Busy news day for June 5, 1964.
From France, Undersecretary of State George W. Ball’s meeting Friday with President DeGaulle is part of a desire by both the United States and French governments to improve their relations, a qualified French source disclosed Thursday night. In another move to help United States-French relations deGaulle was reported planning send new ambassador to Washington later this year. The meeting in Paris was arranged, the source said, after a high-ranking American whose name he refused to disclose, paid a secret visit to the , French president last week on behalf of President Johnson. DeGaulle, it is understood, welcomes the opportunity of explaining and defending French policy to Ball and through him. to President Johnson. The French leader will emphasize, the source predicted, that the United States is wrong in considering France’s policy antiAmerican or favoring an expansion of communism in Southeast Asia.
Meanwhile, diplomatic sources said yesterday another appeal will be made to Prince Souphanouvong to reconsider his decision to withdraw his pro-Communist Pathet Lao ministers from the Laotian Cabinet. The sources said the three International Control Commission .members from India, Poland and Canada plan to fly to Phanouvong’s headquarters in Khang Khay today and deliver such a plea. They will be accompanied by representatives of Britain and the Soviet Union, the co-chairnen of the Geneva conference on Laos. Diplomats fear that Souphanouvong is planning to set up a rival government at Khanz Khay in opposition to the coalition regime under neutralist Premier Souvanna Phouma in Vientiane.
In the Congo, A United States Army airplane was fired on Thursday by machine guns from Congo rebel positions in the village of Kamanyola, 25 miles south of Bukavu. The pilot, Maj. Harry Asbury, an assistant U.S. Army attache, said rebels appeared to be waiting for the aircraft as it came swooping in at treetop level over the village. Thursday morning. The twin engine Beechcraft has been flying reconnaissance missions for the Congolese army over the rebel held Ruzizi Valley.
The plane has been fired on before with “poo-poo guns,” muzzle-loading muskets which fire bolts, nuts and nails, as well as by automatic rifles. But this was the first time the rebels have used machine guns against the plane.
And from South Korea Kim Chong pil, a chief target of the mounting student demonstrations in South Korea, resigned today as chairman of the ruling Democratic Republican party. President Chung Hee Park accepted Kim’s resignation in an effort to quiet swelling public discontent. He had rejected resignation from Kim during the weekend. Kim, 37, was Park’s right hand man, former head of the secret police and a key plotter in the 1961 military coup that brought Park into power.
And along with Laos that’s just a little of what happened, this June 5, 1964 as presented by Mutual News On The Hour.
