Sixty

[Ron Bulman]

10/4/63.  OPLAN was a military plan.  Nothing envisioned by JFK.

The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff coordinated with the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Defense in updating OPLAN 380-63, a plan for the invasion of Cuba that would take place during John F. Kennedy's campaign for re-election in 1964. Under the plan, Cuban exiles would infiltrate Cuba in January, American forces would follow on July 15, American air strikes would start on August 3, and "a full-scale invasion, with a goal of the installation of a government friendly to the U.S." would be launched on October 1, 1964.

On the same day, Texas Governor John Connally met with President Kennedy to agree upon plans for President Kennedy's trip to Texas for fundraising events and motorcades in Houston, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Dallas and Austin on November 21 and 22, 1963.^[19] 

So, John Connally met with JFK seven weeks to the day before the assassination, to agree upon plans for . . . motorcades in . . . Dallas . . .

Why did he reportedly cry out "they're going to kill us all" when struck, after protesting being forced to ride in JFK's limo by him?

Somewhere I've read of JC lobbying for the Trademart for JFK's Dallas speech over the Womens Building at Fair Park/the state fair site.  To the point he refused to participate further if it wasn't.  Which precipitated the need for the turns onto Houston, then Elm.  I need to figure out where I read this.  It changes my perspective on something. 

 

[Ron Bulman]

I was busy traveling/out of town and missed a couple relevant Wikipedia notes.

On Saturday October 5th 19663:

• Following a meeting with his National Security Council advisers, U.S. President Kennedy decided to withhold further American aid to the regime of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu unless they implemented political reforms. With the withdrawal of U.S. support to the regime, the way was cleared for a military coup that took place on November 2.^[20]   
• Then on the 7th, 
• U.S. President Kennedy signed the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which went into effect on October 10 after the completion of the deposit of the signed instruments by the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.^[29][30]
• Amid worsening relations between the U.S. and South Vietnam over violence against the nation's Buddhist majority, outspoken South Vietnamese First Lady Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu arrived in America for a speaking tour, continuing a flurry of attacks on the Kennedy administration.^[31]

[Ron Bulman]

Missed this yesterday, 10/9/64.

• Six weeks before the visit of President Kennedy to Dallas, FBI agent Marvin Gheesling removed the name of Lee Harvey Oswald from the Bureau's watch list of persons requiring surveillance.^[40][41]

[Ron Bulman]

I've been busy and missed this on October 14th 1963 in Wikipedia's notes.  

• In Irving, Texas, Ruth Paine, her friend Marina Oswald, and two neighbors were having a conversation while drinking coffee, and the subject of a job search by Marina's husband, Lee Harvey Oswald, came up. One of the neighbors, Linnie Mae Randle, mentioned that her brother had recently been hired at the Texas School Book Depository and that there might be an opening. Later in the day, Mrs. Paine telephoned the Depository and set up a job interview.^[57] On the same day, Mr. Oswald, using the name "O. H. Lee", rented a room in a house on 1026 North Beckley Avenue in Dallas.^[57]

^{Then there was this on the 16th.}

• At 10:30 a.m., the Texas Employment Commission attempted to notify Lee Harvey Oswald of a job opening as a baggage handler for an airline company. Earlier in the day, however, Oswald had successfully interviewed for a job at the Texas School Book Depository and had started work there. According to the Warren Commission, the airline job would have paid Oswald $100 more than his work at the book depository. The Commission wrote, "It is unlikely that he ever learned of this second opportunity".^[57] Oswald's rate of pay at the depository was $208.82 per month, payable semi-monthly in cash.^[69]

 

[Ron Bulman]

This is where Wikipedia coverage stops regarding Oswald in October.  JFK is finally mentioned again on the 31'st.

[Ron Bulman]

This happened on the 27th.

• The "green light" telegram, which effectively cleared the way for the overthrow of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem, was received in Saigon by U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. The substance of the cable, approved by U.S. Under Secretary of State George W. Ball, was that it was "authorizing Ambassador Lodge to signal that we would not oppose a coup against Diem", according to Ball's Deputy, U. Alexis Johnson.^[20] Johnson later recalled that he and Ball had been playing golf when "Averell Harriman and Roger Hilsman interrupted our game, and they gave him a telegram to sign". The cable was the followup to Cable 243, sent on August 24, that had instructed Lodge to pressure the Ngo brothers to resign.

[Ron Bulman]

The number one song on October 30, 1956.

 

[Pete Mellor]

Happy Birthday Ron.

[Ron Bulman]

16 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Happy Birthday Ron.

Thanks Pete.  A couple of other non Sixty related things that happened on this date in the last hundred years I stumbled across today.

In 1938 Citizen Kane had people believing alien were invading New Jersey.

'I had no idea I'd become a national event': Orson Welles on the mass hysteria of The War of the Worlds - BBC Culture

Then in 1974 there was the Rumble in the Jungle.  I never boxed but watched it some in those days, I remember seeing all of those mentioned on TV.  Wow, James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers.  Guess who won.  BTW I've still got a George Foreman grill. 

Build-up and delay due to injury[edit]

In 1967, then-champion Ali was stripped of his title and suspended from boxing for 3+1⁄2 years for his refusal to comply with the draft and enter the U.S. Army. In 1970, he first regained a boxing license and promptly fought comeback fights against Jerry Quarry and Oscar Bonavena in an attempt to regain the heavyweight championship from the then-undefeated Joe Frazier. In a bout dubbed the Fight of the Century, Frazier won a unanimous decision, leaving Ali fighting other contenders for years in an attempt at a new title shot.^{[citation needed]}

Meanwhile, the heavily muscled Foreman had quickly risen from a gold-medal victory at the 1968 Olympics to the top ranks of the heavyweight division. Greatly feared for his punching power, size, and sheer physical dominance, Foreman was nonetheless underestimated by Frazier and his promoters, and knocked the champion down six times in two rounds before the bout was stopped. He further solidified his hold over the heavyweight division by demolishing the only man besides Frazier at the time to defeat Ali, Ken Norton, in two rounds. At 25, the younger and stronger Foreman seemed an overwhelming favorite against the well-worn 32-year-old Ali.^[15]

Foreman and Ali spent much of the middle of 1974 training in Zaire, getting acclimated to its tropical African climate. The fight was originally set to happen on September 25 (September 24 in the United States due to the difference in time zones). However, eight days prior, Foreman was cut above his right eye by an accidental elbow thrown by his sparring partner Bill McMurray in a sparring session. Foreman's cut required 11 stitches, and the date of the fight was pushed back five weeks to October 30.^[16]

A three-night-long music festival to hype the fight, Zaire 74, took place as scheduled, September 22–24, including performances by James Brown, Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars, B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, Bill Withers, The Crusaders, and Manu Dibango, as documented in the 2008 film Soul Power.^[17] The championship was scheduled for 4 am local time to appear on live closed-circuit television in the Eastern Time Zone of the US at 10 pm.^[18] Zack Clayton was selected as referee for the fight.

[Ken Davies]

Ron, keep these updates coming. They are more informative than the ongoing JFK  slept with ...

 

[Ron Bulman]

Three weeks left, 21 days.  What was Oswald and many others doing?

November 1, 1963 (Friday)[edit]

• At 1:15 pm in Saigon, three marine battalions of South Vietnam began their seizure of communications throughout the capital city, taking control of the city's radio stations, national and municipal police stations, and the public and Defense Ministry telecommunications centers. The acts were the first in a coup d'état against President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. The planners had set a deadline of 1:15 to either begin the coup or to call it off, and were waiting until visiting U.S. Admiral Harry Felt had departed. Admiral Felt's airplane took off at 1:00 pm. Diem and Nhu quietly escaped Gia Long Palace by 8:00 p.m. and fled to refuge at the Roman Catholic church in the nearby Cholon section of the city.^[1]

[Ron Bulman]

A School Day Like No Other | Texas Co-op Power (texascooppower.com)

[Ron Bulman]

I missed these two important occurrences from three days ago on November 2, 1963.  I guess I never realized the murders of the Diem brothers happened the same day JFK's Chicago motorcade was cancelled.  The latter possibly because of the discovery of a planned assassination attempt?

November 2, 1963 (Saturday)[edit]

Corpse of President Ngo Dinh Diem

• At 6:37 a.m.,^[1] guards defending the Presidential Palace in Saigon raised the white flag of surrender after more than two hours of shelling by rebels within the South Vietnam military, but found that President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, had slipped out of the surrounded building, apparently through a tunnel that emerged at a beauty parlor several blocks away. Around 8:00 a.m., witnesses outside the St. Francis Xavier Church in Cholon recognized Diem and Nhu, who had asked church authorities to notify the rebels that they were willing to surrender. The coup leader, General Duong Van Minh, sent a convoy to pick up the Ngo brothers, and General Mai Huu Xuan oversaw their arrest. After promising them safe conduct into exile, General Xuan had both men step into an M113 armored personnel carrier at 9:45 a.m.^[6] Reports differ as to whether the act was committed inside the APC by their captor, Captain Nguyễn Văn Nhung,^[7] or by General Xuan after torture at the National Police headquarters,^[8] but the Ngo brothers were tortured and then shot to death. The official announcement from the rebels on Radio Saigon, however, was that both men had committed suicide.^[9]
• U.S. President John F. Kennedy was scheduled to be driven in a motorcade in Chicago, along Jackson Boulevard and Michigan Avenue en route to the Hilton Hotel, and then to watch college football's annual Army–Navy Game, being held that year at Soldier Field.^[10] That morning, however, Kennedy abruptly canceled the trip, and announced that he would remain at the White House to confer with advisers about events in South Vietnam.^[11]

 

[Ron Bulman]

Then on 11/4/63 this happened.

• The U.S. Secret Service concluded that the more secure and the larger of two locations for President Kennedy's fundraising luncheon in Dallas would be the "Women's Building" at Fair Park at the east side of downtown, rather than the Trade Mart on the west side near Dealey Plaza. Despite the recommendations of Chief Gerald Behn of the White House detail, and Dallas field office agent Forrest Sorrels, the state Democratic Party leaders in Texas settled on the Trade Mart. "[A] different destination for the motorcade," author Vincent Bugliosi would write later, "would have meant a different route altogether, and no assassination."^[18  
• And this.

• Major General Duong Van Minh, and the other leaders of the new government of South Vietnam, approved "a hastily drawn provisional charter" to replace the 1956 Constitution, and giving the Revolutionary Military Council all executive and legislative power.^[22]

[Ron Bulman]

There was this from 11/5/63.

• Ngo Dinh Can, the last member of the Ngo political family remaining in South Vietnam, was handed over to the new government on orders of U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., after an American military plane transported him to Saigon from Huế, where he had sought refuge at the American consulate.^[23] Put on trial for murder, the unpopular Can, who had ruled Central Vietnam as a dictator during the regime of his brother, President Ngo Dinh Diem,^[24] would be executed by a firing squad six months later.^[25]  

And these from the 6th.

• Coup leader General Duong Van Minh formally took office as the new head of state of South Vietnam, with civilian Nguyen Ngoc Tho as the prime minister.  

• In Midland, Texas, 17-year old Laura Welch, who would later marry George W. Bush and become the First Lady upon his inauguration as President of the United States, ran a stop sign at the intersection of Farm to Market Road 868 and Big Spring Street, and crashed into the side of a car driven by one of her classmates at Robert E. Lee High School, 17-year old Michael Dutton Douglas. Laura Bush would finally write about the accident after her husband left office, in her 2010 memoir, Spoken from the Heart, recounting that she and her friend were hurrying to a drive-in movie.^[28] Douglas, whose neck was broken, died at the local hospital.^[29][30][31]