Plane Crashes With 58 Aboard
NEW ORLEANS — (UPI)—An Eastern Air Lines DCS jettliner with 58 persons aboard crashed into 16 feet of water in Lake Pont-chartrain in early morning darkness today, minutes after takeoff from New Orleans. Officials reported no survivors as the Coast Guard began gathering bodies at daylight.
There was no advance indication of trouble as the plane, with 49 passengers and a crew of 7, left New Orleans on the second leg of a flight from Mexico City to New York. Pilot William Z. Zeng "nonchalantly" acknowledged orders to veer northeastward, and the plane vanished from radar screens a few moments later.
Clothing, wreckage, a lady's handbag and an uninflated liferaft bobbed to the surface of the lake roughly five miles east of the 24-mile lake Pontchartrain causeway, longest in the world.
THE SITE WAS between five and seven miles south of Mandeville, La., on the north shore of the lake.
"That thing is completely underwater and probably all torn apart," said Eastern Capt. L. E. Clark, who flew over the site.
Asked whether there was any chance of survivors, the 19-year flying veteran replied, "no ... negative."
He said choppy water and whitecaps prevented aerial searchers from sighting the wreckage.
A COAST GUARD cutter began dragging operations after "part of a body" was found.
The huge white plane, 126 feet long and with a wingspan to match, had stops scheduled for Atlanta and Washington en route to New York.
The plane rolled to the runway at New Orleans International at 2:01 a.m. EST.
Visibility was seven miles, the ceiling 1,000 feet. There had been rains earlier and the humidity was high. The temperature was a chilly 44 degrees.
An airport official said it was "fairly good flying weather."
At 3:12, approximately, the plane was airborne. At 3:19, its "blip" vanished from control tower radar screens.
CAPT. ZENG TOOK off due north. He was instructed by radio to veer northeast and avoid heavy weather. He was on course when the plane crashed.
Searchers tracking the course headed for the snake-infested swamp on the north shore of the lake near Slidell, La.
Then the Coast Guard spotted oil on the lake surface and chunks of the wing structure known as "honeycomb."
Dragging operations began as dawn rose over the lake.
The DC8, built by Douglas Aircraft, first went into service in the United States in 1960. It has a maximum seating capacity of 126 and cruises at about 550 miles an hour.
More debris drifted within sight of rescue boats that went to the scene. Water-soaked papers were fished out, including a check drawn on the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.
All debris was being fished aboard boats and taken to an air National Guard Station on the lakefront.
A Coast Guard helicopter brought chunks of the plane ashore.
Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1964
Williams made it clear in advance that even if the television cameras were banned, Baker would still refuse to testify, or to turn over subpoenaed documents to the committee.
Sen. Hugh D. Scott, R-Pa., sharply protested the "totally unwarranted" charge that the hearing was being staged solely for the television audience.
Another republican committee member, Sen. Carl T. Curtis, Neb., demanded that Williams withdraw his statement or "be expelled from the hearing room." He suggested that the lawyer might be guilty of contempt of Congress. His remarks were greeted by a brief volley of applause from the back of the hearing room.
Five Jurors for Ruby's Trial Approved by State and Defense
Baker Awarded TV Blackout Will Not Divulge Information
DALLAS—(UPI)—Selection of a jury for Jack Ruby's murder trial neared the half-way mark today as two jurors were picked back-to-back. After eight days, five jurors have been picked in the accelerating trial, three in the past two days, two today.
WASHINGTON — (UPI — Robert G. (Bobby) Bakei demanded successfully today that television cameras be barred from a public hearing at which he refused to answer questions of the Senate Rules Committee about the fortune he amassed while secretary to Senate Democrats.
Williams charged that the hearing was "being held solely for the sake of the TV cameras." He said Baker had already told the committee at a closed session last Wednesday that he would stand on his constitutional rights and refuse to answer "any questions put to him." Therefore, Williams said, "I request that we be excused."
Committee Chairman B. Everett Jordan, D-N.C., quickly overruled the request that Baker be excused. Williams then said that if Baker were forced to remain, "I ask that the television cameras be excluded from the hearing room."
Baker sat stolidly beside his attorney, Edward Bennett Williams, while Williams fought and won a brisk battle with committee members to halt TV coverage of the long-awaited hearing.
Luther E. Dickerson, 26, vice president of a small chemical company, was picked as juror no. 4. Douglas J. Sowell, 33, an airplane mechanic, followed him to the stand and was quickly chosen. They were the 67th and 68th panelists questioned.
Daily hansan
Sowell, an employee of Braniff International Airways, is the first Dallas resident on the jury. Dickerson is from suburban Mesquite. The other three also are suburbanites.
The defense argues that anyone who saw the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald on television is a witness and cannot be a juror. Dickerson was accepted when he said he had not seen a telecast. Sowell said he had seen one, but had not glimpsed Ruly's face.
Sowell is a Baptist. He said he received a high school diploma and a technical diploma while in the U.S. Air Force.
Sowell said he saw a re-run of the shooting telecast.
The trial was speeding up in its second week. Only two jurors were selected in the first six days of questioning.
Lawrence, Kansas
Assistant Defense Attorney Joe H Tonahill asked the court to show on the record that Ruby had the right to place Negroes on the jury.
"The back of his head." he said pointing to Ruby, "is all I seen."
He said Negroes were being dismissed in violation of Ruby's rights Judge Joe B. Brown dismissed the motion.
61st Year, No.90
Dickerson is a candidate for treasurer of the Mesquite Junior Chamber of Commerce.
Calm, smiling occasionally, he said he had no feeling that Ruby was
five Negroes from the panel have been called. Each has been dismissed for having scruples against the death penalty, which the state is asking.
The Texas Supreme Court rejected his argument yesterday. He threatened to take it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, the flamboyant San Francisco lawyer announced he had abandoned such plans, at least for the time being.
"Do you feel Dallas has to be vindicated by this trial?"
Belli then protested that Dr. Charles Stubblefield, the court-appointed neutral member of the psychiatric team, was collaborating with the state, but dropped the issue to get on with injury questioning.
Dickerson, 67th panelist questioned, is vice president of the Fritz Chemical Co., specializing in Terrazzo Tile products. He lives in Mesquite, just outside Dallas.
"No. sir." Dickerson replied
The defense, returning to its favorite theme, that Dallas is a guilt-ridden city and cannot fairly try Ruby, asked:
Dickerson, a native Dallasite, said he was out of town when Ruby shot Oswald Nov. 24.
Chief Defense Attorney Melvin Belli has demanded that prospective jurors who saw the televised slaying be classified as witnesses. No witness may be a juror in Texas.
"doing anything to silence Oswald."
He had described the move as on to stop the trial. It would eliminate all prospective jurors. All but three of the 61 panelists questioned thus far in the eight-day-old trial have said they saw the televised shooting.
In the latest of his legal nipups—he is famous for surprises and courtroom strategems—Belli was stymied late yesterday by the Texas Supreme Court in Austin. It declined to hear a plea and rejected a Belli bid for a writ of mandamus directing Judge Joe B. Brown to stop quashing subpoenas of prospective jurors who saw the Oswald shooting on television. Belli seeks them as witnesses.
The first four prospective jurors called today were excused within 20 minutes when they said they opposed the death penalty.
After adjournment of the seventh trial-day session yesterday, Belli said he would decide whether to go to the U.S. Supreme Court "right now." go back to the State Supreme Court Wednesday with another type of application, or wait until the end of the Ruby trial to appeal if there is an adverse decision.
"The question is, can a witness be a juror?" Belli said. "I don't think so. Do you have to see it with the naked sense of sight?"
In a brief in support of the rejected application for a writ of mandamus, the defense said the requirement should be whether a television viewer "has personally observed the event by his senses."
It said there is one basic question:
(Continued on page 12)
But Sen, Joseph D. Clark, D-Pa., and Sen Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., supported William's request. Pell said it was evident that "there is more of a hippodrome atmosphere here today," with live television coverage.
After a half-hour's wrangling—all covered by television-Curtis said on behalf of the three Republican members that he was agreeable to banning the cameras. He said they were not serving any "legislative purpos."
But Curtis said it should be clearly understood that the committee was not tacitly confirming Williams' charge that the hearing was set up as a television show.
Tenants Tell Of Shooting
Tenants of the apartment complex where Pedro Escobar was shot Saturday say the shooting ended a "wild party."
The shooting occurred about 9:10 p.m. when a gun carried by John S. Edwards, assistant instructor of Romance languages, discharged and killed Pedro Escobar, also an assistant instructor of Romance languages. Edwards was arraigned Sunday and held without bond. The shooting occurred at 121 W. 24th St., the apartment of John H. Wolf, another assistant instructor of Romance languages.
"Police questioned me about midnight," John McMillen, a tenant in the apartments, said.
"WHEN I CAME home they said I couldn't go into my apartment," McMillen said. He said the police had assumed Le was going to enter the apartment where the shooting had occurred earlier. McMillen's apartment is next door.
"When I left for the basketball game, they were having a pretty wild party," McMillen said. "They seemed pretty well on their way to being 'tight.' A couple of the girls came staggering over to the door and asked me to come over. That was at 6:30."
Another tenant, Gary Smith, who lived two apartments away, said, "This party started as loud as most of them end and built up from there."
"USUALLY THEY run these parties together," Smith said. "They use one apartment for drinking and the other for dancing. This time, Wolf was having a party and Edwards wasn't there."
"I'd been poking my head in and out all evening trying to find out where the racket was coming from," Smith said. "I was in my living room and I heard it in my bedroom. I found out it was coming through the floor, under the apartments, and into my bedroom." Smith said.
"It was the banging that got me to go out," Smith said. Edwards had rapped on Wolf's door with a .38 magnum pistol.
THIS TENANT in the end apartment said that when he reached his door Edwards was bending over Escobar and saying: "My God, I didn't mean to shoot him."
"Another guy, a big guy, came to the door and hit Edwards," he said
"The parking lot was loaded with cars." Smith said.
"They were dancing the flamenco, or at least that's what the police said they were doing," Smith said. Another couple living in the apartment did not hear the party.
"WE WERE asleep," Irvin Devore said. "I woke up when the ambulance came and looked out and saw the lights."
Devore and his wife had gone to bed around 6 p.m. because they have to work nights.
"Up until then (when they were questioned by police) we didn't know what happened." Devore said.
Committee Chairman Jordan then banned all types of television cameras—newsreel as well as live—from the hearing room.
Baker did answer a couple of questions posed by McLendon. He said he resigned his $19,600 a year post as secretary to Senate Democrats last October 7. He said the resignation was "voluntary" from the post to which he had been "elected Jan. 3, 1955."
McClendon then asked Baker to define his duties as Senate aide. Baker refused, and Sen. Clark suggested that the refusal "might well result in his being in contempt of the Senate."
In pressing his request that Baker be excused from testifying, Williams repeated his assertion, made behind closed doors last Wednesday, that Baker need not cooperate with a "legislative trial" in which he has no right to question accusers, no right to subpoena witnesses and no formal statement of charges.
Then Williams, repeating the assertion that the proceedings were designed to hold Baker up to public scorn, asked that the cameras be excluded.
Sen. Curtis challenged Baker to provide a specific reason for his refusal to testify.
Baker carried a black, leather attache case with a combination lock, but New York tax attorney Boris Kostelanetz declined to tell newsmen wether the subpoenaed records were in the case. Technically, Baker should have the records when he refuses to supply them under threat of possible contempt action.
Baker responded by reading the same statement he did in the executive session last week. Baker said he was invoking the first, fourth, fifth and sixth amendments of the constitution and specifically the one against self-incrimination
In a rather sharp tone, Baker told McLendon "I stand by my statement and you knew what my position would be."
Peter Nero, the pianist and entertainer, will appear here at 8 p.m. March 28. in Hoch Auditorium.
Nero to Appear ForGreekWeek
Nero's concert here will be sponsored by the SUA, as part of their annual spring concert series. The pianist's appearance will culminate Greek Week activities, set to begin March 26.
NERO IS a former first prize winner on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. His piano playing is characterized by a blending of classical music with jazz.
"Both jazz and the classics are part of my musical upbringing and I merely combine these elements in the music I play." Nero has said. "There can't be a constant sameness in the rendition of tunes; otherwise you are not creating anything."
NERO HAS recorded several albums. They include, "Piano Forte," "New Piano in Town," "Young and Warm and Wonderful," "For the Nero-Minded," and "Hail the Conquering Nero." A single, "It's a Darn Good Thing" and "Space Flight" are his latest releases.
He arranged and recorded the title song for the new movie, "My Six Loves." His plans for the future include composing Broadway musicals. The 29-year-old Nero was born in New York City.
Weather
Skies will be cloudy early tonight and clearing toward morning. The low tonight will be 20 degrees and the high Wednesday about 35 degrees. Skies will be partly cloudy tomorrow.