Hundreds of Buddhists attacked a United States Information Service library with stones yesterday and battled with policemen who tried to drive them away. Skirmishes went on into the night and this morning. The riots, set off by a rally of 450 monks and nuns outside the United States Embassy, spread throughout the city. They were directed against American policies supporting Premier Trần Văn Hương and his government. This morning, as 2,000 students continued demonstrating outside a secondary school, a monk plunged a knife into himself. The monk, 30-year-old Thích Thiện Bình, did not appear seriously wounded. But his act recalled a wave of Buddhist suicides that were highly successful as a political weapon in 1963.
The library rioting began when monks and nuns carried banners in a 10-block march through Saigon to the embassy. in defiance of Government orders against street demonstrations. One banner paralleled a slogan of the Communist guerrillas: “We desire democracy, freedom, and peace for the Vietnamese people.” Vietnamese paratroops guarding the embassy permitted a five-man delegation to deliver to the door a petition for Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor. It demanded an end of American support for the Hương Government, which Buddhist leaders consider oppressive. Mr. Taylor sent word that he was busy but that the petition would be brought to him.
Trouble arose two blocks away. A wave of shouting Buddhist youths attacked and stoned cordons of combat policemen. The rioters, dispersed with tear gas and clubs, reassembled and marched on the United States Information Service’s Abraham Lincoln Library, four blocks from the embassy. There they smashed doors and windows. At the embassy a Buddhist spokesman declared over a loudspeaker that the Government had piled repression after repression upon Buddhism and that “we have no choice but to show our grievances publicly.” A group of Buddhist chaplains of the South Vietnamese Army drove into the crowd and tried to push through a barbed wire barricade. Soldiers trained submachine guns on their windshield, and the chaplains backed away. Paratroops finally donned gas masks and broke up the demonstration with tear gas and clubs. Several dozen demonstrators were injured.
Fifty-five Buddhists, including 20 monks, were arrested in the initial clashes. The police charged that some of the monks were draft dodgers. From the sidelines, hundreds of old women, most of them street vendors, looked on. They wept and shook their fists at the embassy, where Mr. Taylor has a fifth-floor office. “Down with America!” some shouted. “Down with the Republic!” Americans from the embassy dragged some of the casualties down a side street and gave them first-aid treatment. An embassy spokesman said he did not regard the vandalism at the library as an anti-American act. “In any case,” he added, “it does not reflect the feeling of the majority of the Vietnamese people.” Throughout the city, nevertheless, mobs toppled traffic control booths. Troops and police squads were shuttled from point to point by truck to suppress demonstrators. Clouds of tear gas marked the trouble spots.
The number of rioters did not seem great; perhaps fewer than 2,000 made up the center of agitation. Paratroops and policemen took up positions this morning at many schools and government installations, under orders to crush further disturbances. “We will beat down any dem-onstration up until the election for the new congress,” said a senior Vietnamese security officer. “After that, I don’t know what will happen.” Some markets were closed in response to a Buddhist plea for a strike of shopkeepers before the forthcoming lunar New Year, a national holiday of gift giving and celebration. The monk who stabbed himself was immediately surrounded by teen-agers. They refused to allow paratroopers and policemen to take him away for medical attention. Buddhists have threatened to renew the wave of suicides that culminated in November, 1963, with the fall of President Ngô Đình Diệm. Those suicides were by fire.
A United States Army enlisted man was killed yesterday 25 miles northwest of Saigon while accompanying a Vietnamese Army unit on patrol, an American military spokesman said today.
The State Department expressed concern today about an apparent North Vietnamese military build-up in central and southern Laos. In recent weeks, the department said, intelligence information has indicated the movement of Communist forces from North Vietnam into southern and central Laos. Some of the troops may be passing through to South Vietnam. During the last year, according to officials, several thousand troops from North Vietnam infiltrated through Laos into South Vietnam. There is concern, therefore, that the new movement of North Vietnamese troops into Laos could lead to stepped up clandestine support of the Việt Cộng forces in South Vietnam.
The State Department spokesman, Robert J. McCloskey, called the situation “a cause for concern but not alarm.” The purpose of the North Vietnamese build-up in Laos remains unclear to American officials, although they do not believe it portends a serious new crisis in Southeast Asia. Politically, officials believe that the build-up does not basically change the situation in South Vietnam, although it does indicate that North Vietnam has no intention of relaxing the pressure on its southern neighbor.
There is usually an influx of North Vietnamese into Laos when the rainy season ends toward the end of the year. But this year, according to department officials, it seems larger than in the past. One possibility seen by officials is that the Communist forces are preparing for a new offensive against the government forces in Laos. The war in Laos has been relatively quiet for the last six months, but there are indications that the Communist forces are stepping up their activity, as they do every year about this time. In recent weeks, for example, fighting has broken out in the northeastern province of Samneua. Parts of the province have been under Communist control since 1962.
North Vietnamese forces have supported the Pathet Lao troops in the sporadic offensives against the government forces. Some North Vietnamese forces have remained in Laos, in violation of the 1962 Geneva accords, which called for withdrawal of all foreign troops. Then, prior to the spring offensives, some troops have moved in from North Vietnam, largely to bolster the Pathet Lao forces. To back up its charges of North Vietnamese military aid to Laos and South Vietnam. the Administration within the next few days plans to make public evidence it has obtained about North Vietnamese forces in Laos and South Vietnam.
A number of Latin-American governments were understood today to be embarrassed by a United States request for symbolic and material support of South Vietnam’s war against Communist guerrillas.
There was a growing belief among delegates today that a showdown vote on arrears for United Nations peacekeeping operations would be avoided. Western sources said they were confident the United States and other Western countries could muster — by a narrow margin — the two-thirds majority needed to support their demand for withholding from countries two years in arrears, headed by the Soviet Union and France, their voting privileges in the General Assembly. But the Western sources said they did not think the showdown vote would be required.
Chancellor Ludwig Erhard moved rapidly today to bring about Western talks on an initiative toward the reunification of Germany. He called in the United States and British Ambassadors to brief them on his meeting earlier this week with President de Gaulle. He is understood to have informed them that the way was cleared for the four Western allies — the United States, Britain, France and West Germany — to consider the West German proposal that the Soviet Union be invited to join in a standing four-power conference on Germany. Under the Potsdam agreement, the four powers that occupied Germany — the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union — are responsible for determining the nation’s future. Official sources said General de Gaulle had reversed the negative attitude taken by France in December when Bonn first made its proposal to its Western allies. There is still no commitment, however, by France or the other Western powers to call upon the Soviet Union to join them in a standing conference on the reunification question.
Reliable diplomatic circles reported today that royalist forces had won a major battle in northern Yemen by retaking a hilltop fort at Razeh from republican and Egyptian troops. They also said negotiations between the United Arab Republic and Saudi Arabia to end the Yemeni civil war had been suspended in the last two weeks. Well-placed sources said Saudi efforts to renew high-level contacts with the Egyptians had not succeeded, apparently because the Egyptians wanted to consolidate the position of the new republican Government before resuming efforts to work out a compromise with the Saudi-backed royalists. The new republican Cabinet was formed January 6 under the Premiership of Major General Hassan al-Amry. The royalist victory at Razeh came about a week ago.
Indonesia’s letter of formal withdrawal from the United Nations was being “carefully studied” today by the world organization. According to a United Nations source, the organization agreed to the maintenance of Indonesia’s “official status” here until March 1. The source would not comment on the meaning of “official status.” Indonesia’s letter to the United Nations, delivered yesterday, said she was withdrawing because of Malaysia’s election to the Security Council. Indonesia contends that Malaysia is a British device to retain influence in Southeast Asia. The unusual status of Indonesia was marked by the continued flying of the country’s flag in front of the General Assembly building, and the nameplate designating an empty row of seats in the Assembly.
In its first comment on Indonesia’s withdrawal, Pravda declared that President Sukarno’s decision reflected the “abnormal situation” caused in the world. organization by American pressures.
The West German Government today branded the communiqué issued after this week’s top-level meeting of the Warsaw Pact powers as an exercise in propaganda. The Government spokesman, Karl-Günther von Hase, took particular exception to the communiqué’s allegations of West Germany’s interest in “an atomic arms race” and regarding Bonn’s policy on the reunification of Germany. Mr. von Hase said at a news conference that the Communist powers’ charge that West Germany was plotting reunification by force represented “the peak of deliberate cynicism.”
Soviet and Polish leaders had talks yesterday and today in the Mazurian Lakes area of northern Poland, Tass, the official Soviet press agency, said tonight. Tass declared that Leonid I. Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist party, and Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin had meetings with Władysław Gomułka, First Secretary of thePolish Communist party, and Premier Jozef Cyrankiewicz.
Sir Winston Churchill has weakened again tonight. At 9:40 o’clock, nearly an hour after Lord Moran, his physician and friend, had arrived for a regular visit, this bulletin was issued: “Sir Winston has had a restful day, but there has been some deterioration in his condition. There will be another bulletin in the morning.”
Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus, has protested strongly against a Soviet mention of a federation between Greek and Turkish Cypriots as a possible solution of the country’s communal dispute. The suggestion was made by Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko in an interview with the Government newspaper Izvestia. He said the Cypriot “national communities” might choose any form of “the organization of their state,” including federation.
Foreign Minister Stavros Costopoulos took issue today with suggestions by Foreign Minister Gromyko for a solution in Cyprus. “Gromyko’s proposals,” Mr. Costopoulos said, “without solving the Cyprus problem in an acceptable manner, carefully refrain from specifying where and how on Cyprioe soil there can ever be a federation. The Turkish minority is spread out throughout the island and nowhere is it a majority of the population.”
The trial of 19 young Basque nationalists, on charges of illegal association and illegal propaganda, ended tonight after three days. The three-man Tribunal of Public Order is expected to hand down the sentences in the next few days.
Michael Stewart was appointed as the new Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Stewart replaced Patrick Gordon Walker, who was asked to resign after his second defeat in a by-election the day before. Walker resigned as Foreign Secretary today in the wake of his surprise defeat yesterday.
Pakistan and Communist China are ready to sign a loan agreement under which Peking will supply this South Asian Moslem republic with $30 million worth of industrial commodities, reliable sources said today.
The secret meeting of Latin-American Communist parties, known to have taken place late last year, was held in Havana in November, according to information now available in Washington. Twenty-two parties were represented.
The Colombian Government has linked a wave of kidnappings with what it says are efforts by extremists to raise money for subversive purposes.
The United States rebutted today charges by Mali that it was waging a “hot war” in Vietnam, obstructing the unification of Korea and meddling in Cuba and the Congo.
President Johnson’s program of school aid received an A-plus from the Democrats and only mild criticism from the Republicans as it started its long course through Congress today. The beginning came in a hearing room as crowded as some of the slum schools that the program is designed to help. The $1.25 billion program of aid to elementary and secondary schools is considered the centerpiece of the President’s Great Society. Representative Carl D. Perkins, a slow-talking Kentucky Democrat who is presiding over the hearings in a House Education subcommittee, sounded the theme for the Democrats.
“This is the most outstanding proposal ever to come before this Congress,” he said. Representative John Brademas, Democrat of Indiana, described the plan as “remarkable,” “imaginative” and “practical.” Even Representative Hugh L. Carey, the Brooklyn Democrat who is a leader in the Roman Catholic faction that has blocked previous school-aid legislation, indicated through written questions that he had few reservations about the program. Another Catholic, Representative James J. Delaney, Democrat of Queens, said today that he believed the new school aid bill would break the Congressional deadlock over the church-state issue. Mr. Delaney helped kill an earlier school-aid bill in Congress. A bill providing $250 million in aid for higher education will be considered by another subcommittee.
The Johnson program seeks to avoid a church-state fight by placing emphasis on helping students in low-income neighborhoods. The majority of the funds would go to public schools, but there would be supplementary programs of neighborhood education centers, open to all low-income persons, and Federal aid in purchasing textbooks and library books for children in both public and private schools. Republicans virtually ignored the church-state issue today but bore down repeatedly — and often good-naturedly — on the question of how much Federal control would be imposed on the states.
One hundred and five Black teachers lined the steps of the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma, Alabama today in a voter-registration demonstration. They were pushed away with nightsticks by Sheriff James G. Clark and five deputies. It was the first time so large a number of public school teachers had been known to participate on an organized basis in the civil rights movement in the South. Except in rare instances, teachers have to answer to school boards made up of whites who oppose teacher participation in the Black revolution. The officers twice repelled the group from the Alabama Street entrance by jabbing them in the ribs and forcing them down the stairs. The teachers had assembled in a line two abreast to protest refusal of the Board of Registrars to set aside a day each week for employees of the public schools to register to vote. “You can’t make a playhouse out of the corridors of this courthouse,” Sheriff Clark barked. “Some of you think you can make it a Disneyland.”
The tense confrontation, witnessed by crowds from across the street, lasted about 30 minutes. During that time the chairman of the Selma School Board, E. A. Stewart, repeatedly warned the group against making an “illegal attempt” to enter the courthouse. “If you do, you are in danger of losing all of the gains you have made,” the white attorney told them. After being pushed back for the second time, the group waited on the sidewalk for 20 minutes and marched to the Browns Chapel Methodist Church where they were cheered by hundreds of students and adults. The demonstration was the fourth held this week under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in an effort to speed up the registration of Black voters. More than 200 were arrested at the courthouse Tuesday and Wednesday. The teachers assembled in the Clark Elementary School, an old brick structure near the center of town, immediately after classes were over for the day. Only about 30 of those employed in the Black public schools in the city of 28,000 failed to show up.
About 300 students and civil rights leaders stood across the street and cheered as the teachers lined up to make the march behind A. J. Durgan, president of the Selma City Teachers Association, and Frederick D. Reese, chairman of the group’s political action committee. When they arrived at the courthouse door, Mr. Stewart and Superintendent of Schools J. A. Pickard were waiting. Mr. Reese, Dr. King’s chief aide in Selma, explained that the association had asked the registration board to set aside Friday for registration teachers. The board is normally open two days a month during business hours but is open 11 extra days this month. The board had replied that Alabama law prevented it from complying with the request. Mr. Stewart told the group: “Any of you will be permitted at any time to leave any school and register. But you cannot come in here and register now. The board is not open. We want to see for ourselves if the board is open,” Mr. Reese said. The plan had been for the group to march by the officers of the board, march out of the courthouse and go to the church.
Then the glass door swung open and Sheriff Clark and his deputies emerged and ordered the steps cleared. “I will give you one minute to clear the steps,” he thundered. Twelve teachers who headed the line were on the steps at the time. They pushed back against the railings, leaving a clearance in the center. Sheriff Clark, a stern-faced man who weighs 220 pounds, spun on his heels and went back into the building, leaving two deputies guarding the door. In a moment, he came back and ordered the teachers to move away from the steps. They stood silently as the officer counted off the seconds. Then he took his club and began punching the teachers, who retreated down the stairs. The officers had no sooner returned to the top of the stairs, when Mr. Reese led the teachers back up again. The rib-poking assault was repeated with the teachers making a second retreat. Eventually the teachers left peacefully and returned to the church.
Seven of the 18 men indicted in connection with the slaying of three civil rights workers have asked dismissal of the charges against them. They say the Federal Government has no jurisdiction in the case. Their motions, filed in United States District Court in Meridian, Mississippi, contend that the triple slaying is a matter for state courts. A Federal grand jury last week indicted the 18 on charges of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Michael H. Schwerner and Andrew Goodman of New York, both white, and James E. Chaney of Meridian, a Black. The group was also indicted on charges of conspiring with law enforcement officers to inflict “summary punishment” on the youths “without due process of law.” There is no Federal law against murder except when committed on Federal property, such as a military installation. Additional motions asked for a jury trial in the case; requested a “bill of particulars” giving more details regarding the alleged conspiracy, and asked that the Justice Department be required to turn over to the defense all documents, records and other evidence, including any alleged confessions.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly has confessions in the slaying from at least two of the 18 defendants, Horace Doyle Barnette of Cullen, Louisiana, and James E. Jordan, now living in Atlanta. The motions were filed on behalf of Jimmy Arledge, Travis Maryn Barnette, James T. Harris, Frank J. Herndon, Jimmy Snowden, Alton Wayne Roberts and Bernard L. Akin, all of Meridian. Others indicted included the Neshoba County Sheriff, Lawrence Rainey, and his deputy, Cecil Price. A defense attorney, Laurel Weir, said a similar motion would probably be filed Monday on behalf of Rainey, Price and other defendants in the case.
At Biloxi, Mississippi, today a suit was filed in United States District Court calling for the desegregation of public schools at Moss Point, near Biloxi, this fall.
At Brandon, Mississippi, a Black church was found burned. More than 50 Black churches have burned in Mississippi since an integration drive began last summer.
Blacks were turned away today at four restaurants in Greenwood, Mississippi, but were allowed to picket the Leflore County Courthouse and apply for voter registration. There were no incidents.
Ray C. Bliss, long one of the Republican party’s most celebrated professional politicians, today was unanimously elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, effective April 1.
Barry Goldwater accepted today “the full responsibility” for his defeat in the Presidential campaign of 1964 and urged the Republican party to stop trying to assign it to anyone else. He was in anything but a humble mood, however, and frequently ripped into President Johnson in campaign style. Mr. Goldwater spoke at a luncheon for members of the Republican National Committee, which is meeting in Chicago today and tomorrow. He did not apologize for any part of his campaign, although he conceded that in “20-20 hindsight” some of his decisions might have been wrong. But no responsibility for his defeat should be attached to Dean Burch, his hand-picked national chairman, or to anyone else, Mr. Goldwater said. He nevertheless pledged his full support to Ray C. Bliss of Ohio, who was elected by the National Committee today to take over as chairman on April 1.
Both Mr. Bliss’s election and Mr. Goldwater’s insistence on taking the blame for the 1964 defeat were part of a general effort being made to calm down the ideological dispute that has racked the party in the last year. Mr. Goldwater pointedly said he would “resist any third party movement in this country” and would “never allow my name to be used in any such cause.” Some of his most conservative supporters have hinted at withdrawal from the Republican party. Mr. Goldwater spoke sharply against President Johnson’s financial and foreign policies, and said the main causes of his defeat had been Democratic distortions of his views and the fact that he had to run against “the full muscle and power of the Federal Government.”
Representative Gerald R. Ford Jr. of Michigan, who has lost two tests of strength as the new leader of House Republicans, is facing a third one. This became evident today! when Representative John J. Rhodes of Arizona announced his candidacy for chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee. Mr. Ford, who overthrew Representative Charles A. Halleck of Indiana as House minority leader January 4, prefers an easterner for the job. He has indicated to colleagues that his choice is Representative Charles E. Goodell of upstate New York. The policy chairmanship, which now ranks as one of the top four posts in the party’s hierarchy in the House, will be filled by majority vote at a caucus of House Republicans, possibly within a week or two.
Twenty-five more cadets at the Air Force Academy, including some members of athletic teams and some students of high standing, resigned today in an investigation into cheating on examinations.
An angry bloc of Senators, headed by the floor leaders of both parties, strongly protested today against the Veterans Administration’s plan to close 14 of its hospitals across the country.
Senate investigators have opened up a new angle in the Robert G. Baker case, which will be explored in public hearings expected to get under way during the first week in February. No details were made available.
Striking longshoremen lifted their embargo yesterday on United States-flag passenger vessels and on perishable cargoes in the Port of New York.
President Johnson was admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital early this morning for treatment of what the White House called “common cold with trachial and bronchial irritation.”
TIROS-9, the first weather satellite that could provide pictures of the entire Earth, was launched into a nearly polar orbit that took it around the Earth 12 times per day. Spinning on its side, it effectively rolled in its orbit and, with a camera on each side, could face perpendicularly to the Earth twice during each roll. With wide-angle views, the TIROS-9 could pass over every section of the globe twice a day, during daytime and at night. The real-time information would first prove to be lifesaving in December 1966, when meteorologists would be able to warn residents of the Fiji Islands of a rapidly approaching hurricane in time for them to evacuate.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 893.59 (+0.33)
Born:
Diane Lane, American film actress (“Streets of Fire”, “The Perfect Storm”, “Lady Beware”, “Lonesome Dove”); in New York, New York.
DJ Jazzy Jeff [stage name for Jeffrey Allen Townes], American rapper and actor; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Ray Mayhew, English new wave rock drummer (Sigue Sigue Sputnik, 1985-89 – “Love Missile F-111”), in Southampton, England, United Kingdom.
Steven Adler [Michael Coletti], American rock drummer and songwriter (Guns & Roses, 1985-90), in Cleveland, Ohio.
Derrick Smith, Canadian NHL left wing (Philadelphia Flyers, Minnesota North Stars-Dallas Stars), in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada.
Jay Mazur, Canadian NHL centre and right wing (Vancouver Canucks), in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
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