Secretary Dean Rusk insists at a news conference that the United States is ‘not embarking upon gas warfare,’ but is merely employing ‘a gas which has been commonly adopted by the police forces of the world as riot-control agents.’ It will be revealed on 1 April that British personnel have used the same type of gas 124 times in the past five years.
The Asian Communists have begun a propaganda campaign to exploit the disclosure that gas has been used against the Việt Cộng in South Vietnam.
In testimony before a Senate committee, Secretary of Defense McNamara claims that if the Communists are allowed to win in Vietnam, the United States will have to renew the struggle elsewhere. On this same day, John McNaughton, Assistant Secretary of Defense for international security affairs and one of McNamara’s most trusted associates, drafts a crucial memo titled ‘Plan for Action for South Vietnam,’ to be used in the National Security Council sessions on 1-2 April.
U.S. jets and South Vietnamese A-1H Skyraiders attack North Vietnam radar and military radio stations around Đồng Hới and sink four ships at Quảng Khê harbor.
United States officials in Saigon foresee air strikes against North Vietnam continuing for several months before their effect on the Hanei Government can be measured.
It appears that the United States has established a bulwark against continuing Communist aggression in northern Laos. The operation, conducted in secret, has been going on for nine months.
The official Chinese Communist newspaper says that China is ready to aid the Việt Cộng with men and materiel if requested, but it is clear from the statement that the Chinese are releasing it to pre-empt the Soviet Union by appearing as a closer ally of the Vietnamese. The Jenmin Jih Pao editorial was the most direct commitment made by Peking of military support for the Vietnamese Communists against the United States-supported forces of the South Vietnamese Government. It declared: “We Chinese people firmly respond to the statement of the South Vietnam National Liberation Front and will join the people of the whole world in sending all necessary material aid, including arms and other war materials, to the heroic South Vietnamese people who are battling fearlessly.”
“We are ready to send our own men,” the editorial added, “whenever the South Vietnamese people want them, to fight together with the South Vietnamese people to annihilate the United States aggressors.” The statement did not specify whether this offer of military manpower would take the form of so-called volunteers, as in the Korean war, or regular Chinese Communist units.
The first “teach-in” on the Vietnam War took place at Angell Hall at the University of Michigan, with 49 members of the faculty speaking, and was attended by 2,500 participants in the antiwar movement over the next two days. Because the university would not allow the event on campus during regular class hours, the faculty started at 8:00 in the evening and conducted presentations until 8:00 the next morning. The organizer, the Faculty Committee to Stop the War in Viet Nam, set an event at Columbia University the next night and at 25 other universities over the following three weeks.
Harib, an important republican stronghold in Southeast Yemen, has fallen to royalist forces in a bloody battle. The loss of the town has brought new tensions along the border with the British-backed Federation of South Arabia. Harib, formerly used as a center for gun-running to rebels fighting the British in the federation, was bombed a year ago by British planes. The action touched off a sharp debate in the United Nations Security Council. The British have accused Yemeni republican forces and their Egyptian supporters of new attacks on federation territory in the last week and have warned the Yemeni Government through American diplomatic channels not to try to move through the Arabian Federation in any attempt to retake Harib.
About 25 persons have been killed and scores injured in three days of demonstrations by teenagers, occasional gunfire and rioting in Casablanca, Morocco. Property damage has been heavy. Calm had returned to the city tonight, but the air was tense. The Moroccan Government put the toll at seven dead with 45 wounded among the security forces. A curfew from 9 PM to 6 AM has been ordered. The government said 168 persons had been arrested. A general strike was called today by the left-wing Moroccan Workers Union in sympathy for the Muslim high school students whose nonpolitical protest Monday against education cutbacks began the trouble. The strike paralyzed the railroads, the ports. the airport and most industries.
A mail and telegraph boycott by Communist postal workers in Indonesia against the United States Embassy and American news agencies was largely lifted today. Dr. Subandrio, Indonesian Foreign Minister, called in union leaders late yesterday and ordered them to end the boycott. Clerks who refused yesterday to transmit messages for United Press International and The Associated Press accepted them today and were once more delivering incoming communications. A spokesman said the embassy had begun receiving messages but not mail. Ellsworth Bunker, who is being sent to Jakarta as a special envoy by President Johnson, was expected to arrive this weekend to confer on the rapidly deteriorating relations between Indonesia and the United States.
Israeli Premier Levi Eshkol aarived in London for a six-day state visit and said today that he was convinced world statesmanship could play an important role in creating a peaceful atmosphere in the Mideast.
West Germany has prevailed upon Israel to accept a commitment of economic support as a substitute for its canceled military aid program, informed sources said today. This compromise outcome of the negotiations in Jerusalem, which came close to the breaking point last weekend, is believed in Bonn to have assured the early establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Chancellor Ludwig Erhard’s representative, Dr. Kurt Birrenbach, is expected to fly back to Israel Monday for his third and final round of talks with the Israeli Government.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk was reported tonight to have told Cyprus’ Foreign Minister of United States concern over the expected installation of Soviet ground-to-air missiles on Cyprus.
India re-imposed President’s Rule on the state of Kerala, with control of the state being administered by the national government until a stable state government could be restored. Administration from Delhi would continue until 1967.
The Bombay High Court yesterday ordered the sale by auction of the 10,500-ton American freighter Ponderosa, which has been under “arrest” in the harbor here for nine months.
The post-election crisis in Ceylon appeared to be moving toward a solution early today after long maneuvering by leftists yesterday to keep Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike in office as Prime Minister.
Premier Fidel Castro’s armed forces disclosed today that vast maneuvers were held in central Cuba last month involving various army divisions, tank formations, artillery, the air force and “chemical” troops.
Nicolae Ceaușescu strongly reaffirmed Rumania’s policy of national independence in his maiden speech today as head of the Workers’ (Communist) party.
Crawford H. Greenwalt, chairman of the Radio Free Europe Fund, called today for privately operated radio broadcasts to the Far East to counter anti-American propaganda.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a triumphal Freedom March into Montgomery this afternoon. The marchers stopped for the night 1.7 miles inside the city and prepared for the last leg of their historic Selma-to-Montgomery march, a 3½-mile walk to the state Capitol tomorrow. The marchers were joined tonight by thousands of other Blacks and white sympathizers. A crowd estimated at more than 10,000 gathered for a mass meeting and a show by leading entertainers. Governor George C. Wallace went on television tonight with another appeal to Alabamians to stay away from the march and avoid causing violence. He said the federal government’s protection of the marchers would cost the taxpayers “at least $1 million.”
City officials expect 30,000 persons to join Dr. King and the marchers as they parade through the heart of the first capital of the Confederacy tomorrow. A delegation will try to present a petition for Black rights to Governor Wallace, but there was still no indication that the Governor would receive it. An aide said Governor Wallace would be at the Capitol tomorrow, contrary to expectations. The Governor responded to the march today by declaring tomorrow a legal holiday for all women employees of the state. In making the holiday announcement. Bill Jones, the Governor’s press secretary, refused to elaborate. But John Frazer, the State Personnel Director, said: “Traffic will be heavy tomorrow.”
City police officials are anxious over the possibility of a sit-in at the Capitol by militant civil rights advocates if Governor Wallace refuses to receive the petition. The Federal Community Relations Service and Montgomery leaders worked behind the scenes today for an agreement that would permit a small delegation of Alabama Blacks to deliver a petition to the Governor or a designated aide. City officials are also concerned over security problems. No serious violence was reported along the march or in the city today. But with thousands of people flocking here from the East, North and West, the security problems may be difficult tomorrow.
The Army and National Guard are still on hand with troops deployed through the city to add muscle to the city police force. An Army spokesman said the Army and Guard had several hundred troops in the city and several hundred more standing by “readily available.” It was known that about 1,000 Army military policemen and about 900 National Guardsmen were in the city, many of them waiting in a downtown National Guard armory for possible call.
Tear gas and live ammunition were being kept handy. Thirty chartered planes are expected to arrive with 2,804 civil rights advocates between 4:30 AM and 10 AM tomorrow. Not enough buses are available in the city to transport them from the airport, which is more than five miles from downtown Montgomery. That alone will present “an immense problem of security,” a federal official said. The city was tense tonight, jammed with thousands of strangers, civilian and military. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference distributed a mimeographed statement to all people arriving for the march. It said: “All participants are urged to disperse with as much efficiency and speed as possible… Stragglers must not remain in the city.”
The last day of the march on Montgomery here tomorrow is expected to be a crucial test of this city’s new policy of compliance with the constitutional guarantees of peaceful assembly. Montgomery has not always tolerated Black attempts to protest grievances, even on a smaller scale, But the new currents running through the city administration were underlined today by the contrast between the city’s plans for tomorrow and those of Governor George C. Wallace.
Late today Governor Wallace declared tomorrow a “legal holiday” for “all female employees” of state agencies here — a number estimated to be more than half of the 6,000 state employees in the capital. This gesture was generally viewed here as an attempt to emphasize the anxiety of many white segregationists for the safety of their women. The city, on the other hand, has resisted what one official today called “the counsels of panic.” Merchants and city officials declined a suggestion that they, too, declare a commercial holiday in the downtown area.
Tentative agreement on a voting rights bill described as being considerably stronger than the Johnson administration’s measure was reached by House Republican leaders.
From concept to birth, Medicare has provided a classic case study for political historians. And when they set it down, the star will be Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Arkansas), who administered the delivery.
The seemingly dormant church-state issue rose to haunt the Democrats today as Republicans mounted an attack on the Administration’s $1.3 billion school aid bill.
Ranger 9 impacted into the Alphonsus crater on the Moon at 9:08 a.m. Eastern Time, after taking 6,150 high resolution photos and transmitting them to Earth. For the first time, viewers were able to watch lunar photos on live television as the digital data from the probe was being assembled. The 10-foot, 800-pound vehicle was the last of the Ranger series, which carried out a photographic reconnaissance program for Project Apollo, aiming for a manned landing on the moon about 1970. Ranger 9 produced what are expected to be the most detailed views ever obtained of the moon’s surface, and it yielded the first instant television views from distant reaches of space.
The moon is about 245,000 miles away. The only previous live telecasts from space have been from satellites within a few hundred miles of the earth. A panel of scientists working with the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory here in analyzing Ranger Project pictures was enthusiastic about today’s new harvest of 5,814 pictures taken in the last 19 minutes of flight.
Gemini pilot Virgil (“Gus”) Grissom returned from five hours in space aboard Gemini 3 to get mundanely seasick while waiting 28 minutes to be picked up from his bobbing spaceship.
Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee proposed today that the Internal Revenue Service be required to make public some of the 40,000 special tax rulings for individuals and businesses that it makes each year.
U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy became the first person to reach the top of the 13,900-foot (4,200 m) tall Mount Kennedy in the Saint Elias Mountains of Canada, located in the Yukon Territory. Kennedy was part of an eight-man team sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the Boston Museum of Science, seven of whom were experienced mountain climbers, including Jim Whittaker, the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest, and Dee Molenaar. After the peak, never climbed, was named in honor of the late John F. Kennedy in 1964, his brother Robert was invited to be part of the expedition. The other experts stopped a few feet below the summit to let the Senator plant flags and place a memento at the top.
A leading spokesman for the tobacco industry urged Congress today not to require the printing of a health warning on cigarette packages.
The New York Stock Exchange and four major member firms and their partners have been named defendants in a suit filed last week in Federal District Court in Chicago charging them with violating the antitrust laws by setting minimum commission rates on stock purchases.
Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice N.B. Johnson was impeached today by the State House of Representatives on two counts of selling favorable opinions. He is the third member of the state’s highest court to be accused in a $150,000 payoff.
Geneticists Mary Weiss and Boris Ephrussi published the first report of the production of what they described as “the first viable interspecific hybrids”, the crossing of genetic material of cells from two different species (in this case, a rat and a mouse). Over a month’s time, they had grown a culture of several different cells that had increased with 25 cell divisions.
More than 10,000 Norwegian men have begun an 18-month study to learn whether a tablespoon of linseed oil a day can prevent heart attacks.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 900.56 (+1.87)
Born:
Peter Jacobson, American actor (‘Dr. Chris Taub’ – “House”), in Chicago, Illinois.
The Undertaker [stage name for Mark William Calaway], American professional wrestler; in Houston, Texas.
Darrin Miller, NFL linebacker (Seattle Seahawks), in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
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