Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• 5/1965 Congress voted for a $700 million supplemental military appropriation for Vietnam. Gaylord Nelson, Morse and Gruening were the only Senators to vote against it. The Kennedy brothers privately wanted to vote against it, but did not yet want to create a public clash with the president.
  
• 5/1965 The FBI's vaunted record has been built against second and third stringers - it has never successfully tackled the real overlords of crime. Ramparts, The FBI and Organized Crime, Fred J. Cook., p. 16
  
• 5/1965 Jacques Vallee's Anatomy of a Phenomenon is published; it is one of the first scholarly books about UFOs, and is given generally good reviews in the mainstream press. "Anatomy of a Phenomenon" is one of the best books ever written on the subject of unidentified flying objects. Written in the 60s, Vallee shows that UFOs constitute a genuine scientific enigma of potentially explosive importance. Carl Sagan is said to have recommended this book to one of his colleagues before his abrupt departure from esoteric study. Given Vallee's scientific sensibilities and admirable refusal to jump to conclusions, it's easy to see why. "Anatomy of a Phenomenon" reveals a critical phase in Vallee's investigative career.
  
• 5/1965 The Warren Commission from the Procedural Standpoint Arthur L. Goodheart New York University Law Review, Vol. 40, May 1965, pp. 404423
  
• 5/1965 Did Lee Harvey Oswald Act Without Help? J. M. van Bemmelen New York University Law Review, Vol. 40, May 1965, pp. 466476
  
• 5/1965 Why the Warren Commission? Robert F. Cushman New York University Law Review, Vol. 40, May 1965, pp. 477503 (Robert F. Cushman is Associate Professor of Government at New York University.)
  
• 5/2/1965 Johnson told the American people that "what had begun as a popular democratic revolution in the Dominican Republic had been taken over and really seized and placed in the hands of a band of communist conspirators." But there was no real evidence of this, and he had previously made no public mention of such a threat. LBJ's policy toward Latin America was one of contempt. The Organization of American States "couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel." His man in charge of Latin American programs, Thomas Mann, once said: "They understand only two things - a buck in the pocket and a kick in the ass." LBJ had planned a second invasion of Cuba for early 1965, using US troops, but the operation was never carried out because of the unexpected crisis in the Dominican Republic. (Tad Szulc, "Cuba on Our Mind," Compulsive Spy)
  
• 5/3/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Howard Willens.
  
• 5/3/1965 In a speech, LBJ read a cable from ambassador W. Tapley Bennett in the Dominican Republic: "You must land troops immediately or blood will run in the streets, American blood will run in the streets."
  
• 5/4/1965 LBJ message to Congress; he assured them that his intelligence showed that the rebels in the Dominican Republican were led by Communists. Johnson bragged that "in March and April, we flew more than 3,200 sorties against military targets in hostile areas" in Vietnam. He also asked Congress for an "additional $700 million to meet mounting military requirements in Vietnam." Lady Bird wrote, "Lyndon looks tired and worn. The Dominican troubles have taken their toll." (White House Diary 265)
  
• 5/4/1965 Allen Dulles in NBC-TV interview: "All that I can say is that I am a parson's son, and I was brought up as a Presbyterian, maybe as a Calvinist, maybe that may be a fatalist. I don't know. But I hope I have a reasonable moral standard." In the same interview, Richard Bissell explained that CIA men "feel a higher loyalty and that they are acting in obedience to that higher loyalty." He conceded that agents sometimes undertook actions "that were contrary to their moral precepts" but contended that "the morality of, shall we call it for short, cold war is so infinitely easier than the morality of almost any kind of hot war that I never encountered this as a serious problem." (The Espionage Establishment, David Wise)
  
• 5/5/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed Sen. John Sherman Cooper, Rep. Gerald Ford, and Alfred Goldberg.
  
• 5/6/1965 RFK said before Congress that he advocated negotiations, rather than withdrawal or escalation, in Vietnam.
  
• 5/8/1965 Truman became the first former president to address the U.S. Senate while it was in formal session. The Senate honored him on his eightieth birthday.
  
• 5/9/1965 US government announces that there are 42,200 US fighting men in Vietnam.
  
• 5/10/1965 Dean Rusk State Dept bulletin: "I continue to hear and see nonsense about the nature of the struggle there...There is no evidence that the Viet Cong has any significant popular following in South Viet-Nam."
  
• 5/11/1965 Blacks held mass meeting in Norfolk (Va.) and demanded equal rights and ballots. Other equal rights meetings and conventions were held in Petersburg, Va., June 6; Vicksburg, Miss., June 19; Alexandria, Va., August 3; Nashville, Tenn., August 7-11; Raleigh, N.C., September 29-October 3; Richmond, September 18; Jackson, Miss., October 7.
  
• 5/13/1965 An unpublicized bombing pause in Vietnam begins, after McNamara had urged it, hoping it might encourage Hanoi to talk peace.
  
• 5/15/1965 National Teach-In held throughout the US. This anti-war effort was broadcast to over 100 colleges.
  
• 5/16/1965 After no response from Hanoi, LBJ indicated he wanted to resume the bombing.
  
• 5/17/1965 Jacques Vallee diary entry: "A curious incident recently took place during a conversation with a Martin Marietta engineer who says he is compiling a reference book on UFOs. As he was spending the evening at Bryn Mawr with our Little Society the conversation came to sightings in the Soviet Union. He told us he had written (in Russian) to their Academy of Sciences, and had received the reply that no study was being made of the subject. He showed us the Russian reply, held in a thick black binder. As the conversation continued the binder was passed around and came to Sam [Randlett] who read the letter and innocently turned the page. The engineer lept out of his chair like a tiger and tore the binder away, tersely spitting out, The other papers have nothing to do with that!' We were left fairly shocked by the violence of his reaction. Of course we began to wonder what else was in that binder. There are rumors that major aerospace companies are conducting their own secret studies of UFOs." (Forbidden Science p143) This month, Vallee's Anatomy of a Phenomenon' is published; it is one of the first scholarly books about UFOs, and is given generally good reviews in the mainstream press.
  
• 5/18/1965 US resumes bombing of North Vietnam. Tom Wicker says it was 5/19 (JFK & LBJ 265)
  
• 5/23/1965 David Wise coined the term "credibility gap" in an article for the Herald-Tribune.
  
• 5/24/1965 De Gaulle assassination attempt.
  
• 5/24/1965 Hearing before Judge Holland on Jack Ruby's choice of counsel. Joe Tonahill is removed as Ruby's counsel.
  
• 5/26/1965 OAS agrees to provide a peace-keeping force to enforce a truce to replace US troops in DR.
  
• 5/26/1965 Washington - Growing role for Hoover as Johnson adviser, as shown by assignment of FBI men to probe Communist activity in the Dominican Republic. Chronological editorial, same date, comments on curious role for FBI agents. San Francisco Chronicle, Times-Post Service
  
• 5/27/1965 At Raiford State Prison in Florida a riot ensued; after it was over, prisoners were treated horribly until they agreed to sign confessions (which were used to convict them in new trials). The Supreme Court would later rule unanimously to overturn the convictions.
  
• 5/29/1965 (The 48th anniversary of JFK's birth) The Texas House of Representatives defeats on a record vote of 72 - 52 (with Governor Connally's brother voting with the majority) a bill passed unanimously in the State Senate proposing to rename the state school for the mentally retarded at Richmond in JFK's honor.
  
• 5/29/1965 1000 Vietcong troops attacked three ARVN batallions at the hamlet of Ba Gia; the South Vietnamese troops panicked and fled, leaving their equipment behind. US air strikes and napalm fire drove the Vietcong out.
  
• 6/1965 Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to strike down a federal law making it a crime for a communist to hold office in a labor union.
  
• 6/1965 Federal Reserve Chairman Martin gave a speech underlining "disquieting similarities between our present prosperity and the fabulous 20s." This speech depressed the stock market for weeks.
  
• 6/1965 Sen. Fulbright gave a speech supporting the administration's Vietnam policy.
  
• 6/1965 Playboy interview with Melvin Belli. Detailed, highly opinionated analysis of what J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI do and do not do, and why.
  
• 6/1/1965 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Defense counsel files amended motion to disqualify Judge Brown.
  
• 6/1/1965 Cuban exile David Sanchez Morales is assigned as a deep-cover operative, working as a public safety officer for the Agency for International Development (AID) in Lima, Peru. (Fonzi chronology)
  
• 6/2/1965 Harold Weisberg on trying to get his first book, Whitewash, published in Europe: "An executive of a highly respected French publisher, in Washington on June 2, 1965, castigated American publishers as cowards. His house, he said, would be very interested in this subject. He would personally read the book and, if his approval was confirmed by the president, they would print it as fast as possible. He even laid out a tentative publishing schedule. Amidst the most uninhibited praise of the author's courage and persistence, he promised the final decision within 28 days. Those were his last words. Neither he nor his superior has answered six letters from the author and at least one informal inquiry from an appropriate member of the French foreign service, his personal friend. Mail from German publishers has failed to reach the author. But this is not surprising when it is understood that his mail from Washington, 30 miles away, sometimes requires six days, for delivery, and that from New York, less than 250 miles, as much as two weeks. A major magazine, first written before Thanksgiving by its United States correspondent and the author, finally received a later letter the next year and replied about Easter time, saying, "Unfortunately, the copy of your book . . . must have been lost, either here in our house or during transportation. We are, however, eagerly interested...." This letter reached the author three weeks prior to this writing."
  
• 6/3/1965 Taylor cabled Washington: "We should...make very clear that we do not believe that any feasible amount of bombing is of itself likely to cause the DRV to cease and desist its actions in the south."
  
• 6/3/1965 Gemini 4 mission: Ed White becomes first American to walk in space while James McDivitt was the pilot.
  
• 6/3/1965 LBJ stated, "Over the years of our history our forces have gone forth into many lands, but always they returned when they were no longer needed. For the purpose of America is never to suppress liberty, but always to save it. The purpose of America is never to take freedom, but always to return it; never to break peace but to bolster it, and never to seize land but always to save lives. One month ago it became my duty to send our marines into the Dominican Republic, and I sent them for these same ends." (US State Dept Publication 7971)
  
• 6/4/1965 LBJ spoke at Howard University about civil rights: "You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race saying 'you are free to compete with all the others' and still justly believe you have been completely fair."
  
• 6/5/1965 Taylor cabled that the South Vietnamese army was plagued by bad leadership, desertions and heading quickly toward collapse. At this point he felt "It will probably be necessary to commit US ground forces to action." That afternoon, in a White House meeting, LBJ was gloomy about the situation.
  
• 6/7/1965 Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law against the use of contraceptives; the ruling was 7-2 (with Black and Stewart dissenting over Douglas' view that the Constitution contained a right to privacy').
  
• 6/7/1965 Westmoreland cabled that the South Vietnamese army was near collapse, communist forces were growing stronger, and US troops would be needed in large numbers, 175,000 in all. He added that more soldiers might be needed down the road.
  
• 6/7/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC member John McCloy.
  
• 6/8/1965 White House meeting in the morning discussing Westmoreland's cable.
  
• 6/8/1965 LBJ authorizes commanders in Vietnam to commit US ground forces to combat.
  
• 6/8/1965 US Embassy in Saigon withdrew its support from PM Phan Huy Quat and his efforts to end the war.
  
• 6/8/1965 State Dept spokesman Robert McCloskey announced to the press that US forces in Vietnam would be available for "combat support" if needed. This was the first public mention of a combat role for US troops.
  
• 6/9/1965 White House issued a statement: "There has been no change in the mission of United States ground combat units in Vietnam in recent days or weeks."
  
• 6/10/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Samuel Stern.
  
• 6/11/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC member Rep. Hale Boggs.
  
• 6/15/1965 Lady Bird complained in her diary of "hammer blows of the front page stories - New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, even the Washington Post. All of them seemed to delight in faulting their country and their President."
  
• 6/15/1965 Sen. Richard Russell stated in the Senate, "Whether or not the initial decision was a mistake is now moot. The United States does have a commitment in South Vietnam. The flag is there. United States honor and prestige are there. And, most important of all, United States soldiers are there."
  
• 6/16/1965 McNamara spoke with the press, explaining that US strategy was to stop the communists' attempt to take over the South. The same day, Eisenhower informed LBJ that he thought Westmoreland should be given the forces he requested: "we have got to win." (In Retrospect 190)
  
• 6/17/1965 Grabbing documents from his pockets and slamming his fist on his desk, LBJ told the press that before he sent troops into the Dominican Republic, "some 1500 innocent people were murdered and shot, and their heads cut off...our ambassador...was talking to us from under a desk while bullets were going through his windows." It soon turned out that the atrocity stories were greatly exaggerated and ambassador W. Tapley Bennett Jr. had not been hiding under his desk. (Politics of Lying p42)
  
• 6/17/1965 A Lou Harris poll showed that 65% of the public approved of LBJ's handling of the war in Vietnam; 47% wanted to send in more troops; 23% were "not sure"; 19% did not want to increase troops; 11% wanted to withdraw. Johnson told reporters that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave him all the authority he needed in Vietnam. Sens. Mansfield and Dirksen had both told LBJ that if he brought the issue before Congress again it would just tear the country apart. (In Retrospect 191-2)
  
• 6/18/1965 The beginning of devastating Arc Light air raids by B-52 Stratofortresses against communist positions. Such massive strikes ("swatting flies with sledgehammers," said critics) were inconclusive. The Arc Light raids ended 8/1973.
  
• 6/18/1965 George Ball sent LBJ another memo, suggesting that US troops in Vietnam be kept below 100,000.
  
• 6/18/1965 State Senate's "Burns committee" on Un-American Activities releases a report blaming the campus protests of the fall on the lax policies of Kerr. (SF Chronicle 6/9/02)
  
• 6/19/1965 Nguyen Kao Ky is appointed South Vietnamese Prime Minister.
  
• 6/21/1965 Judge Brown requests that he be removed from any further duty in the case of The State of Texas vs. Jack Ruby.
  
• 6/21/1965 LBJ told McNamara he was pessimistic that the American people would continue to support the war as things got worse. "And I don't believe they're [the communists] ever goin' to quit. And I don't see...that we have any...plan for victory militarily or diplomatically...[Sen. Richard] Russell thinks we ought to take one of these [regime] changes to get out of there. I do not think we can get out of there with our treaty like it is and with what all we've said and I think it would just lose us face in the world and I just shudder to think what all of 'em would say." (In Retrospect p190-1)
  
• 6/23/1965 George Ball suggested in a meeting that if we were forced out of South Vietnam we could retreat to Thailand and hold there. Rusk and McNamara strongly objected.
  
• 6/23/1965 On this day, the dismembered bodies of the parents of Charles Frederick Rogers are discovered in Houston, Texas. Rogers has been positively identified by Houston police forensic artist Lois Gibson as "Frenchy," the shortest of the three tramps apprehended in Dealey Plaza moments after the JFK assassination, hiding in a railroad car behind the grassy knoll. According to private detective John R. Craig, Charles F. Rogers has worked for the CIA since 1956. He is a physicist with graduate training in nuclear physics, a linguist and was a close personal friend of assassination suspect David Ferrie. He was born in 1921. He graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in physics and was a member of Sigma Phi Sigma fraternity. He was also a member of the Civil Air Patrol in the mid-1950's. He was a seismologist for Shell Oil for nine years after World War II. Officially, Rogers will disappear this year and will not be seen again. It is Craig's theory, however, that Rogers is alive and still active as a secret agent. Craig claims that "He has been active with the CIA since he murdered his parents. The last place we have [placed] him is in 1986 in Guatemala where he was still working in the Iran-Contra program. He is a pilot and flew for Air America."
  
• 6/24/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Joseph Ball.
  
• 6/25/1965 Harry Truman received from the South Korean ambassador the "Order of Merit for the National Foundation Joongjang," the republic's highest honor.
  
• 6/25/1965 Department of Defense Directive 5230.7 stated that in the event of a "national emergency" declared by either the President or the Secretary of Defense, the Office of Wartime Information Security would activate contingency plans for imposing censorship on the press, the mails and all telecommunications. Provisions also existed for the detention in military camps of anyone deemed a "security risk."
  
• 6/26/1965 US government announces deployment of 21,000 more US soldiers to Vietnam.
  
• 6/28/1965 US combat troops began their first full-scale offensive in Vietnam, 20 miles NE of Saigon.
  
• 6/29/1965 Columnist Ralph de Toledano commented on the replacement of conservative RNC chairman Dean Burch with Ray Bliss: "Like other Liberal Leftist Republicans, Mr. Bliss had made no secret of the fact that he cares not a wit about the sensibilities of the Conservatives who make up the bulk of the party's workers. Conservatives, he contended, have nowhere else to go."
  
• 6/30/1965 As of today, there are 1,041,244 active-duty military personnel in the US, while the Pentagon also had control over 940,763 civilian employees. (Mollenhoff, The Pentagon)
  
• 6/30-7/1/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Wesley Liebeler.
  
• Mid-1965 The Making of the President 1964 is published. Author Theodore White described the Zapruder film in terms similar to Life's grossly inaccurate 12/1963 summary: "The President turns in the back seat, all the way around to his right, and flings out his hand in greeting. Then the hand bends quickly up as if to touch his throat, as if something hurts. His wife, at this moment, is also leaning forward, turning to the right. Slowly he leans back to her, as if to rest his head on her shoulder. She quickly puts her arm around him, and leans even farther forward to look at him. Then...the head of the president is jolted by some invisible and terrible second impact. It is flung up, jerked up...One notices the red roses spill from her lap as the President's body topples from sight." (p.3) Practically every part of that statement is incorrect; interestingly, it was written in early 1965, after the WR was already issued. White should have known by then that the bullet officially hit Kennedy in the back and exited through his throat. "John F. Kennedy was killed by a lunatic, Lee Harvey Oswald, who had momentarily given loyalty to the paranoid Fidel Castro of Cuba. And Oswald was, in turn...slain by another madman, Jack Ruby...an act of unreason, avenged by an individual act of obscenity." (p29-30)