Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• 7/1962 Johnny Rosselli complains to associates of harassment by FBI and Justice Dept.
  
• 7/1962 McNamara declared, "Every quantitative measurement we have shows we are winning this war" in Vietnam.
  
• 7/1/1962 Marina writes to the Russian embassy in Washington, requesting that her Residence Permit (passport) be registered. (H 18 481-5)
  
• 7/1/1962 Algerians voted for independence
  
• 7/2/1962 Raul Castro and a high-level Cuban military delegation arrive in Moscow, where they are met at the airport by Marshal Rodion Malinovsky and Anastas Mikoyan . Nikita Khrushchev subsequently meets with Raúl Castro on July 3 and 8. During these discussions, detailed arrangements are made for the missile deployment. According to the formal agreement, which is renewable every five years, the missiles and their servicing will be completely under the jurisdiction of the Soviet military command. Raul Castro spends a total of two weeks consulting with Soviet officials before returning to Cuba on July 17. (Alekseyev, p. 9; Medvedev, p. 184; Garthoff 2, p.67)
  
• 7/3/1962 France recognizes the independence of Algeria.
  
• 7/3/1962 FBI in Washington created a new file on Oswald under the slug line 105 ("internal security").
  
• 7/4/1962 JFK said in a speech that he looked forward to a "declaration of interdependence" that would strengthen ties between the US and Europe.
  
• 7/4/1962 It is revealed that the government is looking into charges of illegal sale of federal rice-planting allotments in Texas.
  
• 7/4/1962 Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, deputy PM and minister of the armed forces, has secret talks with Khrushchev in Moscow.
  
• 7/4/1962 Algerian army officers loyal to Ben Bella seized the provisional government's embassy in Morocco.
  
• 7/5/1962 The film Panic in Year Zero! is released in the US by AIP. Low-budget but realistic and effective, it stars Ray Milland (who also directed) trying to keep his family alive in California in the aftermath of a limited nuclear exchange.
  
• 7/5/1962 Lansdale told RFK that the organizing of anti-Castro forces in Florida was going well.
  
• Early to mid 7/1962 Marguerite Oswald comes to Fort Worth to visit, and decided to rent an apartment in that city. Lee and Marina moved in with her and Marguerite helped him find a job. Oswald was distant with his mother, and they soon found their own apartment.
  
• 7/6/1962 US lifted severe travel restrictions on Soviet visitors.
  
• 7/9/1962 Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States of America on July 9, 1962, a joint effort of the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Launched via a Thor rocket and carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (manufactured by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 4 reentry vehicle, the explosion took place 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was one of five tests conducted by the USA in outer space as defined by the FAI. It produced a yield of 1.4 megatons of TNT.
  
• 7/9/1962 N. Reznichenko, chief of consular section at the Russian embassy in Washington, sent a note asking Marina Oswald to forward her passport for registration. (H 18 487-88)
  
• 7/10/1962 US communications satellite Telstar is launched into orbit, allowing direct television between US and Europe. It was a joint government-industry project.
  
• 7/11/1962 Treasury Dept issued new rules giving business a tax cut in the form of greater allowances for depreciation of machinery and equipment.
  
• 7/11/1962 Khrushchev denounced Kennedy's "willingness to 'take the initiative' in a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union..."
  
• 7/12/1962 NYT first mentions the coming film, The Manchurian Candidate, based on the novel by Richard Condon, is set for fall release. Frank Sinatra will reportedly be instrumental in suppression of the film after 1963 until 1987, at which time it will be re-released. Other accounts say the film was withdrawn over copyright ownerships issues. In any case, the film achieved cult status the 25 years it was not available. Sinatra discussed the film with JFK prior to the end of their friendship in Sept 1962. (Interviews included in Manchurian Candidate video release 1988)
  
• 7/12/1962 The first privately owned satellite, Telstar (AT&T), relayed TV programs across the Atlantic.
  
• 7/12/1962 Abe Ribicoff resigned as Sec. of HEW to run for the Senate.
  
• 7/13/1962 Oswald pays $10.00 (cash) against State Dept travel loan. It was posted 8/14/62 from 270 Mercedes St., Fort Worth (CE 1120)
  
• 7/14/1962 The Oswalds moved into a two-room apartment in Ft Worth.
  
• 7/14/1962 JFK named Anthony Celebrezze as new Sec. of HEW.
  
• 7/15/1962 Around this time, Soviet cargo ships begin moving out of the Black Sea for Cuba with false declarations of their destinations and reporting tonnages well below their capacities. Aerial reconnaissance of the ships in the following months showing them "riding high in the water" would confirm that the vessels carried unusually light cargo, typically a sign that military equipment is being transported.
  
• 7/15/1962 The OAS (Secret Army Organization) formally surrenders to the French government, though rogue elements remain active.
  
• 7/16/1962 Oswald found a job as a sheet-metal worker for the Louv-R-Pak division of the Leslie Welding Co. He lied on his application, saying he had done sheet metal work in the Marines and was honorably discharged. He didn't like the menial work, but did his job in a satisfactory manner. Marina said Oswald would leave his ring at home when he went to work. Relations in the apartment were strained; Marguerite distrusted Marina and suspected that she could really speak English, and thought that perhaps both of them had become Russian spies. She also felt in competition with Marina. (Marina and Lee 229; Case Closed 81)
  
• 7/16/1962 Mary Pinchot Meyer supposedly turned JFK on to cannabis; he joked, "We're having a White House conference on narcotics here in two weeks." After the third joint, he said, "No more. Suppose the Russians did something now." (It Didn't Start with Watergate)
  
• 7/17/1962 Raúl Castro leaves Moscow after two weeks of secret talks with Nikita Khrushchev and other high-ranking Soviet officials on the scheduled deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Although aware of the military make-up of the Cuban delegation, the fact that no public communiqué is issued after the visit leads the U.S. intelligence community at first to believe that the mission had failed. Upon his return to Cuba, Raúl Castro tells a gathering that neither internal uprisings nor exile landings are a threat, only a U.S. invasion, which, he said, "we can now repel." (Forwarding of and Comments on CIA Memo on Soviet Aid to Cuba, 8/22/62; Allison, p. 48; Garthoff 2, p. 67)
  
• 7/18/1962 Peru: military coup.
  
• 7/19/1962 JFK declared that the military coup in Peru was a "serious setback" for the Alliance for Progress; he suspended nearly all aid to Peru.
  
• 7/19/1962 In the Pacific, the US had its first successful interception of an intercontinental missile by an anti-missile missile.
  
• 7/20/1962 JFK announced that Lauris Norstad would resign as NATO commander and would be replaced by Lyman Lemnitzer. Max Taylor was appointed new Chairman of the JCS.
  
• 7/22/1962 The Miami Herald - Anti-Castro War Camp Ruled Out by Exiles By James BUCHANAN Herald Staff Writer Anti-Castro Cubans and their American supporters have been forced to drop plans for a large guerrilla warfare training camp near New Orleans, The Herald learned Saturday. The site, on the north edge of Lake Pontchartrain 40 miles north of New Orleans, was donated this spring by an anonymous U.S. businessman. The training of anti-Castro Cubans and the camp itself, were to have been commanded by Gerald Patrick Heming, a 25-year-old soldier of fortune well known to Cubans here. The "stop order" came from the Cuban Revolutionary Council's Miami headquarters, which advised its New Orleans associates they could not support any clandestine training sites in the United States. Preparations for activating the guerrilla warfare school were begun last February as New Orleans' Cuban colony began rounding up arms, ammunition and money for the Venture. Reportedly, they were successful in raising large sums of money and acquiring large stocks of late model weapons. Patrick made Innumerable trips between Miami and New Orleans during the past four months preparing the site, which is complete with an airstrip, for July occupancy. Plans had called for the training of 50 to 75 Cubans in classes lasting from six to eight weeks. At the completion of the "courses" the guerrilla fighters would have been ready to infiltrate Cuba where they would work with local underground leaders in sabotage and operations against Castro's army and militia. Louis Rabell, the New Orleans representative of the Cuban Revolutionary Council headed by Dr. Miro Cardona, confirmed the Council had ordered the camp closed before it opened. In Miami it was said that public knowledge of the proposed camp became too widespread and the Council wanted, to dodge any connection with a large scale operation on which the U.S. State Department and Central Intelligence Agency would frown. Hemming who operates under the name Jerry Patrick, has been active in anti-Castro activities here since late 1960. He had been active in Cuba since 1958 with Castro's forces and defected. Leading first one group and then another, Patrick' finally settled upon the name International Penetration Force" for his organization and began guerrilla training of Cuban refugees here with money supplied by the Cuban colony. A 6-foot, 5-inch, 231 pounder, Patrick has abandoned the long hair, pointed beard, and Australian bush hat he wore for more than a year during his early activities here. A veteran of four years with the Marine Corps, he now dresses as unobtrusively as possible and is still considered one of the most ardent and effective Americans working with the anti-Castro forces.
  
• 7/23/1962 Lansdale recommended to McNamara that the US provoke Castro into something rash, like an attack on Guantanamo, and then use it as a pretext to invade.
  
• 7/23/1962 Second Geneva Conference adopts neutrality policy on Laos which theoretically would stop the North Vietnamese from using that country to infiltrate South Vietnam. 14 nations, including the US, USSR, China and North & South Vietnam, signed the pact.
  
• 7/23/1962 Honolulu conference: McNamara sounded more optimistic in a report about the military situation in Vietnam. That day he also asked Harkins how long he thought it would take to neutralize the Vietcong. McNamara decided that three years, including a phased withdrawal of US advisers, would do the job. (In Retrospect p48-49) On July 23, 1962, the day on which the United States joined thirteen other nations at Geneva in signing the "Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos," Robert McNamara convened another Secretary of Defense Conference on the Vietnam War, this one at Camp Smith, Hawaii. McNamara's May 8 order to General Harkins to submit a plan for withdrawal from Vietnam had been ignored. On July 23, the Defense Secretary repeated the order, directing Harkins once again to lay out a long-range program for the completion of training for the South Vietnamese army, so that U.S. advisers could be withdrawn. McNamara specified what he called a "conservative" three year time line for the end of U.S. military assistance. He also indicated an early awareness in John Kennedy of what an antiwar movement would demand if the United States did not withdraw. McNamara said, "We must line up our long range program [for withdrawal] as it may become difficult to retain public support for our operations in Vietnam. The political pressure will build up as U.S. losses continue to occur. In other words, we must assume the worst and make our plans accordingly. "Therefore," he concluded, "planning must be undertaken now and a program devised to phase out U.S. military involvement."
  
• 7/25/1962 Lansdale provides the SGA an assessment of Phase One of OPERATION MONGOOSE. Some successes are reported, such as the infiltration of eleven CIA guerrilla teams into Cuba, including one team in Pinar del Río Province that has grown to as many as 250 men. Nonetheless, Lansdale warns that "time is running out for the U.S. to make a free choice on Cuba."
  
• 7/25/1962 Lyman Lemnitzer memo on Northwoods that is partially redacted.
  
• 7/26/1962 The Pentagon Papers note that on July 26, 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff formally directed the commander in chief of the Pacific to develop such a Comprehensive Plan for South Vietnam (CPSVN). The plan's stated objective reads like an elephant trying to tiptoe through a mine field so as to avoid an explosion into the word "withdrawal." The Joint Chiefs said the plan's objective was to " develop a capability within military and paramilitary forces of the GVN [Government of Vietnam] by the end of Calendar Year 65 that will help the GVN to achieve the strength necessary to exercise permanent and continued sovereignty over that part of Vietnam which lies below the demarcation line [of the 1954 Geneva Agreement, which established no separate "South Vietnam"] without the need for continued U.S. special military assistance." Although the Joint Chiefs refused to identify Kennedy's plan for withdrawal as what it was, the plan had at least begun to move through military channels-like molasses.
  
• 7/26/1962 Earl Warren switched from the GOP to the Democratic party "for one reason only - to do everything I could to insure California's future as my father visualized it. Richard Nixon does not have that vision."
  
• 7/26/1962 On the ninth anniversary of the 26th of July Movement, Castro told the Cuban people that "mercenaries" no longer pose a threat to Cuba: President Kennedy had already "made up his mind" to invade Cuba, he asserts, but Cuba has acquired new arms to beat back such a direct attack.
  
• 7/27/1962 MLK and 27 others were arrested on charges of "disorderly conduct" during their desegregation campaign at the city hall in Albany, Georgia.
  
• 7/27/1962 The last US marines were withdrawn from Thailand.
  
• 7/31/1962 Senate Republicans endorsed legislation requiring future FBI directors to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
  
• 7/31/1962 Lansdale predicted that an internal revolt in Cuba might soon happen, and the US could take advantage of it.