June 1964

[June 1], 1964 (Monday)

• The first Yaoundé Convention, signed on July 20, 1963, by 18 African nations, the Republic of the Congo, went into effect for a five-year period to govern economic relations between the French-speaking nations that had been colonies of either France or Belgium; Somalia had been a UN Trust Territory composed of former British and Italian colonies. After the expiration on May 31, 1969, a new convention would be signed at Yaoundé on July 29 of that year.
• The United States and the Soviet Union signed a bilateral treaty for the first time in 30 years, allowing for the two superpowers to establish consulates in each other's cities. In addition, it was agreed that if an American citizen was arrested in the USSR, an American consular official would be notified promptly and be given access, and that the same right would apply for a Soviet citizen and a Soviet consular official within the U.S. The pact was signed at the Spiridonovka Palace in Moscow by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Foy D. Kohler.
• A Canadian Act of Parliament, that had been proposed by Jean Chrétien of Quebec, changed the name of Trans-Canada Air Lines to "Air Canada", effective from January 1, 1965. The new name needed no translation in either the English or French language.
• The parliament of Cyprus, the majority of whom were Greek Cypriot legislators, voted to pass a law over Turkish protests, allowing the government to establish the Cypriot National Guard and giving it authority to draft Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot citizens.
• The Kenya Air Force was established under the command of Group Captain Ian Sargenson Stockwell, formerly of Britain's Royal Air Force. The RAF base located east of Nairobi at Eastleigh was renamed KAF Eastleigh, and is now Moi Air Base.

  [June 2], 1964 (Tuesday)

• The 424 delegates to the Palestinian National Congress ended their meeting in East Jerusalem in Jordan, and approved a National Charter. Among the articles agreed to were that "Palestine... is an indivisible unit" ; "Palestinians are those Arab citizens who, until 1947, had normally resided in Palestine" and "anyone born after that date of a Palestinian father" ; "The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel are entirely illegal" ; and "For the realization of the goals of this Charter and its principles, the Palestine Liberation Organization shall perform its complete role in the liberation of Palestine...".
• Serial killer Anatoly Slivko killed his first victim, a 15-year-old runaway named Nikolai Dobryshev. Slivko, who has had erotic fantasies of recreating a 1961 traffic accident he witnessed when a drunken motorcyclist swerved onto a pavement and into a group of pedestrians, fatally injuring a boy in his early teens, claimed this particular victim was killed unintentionally, as he had been unable to revive Dobryshev upon completion of his routine of filming, photography, and masturbation, although he later admitted in one interview with a psychiatrist that the teenager's death triggered a greater sense of arousal within him than his previous, non-fatal hangings.
• U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona narrowly defeated New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller in California's Republican presidential primary, giving him all 86 of California's delegates and placing him "on the threshold of the Republican Presidential nomination." Rockefeller, who had been leading in the early reported returns, conceded defeat the next day. Goldwater's win was by a margin of less than 59,000 votes out of more than two million cast, with 1,089,133 for Goldwater and 1,030,180 for Rockefeller. With the California win, Goldwater now had 438 of the necessary 655 votes needed for the nomination.
• Turkey's council for national security, led by Prime Minister İsmet İnönü, voted to intervene militarily in the Republic of Cyprus, despite objections by Foreign Minister Feridun Cemal Erkin. U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Raymond Hare was directed by U.S. President Johnson to "meet at once" with İnönü "calling him out of a cabinet if necessary, to express the administration's gravest concern and to urge restraint." The meeting would take place two days later.
• U.S. President Lyndon Johnson called a White House press conference without advance notice and told reporters that the United States was "bound by solemn commitments" to defend South Vietnam against Communist encroachment, and cited an October 25, 1954 letter from U.S. President Eisenhower to South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem pledging an American promise to protect the Vietnamese government.
• Lal Bahadur Shastri was unanimously selected by the 537 members of India's ruling Congress Party to become the new Prime Minister of India as the successor of the late Jawaharlal Nehru.
• Five million shares of stock in the Communications Satellite Corporation were offered for sale at $20 a share, and the issue was quickly sold out.

  [June 3], 1964 (Wednesday)

• Kenya and the United Kingdom signed the Defence Agreement of 1964. The Royal Air Force would be able to fly over Kenya, the Royal Navy to put into port at Mombasa, and British forces to train in Kenya twice a year. In return, all British troops in Kenya would be withdrawn by December 12, the British Army would commit to training the Kenya Rifles as a national army, the Royal Air Force would train the newly established Kenya Air Force, and a small Kenya Navy would be established at the end of the year.
• South Korean President Park Chung Hee declared martial law in Seoul after 10,000 student demonstrators overpowered police.
• Died:
• *Frans Eemil Sillanpää, 75, Finnish writer and 1939 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate
• *Gustavo C. Garcia, 48, Mexican-American civil rights attorney, died of liver failure after years of alcohol abuse.

  [June 4], 1964 (Thursday)

• The crossing of telephone and television lines in the AT&T coaxial cable system caused a disruption for 18 million television viewers across the United States who heard "what may have been the most widely disseminated telephone conversation since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone". At 8:13 p.m. Eastern time, people who were watching a rerun of the series Temple Houston on the NBC television network were surprised by two "unsuspecting callers" who were "as nearly as anyone could tell, two women carrying on a friendly conversation somewhere in New York state". Engineers stopped the interference three minutes later, but at 8:45, more of the discussion was heard nationwide by even more viewers tuned into NBC for Dr. Kildare and to ABC for My Three Sons, along with the sound of both programs.
• The first Soviet communications satellite, Molniya-1 No.2, was launched at 05:00 UTC, on a Molniya 8K78 carrier rocket, from Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. A motor circuit in the servo controlling the core stage throttle failed 104 seconds into the flight, resulting in the throttle becoming jammed closed and the fuel supply to the engines being stopped. Prior to the release of information about its mission, NASA had incorrectly identified the launch of Molniya-1 No.2 as a failed attempt to launch a Zond spacecraft on a circumlunar technology demonstration mission, and assigned it the placeholder designation Zond 1964A.
• Turkey's Prime Minister İnönü outlined his nation's plan for invading Cyprus in a discussion with U.S. Ambassador Raymond A. Hare, explaining that the mission would simply be to occupy part of the island nation, allowing Greece to occupy the other one-half, and having the United Nations peacekeeping force remain between the two zones. Hare asked İnönü to delay the operation by 24 hours so that he could report back to President Johnson.
• The Beatles began their first, and only, world concert tour starting with a performance at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, and a second concert two days later at a concert hall in the village of Blokker, Netherlands, followed by visits to Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Because drummer Ringo Starr was hospitalized for acute tonsillitis, Jimmie Nicol took his place for the first eight shows on the tour.
• Israel and the European Economic Community signed a trade agreement in Brussels. Present at the Ravenstein Hall at the Palais des Congres were Israeli foreign minister Golda Meir, foreign trade minister Akiva Govrin, Israel's representative to the EEC Amiel Najar, president of the Commission of the Community Walter Hallstein, and Belgian deputy foreign minister Henri Fayat.
• Testing of the Gemini capsule ejection seat system began on a rocket sled at the China Lake testing facility in California. Another test on November 5 would reveal a structural deficiency in the ejection seat. When the feet of one of the dummies came out of the stirrups, the seat pitched over, breaking off the left side panel. The seat and dummy never separated, and both were destroyed when they hit the ground.
• The failing Rolls Razor company's account with Barclays Bank was overdrawn by £485,000. Despite this, John Bloom, managing director, persuaded the company's board of directors to pay out dividends of £209,719.
• The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 189, condemning military incursions into Cambodia.

  [June 5], 1964 (Friday)

• The ban on cremation for members of the Roman Catholic Church was relaxed, though not completely lifted, by order of Pope Paul VI, partially reversing a decree made in 1896, when the Vatican had refused the sacraments to Catholics who had chosen cremation.
• Henry Cabot Lodge, the U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam, sent a secret cable to President Johnson recommending that the U.S. not send more ground troops into South Vietnam to fight the Viet Cong. Such a step, he cautioned, would be a "venture of unlimited possibilities which could put us onto a slope along which we slide into a bottomless pit." Johnson would disregard Lodge's warning, and the Vietnam War would continue for eight more years.
• U.S. President Johnson sent a secret letter to Turkish Prime Minister İnönü, warning him to call off plans to invade Cyprus. Noting that Turkey's action would begin a war with Greece, "Adhesion to NATO, in its very essence," said the letter, "means that NATO countries will not wage war with each other. Germany and France have buried centuries of animosity and hostility in becoming NATO allies; nothing less can be expected from Greece and Turkey." Adding that a Turkish intervention "could lead to a direct involvement by the Soviet Union", Johnson told İnönü, "I hope you will understand that your NATO allies have not had a chance to consider whether they have an obligation to protect Turkey against the Soviet Union if Turkey takes a step which results in Soviet intervention without the full consent and understanding of its NATO Allies." İnönü would tell his cabinet, "Our friends and our enemies have joined hands against us," and the invasion was called off.
• The United States and the Soviet Union announced that they would work together for the first time on a joint project in outer space in the form of a weather satellite network, along with an exchange of data on space biology and medicine.
• Authorization to begin work on space station studies was announced by U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert, applying to Douglas Aircraft and General Electric. Zuckert predicted that the Titan III rocket would be tested during the summer and would launch the Manned Orbiting Laboratory as early as 1967.
• Canada's Prime Minister Lester Pearson introduced a resolution in the Canadian House of Commons for a new flag of Canada. Attached to the bill was a picture of his suggestion, "a design with blue borders, a white middle and three maple leaves as on the Canadian coat-of-arms".
• The United States Navy commissioned the deep-ocean research submersible DSV Alvin.
• Born: Rick Riordan, American author best known for the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series of books; in San Antonio, Texas