South Vietnamese Air Force Skyraiders bomb the village of Man Quảng in the area of Đà Nẵng and kills some 45 civilians, including 37 children; the government explains that the Việt Cộng flag had been flying over the village, and an observation plane had been fired upon. Man Quảng is considered to be Việt Cộng-controlled. It is only five miles from the Đà Nẵng Air Base. After the raid, villagers carrying coffins march to Đà Nẵng but are turned back by South Vietnamese troops.
Seventeen hundred persons demonstrated in favor of the Việt Cộng yesterday in Bình Định Province, 300 miles north of Saigon. Government troops shot and killed one demonstrator and arrested 100. The Bình Định demonstration occurred in the village of Phú Mỹ, 25 miles northwest of the provincial capital, Quy Nhơn. Vietnam Press, an official agency, said the demonstrators, from several villages in the area, had been marching on Phú Mỹ in four columns when government troops met them at the edge of town and opened fire.
In the Mekong delta, where there has been an easing of Việt Cộng pressure recently, a United States Navy adviser was killed yesterday and three other Americans were wounded during a search-and-destroy operation conducted by government forces. At least 20 Việt Cộng guerrillas were killed during the battle and 30 more were believed dead. South Vietnamese Government forces lost three men.
In Bình Dương Province, northwest of Saigon, American B-57 jet bombers made 24 sorties against suspected Việt Cộng concentrations.
Policemen in Saigon broke up a news conference called this morning by leaders of the Cao Đài religious sect for the establishment of a peace organization. The leaders intended to recommend that United States forces in South Vietnam be stationed only along the country’s borders. The sect, which has a strong following in areas west of the capital, also planned to ask for a United Nations police force to control the Communist guerrillas in the country. Police photographers posed as news cameramen to take pictures of the movement’s leaders. Then the meeting was disbanded and the door locked at the conference room in the Majestic Hotel.
In Đà Nẵng, confusion persisted over the fate of three leaders of a “national self-determination front” who have been marked for deportation. Some United States officials here have expressed exasperation with the government’s plan to send the three leaders to North Vietnam. These American sources realize that at least two of the men have suspect political records, but believe that the deportation would arouse unfavorable international reaction. According to recent reports, Saigon had agreed not to drop the men into the North by parachute but was still weighing a plan to push them across a bridge out of South Vietnam.
Six U.S. Air Force F-105 Thunderchief jets with fighter escort dropped more than 20 tons of high explosives, apparently on Communist targets in Laos. The Laotian frontier, a jungle gateway for Việt Cộng recruits and supplies from North Vietnam, is 50 miles west of Đà Nẵng.
South Vietnam’s air force commander, Air Vice Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, said the country’s military leaders will support the government.
Foreign correspondents in South Vietnam report, according to an Associated Press survey, that official restrictions by United States military authorities are making the war there more difficult to cover now than at any other time since major United States involvement began in 1961.
Communist China declared today that talk about a peaceful settlement in Vietnam was “nothing but the most flagrant, most shameless war blackmail” by the United States. An editorial in the official newspaper Jenmin Jih Pao asserted that North Vietnam” could not be bullied and that it was “impossible to try to force the South Vietnamese people into submission.” The paper was commenting on the latest United States air attacks on North Vietnam last Sunday and Monday. These, it said, showed that the Johnson Administration was bent on “making the flames of war burn higher and higher in Indochina.” Analysts said the editorial suggested Chinese Communist concern that the Soviet Union might be prepared to back a negotiated settlement on terms unacceptable to the Chinese and that North Vietnam and the Communist guerrillas in the South might waver under Soviet pressure.
The Soviet Union demanded officially tonight that the United States stop bombing North Vietnam and withdraw its troops and arms from South Vietnam. The demand was made in a message from the Soviet Union to Britain. The countries are co-chairmen of the 1951 Geneva conference that ended the Indochinese war against France. The note, made public by the Soviet press agency Tass, replied to a British note of February 20 asking if the Soviet Union was ready to cooperate in seeking a cease-fire in Vietnam. Moscow sent the answer Sunday night but delayed disclosure of its contents.
Tanks from the Israeli Defense Force crossed into Syria in the first of four raids to destroy heavy mechanical equipment to be used in diversion of the Jordan River. The Damascus radio reported that Israeli troops and tanks attacked a Syrian project for diversion of the Jordan River headwaters today “in the Dan and Doka areas.” A Syrian bulldozer driver was killed and two bulldozers were destroyed, the broadcast said. A Syrian spokesman said, according to the Damascus radio, that “the aggression appears to be a prelude to further and more widespread aggression.” He said the attack appeared to be aimed at occupation of the demilitarized zone and expulsion of the Arabs from the zone and the diversion project.
An Israeli spokesman said tonight that Israel had not initiated an attack in the Dan area. He said that there had been a Syrian attack on an Israeli patrol in that area and that Israel had returned the fire. No casualties were reported, he said. Earlier, Israel protested to the Security Council that Syrian armed attacks on Israeli civilians in the last two weeks had produced a “tense and dangerous” situation. Israel warned that Syria must accept the consequences if her actions continued. In a letter to the Council, Michael S. Comay charged that Syrian military forces had opened fire on Israel farmers near the village of Almagor with machine guns, mortars, and artillery. Almagor had been the site of recurrent border incidents.
Turkey exchanged charges of aggression and subversion with Cyprus and Greece in the Security Council today in a debate over the crisis between. Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The Secretary General, U Thant, gave the Council the details of clashes around the village of Lefka in the last week that have cost at least one life on each side. He said that discussions were going on between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in the area and the United Nations force commander, General Kodendera S. Thimayya, “with a view to restoring calm.” Mr. Thant indicated in a brief supplementary report that the Lefka fighting had grown out of unfounded suspicions by the Greek Cypriots that the Turkish Cypriots were building new fortified positions. The Greek Cypriots moved in to build positions of their own.
Soviet antiaircraft missiles intended for Cyprus are reported to be stockpiled in the United Arab Republic, where officers and men from Cyprus are being trained to use them.
Congolese Government forces battled rebel troops today in an apparent drive to cut off rebel supply lines along the border with Uganda and Sudan. The rebels, equipped with automatic weapons made in Communist countries, put up stiff resistance, military sources said. However, these sources said the Congolese forces pushed farther north after making contact yesterday with the rebels at Golu, about 120 miles northwest of Lake Albert.
United States officials are cautiously optimistic over recent events concerning the Congo. But they do not exclude the possibility of new setbacks for the Congolese Government.
The division of Germany is permanent, as far as he can see, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko told the British government during an exchange of views.
Soviet officials declared today that written answers, purportedly by Nikita S. Khrushchev, to questions by a French correspondent were a forgery. A report of the alleged interview appeared in yesterday’s editions of The New York Times and in other Western newspapers.
The Moscow authorities are conducting a campaign against sidewalk peddlers, who create bottlenecks on city streets.
Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium suggested today that the Atlantic alliance re-examine the Rapacki plan for a zone in Central Europe free of nuclear weapons and discuss it with the Communist bloc.
The West German Embassy in Taiz, Yemen, was sacked and burned by an Arab mob, apparently in protest against Bonn’s decision to establish diplomatic ties with Israel. A message from the embassy in Taiz, the Yemeni capital, said a mob broke into the building late this morning, ripped down the West German flag, smashed furniture and then set the fire. The mob was protesting West Germany’s moves to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the message described the protection of the embassy by the Yemeni police as “completely inadequate.”
President de Gaulle’s Government maintained silence today on criticism of French policy in Southeast Asia by George W. Ball, United States Under Secretary of State.
Leaders of the Perónist Popular Union served notice today that they considered that their party had a “complete mandate” to press for the return of the ousted dictator Juan D. Perón despite the slim majority the party won in Sunday’s Congressional election.
Frank M. Johnson, Jr., the federal judge for a U.S. District Court in Montgomery, ruled in favor of the right of civil rights protesters to march along U.S. Highway 60 from Selma to Montgomery, and issued an injunction barring Alabama state and county authorities from interfering with the march, and ordered law enforcement agencies (that had recently attacked previous demonstrators) to protect the marchers. In an injunction and opinion released tonight, Judge Johnson ordered Governor George C. Wallace and other Alabama officials to refrain from “harassing or threatening” the protest marchers on the 50-mile trip, and to extend them full police protection from hostile whites.
Judge Johnson specifically enjoined Governor Wallace, Colonel Al J. Lingo, director of the Alabama Highway Patrol, Sheriff James G. Clark Jr. of Dallas County (Selma), and all law enforcement officers under their command from arresting “or in any way interfering with the effort to march” along U.S. 80 from Selma to Montgomery. Governor Wallace said after hearing of the order that he would address a joint session of the Legislature at 6:30 PM tomorrow. The Governor’s press secretary, Bill Jones, said tonight that it would be “safe to assume” the state would appeal Judge Johnson’s order.
The judge said he was giving his full approval to the plan for the march, which was presented in court here yesterday by attorneys for the Selma voter-registration movement. The court order gave President Johnson legal grounds for the use of federal troops to protect the marchers if Governor Wallace or any other Alabama official refuses to comply. President Johnson said at his news conference last Saturday that he would dispatch federal troops to Alabama if necessary to enforce a federal court order.
Judge Johnson noted, in his opinion, that the marchers would be “entitled to be protected by the law enforcement agencies of the state of Alabama against traffic and other hazards.” He said further: “This court, after inquiry, has been informed by the attorneys representing the United States in this case that the United States government stands ready, if requested by the governor of the state of Alabama, to assist in providing police protection for this proposed march.” In pledging the use of Federal troops in the Alabama controversy last Saturday, President Johnson said that “we believe in maintaining law and order in every county and in every precinct in this land.”
“And if the state and local authorities are unable to function,” the President said, “the federal government will completely meet its responsibilities.” Judge Johnson rejected a petition by the Justice Department for an order to prohibit interference with civil rights demonstrations in addition to, th: march from Selma to Montgomery. He also denied a petition by Governor Wallace for an injunction forbidding the march. The judge said that Alabama state troopers acting under instructions from Governor Wallace “have intimidated, threatened and coerced Black citizens” in the Black Belt counties of Alabama to prevent them from exercising the constitutional right to register, vote, assemble peaceably and “remonstrate with governmental authorities and petition for redress of grievances.”
He singled out Sheriff Clark as one who had been particularly zealous in denying Blacks their rights. The opinion said: “The evidence in this case reflects… an almost continuous pattern of conduct… on the part of defendant Sheriff Clark, his deputies, and his auxiliary deputies known as ‘possemen’ of harassment, intimidation, coercion, threatening conduct and sometimes brutal mistreatment towards these plaintiffs.” Judge Johnson said in his findings of fact that the “brutal treatment has ranged from mass arrests without just cause to forced marches for several miles into the countryside, with the sheriff’s deputies and members of his posse herding the Black demonstrators at a rapid pace through the use of electrical shocking devices.” The findings of fact, based on five days of hearings, which ended yesterday, also noted that Major John Cloud, who was in command of the troopers during the police rout of Black marchers at Selma on March 7, had ordered his men to advance on the demonstrators after only one minute of a two-minute warning for the marchers to disperse.
Thirty-six white adults, most of them ministers, were arrested today for picketing the home of Mayor Joseph T. Smitherman. The arrests were ordered by Wilson Baker, the city’s Public Safety Director, who apparently was angered by what he considered a violation of an agreement. “This is stupid,” Mr. Baker shouted at Harry Boyte, a staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “You told me if you went to the courthouse there would be no further demonstrations today. You ought to call your organization the Southern Stupid Leadership Conference.” He then ordered the demonstrators placed under arrest for illegal picketing in a residential neighborhood.
“Wilson, I forgive you,” said Mr. Boyte, a soft-spoken man with a white mustache. “Harry, I don’t forgive you,” Mr. Baker shot back. “Christianity has reached a new low.” All 36 demonstrators were taken to jail in a yellow school bus as Mayor Smitherman’s children and neighbors flocked around to watch. The prisoners’ were fingerprinted and ordered released on their own recognizance pending a hearing. Twenty-one in the group, however, refused to sign the $200 appearance bond and staged a sit-in in the second floor city courtroom. The police refused to put them in jail cells and Mr. Boyte said they probably would stay in the courtroom all night.
Civil rights leaders won a public apology from the sheriff of Montgomery County tonight for the routing of 600 demonstrators with horses and clubs. here yesterday. The sheriff in turn won an agreement from civil rights leaders that in the future they would apply for official parade permits for all public marches in Montgomery. The agreement was reached after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders led a mass march on the Montgomery County Courthouse today, and then spent seven hours in private conference with Sheriff Mac Sim Butler.
The 600 demonstrators, who were chased off the streets yesterday by mounted state troopers and sheriff’s officers, added 1,000 persons to their ranks today and marched to the courthouse to protest yesterday’s violence. After the conference with the sheriff, Dr. King and James Forman. executive secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, told reporters that the conference and the resulting agreement were an “historic occasion.” They said it was the first time that any Southern city had made such an agreement.
President Johnson submitted to Congress today a bipartisan bill to attack discriminatory practices that have prevented Blacks from registering and voting in some Southern states. The bill gives the Attorney General the power to appoint Federal registration examiners in six Southern states in which literacy or other voter qualification tests are used and in which less than 50 per cent of eligible adults voted in 1964. The states are Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia.” The bill might also apply to certain “political subdivisions” of some other states.
The bill provides that no person shall be denied the right to register because of failure to meet a voter qualification test meant to demonstrate literacy, level of education, good moral character, or the recommendation of other registered voters. In effect, such tests would no longer be applicable.
There were some last-minute modifications in the bill before it was submitted. One of them is a provision that states may remove themselves from the application of the law if a three-man Federal court in the District of Columbia makes a declaratory judgment that they have not discriminated against Black voting rights for 10 years.
The bill provides, however, that the states may not apply to the three-judge panel to be exempted until 10 years after a federal court has made a final judgment that there had been denial of the right to vote on the basis of race. Administration sources said this would mean that Georgia might free itself from the provisions of the bill within five years and Virginia and South Carolina could file suit to do So whenever the bill is enacted.
Nearly 300 civil rights marchers, undeterred by a snowstorm, sat down in the slush in front of the White House today, ending a 24-hour moratorium on demonstrations in the capital.
The House of Representatives refused today to give the Chief Justice and his associates on the Supreme Court $3.000 pay increases. A bill last year gave $7,500 increases to lesser judges and to members of Congress but only $4,500 to the Supreme Court. The vote today was 203 to 177. One hundred fifty-four Democrats and 23 Republicans voted for the $3,000 increase. They were outvoted by 99 Democrats and 104 Republicans. The vote followed an earlier roll-call by which the leadership was enabled by a margin of only 19 votes to get the House to consider the question at all. The storm of disagreement that greeted the pay-rise proposal came from every geographical direction. It was largely from the South and many Republican areas. But it also came from Border States and the West and Midwest.
After slightly altering a Senate-passed version, the House Judiciary Committee approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would plug loopholes involving Presidential succession and disability. The proposed amendment, a slightly modified version of one approved February 19 by the Senate, would set up procedures for the exercise of a disabled president’s powers by the Vice President. It would also authorize a President to name a new Vice President, subject to confirmation by Congress, whenever a vacancy occurred. The Judiciary Committee’s Chairman, Representative Emanuel Celler, Democrat of New York, reported that the panel had cleared the proposal by a “near-unanimous” voice vote at a closed meeting
Sometime next January a four-engine Boeing jetliner will probably land with a full load of passengers at a major airport in this country and the pilot will then announce “Ladies and gentlemen, this aircraft was just landed by a computer. I didn’t touch the controls until we taxied off the runway.” That is the likely result of a decision by the Federal Aviation Agency yesterday to grant an airworthiness certificate for an automatic landing system developed jointly by the Boeing Company and the Bendix Corporation. According to a Boeing engineer, it is the first system in the world to be so certified by the F.A.A., for operation in the United States.
The Federal Aviation Agency soon will release results of a poll on public tolerance for sonic booms, which will affect supersonic transport plans.
A Black youth, shepherded by his older brother, surrendered to New York police and was charged with the subway slaying of a white teenager.
A California contractor said he paid a $100,000 fee to W. S. Bennett, friend of the president of the now-defunct San Francisco National Bank, after he got a $550,000 loan.
World War II correspondent Quentin Reynolds died in his sleep of cancer at Travis Air Force Base hospital.
Portions of Minnesota were crippled by a blizzard and heavy snows fell on a five-state Midwest area.
Beatles announce their second film is titled “8 Arms to Hold You” ; later changed to “Help!”
Jackie Robinson, who in 1947 had become the first African-American Major League Baseball player in modern times, was hired by the ABC television network as the first African-American broadcaster for nationally televised baseball games. Robinson and Leo Durocher, who was in temporary retirement from managing a team, would handle the commentary on 27 games. ABC provides the first-ever nationwide baseball coverage with weekly Saturday broadcasts on a regional basis.
Famous college football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, patriarch of American athletics, died in a rest home in California today at the age of 102.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 899.37 (+0.47)
Born:
John Smiley, MLB pitcher (All-Star, 1991, 1995; Pittsburgh Pirates, Minnesota Twins, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Browns), in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
George Hinkle, NFL defensive end and defensive tackle (San Diego Chargers, Minnesota Vikings, Cincinnati Bengals), in St. Louis, Missouri.
Donnie Dee, NFL tight end (Indianapolis Colts, Seattle Seahawks), in Kansas City, Missouri.
Caitlin Bilodeaux, U.S. women’s foil fencer (Olympics, 1988, 1992), in Boston, Massachusetts.
Died:
Amos Alonzo Stagg, 102, American college football coach from 1892 to 1932 for the University of Chicago and, after being forced to retire at age 70, for the College of the Pacific from 1933 to 1946.
Quentin Reynolds, 62, American newscaster (“Its News to Me”) and author (“FBI”).
History Diaries 