1960s Timeline

Jan. 30, 1962 - Foreign ministers of the Organization of American States voted today by a two-thirds majority to exclude Cuba from participation in the inter-American system. The ministerial conference also voted to bar any arms traffic with Cuba. The decision was taken on the ground that Cuba’s Marxist-Leninist regime was “incompatible” with the democratic principles of the hemispheric system. The vote was taken after Cuban foreign minister Osvaldo Torrado (left) asserted th

Jan. 27, 1962 - The Communist party in this country is stepping up a nationwide campaign to influence students, an FBI official said today. Cartha D. De Loach (pictured), assistant director of the FBI, said that in recent months party functionaries have been making speeches at colleges across the country. Mr. De Loach traced the Communist party’s “renewed emphasis on youth” to its national convention in New York in December, 1959. There, he said, General Secretary Gus Hall no

Jan. 26, 1962 - Secretary of the Army Elvis J. Stahr Jr. (pictured far right) told Congress today that regular Army men whose duty tours had been involuntarily extended as part of the build-up in the Berlin crisis would be released by July 31. Mr. Stahr gave no indication of the release date for the Reservists and National Guard men who have been called to active duty. Some sources said August was a target. The Pentagon said 84,000 enlisted men had had their duty tours extend

Jan. 25, 1962 - East German border guards seized today the entry to a secret tunnel that 28 East Germans used as an escape route to West Berlin yesterday, a spokesman for the Berlin city government disclosed. He said the Communist action followed the disclosure of the tunnel’s existence by an American news agency, United Press International. It was understood that UPI got the details of the escape by interviewing some of those who fled after they had been taken to the Marienf

Jan. 25, 1962 - Secretary of State Dean Rusk urged the conference of American foreign ministers in Uruguay today to adopt a plan “to guard our own continent” against the dangers of aggression from the Soviet bloc through a Cuban bridgehead. Mr. Rusk said that the plan would put Premier Fidel Castro, “a petty tyrant,” in his place. Most delegations voiced enthusiastic praise for Mr. Rusk’s proposals. The Cuban delegation, however, laughed loudly at the conclusion of Mr. Rusk’s

Jan. 24, 1962 - The Army assigned its youngest general today to responsibility for directing the ground force’s expanding efforts in guerrilla warfare. The assignment went to Brig. Gen. William B. Rosson, 43, a paratrooper and combat veteran who has seen most of the world’s trouble spots over the last 20 years. Army Secretary Elvis J. Stahr Jr. designated General Rosson as special assistant to Gen. George H. Decker, Army Chief of Staff, in charge of “special warfare.” Under o

Jan. 24, 1962 - Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Y. Malinovsky declared in an interview published today in Pravda, newspaper of the Soviet Communist party, that “shelters against atomic and hydrogen bombs are nothing but coffins and tombs prepared in advance.” He also asserted that the Soviet Union was able “to wipe off the face of the earth” all industrial and administrative centers of the U.S. “with a single nuclear-rocket attack.” Charging that the fall-out shelter drive in

Jan. 24, 1962 - Twenty-eight East Germans, including a 71-year-old paralyzed woman and an 8-year-old girl, fled to West Berlin early today. The group was the largest to escape from East Berlin since the Communist regime closed the border last August. The paralyzed woman was carried across the border by other members of the party. The woman had had two strokes. Five persons among the ten men and eighteen women were over 60, according to the West Berlin police. The refugees esc

Jan. 23, 1962 - President Kennedy told the public today that its milk supply “offers no hazards” either from radioactive fallout or cholesterol content. Mr. Kennedy told the National Conference on Milk and Nutrition that milk was so delicious and nutritious that he had ordered it served at all White House meals. The President concluded his 15-minute address in the Departmental Auditorium in Washington with a toast — in milk. He spoke against a background of serious concern in

Jan. 23, 1962 - Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower suggested today that leading military men assume a major role in warning the public of the dangers from international communism. General Eisenhower called upon the Special Senate Armed Services Subcommittee, which opened hearings today on charges of civilian censorship of military statements, to disapprove of any effort to thrust the military behind an “American iron curtain.” In a written statement to the Senate panel, he

Jan. 23, 1962 - The United States fought for votes today on a new formula for the Cuban problem that would suspend Premier Fidel Castro’s regime from membership in the Organization of American States. The new formula represents a shift from an earlier proposal that the conference of American foreign ministers invoke diplomatic sanctions against Cuba. However, the U.S. is still insisting on collective economic sanctions, including an embargo on arms shipments to Cuba by the In

Jan. 22, 1962 - Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy rejected today an informal invitation to visit the Soviet Union. The President’s brother said the plans for his coming world tour had been “completed for some time and I will not be able to alter them at this time.” The Attorney General and his wife will leave Feb. 2 on a trip that will take them to Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, West Germany, and the Netherlands. In his statement today, Mr. Kennedy said he would “

Jan. 21, 1962 - The assistant Senate majority leader, Hubert Humphrey (left), said today that Red China could explode a nuclear device “any time within this year.” Senator Humphrey said he based this view on “some knowledge of the development of nuclear physics and the nuclear science” by the Chinese Communists. “It has been known for a good deal of time that prior to World War II some of the most advanced nuclear scientists and nuclear physicists were Chinese, and they are s

Jan. 20, 1962 - The Soviet leaders have asked Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to visit Moscow on his world tour next month. President Kennedy and the State Department are trying to decide whether to accept the invitation, which is viewed in Washington as a feeler for an attempt to moderate the cold war. Secretary of State Dean Rusk had a long conversation yesterday with the Attorney General about the trip. They held up acceptance of the Soviet invitation. They are getting

Jan. 19, 1962 - Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara said today that the United States was resolved to oppose Communist aggression “in all its forms.” It will do so, he told a Senate committee, until the Soviet and Chinese leaders are convinced that their policies “endanger their security as well as ours.” He added: “There is no question that our strategic retaliatory forces are capable of destroying the Soviet target system, even after absorbing an initial attack.” It wa

Jan. 18, 1962 - The Soviet Army has withdrawn a dozen tanks from the heart of East Berlin, where they were encamped about half a mile from the wall at the intracity border that cuts off the Communist sector. The withdrawal took place last night about 48 hours after the U.S. Army began pulling back its tank task force from a camp on the Friedrichstrasse 500 yards from the border barricade. A spokesman at Soviet headquarters said today that the Soviet tanks had left Berlin. The

Jan. 16, 1962 - Communist Chinese propaganda denounced President Kennedy and the U.S. Government today. Accusing the President of acts of “persecution” against the American Communist party, all the major newspapers in Beijing carried editorials vilifying him as a “Fascist” in the class of Hitler, Mussolini, and General Tojo, World War II militarist leader of Japan. Observers viewed the attack as a direct outcome of the deepening ideological split between the Soviet Union and

Jan. 15, 1962 - Several thousand women from Eastern cities picketed the White House today to protest nuclear fallout. The pickets, soaked by heavy rain, were seen by President Kennedy from a White House window. He said later that he knew what they were trying to say to him. “I think these women are extremely earnest,” he said, “and that they are concerned, as we all are, at the possibility of nuclear war. They talked this morning to Mr. Adrian Fisher, deputy director of our D

Jan. 11, 1962 - Nikita S. Khrushchev, when a youth, considered emigrating to the United States to earn higher wages, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller said today. The Governor recalled a remark made by the Soviet Premier in a conversation at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1959 when Mr. Khrushchev was touring the U.S. “When Premier Khrushchev was here,” related the Governor, “I tried to give him a little feeling of the forces — human and spiritual — that motivate the people of the

Jan. 11, 1962 - A United States Air Force B-52H superbomber equipped for launching missiles broke a world record today by flying 12,519 miles non-stop from Okinawa to Madrid without refueling. The jet plane, which is powered by eight turbofan engines, exceeded by 1,283.4 miles the old distance record without refueling, set in 1946 by a U.S. Navy patrol plane named the Truculent Turtle. The jet, in its flight halfway round the world, claimed 10 other speed and course marks. Wi