1960s Timeline

Oct. 9, 1961 - President Kennedy made a flying trip to Texas today and paid a call on an old comrade of the legislative wars, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. "He was in good spirits and showed courage enough for everybody," the President said after a 15-minute visit with Mr. Rayburn at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. The two political leaders talked mostly about their favorite subject, politics. The Speaker reminisced about the 1934 Congressional elections.

Oct. 8, 1961 - Cruising on a 92-foot yacht can be frustrating for a 3-year-old girl. The rails are high and it is hard to see over them. Caroline Kennedy did something about it this afternoon. She climbed to the top of the White House yacht, the Honey Fitz, as she cruised in Narragansett Bay. Her father, President Kennedy, climbed part of the way with her. While the yacht headed out to sea, some of the adults were in the main cabin watching the World Series on television. The

Oct. 8, 1961 - Even his detractors on the staff of the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee were chuckling over the comment of James R. Hoffa about his summons to testify Monday. Mr. Hoffa, president of the Teamsters Union, was summoned by Senator James O. Eastland, Democrat of Mississippi, to tell about possible Communists among members of his Union. Mr. Hoffa said: "There are no more Communists in the Teamsters Union than in the Catholic Church." He added for good m

Oct. 7, 1961 - The United States is considering sending troops to Southeast Asia to cope with the worsening situation in Vietnam and a possible new flare-up in Laos. President Kennedy bluntly told Andrei A. Gromyko, the Soviet Foreign Minister, yesterday that the U.S. would not permit Laos to be used as a Communist military base against South Vietnam. The Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communists), with some units organized in strength up to 1,000 men, has been infiltrating into South

Oct. 6, 1961 - President Kennedy and Andrei A. Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister, exchanged some blunt views on Germany this evening, but made virtually no progress on the issue. Mr. Gromyko spent two hours with the President at the White House, but offered the Administration no encouragement that meaningful East-West negotiations on Berlin could be held in the near future. Mr Kennedy restated the West's position with great care, stressing his determination to defend the freed

Oct. 6, 1961 - Mayor Willy Brandt (right) of West Berlin said today that the wall that divides Berlin is a brazen challenge to the West that must not be allowed to stand. "That wall must come down," he declared in accepting the Freedom House Award of 1961 during a luncheon at New York's Commodore Hotel. The award was presented by Edward R. Murrow (left), director of the U.S. Information Agency. Mr. Murrow also saw the wall as a symbol and predicted its ultimate fall. If it do

Oct. 6, 1961 - President Kennedy was presented with the Grand Cross and Insignia of the Order of the Holy Sephulcre today. He also received an invitation to visit the holy places of Jerusalem. Patriarch Benedictos I (pictured), the highest prelate of the Greek Orthodox Church ever to visit the U.S., presented the decoration. Archbishop Iakovos of North and South America, who accompanied the Patriarch, expressed "gratitude for the faith of the President and his regular attenda

Oct. 5, 1961 - House Speaker Sam Rayburn (pictured at last year's Democratic National Convention), 79 years old, is suffering from cancer. Hospital tests today showed that there was no hope of recovery. A tissue sample from Mr. Rayburn's groin contained a "metastatic malignancy." This meant that the cancer had developed somewhere else, probably the pancreas, and that the cells had spread the malignancy to other parts of the body. Asked how long Mr. Rayburn would live, Dr. Rob

Oct. 4, 1961 - President Kennedy signed a bill today establishing a Woodrow Wilson Memorial Commission. He gave the first pen he used to Mrs. Wilson (pictured lower right). "I didn't dare ask you for it," Mrs. Wilson told him. The bill the President signed established a commission to make plans for the design, site, and construction of a permanent memorial to Woodrow Wilson to be situated in Washington or nearby. Mr. Kennedy said he hoped the commission would "plan a memorial

Oct. 2, 1961 - The United States announced today that it was taking urgent measures to help South Vietnam combat an increase in Communist guerrilla activity. "We are pressing ahead with urgent measures to increase the ability of the Vietnamese soldier to defend his country," Joseph Reap, a State Department spokesman, said. Mr. Reap declined to say just what form the increased U.S. aid would take. But he said that assistance had increased since Vice President Johnson visited S

Oct. 1, 1961 - South Vietnam's struggle against armed Communist insurgents has grown from guerrilla action to "real war" in the last year, President Ngo Dinh Diem (pictured right) said today. "It is no longer a guerrilla war we have to face but a real war waged by an enemy who attacks us with regular units fully and heavily equipped and who seeks a strategic decision in Southeast Asia in conformity with the orders of the Communist International," President Diem declared. Rece