Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin arrived in Hanoi for a state visit to North Vietnam. Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin was greeted enthusiastically on his arrival in Hanoi, capital of North Vietnam, today. Replying to his welcomers, the Soviet leader termed North Vietnam an “inspiring example” to the South Vietnamese in their “struggle against American interventionists and their puppets.” Mr. Kosygin, who had received a courteous but tepid reception during a stopover in Peking, was cheered by thousands of Hanoi’s citizens at the airport. Premier Phạm Văn Đồng, who headed the official welcoming committee, said the Russian’s weeklong visit was “a powerful support for North Vietnam” and an “inspiration” to the Việt Cộng guerrillas in South Vietnam. Speaking at the airport, Mr. Kosygin said that his visit was “yet one more expression of friendship between our peoples” and an “important political act aimed at further strengthening the unity and cohesion of our countries in the struggle against imperialism, for peace and socialism.” Mr. Kosygin spoke further in praise of the Vietcong operations in the South. Mr. Phạm Văn Đồng said in a speech later that “the solidarity of the Soviet Union and China was the most important goal of the international Communist movement,” the Soviet agency Tass said in a Moscow dispatch. Mr. Pham Van Dong appealed to the Soviet Union and Communist China to settle their differences and fight together against the United States.
Mr. Kosygin said the Vietnamese people’s “determination in the struggle for unification of their country on democratic principles” had the “deep sympathy and fraternal support” of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Premier’s visit is believed here as an attempt by Moscow to reassert its influence, in an area in which Peking has been playing the dominant role. Some analysts here see this development in a favorable light. assuming that the Soviet Union is preparing to take a less belligerent stance than that of Communist China. Mr. Kosygin’s discussions with the Communist regime of President Hồ Chí Minh are expected to deal principally with the Việt Cộng operations against the Government of South Vietnam and Hanoi’s involvement there and with Moscow’s ideological conflict with Peking, in which the North Vietnamese have sought to play a mediatory role while leaning toward the Chinese on certain issues.
The warmth of Hanoi’s welcome was in marked contrast with the tepid reception Mr. Kosygin received in Peking yesterday. In Hanoi he was greeted with cheers, and the press noted the visit with banner headlines. The official North Vietnamese newspaper Nhân Dân underlined at least one motive for this cordiality when it reminded the Soviet leader of the pledge he made last year to “give all necessary help” to “brotherly Socialist countries” in the event “aggressors dare to attack them.” Analysts in Hong Kong believe that Hanoi plans to ask for a stronger defense assurance against United States attacks and for specific economic and military aid, and that it hopes to achieve its purpose by playing Moscow against Peking. Analysts who specialize in relations between the Soviet. and Asian Communist parties believe that Moscow is prepared to provide Hanoi with more aid in the form of capital equipment, jet planes and advanced anti-aircraft guns and rockets.
They say Moscow’s readiness to discuss such assistance is reflected by the composition of the delegation accompanying Mr. Kosygin. It includes Chief Air Marshal Konstantin Vershinin, a Deputy Defense Minister who is commander of the Soviet Air Force; Yevgeny F. Loginov, Minister of Civil Aviation, and Colonel General Georgi Sirodovich, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations. Moscow is expected to ask for assurances that Hanoi will not provoke the United States into retaliation that could lead to a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in Asia. The presence of Yuri V. Andropov on the delegation indicates that interparty problems will be discussed. Moscow may try to get Hanoi’s agreement to attend the March 1 meeting of Communist parties in Moscow. The meeting, which Peking opposes, would prepare for a world Communist conference.
In Peking, readers of the press learned only today that Mr. Kosygin was going to Hanoi and had spent the night in the Chinese capital. While the tenor of Hanol press comment was essentially friendly, an editorial in Nhân Dân spoke of relations between the peoples of North Vietnam and the Soviet Union rather than between governments and parties, and a kind word for China was included. “The Vietnamese people have always attached great importance to strengthening solidarity and friendship with the peoples of the Soviet Union, China, and other Socialist countries on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism,” the article said.
Three United States soldiers were wounded in South Vietnam by a landmine today. A military spokesman said two Army officers and an enlisted man were hurt when a mine exploded under their jeep on Highway 14, about 60 miles northwest of Saigon. The three were cut by flying steel fragments, but only the enlisted man required hospitalization.
South Vietnam will have a general election in March, barring another governmental upheaval.
The United States Embassy in Vientiane, Laos has intervened with the Laotian Government in an attempt to prevent General Phouml Nosavan from being killed in the manner of President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam. General Phoumi Nosavan, a Deputy Premier, fled from the administrative capital Wednesday night after the failure of a power play he had staged to regain military authority. Western military sources surmised that the right-wing general and his accomplice, General Siho Lamphouthacoul, the police chief, had probably not reached the latter’s stronghold in the mountains north of Vientiane. They said roadblocks would have prevented a vehicle from passing to the redoubt at Phou Khaokhouai.
Laotian military sources said that General Phoumi Nosavan had already escaped to Udon, a large base for United States and Thai aircraft across the Mekong River in northern Thailand. Neither the United States Ambassador nor the Thai Ambassador could confirm the report, the latest in a series of rumors. An American spokesman denied that United States airplanes or helicopters had been used to move General Phoumi Nosavan. “Urging clemency for him is one thing,” the spokesman said, “but we have to live with his enemies.” Reports from Phou Khaokhouai said the 200 or more police troops lodged at the camp had offered to surrender and were negotiating their terms with the army.
The position of the United States toward General Phoumi Nosavan is complicated by the fact that he was the principal beneficiary of United States military aid before Washington accepted the 1962 coalition of neutralist, leftist and rightist forces headed by Prince Souvanna Phouma, a neutralist. The coalition broke down in 1963 when the pro-Communist Pathet Lao forces launched attacks that have continued sporadically since. In recent months, the neutralist and rightist factions have been allied. Since 1962 the United States has discouraged General Phoumi Nosavan’s requests for new backing against his opponents in the army.
When the general tried to stage a coup d’état early this week, Premier Souvanna Phouma received immediate pledges of continued support from the State Department in Washington and from the United States Ambassador, William H. Sullivan. Despite widespread American dismay with General Phoumi Nosavan’s maneuvering, United States officials have sought leniency for him if he is captured. Informed sources said cautious appeals have been made directly to Prince Souvanna Phouma.
The Premier is understood to share the American concern. He issued a statement promising that the rebels would be punished within the framework of the law. Other of General Phoumi Nosavan’s opponents would prefer that he be executed, preferably at the time of his capture. The possibility that the general will make a final stand against his foes, who are led by General Kouprasith Abhay, troubles Americans here. “Even if he were to shoot it out with the army, no one would believe it,” a U.S. official said. Then you might as well line him up in front of a firing squad.” There is sentiment here for an escape that would allow General Phoumi Nosavan to withdraw to Thailand and, eventually, to Europe.
Americans favoring this kind of negotiated escape believe that his recent defeat by the government army has proved to General Phoumi Nosavan the futility of mounting another attempt at a military comeback. The Americans acknowledged that the General enjoyed a lingering respect and affection among junior officers he trained and commanded, even though they have rejected his attempts to establish himself as their commander. Another consideration for the United States has been the aftermath of the coup d’état in November, 1963, in South Vietnam. President Ngô Đình Diệm and his brother Ngô Đình Nhu were shot by guards following their arrest.
Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Cambodian Chief of State, called today for Indochinese unity in a campaign to “exterminate” the Americans who are in Southeast Asia helping in the fight against the Communists. In a speech at the dedication of Chhouk College in Kampot Province, the Prince said the “conference of the Indochinese peoples” — Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnamese — he has scheduled later this month was intended to further his anti-American campaign.
The strength of United States military forces in South Vietnam was listed today as 23,590, reflecting an increase of 500 in a month.
The General Assembly is expected to recess next week until September 1 with the deadlock over the financial crisis in the United Nations still unbroken. The United States and other Western powers would prefer that the Assembly reconvene by May, provided that a solution of the crisis has been found by then, But indications are that, at the insistence of the African-Asian group, the Assembly will not meet again until September 1. A large majority of the 59 states in this group favor postponing resumption of the session until three weeks before the scheduled September 21 opening of the next General Assembly. Their reasoning is that such a postponement would save expenses.
When the Assembly reconvenes Monday afternoon, the Secretary General, U Thant, is expected to make a statement outlining the essential business that should be completed before a recess to enable the United Nations to continue functioning. This includes adoption of a budget for 1965. According to reliable sources, however, the Soviet Union will oppose its adoption because it contains items related to the cost of certain peacekeeping operations that Moscow contends are illegal.
Western disarmament negotiators are becoming concerned that the impasse in the General Assembly is holding back chances for progress in disarmament talks.
All 87 persons aboard LAN Chile Flight 107 were killed when the DC-6B airliner crashed into the Andes Mountains, a few minutes after taking off from Santiago in Chile to Buenos Aires in Argentina. The dead included 22 players and staff of Santiago’s Antonio Varas soccer football team, who were on their way to Uruguay for a match against the Camadeo team in Montevideo; the DC-6B plane was only 20 minutes into its flight, and at an altitude of 13,000 feet (4,000 m), when it struck the dormant San Jose volcano.
Congolese Prime Minister Moise Tshombe and Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak signed an agreement in Brussels, with Belgium paying off $250 million worth of interest on Congo’s pre-independence debts of nearly one billion dollars. In return, Congo would compensate the Belgian owners of mines that had been nationalized by the government. “From today, the Congo is independent”, Tshombe told reporters, adding “We will achieve our program of economic reconstruction.”
As it has in West Germany and perhaps other European countries, the feeling is growing in France that President Johnson is preoccupied with domestic affairs and has neither interest nor competence in foreign relations.
The statute of limitations for murder, which very soon could protect Nazi killers, is almost certain to be extended. Former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer said today that the deadline for prosecution of Nazi war crimes should be extended for four years.
President Gamal Abdel Nasser has succeeded in fulfilling his pledge to industrialize Egypt but, despite U.S. food and Soviet factories, the nation remains in deep economic trouble.
Japanese and United States officials hope that a cordial meeting between the Premiers of Japan and South Korea that took place here today will spur negotiations to settle differences between the two countries.
Britain’s incredibly muddled military aviation picture is developing serious international implications as well as creating a political bombshell at home.
For people in Central Asia, the dispute between the Soviet Union and Communist China is far from an abstract problem of Communist ideology. It involves the land they live on and people of their own blood. Mao Tse-tung claims this area, which the Soviet Union controls. It borders on Chinese Sinkiang. Refugees have fled from Sinkiang, where, according to the Russians, Central Asian people are being oppressed. Russian and Chinese border guards have exchanged shots. But people here seem to be taking it calmly. Those who claim to be their spokesmen typically remark: “We don’t regard the Chinese claim as serious. Everyone knew it was not well founded.”
Partap Singh Kairon, the former Chief Minister of the Indian state of Punjab, was assassinated after meeting with Prime Minister Shastri. Kairon, who had been a leader of the Punjabi independence movement in India, was being driven from Delhi on his way back to his home at Amritsar. He was passing through the village of Resni when four men with rifles attacked his car, killing him, his chauffeur, his private secretary and a former state cabinet aide.
Nikolai V. Podgorny, reporting on television today on a visit to Turkey as head of a Supreme Soviet delegation, affirmed a Soviet stand on the Cyprus problem that had caused angry demonstrations in Greece. The Soviet back a federal solution; the Greek Cypriots want total control of the entire island.
Cuban authorities have captured two men who tried to infiltrate the island with a load of arms and radio equipment, officials said tonight. According to an armed forces communiqué, the men were captured last night in San Luis, Pinar del Rio Province, west of Havana. The two said that they were from a Central Intelligence Agency base in Nicaragua, the communiqué added. It gave no names. Last month militiamen in Oriente Province captured an exile leader, Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, and three other men, who were alleged to have landed from the Dominican Republic.
Queen Elizabeth II received a wildly enthusiastic welcome today from cheering, chanting crowds, tribesmen brandishing spears only a few feet from her motorcade, and a flower-petal bombardment from a light plane, which drew the ire of the royal party.
Two more gaps in the international highway across Asia will be closed late this year with the completion of two sections in Afghanistan.
President Johnson will ask Congress for new legislation to eliminate barriers to the right to vote, the White House reported today. The President will make “a strong recommendation on this matter” in a message to Congress, George E. Reedy, his press secretary, said. The timing of the message and the nature of legislation to be sought have not yet been determined. A constitutional amendment stripping the states of authority to set voting qualifications other than age is one of several major proposals under consideration.
Mr. Reedy’s statement provided the first official confirmation of reports that President Johnson would definitely press for Congressional action this year to strengthen Federal laws against racial discrimination. Reports of such plans had been circulating since early January. The press secretary volunteered the information at a news briefing at which he was questioned about a request from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King had sought an appointment with the President to discuss possible voting rights legislation. Mr. Reedy reported that Dr. King had been advised to consult instead with Justice Department officials “who are engaged in considering legislation on this matter.”
A department spokesman said later that arrangements were being made for the Atlanta civil rights leader to meet Monday with Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Acting Attorney General. In another development, Mr. Johnson issued an Executive order creating a Cabinet-level Council on Equal Opportunity, with Vice President Humphrey as chairman. The council is to coordinate the civil rights work of all Federal agencies. Mr. Humphrey was designated by the President on December 10 as coordinator of civil rights programs. Creating the council gives him a formal base of authority and enables him to recruit a staff.
Dr. King announced yesterday in Selma, Alabama, where he is leading voting registration demonstrations, that he was seeking an appointment with the President to urge new Federal laws and possibly a constitutional amendment on voting rights. Harry Wachtel, a lawyer for Dr. King, put the request to Lee C. White, associate special counsel to the President. Mr. White suggested a meeting with the Attorney General as an alternative, Mr. Reedy said, because “this matter is being considered in the Justice Department, and since Mr. King has referred specifically to legislation and data that he wishes to present.”
Mr. Reedy said this did not foreclose a King-Johnson conference at some later date. He emphasized that the President had, “of course, made clear his total commitment to the cause of full voting rights.” Mr. Reedy said that “many alternative courses were being considered by the Justice Department in preparing the ground for the President’s recommendations to Congress. Other Administration officials said that the main proposals under serious study included legislation for Federal voting registrars as well as a constitutional amendment restricting the authority of states to set voter qualifications. In seeking an appointment with Mr. Johnson, Dr. King said yesterday that he wanted to suggest voting-registrar legislation and a possible constitutional requirement that state voting laws conform to Federal law.
One possible version of a constitutional amendment, according to Administration officials, would prohibit the states from requiring citizens to pass literacy tests to qualify as voters. The amendment would state that any person otherwise qualified would be entitled to vote if he had a sixth-grade education. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifies that a sixth-grade education is to be regarded as a presumption of a person’s literacy for voting purposes, but it also permits court challenges to the presumption. Federal voting registrars, under legislation now being considered, might be provided along lines proposed by President Kennedy in 1963. In elections for federal posts, the federal officials would register voters in any county where fewer than 15 percent of all eligible Blacks had been registered by local officials.
The proposal was not pressed by Mr. Kennedy. Instead, at his suggestion, a provision was incorporated in the law permitting federal judges to appoint voting referees if local registrars were unable or unwilling to carry out court registration orders. The civil rights council established by Mr. Johnson today will consist of 16 members, including the Secretary of Defense. the Attorney General, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. Other members will include the heads of agencies, commissions and committees with responsibility for carrying out various phases of the civil rights laws.
A slow shower of rain that hinted of spring fell on Selma today and with the change in the weather came a lull in the Black voter drive that has rubbed the city’s nerves for the three weeks. The relaxation is only for the weekend, Black leaders said. They promised renewed demonstrations Monday aimed at opening the Dallas County Board of Registrars’ office more than the customary two days a month and at securing the right to protest publicly without harassment from the authorities.
Deputies of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. began preparatory work today to expand the voter registration drive to nearby Lowndes County. Lowndes is in the heart of the Black Belt. It is almost exclusively rural. Its population of 15,447 is 80.7 percent Black and no Black is registered to vote. Observers here predict that the whites of Lowndes County will react sharply to the Black movement.
Dr. King’s men who visited Lowndes today were the Rev. Andrew Young, program director of the conference; the Rev. James Bevil, the organization’s Alabama field director, and C. T. Vivian, a staff member. Dr. King left Selma for Atlanta after speaking at a mass meeting that overflowed Browns Chapel Methodist Church last night. He said he would try to see President Johnson and Congressional leaders Monday in Washington to urge new Federal voter legislation.
More than 3,300 Blacks have been arrested during the central Alabama voter drive as they have marched and demonstrated to protest what they consider white domination of the voter rolls. All but about 20 reportedly have been released from the jails and prison camps in and around Dallas County. Some have been released on bond and others on their own recognizance. Many students have been released in the custody of their parents. The 20 remaining are in jail on charges of contempt of court for demonstrating in front of the courthouse while the Circuit Court was in session.
Lester G. Maddox, one of the South’s fiercest segregationists, bowed to the federal courts today after months of litigation and said he would admit Blacks to his cafeteria. The announcement was greeted with tears by some of the Atlanta restaurant owner’s supporters. “I have no choice,” said Mr. Maddox, who was found in contempt of court yesterday by Federal District Judge Frank A. Hooper. Judge Hooper warned Mr. Maddox that he would be fined $200 for every day he continued to disobey orders to integrate his eating establishment. Mr. Maddox made his statement after an hour-long private conference with his three attorneys in which he was at one point seen, pounding the table. Although Mr. Maddox told the crowd that “I must abide by the court order,” he vowed again to continue his battle against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “We are not surrendering, but only accepting that which is being forced upon us that we feel violates our oath to God,” Mr.” Maddox said. “We shall continue this fight as long as we live.”
In testimony last week in Federal Court, Mr. Maddox swore that he would die before serving an integrationist in his restaurant. As he made his statement today on his decision to yield to the court, about 100 white patrons were having lunch in the cafeteria. In the opening hours of business today, no Blacks attempted to gain admittance. Mr. Maddox said he would file a certificate of compliance with the Federal court on Monday. The contempt charge was brought against Mr. Maddox by four Blacks who were denied service at the restaurant. Judge Hooper made his ruling after a nonjury trial earlier this week. At the trial, Mr. Maddox said he would appeal the decision if it went against him. Mr. Maddox made his announcement today in a long statement. He began in his usual fashion by quoting from the Bible, then expressed his sorrow that the civil rights bill ever had become law.
President Johnson opposes any increase in interest rates at this time. He believes that the measures he intends to propose within a week or so to reduce the country’s deficit in the international balance of payments will prove effective, and quickly so, without any rise in interest rates. He does not want to see the balance-of-payments problem used as an excuse for an interest-rate increase that he believes could seriously threaten continuation of the business expansion at home by making money costlier and less available to individuals and businesses who wish to borrow. The President reached his conclusion that an increase in interest rates would be both unnecessary and dangerous after long consultations with his advisers, both in and out of government.
Officials close to the President say that the conclusion is not, at least for the present, disputed in any government agency. The Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Department are deeply concerned, however, about the sudden increase in the balance-of-payments deficit that occurred in the final three months of last year. They are, therefore, less opposed than the White House is to the idea that interest rates may have to be increased at some future date, although they are reportedly not advocating such an increase now. The possibility of future policy conflict with the Federal Reserve System, which is legally free to act independently of the Administration to influence interest rates, thus exists.
A compromise Colorado River plan is ready for introduction to Congress in a new bill that breaks decades of deadlock between California and Arizona.
President Johnson nominated Keneth E. BeLieu to succeed Paul B. Fay as secretary of the Navy.
An extraordinary session of the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association heard plans to outdo Medicare in providing medical care to the needy.
Nearly a million members of the United Steelworkers throughout the country will vote Tuesday on a new president and other top officers for four-year terms.
The 102nd Maine Legislature is about to become the testing ground for a renewed drive to wrest hydro-electric power from the northern wilderness of the Aliagash River Basin.
A Federal judge ordered the State Senate today to readmit reporters for The Nashville Tennessean to its sessions, saying the public as well as the newspaper would stiffer if a ban was continued.
After only six weeks in office, Senator George Murphy (R-California), one-time actor, has received an extraordinary amount of publicity for a freshman senator.
As one of the rare! tangible dividends of the cold war, housewives may someday be shopping, or tourists picnicking, on spots originally prepared for the launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles. At Norton Air Force Base in southern California, a special 200-member team of the Air Force Logistic Command is plunging into the job of liquidating nearly $2 billion worth of property in 12 states involved in the 129 missile sites that have become obsolete. These were launching facilities for Atlas, Thor, and Titan I rockets. Although some sites were completed only three years ago, the rockets have been superseded by such later weapons as the Titan II, Minuteman, and Polaris.
“Kelly” opens & closes at Broadhurst Theater NYC.
The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” hits #1.
Five days after his 50th birthday, Sir Stanley Matthews became the oldest person ever to play a game in England’s highest-level soccer Football League, when he assisted Stoke City in its 5–1 win at home over Fulham. Matthews, who had been knighted earlier as part of the New Year Honours, had made his debut for Stoke City almost 33 years earlier, in March, 1932, and retired from competition after the game.
Born:
Houston Hoover, NFL guard and tackle (Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins), in Yazoo City, Mississippi.
Dana Eskelson, American actress (“See You Next Tuesday”), in Dallas, Texas.
Died:
Jack Wagner, 68, American actor (“The Razor’s Edge”, “Under Two Flags”, “Jive Junction”), from a heart attack.
History Diaries 