Việt Cộng forces overrun the outpost of Phú Túc, kill seven, injure 15 and capture the remaining defenders; when an ARVN infantry unit sets out to track down the Việt Cộng responsible, it is ambushed and four U.S. military advisers are killed. Four United States military advisers were killed in Kiến Hòa Province, about 50 miles south of Saigon, tonight when the government infantry unit to which they were attached was ambushed by Communist guerrillas, United States sources reported today.
The bodies of all four Americans were recovered early today by a relief force that moved in from Mỹ Tho. The report from the Mekong delta sector was that the Americans were three United States Army officers and an enlisted man. Their deaths bring the total of Americans killed in action in South Vietnam to 185. The Americans were with an infantry battalion searching for a Việt Cộng force that attacked and overran the military outpost of Phú Túc this morning. Of the 36 defenders of the mud‐walled outpost, seven were killed, 15 were wounded and the rest were captured. Three of the prisoners were rescued later by airborne troops, who killed two of the guerrillas and captured five.
The action came during an ominous day that saw villagers far to the north of Saigon stall a column of armored personnel carriers in a Government operation against the guerrillas by throwing themselves in front and back of the vehicles. The villagers waved Buddhist flags. Buddhists across South Vietnam commemorated today the high point of their sufferings under the fallen regime of President Ngô Đình Diệm last year and warned that Diệmist elements remain to stir religious strife.
In a message to the Security Council, the North Vietnamese Government rejects the U.S. charge that North Vietnam committed ‘deliberate aggression’ against U.S. ships and says that the United States ‘circulated an imaginary story’ about the second attack.
The U.S. Air Force began the first of 3,435 unmanned drone reconnaissance missions during the Vietnam War, using the Ryan AQM-34 Lightning Bug series. The first of the Lightning Bugs flew a mission in Communist Chinese airspace, while others flew over locations in Southeast Asia. The drones could gather photographic, electronic, and communication intelligence, as well as to serve as decoys or to drop leaflets.
Henry Cabot Lodge, who is touring Europe as a special envoy for President Johnson, arrived here today for talks with Premier Victor G. M. Marijnen. Mr. Lodge said his current tour was aimed at explaining United States policy in Vietnam, not at begging for support. Tomorrow he will go to Copenhagen. A spokesman for the Netherlands Government said that the Premier’s talk with Mr. Lodge had increased Mr. Marijnen’s conviction that something should be done to prevent further deterioration of the situation in Southeast Asia.
A United States pilot who was taken prisoner during the retaliatory air strikes on North Vietnamese bases on August 5 was quoted by the Hanoi radio today as having said he had been well treated and “adequately clothed and sheltered.” The pilot is Lieutenant (j.g.) Everett Alvarez Jr., of San Jose, California, whose plane was downed by ground fire. The Communist radio, in a broadcast monitored in Tokyo, said Lieutenant Alvarez made the statement in a letter to his wife, Tangee. The broadcast did not say when the letter was written and whether it had been delivered to Mrs. Alvarez.
[Ed: Not True, of course. The North Vietnamese regularly tortured American PoWs.]
Premier Souvanna Phouma left today for Paris for the meeting of leaders of Laos’s three political factions on Monday. Prince Souvanna Phouma flew in a plane of the Laotian Air Force for Bangkok, where he was to transfer to a commercial flight.
The United Nations, in a sudden show of force, today demolished three sensitive Turkish Cypriot gun positions along the truce line west of the old walled city. There was no shooting. But tempers were high as the United Nations peace ‐ keeping force swiftly leveled the positions at the edge of the Nicosia Club’s golf course. The operation, the largest of its kind yet seen on the island, was ordered because the fortifications posed a threat to the United Nations headquarters building and encampment of the Nicosia Military Zone Command, a military spokesman for the force said. The action took place a few hours before Greece’s Defense Minister, Petros Garoufalias, arrived in Nicosia apparently for a hasty visit with Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus. Mr. Garoufalias said he had come to inspect the Greek Army contingent of 950 men based on the island under the treaties that granted Cyprus independence in 1960. However, he was staying at the Presidential Palace as a guest of the Archbishop and was due to return to Athens tomorrow morning, a schedule that appeared to leave very little time for an inspection.
Most observers believed the minister’s arrival coincided with the expected imminent departure of a Greek Cypriot delegation to Moscow for talks about possible military aid from the Soviet Union. Reports preceding the minister from Athens suggested that Mr. Garoufalias would express the Greek Government’s strong observations about any military pact between Cyprus and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union recently offered to aid Cyprus in the event of foreign aggression. Moscow’s pledge was made after Turkish planes attacked Greek Cypriot positions on the island. The Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority have been fighting since December, when a Greek Cypriot effort to amend the island republic’s Constitution aroused Turkish Cypriot fears that their constitutional guarantees would be taken away from them.
Tonight, the Cyprus Government charged that two Turkish airplanes had flown over the island’s northwestern coast today. The United Nations confirmed that planes had been spotted over the area but said that they could not be identified. The area includes the villages of Kokkina and Mansoura where two weeks ago Greek Cypriot attaks on the Turkish Cypriot enclave brought Turkish air strikes in retaliation. If the planes were Turkish the flight marked a resumption of the reconnaissance missions over the island that were abandoned August 12 in response to an appeal from the United Nations Security Council.
Meanwhile, Archbishop Makarios, who is the leader of the Greek Cypriot community, was reliably reported to be threatening, to restore the economic blockade against Turkish Cypriots in the Nicosia region. The blockade, instituted a month ago, was lifted by the Government Tuesday. The Archbishop’s reported threat was conditioned on failure of the United Nations to open the Nicosia‐Kyrenia road. The road has been held by the Turkish Cypriots since the communal fighting broke out in December.
The United Nations’ move against the Turkish Cypriot positions got underway shortly before noon. Ten armored personnel carriers, seven armored scout cars, two 106‐mm recoilless rifles mounted on jeeps and 150 soldiers of the Danish, Finnish and Canadian contingents swept out onto the dusty, sunparched golf course. The Turkish Cypriot positions were on the northern edge of the course. The zone headquarters building and encampment as well as various Greek Cypriot fortifications are on the southern edge of the course. The Turkish Cypriot fighters were caught by surprise. They protested but, surrounded as they were by heavily armed peace‐keepers, there was little they could do to prevent the demolition of their positions. When armed Turkish Cypriots tried to approach the soldiers leveling the embankment, other United Nations troops stood in their way. Angry words were exchanged and there was some shoving. To the sound of shovels was added the repeated sharp clicks of cartridges being slammed into gun chambers.
The United Nations spokesman said the operation was ordered this morning after two weeks of negotiations with Turkish Cypriot authorities for removal of the fortifications had accomplished nothing. However, Unit Suleiman, the Turkish Cypriot liaison official to the United Nations command, denied this assertion and said he would protest “this behavior,” which he described as “not nice” since the United Nations had “not even warned us” of the move.
Government troops in the Congo fought today to blunt a rebel attack in the center of Bukavu. Reports from Bukavu, a key city in the eastern Congo on the shore of Lake Kivu, said Congolese Army forces still held the European section. The rebels were said to hold the African shantytown communes. Three Americans were reported missing after the fighting broke out in the city yesterday. They were Colonel William A. Dodds and Lieutenant Colonel Donald V. Rattan, both Army “counterinsurgency” experts, and Lewis R. Macfarlane, a vice consul.
An embassy spokesman said the two colonels, who were in Bukavu as military observers, were last reported “somewhere west of the city” yesterday afternoon. The rebel attack apparently came from the west. Mr. Macfarlane is believed to have been with them. He speaks fluent Swahili, the language of the eastern Congo, and was apparently serving as the translator. An unconfirmed report from Bukavu tonight said Colonel Rattan’s papers had been found by Government troops. However, embassy officials here were inclined to doubt the report. They said they still had hopes that the two men, described as “pretty tough cookies,” could fight their way out to neighboring Rwanda.
All other American personnel in the city have reached safety. Richard C. Matheron, the consul, and two members of his staff have remained at Kamembe Airport, just across the Rwanda border, and are reporting on the fighting in the city. Messages from Mr. Matheron and others at Kamembe told of the firing of mortar, grenades and small arms in the city all last night and through most of today. Radio messages tonight said the rebels were firing on the bridge that leads from the city to the Rwanda border. The rebels are supported by the Left wing National Liberation Committee and the Chinese Communist Embassy in the neighboring Burundi. Two United States donated T‐28 fighter‐bombers, flown by Cuban exiles, were reported to be strafing and firing rockets at the rebel positions.
Communist China, which has indicated that it will boycott a world conference of Communist parties planned by Moscow, is expected to convene a rival meeting. Observers here said this would probably be the outcome of a proposal by the New Zealand Communist, party that such a meeting be considered. The Chinese Communists gave their blessing to the proposal today by publishing it prominently in Jenmin Jih Pao, the official party organ.
Prince Abdul Rahman, Prime Minister of Malaysia, said today that a band of Indonesian invaders broken up by security forces in the state of Johore had intended to assassinate some Malaysian leaders. “Their aim was to create trouble, start killing people and assassinate some of the top officials,” he declared.
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act into law. “Today, for the first time in all the history of the human race,” Johnson said in a ceremony at the Rose Garden outside the White House, “a great nation is able to make and is willing to make a commitment to eradicate poverty among its people. To sign the legislation, Johnson “used 72 pens, which he handed out to the notables who were gathered together… a moment of high drama in a period in which a number of new, important, controversial programs were infused into American life”, with the “War on Poverty” being a major part of Johnson’s Great Society program.
A smiling President Johnson signed today his $947.5 million antipoverty bill. It was a perfect summer morning, and the President moved the ceremony to the broad steps overlooking the White House Rose Garden. There, squinting into the bright sun, he promised that “a new day of opportunity is dawning” for the nation’s poor. ”The days of the dole in our country are numbered,” he said. The program is designed to wage a nationwide attack on poverty and its causes. It has been estimated there are between 30 million and 35 million Americans living in poverty or on its fringes. Administration leaders have said the antipoverty program will attempt to “break the cycle of poverty” and make “taxpayers out of taxeaters.”
[Ed: Bitter laugh… No. The steady gains against deep poverty since World War II actually will end in the next few years as the “Great Society” takes hold. I reluctantly congratulate Poverty for winning the War on Poverty. All it seems to have done is to solidify a nearly permanent underclass, dependent on the “dole”, and locked out of the American dream.]
It was the first major legislative program to come exclusively from his Administration, and the President beamed happily on the almost exclusively Democratic gathering. Republican leaders in Congress had been invited, but did not attend. Republicans had fought the bill almost every step of the way on the ground that it was a “hodgepodge” and an election‐year bid for votes. Within hours after the antipoverty bill became law, the President’s billion‐dollar Appalachia bill was cleared by the House Rules Committee. The bill, calling for a fiveyear program of highway construction and other economic aid for the depressed Appalachia region, is closely allied to the antipoverty program.
President Johnson signed into law today a bill giving the government extensive new authority to regulate the securities industry. At the same time, the President swore in Manuel F. Cohen as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In signing the bill, Mr. Johnson expressed regret that William L. Cary, the retiring chairman, was leaving the government. Mr. Cary made his resignation effective one day earlier than planned so Mr. Cohen could he sworn in as part of the White House ceremony for the bill. The President went out of his way once again to declare that the relationship of government to industry should be one of “helping, not harassing.”
Prosident Johnson signed a bill yesterday authorizing the Veterans Administration to set up nursing care facililies with 4,000 beds. The agency says there are 3,700 veterans in V.A. hospitals who are in need of nursing care but remain in hospitals because the V.A. has no nursing homes for them.
The Pentagon answered again today with a label of falsehood Senator Barry Goldwater’s charges on nuclear weapons policy. The Republican Presidential nominee repeated yesterday an earlier assertion that by the nineteen‐seventies, if present defense policies are continued, the deliverable nuclear capacity of the country’s weapons would be reduced by 90 percent. Taking note of the Senator’s latest charge, which was accompanied by a table of nuclear weapons megatonnage that he had prepared, the Defense Department said: ”This is a statement totally without foundation in fact. It is false, and if the Senator would trouble to inform himself, he would learn that it is false.” The Pentagon’s statement was not attributed to any official by name. Earlier rebuttal to the Senator’s defense charges had come from Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, who is on vacation in Switzerland, or Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Sylvester.
It is understood that Mr. Sylvester cleared the statement with Deputy Defense Secretary Cyrus R. Vance before releasing it. In tone and language, it resembled the earlier Defense Department statement of Aug. 11, which, over Mr. Sylvester’s signature, termed the Senator’s nuclear weapons charges “totally false.” In today’s answer, however, the Pentagon stated more emphatically than ever before its previous occasional forecasts that manned bombers were by no means scheduled to be eliminated from the armed forces step by step. The present trend in withdrawing manned bombers, in favor of missiles, is one of the key elements in the charges on nuclear weapons being made by Senator Goldwater.
According to Senator Goldwater’s nuclear table, only a few manned bombers would be retained in the strategic force in the 1970s. If all bombers were eliminated, according to Mr. Goldwater, the deliverable nuclear capacity would be reduced 95 per cent instead of the 90 per cent he has mentioned if some bombers were retained. The Senator, in issuing his table, observed that it had been prepared by his political research staff on the basis of Pentagon press releases and reated newspaper articles.
Barry Goldwater oposed today a bill approved by the Senate Labor Committee to provide Federal scholarships and other aids for needy college students. He called it “utterly unnecessary.” The Republican Presidential nominee, ranking member of his party on the committee, said it seemed that “the real though unadmitted objective” of the bill was “political advantage to be gained in a Presidential election year.” Senators John G. Tower of Texas and Len B. Jordan of Idaho, both Republicans, joined Mr. Goldwater in offering minority views on the bill.
[Ed: The lesson of the last half-century is that providing more money for college simply incentivizes universities to jack up their tuition to take advantage of the gravy train. It may not be a pretty fact; but it is a fact.]
The cut in Federal excise taxes that the Administration will seek next year, if President Johnson is elected, will amount to at least $1 billion and could go as high as $4.5 billion. The precise size of the proposed excise‐tax reduction has not been decided yet, and will not be decided before January at the earliest. Before the Administration can determine just how much to cut excise taxes, it first has to see how large next year’s budget deficit is likely to be and how much additional stimulation, through tax reduction, the economy needs. The Administration is prepared to reduce excise taxes even if a deficit remains in the Federal budget, as appears likely.
High‐ranking Democratic officials see no possible way for the Alabama delegation to be seated at the Democratic National Convention next week. Furthermore, these officials said today, it is quite possible that part, and perhaps all, of the regular delegation from Mississippi may not be seated. The officials hastened to add, however, that the refusal to seat all or part of the regular Mississippi delegation did not mean that a delegation representing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party would be seated instead. In the case of both states the issue is their delegations’ questionable ability to meet the party’s loyalty standards, the rules designed to insure support for the regular Democratic Presidential candidate. If the accreditation of the delegates of the two states is rejected, it will be widely interpreted as a recognition by President Johnson that he cannot carry them in November.
A Black woman from Ruleville, Mississippi, told a Town Hall audience last night that policemen there had forced two other Blacks to beat her with blackjacks in a jail cell. Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, 46 years old, was one of several Mississippi Black leaders and volunteer civil rights workers to tell of beatings and harassment by law enforcement agencies. She said that she had been cursed, kicked and beaten about the head by policemen after returning from a conference to promote registration of Black voters in Mississippi. “I only have one question,” she said in conclusion, “Is this America, where we can go along and be beat up without any federal intervention in the State of Mississippi?” The meeting was sponsored by the Mississippi Project Parents Committee, an organization of 150 New York area parents whose children were in Mississippi as civil rights volunteers, and by the Student Nonviolent
INTELSAT, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, was established by 11 founding nations.
The Chicago White Sox took over first place in the American League today by beating the New York Yankees for the fourth straight time while Baltimore was losing at Boston. The score was 5–0. This sweep, completed by John Buzhardt’s seven‐hit pitching and gained at the expense of a recuperated but rusty Whitey Ford, made Manager Al Lopez’s 56th birthday one of the happier anniversaries of his distinguished career.
What would later become known as “The Harmonica Incident” took place between New York Yankees’ manager Yogi Berra and utility infielder Phil Linz after Linz’s playing of a harmonica on the team bus following a four-game sweep by the Chicago White Sox. On the New York team bus following a 5–0 White Sox win, Phil Linz begins to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on his harmonica. Manager Yogi Berra orders Linz to stop, then slaps the instrument out of his hands when he continues playing. The incident is reported as indicating dissension on the club and Berra’s lack of control, as well as the level of Linz’s humor.
Dick Radatz’s relief pitching and Bob Tillman’s two‐run homer gave the Boston Red Sox a 4–3 victory today over the Baltimore Orioles. Left fielder Boog Powell fractures his right wrist in a collision with the outfield fence in the Orioles’ loss at Boston. He will be sidelined until September 5th.
The Los Angeles Angels, held to just two hits through six innings by Dennis McLain, scored four runs in the seventh and downed the Detroit Tigers, 4–3, tonight. McLain aided the Angels’ rally when he threw the ball into the right‐field bullpen after fielding a ground ball hit by Felix Torres. The error allowed Bob Rodgers to score the tying run.
Two‐run singles by Rocky Colavito and Doc Edwards sparked a four‐run uprising in the eighth inning tonight as the Kansas City Athletics scored a 7–4 victory over the Cleveland Indians. The winning rally came off Don McMahon, who had replaced Cleveland’s starter, Lee Stange, in the eighth after Stange had walked the leadoff batter. McMahon was reached for two singles and two walks before Colavito and Edwards came through with their runscoring hits.
The Philadelphia Phillies combined stout pitching by Art Mahaffey and Rick Wise, home runs by Frank Thomas and Johnny Callison and two runs scored on a sacrifice fly to sweep a double‐header from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2–0 and 3–2, tonight. Mahaffey pitched a two‐hitter in the opener for his 11th victory and Thomas won it with a two‐run homer in the ninth. Wise benefited in the second game when Tony Gonzalez sprinted from second to score on a sacrifice fly by Callison. The victories, before 35,814, the season’s biggest crowd that sent the Phils’ attendance over the 1,013,000 mark, raised their National League lead to 7½ games.
The Cincinnati Reds scored six runs in the eighth inning today to send the San Francisco Giants to their fifth consecutive defeat, 10–7. With the score tied at 4–4 and the bases filled in the eighth, Ron Herbel walked a pinch‐hitter, Tommy Harper, to send in the tie‐breaking run. Vada Pinson and Frank Robinson followed with singles, and two more runs scored on a sacrifice and a fielder’s choice. The triumph was the fourth straight for the Reds and pulled them into a tie with the Giants for second place in the National League. The Reds got three home runs. Robinson hit his 25th, Leo Cardenas his ninth and Deron Johnson his 18th. Willie Mays hit No. 38, Orlando Cepeda No. 24 and Del Crandall No. 3 for the Giants. Sammy Ellis, whose won‐lost record is 4–4, was the winning pitcher. He hurled the last four innings. The loser was Billy O’Dell, who left the game in the eighth with the bases filled and one out. O’Dell now is 5–6.
Denis Menke doubled and tripled to drive home three Milwaukee runs tonight and Bob Sadowski held the Los Angeles Dodgers to seven hits as the Braves posted an 8–2 victory.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 838.71 (-3.05).
Born:
Alvin Mitchell, NFL running back (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), in Venice, Florida.
Anthony Coleman, NFL defensive back (Dallas Cowboys), in Henderson, Texas.
Miljenko “Dino” Dvornik, Croatian singer known as “the Croatian King of Funk”, in Split, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia (d. 2008).
History Diaries 