Saturday, February 27, 1965: Vietnam 'white paper'

The United States published a new "white paper" on Viet Nam today that charged North Viet Nam with waging an aggressive war against South Viet Nam as if it were an open invasion. ... An evident purpose of the report, too, is to lend support to the Johnson administration's policy of striking against targets in North Viet Nam. These bombings, undertaken three weeks ago, are expected to continue. ... The white paper was designed to show with precise figures the extent to which Viet Cong guerrillas in the south are supported and controlled by North Viet Nam. Thereby it sought to refute any suggestion that it is simply a civil war being fought in South Viet Nam.

     -- Associated Press (link to story: @)

* "Aggression From the North: The Record of North Viet-Nam's Campaign to Conquer South-Vietnam" (complete report; from The Vietnam Center and Archive, Texas Tech University): @ 

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Thursday, February 18, 1965: 'Grave but by no means hopeless'

Presenting the military budget to Congress, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara states: "The present situation in South Viet Nam is grave but by no means hopeless." His words echo exactly those of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in describing the situation in Indochina in 1954.

Dulles, June 4, 1954 (Associated Press story: @) 

* "The Threat of Direct Communist Chinese Intervention in Indochina" (Dulles, June 1954; from The Avalon Project, Yale Law School): @ 
* "The French Indochina War 1946-54" (Martin Windrow, 1998): @ 

McNamara, February 18, 1965 (Associated Press story: @)

* Full text of statement (from Department of Defense): @
* "Extracts of Statements by Robert S. McNamara on the Outlook in South Vietnam" (from The Harold Weisberg Archive): @
* "Leaders' Statements on Southeast Asia Examined" (Associated Press, February 21): @
* Excerpt from "Johnson's War/Johnson's Great Society: The Guns and Butter Trap" (Jeffrey W. Helsing, 2000): @ 

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Saturday, February 13, 1965: Tiros-9

The Tiros-9 satellite (also known as Tiros IX) produces the first photomosaic of the world's cloud cover.

Caption: This global photomosaic was assembled from 450 individual pictures taken by Tiros IX during the 24 hours of February 13, 1965. The horizontal white line marks the equator. Special photographic processing was used to increase the contrast between major land areas, outlined in white, and the surrounding oceans. The brightest features on the photographs are clouds; ice in the Antarctic, and snow in the north are also very bright. The clouds are associated with many different types of weather patterns. The scalloping at the bottom shows how the Earth's horizon appears in individual pictures.

(Photo from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; link to larger image: @)

* "U.S. Has Big Wheel Satellite In Orbit" (Associated Press, January 22): @

* NASA summary of Tiros-9: @

* NASA summaries of all Tiros missions: @

* Tiros-9 summary (Florida State University): @

* "Catalogue of Meteorological Satellite Data -- Tiros IX" (Environmental Science Services Administration): @ and @

* "Observation of the Earth and Its Environment: Survey of Missions and Sensors" (Herbert J. Kramer, 2002): @

* "Earth Observations from Space" (National Academy of Sciences): @

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