Phan Huy Quát was sworn in as the new civilian Prime Minister of South Vietnam, although effective control of the nation remained with two generals, Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and Nguyễn Cao Kỳ. The Armed Forces Council, which seized power on 27 January, appoints Dr Phan Huy Quát as premier and reappoints Phan Khắc Sửu as chief of state. Quát, a physician with considerable experience in government, appoints a cabinet that includes representatives from many of Vietnam’s political, religious, and military factions. On 17 February, the Armed Forces Council also announces the formation of a 20-member National Legislative Council.
Flying along the coast of central South Vietnam, 1st Lt. James S. Bowers, a United States Army officer flying a MEDEVAC helicopter, spotted and sank an enemy naval trawler camouflaged with trees and bushes. The 130-foot (40 m) North Vietnamese trawler, “Vessel 143”, was sunk, leading to the discovery of 100 tonnes (98 long tons; 110 short tons) of Soviet and Chinese-made war material, including 3,500 to 4,000 rifles and submachine guns, one million rounds of small arms ammunition, 1,500 grenades, 2,000 mortar rounds, and 500 pounds (230 kg) of explosives. News of the event was summarized in a U.S. State Department White Paper, released to the press at month’s end, titled Aggression from the North: The Record of North Viet-Nam’s Campaign to Conquer South Viet-Nam; in the opinion of one war historian, “The position paper was clearly designed to justify a U.S. military response” which would come in the form of increased bombing of North Vietnam.
A firing squad executed today a man identified as a Việt Cộng agitator behind the anti-government demonstrations Monday in the northern town of Thăng Bình. During the demonstrations troops killed more than a dozen persons as a mob of 2,000 tried to seize the provincial chief’s headquarters at Thăng Bình, which is 350 miles northeast of Saigon. Authorities said the Việt Cộng agitator was one of several rioters taken prisoner after troops had quelled the disturbance with gunfire. Brigadier General Nguyễn Chánh Thi, military governor of the area, said the execution was meant as a warning to the Việt Cộng and their sympathizers against further anti-government demonstrations.
Soviet surface-to-air missiles were reported tonight to have arrived in Hanoi, North Vietnamese capital. The arrival was reported by reliable sources shortly after a United States military spokesman disclosed that United States Army and Marine Corps helicopter gunners had killed 88 Communist guerrillas in South Vietnam in 48 hours. The announcement was a departure from an American policy of playing down United States military involvement in South Vietnam, where American troops are still referred to as “advisers.”
The arrival of the Russian missiles in North Vietnam has not been publicly confirmed by the United States Embassy in Saigon or by sources having access to pertinent United States reconnaissance photographs. However, the sources who disclosed the information were considered unimpeachable. In Washington, officials said they could not confirm the report. They did not say it was untrue. but that they had no evidence from any source to support it.
The missile shipment was reported by sources who just arrived from Hanoi, where Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin held talks with officials last week. A spokesman for United States Military Assistance Command said the helicopter crews had reported the killings of the 88 Việt Cộng guerrillas after five encounters. In the largest single action, the spokesman said, American crews of eight armed HU-1B helicopters reported they had killed 49 Communists. They reported the guerrillas had been able to put up only small-arms and automatic-weapon fire. It was believed that the announcement might herald a change in the policy of de-emphasizing United States military involvement.
The Peking radio said the North Vietnamese had recovered the jet plane and the body of Lieutenant Edward A. Dickson of Wyoming, Pennsylvania, who crashed into the sea near Đồng Hới in the American strike there February 7.
Communist Việt Cộng guerrillas were reported today to have killed half a company of government troops in an ambush yesterday near Pleiku, where an American billet was attacked February 6. Thirty-two men were killed, eight were wounded and 10 were missing.
Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin, in his first statement since his return from a 10-day visit to Asian Communist countries, reiterated today Soviet demands for the withdrawal of American troops and equipment from Indochina. The statement was in a message to a conference of “patriotic parties and movements” of North and South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The conference had been called by Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia’s Head of State. Mr. Kosygin accused the United States of seeking to widen the conflict in Vietnam and of perpetrating “armed provocations” against Laos and Cambodia as well as North Vietnam. He said American “imperialism” was the “principal obstacle” to normalization of the Indochina peninsula. His statement followed the line of declarations during his trip.
Radio Moscow, the official English-language broadcasting station of the Soviet Union, warned that American bombing raids on North Vietnam could lead to a world war. “The flames of war starting in one place could easily spread to neighboring countries and, in the final count, embrace the whole world”, the broadcast noted, and admonished that “responsibility for the dire consequences of such a policy rests with America.”
Peking’s military strength is one of the major factors in the current discussion about what to do in South Vietnam. The United States’ retaliatory attacks on North Vietnamese targets, followed by Communist Chinese warnings, emphasize the importance of the dimension of China’s power.
Edgar Faure, a former French Premier and a diplomatic agent for President de Gaulle, declared today that the war in South Vietnam had a popular as well as a Communist-inspired basis.
Former President Harry Truman issues a statement that gives full support to President Johnson’s policies and attacks the “irresponsible critics… who have neither all the facts — nor the answers.” The following day, Johnson meets with former president Dwight D. Eisenhower to demonstrate the caliber of his supporters.
The United States announced it has reason to believe that the Peoples’ Republic of China is preparing a second nuclear explosion. Communist China is preparing for its second nuclear test, apparently in the near future, the State Department said today. The department tried immediately to offset the expected military and psychological impact of the test. It asserted that the explosion would be of limited military significance and would have no effect on the United States’ determination to stand by its defense commitments in Asia. The department also sought to rally world opinion against continuing Chinese tests in the atmosphere. It said the “United States Government deplores this indication that the leaders of Communist China are, in the face of worldwide condemnation of atmospheric nuclear testing, continuing such tests.” The first Chinese test, a low-yield explosion, took place October 16.
Albania made a surprise demand for an immediate return to normal voting procedures in the General Assembly. Albania threw the General Assembly into turmoil today with a demand that the Assembly take an immediate roll-call vote whether to continue the no-vote procedure it has followed for two and a half months. Other delegates made impassioned pleas that this would produce the long-threatened showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union over unpaid Soviet assessments, but Halim Budo, the Albanian delegate, would not budge. Alex Quaison-Sackey, the Assembly President, then recessed the meeting until Thursday without a vote.
At the end a number of front row delegates, deeply concerned lest there be a showdown if the meeting continued, were gesturing to Mr. Quaison-Sackey to pound his gavel. A vote on the two-day recess would also have produced the showdown because the United States insists on enforcement of Article 19 of the Charter. The Soviet Union, France and 11 other members may be subject to this article, which provides that any member two years behind in paying assessments “shall have no vote” in the Assembly. The Soviet Union, which terms the assessments illegal, will make no payments it deems to be a price for voting, as Moscow maintains voting is its right. Adlal E. Stevenson, the United States representative, said he “supposed” that Communist China was behind the Albanian move.
A bomb exploded near a gate of the Vatican, shattering windows in quarters used by the Swiss Guard. The bomb blasted a side entrance to Vatican City early today. It caused some damage but no injuries.
A jeering mob tore a United States flag to pieces today in Uganda. The flag was pulled down from the United States Embassy in Kampala in a demonstration against American support of Premier Moïse Tshombe of the Congo. Riot police opened fire with tear gas to break up the crowd of demonstrators that surged through downtown streets. More policemen charged in with clubs to press back the mob, Several demonstrators were reported to have been injured as fighting broke out among rival political groups within the crowd. “Down with the U.S. flag,” demonstrators cried as they hurled stones and smashed windows of embassy offices.
An American company in the apparel field has joined the campaign to curtail imports from West Germany in protest against its suspension of arms shipments to Israel. The head of the concern predicted that several others would participate.
The West German Government was reported today to be warning Arab nations not to follow the lead of the United Arab Republic in welcoming Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader.
Former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who made the $80 million arms agreement with Israel in 1960, told the Christian Democratic Union meeting today that the negotiations were carried out “at the wish of a friendly country, with its knowledge and approval, and by other personalities.” He apparently was alluding to the United States.
The State Department declined comment today on Dr. Adenauer’s intimation that the United States had supported West Germany’s shipment of arms to Israel. Reliable United States sources have reported that the Administration not only approved but actually encouraged the shipments, which included United States-made tanks and other supplies that could not be transferred without Washington’s consent. Diplomatic sources have also suggested that Washington urged Bonn in recent weeks to honor the agreement, including a provision imposing secrecy on all parties. The United States had wanted in this way to help Israel preserve a balance of military power in relation to the United Arab Republic without incurring Cairo’s displeasure.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson said today that British entry into the European Common Market was not now “a practical possibility,” but he called for new economic “bridges” to the market.
The Maltese Government formally asked today for permission to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Malta, a strategically important Mediterranean island between Sicily and the African coast, became an independent member of the British Commonwealth last September. It has one of the finest harbors in the world and a major dockyard.
Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri struck a deal with dissident members of his government in a bid to prevent more language riots in south India. Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and his Government have decided to accept the demands of south India for legal guarantees that English will remain an official language of the Indian union, reliable sources indicated tonight.
The Canadian Parliament resumed today its longest session in history to take up a Federal pension plan and other legislation proposed by the Liberal minority Government of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.
Aboriginal activists in Australia conducted a sit-in to challenge de facto segregation of a Sydney hotel.
A plot by a small group of Black extremists to blow up the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell and the Washington Monument was broken up yesterday by the New York City police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation with the help of the Royal Canadian Police. The major credit for exposing the plot was given to a 31-year-old rookie New York City patrolman, Raymond A. Wood, who infiltrated the group. “I just tried to do my best,” Mr. Wood said as he was given an on-the-spot promotion to detective. Explosives for the plot were brought to New York from Montreal Monday, the police said, in a car driven by a young blond woman, a member of an organization seeking secession of Quebec from the rest of Canada. Thirty sticks of dynamite, which Army experts said were enough to blow the head off the Statue of Liberty, were seized yesterday in a quiet, residential section of Riverdale, the Bronx, as excited housewives milled about. Arrested on charges of planning to destroy government property were Miss Michelle Duclos, 26, of Montreal, and three New York Blacks, among them the self-styled leader of the Black Liberation Front, an extremist group formed six months ago.
Two white civil rights workers were beaten and a Black minister slugged in the Selma, Alabama, voter registration drive. Sheriff James G. Clark Jr. struck an assistant to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the mouth today on the steps of the Dallas County Courthouse. Federal agents and reporters who witnessed the incident said the sheriff had acted after the Rev. C. T. Vivian goaded him with a string of invective that included “brute” and “Hitler.” Mr. Vivian, who suffered a mouth cut from Sheriff Clark’s fist, was arrested and charged with criminal provocation and contempt of court.
A few hours later two field workers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, were beaten by three white men within half a block of the courthouse. Frank Sorocco, 29 years old, of San Francisco, and Roger Daily, 21, of Gladstone, New Jersey, both white, suffered facial bruises. They told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Selma police that they had been attacked in front of the Carnegie Library by men they thought were used car salesmen. They said one carried a gun.
The violence came on a day in which Dr. King was preparing to move his campaign for faster Black voter registration from Selma into rural areas of the Alabama Black Belt. Blacks demonstrated by the hundreds yesterday without violence and without arrests. Black leaders said that the attacks today would probably set off new demonstrations in Selma, where the campaign has been centered for more than four weeks.
Mr. Vivian, an Atlanta staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Dr. King heads, arrived at the courthouse shortly before the noon recess of the board of registrars. About 100 Blacks were standing in line in a light rain to sign the appearance book, used to assign priorities for processing applicants for registration. They were some of the 1,400 who stood in line all day yesterday without being able to sign the book.
When the board closed about noon, Mr. Vivian led about 25 Blacks around to another entrance to take them into the courthouse to get out of the rain. They were met at the door by deputies. Sheriff Clark, who remained in his office during the demonstrations yesterday, came out in civilian clothes. The Blacks were told they could not go into the courthouse. Mr. Vivian, a tall, erect Black, explained that the group wanted to get in out of the rain. Sheriff Clark told him to leave. He refused. The Blacks began singing freedom songs. The officers prodded them with nightsticks to get them off the steps.
In the confrontation, witnesses said, Mr. Vivian accused the sheriff of being “brutal” to Blacks of Dallas County, said he was “like Hitler” and dared the sheriff to hit him. After a moment, the sheriff, who weighs 220 pounds, hit Mr. Vivian in the mouth with his right fist. Then he ordered Mr. Vivian arrested, and the clergyman was taken away with blood running from his mouth. Later the local authorities said Mr. Vivian had been taken to a hospital, where one suture had been used to close the mouth cut. He was then returned to the Dallas County jail. Before he struck Mr. Vivian, witnesses said, deputies tried to persuade Sheriff Clark to return to his office and let them handle the demonstrators, but the sheriff would not do so.
Later, Sheriff Clark said he was uncertain whether he had struck Mr. Vivian. “If I hit him, I don’t know it,” Mr. Clark declared. “One of the first things I ever learned was not to hit a n****r with your fist because his head is too hard. Of course, the camera might make me out a liar. I do have a sore finger.”
[Ed: What an utter shit of a man.]
A Selma (Alabama) editor’s appeal for “responsible community opinion” to end racial discord in that community has brought him many threatening phone calls but no expression of public support.
The police in Moultrie, Georgia jailed about 150 Black high school pupils today after they staged a protest march on the Colquitt County Courthouse.
Mississippi Governor Paul Johnson assured the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that his state will obey the Civil Rights Act. Governor Johnson paid a surprise visit today as the United States Civil Rights Commission began five days of open hearings into charges of racial discrimination in Mississippi voting and law enforcement.
Saying that “we are in sight of the promised land” of a bill on medical care for the aged, President Johnson asked the public today to urge prompt enactment of the measure. Mr. Johnson was apparently hoping to offset opposition from the medical profession and other critics before it is fully mobilized. He made his remarks on the medicare bill in a Cabinet Room ceremony at noon. At the meeting, he received from the President’s Council on Aging its report on Federal actions in 1964 that benefited the elderly. The President, dressed in a blue suit, varied his mood from the evangelical to the humorous. “I want to call on all Americans to get behind and help us and support prompt enactment of a comprehensive program of hospital care for the aged through Social Security,” he said.
The public-relations office of the American Medical Association said today that it was filling requests for seven million pamphlets attacking the Johnson Administration’s medicare program.
The House patched up its internal squabbles long enough today to authorize committee investigations and junkets that are expected to cost $9 million to $10 million in the next two years.
Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson received today the first Distinguished Volunteer Service Award of the American Heart Association. She promptly gave it away.
Congress was advised by a New York lawyer today not to attempt too much in the way of specifics in writing a constitutional amendment dealing with the disability of the President.
Frank McNamee, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada, was found near death in his apartment near Lake Tahoe, after apparently being severely beaten by a robber. Phillippe Denning would be arrested at a St. Louis bus station the next day with stolen items, and would later be convicted of attempted murder. McNamee would never recover from his head injuries, and would pass away three years later.
U.S. Navy divers Fred Jackson and John Youmans were killed in a decompression chamber fire at the Experimental Diving Unit in Washington, D.C., shortly after additional oxygen was added to the chamber’s atmospheric mix.
A Saturn I rocket sent a gigantic winged Pegasus satellite into orbit to learn how manned spaceships might be harmed by meteoroids. The first Pegasus satellite was launched by the United States to determine the extent of potential damage in orbit by micrometeoroids. Once in orbit, Pegasus unfolded wings “to a span greater than a four-engine airliner” in order to provide “a huge target for the tiny, almost invisible particles it seeks to catch.” All strikes were recorded on a data collector. As the third largest satellite up to that time, Pegasus was visible at night as a pinpoint of light as it passed over an area within its orbit.
Military test payloads up to half a ton may be rocketed across the western United States under a current Air Force study program.
The Army reported yesterday that it had been able to transmit all seven of New York City’s standard television channels simultaneously on a laser, a pencil-like beam of light.
A 25-member surgical team in Houston separated today 9-week-old Siamese twin girls who were joined together from collarbone to navel. The four-hour operation seemed to be successful.
The “far-out” possibility of an artificial atom-powered heart for man was discussed before the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy.
The Rolling Stones concluded their Far East Tour (which was commenced on January 22) with a concert at Badminton Hall, Singapore.
“Baker Street” opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 313 performances
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 881.35 (-3.97)
Born:
Clifford Charlton, NFL linebacker (Cleveland Browns), in Tallahassee, Florida.
Todd Whitten, NFL quarterback (New England Patriots), in Dallas, Texas.
Martin Nessley, NBA center (Los Angeles Clippers, Sacramento Kings), in Columbus, Ohio.
Frank DiMichele, MLB pitcher (California Angels), in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
History Diaries 