The fertile An Lão valley, a Government position in the hostile mountains of central Vietnam, fell to the Communist guerrillas last week in three days of swift assaults, the United States Military Assistance Command announced today. A senior military spokesman confirmed reports that a well-armed Vietnamese Government militia force of 500 men had broken and fled under Việt Cộng onslaughts from the hills. Six to seven thousand residents of the region are reported to have abandoned their homes and farms in 16 villages stretching through most of the narrow 10‐mile valley.
Regular Vietnamese Army units were able to hold the two most populous villages at the northern edge of the valley, including an old French colonial outpost where the Việt Cộng began their assault on December 7. “The rest of the valley is now owned by the Việt Cộng,” the senior United States officer said. “The Communists are in a position to dominate or terrify the population.” Discussing the fall of the local militiamen, he added: “This is why the popular forces dispersed. There is no question but that their military efficacy has been vitiated.”
After a week of official silence on the action, the officer confirmed reports that a longterm tactical blunder had put inadequate government forces into an indefensible position. The forested hills surrounding the valley are controlled by the insurgents, who have been judged capable of massing three battalions or more virtually at their convenience. “This was a typical case of the overextension by government forces into an area they could not hold,” the officer said. “It’s the same thing we saw in the Mekong delta all last year.” He referred to a desire for quick theoretical results and to the drawing of ever larger “pacific areas” on a map without any tangible basis for increased claims. This practice was commonplace before the overthrow of President Ngô Đình Diệm, whose claims to increased military control have since been challenged.
In An Lão, government forces were required to defend a stretch of land representing an important extension of government control into the mountains of Bình Định Province. A large peasant population was asked to rely on inadequate paramilitary forces for the security of homes and farms. “It was an error for these people to have been armed by the government when they live right in the throat of the Việt Cộng,” the officer said. The attempt, which started early in 1963, “should never have been undertaken,” he said. The briefing officer — who could not be identified under instructions from military information officers — said there was no real strategic meaning to the loss of the An Lão Valley. But as a lesson, he added, “it will have as much meaning as we can apply to it.”
South Vietnamese Government troops last week suffered their highest casualties in eight months in the war against the Việt Cộng, a United States spokesman said today. But he added that the government forces had killed 550 Communist guerrillas while losing 260 men. A total of 985 government soldiers were killed or wounded, the spokesman said. The figures did not include the battle in An Lão Valley, where casualties were reported heavy.
Thirteen Americans were killed in action last week.
A Pathet Lao raid on a fuel dump at Thakhek, Laos, a Mekong town 140 miles southeast of Vientiane, did damage estimated at $25 million, A. C. M. Landsberg, director of the Shell Oil Company in Laos, said today.
Increased military and propaganda activity along the Laotian‐Thai border indicates that the Communists may be laying the foundation for a large‐scale effort next year to subvert, Thailand’s pro‐Western government. The pro‐Communist Pathet Lao radio broadcast news this week of the formation of an “independent movement in Thailand ” The broadcast said that the movement, supposedly begun last week, “is composed of political parties and progressive and patriotic organizations.” Their aim, the radio said, is to “wage a struggle aganst United States aggression, to make Thailand a genuinely neutral nation and to overthrow the reactionary government of Thanom Kittikachorn and replace it with a progressive and democratic government.”
Liu Ning‐yi, a member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party, said today that a “revisionist” solution of the Vietnam question had been rejected at a recent Communist conference in Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam. Peking describes Soviet policies with which it disagrees as “revisionist.” Mr. Liu’s statement was interpreted as indication that Peking and Moscow representatives had clashed at the Hanoi meeting, which had been described as an “international conference for solidarity with the people of Vietnam against United States imperialist aggression and for the defense of peace.”
The Congolese Army’s offensive against the rebels is bogging down, causing fears of new massacres of hostages held by insurgents in northeastern Congo. Congolese officials said today that stiffened rebel resistance and a lack of government reinforcements had prevented the rescue of more than 500 whites behind rebel lines. Two United States citizens are among those still unaccounted for in rebel territory. One, William McChesney, a missionary, is believed to be a captive at Wamba, where the rebels have seized 50 whites and all priests and nuns in the surrounding area. G. McMurtrie Godley, the United States Ambassador to the Congo, arrived at Kennedy International Airport from Leopoldville yesterday and declared that “the situation in the Congo is confused.” “We are doing what we can to rescue those being held,” he added. He said he had returned for routine consultations in Washington.
The Soviet Union said today that it had ordered the Congolese Embassy closed because of “hostile activities” against the Soviet Union and Soviet citizens. An announcement of the action was conveyed to the chargé d’affaires, Mist Gaston Ngambani, the only Congolese diplomat in Moscow. The action against the Government of Premier Moise Tshombe was believed to be part of a wider Soviet campaign against all African regimes and leaders sympathetic to the West. In the view of Western diplomatic sources, the new Soviet leaders are seizing the dispute over the recent landing of Belgian paratroops in the Congo as a platform for a major drive in all of Africa.
The Algerian Air Force was reported today to have been equipped with its first bombers. Twelve Soviet‐made Ilyushin-28 bombers were said to have arrived in Algeria early last week. Previously the Air Force had comprised Soviet‐made MIG jet fighters and long‐range transports.
The Western allies have decided to try to find out what Soviet representatives had in mind when they made their recent proposal for regular meetings of diplomatic representatives in Berlin. Allied sources hinted today that a Western representative would meet with Soviet officials between now and Christmas to explore the proposal. Although most Western observers were skeptical of Soviet motives, some diplomats were said to look upon the proposals as providing an opportunity to find out whether the Soviet Union would be willing to enter into some form of four‐power talks on the Berlin and German reunification issues. Diplomatic sources in Berlin said that the decision to pursue the question with Soviet representatives had been made during sessions of the Ministerial Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Paris.
The Soviet Union has agreed to give the Secretary General, U Thant—and only the Secretary General—a commitment on how much it will contribute to the proposed United Nations “rescue fund.” Reliable sources said this was an important break in the deadlock resulting from the Soviet Union’s refusal until now to put on record how much it would give to the fund. This is to. be applied against the $70 million deficit resulting from unpaid assessments for the United Nations Congo and Middle Eastern peacekeeping forces. Moscow, which originally talked of paying $5 million, has indicated to friendly delegates that it may pay $10 million to $15 million of the $52.6 million it owes.
According to the sources, Dr. Nikolai T. Fedorenko, the Soviet representative, told Mr. Thant on Monday; when he visited him in Le Roy Hospital, that the Soviet Union would give him its commitment. Mr. Thant has been under treatment for an ulcer. These sources said Dr. Fedorenko would pay another call on Mr. Thant this week to tell him exactly how much Moscow would pledge. As the next move, the Secretary General is to call in Adla E. Stevenson, the United States representative, to say whether he recommends acceptance of the Soviet pledge.
President de Gaulle’s Government moved slowly but perceptibly today toward a more accommodating position in relations with the United States. General de Gaulle, in a talk with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, agreed on the importance of halting the spread of nuclear weapons. Mr. Rusk also explained to General de Gaulle the United States view on South Vietnam: provided a firm political base can be established, the military effort to defeat the Communists will be successful. A discussion of Africa ranged over the Congo, Kenya and other troubled areas. The United States delegation to the Ministerial Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization now thinks there is a better than 50‐50 chance that some form of joint nuclear force, including an element with an international staff or crew, will be created.
The allied nuclear force proposed by Britain would come under a “single authority” that would have a voice in United States nuclear strategy throughout the world, Prime Minister Harold Wilson disclosed to the House of Commons today. The authority, to be composed of all members of the force, would “develop agreed policy on the role of all types of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons,” Mr. Wilson said in reporting on the proposals he made last week to President Johnson in Washington. The authority, he added, would also “consult and discuss possible contingencies anywhere in the world that could give rise to the use of nuclear weapons.” Mr. Wilson gave no clue to President Johnson’s reaction to the scope of the proposed authority’s duties. He said he did not feel he should discuss the reaction of the United States or the other allies to whom the plan had now been submitted.
President de Gaulle welcomed the Common Market farm agreement today and called on Western Europe to pursue efforts toward political unity “by itself and for itself.” The French leader thus gave a new impetus toward political unity in Western Europe a day after the six partners of the European Economic Community had reached a difficult agreement on common prices for grain commodities. It was a necessary step toward a common market in agriculture that France pushed to the point where she threatened to cease her participation in the community if it was not achieved. Speaking to the Cabinet this morning, the President called, the agreement a “capital” step that “opens all sorts of possibilities in the way of European construction.”
Britain’s trade gap — the principal cause of her financial problems — widened last month despite the government’s 15 percent emergency tax on imports, the Board of Trade reported today. Government sources stressed, however, that it was too early for the controversial levy, introduced October 27, to have a marked effect. Imports in November constituted goods already in the pipeline, ordered before the tax took effect, they said. Nevertheless, there was disappointment in the financial district. Stock prices skidded and sterling again came under pressure. On a seasonally adjusted basis the figures showed a rise in imports. This was larger than had been foreseen by forecasters both in government and financial district circles.
A woman, so far unidentified, has been arrested as a Soviet spy in the Bavarian town of Amberg near a U. S. training and testing center, the state prosecutor’s office said today.
Mother Basilea Schlink, a German who is the head of the Lutheran Evangelic Order of the Sisters of Mary, described yesterday a program of “repentance and atonement” for the Nazis’ war crimes against the Jews. “We as Germans became indeed indebted to this people, when six million Jews were inhumanly destroyed in our land and we thus drew down the judgment of God upon us,“ she said.
A United States soldier and an unidentified woman crossed into East Germany near here under cover from East German border guards after his car had broken down at the border inside West German territory, the West German border police reported today. They said that a patrol had discovered the car, which had an American license plate, near the border and had seen East German border guards, including officers, taking objects out of the car to the East German side. When the West German patrol ordered them to leave West German territory, the American, wearing civilian clothes, and the woman withdrew with the East Germans. The couple did not appear to be under constraint.
The Secretariat of the Mapai (Labor) party agreed without dissent late tonight to recommend that Levi Eshkol succeed himself as the party’s candidate for Premier. Mr. Eshkol resigned Monday following a growing rift within the party over former Premier David Ben‐Gurion’s demand for a fresh inquiry into responsibility for the 10‐year‐old security mishap, generally known here as the Lavon Affair. Mr. Eshkol won a 16‐to‐8 vote in the Secretariat on a recommendation to Mapar’s Central Committee, which will meet tomorrow night for final action.
President Johnson announced $82.6 million in new antipoverty projects today, including more than $20 million for New York State and surrounding areas. The allocation, covering 162 projects in all 50 states, represents the second allotment of funds for what the President has called a war on poverty. The initial allocation, $35 million for 120 projects, was announced November 24. Congress has appropriated $784.2 million for the antipoverty program for the fiscal year ending next June 30. Highlights of the antipoverty projects announced today are:
- Each state will receive Federal funds to establish adult basic education programs. The total allocation for such courses in the states, the District of Columbia and territories is $18,344,000.
- Grants totaling $10,342,300 were made to 13 states, 22 cities, seven rural areas, three universities, one Indian tribe and one nonprofit organization to conduct antipoverty programs or to train workers in combating poverty.
- Grants totaling $12,075,000 were made to establish 17 Neighborhood Youth Corps in 15 states to provide an estimated 22,380 young men and women with part‐time employment.
- The first VISTA volunteers will be assigned to 28 different communities to help teach, train and counsel impoverished Americans.
- Grants totaling $10,500,000 were made to five states—Kentucky, Louisiana, Rhode Island, New Mexico, California—and to the Virgin Islands to provide job training for some 5,160 unemployed men and women. The major share, $9,600,000, went to nine Eastern Kentucky counties.
- Eighteen Rural Job Corps camps—to provide remedial education and work experience for young men—will be established in 15 states. These are in addition to 41 other camps previously announced.
- Loans totaling $29,500 were made to four small‐business men in the Pittsburgh area by the Small Business Administration.
The Offices of Economic Opportunity, which is directing the antipoverty efforts, also disclosed that nearly 450 colleges and universities had indicated they would take part in the work‐study program.
Secretary of Commerce Luther H. Hodges submitted his resignation today. President Johnson named John T. Connor, a leading drug company executive, to replace him. Mr. Johnson announced his choice in a televised ceremony in the White House theater in the presence of Mr. Connor; Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz and George Meany, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. Mr. Hodges said he was resigning because he was approaching his 67th birthday and because he wanted to leave the Cabinet after four years of service.
The White House provided an early Christmas today for 150 slum children from settlement houses and President Johnson was content to play second fiddle to a marionette show. The President spent five minutes at the show in the East Room, but the youngsters — most of them orphans — were far more interested in Charlemagne the Lion and Jackson the tightrope walker. Afterward, Mr. Johnson took two little girls by the hand and joined the crowd that made its way to a glowing Christmas tree in the Blue Room. The President stooped, picked up a gingerbread soldier that had fallen to the floor, and tied it back onto a popcorn string. Mrs. Johnson, in a mossgreen velvet suit, was on hand for the festivities. So were their daughters, Lynda Bird, 20 years old, and Luci Baines, 17. About one‐fifth of the young guests were white children, the rest were Black.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy made good a promise today by walking out of the New England Baptist Hospital in time for Christmas; as he said he would six months ago when his back was broken in a plane crash. Later, he flew to Miami and then to Palm Beach, Florida, for the holidays. “We’re delighted the doctors could get me out of here in time for the start of the Senate session,” he said to about 100 well‐wishers on leaving the hospital. “After all, there’s a young Senator from New York who might want to take my seat if I weren’t there to fill it.” The New Yorker is Robert F. Kennedy, his older brother, who was elected on November 3. Four hours earlier, at 5 AM, Senator Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, arose and was driven 25 miles north to a cemetery in Andover in 10‐degree weather. He made an unannounced visit to the grave of Edward Moss, his special aide, who was killed in the plane crash on June 19 in western Massachusetts.
The Duke of Windsor was recovering satisfactorily today after a 67-minute operation for the removal of an abdominal aneurysm, which his surgeon said was “quite serious.”
A Federal grand jury indicted three former Pentagon officials today on charges of embezzling about $66,000 in Government money over a period of nearly four years ending in late 1963. Acting Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach identified the men, all long‐time career employes of the Defense Department, as the following: James Robert Loftis Jr., 52 years old, a $20,000‐a‐year administrative assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. Mr. Loftis, who retired last March 27, had served previous Secretaries of Defense. William Henry Godel, 43, deputy director for management in the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, who was removed from his post last Aug. 24. His annual salary was also $20,000. And John A. Wylie, 57, whose salary was $17,500 a year as head of the budget and finance branch in the administrative office headed by Mr. Loftis. Mr. Wylie was granted disability retirement last January after being notified that he would be removed.
Four years of waterfront labor peace were assured yesterday for the first time in the 92‐year history of the International Longshoremen’s Association. Terms of a new contract were reached, narrowly averting a strike of 60,000 longshoremen from Maine to Texas next Sunday night. The new pact will add $94.5 million to steamship industry costs in the four years. The dockers won substantial guarantees of work, wage increases, better fringe benefits, longer vacations and pensions for widows, embodied in an 80 cent‐an‐hour package.
The cigarette industry said yesterday that a strict new selfpolicing advertising code would go into effect January 1. The code is designed to stop any advertising appeal, in any medium, that might encourage young people to smoke. Tobacco companies violating the code will be subject to fines of $100,000. Nine major tobacco producers, manufacturing all but a small fraction of the cigarettes marketed in this country, are supporting the code, and it was understood that their advertising agencies were altering advertising to comply with the provisions.
The owner of a Birmingham restaurant, who lost a fight against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the Supreme Court, said today he had decided to comply with the rights law. Ollie McClung Sr. of Ollie’s Barbecue made the statement after a conference with his attorneys — two days after the Supreme Court ruled the act constitutional as applied to Ollie’s. Mr. McClung previously had refused to serve Blacks, except on take‐out orders. His decision today means Mr. McClung and his son, Ollie Jr., a co‐owner, will serve Blacks inside, if they enter. The McClungs had challenged the public accommodations section of the rights measure as applied to their restaurant in September, and a three‐judge Federal panel in Birmingham on September 17 ruled in their favor.
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court Monday overturned the panel ruling, and declared the act constitutional as it applies to Ollie’s — and to an Atlanta motel. Ollie’s Barbecue was the only Birmingham restaurant that refused to comply when the rights law was passed. Said the McClungs in a joint statement today: “As law‐abiding Americans we feel we must bow to this edict of the Supreme Court. We are deeply concerned that so many of our nation’s leaders have accepted this edict which gives the federal government control over the life and behavior of every American.”
The State of Mississippi sold yesterday $8,775,000 of bonds that civil rights organizations had asked investment bankers to boycott. Six syndicates bid for $6 million of bonds to finance loans to school districts in the state, and five underwriting groups sought to buy $2,775,000 of bonds to pay costs of improvements at five state colleges and universities. Blyth & Co., Inc., headed the group that won the $6 million issue with a bid that resulted in an interest borrowing cost to Mississippi of 3.238 percent. A First National City Bank syndicate was awarded the smaller issue on a bid that set an interest cost of 3.2867 percent. Some Wall Street underwriters described the bidding as “less enthusiastic” than it might have been because of publicity given the efforts of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to get investors to shy away from buying the securities.
At 6 o’clock this morning, a dozen Black women appeared at gates of the sprawling block‐square Scripto plant in Atlanta and began picketing in the chill Georgia dawn. “It’s my feet that get cold first,” one of the women said. She pointed to white socks she was wearing over her stockings. Muffled in an array of coats, scarves, slacks and knitted wool caps, the pickets carried placards bearing such slogans as “We’re Human Beings — Not Machines” and “We Won’t Be Slaves No More.” Thus began the 20th day of a strike against Scripto, Inc., makers of pens and cigarette lighters, by Local 754 of the International Chemical Workers Union. Some 700 production line workers, all of them Black women, are on strike. But Scripto’s 117 skilled workers, including six Black men, remain on their jobs. The plant continues to operate under Georgia’s right‐to‐work law.
The State Division on Civil Rights in New Jersey ordered a Madison barber today to invite two Blacks he had previously turned away to return to his shop during “regular business hours” for hair cuts at “regular prices.” In issuing its order to the barber, Philip Gatti, the division said that all New Jersey barbershops were included in the public accommodations provision of the state civil rights laws. Thomas P. Sellers of Madison and Reginald Barrow of Florham Park, both Blacks, initiated the case when they said they had been refused haircuts by Mr. Gatti last spring. The division ordered Mr. Gatti, owner of Philip’s Barber Shop at 39 Main Street in Madison, to remove from his window a sign reading: “Haircuts by appointment only.”
Mayor James Dworak of Omaha was indicted with four other men today on charges of seeking and accepting thousands of dollars in bribes from a million-dollar apartment project.
The Hullabaloos, the Zombie and the Nashville Teens have a problem — they are not distinguished enough to perform in the United States, at least in the opinion of Immigration and Naturalization Service. The British rock ‘n’ roll singing groups were recently denied H‐1 visas, reserved for alien artists of “distinguished merit and ability.” Their chagrin is not lessened by the fact that the Beatles, the Mersey Beats, the Searchers, the Animals and others made the grade.
NASA Deputy Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr. authorized the Voyager program for exploration of the planets of the outer solar system. With the go-ahead given, aerospace engineer Gary Flandro calculated that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune could all be reached over a series of years in a single “Grand Tour program” mission; by 1980, the four planets would be on the same side of the solar system and, Flandro would determine, “Such an opportunity would not present itself again for another 176 years.” Voyager 2 would be ready for launch on August 20, 1977 and would reach Jupiter on April 25, 1979; Saturn on June 5, 1981; Uranus on November 4, 1985; and Neptune on June 5, 1989.
The U.S. performs a series of four small nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 860.08 (+2.63)
Born:
Heike Drechsler, German Women’s Long jumper and sprinter (Olympic gold, Long jump, 1992, 2000; World Record, Long jump, 1986 7.45m; World Record, 200m, 21.71s 1986) in Gera, East Germany.
Anfisa Reztsova, Russian Women’s biathlete (Olympic gold, 7.5k sprint, 1992, 4×7.5k relay, 1994) and cross country skier (Olympic gold, 4×5k relay, 1988), born in Yakimets, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (d. 2023).
Billy Ripken, MLB second baseman, shortstop, and third baseman (Baltimore Orioles, Texas Rangers, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers) and broadcaster (XM Satellite Radio, MLB Network), in Havre de Grace, Maryland.
Ernie Jones, NFL wide receiver (Phoenix Cardinals, Los Angeles Rams), in Elkhart, Indiana.
Died:
Mary Sophia Allen, 86, English feminist leader and founder of the Women Police Volunteers.
Steponas Kairys, 85, Lithuanian independence leader and its first Minister of Industry and Trade (1919-1920).
Phil Davis, 58, American comic strip artist who illustrated Lee Falk’s strip Mandrake the Magician.
History Diaries 