Nguyễn Khánh resigned after only nine days as President of South Vietnam. Only three days into his term, students across the southeast Asian nation had rioted in protest of his assumption of a dictatorship. The generals on the military revolutionary council temporarily replaced the presidency with a triumvirate composed of Khánh, Dương Văn Minh and Trần Thiện Khiêm. President Khánh and the leaders of South Vietnam’s armed forces yielded today to Buddhist and student protests against their regime. They decided that they would step down after a new head of state is elected. The new President would be charged with the establishment of a revised “national structure.”
A power struggle was underway in Saigon as United States officials looked on in apparent helplessness. Supporters of General Khánh expressed the belief that he would he re‐elected chief of state and be able to rule with a freer hand. Opponents of the general said they doubted this would happen.
An authoritative source in Saigon said General Khánh would resume the post of Premier and name a Cabinet representing a wide spectrum of the political factions that have opposed him, The Associated Press reported. The news agency also said that a terrorist grenade exploded early Wednesday at a bridge in Saigon near the United States Embassy, but that no one was injured. United Press International reported from Danang that 10,000 Buddhist rioters had stormed past a government battalion and burned a Roman Catholic village.
As student mobs shouted in the streets, the Military Revolutionary Council, the nation’s supreme governing body, voted to withdraw the Constitution of August 16 by which General Khánh was serving as President. A proclamation was read to thousands of demonstrators from the steps of the Presidential Palace. It declared that the council would meet a final time to elect a head of state, then disband. The council has governed the country since the overthrow and slaying of President Ngô Đình Diệm November 1. The meeting was set for tomorrow morning. The council’s proclamation said the man named head of state would have the responsibility of convening a “national congress to achieve a national structure consistent with the aspirations of the people.” The council specified that the new structure would have the purpose “of struggling against the Communists, neutralists, colonialists and all other forms of dictatorship and of rebuilding the country in freedom and democracy.”
Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor conferred with President Khánh for an hour after the council had announced its decision. Mr. Taylor and U. Alexis Johnson, the Deputy Ambassador, discussed the situation with General Khánh until 4 o’clock this morning, after the general had met with Buddhist leaders.
The Johnson Administration, increasingly disturbed over the turn of events in South Vietnam, expressed hope today that Saigon’s military leaders could solve the latest political crisis and concentrate again on the anti‐Communist war. The hope was expressed in an official statement. It was issued as the highest levels of the Administration indicated a feeling that the political alternatives in Vietnam had become sharply limited. Commenting on the Vietnamese general’s decision to revamp once again the country’s political structure, the State Department press officer, Robert J. McCloskey, said: “We are informed that the Government is in the process of working out the details of a political solution which will enable it to continue the major task of defeating Communist aggression and subversion.” However, there was uncertainty about the events in Saigon.
Early in the day, the assumption here was that Major General Nguyễn Khánh was only renouncing the title of President and would, in effect, remain the central power figure in South Vietnam. But tonight some officials, closely following reports streaming in from the United States Embassy in Saigon, seemed less certain of General Khánh’s position. Some sources here suggested that Major General Dương Văn Minh, who was deposed as chief of state by General Khánh August 16, might reappear in some key role. The principal concern here was that the crisis might not be resolved by whatever immediate political formula was devised in Saigon. It was feared that serious unrest, further complicating the war against the Việt Cộng guerrillas, would continue plaguing the regime, which the United States is deeply committed to support. Mr. McCloskey reaffirmed that the United States supported the Khánh regime. He declined to predict whether the situation could be stabilized.
Prince Souphanouvong, leader of the pro‐Communist faction in Laos, arrived in Paris tonight by plane from Moscow. As a result, the likelihood increased that the longawaited conference of the three feuding Laotian political groupings will take place. When the three factions will meet at the Chateau de la Celle Saint‐Cloud outside Paris, put at their disposal by the French Government, remains in doubt. The Premier, Prince Souvanna Phouma, leader of the neutralist faction, said the conference would probably open Friday. It had been scheduled for yesterday. Prince Boun Oum of the rightist faction still has not made known his intentions. Premier Souvanna Phouma said a delegation of rightists would leave tonight for Nice to confer there with Prince Boun Oum.
President Makarios indicated tonight that the efforts of the United States and Britain to aid United Nations mediation in the Cyprus crisis had failed. The Archbishop, who returned from Athens, where he conferred with Greek leaders, said: “The efforts that have been exerted from outside to remove the Cyprus question from its right basis have completely failed.” He received a tumultuous welcome after his urgent day‐long visit. Before he left Nicosia this morning the Archbishop said he was going to Athens to “finally denounce the Acheson plan,” a reference to the proposals by Dean Acheson, President Johnson’s special envoy to the Geneva mediation talks on Cyprus. Details of the Acheson plan have not been officially disclosed. It is reported to focus on enosis, or the union of Cyprus with Creece, in exchange for some form of Turkish presence on the island. The Archbishop also said before his departure that he “would not give even the smallest plot of land in Cyprus to the Turks.”
If the talks between the Archbishop and the Greek ministers were stormy, the Greek Cypriot leader gave no sign of it tonight. He was smiling at the airport and seemed to be in a satisfied mood. The Archbishop asserted that “once more the identity of views between the Governments of Greece and Cyprus were confirmed with regard to the course to be followed” on the Cyprus problem. Diplomatic and other observers were somewhat skeptical. They recalled that Foreign Minister Spyros Kyprianou, who has been traveling back and forth between Nicosia and Athens for the last week, insisted there was an “identity of views” although it was an open secret that there was considerable disagreement.
The principal points of difference involved support by Athens for Mr. Acheson’s mediation efforts and the Archbishop’s move to negotiate a military aid pact with the Soviet Union. When asked if a date had been fixed for Mr. Kyprianou to go to Moscow, President Makarios replied, to the hearty laughter of his Cabinet, that this was “a military secret.” It is believed in diplomatic circles here that Peter Garoufalias, the Greek Minister of Defense, managed last weekend to get a 10‐day postponement of the Greek Cypriot mission to Moscow. Most informed observers here believe the Soviet Union does not wish to become militarily involved in Cyprus to the point of risking a confrontation with the West. Diplomatic sources indicated that the Soviet Union appeared to be prepared to offer larger credits than before to the Greek Cypriot Government but not to go much beyond that.
[Ed: Makarios has no interest in any solution which leaves him out of power, which is why the Cyprus mess will fester for another decade, until the Turks actually invade.]
A special envoy from Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia conferred in Leopoldville today with Congo’s Premier Tshombe. The envoy, Minister of State Mammo Tadesse, is believed to have urged that Mr. Tshombe take his case directly to the Organization of African Unity. A special meeting of the organization’s Council of Ministers was called yesterday for September 10 “to consider repercussions of the Congolese situation on neighboring countries and on the African scene at large.” Mr. Tshombe, who is also the Congo’s Foreign Minister, would normally be at the meeting in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. However, he has been feuding with the organization and many of its members. He boycotted its meeting of heads of government in Cairo last month after several leaders said they would not sit at the conference table with him.
The Rumanian Ambassador in Budapest, Mihail Rosianu, said today that his government was hopeful that something would develop between now and December 15 to enable Communist China to attend a preparatory meeting of world Communist parties on the Soviet‐Chinese ideological dispute. The Soviet Union called the meeting for that date, but the Chinese Communists have given no indication they will attend. The meeting would prepare for a full‐dress Communist meeting on the feud. Mr. Rosianu said Rumania was working for a Moscow-Peking reconciliation through informal contacts. He said that his country was not opposed to a world meeting, but that it had not yet decided whether it would attend.
Ahmed al‐Shami, Foreign Minister of the insurgent Royalist Government of Yemen, said here last night that the royalists had repulsed Egyptian offensives aimed at cutting communications and capturing the Imam, Mohammed Al‐Badr. Mr. al‐Shami, who was on his way from Saudi Arabia to London, denied an Egyptian radio report that the Imam, who leads the Royalist forces, had fled from his cave headquarters in the Qara Mountains of northwestern Yemen and had “disappeared.” The Imam was overthrown by Republican forces in September, 1962, and has since waged civil war. Mr. al‐Shami said the Egyptians, who are supporting the Yemeni republican regime, had massed 60,000 men in an attempt to crush the royalists before the Arab conference September 5. The Royalists have been backed financially and with supplies by Saudi Arabia.
More than 1,400 Communists and Communist sympathizers were arrested today in India on the second day of protest demonstrations against high prices and shortages of food grains.
Prime Minister Kenneth Kaunda today was elected President-Designate of Zambia. He was unopposed.
Singapore limits imports from Netherlands due to Indonesian aggression.
The Mississippi delegation withdrew from the 34th Democratic National Convention tonight, shattering President Johnson’s effort to impose complete harmony upon his party. Shortly after convening at 8:43 P.M., the convention overwhelmingly approved a compromise that would permit the seating of an all‐white Mississippi delegation plus two members of a competing, integrated delegation from that state. The all-white delegation had already voted to reject the compromise and bolt the convention. Only three of its members signed a required assurance of loyalty to the party and took their seats on the floor. The integrated Freedom Democratic party also rejected the compromise. But the two designated members, Aaron Henry, a Black, and the Rev. Edwin King, a white, took seats as “delegates at large.” They sat with the Alaska delegation.
Aaron Henry, chairman of the biracial Mississippi Freedom Democratic party, and 20 other members of the party’s delegation took empty seats of the regular Mississippi delegation tonight. About 9:30, five Black delegates appeared in the aisle by the Mississippi section and unobtrusively slipped into empty chairs close by three Loyalist delegates who had taken the loyalty pledge to support the party’s nominee. Immediately there was a swarm of reporters and television cameramen around the section. In the ensuing melee, the three Loyalists got up and made their way out of the section. It was about 10:45 PM when Mr. Henry and the Rev. Edwin King, the chaplain at Tougaloo College, arrived. These are the two members of the delegation allotted at‐large seats at the convention by the credentials committee. Mr. Henry said to reporters: “They wanted to seat us atlarge, but we want our seats in Mississippi. The seats are here and we are here. We don’t see why it’s so exciting.”
Several sergeants-at-arms urged the Freedom party members to leave; one was led out but the others remained. Around 11 PM, the sergeantsat‐arms faded away. Officials of the convention had evidently decided to ignore the quiet demonstration, just as they had done nothing about the members of the Alabama delegation who had taken their seats even though they had not signed the loyalty pledge.
In Jackson, Governor Paul B. Johnson Jr. said that “Mississippi’s debt to the national Democratic party is now paid in full.” He added that Mississippi’s Democrats were now “absolutely free to take such action as we feel to be in the best interest of our state, of our nation and of our people.”
All told, in tonight’s session, the 1964 platform was read and adopted, the permanent chairman, John W. McCormack of Massachusetts, took over the gavel and the stage was set for the nomination tomorrow night of President Johnson and his chosen running mate. But it was the seating dispute that enlivened the evening.
Tomorrow night, the Democrats will get their real business done — the formal nomination of President Johnson to run again, and the ratification of his choice for Vice President. It was generally expected that Mr. Johnson would go on television following his nomination tomorrow and disclose the identity of his running mate. Mr. McCormack, an orator of the old school, roused the Democrats repeatedly, even some of those who jammed the aisles and wandered aimlessly in the hall. He evoked one ovation with a tribute to John F. Kennedy. His speech, however, was primarily another assault on Senator Barry Goldwater, whom he called “a trigger‐happy, impulsive” candidate.
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy announced yesterday that he was a candidate for the Senate and said that President Johnson would come here to help in his campaign. Mr. Kennedy, entering elective polities for the first time, is assured of the nomination at the Democratic State Convention on September 1. His principal opponent in the November election will be Senator Kenneth B. Keating, a Republican. With his wife, Ethel, on his left and Mayor Wagner on his right, Mr. Kennedy made his announcement on the lawn of Gracie Mansion, the Mayor’s tree‐shaded official residence facing the East River. The Attorney General met squarely the charges of his opponents in the Democratic party that he is a “carpetbagger” who is interested in the Senate seat only because he needs a new political base. “There may be some who believe that where a candidate voted in the past is more important than his capacity to serve the state,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I cannot in fairness ask them to vote for me.”
A Neshoba County (Mississippi) coroner’s jury said today it was unable to determine the cause of death of three civil rights workers whose bodies were found in a common grave near here. “The information available to this jury to date is insufficient to enable this jury to determine cause or causes of of death,” the jury reported. The bodies of Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both whites of New York, and James Chaney of Meridian, a Black, were taken from the grave August 4 at a dam site six miles southwest of here. The three disappeared June 21 shortly after being released from the Neshoba County Jail. The county coroner, Fulton Jackson, said he had had no contact with the state pathologist, who was to have performed an autopsy on the bodies.
A Madison County grand jury, deliberating less than four hours, returned murder indictments today against three white men for the shotgun slaying of Lamuel Penn, a Washington Black educator. The grand jury returned the indictments after hearing from Federal Bureau of Investigation agents; Sheriff Dewey Seagraves of Madison County, and two Army Reserve officer companions of Mr. Penn, Charles Brown and Lieutenant John Howard, both of Washington. Named in the indictments were Cecil William Myers, 25 years old, James Lackey, 29, and Joseph Howard Sims, 41, all of nearby Athens, Georgia. A fourth man arrested and jailed with the three was not indicted. In the original Federal Bureau of Investigation warrant, the fourth suspect, Herbert Guest, 37, was listed only as a co‐conspirator.
Mr. Penn was slain last July 11 while driving on a highway in north Georgia, near Athens. He and his companions were on their way to Washington after an Army Reserve tour of duty at Port Benning, Georgia. Mr. Howard and Mr. Brown, the educator’s companions, said a car had pulled alongside and fired a shotgun blast. Mr. Penn collapsed at the wheel.
Gunfire between a crowd of Blacks and several white persons broke out last night in Monroe, Georgia. Four Blacks were treated for shotgun wounds and the police said the crowd later wrecked a service station operated by a white man. Police Chief Jack Morris said the incident occurred shortly before midnight as several hundred Blacks had jeered customers at the service station for nearly two hours. The chief said they had shouted, “Don’t buy from that white man.” The station was damaged shortly before 3 AM today when several white men at the station departed, he said. A car driven by Mrs. Tommy Conner, wife of an operator of the station, was fired into by either rifle or pistol fire as she drove into the station, Chief Morris said. Monroe is about 40 miles east of Atlanta.
Three Blacks were arrested today, two of them for allegedly throwing rocks at a white motorist. A third, a taxi driver, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and threatening another white motorist. Chief Morris said there were no arrests in the shootings “but I have taken a number of names and it is likely that further steps will be taken.”
Public school desegregation came to Madison County today with the enrollment of four Blacks in previously white Sparkman High School in Huntsville, Alabama. Bowing to a Federal court order, the county Board of Education admitted the three Black boys and one girl to the 11th and 12th grades.
Senator Barry Goldwater said today that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should be given a stock of small “conventional nuclear weapons.” The Arizonan said that the Democratic Administration had “attempted to scare not only our own citizens but those of Europe, too, with preposterous alarms regarding these vital NATO defense weapons.” In Washington, Administration officials said that the United States had for several years provided NATO with a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Control and, custody of these weapons, however, rests with the United States, it was explained.
The Atomic Energy Commission said today that it was continuing to increase the atomic weapons stockpile, but at a reduced rate. The commission’s normal secrecy about weapons production was lifted slightly because of a political disclosure by President Johnson. In a movie shown last night at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, the President, in citing steps in the “quest for peace,” said that “already we have cut back our production of atomic fuel and weapons.” The statement was taken from a speech Mr. Johnson made in Minneapolis on June 28. It represented the first official disclosure that the production of atomic weapons was declining after 15 years of steadily increasing output.
The Transport Workers Union called a strike early today against Pan American World Airways as negotiations aimed at averting the walkout broke down. “Mediation has broken off,” a union spokesman said. “A strike has been called and we’re walking off.” At 2:30 AM, union maintenance workers at Kennedy International Airport left their jobs. The first outgoing flight was scheduled for 9 AM to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. A company spokesman said that supervisory personnel might be used to give the necessary servicing. The union said it had rejected a suggestion by Federal mediators for another meeting today. The union said employes at all its working bases had been notified of the strike action. They had been put on a standby basis as a midnight deadline passed. Robert Roadley, Federal mediator, said the negotiations had reached “an insurmountable impasse.”
Whitey Ford (13–5) wins his first game in 6 weeks. Ford throws 100 pitches in 8 innings and Al Downing strikes out 3 in the 9th as the 3rd-place New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 4–1.
The Detroit Tigers survived a three-homer Boston barrage in a single inning tonight while clubbing four Red Sox pitchers for 15 hits in an 11–6 victory.
Bob Chance and Leon Wagner smacked successive homers to cap a five‐run Cleveland rally in the eighth inning as the Indians beat the American League‐leading Baltimore Orioles, 5–3, tonight.
Dean Chance, with late‐inning relief help from Bob Lee, pitched the Los Angeles Angels to a 5–3 victory over the Kansas City Athletics tonight and registered his 15th victory of the season.
Ron Hansen’s single with two out in the ninth inning gave the Chicago White Sox a 1–0 victory over the Minnesota Twins tonight and pulled the White So within one game of the American League lead.
Lou Brock’s home run in the 13th inning gave the St. Louis Cardinals a 7–6 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight. Pittsburgh scored two runs in the 12th on a pinch single by Smoky Burgess with the bases filled, but St. Louis scored two in its half of the inning on singles by Brock, Dick Groat and Bill White and Mike Shannon’s double.
The two hottest teams in the National League — the New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds — bumped heads tonight in Crosley Field and the Mets came out second best by a score of 7–2. The difference was Bob Purkey, who allowed the Mets only six hits, half of them by pinchhitters, and who stifled two bases‐loaded threats by New York in the final three innings. By contrast, when Cincinnati loaded the bases on Al Jackson in the fifth with the margin only 3—2, Deron Johnson rammed home all three runs with a 390‐foot double to the base of the wall in right‐center. Before anybody was out in the game, Ron Hunt drove a two‐run homer over the leftfield wall. But six innings passed before the Mets got any other hits off Purkey.
Tony Cloninger needed aid from Billy Hoeft tonight as the Milwaukee Braves scored their second triumph in two nights over the league‐leading Philadelphia Phillies, 7–5. Cloninger had a three‐hitter until the eighth, when the Phillies scored three runs, two of them on Johnny Callison’s 22nd home run. Hoeft then retired the last four men. The Braves broke a 1–1 tie in the third on successive singles by Eddie Mathews, Joe Torre and Gene Oliver.
Jim Owens’s strong relief pitching and timely hitting in the early innings powered Houston to its sixth straight victory tonight, a 5–4 triumph over the Chicago Cubs. The six‐game streak of the Colts equals the team’s previous mark. They won six games in a row in 1962 and once in 1963.
Howie Reed scored his first National League victory tonight, by pitching the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 3–1 triumph over the San Francisco Giants and spoiling the return to action of the Giant ace, Juan Marichal, who had been sidelined for nearly a month by a back injury. Reed, who got his only other major league victory in 1958 with the Kansas City Athletics, allowed six hits in 8⅓ innings.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 832.20 (-5.11).
Born:
Blair Underwood, American actor (Jonathan- “L.A. Law”; “High Incident”), born in Tacoma, Washington.
Morgan Englund, American actor (‘Dylan Lewis’- “Guiding Light”, born in the USA
Marti Noxon, American television writer and producer, born in Los Angeles, California.
Maxim Kontsevich, Russian-born French mathematician; in Khimki, Moscow Oblast, Soviet Union.
Vassilios Kotronias, Greek chess grandmaster, born in Athens, Greece.
History Diaries 