June 1969

[June 1], 1969 (Sunday)

• Former Prime Minister Georges Pompidou and Acting President of France Alain Poher finished first and second in a field of seven candidates in the first round of the French presidential election. Pompidou received almost 45% of the ballots cast, and Poher edged Communist Party candidate Jacques Duclos split another 44% of the votes, with Poher getting 23% to Duclos's 21%. Because none of the candidates received a majority of the votes, a runoff election between Pompidou and Poher was set for two weeks later.
• Died:
• *Attilio Degrassi, 81, Italian archaeologist and specialist in epigraphy, the collection and analysis of information from inscriptions on ancient works.
• *Ivar Ballangrud, 65, Norwegian speed skater who won three gold medals at the 1936 Winter Olympics

  [June 2], 1969 (Monday)

• The United States Supreme Court voted 6 to 2 in the case of Boykin v. Alabama to set aside a death sentence meted out to an African-American who had pleaded guilty to the armed robbery of five stores in Mobile, Alabama, holding that it was clear from the transcript of the case that Edward Boykin's plea had been made without any indication that he had been made aware of its consequences. Writing for the majority, Justice William O. Douglas said "A plea of guilty is more than an admission of conduct; it is a conviction... Ignorance, incomprehension, terror, inducements, subtle or blatant threats might be a perfect cover-up of unconstitutionality. What is at stake for an accused facing death or imprisonment demands utmost solicitude of which courts are capable, in canvassing the matter with the accused, to make sure he has a full understanding of what the plea connotes and of its consequence... So far as the record shows, the judge asked no questions of concerning his plea, and did not address the court. Boykin had been scheduled to go to the electric chair in June 1968 despite the fact that nobody had been killed in the robberies, and the only injury had been when a girl was struck in the leg by the ricochet of a bullet. The Court did not reach the question of whether a state could impose the death penalty for armed robbery without fatalities.

  [June 3], 1969 (Tuesday)

• Seventy-four U.S. Navy men were killed when their destroyer, the USS Frank E. Evans, was accidentally rammed and sliced in two by the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. The Frank E. Evans had a crew of 273 when the collision took place during pre-dawn maneuvers at 4:12 in the morning Philippine Time. The Melbourne was able to lash the stern of the American destroyer to its side to keep it upright, and the 197 people on board that section of the ship survived. All but two of the other 76 people remaining at the front of the Frank E. Evans sank with the bow in of ocean; most of them had been sleeping in their quarters beneath decks. Three of the dead were brothers, Cary Sage, Gregory Sage and Kelly Sage of Niobrara, Nebraska. The ships had been maneuvering in the South China Sea as part of maneuvers among the navies of the SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. A subsequent investigation by a joint Australian and American board of inquiry found that on May 31, the Melbourne had come within of colliding with another American ship, the USS Everett F. Larson.
• The 79th and last original episode of Star Trek, "Turnabout Intruder", was telecast on NBC as the network shifted the series from its 10:00 p.m. Eastern time slot to a regular 7:30 p.m. Tuesday night location for its summer re-runs. By then, NBC had announced that it would not renew the science fiction drama for a fourth season. The episode had been scheduled for March 28 but had been preempted by a news report about the life of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had died earlier that day. With an earlier broadcast time, the reruns drew more viewers than the original shows had received, a precursor to what would happen next. Never high in the Nielsen ratings during its years on NBC, the show would attain greater popularity in broadcast syndication, starting as early as September 15.

  [June 4], 1969 (Wednesday)

• Armando Socarras Ramirez, a 22-year old refugee from Cuba, arrived in Madrid on Iberia Airlines Flight 942 from Havana, after he and a companion climbed into the wheel compartments of the Douglas DC-8 as it was taxiing for takeoff. Ground crew workers in Madrid were surprised when Socarras, nearly frozen from a seven and a half hour ride in the unpressurized wheel compartment, fell out of the right wheel well after the airliner came to a stop. Socarras had endured an air temperature as low as and with little oxygen when the DC-8 was cruising at an altitude of over the Atlantic Ocean, and reports at the time concluded that he "is believed to be the first person in medical history, apart from heart transplant patients, who has been frozen alive and recovered." Socarras told investigators that the other stowaway, 16-year old Jorge Perez Blanco, had climbed into the left side wheel well and was believed to have fallen to his death after the airline pilot noticed that the landing gear hadn't fully retracted and had lowered it a second time. Two weeks later, however, several new arrivals from Cuba reported that Perez Blanco had apparently tumbled onto the runway while the plane was taxiing for a takeoff, and that he had been taken to jail.
• All 79 persons on board Mexicana Flight 704 were killed when the Boeing 727 crashed while making its approach to Monterrey on a flight from Mexico City. Approaching the airport in a torrential rain and with low visibility, the Mexican airplane turned left rather than right when ordered to enter a holding pattern, and struck a vertical face of the Fraile del Cerro, a peak in the Sierra Madre Oriental.
• Died:
• *Rafael Osuna, 30, Mexican professional tennis player and winner of the 1963 U.S. Open and three Grand Slam doubles titles, was killed in the crash of Mexicana Flight 704.
• *Carlos A. Madrazo, 53, Mexican politician and former Chairman of Mexico's ruling political party, the PRI was killed in the crash of Mexicana Flight 704.

  [June 5], 1969 (Thursday)

• In the first authenticated case of falling space debris causing damage on Earth, the Japanese freighter ship Dai Chi Chinei was heavily damaged by wreckage from a Soviet spacecraft that had re-entered Earth's atmosphere. Five of the crewmen on the Dai Chi Chinei were seriously injured by a chunk of debris while the freighter was traversing the Strait of Tartary between the island of Sakhalin and mainland Siberia, and the accident was then investigated and confirmed by the United Nations. According to the Japanese crew, two Soviet Navy ships arrived at the site shortly after the freighter had been struck.
• "Rivet Amber", a U.S. Air Force RC-135E reconnaissance spy plane similar to one shot by North Korea a month earlier, disappeared along with all 19 of its crew while flying an exercise over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Although the plane was not shot down, it sent a distress call to Elmendorf Air Force Base as it traveled between the island of Shemya and Eielson Air Force Base, and was believed to have been monitoring Soviet radar and radio communications from a distance. No trace of the aircraft nor its crew has ever been found.
• Moscow hosted the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, a gathering of the leaders and representatives of the communist parties of the world's nations.
• The Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic jet became the first civilian airliner to be test flown faster than the speed of sound.
• Born: Jack Smith, American attorney, Special Counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice; in Syracuse, New York
• Died: British Army General Miles Dempsey, 72, known for commanding the British Second Army assault on Gold, Juno and Sword Beaches on D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy. General Dempsey's passing took place the day before the 25th anniversary of D-Day.

  [June 6], 1969 (Friday)

• The United States Court of Appeals voided the "Hershey Directive" that had been sent to American draft boards by General Lewis B. Hershey, the director of the Selective Service System. In a letter sent on October 24, 1967, General Hershey had suggested that local draft boards reclassify the status of any anti-government protesters who had a deferment, with an upgrade to 1-A permitting immediate induction into the selective service. The court wrote that the Hershey letter was a "declaration of war against anti-war protesters" that had no basis in the law but that was made "full-grown from the head of General Hershey without benefit of reference of any provision" of the draft law.
• New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath called a press conference to announce, with tears in his eyes, that he was retiring from professional football, less than six months after being the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl III, in the wake of a threatened suspension by pro football commissioner Pete Rozelle. Namath had been ordered to sell his one-half interest in a New York restaurant, Bachelors III, because some of the restaurant's regular customers were bookies who were taking gambling bets on the restaurant premises and others were members of organized crime. Namath would reverse his position a few weeks later and report to the Jets' training camp in July.

  [June 7], 1969 (Saturday)

• The long-awaited debut of Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood performing together in the short-lived "supergroup" Blind Faith took place in front of 100,000 people in London's Hyde Park. Guitarist/vocalist Clapton and drummer Peter "Ginger" Baker came from the recently disbanded rock group Cream; Winwood had been playing keyboards and was lead singer for Traffic, the first supergroup. Bassist Ric Grech from Family completed the quartet. Blind Faith would release their only album in August, and do concerts in Europe and the United States for eleven weeks before playing their final show in Honolulu on August 24.
• The American Echo 2 communications satellite, the largest artificial Earth satellite of all time, re-entered the atmosphere and burned up after having been visible by most of the world's residents since its launch on January 25, 1964. Consisting of a rigid mylar and aluminum balloon, Echo 2 was last seen at 7:36 in the morning local time from Comodoro Rivadavia in Argentina and was estimated to have burned up over Great Britain by 7:00 in the afternoon local time.
• The U.S. Department of Defense expanded its AUTOVON to its military posts worldwide, giving priority to all defense-related phone calls over civilian phone lines.
• Born: Kim Rhodes, American television actress; in Portland, Oregon
• Died: Dan Bullock, 15, United States Marine and the youngest American serviceman to be killed in the Vietnam War. Bullock, an African-American living in Brooklyn after moving from North Carolina, had been only 14 years old when he altered his birth certificate to show that he was 18 years old. He was killed while guarding the An Hoa Combat Base in South Vietnam.