Riots Subside In Birmingham
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—(UPI)—Two white youths were cut with knives and a Negro was wounded by a pellet gun last night on the streets of this racially torn city.
State troopers patrolled the streets while a small detachment of federal troops maintained an observation post in the federal building here.
ro leader Martin Luther King Jr., appealed to members of his
The incidents last night were scattered and there was no recurrence of the weekend rioting that caused President Kennedy to order 3,000 troops sent to military bases in Alabama on standby alert.
race at a mass meeting last night "to be calm and retain our commitment to nonviolence."
Heavily armed state troopers and local police have patrolled the streets since the bombing of a Negro home and motel Saturday night touched off six hours of racial rioting that left 24 persons injured.
It was this violence that prompted President Kennedy to dispatch troops to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery and Ft. McClellan in Anniston for possible use in Birmingham. Gov. George Wallace protested the action of the President, saying state and local police had the situation under control. He also said there was no legas basis for sending the troops into the state.
Wallace conferred with his legal aides yesterday and planned further meetings with them today. "We have plans to get them (troops) out," he told newsmen. "They are here illegally."
The President yesterday, in effect, rejected Wallace's contention he lacked authority to order troops into Alabama and Kennedy appealed to the governor for his "constructive cooperation" so the soldiers would not be needed.
A 12-man headquarters detachment was set up in a federal building here under the command of Brig. Gen. John T. Corley, assistant commander of the 2nd infantry division at Ft. Benning, Ga.
Justice Department officials appeared optimistic, however, that the troops would not have to be called into the city. Asst. Atty. Gen. Burke Marshall, the department's chief trouble shooter here, was quoted as feeling local authorities have control of the situation.
JFK Confident
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — President Kennedy was reported today to be "cautiously optimistic" that local authorities would be able to resolve Birmingham's racial crisis without federal troops being used.
Senate Democratic leader Mike Mansfield, Mont., gave this appraisal of the President's views to newsman. Mansfield said a considerable portion of today's weekly meeting of the President and Democratic legislative leaders was devoted to discussion of the Birmingham crisis.
"The President is very hopeful, and very desirous, that this matter can be settled on a local level," said Mansfield. He added that Kennedy hoped the "good sense" of the local leaders would prevail in the crisis.
As for Kennedy's authority to dispatch the troops to the tense area, Mansfield said "I don't think there is any question" that the President does have such right. Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace claims the President acted illegally.
Mansfield said Kennedy "doesn't want to use the troops (and) feels the main responsibility is with the local groups and wants them to succeed."
Weather
Partly cloudy skies are forecast through tomorrow with scattered showers or thunderstorms tonight or tomorrow. Slightly warmer temperatures will prevail this afternoon and tonight with a low tonight in the 60's. The high tomorow will be 85 to 90.
LAWRENCE. KANSAS
Daily Hansan
60th Year, No.141
Tuesday, May 14, 1963
"Well, we'll try again tomorrow." Powers described Cooper as still "in pretty high spirits" when he got back to his pre-flight quarters, hangar S on the Cape, after his 5 hours and 51 minutes of confinement on his back in the tiny Faith 7 spacecraft.
ACCORDING TO Lt. Col. John A. Powers, astronaut spokesman, Williams told the astronaut, "Gee, Gordo, I'm sorry." Cooper, Powers said, replied:
Walter C. Williams, operations boss of the Mercury manned space flight program, said the flight will be attempted at 9 a.m. EDT tomorrow—assuming the radar is working all right again by 7 p.m. today.
Williams said weather conditions looked good for tomorrow's attempt. The radar trouble developed at the Bermuda tracking station on which Mercury controllers depend to determine when to insert a
Space Flight Delayed By Defective Radar
The cocky little blue-eyed space pilot was quoted as commenting, "was just getting to the real fun part"—the rocket's roaring blastoff—when the decision to scrub was announced.
CAPE CANAVERAL—(UPI)
CAPE CANAVERAL — (UPI) L. Gordon Cooper's 22-orbit, 34-hour flight in space around the world was postponed 24 hours today because of bugs in a tracking radar crucial to his safety and success.
The postponement was announced at 10:57 a.m. EDT, just 12 minutes before the 36-year-old Air Force major is to have rocketed into the sky atop an Atlas rocket in an attempt to beat all previous U.S. space flight records.
spacecraft into its first orbit by cutting off the engines at the proper instant.
The trouble with the radar coincided with failure of the diesel engine which moves the 150-foot, 450-ton service tower away from the Atlas booster before blastoff.
He said that if the flight had gone today despite the radar trouble, officials would have had to rely on less accurate information to make the critical decision on whether Cooper had achieved a good orbit.
THE ENGINE failure, first in the memory of Cape veterans, forced a delay of more than two hours in Cooper's planned liftoff. Then the radar difficulties necessitated a scrub for the day.
WILLIAMS said tomorrow's weather outlook for the launch area and major recovery regions is "essentially the same" as that for today. He said the final decision on the new attempt would be made "solely on the condition of the Bermuda radar."
Williams said the radar defect at first appeared to be minor. Then conditions "deteriorated as the count progressed."
Other than the diesel and radar troubles, the pre-flight check, known as the countdown, had proceeded with unusual smoothness. Cooper and the weather, the spacecraft and its booster were all right for the shot.
Cooper had been reported "in good spirits" as he awaited his fate aboard the Faith 7. Williams remarked at a news conference after the scrub that the astronaut's 4 hours and 19 minutes in his cabin was "a very good simulation" of space flight.
At 11:34 a.m. EDT, the 12-story gantry which services Cooper's Atlas rocket began moving slowly into place around the booster in preara-
tion for removing Cooper. It was estimated it would require another half hour to bring the astronaut down and return him to Hangar S, his preflight home on the base.
Tomorrow is the earliest another attempt can be made. The big Atlas had been loaded with 160,000 pounds of liquid oxygen to burn the 73,000 pounds of high grade kerosene fuel previously put aboard.
It was not immediately determined what had gone wrong with the Bermuda radar. The trouble showed up around 8 a.m. EDT. The countdown had been continued, however, in the hope the radar would start functioning again.
But delays and scrubs are old stuff in the space business. The first American in orbit, Lt. Col. John H. Glenn Jr., sweat it out twice in his spacecraft before he got off on his three-orbit flight Feb. 20, 1962.
virgil I. Grissom, who made a suborbital flight July 21, 1961, also was removed from his cabin because of delays. Grissom holds the record for time spent in a capsule before flight —6 hours and 19 minutes.
It was Glenn who voiced the thought always uppermost in the minds of astronauts. When he was pulled out of his cabin he said, "There'll be another day."
Officials had hoped to the last to get Cooper off today on his 575,000-mile flight. A postponement when the weather is good always raises the possibility that it may turn sour before the next attempt can be made.
For Cooper it meant resumption of life in his pre-flight quarters in the Cape's hangar S. He had hoped to be aboard the aircraft carrier Kearsarge southeast of Midway by tomorrow evening.
Space officials in contact with the astronaut said he "seems to be feeling fine and is in good spirits."
Wise Old Owls Here In Time For Final Week
The Owl Society could have taken a lesson on sitting in the trees and hooting from the experts today.
Two young owls made their first attempts at tree flight, causing quite a commotion in front of Flint Hall.
One owl made the flight to a low branch and passively stared back at the crowd that gathered.
The other's flight was not as successful and he was stranded on the ground nearby.
The frightened youngster was finally rescued by a kind zoologist and he joined his brother on the higher safer perch. Their mother watched apprehensively but quietly from the top of another tree.
The Owl Society will put its fledglings through the same procedure Thursday morning, as they perch in the trees and prove their capabilities ashooters.
Photographs by — Murrel Bland and Terry Ostmeyer