July 21, 1965 – The Simmering Dog Days Of Summer – Fact Finding Missions – No Life On Mars

CBS World News Roundup – July 21, 1965 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –

This day, 57 years ago saw an escalation of things. An escalation of the War in Vietnam and an escalation in the violence in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had returned from a 5-day fact-finding mission to Vietnam. He was giving his report to President Johnson, and the prognosis wasn’t expected to be good. In fact, McNamara said as much, when holding a press briefing on his return from Saigon. B-52s were busy staging bombing runs, their fifth in as many days. Ambassador Averell Harriman was holding talks for the second time in a week with Soviet Ambassador Alexei Kosygin over the situation in Southeast Asia. And the war machine was braced to go into overdrive, with Draft calls expected to rise precipitously in the coming months.

At the United Nations, Ambassador-designate/former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, replacing the late Adlai Stevenson, was facing confirmation hearings – Senate approval was swift, but UN opinion was mixed, particularly among the Arab nations, since Goldberg was Jewish. Can’t please everybody.

And the Civil Rights turmoil in the South was on the rise. With demonstrations and violence breaking out in Bogalusa, Louisiana – a KKK rally was planned for the second night and Civil Rights leaders were taking to the streets in protest. Tensions were on the rise in Alabama, where a KKK rally prompted an outbreak of violence and the murder of a Black youth.

Ironically, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach said crime in the U.S. was in a sort of Monsoon lull. That was either good news or bad news.

Medicare was getting over its final hurdles before confirmation in the House and Senate, which was expected to take place the following week.

And reports coming back from JPL in Pasadena say they still haven’t found life on Mars.

And that’s a small slice of what went on this July 21st in 1965 – as reported by CBS Radio News-On-The-Hour.

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