South Vietnamese Premier Major General Nguyễn Khánh initiates a ‘clear and hold’ program of training ARVN officers to run local governments properly so that, in the words of Ambassador Lodge, “the Việt Cộng won’t come right back.” The South Vietnamese Government started today an emergency training program for young army officers who have the task of bringing effective government to the people of the villages. Special courses for the country’s district chiefs marked an important first step in Major General Khánh’s “clear and hold” program to wipe out Communist insurgency. Strongly endorsed by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara in his recent visit, the strategy calls for efficient administrators in the areas cleared of guerrillas by military action.
“You are the ‘hold’ in ‘clear and hold’,” Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge told the opening day classes. The Ambassador addressed 40 military district chiefs who will attend the two‐week course. “You epitomize the idea of government as the servant of the people,” Ambassador Lodge said. “The old idea of the arrogant official, looking down on the people, is a thing of the past. You should be trusted and loved. “After the enemy have been driven out, it is up to you to govern the community with the help of the local militia so that the Việt Cộng won’t come right back.”
Ambassador Lodge told the assembled district chiefs, “It is up to you to create a civilized human community where the people have security and can sleep at night, where their children can be educated, where their health can be cared for, where they are kept informed, where they can own their own land. “It is up to you to bring about the social revolution which the people want. Do not let the Communists bring about the social revolution. You must do it.” The training program, being given at Saigon’s National Institute of Administration, is to be repeated at monthly intervals until all country’s district chiefs have passed through. Under consideration for three months, the training plan was given impetus by Premier Khánh’s national pacification plan and the McNamara visit. Similar training will also be given to 800 graduates of South Vietnam’s Reserve Officers’ Training School, thereby supplying a pool from which future district chiefs may be chosen.
Two United States soldiers captured by Communist guerrillas near the southern tip of Vietnam last October 29 have been reported alive. Both were forced by their captors to kneel and apologize for their alleged crimes every time they were taken through a village, according to peasants in the area. The men were reported ill and undernourished, but apparently, they had not been harmed. They were identified earlier as Lieutenant James N. Rowe of McAllen, Texas, and Captain Humbert R. Versace of Baltimore. A third American captured with them was Sgt. 1st Class Daniel L. Pitzer of Spring Lake, California. There have been no reports about him.
U.S. Senator Wayne Morse, Democrat of Oregon, said tonight that the Johnson Administration “must be repudiated” unless it abandoned the policy of supporting what he called “the McNamara war in South Vietnam.” Senator Morse said the United States “couldn’t be more wrong” in what he called its unilateral intervention. He said Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara was “calling for a unilateral American war, and holding out the possibility of expanding the fighting into North Vietnam and even into China itself.” The Senator described his speech as a reply to Mr. McNamara’s statement last Thursday pledging continued help to the South Vietnamese Government in its fight against the Communist Việt Cộng guerrillas.
Prince Norodom Sihanouk was reported tonight to have dropped his deadline for a conference of the major powers to guarantee Cambodian neutrality and territorial integrity. The Cambodian chief of state was also said to have given up, at least for now, his stated intention of going to Peking to get help. Such help would be for the reaching of border agreements with the Việt Cộng Communist rebels of South Vietnam and the Pathet Lao pro‐Communist forces of Laos unless a conference was convened quickly. Prince Sihanouk said a week ago that unless the West agreed by today to the convening of an international conference in Geneva, he would seek Chinese aid in obtaining the desired guarantees. Later he eased the deadline and said that unless a conference had started by April 15 Cambodia would have “no other solution” but to negotiate recognition of her frontiers with the Việt Cộng and the Pathet Lao through “the good offices” of Peking. However, according to well-informed sources, the prince has now decided to “wait and see.” For the time being, they said, he is not planning to leave Cambodia.
United Nations troops in Cyprus were put to their first test under fire and responded with fire early today during an hour‐long exchange between Greek and Turkish Cypriotes. British troops manning a position in Kaimakli Kutchuk (Omorphita), a district just north of the old walled city of Nicosia, twice came under direct fire from the Greek Cypriote position. This afternoon a foot patrol of 12 British troops was pinned down for nearly three hours by gunfire near Halevga, a Greek Cypriote mountain village 12 miles northeast of Nicosia. The troops returned the fire, shooting about 100 rounds. They eventually made their way out of the area. There were no reports of casualties.
Tonight, Greek Cypriote authorities conceded that they had fired on the United Nations patrol at Halevga and said that they had mistaken the group for Turkish terrorists. In Nicosia, the acting commander of the Greek Cypriote gendarmerie, Savvas Antonio, said he had talked the matter over with United Nations authorities and had reached an “understanding” that in the future Greek Cypriotes would be informed in advance of movements by patrols. United Nations sources said they were aware of no such understanding, but did accept the incident as a genuine misunderstanding. The British troops in Cyprus, now part of the international force charged with keeping the peace, were warned last night to expect their new role to be tested.
The Greek Government declared tonight that the defense of Cyprus in case of a Turkish invasion was a “duty of honor” for Greece. The declaration was made by Premier George Papandreou while outlining his Center Union Government’s policy as he asked Parliament for a vote of confidence. Mr. Papandreou said: “Only termination of all outside intervention in Cyprus, as well as full protection of rights of the island’s Greek majority and Turkish minority in accord with the principles of democracy, can solve this grave problem, which is jeopardizing Greek‐Turkish relations, the NATO affiance and peace in general.”
The Premier, while reasserting Greece’s allegiance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the West, showed unexpected warmth toward Communist Yugoslavia. He said: “President Tito is an apostle of peace and it is natural we should understand each other.” Marshal Tito and Mr. Papandreou are expected to have an early meeting.
A war, between Somalia and Ethiopia, that had started on February 7, ended after President Ibrahim Abboud of Sudan brokered a ceasefire between the two northeast African nations. With a multinational peacekeeping force from the Organisation of African Unity supporting the cessation of hostilities, Somalian and Ethiopian forces withdrew back from the existing border. A joint communiqué said the two African countries, at a meeting in Khartoum, agreed on a complete withdrawal of troops, starting Wednesday, for distances of six to nine miles from the disputed border. Peace talks between the two sides ended Saturday, but issuance of a communique was delayed until approval came from the Somali Government.
The Chinese Communist party called upon the international Communist movement today to repudiate the leadership of Premier Khrushchev. It said the Soviet leader had assumed “the mantle of Trotsky.” Peking urged all Communist parties to abandon the Soviet “revisionist quagmire” and adhere to the line of the Chinese Communist party, which was described as Marxist‐Leninist. Highly reliable sources in Moscow said a last conciliation offer to Peking had been rejected. The sources said the rejection reached the Kremlin a few days ago. Peking’s declaration seemed to be a summons to parties throughout the world to emulate the pro‐Peking faction of the Australian Communist party. The faction split this week and announced the establishment of a separate organization to be known as the Communist party of Australia (Marxist‐Leninist).
In Clacton-on-Sea, it was “Mods” against “Rockers” and the police against both as the quiet seaside town of 28,000 exploded with teenage violence during the Easter weekend. Britain had not seen anything like it in years. Everyone in Clacton, from the bobby patrolling near a shattered amusement arcade to a hotelkeeper who had bolted his doors against the “hooligans,” was asking why. The “Mods” or “Moderns” wear sharply cut Italian‐style suits and long, pointed “winklepicker” shoes. They ride motor scooters fitted with scores of gleaming accessories.
Brazilian President João Goulart ordered an inquiry today into last Friday’s decision to grant an amnesty to sailors who participated in a mutiny. At the same time though, the President ordered an investigation of the officers who demanded that the sailors be disciplined and that the country defend itself against “Communization.” In a reply tonight to the officers’ call to the country, Mr. Goulart urged sergeants and lower‐ranking personnel in the armed forces to support him against the “reactionaries.”
Trans-Canada Airlines was renamed Air Canada. Canada’s House of Commons had approved the legislation on March 3, in a bill sponsored by future Prime Minister Jean Chrétien from Quebec, who had championed the new name that would work equally well in the French and English languages.
The Senate began formal debate today on the civil rights bill of 1964. Immediately, the bipartisan coalition supporting the far‐reaching measure took the offensive. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, the majority whip and Democratic floor manager of the bill, said the objectives of the legislation were those set for the nation by the Founding Fathers in the Preamble to the Constitution: “Justice, domestic tranquility, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty.” Then, putting aside his prepared speech, the Minnesota Democrat picked up the Bible and read the 12th verse of the seventh chapter of St. Matthew: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” The Senator then said: “It is to fulfill this great admonition — this is what we are trying to do in this bill.”
When Mr. Humphrey had finished, Senator Thomas H. Kuchel of California, the minority whip and Republican floor manager of the bill, declared: “Discrimination has been demonstrated and documented in a long and sordid series of illegal and unconstitutional denials of equal treatment under law in almost every activity of many of our fellow men. “Thus, such legislation as we now have before us cannot be ignored, nor can the issue be avoided, no matter from which state a Senator might come. It is the right to stand up and say: ‘Judge me for my ability, for my qualifications, for my talent. Do not judge me for the color of my skin.’”
“No American can read the thousands of pages of testimony which have been taken in field hearings all over our land by the United States Commission on Civil Rights without being greatly impressed with the work of law and of the heart which still remains to be accomplished. The bill which is now before us is a partial response to that documented and sad record.” Beginning on March 9, the Southern opponents of the bill talked for 16 days with the dual objective of delaying its formal consideration by the Senate and then of sending it to the Judiciary Committee for 10 days of hearings. Last Thursday, however, before recessing for the Easter weekend, the Senate voted, 67 to 17, to make the bill passed by the House last February 10 the Senate’s pending business. It then killed, by a vote of 54 to 30, a motion to send the bill to committee.
The state of Alaska looked today to the federal government for heavy subsidies to help it recover from the earthquake that struck Friday night. Direct appropriations from the federal Treasury to help rehabilitation work in the public sector were widely favored. These would augment forms of direct financial assistance already available under existing laws for restoration of essential public structures and services, for power and sewage‐system repairs and non‐federal highway reconstruction. Leading bankers declared that the private sector of the state would be in a situation approaching hopelessness in some cases without long‐term capital, probably on a grant basis. The bankers estimated that areas containing 60 percent of the state’s total developed worth had been affected.
The conclusion about the state’s finances seemed to agree with that reached by Alaska’s Congressional delegation after a ground and aerial inspection yesterday of the worst‐damaged cities and towns. Business remained at a virtual standstill in Anchorage. City Manager Robert H. Oldland sent inspection teams on another tour of all downtown structures that were still standing and that appeared from the outside to be structurally safe. Mr. Oldland estimated that at least 100 buildings in the central section of the city would have to be torn down. This includes all of the high‐rise apartments, two of which are 14 stories. Some older structures of concrete, with wooden joists, came through the earthquake intact, while newer structural steel and concrete buildings in many cases suffered damage almost beyond repair.
Lieut. Col. John H. Glenn Jr. announced from his hospital bed today that he was pulling out of the Senate race in Ohio. The former astronaut said that his slow recovery from a severe head injury barred an active campaign and that he did not think it fair to ask “the people of Ohio to vote for a name.” It was a “difficult decision” for the 42‐year‐old marine, who had orbited the earth and flown in two wars without injury only to “spin in” — as he put it — in a bathroom fall in his Columbus, Ohio, apartment last February 26.
The announcement broke off a contest for the Democratic nomination between Colonel Glenn and the peppery incumbent Senator, 74‐year‐old Stephen M. Young. The colonel wired Ohio’s Secretary of State, Ted Brown, official notice of his withdrawal. The primary is set for May 5. Colonel Glenn told newsmen that he had no immediate plans other than to speed his recovery. He said he did not know if he would stay in the Marines or try politics at a future date. The veteran flier, first American to make an orbital trip, made his decision to withdraw after receiving a detailed report on his physical status and prospects from a panel of doctors. They strongly recommended that he drop any plans for the next few months in order to facilitate full recovery from the injury to his left inner ear.
The Air Force has replaced the commanding officer of the three United States fliers whose plane was shot down over East Germany on March 10. The Pentagon announced that Colonel Arthur Small, commander of the 10th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing with headquarters at Alconbury, England, was transferred last Wednesday. His post was taken by Colonel DeWitt S. Spain. Colonel Small was assigned to the headquarters of the 17th Air Force as assistant deputy chief of staff for operations. The Pentagon would not comment when asked if the change had anything to do with the incident of the RB-66 reconnaissance plane, which went down after being attacked by a Russian fighter plane well inside the East German frontier. However, some Pentagon sources hinted that poor navigation had caused the plane to stray into East Germany. These sources also indicated that a complete investigation was under way. The Russians have charged that the plane was on a reconnaissance mission.
The Government’s star witness against Roy M. Cohn testified yesterday that he had split $50,000 between Mr. Cohn and a former chief assistant United States attorney to escape indictment in a 1959 stock fraud case. The witness, Samuel S. Garfield, testified in Federal Court that he handed $16,666 to Mr. Cohn in the lobby of the Desert Inn at Las Vegas, Nevada, in September, 1959. He said he had arranged with an associate to pay the other two‐thirds of the $50,000 to Morton S. Robson, former chief assistant Federal attorney, in August of that year. He said that Mr. Cohn had dictated the Robson payment and that he had never met the former official. Garfield, a confessed stock swindler, spoke so quietly that spectators, mesmerized by the taut courtroom scene, strained to catch every word.
The U.S. Supreme Court set aside today the contempt conviction of Miss Mary Hamilton, a Black woman who declined to answer in an Alabama court when she was addressed as “Mary.” The N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund had asked the Supreme Court to review the case. It argued that the addressing of Blacks familiarly by their first names was a key element in the South’s “racial caste system.” The Court granted review today and then went on to summarily reverse the conviction without hearing arguments. Six Justices voted for that disposition. Five of this majority joined in an unsigned order citing a Court decision last April that state courtrooms may not be segregated. The implication was that different treatment of Blacks in the matter of address was another form of racial discrimination.
The Texas Bar Association accused Melvin M. Belli today of “outrageous conduct” after Mr. Jack L. Ruby’s trial and asked the State Supreme Court to prohibit Mr. Belli from ever again practicing in Texas. In a lengthy brief filed by Davis Grant, general counsel, and L. Money Adams Jr., his assistant, the state bar said Mr. Belli’s “flagrant violations of the canons of ethics have shocked the consciences of not the lawyers of Texas and the nation, but the public as well.” The motion asked the court’s permission to file suit for a permanent injunction.
The game show “Jeopardy!” created by Merv Griffin, made its debut at 11:30 Eastern time in the U.S., appearing on the NBC television network. Art Fleming served as the show’s original host. As a reporter described the format, the show “provides answers in six categories, and three non-celebrity contestants have to supply the correct questions”. Premiering half an hour earlier on the ABC network was the less successful “Get the Message,” hosted by Frank Buxton and described as being “that two celebrities per men-vs.-women side, instead of one, offer “Password”-like clues to contestants trying to guess words and phrases.”
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 815.29 (-0.62).
Born:
Tracy Chapman, American Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter (“Fast Car”; “Give Me One Reason”), in Cleveland, Ohio.
Ian Ziering, American actor (“Beverly Hills 90210”), in West Orange, New Jersey.
Dave Ellett, NHL defenseman (NHL All-Star, 1989, 1992; Winnipeg Jets, Toronto Maple Leafs, New Jersey Devils, Boston Bruins, St. Louis Blues), in Cleveland, Ohio.
Corey Millen, Team USA and NHL center (Olympics, 1984, 1988; New York Rangers, Los Angeles Kings, New Jersey Devils, Dallas Stars, Calgary Flames), in Cloquet, Minnesota.
Bill Watson, Canadian NHL right wing (Chicago Blackhawks), in Pine Falls, Manitoba, Canada.
Brant Bengen, NFL wide receiver (Seattle Seahawks), in Bellingham, Washington.
Died:
Nellallitea “Nella” Larsen [Nellie Walker], 72, African-American Harlem Renaissance novelist (“Quicksand”, “Passing”).
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