Twelve U.S. Air Force B-57 jet bombers raid Việt Cộng concentrations in Phước Tuy Province, 30 miles from Saigon. It was the fifth day of American jet raids in the province. The policy of permitting United States jet attacks in South Vietnam was announced yesterday, six days after the first jet bombing raid.
As American jets dropped fragmentation bombs on guerrillas northeast of Saigon, American military authorities disclosed that the United States jets pounded the Việt Cộng in three areas of South Vietnam yesterday, according to a Reuters dispatch from Saigon.
The commander of the South Vietnamese Air Force said that another air strike against North Vietnam had been scheduled for last Friday but had been canceled because of the attempted coup d’état in Saigon. The commander, Air Vice Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, said at a farewell reception for Lieutenant General Nguyễn Khánh that the strike would not have been in retaliation for a specific Việt Cộng attack. He added, with a smile, that the raid against northern installations would have been conducted for “exercise and training.” United States Embassy officials had no comment on his remark.
Marshal Ky’s statements would indicate that the Vietnamese Air Force, presumably with American approval and air support, had been prepared to move the air strikes against the north into a new phase. The bombings at barracks and staging areas on February 7, 8 and 11 were specific responses to Việt Cộng provocations including raids at Pleiku and Quy Nhơn.
There had been speculation in Saigon that the discovery of a large arms cache in Vũng Rô Bay might provide the justification for another air attack against North Vietnam because evidence indicated that the shipment had been directed from Hanoi. A group of military officers who are out of favor tried to gain control of Saigon Friday to force the removal of General Khánh. Although the group’s maneuver failed militarily, the Armed Forces Council voted last Sunday to remove the general from his position as commander in chief.
Six hundred Korean engineers, infantry troops and transportation units, the first of 2,000 South Korean soldiers assigned to Vietnam, arrived today in three vessels escorted by two Korean destroyers. Ambassador Maxwell D. Tayfor and General William C. Westmoreland were on hand to see the Korean noncombatant engineers and their infantry security units arrive. As the Korean engineers arrived and the United States continued the slight step-up of its bombings in the south, the advantages of negotiating a settlement in the war against the Communist insurgents were being debated at all levels of the Vietnamese Government and in foreign embassies. Officials of Premier Phan Huy Quát’s new Government were holding publicly to their position that no negotiations would be possible until the Việt Cộng guerrillas from North Vietnam had left the south.
In the jet bomber strikes at the Việt Cộng, United States military authorities indicated today, the American fliers have used a new type of anti-personnel missile — the cluster bomb. Although these weapons are strictly under wraps, a recent development is a casing that opens after being dropped and releases small bombs that burst along a line more than 100 feet long.
United States Air Force pilots based at Danang expressed the belief that effects of their bombing and strafing will be more psychological than tactical. Confirmation of results is difficult because of the density of the jungles and the speed of the jets, “At 450 miles an hour you don’t see much of anything,” said Lieutenant Joseph C. T. Wang of Philadelphia. A summary issued at Biên Hòa on the day’s action contained such phrases as “results of the strike could not be assessed… Results of the strike were concealed by dense foliage.”
Lieutenant General Nguyễn Khánh indicated today that he was willing to assist in diplomatic measures to reach a settlement of the war in South Vietnam. “Militarily the war will continue,” the recently deposed commander in chief said, “but this is the time when diplomatic activity must proceed along with military.” General Khánh was speaking on a plane taking him from Saigon to Hong Kong.
The Communist Government of North Vietnam has notified the Secretary General, U Thant, that it is receptive to his suggestion for informal negotiations on the Vietnam situation. Reliable sources said today that Mr. Thant had this information before he held the news conference yesterday at which he advocated such negotiations. in preparation for a full-scale. conference to achieve peace in Vietnam.
The Secretary General said yesterday that he envisioned such “dialogues” — with a third party, perhaps himself, acting as an intermediary — as a prelude to the establishment of a stable government in South Vietnam and the withdrawal of United States forces “from that part of the world.” Nguyễn Phú Đức, South Vietnamese observer at the United Nations, called on the Secretary General to ask for a “clarification” of his statements regarding Vietnam. Details of their talk were not disclosed.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk said today that North Vietnam must indicate a willingness to end its aggression against South Vietnam before the United States will agree to negotiate the end of the war there.
Communist China today criticized Soviet moves in the United Nations and asserted that Soviet leaders had failed to give militant support to North Vietnam in the struggle against the United States.
The Soviet leadership continued today to maintain almost complete silence about Soviet diplomatic activity in favor of political negotiation on Vietnam.
Senator Thomas H. Kuchel (R-California) joined other Republican leaders in defending President Johnson’s policies in South Vietnam.
President Nasser of the United Arab Republic met with East German leader Walter Ulbricht for two hours today to discuss the Middle Eastern crisis. They were understood to have talked about questions involving Israel, including the Harriman mission to Tel Aviv, which has raised serious concern here. as well as relations between Egypt and the two Germanys. A few hours earlier, the government summoned the West German chargé d’affaires, Kurt Müller, to protest a statement by a Bonn official five days ago calling Mr. Nasser “a stooge of the Kremlin.”
George F. Kennan, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, called today for improved relations with Moscow and a reduction of American involvement in the Far East.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard a prediction today that the Communist dream of world domination would be realized by 1980 if the Western powers adhered to policies that exacted no political concessions from the Soviet Union in return for easier trade.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk said today that it was the continuing policy of the United States to help maintain a military balance of power in the Middle East between Israel and the Arab states. It was in line with this policy, Mr. Rusk explained at a news conference, that the United States encouraged the West German shipment of arms to Israel and approved the transfer of American-made tanks there. In response to threats from the United Arab Republic to recognize East Germany, West Germany suspended the shipments before all the $80 million worth of arms were delivered. Among the undelivered weapons, according to diplomatic sources, were a considerable number of M-48 tanks that were sold to West Germany late in the nineteen-fifties. Mr. Rusk declined to say what steps the United States might take to assure that Israel received the undelivered arms. The implication of his statement, however, was that the United States felt committed to see that the arms were provided in some manner.
Indonesian President Sukarno asked today for an end to American press attacks on Indonesia and said in return he would try to stop anti-American demonstrations in his country. In a speech to a rally of university students, President Sukarno also strongly denounced foreign aid. He shouted “go to hell with your aid” and cast a sharp look in the direction of Ambassador Howard P. Jones, who was sitting nearby. He said he would try to end anti-American demonstrations if the American press stopped denouncing Indonesia. “How can I stop the demonstrations by the militant youths,” he said, “if the United States continues its policy, which cannot be agreed with by the peoples throughout the world, including the Indonesians?” He repeated previous denials of reports that Indonesia was suffering from inflation. “If there were inflation,” he said, “the Indonesians would be starving. You see people here everywhere eating.”
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization acknowledged Indonesia’s notice of withdrawal today, but declared that by the agency’s constitution, it could not be effective until December 31, 1966.
Farhan Attassi, a naturalized American who was hanged in Damascus Tuesday as a spy for the United States, left his Brooklyn-born wife a $200 bank account and ordered that their two children remain in Syria. Lebanese sources suggested his will was written under duress just before his execution.
A United States general court-martial convicted Airman 1st Class Larry D. Cole of Marshall, Michigan, today of unpremeditated murder in the shooting of a Filipino youth on a Clark Air Base bombing and gunnery range in the Philippines last November 25.
The legislative battle that Brazil’s revolutionary leadership won by electing its candidate president of the Chamber of Deputies has resulted in charges that a dictatorship is near.
A 10-member royal commission probing unrest among French Canadians in Quebec agreed that Canada is in grave danger of breaking up as a nation. The commission reported today that Canada was in her “greatest crisis” over the problem of meshing her two languages and cultures — English and French.
In East Berlin, the Volkskammer of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) passed the “Law on the Unified Socialist Educational System”, setting common curricula for various levels, including pre-school education, a polytechnic high school with ten classes, vocational schools, preparatory classes for universities, engineering and technical colleges, liberal arts universities, and continuing education for workers and employees. Under the law, the unifying policy was that all students were “to be educated to love the GDR and to be proud of her social achievements and to be ready to place all their strength at the disposal of society, to strengthen the socialist state, and to defend it.”
Pope Paul invested 26 new Roman Catholic cardinals in a red-hat ceremony that he altered to match the church’s modernization.
In Meridian, Mississippi, federal judge William Harold Cox dismissed the felony indictments against 17 of the 18 men accused of the 1964 murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, finding insufficient evidence of a conspiracy to deprive the victims of their rights. Misdemeanor charges remained in place for Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence A. Rainey, Deputy Cecil Price, and a city policeman, Richard Willis, for “participating in a conspiracy under color of law to inflict summary punishment.” The case would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and proceed as United States v. Price. Seven defendants would eventually be convicted and would receive federal prison terms ranging from 3 to 10 years.
The ruling, filed in Meridian, Mississippi, came as no great surprise to the Justice Department’s attorneys who are prosecuting the case. Another Federal judge, William A. Bootle of the Middle District of Georgia, threw out a similar indictment against Ku Klux Klan members accused of the murder of a Black educator, Lemuel Penn of Washington. Judge Bootle’s ruling is being appealed by the Justice Department. “This department will consider carefully whether or not to appeal dismissal of one of two indictments of the Mississippi civil rights cases,” a spokesman for the department said in Washington.
Judge Cox, whose rulings in civil rights cases usually have gone against the Justice Department, said he acted under a Supreme Court decision, U.S. v. Williams in 1951. In that case, the Court split 4 to 4 with the ninth judge siding against the government on a technicality. The late Justice Felix Frankfurter, who wrote the controlling opinion, said that the law of 1870 in question, Section 241 of the United States Code “Conspiracy against the rights of citizens” had only limited application under the 14th Amendment. The essence of Judge Cox’s ruling was that the indictment in the present case under Section 241 states a “heinous crime against the state of Mississippi but not a crime against the United States.”
John Doar, who has been nominated to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, told Senators today that additional legislation was needed to assure voting rights in the South.
Members of Selma’s power structure insist that the community’s racial turmoil can be settled only by local white and Black leaders. A group of white community leaders held a long private meeting here this afternoon amid reports that influential elements of the city are looking seriously for a solution of Selma’s racial difficulties. Interest in the meeting was heightened by a visit to Selma from Federal District Judge Daniel H. Thomas of Mobile, who is handling several cases that have grown out of the Black voter-registration campaign here.
There were reports that he was here to meet with community leaders about the racial situation. He denied that, saying he had come only to hold a pretrial conference with the lawyers in the Selma lawsuits. Nevertheless, speculation persisted that the judge, who has had a long-time personal interest in Selma through family and friends, was in touch with community leaders to encourage a solution to the problem of Black voter registration. If any breakthrough is being made, it likely will show up Monday, when the Dallas County voter registrar’s office opens to accept applications for registration. The Board of Registration opens its office under Alabama law only two days a month.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for a total boycott of Mississippi products to further his campaign for equal rights for southern Blacks.
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., brought criminal charges against the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) for failing to register its members as members of a subversive organization, as required by the Subversive Activities Control Act, with fines of up to $10,000 for each of 12 counts. The new indictment included the charge of declining to register “even though it knew there was a volunteer willing to register on behalf of the party.” A federal appeals court had dismissed an earlier conviction against the CPUSA because registration would have violated the American constitutional right against self-incrimination.
The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would require congressional districts to be nearly equal in population. The legislation, which had long been blocked in the committee, is also aimed at eliminating gerrymandering by requiring districts to be compact and contiguous. Under the key provision of the bill, no district could have a population varying by more than 15 percent from the population of the average Congressional district in a state. In general, districts average about 400,000, which would permit a variance of 60,000. The provisions would apply to the next Congress. Approval was by voice after the committee defeated a motion to permit a 20 percent variation in population.”
Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr., Democrat of North Carolina, said today that talk about passing the Administration’s immigration bill to get aliens with special skills was “just sanctimonious propaganda.”
The House of Representatives approved with a 358-to-29 vote today a $370,000 1965 operating fund for its Committee on Un-American Activities. It defeated, 332 to 58, a proposal that the committee be required to justify its budget at public hearings.
The Administration’s $1.25 billion school-aid bill ran into its first real trouble today, but prospects are still bright that it will emerge virtually intact from a House committee.
The Uptown Chamber of Commerce in New York City rejected last night a Harlem organization’s demand that stores on 125th Street close at 3 P.M. today and remain closed all day tomorrow in “respect” for Malcolm X, the murdered black nationalist leader.
The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank announced that the supply of gold decreased in January by $262 million.
At 11:26 a.m., Pacific Standard Time, the first Douglas DC-9 twin-engine airliner, serial number 45695, with Federal Aviation Administration registration mark N9DC, took off from Long Beach Airport (LGB), on the coast of Southern California, on its first flight. In the cockpit were Chief Engineering Test Pilot George R. Jansen, DC-9 Program Test Pilot Paul H. Patten, and Flight Test Engineer Duncan Walker. The duration of the first flight was 2 hours, 13 minutes. N9DC landed at Edwards Air Force Base (EDW) where the test program would continue. The Douglas DC-9 was produced in five civil variants, the DC-9-10 through DC-9-50. 41 were produced for the U.S. military, designated C-9A, C-9B and VC-9C. Production closed in 1982 after 976 aircraft had been built.
President Johnson was briefed today on the journey of the Mariner 4 space vehicle, which is heading toward Mars, and was told that the project was going smoothly. Mariner 4 will fly by Mars on July 14.
The winter’s worst storm crippled the Midwest today and then pushed on east with its ice, snow and 70-mile-an-hour winds. At least 12 deaths were attributed to the weather. Gale warnings were flown along the Atlantic Coast as freezing temperatures, heavy snow and rain were reported from New England to central Florida. In New York City, heavy rains fell, but the prediction was for clearing and a cold, dry weekend. The storm reached its full height early today, blanketing vast sections of Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana with ice and snow.
A state of emergency was declared in Gary, Indiana, when 14 inches of snow had fallen. All private cars were barred from the streets. Snowfalls of up to 17 inches, accompanied by gale-force winds, blinded pedestrians, blockaded highways and closed schools throughout the five-state area. Schools also were closed in upstate New York, Ohio and Wisconsin. Many cities, including Nashville, Detroit and Chicago, were paralyzed by the storm, which piled up six-foot drifts. The storm, which at one time covered 21 states, stretched into the Plains States and the Deep South.
The National Association of Broadcasters issued restrictions on the format of U.S. television commercials for beer and wine, declaring that such advertising was “acceptable only when presented in the best of good taste and discretion”; conduct barred including “guzzling, smacking of lips, or bobbing of the adam’s apple” so as to suggest the “quaffing” of alcohol.
Rudie Liebrechts of the Netherlands broke the world record for the men’s 3000 meter speed skating, finishing three kilometers (almost two miles) in less than four and a half minutes (4:26.8) in an event at the Bislett Stadion in Oslo, Norway. The old record had been held for a year by Estonian Ants Antson of the Soviet Union.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 899.9 (+2.06)
Born:
Carrot Top [Scott Thompson], comedian (American Comedy Award, 1994), in Rockledge, Florida.
Brian Baker, American punk rock guitarist (Bad Religion), in Washington, District of Columbia.
Veronica Webb, supermodel and actress (“Jungle Fever”, “Malcolm X”), in Detroit, Michigan.
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