ln the fourth ROLLING THUNDER raid 110 U.S. planes bomb military targets at Phù Vân and Vinh Sơn in North Vietnam. The strike was the second against North Vietnam in five days. The planes attacked 20 miles inland, about 160 miles north of the 17th Parallel, the dividing line between North and South Vietnam. According to an American statement. “the targets were Phù Vân and Vinh Sơn, where there are a number of military supply installations.” A spokesman added that the Navy planes had also hammered a supply depot at Thuận, adjoining the Vinh Sơn area.
A United States Air Force spokesman said that about 60 Air Force planes and 50 to 75 carrier-based Navy jet and propeller planes from the Seventh Fleet had participated in the raid. He said that the weather had been good and that no enemy planes had been sighted. He termed the raid “up to 100 percent” successful. There was only a small hole in the wing tip of one returning Air Force plane, the spokesman said. Another military spokesman said in Saigon that all the Navy planes were believed to have returned safely. The area of Phù Vân and Vinh Sơn is about 135 miles south of Hanoi, the capital, and 25 miles northwest of Vinh, a previous target.
After the raid on North Vietnam, a United States spokesman said the targets had been known supply-and-infiltration areas for Việt Cộng forces in South Vietnam. A number of secondary explosions after the raid indicated the bombs and rockets had set off ammunition stores, the spokesman added. Ground fire was reported light and inaccurate. The spokesman said the planes had carried normal ammunition. including 750-pound bombs and rockets. Security restrictions on air operations in and around South Vietnam remained tight. There was no identification of the fields and carriers from which the Phù Vân and Vinh Sơn raids were staged. News correspondents at Đà Nẵng air base were unaware of the raid until it was announced.
The North Vietnamese High Command denounced the United States air strike today in a message to the International Control Commission for Vietnam, the North Vietnamese press agency reported.
The Chinese Communist press agency Hsinhua said that according to Hanoi, North Vietnam had shot down three United States planes. The Communist report was made in a broadcast monitored in Tokyo by The Associated Press
In Washington, officials confirmed that the United States, apparently in a policy change, was using napalm bombs in air strikes against North Vietnam. In another development, Secretary State Dean Rusk expressed regret at indications that Moscow was uninterested in diplomatic efforts to end the Vietnamese war.
Andrei A. Gromyko ended his talks in London today as he had begun, by saying that the way to peace in Vietnam was to end the “United States aggression.”
Near the Đà Nẵng base, United States Marine guards fired twice during the night, apparently at Việt Cộng patrols. The second time they drew return fire and apparently inflicted their first Việt Cộng casualties since their arrival last week. Lieutenant Colonel Charles McTartlin, commander of the Third Battalion, said that sentries had first opened fire just before midnight on Hill 268, just outside the base. Then, at 3 AM, Marines fired on four men believed to be a Việt Cộng patrol. They heard a loud scream and shots were returned, the colonel added.
A Laborite Member of Parliament and his wife protested today against the killing of 45 children when Vietnamese Air Force Skyraiders bombed a village in South Vietnam Wednesday.
South Vietnamese border guards led three sponsors of a peace movement by the arm today, expelling them across a bridge into North Vietnam.
Premier Eisaku Sato has sent a senior diplomat, Shunichi Matsumoto, to Saigon to assess the facts of the war in Vietnam.
Cosmonauts Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov returned to Earth in the Voshkod 2 capsule, the day after its launch. The capsule was “enveloped in flames” caused by the friction during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, but was able to successfully deploy its chutes and made a landing near Perm, more than 800 miles (1,300 km) away from the usual landing site for Soviet missions. For the next two years (including all of 1966), the Soviets would not launch any more crewed space missions. During that time, while the USSR worked on developing its Soyuz program generation of spacecraft, the United States would launch 10 consecutive Project Gemini flights with 16 different astronauts (four participating twice).
A commentator would write four years later that “Before the U.S. started flying its Gemini spaceships, Russia’s manned space dominance was unquestioned throughout the world. From 1961 through 1965, their Vostok and Voshkod spaceships and cosmonauts flew rings around the U.S. and scored one triumph after another… While this was occurring U.S. spacemen continually were too little and too late…. Then, in classic tortoise-and-hare fashion, the Russians inexplicably stopped launching spaceships in the spring of 1965.”
President Johnson, who is spending the weekend at his ranch near Austin, Texas, dispatched today to Anastas Mikoyan, chairman of the presidium of the Soviet Union, congratulations on the Russian space achievement of yesterday. The President’s message said: “All of us have been deeply impressed by Lieutenant Colonel Aleksei Leonov’s feat in becoming the first man to leave a spaceship in outer space and return safely. I take pleasure, Mr. Chairman, in offering on behalf of the people of the United States sincere congratulations and best wishes to the cosmonauts and the scientists and all the others responsible for this outstanding accomplishment.”
Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey saluted the Soviet Union’s achievements tonight but cautioned that “we would be foolish if we did not understand the military implications.”
Pope Paul VI expressed the hope today that the “great and marvelous” Soviet space achievement would “serve to render men better, more united and intent to serve ideals of peace and common good.”
Weather today continued to be the big question mark hanging over the planned flights of the last Ranger to the moon on Sunday and a two-man Gemini spacecraft on Tuesday.
Peking denounced the recent Moscow conference of 19 Communist parties today as a “schismatic meeting” that Soviet leaders had convened “unilaterally and illegally.” Communist China and five of its ideological allies were invited to the conference but boycotted it. Pro-Peking absentees were the Communist parties of Albania, North Korea, North Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan. Rumania, which plays an independent role in the Communist bloc, also stayed away. Peking marked the opening and closing of the conference with ideological attacks on Moscow, but had not directly mentioned the meeting until today. In the first Chinese Communist comment on the meeting, the Hsinhua press agency indicated that nothing less than cancellation of the meeting would have satisfied the Chinese leaders. The meeting was originally called by Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev over the objections of the Chinese. The Soviet leaders who replaced Mr. Khrushchev reduced its status to a “consultative conference.”
Premier Suat Hayri Urguplu of Turkey today proposed Greek-Turkish talks to break the Cyprus deadlock. He made the proposal in a message to George Drossos, a Former Greek Minister in Ankara, which was published today in an Athens evening newspaper, Ethnos. He urged:
- Immediate Greek-Turkish contacts at a level of Athens’s choice.
- Pledges by both sides to withhold any unilateral action” in Cyprus.
- Talks that could deal with the island’s pacification and normalization of Greek-Turkish relations, deferring until later negotiations on Cyprus’s final political status.
There has been no Greek Government reaction to Mr. Urguplu’s offer. However, the Greeks rejected earlier suggestions for bilateral talks on the grounds that the issue concerned Cypriots exclusively and that the United Nations mediation effort was still under way.
The United States publicly urged Greece and Turkey today to call a new conference over Cyprus to prevent a war between them or major outbreaks of violence on the island.
The Security Council voted unanimously today to extend United Nations peacekeeping efforts in Cyprus through June 26 as speakers urged more effective action against mounting pressures for new violence there.
Indonesia nationalizes all foreign oil companies. Indonesian President Sukarno announced the nationalization of foreign oil companies Stanvac, Caltex, and Royal Dutch Shell. Although President Sukarno said the government was simply “taking over management” of the concerns, his phrasing was the normal terminology used in Indonesia for seizure of foreign companies. Such actions in the past have amounted to confiscation without compensation. Oil company officials in Jakarta had been confident that the government would not move against them despite Communist pressure for seizure. Their confidence had stemmed from the fact that Indonesia has derived about $100 million a year in revenue from the oil concerns, or approximately a fifth of the country’s annual foreign exchange earnings.
Tunisian newspaper readers and radio listeners learned for the first time today of demonstrations against Tunisian embassies in the Middle East that followed announcement of the stand taken by President Habib Bourguiba in the quarrel between the United Arab Republic and West Germany. Mr. Bourguiba opposes breaking ties with Bonn.
The South African Government today banned nonwhites from attending a major soccer match scheduled to be played on the field of the Germiston Callies near Johannesburg.
Alabama Governor George C. Wallace wants the President to federalize the Alabama National Guard to protect the Selma-to-Montgomery march. Wallace told President Johnson today that Alabama was too poor to pay the cost of mobilizing the National Guard to police the Selma-to-Montgomery Freedom March starting Sunday. In a telegram to the President this afternoon, the Governor thus invited the President — without actually saying so — to federalize some units of the 14,000-man Alabama National Guard. His move had the effect of assigning the cost of mobilizing the troops to the federal budget and placing upon the United States the expense of enforcing the federal court order sanctioning the march. Mr. Johnson said last night that he would federalize the Alabama National Guard if Governor Wallace failed to act.
Governor Wallace and the Legislature also called on all citizens to stay “as far removed from the line of march as possible” to prove “Alabamians are law-abiding, peace-loving people.” In effect, Mr. Wallace said to the President that if Washington was going to insist on the enforcement of the order approving the march issued by United States District Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr., Washington would have to pay the cost.
In a speech to a joint session of the Legislature here last night Governor Wallace said Judge Johnson-whom he called a “hypocritical judge” presiding over a “mock court” had issued a decree that not only “favors mob rule” but also places an “unconscionable burden” on the state treasury. A resolution introduced in the Legislature today at Governor Wallace’s request gave some further details of what is already known here as the policy of “financial interposition” or “it’s your order, you pay for it.”
The resolution, voted unanimously by both houses, declares that “it is the considered judgment of the Legislature of Alabama that the state. has insufficient financial resources to meet the indeterminable burden and the expense of activating a large contingency [sic] of National Guardsmen for an indefinite period of time to enforce a federal court order. Since the proposed march by so-called demonstrators has been sanctioned by a federal court the financial resources of the federal government should be used to pay the cost of the mobilization,” the resolution declared. “Future unrestricted activities of so-called demonstrators, as may occur or be authorized by later federal court orders, make it impossible for the legislature to determine the cost which will be incurred.”
At the President’s ranch in Texas, there were strong indications tonight that the President would make a decisive move in the Alabama situation at or before daybreak. In Selma, about 350 persons were arrested near the Mayor’s home. There was no precise information of the nature of such a move, although it would presumably involve federalization of the Alabama National Guard or activation of regular Federal troops, or perhaps both. Intimations of a post-midnight build-up in the situation came after a day in which the President pondered his next move in the controversy with Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama over protecting civil rights marchers in the state. Each man was seeking to force upon the other the responsibility for calling up the Alabama Guard. They found themselves in agreement that the Guard must furnish protection for the march from Selma to Montgomery. The march, to protest barriers to Black voter registration, is scheduled to begin tomorrow. The President had under study the latest message from Mr. Wallace, who sent a telegram yesterday saying that he was willing to call up the Guard but that Alabama could not afford the expense.
The leaders of the Black movement at Selma sent 300 white visitors to pray at the Mayor’s home today and they were all arrested. They were held about three hours in protective custody in a community center behind the city hall. When the police released them, they refused to go. “We’ll be here until the Mayor issues an apology for taking us into custody for merely exercising our constitutional rights,” said Bill Bradley of San Francisco, one of the 50 or so Blacks accompanying the whites. The arrests were made by Wilson Baker. the city’s Commissioner of Public Safety, before any of the demonstrators reached the Mayor’s home.
Mr. Baker announced tonight that Federal District Judge Daniel H. Thomas of Mobile had ordered an end to demonstrations in residential areas of Selma, except for the Black neighborhood where demonstrations have been going on since mid-January. Mr. Baker said the judge had informed him of the order by telephone. Angry white residents attacked two of the demonstrators today, one a young Catholic priest, the Rev. Boniface Prater of Chicago. He was not injured but the other victim, an unidentified young man, nursed a bleeding nose as he was led away by the police.
About 25 Black and white demonstrators were routed from the Arkansas State Capitol basement in Little Rock by an irritating gas and club-swinging state policemen today in a third unsuccessful attempt to integrate the statehouse cafeteria.
Government witnesses headed by the attorney general defended the voting rights bill in a House committee hearing.
A federal judge sent the Jack Ruby sanity-lawyer dispute case back to state courts today after hearing a lengthy monologue from Ruby about lawyers and conspiracies.
Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, the United Nations Undersecretary for Special Political Affairs, said yesterday that he would participate in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.
The House Ways and Means Committee reached all but final agreement today on an enlarged version of the Administration’s program of health care for the aged.
Forty-nine chanting and singing demonstrators were arrested yesterday afternoon when they staged a sitdown on the sidewalk in front of the Chase Manhattan Bank Building in lower Manhattan. They were protesting loans to South Africa.
In a dramatic appearance on death row of the Tennessee penitentiary Governor Frank G. Clement today commuted to life imprisonment the death sentences of five convicts and, in effect, abolished capital punishment in Tennessee for the next two years of his term in office.
A bipartisan commission recommended today the end of capital punishment in New York State.
Basic steel negotiators, faced with a May 1 strike deadline, intend to start top-level bargaining Monday over some of the broadest contract demands in their bargaining history.
The wreck of the SS Georgiana, which sank on March 19, 1863, was discovered in 1965 by E. Lee Spence, and may or may not have been found on March 19. In 2008, an unidentified editor to Wikipedia would add the statement that “Spence found the wreck exactly 102 years after the ‘Georgiana’s’ loss”, and newspapers began repeating the phrase from Wikipedia for the syndicated “Today in History” column, although there is no indication that Spence himself made any claim that his 1965 discovery came on an anniversary of any sort.
Los Angeles industrialist and art patron Norton Simon paid a nearrecord $2,234,400 for a Rembrandt painting in a suspense-filled auction that saw the bidding reopened after a dispute.
A team led by American biologist Robert W. Holley published the paper “Structure of a Ribonucleic Acid” in the weekly journal Science, first describing the structure of transfer RNA (tRNA), the molecule that “reads” the genetic code encoded by DNA to bring together the correct sequence of amino acids in cellular proteins. Holley would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 for his discovery.
Hundreds of jubilant, cheering and chanting fans swarmed around Maria Callas as the soprano left the Metropolitan Opera House last night after her return to the Met stage.
Cubs radio announcer Jack Quinlan is killed in Arizona when he loses control of his car and slams into the back of a truck. Quinlan was returning from a golf outing.
John Henry (Pop) Lloyd dies in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the age of 80. Considered one of the best black players of the dead-ball era, Lloyd was a line drive hitter whose extraordinary skills at shortstop drew favorable comparisons to Honus Wagner. From 1906 through 1931 he played for 12 Negro League teams, primary with the New York Lincoln Giants. Lloyd later became player-manager and was given the affectionate nickname, “Pop,” by the young players he mentored. Lloyd will be elected to the Hall of Fame by the Negro Leagues Committee in 1977.
Princeton’s dreams of golden basketballs turned into pumpkins tonight. Mighty Michigan, no believer in Cinderella yarns, walloped the Tigers and Bill Bradley, 93-76, in the semifinals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association playoffs. In the other semi-final game, guard Gail Goodrich scored 28 points to lead UCLA back to the finals, beating Wichita, 108–89.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 895.79 (-0.76)
Born:
Mike Alexander, NFL wide receiver (Los Angeles Raiders, Buffalo Bills), in New York, New York
Died:
Gheorghe Gheorgiu-Dej, 63, President of Romania and General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party, died at 5:43 p.m. in Bucharest from complications of lung cancer and liver cancer that had not been detected by his doctors despite a thorough physical examination less than a year earlier, and the Romanian people were not notified of his illness until the day before he died. Nicolae Ceaușescu would become the new General Secretary and de facto leader, while Chivu Stoica would be selected as the new president the following week.
Lavere “Buster” Harding, 53, Canadian-American jazz pianist, composer and arranger (Count Basie; Dizzy Gillespie; Billie Holiday).
John Henry Lloyd, nicknamed “Pop” and “El Cuchara”, 80, American baseball shortstop and manager in the Negro leagues.
History Diaries 