Buddhist demonstrations erupted in the suburbs of Saigon today. About 70 monks and nearly 100 of their followers were arrested by Government paratroopers who quickly quelled a demonstration with tear gas. The monks, cheering and waving a huge South Vietnamese flag, were carted off in trucks. In another Saigon suburb, about 200 students tried to set fire to market stalls, but were stopped by policemen and troops. About half the students were arrested.
In the central coastal city of Nha Trang, a 17- year-old Buddhist girl burned herself to death in protest against the Hương regime. The girl, Huỳnh Thị Yến Phi, was believed to be the first Vietnamese to resort to suicide for political reasons since 1963, when a wave of suicides played a major part in the downfall of President Ngô Đình Diệm. At Saigon’s Buddhist headquarters, five leading monks completed the seventh day of a hunger strike as part of their campaign against the government. They were showing signs of exhaustion. At the office of the chief of Giã Định Province, outside Saigon, dozens of monks were dispersed with tear gas as they began to demonstrate. In the capital, demonstration attempts were broken up throughout the day.
With the increase in violence, officials of the United States Operations Mission, which administers the American aid program, stepped up efforts to send their families away. Several hundred applications for return passage to the United States have been received recently, informed sources said. Two small time bombs exploded at a high-security United States Army administrative office in Saigon. One blast damaged the office of Brigadier General Frank A. Osmanski, assistant chief of staff for logistics. An officer was slightly injured, but the general was unhurt. A military spokesman said that half-pound bombs with wrist watches as timers had been planted in the ceiling.
At least 153 Việt Cộng guerrillas were killed today in heavy fighting 40 miles south of Saigon near the hamlet of Ấp Bắc, United States authorities reported. The casualty figure was expected to go even higher. Government forces lost men and 50 were wounded. Two American helicopter crewmen were also wounded. The Việt Cộng force was believed to have comprised 200 regular troops and 300 trainees. The battle occurred at the scene of a crushing government defeat in January, 1963.
United States officials said tonight that the disclosure of new estimates of North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam was not related to any new policy decisions. “The policy remains,” a high Administration official said. He added that the figures were being given out merely to acquaint public opinion with the situation in Vietnam. Other officials indicated that there were no plans to expand the war beyond the sporadic bombing of Communist-controlled bridges and road junctions in Laos.
United States intelligence agencies have sharply increased their estimate of the number of men who have infiltrated from North Vietnam to reinforce the Communist guerrillas in the South; well-informed sources said today. At least 19,300 men, including military leaders and specialists, were said to have slipped into South Vietnam from 1959 to August 1, 1964. In groups of 5 to 500, they traveled in some instances for six months along jungle tracks on the Hồ Chí Minh Trail through Laos, the sources said. The infiltration rate was reported to be increasing, and significant changes have been noted in the character of the personnel involved. According to recent data on 4,000 infiltrators identified in the first seven months of last year, 3,600 were natives of North Vietnam.
Before 1964, all the infiltrators were trained in the North but were South Vietnamese in origin and were assigned to their native localities. Most of them had fought in the 90,000-man Communist force that ended French colonial rule in Indochina. Then, in most cases, they went to North Vietnam after the division of the country under the 1954 Geneva agreement. New infiltration estimates made available here formed the basis of a recent secret survey submitted to President Johnson and congressional committees. United States officials submitted the survey in conjunction with recommendations on what might be accomplished by air attacks on the Hồ Chí Minh Trail and on North Vietnamese territory to isolate the Việt Cộng from a source of leadership and supplies.
The survey is based on United States intelligence agencies’ evaluation of information drawn from interrogations of Việt Cộng prisoners and defectors by South Vietnamese authorities, and from captured documents. The interrogations have been carried out at special centers where United States advisers are posted. According to the survey, the bulk of the Việt Cộng forces are recruited in South Vietnam. The strength of Việt Cộng regular forces is estimated at 29,000 to 36,000 men; regional or local forces are thought to number 60,000 to 80,000. South Vietnamese Government troops total 550,000, of whom 240,000 are irregular or militia forces.
Personnel sent to the Việt Cộng have strengthened the guerrilla movement by contributing leaders and specialists in heavy ordnance, communications, medical aid, and political propaganda. In some instances they also provide élite troops. Because of the sparsity of the population in the northern part of South Vietnam, most guerrillas there are said to have infiltrated from the North. Hanoi, the North Vietnamese capital, has retained control of the Việt Cộng movement by providing a continuing supply of cadres and specialists, the survey asserts.
Former Vice-President Richard Nixon, in a speech in New York City, charges that the United States is “losing the war in Vietnam” and calls for U.S. bombing of Communist supply routes. He says that to negotiate with the Việt Cộng or ‘neutralize’ South Vietnam is “surrendering on the installment plan.” Security requires the United States to “end the war in Vietnam by winning it,” or all of Asia will be lost to the Communists, Mr. Nixon declared. He proposed that the United States commit the Navy and Air Force to “quarantine” the war by cutting Communist supply lines to South Vietnam and destroying Communist staging areas in North Vietnam and Laos. It would not be necessary to employ either nuclear weapons or American ground troops, he said. Nixon said “we’re losing the war in Vietnam and we will be thrown out of the country in a matter of months, certainly within a year.”
Premier Hassan Ali Mansour of Iran died tonight, five days after he was struck down by two bullets from an assassin’s pistol. He was 41 years old. Mr. Mansour, son of a former Prime Minister, became Premier last March after a career as a diplomat, Minister of Labor and of Commerce and Deputy Premier. As head of the Government, he had opposed conservative Muslim factions in carrying out a program intended to transform Iran into a modern state. In this he had the support of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. The Premier was shot last Thursday as he left his limousine to enter the Majlis, or lower house of Parliament.
Sir Winston Churchill’s body was placed in Westminster Hall where it will lie in state until the ceremonial funeral Saturday. Tomorrow four days of official rites will begin, with the body lying in state. But tonight the death of Britain’s hero remained a private family matter. An ordinary black hearse took the coffin from the Churchill home at 28 Hyde Park Gate. It was driven into New Palace Yard, the large space within the gates of Westminster Palace where members of the House of Commons park their cars at other times. The crowd of about 1,000 fell silent as the hearse and procession of eight cars arrived. Awaiting them were the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Arthur Michael Ramsey, the Duke of Norfolk and Charles Pannell, Minister of Public Buildings and Works. Lady Churchill, heavily veiled and accompanied by the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Marquess of Cholmondeley, with her son, Randolph Churchill, and other members of the family, stood in the cold beneath the awning erected over the pavement of New Palace Yard. With slow rhythmic steps, eight Grenadier Guardsmen carried the coffin, covered with the Union Jack, through a door into a room that was the site of the old Star Chamber into the adjoining lofty Gothic hall.
The United States appealed to the small powers today to uphold the right of the General Assembly to impose mandatory assessments for peace-keeping forces. Adlai E. Stevenson, the United States representative, told the Assembly that the refusal of “a few” states to pay these assessments was a direct challenge to the membership. He said it was a particular challenge to “those smaller nations whose primary reliance for peace and security and welfare must be the United Nations.” He did not identify the “few” who have refused to pay, chief among them the Soviet Union. Mr. Stevenson, who had refrained from speaking in the Assembly’s general policy debate in the hope that the crisis over unpaid assessments would be settled, presented a gloomy view of the future of the United Nations “if the Assembly should falter in the exercise of its own authority.”
The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to stop sales of surplus food to the United Arab Republic. The roll-call, first of the year on substantive legislation. showed 204 favoring the ban and 177 opposed. The decision struck at least a glancing blow at President Johnson’s foreign policy. For some members, however, the objective was a direct slap at President Gamal Abdel Nasser of the U.A.R. House leaders, including Speaker John W. McCormack. pleaded with their fellow Democrats not to tie the president’s hands, but 76 refused to go along.
The Soviet Union ordered today the expulsion of Richard F. Stolz, 39-year-old first secretary at the United States Embassy, on charges of espionage. Stolz was indeed a career intelligence officer who was called out of retirement in 1987 to run the Central Intelligence Agency’s spying operations and cleanse its image after the Iran-contra scandal.
Hans Helmcke, described as the operator of West Berlin’s most elegant brothel, has been arrested on a charge of espionage, it was announced today. Helmcke was said to have informed the East German Communists about high-ranking patrons of his establishment. According to the West Berlin police, he owned a six-room apartment off the Kurfürstendamm and his clients included many rich and influential visitors from West Germany and other Western countries.
Eight Syrians were sentenced today to die before a firing squad for their part in a campaign against nationalization measures applied by the Syrian Government earlier this month. Reports reaching here from Damascus said those sentenced to die were among an undisclosed number of persons arrested Sunday and charged with inciting strife. Twenty-two businessmen accused as leaders of the “conspiracy seeking to counter the Socialist transformation in Syria” were referred to a military court yesterday for trial after the Government had confiscated all their property. Syria’s President, Amin elHafez, said in a speech broadcast today that he would “wring the necks” of all enemies of his regime. He described these enemies as “capitalists.” members of the Moslem Brotherhood, and “opportunist politicians.” President el-Hafez addressed a mass demonstration organized by the ruling Baath party. and described in a broadcast by Damascus radio. Prompted by one of their leaders, the demonstrators took an oath to “crush reaction” and to “raise the banner of socialism.”
Pursuant to Article 313 of the Indian Constitution, Hindi replaced English as the official language of India on Republic Day, with English to be used only for limited purposes. On the same day that Hindi-speakers were celebrating, however, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a political party whose members were primarily speakers of the Tamil language, declared the event a day of mourning and called for protests that led to riots and suicides. Other minority groups in south India would join in the protest, particularly students who had grown up speaking their own language and English. “Northerners and Southerners start from the same point in English”, one observer would note, but those who had not grown up speaking Hindi would be at a disadvantage in their careers. On February 11, Prime Minister Shastri would announce that the Hindi-only plans would be halted until further notice.
Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, the Roman Catholic Primate of Poland, has joined in his country’s protest against a 20-year West German statute of limitations on trials of Nazi war criminals. The statute goes into force May 8 unless modified.
The U.S. government approved the sale of 4 million bushels of soybeans to the Soviet Union for $11 million.
President Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco of Brazil decided that the Brazilian Air Force henceforth would control all Brazilian fixed-wing military aircraft, including those aboard the aircraft carrier Minas Gerais, and that the Brazilian Navy would control all seagoing rotary-wing aircraft. Key Brazilian naval personnel resigned in protest.
The French Communist leadership has just been put in the novel position of being accused of deviationism by one of its junior organizations. The youth are upset with the Party’s doctrine and structure, and the lack of “democratic” input.
Britain’s Royal Air Force permanently retired all of the Vickers Valiant jet bombers in its fleet from further service. An aluminium alloy used in the aircraft’s construction, “DTD683”, proved to be prone to premature metal fatigue, leading to accidents, and parts had to be frequently replaced.
The European Economic Community adopted Directive 65/65/EEC as a directive that “aimed to establish and maintain a high level of protection for public health” by requiring prior approval by the EEC for the marketing of pharmaceuticals originating within the EEC member nations.
President Johnson, who entered the Naval Hospital at Bethesda, Maryland, with a cold three and a half days ago, returned to the White House today. Mrs. Johnson, who was also treated for a cold at the same hospital, returned with him. Although it was said he still had a slight cough, Mr. Johnson appeared otherwise to be recovered from his illness. However, there was still no official announcement as to whether he would head a United States delegation to the state funeral for Sir Winston Churchill in London Saturday. The United States thus remained almost the only nation that had not named such a delegation.
Mr. Johnson has said he wants “very much” to go to the funeral but that it depends on how he feels. A qualified source said today that Mr. Johnson did not want to announce his intention, which is to go, at this time. This source said he feared that, if a relapse or return of his fever caused him to cancel the trip after such an announcement, the public might be alarmed. The betting was still that he would go and an announcement tomorrow was considered possible. Meantime, tentative plans called for Chief Justice Earl Warren and Secretary of State Dean Rusk to be in the delegation, in any event. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson left the Naval Hospital at 1:48 PM today. As the President stepped out of an elevator, reporters asked how he felt. The President winked but said nothing.
The Supreme Court took under advisement today the first case to reach it, raising the issue of whether the Justice Department may sue a state in an effort to knock down discriminatory barriers to Blacks who want to register to vote. Arguments were completed in the case, which involves Mississippi, and were begun in a second similar case involving Louisiana. The arguments will be completed in the Louisiana case tomorrow and the court will take that under advisement, too. Justice Department officials regard the issue raised in the cases as one of great importance because knocking down barriers to voting by Blacks in county by county suits has proved painfully slow. Attacking the problem on a statewide basis obviously would move much more quickly.
Federal District Judge Harold Cox said one of the 18 men indicted for conspiracy in the slaying of three civil rights workers in Mississippi may enter a plea of guilty. In a surprise announcement, Judge Cox said during a hearing on defense motions today that he had learned James Edward Jordan, 38-year-old former Meridian mechanic, who now lives in Georgia, would plead either guilty or nolo contendere to federal conspiracy charges before a United States district judge in Atlanta. Judge Cox’s announcement caught the defense attorneys by surprise. Laurel Weir, the chief defense counsel. told the judge “that is a surprise to us, we didn’t know that.” Judge Cox, who apparently let the remark slip while discussing a motion on granting separate trials for 18 men charged in the triple slaying, later said that the federal judge in Georgia may allow him to plead nolo contendere or plead guilty, whichever is his choice.”
Riot-trained state troopers moved into Selma, Alabama, as a safeguard against violence while 34 more Blacks were arrested in the voter registration campaign. Attorneys for the Blacks said they had a right to be there under a Federal court injunction. But H. Stanley Fountain, a United States deputy marshal, disagreed so the Blacks were marched off to jail under charges of refusing to obey an officer. An enlarged assembly of policemen, deputy sheriffs, special posse men with cattle prods, state troopers, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and United States marshals watched over the line of 100 Blacks along with Sheriff James G. Clark.
They had anticipated a large street demonstration led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to protest the slow rate of registration of Black voters here and throughout Alabama. Instead, Dr. King returned to Atlanta for “personal reasons.” Sheriff Clark, who had been attacked by and in turn clubbed a Black woman in the line yesterday, appeared today in dark glasses and a white riot helmet. He did not have a black eye, as he had predicted. Among those arrested was John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It was his 37th arrest in the civil rights movement.
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed contempt proceedings brought by a federal judge against a U.S, attorney in Jackson, Mississippi. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed today, by a 4–3 vote, contempt proceedings brought against United States Attorney Robert Hauberg of Jackson, Mississippi. Federal District Judge W. Harold Cox had held Mr. Hauberg in contempt and also ordered Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Acting Attorney General of the United States, to show cause why he should not be held in contempt. The contempt action, taken last October, grew out of Mr. Hauberg’s refusal to draw up grand jury indictments under instructions from Mr. Katzenbach. The dispute was an outgrowth of civil rights litigation. The court majority concluded that the signature of the government attorney was necessary to the validity of an indictment and that the signing or withholding of the signature was a matter of executive discretion that could not be coerced or reviewed by the courts.
Senator Mike Mansfield, the Democratic leader, has put the Senate on an accelerated schedule consistent with his expressed hope of a midsummer adjournment.
The American Medical Association has opened its “national educational” campaign against medical care for the aged under Social Security.
The General Services Administration, the Government’s purchasing agent, published today in the Federal Register a list of 17 safety features that it would like to see included in the new automobiles it buys.
Stephen Ailes, the United States Secretary of the Army, came under fire from both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate’s appropriations subcommittee when he sought budgetary approval for a proposal that was quickly derided as the “Instant Veteran Program.” As the Senators described the Ailes plan, up to “8,000 young men incapable of meeting the minimum physical and mental requirements for military service” would be inducted into the U.S. Army anyway, and “could serve one day and then be discharged as a veteran, eligible for veterans’ benefits available to service men who had completed long periods in uniform.” Ailes noted that the plan (which the subcommittee declined to endorse) would cost $31,300,000 in its first year in 1965 dollars, the equivalent of $235 million fifty years later.
The Air Force Academy has clamped a strict gag with threats of courts-martial on cadets resigning in the wake of a cheating scandal that may take weeks to clean up.
The Bobby Baker case erupted anew with the disclosure that Baker shared a legal fee with Rep. Emmanuel Celler (D-New York), dean of the House of Representatives.
America’s proposed supersonic airliner is about to undergo the most critical review since a program to develop it began 19 months ago.
Richard Robles, a 22-year-old narcotics addict, was arrested and charged last night with the 1963 murders of two East Side New York career girls, Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert. Asked how this would affect the indictment filed in the same slayings against George Whitmore Jr., Assistant District Attorney Peter Koste turned away without comment after directing that Robies be booked at the East 104th Street station house. Whitmore, a 20-year-old drifter, was indicted last May 6. The police said he had confessed to the Wylie and Hoffert murders during a questioning in which he also allegedly admitted a Brooklyn murder and an attempted rape. Whitmore has since repudiated all three confessions, maintaining that he was coerced into making them.
[Ed: The Whitmore case was one of the most egregious excesses of the NYPD’s checkered history. They beat a confession out of him, and would have put him on Death Row, if they had not stumbled into the actual killer. There had been political pressure from the city government to solve the case, and so they did — indicting an innocent man.]
Waneta Hoyt committed the first of five murders of her infant children, as three-month-old Eric Hoyt was found dead of what appeared to be sudden infant death syndrome. Not until 1994, after the deaths of her four other infant children between 1968 and 1971, would Hoyt confess to the homicides. She would be sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1996 and pass away less than two years later.
Northern Illinois, still hacking its way out of a weekend ice storm coating, was hammered by a new snowstorm that swept across the Midwest.
The fossil of the skull of Zinjanthropus (Paranthropus boisei) was presented to the National Museum of Tanzania by the people who had discovered it on July 17, 1959, Mary Leakey and Louis Leakey, who turned it over to Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere at a ceremony in Dar es Salaam.
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Born:
Kevin McCarthy, American Republican politician, Speaker of the House of Representatives (January to October 2023), House Minority Leader (2019 to 2023); in Bakersfield, California.
Thomas Östros, Swedish politician, in Malmberget, Sweden.
Natalia Yurchenko, Soviet gymnast, inductee to the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame, 1982 and 1983 overall women’s world champion for whom the “Yurchenko vaults” gymnastic move is named; in Norilsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Curtis Duncan, NFL wide receiver (Pro Bowl, 1992; Houston Oilers), in Detroit, Michigan.
Merril Hoge, NFL fullback (Pittsburgh Steelers, Chicago Bears), in Pocatello, Idaho.
Sam Anno, NFL linebacker (Los Angeles Rams, Minnesota Vikigns, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Diego Chargers), in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Lou Frazier, MLB outfielder and pinch hitter (Montreal Expos, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox), in St. Louis, Missouri.
Randy Allen, NBA shooting guard (Sacramento Kings), in Milton, Florida.
Allison Hossack, Canadian actress (Olivia-“Another World”), in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada.
Died:
Hassan Ali Mansur, 41, Prime Minister of Iran (1964-1965), died from gunshot wounds he had received five days earlier. Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was named the following day to succeed Mansur.
Elwood “Bingo” DeMoss, 75, African-American baseball player and manager in baseball’s Negro leagues.
History Diaries 