The Việt Cộng struck hard at South Vietnamese Government troops yesterday in mountains 40 miles southwest of the United States air base at Đà Nẵng. United States Marines Corps helicopters airlifted three companies of South Vietnamese rangers from guard duty at that base, 380 miles northeast of Saigon, to reinforce the hard-pressed government soldiers. One military source said that more than three South Vietnamese battalions, totaling perhaps 1,200 men, were involved and that all were in difficulty. United States Air Force jets and South Vietnamese fighter-bombers made strikes in the area — near Việt An — to help break up the Communist attack. At one point the Việt Cộng overran the left flank of a government battalion, routing the soldiers. But artillery halted the Communist advance.
Last night, guerrillas ambushed a government armored patrol outside of Quảng Trị city north of Đà Nẵng, and two armored cars were disabled. Two South Vietnamese officers were reported missing.
This action occurred while a massive South Vietnamese operation against the Communists in Phước Tuy Province east of Saigon was written off as not very productive. One guerrilla was listed as killed.
In Washington, Johnson Administration officials have begun to balance stepped-up military actions in Vietnam with a more open acknowledgment of interest in an eventual political settlement. However, their basic condition remains that North Vietnam must halt its aggression.
A Communist broadcast yesterday reported two new United States aerial missions — one a damaging raid in Laos and the other a flight into North Vietnam’s airspace, perhaps designed for reconnaissance. Presenting details unconfirmed by United States authorities, the North Vietnamese Hanoi radio said anti-aircraft fire drove off American and South Vietnamese planes that flew at 1:15 PM over the Gianh River area. The broadcast said it was another of the “repeated intrusions” since the raids on North Vietnamese military installations Tuesday. The Gianh River area is the site of North Vietnam’s Quảng Khê naval base, hit heavily in the raids.
The Peking radio reported “great losses in lives and property” Thursday from what it said were strikes by many United States jets and Laotian fighter-bombers at the Pathet Lao headquarters town of Khang Khay and other Communist targets in eastern Laos. A Việt Cộng supply line runs through that area. A summing-up here of the huge anti-Communist operation east of Saigon showed that no direct contact was established with any Việt Cộng forces there. The drive, which began last weekend, involved a fleet of United States jet bombers, the biggest helicopter airlift of the war and about 3,000 South Vietnamese troops. Besides the one guerrilla slain, the operation resulted in the arrest of 14 suspects. Soldiers destroyed 11 houses and burned some rice supplies they believed were Việt Cộng property. In the final tally, six Government soldiers were killed. Four of these died in a misdirected B-57 strike and two in a hit-and-run Việt Cộng mortar attack.
According to unofficial reports, the battle southwest of Danang began when Government troops ran into a Việt Cộng force totaling more than two battalions. A Communist battalion is believed to vary in size from 150 to 700 men. The battle sent villagers into flight by foot, carrying or carting their possessions. In clashes Thursday in that area, one American was killed and five were reported wounded. The death raised United States combat fatalities in Vietnam to 301.
In the two-day fighting near Việt An, 60 Government soldiers were killed and 20 wounded, according to a South Vietnamese officer. He put the Việt Cộng dead at more than 60. However, United States figures issued today said the government lost 23 dead. Twenty-two were listed as wounded and seven missing. American officials said that 50 Việt Cộng bodies were counted on the field, but that about 100 more were believed to have been carried away.
Reports are surfacing of complaints by U.S. servicemen in Vietnam about shortages of ammunition and equipment — while some of these items are being sold on the black market in Saigon.
At the Đà Nẵng Air Base, the United States is clearing a 500-yard peripheral zone and moving thousands of South Vietnamese from the area; an eight-mile-deep special military sector is being established around Đà Nẵng. All this lends credance to rumors that U.S. Marines are to be sent to Vietnam. Almost 7,000 South Vietnamese crowded around the large American-manned air base on the outskirts of Đà Nẵng will soon be uprooted from their homes and moved to another sector of the city. As part of an effort to provide greater security for the airfield, a zone 500 yards wide is being cleared around the base. When the operation is completed within the next two months, this will become a no man’s land in which only authorized persons will be permitted to move during the daytime and no one at night.
At the same time a special military sector more than eight miles deep has been established around Đà Nẵng. A reinforced regiment that now includes some of the South Vietnamese Army’s best units has been assigned to the sector. A strengthened American Army advisory team is working closely with them.
These troops and their advisers are supposed to mount a continuing offensive operation; against the Việt Cộng guerrillas. Patrols move through the special sector attacking suspected Việt Cộng concentrations, dropping from helicopters into villages suspected of harboring guerrillas and setting up nightly ambushes against the guerrillas. If a unit of American marines is brought to Đà Nẵng as is expected here they will be used for defensive purposes only, an informed military source here said.
[Ed: Yeah, and the check is in the mail.]
General Harold K. Johnson, the United States Army Chief of Staff, spent the first day of a four-day tour of South Vietnam being briefed by the commanders there. Before he left Washington, he had said that South Vietnamese Government forces had killed 75,000 Việt Cộng guerrillas so far in the war. High-ranking officers here, however, had recently given the following breakdown: 20,000 Communists killed in both 1962 and 1963 and 19.000 last year. for a total of 59,000. But in providing the figures they warned that, under President Ngô Đình Diệm, who was deposed in November, 1963, the accounting of enemy casualties had probably been inflated. If nothing else, the same number for two successive years seemed suspicious.
The Communist party newspaper Pravda, commenting on United States policies in Southeast Asia, came closer than usual today, to making a personal attack on President Johnson.
Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson of Canada called last night for new international guarantees against guerrilla infiltration in Vietnam.
A junior official in the British Labour Government has resigned his post to join left-wing critics of its policy on Vietnam, it was announced today.
In talks with Chinese leaders, President Mohammed Ayub Khan of Pakistan is pressing for a negotiated settlement of the war in Vietnam.
A controversial conference of pro-Soviet Communist parties ended in Moscow today after five days of deliberation in complete secrecy. Tass, the official Soviet press agency, announced that the meetings had ended with a dinner at the Kremlin given for the 18 visiting delegations by the Presidium of the Soviet Communist party. The announcement said that a final conference communiqué would be made public Wednesday.
The nature of the communiqué could not be learned. Not even the correspondents from foreign Communist newspapers had any information from the delegations of their parties. It was indicated, however. that in the case of some of the parties that have undergone an open split between pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese factions, the pro-Soviet groups had been urging the conference to answer Peking’s recent public attacks in kind. The Chinese Communists resumed open public attacks on the Soviet leaders and their allies in foreign parties on the eve of the conference.
The United States called upon the Soviet Union today to provide better protection for the American Embassy in Moscow against any future demonstrations. The State Department said the police protection against yesterday’s mob attack on the embassy was “not adequate.” The department pointed to the fact that, despite the efforts of the Soviet police, a mob of 2,000 students defaced the embassy and broke 310 windows. The department’s criticism was relatively restrained, however. The department’s statement was less stern than one issued by the White House following a February 9 demonstration. That statement warned that Soviet failure to protect the embassy against demonstrators could undermine diplomatic relations. The restraint reflected the general appraisal of officials that the Soviet Government had in the latest incident made a sincere effort to protect the embassy but had underestimated the forces necessary to curb the mob of students.
Senator J. W. Fulbright suggested that the United States can do more for peace by working with Russia to aid underdeveloped countries than by striking “grandiose postures” for “high principle.”
Moving quietly but with astonishing speed, the Chinese Communists seem to have won in the former French Congo colony at Brazzaville their first firm foothold in West Africa. This is the unanimous conclusion of Western diplomats there. They have watched the Chinese become the dominant power behind the Government’s efforts to establish a “scientific Socialist state.” In less than 18 months since the overthrow of President Fulbert Youlou, the new Government’s one-party National Revolutionary Movement has come to reflect Chinese Communist foreign policy. Peking’s influence is openly visible. The two shiny new Mercedes limousines belonging to China’s two principal diplomats here can be seen almost daily outside the offices of Premier Pascal Lissouba and President Alphonse Massamba-Debat. Officials of the Chinese Embassy, which has a staff of more than 50, have become almost permanent figures in the offices and corridors of Government ministries.
About 150 French army veterans, many of them former Foreign Legionnaires, are expected in the Congo to strengthen the mercenary forces of Premier Moïse Tshombe’s Government.
An Indonesian gunboat has seized four Malaysian fishing boats and kidnapped the eight crew members, according to reports to the police at Malacca, southwest Malaya. Such action has often meant that an Indonesian raid is imminent. The Indonesians use the boats for ferrying commandos across from Sumatra and the fishermen are pressed guides. The seizure of the four boats was reported by six fishermen who said the gunboat had robbed them of their nets in the action off Cape Rachado, about 50 miles southwest of Kuala Lumpur. Thirteen other boats escaped, the men said.
Malasian Prime Minister Abdul Rahman said today he hoped for peace talks with Indonesia, but he denied he planned to fly to Bangkok next week to start negotiations.
The West German Government and industry are waging a vigorous campaign to persuade German technicians to quit their jobs in the Egyptian aircraft and rocket industry. By letters, circulars, and word of mouth, the several hundred West Germans at work in Cairo are being repeatedly warned against “playing with your life.” Informed quarters here believe that the campaign may be connected with the arrest of several West German citizens in Cairo last week on espionage charges.
Meanwhile, the West German Cabinet for the second straight day wrestled with the question whether to sever diplomatic relations with the United Arab Republic. A Government spokesman said “new circumstances” would have to be examined before any decision could be reached. He added that the Cabinet would take up the question again, but did not say when. The Cabinet is debating whether new measures should be taken against Cairo in retaliation for its reception of Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader, last month, and for its proposal to open a consulate general in East Berlin. Bonn has announced plans to cut off economic aid to Cairo. The Cabinet held an eight-hour meeting yesterday.
Egyptian authorities in Cairo announced tonight that they hoped to put four West Germans charged with spying for Israel on trial within 10 days. In a statement to the press, the Government said a four-year intelligence operation and terrorist campaign against West German rocket and aircraft experts had cost Israel $150,000. The West German Embassy has maintained silence about the spy charges, which Cairo authorities say have nothing to do with current diplomatic tensions with Bonn over its arms shipments to Israel and the recent visit of President Walter Ulbricht of East Germany.
Britain’s Labor government was defeated twice in the House of Commons over the question of abolishing capital punishment.
In Italy, former Premier Amintore Fanfani was appointed Foreign Minister of Italy today as part of a compex effort to shore up the shaky center-left coalition Cabinet of Premier Aldo Moro.
The Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) announced that it was laying off hundreds of Bahraini workers, an event that triggered what is now referred to as the March Intifada. On March 9, the rest of the Bahraini employees of BAPCO went out on strike, and were joined by student protesters who soon took out their frustrations on cars owned by Europeans in the British protectorate on the Arabian peninsula.
Edward R. Murrow, director of the United States Information Agency, was named an Honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, less than two months before his death.
ONGC Videsh Limited, India’s entry into the field of international oil exploration, was incorporated as Hydrocarbons India Ltd. Within 50 years, it would be participating in 39 projects in 15 nations.
The House Ways and Means Committee is near approval of an enlarged version of the Administration’s program of health care for the aged. The new version would add a voluntary insurance plan, covering doctors’ fees, prescribed drugs and other medical services, to the basic hospital and nursing care benefits provided by the Administration bill. “A consensus has been reached, and we expect to vote next Tuesday or Wednesday,” Representative Al Ullman, Democrat of Oregon, said after a closed meeting of the committee.
Representative Cecil R. King, Democrat of California, cosponsor of the Administration bill, and other members agreed that a majority of the committee favored the expanded medicare program. They said the panel almost certainly would approve it next week. “It’s a considerable improvement, and I’m very happy,” Mr. King said. The voluntary insurance plan, some details of which are still to be worked out, is patterned on a bill sponsored by Representative John W. Byrnes, Republican of Wisconsin, with the backing of House Republican leaders. Its benefits, however, are less comprehensive and somewhat less generous than those proposed by Mr. Byrnes. In its present form, the committee plan would give protection against major medical expenses to persons over 65 years old.
The patient would pay the first $100 of his doctor fees and 30 percent of the rest. The insurance would cover 70 percent of his costs above $100. Persons enrolling in the plan would pay $3 a month for the coverage. Those on the Social Security retirement rolls could meet the requirement by authorizing a monthly checkoff of $3 from their cash benefits. The federal government would contribute $3 a month to the insurance fund from general tax revenues for each person enrolled. The government’s annual contribution was estimated at about $500 million.
Nearly 200 Blacks trying to march on the courthouse in Camden, Alabama to protest voter registration practices were turned back twice today at the city limits. Another group, trying to test compliance with the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, never learned whether the town’s leading restaurant would serve them: The door was locked and they could not get in.
The Black marchers in Camden walked two and a half miles up Whisky Run Road this morning, headed for the Wilcox County Courthouse, before being stopped by the Mayor, two policemen and seven volunteer officers. The law enforcement men carried three shotguns and a number of pistols, nightsticks, and electric cattle prods. Twelve husky white men waited 25 yards back while Mayor F. R. Albritton and his party confronted Johnny Lee Jones, a 21-year-old Black from Selma, who was leading the march. Newsmen were kept out of earshot while Mr. Jones and Mayor Albritton talked.
One of the white bystanders moved to within hearing of the discussion for a moment. returned to his cronies and said in a loud, mocking tone, pointing at Mr. Jones: “He wants his rights, his constitutional rights.” The bystanders laughed. The Mayor was heard once telling Mr. Jones. “Nobody, black or white, can go down there and register today.” Mayor Albritton told newsmen later that he had explained that prospective voters can register only two days a month under state law, the first and third Mondays of the month. He said he thought there would have been trouble if the Blacks had gone downtown.
The Blacks had announced before the march that its purpose was to protest the treatment of Blacks on registration days. They stand in line to register — in vain — at the old jail across the street from the courthouse. They say that white applicants go to the courthouse and they want the same privilege. For 15 minutes the Blacks tried to persuade the Mayor to let them walk to the courthouse, another mile down the road. But they failed. They turned and walked back to their meeting place, the St. Francis Baptist Church.
There was other action in the campaign for Black rights. It was announced that a minister would lead a march of whites on the Dallas County Courthouse at Selma tomorrow. And the state voucher system, under which a prospective voter must be vouched for by a registered voter, was being corroded from within while it was under attack from without. Mrs. Martha Witt Smith of Huntsville, the registrar consultant for the state, said that a voter from one county could. vouch for a prospective voter from another. That would solve one problem of the Black majority in Wilcox County, where no Black is registered and no white voter has come forward to vouch for a Black applicant.
Meanwhile, Alabama Sheriff James Clark admitted he “has made mistakes” in handling demonstrating Blacks in Selma, but defended his use of electrically charged cattle prods on them.
In Washington, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., after meeting with President Johnson, said that any new voting rights legislation “must” provide for Federal registrars. Dr. King also said that he might find it necessary to ask the Justice Department to furnish federal marshals when he leads a group of Black demonstrators in a march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery beginning Sunday. Alabama officials have indicated they may try to block the protest march. Dr. King met with the President for about an hour and a half this evening. The civil rights leader told newsmen later that they had discussed the special message on voting rights that Mr. Johnson had promised to send to Congress. He said the President had suggested that he, Dr. King, confer with Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach on the specific language of the message and the bill.
Dr. King said he told Mr. Johnson that Black leaders hoped the voting rights proposals would include provision for Federal registrars, for ending state literacy tests and for a way to “remove the present dichotomy between state and Federal elections.” Asked if he would be satisfied with a voting bill that did not call for Federal voting registrars, Dr. King replied, “Absolutely not.” He said Mr. Johnson had not told him exactly what would be in the voting proposal and had offered no promises. Dr. King said he had not discussed with the President the question of Federal marshals to protect the Black march from Selma to Montgomery.
But he disclosed that he would discuss the question tomorrow with other leaders of the Alabama voting rights demonstration, which has been under way for weeks. “It may be necessary to call: on Federal Marshals before we start.” Dr. King declared. If it were decided to request the protection of Federal marshals, that the request would be made to the Attorney General and not to the President. he said.
Dr. King said that he had also discussed with Mr. Johnson the President’s bill on aid, to education and the antipoverty program. He said he was “particularly concerned about unemployment” because 37 percent of Black youths were unemployed. Dr. King declared he would like to see a complete elimination of state literacy tests as a requirement for voter registration. He proposed, in their place a system in which the applicant would sign his name and furnish basic “biographical” information” to the registrars.
A Freedom School and library containing 2,000 volumes burned to the ground before dawn today. The police later arrested eight civil rights workers and accused them of interfering with an investigation for arson. One of those arrested, Hershel Kaminsky, 29 years old, of Minneapolis, was beaten by a white bystander. Police Chief Bryce Alexander said he had arrested the assailant on a charge of assault and battery. He refused, however, to disclose the name of the suspect, who comes from this county, Sunflower.
The burning was the most destructive racial violence in Mississippi this year. A Freedom House was set afire in Laurel a few days ago, but the rash of church burnings and bombings that occurred across the state last year had subsided. The fire occurred after the Council of Federated Organizations led a public school boycott and demonstrations at the Sunflower County Courthouse. The council leased the frame building that housed the Freedom School for instruction of Black students and served as headquarters for civil rights activity here. Indianola is a town of 7,000 in the heart of the Mississippi Delta and is considered one of the state’s chief strongholds of segregation.
The fire was discovered about 3 AM. Rights council workers, who live with Black families several blocks away, rushed to the scene but found it surrounded by the police. “They tried to break through the line and were interfering with the investigation.” Chief Alexander said. “They were charged with refusing to obey an officer and held under bonds of $100 each.” The rights workers denied they had been unruly and said they had been roughed up by the police.
Two Keystone State cops were caught yesterday in the New Jersey border town of Phillipsburg and forced back across the Delaware River in the latest round of the whisky war between this Garden State and Pennsylvania. Liquor Control Board agents have been following the arresting Pennsylvanians shopping over the state line to avoid Pennsylvania’s higher liquor taxes.
After stripping Muhammad Ali of his World Boxing Association heavyweight title, the WBA staged a bout in Chicago for a new “world champion” to replace Ali. Ernie Terrell defeated Eddie Machen in a unanimous decision by the fight judges. “To the man in the street, Ali may have been a Black Muslim… he may have come across as a brash young pain-in-the-ass. He may have been all these of these things,” an author would later note, “but until he lost, retired or died, he was the champion. Consequently, when Terrell outpointed Machen, few cared.”
The Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupted at 9:43 a.m., through a series of fissures that extended for nearly eight miles from the Makaaopuhi Crater to the Napau Crater. Within the first eight hours, 15 million cubic meters of lava would pour out of the ground.
The Mariner 4 spacecraft, now 27 million miles out in space on its way to Mars, performed the last of its required important functions yesterday — switching to using its directional, high-gain antenna — before its scheduled encounter with the planet on July 14.
Guitarist Jeff Beck performed his first major concert, after being hired by The Yardbirds to replace Eric Clapton. Beck’s introduction came at Fairfield Halls in Croydon.
First performance of Walter Piston’s 8th Symphony (his last), by the Boston Symphony, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.
The stock market registered a sharp decline in early trading, but erased much of the loss at the close.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 895.98 (-1.77)
Born:
John Baylor, NFL cornerback and safety (Indianapolis Colts), in Meridian, Mississippi.
Greg Clark, NFL linebacker (Chicago Bears, Miami Dolphins, Los Angeles Rams, Green Bay Packers, San Diego Chargers, Seattle Seahawks), in Los Angeles, California.
Joe Williams, NFL linebacker (Pittsburgh Steelers), in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Died:
Chen Cheng, 68, Chinese political and military leader.
John “Pepper” Martin, 61, American baseball utility (MLB All-Star 1933–35, 1937; World Series 1931, 1934; NL stolen base leader 1933, 1934, 1936; St. Louis Cardinals), of a heart attack
Helen Waddell, 75, Irish poet and playwright.
History Diaries 