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MAY 1964

WORLD'S FAIR NEWS
ROCKAWAY BEATINGS

Get into a conversation with a long time Queens resident and you're likely to discover a subscriber of the Long Island Star- Journal, a daily paper that informed the community about local and world news until it folded in 1968. A banner across the Star Journal masthead reminded readers that the newspaper's name came from the merger of the Long Island Daily Star (1876) and the North Shore Daily Journal - The Flushing Journal (1841).

Welcome to May 1964!

US jet reconnaissance flights over Laos were thought to be only the first of several actions which would be taken to counter Communist advances posing threats to Laos and South Vietnam. Other options included air strikes on North Vietnam, dispatching more air and sea forces to the area, landing of forces in Thailand and direct military intervention in Laos.

It was also believed that the proposed windup of US involvement in Vietnam by the end of 1965 would not happen. The 15,000 US military men in South Vietnam would not be reduced appreciably, if at all this year. New plans to double the number of Vietnamese pilots and boost Vietnamese ground forces by 50,000 men would entail training responsibilities that would carry over to at least 1965.

Con Edison appeared to have joined President Johnson’s war on poverty when it announced that it would burn coal, not oil, in its newest multi-million dollar generating plant in Ravenswood. The switch, according to the utility, would create 1,000 new jobs in the Appalachian poverty belt. Scheduled for completion next year, the plant was predicted to burn 2 to 2 ½ million tons of coal a year. Earlier in the month, the Johnson Administration had urged Con Ed to drop a multi-million dollar Canadian project to purchase electric power and invest in coal power in Appalachia.

In a speech at the Singer Bowl at the World’s Fair site, President Johnson called on all Americans to "open wide the door of equality" for 20 million of their Negro fellow citizens who had been "on the outside looking in" for 200 years. Regarding the civil rights bill before Congress, he said "It may take all summer-it may take sessions round the clock, but I promise you here and now that we are going to pass that bill." Johnson also appealed for aid in his "war on poverty."

Malcolm X, of Corona, the former Black Muslim leader, inflamed African passions against the United States by making a bitterly anti-American speech to an applauding university student group in the Nigerian city of Idaban. He said that racial discrimination in the United States was worse than apartheid in South Africa and that 32 million Negroes in the United States were being treated as less than human beings. Malcolm had formed a new black nationalist group more militant than the main Black Muslim organization.

At the Neponsit Home for the Aged in Rockaway Beach, 102 year-old Edward Everett Cauthorne prepared to be the guide when he and 29 of his fellow residents toured the World’s Fair. This would be his fourth fair. He had attended the New Orleans Fair of 1884, the Paris Exposition of 1900 and the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair. He missed the St. Louis Fair of 1904, because he was out of the country, but saw the construction of the 1933 Chicago Fair. As a teenager, Cauthorne had been a cattle-puncher in Texas and the Indian Territories. Later, in Jackson, Missouri, he was court clerk at the trial of Frank James, brother of the notorious Jesse James. In recent years, he was a real estate dealer.

But all was not well at the Fair. Less than a month after its opening, unexpectedly high expenses were leading some exhibiting nations to re-examine their Fair plans. Some talked about curtailing exhibits or closing outright. Others were charging fees for programs that were supposed to be free or asking their home government for additional funds. Fair executive Thomas J. Deegan Jr. also admitted that attendance had not reached the predicted 250,000/day, but large crowds were expected during the summer months.

"People count for nothing." "This is no good." "Where will we live--on the street?" "We don’t want to be moved." "Move? Never." These were among the milder reactions of Queens homeowners to the Federal Aviation Agency proposal to move people living near airports to "solve" the jet noise problem. The proposal to relocate thousands of families living in the flight paths of LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark airports was made by FAA regional director Oscar Bakke. The reaction elicited a response from the FAA’s administrator, Najeeb Halaby, explaining that the plan was for overall use of land near the airports and was not directly aimed at clearing homeowners out of approach zones. But he agreed that "the population in and around" LaGuardia airport had no immediate relief in sight.

Three boys were the victims of savage beatings on Rockaway Beach. A Star reporter walked the beach looking for clues to the attacks. The first clue was beer cans. In just one block between Beach 107 and 108 streets there were 1,400 cans, by actual count! The second was gangs. The reporter interviewed a 22 year old who, while no longer a gang member, commented that the trouble-making gangs were kids as young as 14 and not older than 18 who "were trying to impress girls and feel big." "They make a crack at a girl who isn’t interested, the girl complains to a boy she knows and then there’s a battle. The next week, the loser comes back with more friends to get even, and then there’s another brawl, with maybe someone scarred for life by a beer can opener."

The Beatles appearance at Forest Hills Stadium for shows on August 29-30 was sold out three months in advance. 28,000 tickets had been sold, and orders were still pouring in. The group was to get $40,000 plus a percentage of the gate, five free hotel suites and two limousines for their use. They also demanded, and would get, 100 private cops at their shows to protect them from adoring fans.

CBS-TV, with 13 awards, was the big winner at the Emmy awards, even though the network and ABC boycotted the ceremony. Both boycotting networks charged NBC with bloc voting in previous awards. Five awards were won by the "Dick Van Dyke Show." Other winners were the Danny Kaye Show, The Defenders, the Huntley-Brinkley Report and Hallmark Hall of Fame

Playing at the movies were "From Russia With Love" starring Sean Connery, "Dr. Strangelove" starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, "Hud" starring Paul Newman and "Kissing Cousins" starring Elvis Presley.

That’s the way it was in May 1964.

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