Forty U.S. planes bomb four radar sites in North Vietnam, as Operation ROLLING THUNDER continues. Forty United States Navy planes flew from carriers of the Seventh Fleet today and bombed four radar installations deep in North Vietnam. The raid was the northernmost in the February-March series against North Vietnam. One target, Bạch Long Island, was north of the 20th Parallel. Most previous flights were in the southern third of the Communist territory, between the 17th and 19th Parallels. Two of the Navy jet bombers were lost at sea after the mission, but their pilots were recovered. A Navy spokesman said there was no immediate indication of whether the aircraft had been shot down or had crashed because of mechanical failures. He added that none of the pilots had reported an encounter with enemy planes during the raids.
The Navy bombers were preceded over their targets by flights of jet fighters that attempted to bomb and strafe anti-aircraft installations. In keeping with Defense Department policies, the spokesman declined to say how many jets had flown on the preparatory mission.
Informed sources reported, meanwhile, that Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor, who leaves Saigon tomorrow to report to President Johnson, would urge a continuation and an extension of the strikes against the North. Mr. Taylor, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is known to favor continuing pressure on Hanoi even if the strikes go on for months and begin to focus on industrial rather than military targets. The Ambassador advocated the raids long before they were adopted as American strategy. He has been gratified with the backing he has received from the President since February 7, the date of the Việt Cộng shelling of the Pleiku base in South Vietnam and of the United States air strike that followed.
The Ambassador was also a proponent of a raid last week above the 19th Parallel. He maintained that the strike, 100 miles south of Hanoi, was needed to show that the United States had not drawn an arbitrary line at that parallel. North and South Vietnam are separated by the 17th Parallel. The lower third of the country is the site of many small military installations but no major concentrations. Most large targets are in the central third, between the 19th and 21st Parallels, and a few industrial points are north of the 21st.
After the clash of North Vietnamese and United States naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin last August, American aircraft bombed ports without regard to latitude. But Bạch Long, while not on the North Vietnamese, mainland, was the northernmost target of the post-Tonkin strikes.
Bạch Long is about 60 miles off the coast and 20 miles southeast of Hanoi. Three other mainland radar points were also hit, all at least 160 miles south of Hanoi. They were at Hà Tĩnh, Cap Mũi Ròn and Vĩnh Sơn.
Ammunition and supply centers at Vĩnh Sơn were hit on March 19. The latest strike was the fifth this week. The Navy spokesman said he could give no estimate of damage except to report that two targets were heavily damaged and two were moderately damaged. The 40 bombers, both jets, and propeller-driven aircraft, were launched from the carriers, USS Coral Sea and USS Hancock. The Navy did not disclose the names of the downed pilots, who flew an A-4 Skyhawk and an F-8 Crusader.
In ground action, a day-old South Vietnamese Government operation in Chương Thiện Province, in the lower Mekong River delta, was ended with scant results. The only ground contact during the action, in areas controlled by the Việt Cộng, was reported by elements of a ranger battalion, which killed two Communist soldiers and captured a third. Although no government soldiers were wounded in the operation, a United States Army enlisted man was hit in the arm by fragments from ground fire during a helicopter flight.
The Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee ratifies a defense accord with North Vietnam.
The Soviet Union delivered a note to the United States Embassy today protesting the use of “poisonous gases” by Americans in South Vietnam. The embassy returned it as “unacceptable.”
Communist members bitterly attacked U.S. military action in Vietnam today when the United Nations General Assembly’s peace-keeping finance committee held a 3½-hour organizational meeting. This acrimony, coupled with a hard-line speech on peace-keeping by the Soviet Union, supported earlier fears that the committee will not be able to make progress in its sweeping effort to resolve the peace-keeping crisis. Yugoslavia, with a particularly sharp attack, joined the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania in criticizing “aggression” of the United States in general and the use of gas in particular.
Secretary of State Dean Rusk discussed the Vietnam crisis for more than an hour today with Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the Soviet Ambassador. The meeting, requested by the Soviet envoy, was said to have produced no sign of important change in the situation. It did serve to register Moscow’s continued interest in talks about the problem and in efforts to prevent a drastic deterioration in Soviet-United States relations.
Administration officials indicated that Mr. Dobrynin had reiterated the Soviet Union’s position that it could not do much to arrange a settlement in Vietnam until the United States stopped bombing North Vietnamese targets. Other features of the Soviet line, including vague threats to send “volunteers” to Vietnam and denunciations of the use of gas. did not come up in the conversation. There was an unconfirmed report that the Soviet Ambassador had given Mr. Rusk an indication and explanation of the military aid that the Russians are expected to deliver soon to North Vietnam.
Officials said there had been no appreciable increases in the number of Chinese Communist troop movements that would suggest preparation for major new land engagements. There has been concern here about a possible new turn in the war, stemming from the appeal for assistance from the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam and the prompt, though different, replies by Moscow and Peking.
The Russians spoke of “measures” to improve North Vietnam’s “defense capacity” and said there had been “volunteers” for service in Southeast Asia. The Chinese said they would “join” in providing “all necessary material aid” and declared themselves ready to send their “own men” if the South Vietnamese wanted them. The first reaction here was that these replies extended the disagreement between Moscow and Peking as to which was the better friend of a troubled Communist ally. Officials still do not expect early intervention) by non-Vietnamese ground forces.
Kirill Mazurov became the new First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union, second in governmental rank to Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin. The Soviet Union announced early today a major shuffle in top Government and party posts affecting the management of the national economy. The party’s policy-making Central Committee, at the end of a three-day plenary meeting, shifted Dmitri F. Ustinov, the First Deputy Premier in charge of the Soviet economy, to the post of secretary in the party’s ten-man national secretariat. Mr. Ustinov’s responsibilities in the Government were divided between two relative newcómers in the top echelon of the hierarchy. His duties as First Deputy Premier, under Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin, were taken over by Kirill T. Mazurov, who has been the First Party Secretary of the Byelorussian Republic. The shift was believed to mark the first time in recent Soviet history that a Byelorussian had been appointed to so high a post in the national Government.
Mr. Ustinov’s duties as head of the Supreme National Economic Council, the agency that supervises and coordinates the entire Soviet economy, were assumed by Vladimir N. Novikov, a former chairman of the State Planning Committee. Mr. Novikov has been a minister without portfolio for the last two years. Mr. Novikov was also appointed a Deputy Premier, one of nine in the Government, suggesting the relative downgrading of the post of chairman of the Supreme National Economic Council, which had been held by the First Deputy Premier since it was established in March, 1963. In conjunction with the changes in the Government hierarchy, Mr. Mazurov, who is 50 years old, was raised from alternate to full membership in the party’s ruling Presidium. Mr. Ustinov, 56, was made an alternate member of the top party body.
President Johnson pinned medals today on America’s Gemini astronauts and on two groundling administrators of the space program. Major Virgil I. Grissom and Lieutenant Commander John W. Young landed on the South Lawn of the White House in a helicopter, received their medals in a ceremony in the spacious East Room and rode in triumph in a parade to the Capitol. President Johnson called them, “brave, patriotic, gallant and exceptional young Americans.” In what appeared to be an indirect reference to world acclaim for the feat of a Soviet astronaut who somersaulted in space, Mr. Johnson said: “We are not concerned with stunts and spectaculars, but we are concerned with sure and with steady success.”
In Moscow, the Soviet astronauts said a system failure aboard their Voskhod 2 had forced them to make an extra orbit and to land by manual controls, which caused them to overshoot their target, They also said the Voskhod was capable of changing orbits, as the Gemini is, but had not done so in last week’s flight.
Premier Levi Eshkol of Israel said today that the chances for peace in the Middle East were “not very promising” but that Israel remained strong. Speaking at a news conference after two days of talks with Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Mr. Eshkol said that while Israel could not match her Arab neighbors’ military strength, she had the support of major Western nations. British and Israeli officials would not say if the talks had focused on military or political guarantees. Mr. Eshkol asserted that he had not asked Britain for arms. British spokesmen said that Mr. Wilson took the view that as long as there was a military build-up in the Middle East, all countries had a right to arm themselves in defense.
Pakistan and Communist China signed today an agreement delineating a border region high in the Himalayas and then provided for increased cultural exchanges.
A Pakistan International Airlines flight from Peshawar to Chitral crashed into a mountain peak at 9,000 feet, killing 22 of the 26 people on board. Four passengers were the only survivors.
A deal has been worked out to pay Western oil companies 60 million rupees ($12.6 million) in compensation for the expropriation of installations in Ceylon, according to an authoritative source in Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake’s United National party.
The United Arab Republic offered the United States the Temple of Dendur, which had already been taken apart and prepared for shipment. The 2,000-year-old Temple of Dendur, dismantled and ready for shipment, has been offered to the United States by the United Arab Republic. Awed by the magnitude of the gift, a United States official expressed his gratitude but left acceptance of the offer up to Washington. Egypt ultimately gave the temple to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, which has exhibited it since 1978.
Indonesia’s Information Minister issued “Ministerial Decision No. 29/SK/M/65”, titled “Basic Norms for Press Enterprises within the Context of the Promotion of the Indonesian Press.” All newspapers were required to identify themselves as being formally linked to a political party, “a functional group” or another type of mass organization. Additionally, the editorial and managerial staff had to be selected by the affiliated political party, so that the Ministry could hold the party responsible for content.
After three days of tension and sporadic anti-Asian rioting the people of Kisumu in Kenya were venturing tentatively into sun-washed streets today.
In Birmingham, Alabama, FBI agents arrested four members of the Ku Klux Klan (Eugene Thomas, William Orville Eaton, Collie LeRoy Wilkins, Jr. and Gary Tommy Rowe, Jr.) and charged them with conspiracy to violate the civil rights in the murder of Viola Liuzzo. In announcing the arrests, President Johnson urged that Congress investigate white supremacist organizations and made an appeal to all such groups and said, “Get out of the Klan now, and return to a decent society, before it is too late.” Thomas, Rowe, and Eaton were all released when bonds of $50,000 apiece were posted. [Ed: It is not generally known at this time that Rowe is an FBI informant.]
President Johnson declared war on the Ku Klux Klan today after announcing the arrest of four Klansmen in connection with the slaying last night of a white woman civil rights worker in Alabama. In a dramatic television appearance, the President warned members of the Klan to get out of the white supremacy organizations that bear that name “before it is too late.” He promised to offer legislation to bring the Ku Klux Klan “under effective control of law” and suggested a Congressional investigation of this “hooded society of bigots.” Mr. Johnson was in frequent contact during the night with J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in connection with the shooting of Mrs. Viola Gregg Liuzzo. The victim had been transporting Black demonstrators to Selma after the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.
The young Black man who shared a car with Mrs. Viola Gregg Liuzzo said today that they had been harassed a number of times yesterday before Mrs. Liuzzo was shot to death from a passing car.
The Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc., called the President of the United States a “damn liar” today.
Governor George C. Wallace declared tonight that the murder of Mrs. Viola Gregg Liuzzo on lonely U.S. Highway 80 between Selma and the state capital was an “outrageous” and “cowardly” act. The Alabama Governor said he had ordered state units, in cooperation with Federal agencies, to continue around-the-clock investigation of the crime. He said he would employ additional investigators if necessary. Mr. Wallace said that any Alabamian who took part in any such crime as Mrs. Liuzzo’s slaying was working against the state of Alabama. He urged citizens, as he has done in the past, to practice restraint.
The Governor, who has offered a $1,000 reward for the apprehension of Mrs. Liuzzo’s killers, made no mention of the four Ku Klux Klansmen arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier in the day in connection with the slaying. The Governor’s complete statement said: “It was a cowardly act which was committed Thursday night when a woman was murdered on Highway 80. “Anyone who would participate in any such deed works against the state of Alabama and all its citizens. Such acts of cowardice will not be tolerated. I have ordered all appropriate state agencies to continue around-the-clock investigations of the death of Mrs. Liuzzo, and if necessary I will employ additional investigators to see that the guilty party or parties are brought to justice.”
[Ed: Except, of course, that an Alabama jury would acquit the three men facing charges (Rowe would testify against them). They would never be punished for murder; only on federal charges of violating Ms. Liuzzo’s civil rights.]
Within 24 hours of Liuzzo’s assassination by the Ku Klux Klan and the FBI’s informant Gary Thomas Rowe, J. Edgar Hoover launched a smear campaign against Liuzzo. He leaked false information to the press, subordinate FBI agents, and select politicians, claiming that there were “puncture marks in her arm indicating recent use of a hypodermic needle; she was sitting very, very close to that negro in the car; that it has the appearance of a necking party.”
While attempting to hide the fact that an FBI informant was in the attack car, the FBI wanted to ensure that the agency was not held responsible for permitting its informant to participate in violent acts, without FBI surveillance or backup. Rowe had been an informant for the FBI since 1960. The FBI was aware that Rowe had participated in violent acts with KKK members. These included an attack on the Freedom Riders in 1961, and having a role in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham in September 1963.
Prior to the shooting, Rowe had called his FBI contact to tell him that he and other Klansman were traveling to Montgomery, and that violence was planned. During the investigation, the FBI did not test Rowe’s gun or the bullet casings for his fingerprints. The results of autopsy testing, which was conducted in 1965, revealed that Liuzzo’s system did not contain any traces of drugs. It also showed that she had not recently had sex at the time of her death. It was not until 1978 that the FBI’s role in the smear campaign was uncovered, when Liuzzo’s children obtained case documents from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Liuzzo family sued the FBI for the death of Liuzzo and associated damages. On May 27, 1983, Judge Charles Wycliffe Joiner rejected the claims, saying there was “no evidence the FBI was in any type of joint venture with Rowe or conspiracy against Mrs. Liuzzo. Rowe’s presence in the car was the principal reason why the crime was solved so quickly.” Liuzzo family lawyer Dean A. Robb said, “This is a terrible opinion. I’m shocked. I think this is incredible.” In August 1983, the FBI was awarded $79,873 in court costs. These costs were later reduced to $3,645 after the ACLU appealed on behalf of the family.
[Ed: Abolish the FBI for its recent crimes in support of Joe Biden? No, abolish it because it ALWAYS was an out of control shit show run by J. Edgar, a certified asshole. Fuck the FBI with a red hot poker.]
The House passed the Administration’s $1.3 billion school-aid bill tonight after more than eight hours of argument that split Democrats and Republicans into two hostile camps. The vote was 263 to 153. Voting for the bill were 228 Democrats and 35 Republicans. Voting against were 57 Democrats and 96 Republicans. Republicans bitterly protested what they called “the White House steamroller” that sent the school bill through the House virtually untouched despite nearly 20 attempts to change it. It marked the biggest victory so far this year for President Johnson. No legislation granting broad aid for the nation’s elementary and secondary schools has ever passed the Congress. The bill now goes to the Senate, where committee hearings on similar legislation have been completed.
A group of House Republicans is working on a new “triggering” device for a voting-rights bill that would reach areas of discrimination not covered by the Administration’s measure.
President Johnson has directed Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara to brief Congress periodically on all matters of national interest that do not violate security.
A suspect in a Tennessee bank robbery took a prominent physician as hostage on an automobile ride into northern Georgia tonight. He surrendered when he was surrounded by 25 police cars on a dead-end street in Rome, Georgia.
Harold Pinter’s play “The Homecoming,” which would win a Tony Award for Best Play in 1967, and another in 2008 for Best Revival of a play, was performed for the first time before an audience. The world première took place at the New Theatre, Cardiff, by the Royal Shakespeare Company directed by Peter Hall, prior to opening at the Aldwych Theatre on London’s West End on June 3, and at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway on January 3, 1966.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 891.66 (-6.68)
Born:
Jonathan Glazer, English filmmaker (“The Zone of Interest”), in London, England, United Kingdom.
Died:
Alice Herz, 82, who had immolated herself to protest the Vietnam War 10 days prior.
History Diaries 