Monday, May 16, 1966: 'Pet Sounds'

Departing from the Beach Boys' surf-music roots, "Pet Sounds" was an emotive and carefully planned recording that attempted to present an album as a unified work and not merely a collection of singles. The album is notable for Brian Wilson's lead vocals* and the harmonizing support from the other band members. Equally compelling are the melodies and the arrangements, the latter featuring, among other instruments, horns, strings, theremin, accordion and a glockenspiel. The album has proven to be the most complete statement of Wilson's musical and lyrical aesthetic.

-- From National Recording Registry, Library of Congress

-- * Other group members also sang lead vocals, most notably Carl Wilson on "God Only Knows"

* Listen to the album (archive.org): @

* Album review (AllMusic): @

* Album reviews (Rolling Stone): @ and @

* "Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll: 'Pet Sounds' " (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame): @

* "The Making (and Remaking) of the Beach Boys' 'Pet Sounds,' Arguably the Greatest Rock Album of All Time" (Open Culture): @

* "The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band, On Stage and in the Studio" (Keith Badman, 2004): @

* "The Beach Boys' 'Pet Sounds' " (Jim Fusilli, 2005): @ 

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Tuesday, May 25, 1965: Clay-Liston 'phantom punch'

LEWISTON, Maine -- In a one-minute fiasco that was worse than their first meeting in Miami Beach 15 months ago, Cassius Clay retained the world heavyweight title by knocking out old Sonny Liston in St. Dom's Arena Tuesday night. The first punch thrown by the 23-year-old champion was a short, nearly invisible right hand that landed on Liston's jaw. It was his only punch, after running, backing and ducking from Liston's determined pursuit. Liston crumpled from the blow, rolled over flat on his back, turned and tried to get, fell again. 

     -- "Just A Minute Clay Still Champ" (Jesse Abramson, New York Herald Tribune): @

     -- Photo by Neil Leifer, Sports Illustrated

* "Clay Wins By KO In One Minute Of 1st Round" (Associated Press): @

* "Muhammad Ali in Lewiston: The Legend of the Phantom Punch is Born" (New England Historical Society): @
* "The Night the Ali-Liston Fight Came to Lewiston" (New York Times, 2015): @

* "Ali-Liston 50th anniversary: The true story behind Neil Leifer's perfect photo" (Slate, 2015): @ 

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Sunday, May 23, 1965: 'Credibility gap'

The term -- referring to the disparity between the stated justification and the actual reason for U.S. military intervention in the Dominican Republic -- appears as part of a column written by David Wise of the New York Herald Tribune. Wise does not use those exact words; instead, it appears in the headline "Dilemma in 'Credibility Gap.' "  

     -- Clipping from The High Point (N.C.) Enterprise, May 28, 1965

(A May 1 message from Gen. Earle G. Weaver, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Lt.  Gen. Bruce Palmer Jr., commander of the U.S. forces in the Dominican Republic, summarizes the narratives: "Your announced mission is to save US lives. Your unannounced mission is to prevent the Dominican Republic from going Communist.")

     -- Source: "Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968": @)

     The term gains wider use after Murrey Marder's story in The Washington Post in December 1965: "Creeping signs of doubt and cynicism about administration pronouncements, especially in its foreign policy, are privately troubling some of the government's usually stalwart supporters. The problem could be called a credibility gap. It represents a perceptibly growing disquiet, misgiving or skepticism about the candor or validity of official declarations."

     -- "Doubt Grows Over Administration Statements," as published in the (Mansfield, Ohio) News-Journal, December 7, 1965 (via newspapers.com; subscription only): @

     The term would become closely associated with the Johnson administration's conduct of the Vietnam War, as well as with the words and actions of politicians in general.

Resources
* Entry from "Encyclopedia of American Journalism" (edited by Stephen L. Vaughn, 2008): @

* Entry from "Safire's Political Dictionary" (William Safire, 2008): @

* Entry from "Historical Dictionary of the 1970s" (edited by James S. Olson, 1999): @

* Entry from "History of the Mass Media in the United States: An Encyclopedia" (edited by Margaret A. Blanchard, 1998): @

* "Credibility Gap -- Part 1" (Walter Lippman, March 1967): @

* "Credibility Gap -- Part 2" (Lippman, April 1967): @
* "The Dominican Crisis ... The Hemisphere Acts" (U.S. State Department, October 1965): @
* "Congress, Information and Foreign Affairs" (Prepared for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations by the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1978): @

* "When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences" (Eric Alterman, 2004): @
* "McNamara, Clifford, and the Burdens of Vietnam, 1965-1969" (Edward J. Drea, Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2011): @ 

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Tuesday, May 18, 1965: James Karales' civil rights photo

James Karales' photo of the Selma-to-Montgomery march appears across two pages in Look magazine, with the words TURNING POINT FOR THE CHURCH printed across the top edge. (It was part of a story titled "Our churches' sin against the Negro.") The accompanying text reads:

There have been marches before, but never marchers like these -- a weaponless, potluck army, moving in conquest through hostile territory under the unwilling protection of the enemy. So did a Georgia preacher lead of pilgrimage of enfranchised Alabama Negroes 54 miles this spring to the steps of their state capitol. The concept was biblical. The execution was 1965 American. The Army and FBI guaranteed White House support. Patrol cars, helicopters, truck-borne latrines and first-aid vans bracketed the column; the marchers ate from paper plates with throwaway plastic spoons and slept under floodlit tents. Sustained by rationed peanuts-butter sandwiches, they never faltered in their pace and bitter humor. "I've been called 'nigger,' " said somebody up front. "Well, from now on, it's got to be 'Mister nigger.' " Across the Black Belt farmland rolled the pickup words of their new battle hymn: "Oh, Wallace, you know you can't jail us all; Oh, Wallace, segregation's bound to fail." In it, the white ministers, priests, rabbis and nuns, who had jetted vast distances to reinforce the march, found a new statement of faith.

Karales' son, Andreas, recounted how the photo came to be: " ... he described trying to find an image that would symbolize the meaning and feeling of the march. He struggled over the course of the five-day march, making countless attempts to produce something that he felt worthy of his goal. On the last day a storm swept in and he knew that this was his moment. He rushed to get to the right spot to frame both events as they happened. He was fortunate to get the shot as the storm moved on quickly. ... The menacing clouds and synchronized stride of the marchers happened in one short moment and is what makes this photograph so special. It was one of my father's greatest catches and was the result of his great patience." -- From "Andreas Karales' Memories of his Father, James" (via Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina): @

* Karales' obituary (Los Angeles Times, 2002): @

* Earlier post on Selma-to-Montgomery photographers: @ 

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Tuesday, May 18, 1965: Head Start

WASHINGTON -- President Johnson said Tuesday 530,000 of "poverty's children" will be given a head start in pre-school guidance centers so they won't already be doomed to fail because of family backgrounds when they start school. More than half the estimated one million disadvantaged children expected to start school next fall will take part in the first summer sessions of Project Head Start. ... The program calls for teaching the children things that most people take for granted. Some of the children have never seen a book, a flush toilet or electric lights. They also will receive medical and dental care.

     -- From Associated Press story: @

     -- 1965 photo, Buffalo, New York, by Milton Rogovin; from Library of Congress

* Johnson's remarks (American Presidency Project): @

* "U.S. Program for Children Set to Begin" (Associated Press, May 18): @
* Office of Head Start, Department of Health and Human Services: @

* National Head Start Association: @

* "Timeline: Head Start's Journey" (Education Week): @

* "Head Start: The War on Poverty goes to school" (EducationNext): @

* "Project Head Start to Help Needy Pre-School Children" (New York Times, March 9, 1965): @
* "Project 'Head Start' Helps Negro Tots" (Jet magazine, June 17, 1965): @
* "Let's Make 'Head Start' Regular Start" (Ebony magazine, September 1965): @
* "Operation Head Start" (1965 video by Goldsholl Associations for Chicago Public Schools; from Chicago Film Archives): @
* "Head Start" (1966 video, Office of Economic Opportunity; from www.criticalpast.com): @
* "Operation Head Start" (1967 video by Paul Burnford Productions for Office of Economic Opportunity): @
* "An Evaluation of Operation Head Start Bilingual Children, Summer, 1965" (Philip Montez, Foundation for Mexican-American Studies, August 1966): @ 
* "Head Start: The Inside Story of America's Most Successful Educational Experiment" (Edward Zigler and Susan Muenchow, 1992): @
* "Project Head Start: Models and Strategies for the Twenty-First Century" (Valora Washington and Ura Jean Oyemade Bailey, 1995): @

* "Critical Perspectives on Project Head Start" (edited by Jeanne Ellsworth and Lynda J. Ames, 1998): @

* "The Birth of Head Start: Preschool Education Policies in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations" (Maris A. Vinovskis, 2005): @

* "Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History" (Michael L. Gillette, 2010): @
* "The War on Poverty: A New Grassroots History" (edited by Annelise Orleck and Lisa Gayle Hazirjian, 2011): @

* "Head Start Origins and Impacts" (Chloe Gibbs, Jens Ludwig and Douglas L. Miller, from "Legacies of the War on Poverty," 2013): @ 

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May 1965: Teenage diets

An Agriculture Department nutritionist contends that the teen-age girl is the poorest-fed member of the whole family. The teen-age boy also needs an improved diet. Dr. Evelyn Spindler, nutritionist for the department's Federal Extensive Service, says there is nothing wrong with a teen-ager eating a hamburger or a piece of pizza, if the youngster drinks a milkshake at the same eating, and consumes a green salad, or a banana. She says such a meal, or snack, is far better than a combination of a soft drink and potato chips.

     -- From "Nutritionist says teen-age girl poorest fed member of family" (United Press International, May 19, 1965): @

     -- Image from "Improving Teenage Nutrition" (Federal Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, December 1963): @

* "Nutritionist Says Diet of Today's Youth is Improper" (United Press International, May 25): @

* "Selected Programs on Improving Teen-Age Nutrition" (Federal Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1962): @ 

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April-May 1965: Super 8

Eastman Kodak Co. introduces its Super 8 film format, with press releases in April followed by a public debut on May 1 at the International Photography Exposition in New York. One of the main selling points: the plastic cartridge that made loading the film much easier. (Around the same time, Fuji Photo Film Co. was launching a similar system known as Single 8.)

     -- Advertisement from Life magazine, August 6, 1965 (linked below)

* "Super 8 mm Film History" (Kodak): @
* www.super8data.com (database): @
* "Instamatic Technique Goes to the Movies" (J. Walter Thompson Company News, April 30, 1965, from Duke University Libraries): @

* "Bigger Format for Movie Fans" (United Press International, April 11, 1965): @
* Advertisements in Life magazine, June 11 and August 6, 1965: @ and @

* "Kodak's Revolution in Home Movies" (Popular Science, June 1965): @

* "War of the Photo Systems" (Popular Science, July 1965): @ 

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April-July 1965: 'Satisfaction'

April 1965 *

     I was between girlfriends at the time, in my flat in Carlton Hill, St. John's Wood. Hence maybe the mood of the song. I wrote "Satisfaction" in my sleep. I had no idea I'd written it, it's only thank God for the little Philips cassette player. The miracle being that I looked at the cassette player that morning and I knew I'd put a brand-new tape in the previous night, and I saw it was at the end. Then I pushed rewind and there was "Satisfaction." It was just a rough idea. There was just the bare bones of the song, and it didn't have all that noise, of course, because I was on acoustic. And forty minutes of me snoring. -- From "Life," by Keith Richards, 2010: @

     * According to other accounts, this occurred the night of May 6 in Clearwater, Florida, during the Rolling Stones' tour of North America. However, since Richards places it in London, this would have been before the tour, which began April 23 in Montreal, Canada. 

     Mick Jagger was also later quoted as saying that he and Richards worked on the song "half in Canada, half in Florida" (Melody Maker, June 26, 1965). Regardless, the opening riff and the phrase "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" are credited to Richards, while Jagger wrote most of the rest of the lyrics.

May 10-12
     The band records the song, first in Chicago (May 10) and then in Los Angeles (May 11-12).

May 20, May 26
     The band premieres the song on the television show "Shindig!" (The show was taped on May 20 and aired on ABC on May 26.)

Late May *
     The song is released in the United States.
     * Many accounts say the song was released June 5 or June 6, but the single was already on sale by then. The image above is from The Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Herald, June 3, 1965. Also, a music survey from KMEN in San Bernadino, California, indicates that the song was released on May 25; link: @.

June 5
     "Satisfaction" is first mentioned in Billboard magazine's "Singles Reviews," above.
     * June 5 issue: @

June 12
     The song debuts on Billboard's Hot 100 at No. 67.
     * June 12 issue: @

July 10
     "Satisfaction" reaches No. 1 on the Billboard charts; it stays at the top for four weeks, displaced on August 7 by "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" by Herman's Hermits.
     * Billboard chart for July 10 (from billboard.com): @
     * July 17 issue: @
     * July 24 issue: @
     * July 31 issue: @
     * August 7 issue: @

August 20 *
     "Satisfaction" is released in Britain. The B-side was "The Spider and The Fly," unlike the American release, whose B-side was "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man."
     * Date approximate; from Billboard, August 21: "This week Decca rushes out in Britain the Stones' recent big American hit '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' ..."

Resources
* Entry from "Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones" (Bill Janovitz, 2013): @

* Entry from "The Billboard Book of Number One Hits" (2003): @

* Entry from www.allmusic.com: @

* "The Rolling Stones' ('I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' " (Performing Songwriter, 2013): @

* "Behind the Song: 'Satisfaction' " (American Songwriter, 2012): @

* "Let It Read! The Ultimate Literary Guide to the Rolling Stones" (The Daily Beast, 2012): @
* "Rolling Stoned" (Andrew Loog Oldham, 2011): @
* "Stone Alone: The Story of a Rock 'n' Roll Band" (Bill Wyman, 1990): @

* "The Complete Works of the Rolling Stones" (database): @
* "The Rolling Stones: Off the Record" (Mark Paytress, 2003): @
* "The Rolling Stones: Fifty Years" (Christopher Sandford, 2012): @

* "1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music" (Andrew Grant Jackson, 2015): @

* Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out" (Gordon Thompson, 2008): @

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May 1964: Freeze-dried coffee

Maxwell House, a division of General Foods, begins test-marketing Maxim, a freeze-dried coffee, in and around Albany, New York. It would be introduced nationally in 1968.

* "A New Coffee Product" (The Knickerbocker News, May 21, 1964): @

* Advertisement (The Knickerbocker News, June 1964): @

* "Freeze-Dried Process Locks In Flavour" (The Montreal Gazette, May 11, 1968): @

* "Coffee, Instant" (from "The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink," 2007): @

* "History of Instant Coffee" (from www.espressocoffeeguide.com): @

* "Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World" (Mark Pendergrast, 2010): @

* "Is There a Future for Instant Coffee?" (Smithsonian magazine, June 2014): @ 

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Thursday, May 28, 1964: Palestine Liberation Organization

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), umbrella political organization claiming to represent the world's Palestinians -- those Arabs, and their descendants, who lived in mandated Palestine before the creation there of the State of Israel in 1948. It was formed in 1964 to centralize the leadership of various Palestinian groups that previously had operated as clandestine resistance movements.
     -- from Encyclopedia Britannia

* Statement of Proclamation of the Organization and Palestine National Charter of 1964 (from Haaretz): @

* PLO summary (from State of Palestine Mission to the United Nations): @

* PLO summary (from Embassy of the state of Palestine in Malaysia): @

* PLO summary (from Oxford Islamic Studies Online): @
* PLO summary (from Maps of World): @

* "What is the Palestine Liberation Organization?" (from procon.org): @

* Summary of Palestinian National Covenant (from wordvia.com): @

* "The Middle East 1916-2001: A Documentary Record" (The Avalon Project, Yale University): @ 

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Saturday, May 23, 1964: Solway Spaceman

This famous photograph, taken by British firefighter Jim Templeton of his daughter, purports to show a "spaceman." What it actually shows has been debated ever since.

* Overview from spacemancentral.com: @

* Overview from thinkaboutitdocs.com: @

* "The Mystery of the Solway Spaceman" (BBC News): @

* "The Solway Spaceman photograph" (David Clarke and Andy Roberts, 2012): @ 

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May 1964: 'Great Society' speeches

In the wake of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, a wave of sympathy and public support enabled President Johnson to pass a number of Kennedy administration proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Building on this momentum, Johnson introduced his own vision for America: "the Great Society" -- in which America ended poverty, promoted equality, improved education, rejuvenated cities, and protected the environment. This became the blueprint for the most far-reaching agenda of domestic legislation since the New Deal.

     -- From PBS (link: @)

Thursday, May 7, Ohio University

     So to you of this student body, I say merely as a statement of fact, America is yours, yours to make a better land, yours to build the Great Society. ... And with your courage and with your compassion and your desire, we will build the Great Society. It is a Society where no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled. Where no man who wants work will fail to find it. Where no citizen will be barred from any door because of his birthplace or his color or his church. Where peace and security is common among neighbors and possible among nations.

* "Johnson Lists Objectives for U.S." (Associated Press, May 7): @

Friday, May 22, University of Michigan

     For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every children can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods. But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.

* " 'Great Society' Johnson's Goal" (The Toledo Blade, May 22): @

     -- Photo from May 22 speech (from Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)

* Text of May 7 speech (The American Presidency Project): @

* Text and audio of May 22 speech (American Rhetoric): @

* "The Anatomy of a Speech: Lyndon Johnson's Great Society Address" (Michigan Historical Collections, December 1978): @
* "Great Society Emerging As Johnson's Key Slogan" (Associated Press, June 2): @

* "The Great Society at 50" (The Washington Post): @
* Entry from "Safire's Political Dictionary" (William Safire, 2008): @ 

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Tuesday, May 19, 1964: U.S. Embassy microphones

More than 40 secret microphones were found in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow when U.S. security men tore into walls of the building in April. The State Department disclosed the find Tuesday, and said a strong protest was delivered in Moscow on Tuesday morning. Officials said the microphones were imbedded 8 to 10 inches deep in the walls of the 10-story building, and obviously had been installed before the Russians turned the building over for U.S. occupancy in 1952.

     -- Associated Press (full article: @)

     -- Photo from Associated Press; original caption: "A State Department security person holds one of the more than 40 microphones found in the American Embassy in Moscow when walls of the building were torn down in April 1964. On display May 19, 1964 at the State Department in Washington are other listening devices uncovered in other American embassies behind the "Iron Curtain."

* "The Walls Have Ears" (Newsweek, June 1): @

* "Estimate of Damage to U.S. Foreign Policy Interests (From Net of Listening Devices in U.S. Embassy Moscow" (U.S. State Department, October 2, 1964): @

* "Spies, Leaks, Bugs, and Diplomats (Diplomatic Security in the 1960s" (State Department): @

* Earlier post on "The Great Seal Bug" (May 26, 1960): @ 

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Sunday-Monday, May 17-18, 1964: Mods vs. Rockers

LONDON -- About 1,000 teen-agers battled at the Coastal resort of Margate on Sunday, shattering shop windows and breaking into holiday villas. The new outbreak of youthful holiday violence began when the youngsters arrived at the southern England resort for the Whitsun -- Pentecost -- holiday weekend. They camped on the beach all night and fighting soon broke out between "mods" and "rockers." The first are young people who dress stylishly, the second in leather outfits for motorcycling.

     -- Associated Press, May 19

The Rockers were usually in their 20s or 30s; Elvis-loving bikers rooted in 1950s Teddy Boy culture. The teenage Mods' culture, which flourished in the early '60s, was based on continental clothes, Italian Vespa and Lambretta scooter and the music of soul and jazz musicians.

     -- "Mods v. Rockers!" (Daily Mirror, April 2014; link: @)

Note: The rivalry and violence were the basis of The Who's 1973 album, "Quadrophenia" (official site: @)

-- Photo by Terrence Spencer, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images. Original caption: Pair of Rockers, British youths into leather & motorcycles, zip past a rival group of Mods, British youths into fashionable clothes and fancy scooters.

* "I Predict A Riot: Panorama on Mods and Rockers" (BBC): @

* "1964: Mods and Rockers jailed after seaside riots" (BBC): @

* "Wild Ones 'Beat Up' Margate" (Daily Mirror, May 18, 1964): @

* "Charge of the Mods at Margate" (Daily Mirror, May 18): @

* "Wildest Ones Yet" (Daily Sketch, May 19): @

* " 'astings hain't 'ad it so bad since 1066" (Life magazine, September 18, 1964): @

* "Mods and Rockers" (British Library): @

* "Mods and Rockers" (Subculture list): @

* "Folk Devils and Moral Panics" (Stanley Cohen, 1972): @

* "Mods, Rockers, and the Music of the British Invasion" (James E. Perone, 2009): @

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May 1964: 'Quotations From Chairman Mao'

In December 1963, a department of the People's Liberation Army started work on a book of quotations by the Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong. It was to be used in drill sessions with recruits; short excerpts without context or analysis designed to be memorized and chanted. This was a difficult time for Mao. His Great Leap Forward, an attempt to propel a peasant society into the Industrial Age in a few years, had failed, resulting in mass famine. Mao had been criticized by his fellow leaders. By May 1964, under the guidance of Defence Minister, Lin Biao, the first edition appeared with the title "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung." Over the next decade the book was to be printed in more than a billion official copies and countless other versions, becoming a symbol of revolution in China and youthful rebellion around the world.

     -- "Date with History ... Mao's Little Red Book, May 1964" (Chatham House: The Royal Institute of International Affairs)

On 16 May 1964, the first regular print edition of the "Quotations from Chairman Mao" appeared, classified as "internal" military reading. Its size, in accordance with feedback from study activists, had been reduced to neatly fit into the pockets of military uniforms. The "Quotations" appeared in two print versions: an ordinary edition with a white paper cover imprinted with red characters for the ordinary readership, and a special edition clad in a red plastic covering. 

     -- from "Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China's Cultural Revolution" (Daniel Leese, 2011)

     

-- Image from International Institute of Social History

* PDF of Second Edition (December 1966; from www.marx2mao.com): @

* "Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History" (Alexander C. Cook, 2014): @

* "Mao's Way" (Edward E. Rice, 1974): @
* "Turbulent Decade: A History of the Cultural Revolution" (Jiaqi Yan and Gao Gao, 1996): @
* "The A to Z of the Chinese Cultural Revolution" (Jian Guo, Yongyi Song and Yuan Zhou, 2009): @
* "China After the Cultural Revolution" (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1969): @
* "Sources and Early Printing History of Chairman Mao's 'Quotations' " (Oliver Lei Han, The Bibliographical Society of America): @ 

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