Mar. 4, 1965 - Troops and mounted policemen broke up a mob of nearly 2,000 students in front of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow today. The students — mostly Asians, with a few Europeans and Africans — were protesting the latest air attacks on North Vietnam.
Several soldiers, policemen, and rioters were severely injured.
Before the students were driven from the street outside the building, they smashed more than 170 windows in the embassy, defaced the U.S. seal next to the entrance, and covered the wall with red, blue, and black ink stains.
Although windows were shattered even on the sixth floor, no one on the embassy staff was injured.
The demonstrators fought their way through a cordon of 600 policemen, hurdled a yard-high metal barrier, and scrambled across a line of 30 big snow plows standing bumper to bumper.
A group of young men, identified as Chinese students by their uniform-like blue overcoats, led the charge across the trucks.
The protesters carried red banners and inscriptions. Some placards bore a caricature of a bomb-wielding President Johnson drawn to resemble Hitler.
Ambassador Foy Kohler, in a protest note to Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, said Soviet protection of the embassy had been “grossly inadequate.”
Later, the embassy said Gromyko had expressed regret for the damage and promised compensation.
This was the third time Asian and African students attacked the embassy in just over three months.
The first riot, last Nov. 28, was over U.S. and Belgian action in the Congo. Another, on Feb. 9, came after the earlier U.S. bombing raids on North Vietnam.
In both cases, Soviet policemen made no real effort to keep the rioters from reaching the embassy.
Now, however, apparently in response to Ambassador Kohler’s advance request, Soviet authorities deployed far greater forces. It was also obvious that the police had orders to be tougher on the demonstrators than in the past.
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