The United States indicated today that its attacks on North Vietnam would stop when Hanoi ceased its support and direction of “terror and military action” in South Vietnam. At a later stage, the Administration added, it would be “ready and eager” to withdraw its forces from Vietnam if “new ways” were devised to guard against aggression. Thus, it said, conditions would be created in which the people of South Vietnam could determine their own future free “from external interference.” This arrangement of issues for possible negotiation or tacit agreement was contained in a formal White House reply to 17 nations that had petitioned President Johnson to accept negotiations without “preconditions.” The reply repeated the President’s offer in a major policy speech last night to enter into “unconditional discussions,” but it also set the terms for any eventual cease-fire and American withdrawal.
North Vietnam Premier Phạm Văn Đồng, at a meeting of the National Assembly, sets forth the four points that the North Vietnamese see as conditions for negotiations and peace: independence for all Vietnamese, non-intervention by foreign powers, political settlement of all issues, and reunification of the country. These four points will remain fixed as the Communists” non-negotiable conditions. Phạm Văn Đồng delivered his nation’s “Four Points” plan for ending the Vietnam War, as drafted by a team of foreign relations officials under his leadership and that of President Hồ Chí Minh, Communist Party First Secretary Lê Duẩn, and Foreign Minister Nguyễn Duy Trinh. The North Vietnamese demands were unacceptable to the United States and South Vietnam, primarily because they were based on the Việt Cộng provisions for “the peaceful reunification of Vietnam without foreign intervention.” Essentially, North Vietnam will accept nothing less than the annexation of the South under its own Communist regime.
A mutiny by 20 young officers ousted Admiral Chung Tấn Cang as commander of the South Vietnamese Navy in an action “that evidently had the government’s blessing.” The military junta governing South Vietnam did not order a response, and one U.S. official commented that Cang, an associate of recently ousted President Nguyễn Khánh, “has been a thorn in our side”, because of his lack of cooperation in moving military supplies.
Along jungle-shrouded canals and paddy fields near this town on the Mekong River Delta a battle, just ended, matched United States air power against infantry weapons from Communist China. The Communists lost. The battle, in which the South Vietnamese Army gained one of its most decisive victories over the Việt Cộng, painted up the changing character of the war. Broadened United States involvement could be seen not only in jet strikes in close support of Vietnamese infantry but also in the death of six American servicemen.
From the bodies of members of the shattered regular Việt Cộng force were taken Chinese copies of the latest Soviet rifles and automatic weapons. The weapons had been transported hundreds of miles, probably by sea, and landed on Cà Mau, on the coast at the most southern tip of Vietnam. Once, Việt Cộng regulars mainly carried captured American weapons, as the guerrillas still do. The crack Vietnamese 21st Division, which mans a thin defense line through the southern section of the great delta, initiated the three-day battle as a probe.
At Vị Thanh, 110 miles southwest of Saigon, where the 31st Regiment of the 21st Division is stationed, the battle was reconstructed from accounts given by American and Vietnamese participants. The target area lay about 24 miles southwest of here, about a day’s march from the U Minh forest. The forest had been held unchallenged by Communists for nearly two decades. The operation began Sunday with a diversionary sweep through Việt Cộng guerrilla country 24 miles south of Vị Thanh.
The target area lay within a huge quadrangle formed by tree-lined canals. When the second Battalion of the 31st Regiment attacked from the southeast toward the base of the quadrangle, it immediately encountered fire from the Việt Cộng dug in along the canals. In succession, the 42nd and 44th Ranger Battalions were taken in by helicopter to support the Second Battalion. Lieutenant David W. Bowman of McRae, Georgia, an Army adviser, was killed by small-arms fire. Then air strikes began in support of the pinned-down troops. into the open from dug-in positions were pounded by 12 B47 jet bombers, 20 Americanpiloted Skyraiders and 20 Skyraiders manned by Vietnamese. Before moving back to Vị Thanh, Vietnamese troops counted 258 Việt Cộng bodies. They took 33 prisoners. Government casualties were said to be 21 dead and 85 wounded.
U.S. jets fly 63 sorties against Việt Cộng concentrations in Kon Tum Province.
The United States Air Force has moved 18 of its most advanced interceptor jets, the F-4C Phantom II’s, into eastern Thailand, reliable sources said today.
A Vietnamese military tribunal sentenced to death today a Việt Cộng terrorist involved in the United States Embassy bombing March 30. The time of the execution was not announced but it was expected to follow soon. Earlier this week the Vietcong radio announced that if any of the terrorists accused in the Embassy bombing were executed, it would shoot an American captive in reprisal. The American is Gustav C. Hertz, 46-year-old United States aid mission official, who was captured February 2. The death sentence was given to Nguyễn Văn Hải, 27 years old, who was captured at the scene of the explosion. Another man implicated in the bombing. Đỗ Ngọc Chánh, 22, was sentenced to life imprisonment. A third alleged Việt Cộng member, Trần Văn Đông, was tried separately later in the day and sentenced to five years imprisonment.
Hanoi Hattie and Hanoi Hannah are broadcasting to United States troops in South Vietnam, warning them in accented English that “there is no safety for you Americans anywhere in the country.”
China’s President Liu Shaoqi hosted North Vietnam’s Lê Duẩn in Beijing, and made a commitment for military and economic aid to Hanoi, including the supply of Chinese pilots to provide defense against U.S. bombing.
Two U.S. Navy F-4B Phantom fighters flew into Chinese airspace and were tracked by radar flying over the Yulin Naval Base on Hainan Island, but departed before the Chinese military could respond to an alert.
The Peking radio said today President Johnson’s offer of peace negotiations on Vietnam was a trick. It said his speech Wednesday was “full of lies and deceptions.” The first reaction by Peking to the proposals came in a broadcast by the official Peking radio. The official press agency Hsinhua later distributed the dispatch.
Leonid Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist party, celebrated the signing of a new Soviet-Polish treaty of friendship today by accusing the United States of using “poison gas” in Vietnam.
The U.N. Secretary General, U Thant, sent a personal note to President Johnson today in which he welcomed the President’s speech on Southeast Asia as “positive, forward-looking and generous.”
Secretary of State Dean Rusk today sought understanding and support for the United States’ position on Vietnam from members of the Central Treaty Organization. Although American officials said the response was “positive,” other diplomats reported indifferences to the President’s appeal.
The Soviet Union resumed its off-and-on blockade of allied vehicles today, skillfully evading United States attempts to assert the right of unrestricted access to Berlin. The 110-mile autobahn linking Berlin with West Germany was closed twice during the day. Both times, allied vehicles were held up, and official protests delivered on the spot were to no avail. East German frontier policemen shoved red-and-white painted barriers across both ends of the highway at 9 AM for a three-hour shutdown. The second closure began at 5 PM and lasted five hours. The ostensible reason for stopping traffic in both instances was the maneuvers being conducted by Soviet and East German army forces midway between Berlin and the West German border.
During the morning shutdown, the United States attempted to assert its right of unrestricted passage by dispatching two convoys of Army trucks across the Communist, territory. A three-vehicle convoy bound for West Germany cleared Checkpoint Bravo at the Berlin end before the 9 AM. shutdown but was halted after having moved 14 miles. Blocking it was a Soviet jeep placed across the road. Soviet authorities dallied over United States protests until the shutdown was over. The convoy was then allowed to proceed unhindered to West Germany. A 22-vehicle Berlin-bound column drove up to the West Ger man end of the autobahn 20 minutes before the morning shutdown ended at noon. Routine processing of the convoy commander’s travel papers, a matter of half an hour, averted what allied officials call a “confrontation.”
A United States spokesman here described the convoy crossing as normal. Soviet authorities also appeared interested in averting a showdown over their three-day-old warning to the Western powers to keep their aircraft flying to and from Berlin above an altitude of 6,500 feet. This restriction, which the Western side termed invalid, was also declared by the Russians to be justified by the week-long maneuvers now underway. British sources said the Russians revoked the “restriction” today with respect to the northern air corridor linking West Berlin with Hamburg. They said there was no immediate intention to challenge the altitude rule on the remaining two corridors.
A plot to overthrow the leaders of Bulgaria was foiled by the arrest of the commander of the Bulgarian Army garrison in Sofia, Major General Tsvyatko Anev. Ivan Todorov-Gorunia, a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party Central Committee and the leader of the nine-man conspiracy, committed suicide before he could be caught. The plan, co-ordinated by a group of party officials and military leaders, was to force the overthrow of Secretary General Todor Zhivkov and his allies at the April 14 Central Committee meeting. Ultimately, more than 250 military officers were dismissed and 192 members of the Party were imprisoned.
President Cemal Gursel said today Turkish intervention in Cyprus was “possible, even probable.” He declared: “One hundred thousand Turks on the island are being subjected to barbaric oppression before the eyes of the whole civilized world. The United States should realize this and know that Turkey might intervene.” In the last few days since Turkey’s abrupt rejection of a report submitted by the United Nations mediator for Cyprus, Galo Plaza Lasso, there has been rising anti-Western feeling in Turkey combined with bitter criticism of Greece. The Turks feel let down by the West over Cyprus.
The Merger Treaty (or “Brussels Treaty”), a European treaty which combined the executive bodies of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Economic Community (EEC) into a single institutional structure, was signed in Brussels. It would enter into force on July 1, 1967, after being ratified by the six member nations.
India and Pakistan clashed at the border between their two nations around the disputed Rann of Kutch, with Pakistani troops attacking police posts in the western Indian state of Gujarat, and Indian troops striking at guard posts in the southeastern Pakistani province of Sindh.
The Soviet Union and Poland renewed the “Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance” that they had signed on April 21, 1945.
President Mohammad Ayub Khan of Pakistan toasted the “growing friendship and understanding” between his country and the Soviet Union today at a Kremlin reception given by President Anastas I. Mikoyan.
Premier Fidel Castro announced today that by Tuesday more than four million tons of sugar of the current harvest had been produced and urged the nation to make an all-out effort to reach 5.1 million tons by May 1.
Cuban Premier Fidel Castro’s police swooped down at dawn in Havana to arrest 40 Baptist preachers and 13 laymen, including two Americans.
The Spanish Government, in its feud with Britain over Gibraltar, tried to cut off all supplies of oxygen for hospitals and other uses in the colony, a British Government spokesman disclosed in the House of Lords tonight.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has taken an important step toward establishing international controls over atomic energy by conducting surprise inspections of the Yankee Atomic Electric Company’s power plant in Rowe, Massachusetts.
The decline of the chaperone has contributed to the recent increase of venereal disease among young people in many countries, according to a study published today by the World Health Organization.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 313–115 to approve the Medicare program, and sent the bill on to the U.S. Senate. The vote came after only one day of debate. With 513 amendments, the bill would pass the U.S. Senate, 70–24, on July 28, and be signed into law on July 30. The House overwhelmingly approved a vast medical insurance plan for the aged, the first time the House had accepted any kind of Medicare. The action, hailed by Democratic spokesmen as a towering landmark in legislative history, came on an expanded version of the original Administration bill.
President Johnson also saluted passage of the measure. “This is a landmark day in the historic evolution of our Social Security system,” he said in a statement at the White House. The revised measure would set up a voluntary insurance program, covering physicians’ fees and various other services, to supplement the basic provisions for hospital care, nursing home care and visiting nurse services proposed by the Administration. The basic benefits, financed by higher Social Security taxes, would be automatically available to persons over 65 whether or not they were eligible for old age payments under the present Social Security law.
Senate liberals rammed through the Judiciary Committee five amendments to broaden the administration voting rights bill by outlawing the poll tax and other means. A bipartisan group of nine liberals on the Senate Judiciary Committee revolted against the committee’s leadership today and adopted five amendments to broaden and toughen the voting rights bill. The two most important would outlaw the poll tax as a voting qualification in state and local elections and extend the automatic coverage of the bill to a number of counties where discrimination would otherwise have to be determined by the courts. The amendments were opposed by the Senate Republican leader, Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois. He is the ranking minority member on the committee. The other amendments adopted would:
- Eliminate the requirement that a Black must try to register within the preceding 90 days and be refused before going to a Federal registrar. The liberals argued that in some places, Blacks were afraid to approach the local registrar. Under the amended bill. the Black could go directly to the Federal registrar.
- Permit the Federal registrar to designate persons, who would be recruited by the Civil Service Commission, to act as Federal Poll watchers to insure that the Blacks who had been registered were allowed to vote and that their votes were counted.
- Provide criminal penalties against any citizen who is convicted of interfering, or trying to interfere, with the right to vote. The bill had covered only interference by officials, or those acting under color of law. The penalties are a $5,000 fine, or five years in jail, or both.
Gunfire and demonstrations heightened racial tensions in the southeast Louisiana mill town of Bogalusa today as Black leaders vowed to press their demands for equality with a march on City Hall. At a mass meeting tonight, James Farmer, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality, announced that he would lead a Black march on the City Hall tomorrow morning. A day of confusion and emotion began shortly after midnight with a flurry of shots at a Black residence where two white civil rights workers were housed. After the shooting was over it was unclear who had been involved, how many shots had been fired, and what — if anything — had been hit. But the incident set off widespread excitement.
Administration forces repulsed four GOP attempts to attach Senate amendments to President Johnson’s school aid bill. Administration forces knocked down amendment after amendment today as the $1.3 billion school aid bill moved toward almost certain Senate passage tomorrow.
In a victory for the Johnson administration, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reversed itself and voted to restore $115 million it had cut previously from military assistance funds in the huge foreign aid authorization bill.
George Meany, head of the American Labor movement, said today that it was prepared to leave the International Labor Organization. Mr. Meany charged that Communist-bloc nations within the organization had been trying to turn it into a political propaganda group. In the last two years, he said, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organization has been “completely dissatisfied” with efforts of the United States Government to resist this development. Political battles belong in the United Nations, Mr. Meany declared, and the I.L.O. should limit its concern to the welfare of working people.
A proposal for a graduated withholding tax, with more taxes withheld on higher incomes, may be submitted to Congress by the Administration this year.
Los Angeles may have the most irritating smog problem in the nation, a Senate subcommittee heard, but its smog apparently is less dangerous to health than the polluted air which sometimes covers New York.
A Senate hearing was scheduled on disclosure that mail addressed to some delinquent taxpayers has been given to the Internal Revenue Service by the Post Office Department.
James B. Carey refused to resign his high AFL-CIO post despite election fraud charges. George Meany, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, said today that James B. Carey had refused his request to resign from the federation’s executive council.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 897.9 (+4.96)
Born:
Scott Mersereau, NFL nose tackle and defensive tackle (New York Jets), in Riverhead, New York.
Died:
Major General John K. Hester, 48, commander of the U.S. 17th Air Force at Ramstein Air Force Base in West Germany, five days after being seriously injured in a parachute jump.
Lars Hanson, 78, Swedish stage and film star.
History Diaries 