐loving, free people and attempt to do so through aggressive means are playing a very dangerous game,” Mr. Johnson said. “That is what I said, that is what I meant and that is a very dangerous situation there and has been for some time.”
The President also said that, despite the difficulties, it was unjustified and harmful to suggest “that we are losing the fight in that area, or that things have gone to pot there.” It was also a disservice, he added, to recommend that the Administration should work for the “neutralization” of Vietnam. President de Gaulle has been the most prominent advocate of neutralization, and the Senate Majority leader, Mike Mansfield of Montana, and others here have urged the Administration to encourage diplomatic efforts to settle the war. The President did not specify whom he meant to criticize.
Premier Souvanna Phouma declared today that there could be no resolution of the basic political conflicts in Laos until the guerrilla war in South Vietnam is ended. The neutralist Premier also said his military adviser had informed him that neutralist troops had met no resistance in occupying positions on a strategic mountain. The positions were abandoned Wednesday by right‐wing troops under attack by pro‐Communist forces. Premier Souvanna Phouma said it was difficult at present to have peace and an effective coalition Government embracing pro‐Western and pro‐Communist factions “because North Vietnam ties the settlement of the Laotian question to the settlement of the question of South Vietnam.” Souvanna Phouma has asserted that the pro‐Communist Pathet Lao forces operate in Laos under the direction and with the support of the North Vietnamese Communists, as South Vietnam’s Việt Cộng guerrillas do.
South Vietnamese Buddhist leaders plan to send teams around the country advising people that Communism and neutralism are damaging the national interest, a spokesman said today. The spokesman, Thích Đức Nghiệp, was a leader of the Vietnam General Buddhist Association, which helped to spearhead the revolt last summer against President Ngô Đình Diệm, who was overthrown and killed November 1. “We are currently training teams of monks and Buddhist laymen to send into the villages to explain the duties of Vietnamese Buddhism to the people,” he said. “The Vietnamese Buddhist has two duties: to defend his religion and to fight what is harmful to South Vietnam.”
Greek Premier George Papandreou called tonight for a revision of the 1960 treaties that converted Cyprus from a British colony into an independent republic. The Premier, in a broadcast to the nation, said the Cyprus crisis was “a tragic result” of the “inapplicable” agreements signed by Britain, Greece, Turkey and the Cypriotes in Zurich and London. “For the sake of democracy and peace in Cyprus and to preserve our alliance with our neighbor Turkey, it is imperative to revise these treaties in conformity with the principles of international justice,” the Premier declared. The Premier did not elaborate, but he evidently had in mind a determination of the Cyprus issue by majority opinion. The Turkish Cypriotes, an 18 percent minority in the island republic, have pressed for partition.
New communal clashes in Cyprus were reported by United Press International. At the United Nations, five members of the Security Council completed a draft of a peace‐keeping plan believed to be acceptable to all parties.
Thousands of Greek students burned an effigy of President Johnson outside the United States Embassy in Athens today in protest against American policy on Cyprus. About 3,000 students converged on the embassy after attending a rally at which they were harangued by professors and Greek Cypriote youths. As some of the students handed an embassy official a resolution calling for Cypriote self‐determination, the rest of the mob chanted slogans against the United States and Britain. After burning the effigy and hanging red paper fezzes on trees, they marched on the British Embassy and handed an official a copy of the resolution.
Harold Wilson, British Labor party leader, said today that “insistence on the unilateral abrogation” of the treaty that guaranteed the independence of Cyprus was frustrating efforts to restore peace on the island. Speaking at an impromptu news conference on his arrival in Washington, Mr. Wilson directed his criticism at Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus. Mr. Wilson, accompanied by his wife and son, came to Washington from Montreal for three days of conferences with President Johnson and other United States leaders.
President Johnson, in an attempt to break the deadlocked dispute with Panama, said today that “adjustments” might be required in the Panama Canal treaty. In a calculated move toward Panama’s demand for a new treaty, Mr. Johnson added that diplomatic relations must be resumed without preconditions before such changes could be considered. The United States realizes, he said, that the 60‐year‐old canal treaty “perhaps would require adjustment.” Once relations are resumed, Mr. Johnson added, the United States will be glad “to discuss anything, anytime, anywhere, and do what’s just and what’s fair and what’s right.”
West Germany has asked for a larger share in the strategic direction of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, qualified sources disclosed today. General Adolf E. Heusinger, retiring head of NATO’s Military Committee, has proposed what he calls “internationalization” of the military Standing Group and the addition of a West German major general as its chief of staff. The Standing Group, which is responsible for the highest strategic guidance of the 15nation alliance’s forces, is composed of military representatives of the United States, Britain and France. West Germany’s proposal, which is being studied by the Military Committee, was prompted by its conviction that it should play a role in strategic planning commensurate with its position as the largest European contributor to the alliance’s conventional forces.
Kenya’s African leaders were reported today to have put the country on an emergency alert because of the presence here of John Okello, the self‐styled “field marshal” of Zanzibar’s revolution. Security forces, the national police and elements of the Kenyan army were said to have been ordered last weekend to stand by. Roadblocks were set up outside Nairobi, the capital, amid apprehension over the motives behind Field Marshal Okello’s visit.
Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta and his closest associates were said to fear that a coup might be in preparation. The Zanzibari leader arrived nine days ago and his subsequent actions have been described here as surreptitious. Field Marshal Okello called a news conference here this morning to deny that he would hurt Mr. Kenyatta or his government. But he remained under police surveillance. “Everyone knows that Jomo Kenyatta is the father of African nationalism,” he protested. “How can I, a small child of his, overthrow him?”
British Eagle International Airlines Flight 802, flying from London to Innsbruck, Austria, crashed into the 8,700-foot-high (2,700 m) Glungezer mountain in the Central Eastern Alps, killing all 75 passengers and eight crew. Most of the passengers on the Bristol Britannia propeller-driven plane were on their way to a weekend skiing trip. An investigation would determine that the pilot had descended to 8,500 feet in an attempt to penetrate through heavy cloud cover as the approach was made to Innsbruck.
The March 29, 1962 agreement to create the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO), with Australia, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and West Germany working together on a space program, came into effect.
Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq became Prime Minister (later the Chief Minister) of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, and would remain in office until his death on December 12, 1971.
A son was born today to Princess Alexandra, 27-year-old cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. He is 13th in line of succession to the throne, but his place will drop to 16th after three other royal births expected later this year. The Queen is expected her fourth child next month. Princess Margaret, sister of the Queen, and the Duchess of Kent, sister‐in‐law of Princess Alexandra, are also expecting babies. Princess Alexandra was married last April to Angus Ogilvy, second son of the Earl and Countess of Airlie and a director of several companies.
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that the United States had developed a jet airplane (the A-11), capable of sustained flight at more than 2,000 miles per hour (3,200 km/h) and of altitudes of more than 70,000 feet (21,000 m). The revelation of the existence of the Lockheed A-12 (which had first flown in 1962) was made after Republican challenger Barry Goldwater had said in speeches that Democrats had neglected the defense of the United States.
President Johnson said today that he was fully committed to the civil rights bill as it passed the House of Representatives, and that he hoped it would clear the Senate without amendment. Reports that he was willing to compromise on the controversial public accommodations sections of the measure, he said at his news conference, were “strictly Republican in origin.”
The wavering front of the civil rights bill’s supporters in the Senate should be strengthened by President Johnson’s firm declaration yesterday that the Administration will fight any watering down of the bill. Even before the Southern filibusterers have begun their campaign of attrition on the Senate floor, disturbing signs have developed that the kind of well‐knit bipartisan coalition that carried the measure through the House by such a decisive margin cannot be mobilized in the Senate. Among Republicans, both liberal and conservative, the disposition to play politics with this crucial issue seems irresistible. On the Democratic side, much stronger leadership is plainly needed if there is to be any hope of outmaneuvering the wily enemies of equal rights.
The forthcoming civil rights filibuster will raise the curtain on one of the most delicate political balancing acts ever attempted by President Johnson. He must win Senate approval of meaningful civil rights legislation over the opposition of a small but powerful group of Southern opponents. And he must do this in such a way as to bolster his strength among liberals in the North without arousing mass enmity among conservatives in the South. Mr. Johnson goes into the battle with a number of points in his favor, not the least of which is that, as a Texan, he is the first Southerner in a century to hold the Presidency. Political polls and other soundings of sentiment indicate that he is highly popular among a majority of the region’s whites. This popularity shows no apparent decline as the result of his outspoken advocacy of the sweeping civil rights measure passed by the House. Further, the pro‐Johnson sentiment appears to extend into those states that supported the Republican Presidential ticket in 1960 — Florida, Tennessee and Virginia.
The administration of Maryland Governor J. Millard Tawes has three days to attempt a settlement of more than 200 years of racial segregation in Princess Anne. Mr. Tawes, a Democrat, was born not far from there, in Crisfield, “the crab capital of the world.” The fact that it is still his home county has heightened expectation that he may be able to extract from an unwilling Legislature the means to keep hundreds and perhaps thousands of civil rights partisans from descending on Princess Anne next week. They are pledged to come. So, reportedly, is the less organized opposition — the rural white supremacists from up and down the Delaware‐Maryland‐Virginia Peninsula.
The Eastern Shore, according to Black leaders, is “the northernmost piece of the Deep South.” Princess Anne is already garrisoned by 150 state policemen, more than 10 percent of the permanent population. Last weekend and again on Wednesday, Princess Anne became the first place in 1964 to deploy police K‐9 dogs — and on Wednesday, fire hoses — against Blacks demonstrating to protest discrimination.
This choice of weapons has been vigorously defended by the State Police on the ground that there was imminent danger to life and limb. But it has also had a galvanic effect on civil rights advocates. Major George E. Davidson, chief of operations for the State Police, has said the dogs and hoses are necessary to “keep the two factions separated.” His report to the Legislature in Annapolis last night was roundly applauded. However, Blacks have protested that in Wednesday’s brawl, in which 82 Black students were injured, “the two factions were the students and the police.”
Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon says President Johnson “is weak in devotion to principle,” and “tricky,” and that Republicans must make their stand against him on traditional party principles and unity. Mr. Nixon is quoted in an article in The Saturday Evening Post as saying: “Nobody really can say where Johnson stands because he has been against civil rights as a Senator and for civil rights as President. He was for heavy spending as a New Deal Congressman and now he’s against heavy spending. “He’s not only tricky but he’s good at it.”
Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn Jr. postponed today his retirement from the Marine Corps for a month, apparently to avoid the risk of losing his disability benefits. The 42‐year‐old astronaut’s announcement was made at Grant Hospital, following consultations with doctors and his advisers in his campaign for the Democratic Senatorial nomination. His retirement to enter politics was to have taken effect at midnight tonight. However, a mild concussion suffered in a bathroom fall Wednesday has kept him in the hospital with an equilibrium disturbance. He gets dizzy when he moves. The choice of whether to retire from the Marines immediately or remain on active duty pending final determination of his condition was offered to him earlier today in a teIegram from Marine headquarters in Washington.
Federal Judge Archie O. Dawson castigated the Government yesterday for “shocking” and “Russian type” tactics in its prosecution of Roy M. Cohn. However, he tentatively refused to dismiss a perjury and conspiracy indictment against Mr. Cohn and to suppress evidence in the case. He said it was his present intention to have the former aide of the late Senator Joseph R. McCarthy stand trial March 16 as scheduled. Judge Dawson’s criticism of the Government was made in connection with a hearing on a petition by Mr. Cohn for dismissal of the indictment and suppression of the evidence because the Government had been intercepting his mail and that of his lawyer, Thomas A. Bolan. “I think it is a shocking thing for the United States Attorney’s office to put a mail watch on the attorney for a defendant after he has been indicted,” Judge Dawson said indignantly.
Florida Governor Farris Bryant threw the full strength of his office today behind efforts to find those responsible for acts of sabotage against the struck Florida East Coast Railway. Under a statute never invoked before, the Governor appointed 15 members of the Department of Public Safety and six members of the Florida Sheriff’s Bureau as special officers to track down the perpetrators.
Space dollars from the Federal Treasury are falling in uneven showers in parts of the country that already are receiving a big share of defense research dollars. Most of the space funds, now being spent at the rate of $10 million a day, are bypassing the Middle West. Some of the money is going to the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf Coast, but most of it is reaching the already booming missile and electronic industries of the Pacific Coast. Fifty percent of the contract dollars awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, for example, is going to California. Almost all of the rest is divided among only nine other states. Moreover, the biggest space contractors often are also the biggest defense contractors. Scientific policy makers within the Administration as well as politicians from the bypassed regions are becoming concerned over this increasing regional and industrial concentration of the Government’s two largest research and development programs.
“Rugantino” closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 28 performances.
North Carolina high school basketball teams play to 56—54 score in 13 overtime periods.
Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser records the fastest 100-meter freestyle of her brilliant career; smashes her own world record 58.9s in Sydney; goes on to win her 3rd straight gold in the event at the Tokyo Olympics.
Cincinnati’s Jerry Lucas and Oscar Robertson combine for a rare 40-40 performance as the Royals beat host Philadelphia 76ers, 117—114; NBA MVP Robertson has 43 points; Rookie of the Year Lucas, 40 rebounds.
Born:
James Ogilvy, British magazine publisher and member of British royalty as the first son of Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin, Princess Alexandra.
Bruce Hill, NFL wide receiver (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), in Fort Dix, New Jersey.
Lyndon Byers, Canadian NHL right wing (Boston Bruins, San Jose Sharks), in Nipawin, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Henrik Sundström, Swedish tennis player (ranked #6 1984), born in Lund, Sweden.
Died:
Frank Albertson, 55, American actor (“Psycho”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Alice Adams”), in his sleep.
History Diaries 