The following events occurred in September 1965:
September 1, 1965 (Wednesday) The People's Republic of China lodged a protest with the United Kingdom for allowing American troops to visit Hong Kong while on furlough. The Chinese, who were obligated under a 99-year lease to allow the British to use the area as a colony until 1997, likened the recreational use to the placement of an American military base on the Chinese mainland. The diplomatic note was delivered in Beijing to British Chargé d'Affaires K. M. Wilford, who was summoned to the Chinese Foreign Ministry by Hsieh Li, the Director of the Ministry's Department for Western European affairs. At 3:30 in the morning local time, Pakistan launched Operation Grand Slam, a surprise attack into India, with the objective of capturing the vital town of Akhnoor in Jammu and Kashmir, so as to sever communications and cut off supply routes to Indian troops. Pakistani leader Ayub Khan stated that "Hindu morale will not stand more than a couple of hard blows at the right time and place". India responded by calling in its air force. The United States Marine Corps announced that it was cutting the amount of training of new recruits from 12 weeks of boot camp to only eight, in response to the sudden increase in combat troops assigned to the Vietnam War. "The aim is to process 30,000 additional men," a report noted, "without adding to present marine facilities or increasing the staff of instructors," effectively educating 50% more U.S. Marines each year. Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower paid a final visit to his birthplace in Denison, Texas, and spent half an hour touring the house on 609 South Lamar Avenue where he had been born almost 75 years earlier. Eisenhower gave a speech at the auditorium at Denison High School, which had been renamed in his honor after alumni had protested against renaming the entire school. The People's Republic of China created the Tibet Autonomous Region, giving the conquered Buddhist Kingdom of Tibet limited authority on matters of education and language policy, and a Tibetan member of the Chinese Communist Party, Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, as the regional chairman. Born: Craig McLachlan, Australian actor and singer; in Long Jetty, New South Wales
September 2, 1965 (Thursday)
The valuable DeLong Star Ruby, stolen on October 29, 1964, was recovered from a telephone booth at a toll road service plaza, on the Sunshine State Parkway from Palm Beach, Florida. Multimillionaire John D. MacArthur arranged for $25,000 ransom to be released to the callers after verifying the authenticity of the ruby.Douglas J. Preston, Dinosaurs in the Attic (St. Martin's Press, 1986)"$140,000 RUBY RANSOMED", Chicago Tribune, September 3, 1965, p1 Former presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater filed a lawsuit against publisher Ralph Ginzburg and his publishing company, Fact Magazine, Inc., seeking two million dollars for libel arising from an article questioning the candidate's sanity. The front cover of the September–October 1964 issue of Fact magazine had the headline "1,889 psychiatrists say Goldwater is psychologically unfit to be President", and in Ginzburg's article (including an excerpt reprinted on the back of the magazine) was the statement, "He consciously wants to destroy the world with atomic bombs. He is a mass murderer at heart. He is amoral and immoral. He is a dangerous lunatic.""Barry's Suit for 2 Million Hits Magazine", Chicago Tribune, September 3, 1965, p2 Goldwater would be awarded $75,000 by a federal jury in 1968"$75,000 Won by Goldwater", Bridgeport (CT) Post, May 25, 1968, p1 and the U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately affirm the decision in 1970."Top Court Orders Memphis Integration", Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard, March 10, 1970, p6 Two homes in Vandenberg Village, California, were damaged, and 41 people taken to the hospital, after debris from a destroyed missile fell on their neighborhood from Vandenberg Air Force Base. A Thor-Agena booster rocket had been launched from the base minutes earlier but then deviated from its course, and was destroyed by remote control at an altitude of , sending flaming debris on the area below.Jeffrey E. Geiger, Camp Cooke and Vandenberg Air Force Base, 1941-1966 (McFarland, 2014) p182 American comedian Phyllis Diller, whose popular standup comic routine was based on her experiences as a housewife and on a mythical husband nicknamed "Fang", filed for divorce against her real husband of 25 years, Sherwood Diller."Phyllis Diller Files Divorce Suit Against Her Husband, 'Fang'", Appleton (WI) Post-Crescent, September 4, 1965, pA-5 The uncontested divorce would be granted the following day."Comedienne Gets Quickie Divorce", Terre Haute (IN) Tribune-Star, September 5, 1965, p19 Tahir Yahya was forced to resign as Prime Minister of Iraq. The vacancy would be filled four days later by Arif Abd ar-Razzaq, who would flee the country on September 17 after only 10 days in office."Iraq", in Heads of States and Governments Since 1945, by Harris M. Lentz (Routledge, 2014) p1594 Born: Lennox Lewis, British boxer who was world heavyweight boxing champion during much of the 1990s and early 2000s; in West Ham, London Died: Émile Muselier, 83, Admiral of the Free French Naval Forces composed of ships that continued to fight World War II when France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940. Johannes Bobrowski, 48, East German poet
September 3, 1965 (Friday) India's Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri approved a three-point policy in the nation's war against Pakistan, specifically, defending against Pakistan's attempts to seize control of Indian Kashmir; to destroy the offensive power of Pakistan's armed forces; and "to occupy only the minimum Pakistan territory necessary to achieve these purposes", removing troops "after the satisfactory conclusion of the war.""Incian Air Power", by Jasjit Singh, in Global Air Power (Potomac Books, 2011) p232 The earliest known skateboard park opened in Tucson, Arizona. Surf City, located on 5140 East Speedway Road, billed itself as the "world's first championship skateboard course", provided free use of helmets to every participant who paid the one dollar admission fee, and offered to rent boards to kids who did not own one.Ben Marcus, The Skateboard: The Good, the Rad, and the Gnarly: An Illustrated History (MVP Books, Jun 6, 2011) p90Advertisement, Tucson Daily Citizen, September 2, 1965, p52 Communist China's Vice-Premier Lin Biao, viewed as the eventual successor of party chairman Mao Zedong, published the widely circulated essay Long Live the Victory of the People's War!, providing the official view of China's role as a world power and a guide to fomenting similar "people's revolutions" in nations around the globe.Mikyoung Kim, Routledge Handbook of Memory and Reconciliation in East Asia (Routledge, 2015) p42 Kosmos 84, the Soviet Union's first nuclear powered satellite, was launched into orbit. Its source of fuel was a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) fueled with polonium-210.Firooz A. Allahdadi, et al., Safety Design for Space Operations: Nuclear-Powered Payload Safety (Elsevier, 2013) Héctor García-Godoy became President of the Dominican Republic as the military junta turned over leadership of the Caribbean nation to civilians."Garcia Takes Dominican Presidency", Chicago Tribune, September 4, 1965, p1 Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Mysterium fidei, reinforcing traditional Roman Catholic doctrine concerning the Eucharist. Born: Charlie Sheen, American film and television actor; as Carlos Irwin Estévez in New York City
September 4, 1965 (Saturday) Newcomb Mott, a 27-year-old American book salesman from Boston, went sightseeing while staying at a hotel in the Norwegian town of Kirkenes, and ventured across Norway's border in the Finnmark province into the Soviet Union. Kirkenes police chief Gunnar Haarstad found that Mott had last been seen at the village of Elvenes, about a mile from the border, and that Russian border authorities confirmed on September 9 that Mott had been arrested for illegal entry. Mott would be convicted on November 24 of illegal entry and sentenced to 18 months in prison. By January 17, he would be dead, and Soviet authorities would say that he had committed suicide on a train that was taking him to a forced labor camp at Murmansk."Jailed American Committed Suicide, Russians Tell U. S.", Chicago Tribune, January 22, 1966, p1 Yorkshire defeated Surrey, 317 to 142, to win the championship game of the Gillette Cup, which had started as a single elimination tournament in April with all 17 of England's first-class county teams, and five minor teams that had been invited to participate. Geoff Boycott's 146 runs in the final at Lord's Cricket Ground, remains the highest ever scored in a county limited-overs final played there. In a rare show of defiance against the Communist government of the Soviet Union, public protests began in the Ukrainian SSR against the August 24 roundup of Ukrainian intellectuals by the KGB. The time chosen for the outcry was the premiere in Kiev of the new film by Sergei Parajanov, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.Bohdan Nahaylo and Victor Swoboda, Soviet Disunion: A History of the Nationalities Problem in the USSR (Simon and Schuster, 1990) p149 Born: Michael Bentt, British-born professional boxer who briefly held the World Boxing Organization heavyweight title; in East Dulwich, London Bowie Lam, Chinese television actor and singer; in Hong Kong Died: Dr. Albert Schweitzer, 90, German Alsace-born Gabonese physician and missionary, and recipient of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, died at the hospital he had built in the African jungle at Lambarene in Gabon. Felix Tijerina, 60, Mexican-American restaurateur and philanthropist in Houston, and one-time national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). Alfred Bossom, 83, English skyscraper architect and inventor
September 5, 1965 (Sunday) Three Iranian graduates from the Tehran University College of Engineering founded the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) to oppose the Western-style reforms and the political repression of the Shah. Mohammed Hanifnezhad, Said Mohsen, and Ali-Asghar Badizadegan successfully worked for the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, and the establishment of an Islamic republic, and then saw their organization would have no role under the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The group would then wage its own campaign against Khomeini, with terrorist attacks against Islamic Republican Party members, and the assassination of the President and the Prime Minister."Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization", in Encyclopedia of Modern Worldwide Extremists and Extremist Groups, Stephen E. Atkins, ed. (Greenwood Publishing, 2004) p211 A battalion of the United States Marines used what it described as "tear gas" to force hidden Viet Cong guerrillas into the open in the South Vietnamese village of Vinh Quang in the Binh Dinh Province. The North Vietnamese branch of the International Red Cross, however, said that the 48 canisters were of a high concentration of phenacyl chloride or CN gas, and that 35 civilians had been killed.John Cookson and Judith Nottingham, A Survey of Chemical and Biological Warfare (New York University Press, 1969) p17 USMC Lt. Col. Leon N. Utter, commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 7th U.S. Marine regiment, was investigated but cleared of wrongdoing."Officer Cleared In Use of Gas", San Antonio Express and News, September 26, 1965, p12-A