1965 in retrospect
Man of the year' to Johnson
From the time of his inauguration as President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson has burned the LBJ brand into national and newspaper history.
Perhaps the biggest news of this Texan's era came from his legislative record. Under Johnson leadership, the 89th Congress passed more major social legislation than had been enacted since the days of the New Deal.
The Voting Rights Act has yet to be tested by the Supreme Court, but its passage was rightful'y hailed as a tactical victory over Southern Democratic opposition.
The rights act probably will rank as one of the two most far-reaching bills passed by the 80th. The other is medicare. This bill, providing medical care for the aged through the Social Security system, was passed despite the massed opposition of the American Medical Association and conservative ranks.
Farochial, public elementary secondary and collegiate educational systems were aided by the $13 billion aid-to-education bill. In other major bills
aiding establishment of the Great Society and conducting the war on poverty, water resources are to be preserved, desalination aid is provided, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is being instituted.
THE LBJ BRAND also was stamped on a Foundation for Arts and Humanities, an act to aid beautification of American highways (although the brand on this one had a distinctly feminine flourish), a new immigration act and the lowering of excise taxes.
Soon American attitudes toward this legislative flood became jaded. The big headlines were reserved for a Johnson struggle or minor defeat. The yet unsettled row over the repeal of 14-b and the muddled intrigue of the nomination of Francis X. Morrissey obscured the sounds of mustering troops to defeat the Dirksen reapportionment amendment, and blurred the psychological celebration over the timely resignation of Harry Byrd.
President Johnson
—Illustrations by Richard Geary
The Johnsonian ease in managing the domestic scene overshadowed his difficulties in the
field of foreign affairs. Escalation of the Vietnamese war, increased draft calls and bombing efforts, coupled with the crisis in the Dominican Republic kept Johnson aides scurrying and telephone wires humming.
G Joe
Illustrations by Richard Geary
And the press was not neglected; the legendary LBJ sensitivity often provided editorial bombast for many an intimidated editor. As in domestic affairs, the "bad" overshadowed the "good"; comparatively little note was made of the U.S. decision to accord Panama sovereignty over the Canal Zone.
THE YEAR I J. E. (Johnson Era) is drawing to a close. It has encompassed a glitteringly successful legislative program, a fair-to-mediocre foreign policy, the national suspense of a presidential operation, and a confrontation with big business in the aluminum and copper price disputes. Above all it has been dominated by the sheer, overwhelming power of the Johnson personality which permeates every purposed objective act of government.
Although opinions may differ as to the value or potential danger of the Johnson ego and
talent, none can deny that the LBJ brand is indelibly seared into an important chapter of American history.
Ranked closely behind Johnson on a pro-rated list of 10 "men of the year" is the American soldier in Viet Nam, a symbolic representation of the nearly 200,000 American men now participating in the war. Since the first Marines landed nine months ago, the American G.I. has been shouldering an increasing burden in the expanding conflict, marked by the lengthening lists of U.S. casualties.
Another symbolic figure, tied in the public mind to the Vietnamese war, finished third; the student demonstrator. Yet student protests have covered a wide range of subjects in addition to Viet Nam—free speech, in loco parentis and civil rights.
Fourth on the list is Ian Smith, rebel prime minister of Rhodesia whose unilateral declaration of independence alarmed black Africa.
FIFTH IS POPE PAUL VI, recognized for his news leadership during the meetings of the Vatican Ecumenical Council.
Sixth place is devoted to the astronauts, particularly Col. Edward White and Lt. Col. Leonov, the first two spacewalkers.
Seventh is Robert Mc-
Namara, Johnson's analytical and controversial secretary of defense.
Eighth is Nobel Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr., for his work in the Selma demonstrations and for public reaction to his appearance in the Watts rict.
Ninth is occupied by U Thant, secretary-general of the United Nations, for his work in the India-Pakistan dispute.
Tied for tenth are John Lindsay, newly-elected mayor of New York City, and Harold Wilson, prime minister of Great Britain.
— Jacke Thayer Justin Beck
Reapportionment, beauty; tragedy top state news
Proportions of several kinds held the interest of KU Journalism School editorial writers as they voted for the top news-making stories of 1935.
Of the three top stories, the legislative reapportionment battle was first; the Wichita air crash in frozen January, second; and the winning ways of Miss America, 1965, Miss Debbie Bryant of Overland Park, third.
The story of a Kansas farm youth, the sad tale of Duane Pope, who set out for a job after graduation, and ended up a killer, was fourth. Two more tragedies, the vast summer floods in southern Kansas and the July 2 collapse of an old bridge in Topeka were next.
JIM RYUN, AN 18-YEAR-old Wichita long-distance runner, raced into seventh place with his crowd-thrilling efforts, and falling records. The William Zimmer kidnap-murder
case was eighth, the KU sit-in demonstrations were ninth, and the execution of Perry Smith and Richard Hickok for the murder of Garden City's Clutter family, rounded out the list.
The reaportionment story began early in the year and has had almost continuous coverage all through 1965. On Jan. 25, the Federal District Court declared the 1961 Apportionment Act unconstitutional and issued a mandate for the legislature to pass another. The problem seemed to be politics, not mathematics, as the legislature set about to put approximately 435,722 persons in each district. The 1961 bill allowed for districts with a variance of this from 1.3 per cent to 23.8 per cent while the reported norm should be close to 1 per cent.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
I'VE A NOTION WE'RE A TERRIBLE DISAPPOINTMENT TO COACH."
chosen Miss Kansas July 12 at Pratt and crowned Miss America Sept. 12 in Atlantic City.
The 1935 plan which the legislature passed decreased the variance from -0 per cent to 1.94 per cent and split Sedgwick and Wyandotte Counties. It, too, was contested and declared illegal and Gov. William Avery has announced the calling of a special session of the legislature early next year to work on this problem.
The $1,598 robbery of the Big Springs, Neb., bank by the recent McPherson College graduate, Duane Pope, on June 4 when three persons were killed and another seriously injured received the attention of all Kansans to rate it as the number four story. He surrendered in a Kansas City, Mo., hotel room on June 11, saying "I'm tired of running. I want to surrender." At his trial in November, the defense pleaded insanity but Pope was found guilty on six counts of a federal indictment and sentenced to die in the electric chair on March 3.
THE SECOND STORY, the crash of a jet into a residential area in Wichita on Jan. 16. was chosen both for its personal tragedy and for its showing of the help given by volunteer groups. The KC-135 jet tanker tock off from McConnell Air Force Base, six miles from the crash.
Miss Debbie Bryant's youth, beauty and her selection of KU as the school she plans to enter next fall were in her favor when the class selected her story as number three. An Overland Park model, the 19-year-old Miss Bryant was
It started dumping fuel over Wichita State University (WSU), banked, turned and fell into the residential section near WSU, killing 30 persons and destroying 14 homes with minor damage to many more.
THE JUNE FLOODS on the Cottonwood, Walnut, Smoky Hill. Marais des Cygnes, and the Arkansas rivers, bringing an estimated 22 million dollars in damages, was the fifth most important story. The floods began on June 4 and 5 when 10.5 inches of rain fell north of El Dorado to cause the Walnut River flooding of Augusta and El Dorado, where damage was estimated at 3.9 million dollars. The rains continued over Kansas with 6.2 million dollars of damage in the Cottonwood, Marais des Cygnes and Walnut Valleys, Garden City was especially hard hit by the Arkansas River and Gypsum had minor damage from the Smoky.
Kansans were making long holiday weekend plans the afternoon of July 2 when the news of the collapse of the Kansas Avenue Bridge in Topeka came.
The collapse caused the death of at least one man, 43-year-old Kenneth Allen, whose car plunged into the Kansas River as he was coming home from work.
— Dorothy Elliott Mary Dunlap
Daily Kansan
Tuesday, December 14, 1965