Brazil’s revolutionary Government summarily expelled 40 members from Congress today on the ground of pro‐Communist or extremist activity endangering the state. At the same time the military‐controlled regime suspended the political rights of the ousted legislators, as well as those of 60 other prominent Brazilians, for 10 years. Among the 60 are former Presidents João Goulart and Janio Quadros. Also included are Luis Carlos Prestes, longtime leader of Brazil’s banned but active Communist forces; two generals; a pro‐Communist labor leader, a judge, a leftist publisher and the planning director of the development agency in the poverty‐stricken northeast. The loss of political rights means suspension of the right to vote and to hold elective or appointive office. A number of those affected will also be tried on charges of plotting against the security of the state.
The crackdown was the first direct action in the wake of the imposition yesterday of an Institutional Act that will guide Brazil until January 31, 1966. The act is a basic set of rules put into effect by the revolutionary command to clean out Communist and extremist elements and to initiate economic recovery. It arms the President to be elected by Congress tomorrow with powers little short of the dictatorial. Most of the major newspapers appeared to be supporting the extreme powers for the new President as the medicine Brazil needs. But some sections of the press declared that the act opened the way to the trampling of individual liberties and to a full‐scale military dictatorship.
The interim President will finish out the term of Mr. Goulart, who was forced out of office a week ago. That term ends January 31, 1966, and the Institutional Act states that the special executive powers end at the same time. The army Chief of Staff, Gen. Humberto Castelo Branco, seems to have major backing for the election. The 63‐year‐old career soldier is described as nonpolitical. He was chief coordinator of the military forces that reluctantly decided to topple Mr. Goulart to prevent a continued trend toward pro‐Communist government. Also in the field for the interim Presidency is the Second Army commander, General Amaury Kruel.
The Institutional Act has put Brazil under the sternest executive power she has known for many years. Even so, a majority of the public, like most of the press, appeared to accept the extra powers as the only way to eliminate the Communist menace, to cut through the knot of a contentious Congress and to get the economy moving again. The interim President will have great power to initiate legislation and to get it acted upon quickly. Congress has 30 days in which to vote or a bill submitted by the President automatically becomes law. However, the military leaders guaranteed regular Presidential elections on schedule in October, 1965. Almost 10 percent of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies was expelled by the military action.
A Turkish Cypriote was killed and his daughter was wounded today by Greek Cypriote gunfire on the truce line in a suburb of Nicosia. British Sherwood Foresters immediately manned the line in strength, as did Turkish Cypriote fighters in their positions well back from the line. There was no further shooting. The incident, the first since Monday, when four Turkish Cypriotes were shot by Greek Cypriotes a few miles east of Nicosia, occurred just before Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, United Nations Under Secretary for Political Affairs, toured the truce line.
The Turkish Cypriote, Mehmet Saffet, and his 16‐year‐old daughter were watering their garden when the Greek Cypriote security forces opened fire on them, according to United Nations officials. The Greek Cypriote position from which the firing was believed to have come is virtually on the truce line despite British and United Nations efforts to move it and other Greek positions back from the line. Theoretically, no fortified positions are permitted within 100 yards of the line. Both Turkish and Greek Cypriotes frequently have violated this provision of the agreement.
Three United States Army helicopter crewmen and seven South Vietnamese soldiers were killed yesterday when the tail fell off their unarmed helicopter south of the Mekong Delta, a United States spokesman said today. The helicopter crashed and burned while it was airlifting South Vietnamese troops into a ground operation against Communist Việt Cộng guerrillas. The scene was about 10 miles northwest of Cà Mau, near the southern tip of Vietnam. The United States spokesman said there was no evidence that the craft had been fired upon.
The Defense Department announced today that 7,500 United States troops would be withdrawn from West Germany beginning next month. Except for a tank battalion, these will include all the remaining reinforcing units sent to West Germany in the Berlin crisis of 1961. The Pentagon said the troops being withdrawn were in excess of commitments to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. also pointed out that the combat capability of United States forces in West Germany had been greatly increased. The West German Government said in Bonn that it “did not raise any objections to these troop withdrawal measures.” The statement was explicit, however, in narrowing its approval to the withdrawal of troops that were not part of the United States’ standing commitment under Atlantic Pact arrangements.
West Germany did not raise objections, the statement said, “since these units are not part of those assigned to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for common defense planning, but are units transferred here to give additional strength during a period of heightened tension.” Last September, when authorities in Europe disclosed plans to withdraw some of the same units, the West German Government objected strenuously and the plans were held up. The United States had about 232,000 Army troops in West Germany in early 1961, shortly before Premier Khrushchev began making threats to change the status of Berlin. The Soviet leader indicated at the time that his government would sign a separate peace treaty with the East German Communist regime. This would have turned over to the East Germans responsibility for United States, British, and French access rights to the city.
The United States has retaliated for a travel ban on four of its embassy attachés in Moscow by restricting all Soviet military attachés in the U.S. to the Washington area. Apparently to try to prevent the attaché incident from developing into a major diplomatic showdown, the State Department refrained from any official announcement of the travel embargo. The Defense Department said that “appropriate retaliatory action has been taken” but did not specify what the measures were. Officials later disclosed that as long as the United States Embassy attachés were under restriction in Moscow, no Soviet military attachés would be permitted to travel outside the Washington area.
The French and Algerian Governments agreed today to regulate what has become a record‐breaking influx of Algerians into France. More than 500,000 Algerians live here. Fleeing poverty in Algeria, this population has created economic, housing, health and crime problems in France. A protocol was signed by Dr. Mohammed Nekkache, Algerian Minister of Social Affairs, Gilbert Grandval, French Minister of Labor, and Jean de Broglie, Secretary of State for Algerian Affairs. Starting July 1, Algerians will be allowed to enter France according to the needs of the labor market in Algeria and France.
Under the protocol the French Government will inform Algeria of what its needs are for workers every three months. At the same time Algeria will institute medical inspection for all would‐be emigrants before they leave. The inspections will be carried out by a French medical team under Algerian authority. The number of families allowed to enter France will be conditioned upon housing being available. France will give Algerian workers more access to job training centers in France.
The Soviet Union showed keen interest today in the United Arab Republic’s proposal that Washington abandon its plan for an allied nuclear navy in exchange for Moscow’s approval of a missile freeze. Semyon K. Tsarapkin, the Soviet negotiator, called on Abdel Fattah Hassan of the United Arab Republic to congratulate him on his statement yesterday at the 17‐nation disarmament conference here. The conference did not meet today. A qualified source said that Mr. Tsarapkin expressed special satisfaction at the suggestion involving the proposed nuclear surface fleet under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
An Iranian motor launch catches fire and sinks, killing 113, in the Persian Gulf.
David Threlfall, a 20-year-old British science fiction fan from Preston, Lancashire, placed a wager with the William Hill PLC bookmaking company, which regularly offers odds and accepts bets on the timing and outcome of future events. Hill offered odds of 1,000 to 1 on the likelihood of “or any man, woman or child, from any nation on Earth, being on the Moon, or any other planet, star or heavenly body of comparable distance from Earth, before January, 1971.” and Threlfall placed a bet of £10 (roughly $28 at the time) On July 20, 1969, Threlfall would be presented a check for £10,000 (worth $24,000 in 1969) on a live BBC broadcast, shortly after the safe landing of Apollo 11’s lunar module on the Moon at 10:18 pm British Standard Time.
In Washington, five top mediators led by Labor Secretary W. Willard Wirtz begun an intensive effort today to settle the railroad work rules dispute. They have at least until midnight on April 21, the end of the 15‐day reprieve from a national railroad strike won last night by President Johnson. The history of the five‐year work rules dispute indicates that the chances of a negotiated settlement are slim. But Mr. Johnson showed today that he intended to see to it that an all‐out effort for a solution was made.
The President met personally with the negotiators and mediators in the warm spring sunshine in the White House Rose Garden before they went into the Cabinet Room to get the talks started. Failure to settle the dispute, the President warned, “could have grave consequences in our national life.” “We must constantly keep in mind that negotiation to settle disputes is a hallmark of a civilized and democratic society;” he said. “It is this procedure that separates us front many less civilized or more barbaric or less understanding societies.”
Mr. Johnson said that his objective was “an honorable solution — not a solution posed by decree.” He emphasized this point, declaring: “Personally, I approach this matter free of any preconceptions other than the determination that the democratic rights and privileges of labor, management and the public must be protected. The national interest in all cases is overriding, but the national interest is never truly served if individual rights are suppressed.” The President also seemed to imply, however, that if a settlement were not forthcoming, the Administration was prepared to seek emergency legislation to stop a national railroad strike. He said: “By the end of the 15‐day period, if not sooner, we expect to resolve these differences. If we are unable to, we will follow the democratic processes and find other means. But we are encouraged and we are optimistic.”
Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen appeared today to have a better‐than‐even chance of winning Senate approval of significant changes in the fair employment section of the civil rights bill. Yesterday the Republican lead er discussed with his party colleagues the amendments he had in mind for Title VII, which bans discrimination in hiring. firing, promotions and union membership. As a result of those discussions, he decided today to drop some of his proposals and to modify others in an effort to meet some of the objections raised to them. His aides were working today on these modifications. Next Tuesday or Wednesday the Illinois Republican, after a second party conference, will introduce 15 amendments.
Actual voting on the amendments will probably not begin before the week after next at the earliest. The least controversial will be voted on first. An almost complete poll of the 33 Republican Senators today disclosed that 20 either definitely favored or were inclined toward Mr. Dirksen’s two most controversial amendments. Only six Republican liberals were unqualifiedly opposed to them. The first amendment would require the proposed Federal Fair Employment Commission to cede jurisdiction over a discrimination case to a state agency whenever that agency requested it. The state agency would retain jurisdiction unless its ineffectiveness was determined by a final court decision. The second would, in effect, make compliance with the federal ban on job discrimination almost voluntary. It would permit the complainant to go to court for relief only if the commission were unable to get an employer to stop discriminating. Under the House‐passed the commission could file suit.
Verda Welcome, the first black state senator in Maryland, was shot in Baltimore. The gunman, also an African-American, fired five shots at her as she was preparing to get out of her car. Mrs. Welcome had opened her door and was preparing to step out when she remembered some posters she had left in the back seat, and the shots came through the side windows while she was leaning over. As a result, she was grazed on her back and her heel rather than taking a direct hit, and told reporters later, “I’m happy to be among the living.”
The Pentagon has ordered the discontinuance of enrollment by military personnel in civilian schools that practice racial discrimination. The order does not affect the Reserve Officer Training Corps. But it does cover the largescale education programs in which, at present, about 100,000 servicemen take courses at civilian schools, colleges and universities. Officials said they had no way of knowing how many servicemen would be affected by the order. A Pentagon spokesman said he could not ascertain how much money the Defense Department spends on such programs. The order, issued March 25 in the form of a memorandum to the service secretaries and the directors of major Pentagon agencies, permits certain exceptions.
The Congress of Racial Equality suspended its Brooklyn chapter yesterday for refusing to give up plans for a gigantic traffic jam at the World’s Fair opening April 22. James Farmer, CORE’s national director, charged that the flamboyant tactics of the Brooklyn group were in conflict with protests being prepared by other chapters under the guidance of the national organization. Those plans are to be announced today. In a telegram, Mr. Farmer ordered the officers of the Brooklyn chapter to make no public statements before a meeting of all the local chapters at the national office this afternoon. The meeting could bring the expulsion of the Brooklyn chapter.
Defying Mr. Farmer, the officers of the Brooklyn chapter held a news conference in their storefront office in the Bedford‐Stuyvesant section. They insisted that they were going ahead with their plans and contended that they had already enlisted enough persons with cars to snarl fair‐bound traffic. The plan, which is being called a “stall‐in,” is for the cars to run out of gas on major arteries leading to the fairgrounds. The suspension put the national organization in the uncomfortable position of disciplining one of its most militant chapters. It created confusion among the local chapters here, none of which issued statements supporting Mr. Farmer.
Thousands of citizens paid tribute today to the memory of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, who will be buried in Norfolk, Virginia tomorrow in the climax of a week of ceremony. The funeral will be attended by Prime Ministers and ambassadors, by generals and admirals — many of them retired figures familiar to veterans of two wars — and by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, representing President Johnson.
Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist, retired from public performances, with his final concert at Los Angeles.
Demolition of the Polo Grounds sports stadium (home to MLB Giants, 1891-1957, Mets, 1962-63, and NFL Jets, 1960-63) commenced in Upper Manhattan, New York City to clear way for housing project.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 821.75 (+0.40).
Born:
Eric King, MLB pitcher (Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians), in Oxnard, California.
Steve Seguin, Canadian NHL wing (Los Angeles Kings), in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada.
Felicia Collins, American guitarist (“David Letterman Show”), in Albany, New York.
Manon Bollegraf, Dutch women’s tennis star, in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.
Reni [Alan John Wren], English pop drummer (Stone Roses – “Fools Gold”), in Manchester, England, United Kingdom.
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