Wednesday, September 29, 1965: National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities

President Johnson signs P.L. 89-209, the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act. This piece of legislation established the National Endowment on the Arts and the Humanities Foundation as an umbrella for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and their respective councils. The NEA begins its first fiscal year with a budget $2.5 million dollars, and fewer than a dozen employees. Six programs are started in that first year, Music, Dance, Literature, Visual Arts, Theater, and Education -- while some 22 institutions and 135 individual artists are funded by the agency.

     -- From NEA website: @

* Text of act (Government Printing Office): @

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

* "How NEH Got Its Start" (NEH website): @

* "National Endowment for the Arts: A History, 1965-2008" (NEA, 2009): @
* "First NEA Grant Awarded to The American Ballet Theatre" (December 20, 1965; NEA website): @

* "Federalizing the Muse: United States Arts Policy and the National Endowment for the Arts, 1965-1980" (Donna M. Binkiewicz, 2004): @
* "Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices" (edited by Roger Chapman and James Ciment, 2014): @
* "Arts, Humanities, and Politics" (from "American Political Culture: An Encyclopedia," 2015): @

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Saturday, September 25, 1965: 'In Cold Blood'

The first installment of Truman Capote's four-part series is published in The New Yorker magazine. It would be published in book form in January 1966.

* First installment (www.newyorker.com): @

* Second through fourth installments (www.newyorker.com; subscription required): @

* Book: @
* "Horror Spawns A Masterpiece" (Life magazine, January 7, 1966): @
* "The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel" (George Plimpton, The New York Times, January 16, 1966): @
* Review by Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic (January 22, 1966): @

* "Truman Capote and the Legacy of 'In Cold Blood' " (Ralph F. Voss, 2011): @ 

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Saturday, September 25, 1965: Republicans' '11th Commandment'

The phrase "Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican" was first put forth by Gaylord Parkinson, chairman of the California GOP, in an effort to ensure party unity and focus Republican efforts on unseating Democratic Gov. Pat Brown. It was precipitated by public accusations that Ronald Reagan -- who had yet to declare his candidacy -- had once belonged to Communist-front organizations. (Parkinson was also hoping to counter the public perception of Republicans after Barry Goldwater had been labeled an "extremist" during his 1964 bid for the presidency.)

Top image from Fresno Bee (linked below)

Bottom image: Reagan paraphrased the commandment when he announced his candidacy for governor in January 1966.

* "GOP Chief Warns Party Candidates" (The Fresno Bee, September 26; from newspapers.com, subscription only): @

* "Christopher's War on Reagan Test GOP's Gag Rule" (Capitol News Service, October 18): @
* "Hearings Regarding the Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry" (House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1947; Reagan's testimony begins on page 213): @
* Excerpt from "Triumph of the Right: The Rise of the California Conservative Movement, 1945-1966 (Kurt Schuparra, 1988): @

* Excerpt from "Reagan: The Life" (H.W. Brands, 2015): @ 

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September 1965: Television debuts

All summaries taken from listings in various newspapers. 

'Run For Your Life'

Debut: Monday, September 13, NBC

Summary: At the outset of this drama series, hero Ben Gazzara is given two years or so to live, which prompts the rather slight premise of cramming a lifetime of incidents into his remaining days and nights.

'My Mother the Car'

Debut: Tuesday, September 14, NBC

Summary: The radio on a used car bought by a young man carries the voice of his departed mother, who says she is going to look after him.

'F Troop'

Debut: Tuesday, September 14, ABC

Summary: The place is Fort Courage, manned by devout cowards in the postbellum west. There's really no reason for Fort Courage, because the Indians are in cahoots with the cavalrymen, but occasionally, just to make things look good for the war department, the soldiers and the Indians stage a little mock war.

'Green Acres'

Debut: Wednesday, September 15, CBS

Summary: Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor playing city husband and wife who set up housekeeping in the country.

'Lost in Space'

Debut: Wednesday, September 15, CBS

Summary: Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, this is a space opera for the kids and they should love it. And if you're older and inclined toward science fiction, the production is first-rate and should hold you, too. The action takes place in 1997 and it's about a space expedition that's thrown off course by the presence of an enemy spy.

'Gidget'

Debut: Wednesday, September 15, ABC

Summary: Here's a series that's strictly for the teen crowd that loves the beach party type film. Adults will find some solace in the fine performance of Don Porter as the intelligent father coping with the problems of his irrepressible 15-year-old daughter while trying to fend off the well-meaning interference of her sister and her buttinsky husband. Sally Field mugs and grimaces her way through the Gidget role.

'The Big Valley'

Debut: Wednesday, September 15, ABC

Summary: Give this series a chance. Tonight's introduction spends too much time setting the scene and introducing the various characters and their potential personal conflicts. The people seem interesting enough and the series comes close enough to "Bonanza" to warrant as much success as that series. The actual story is a simple one about the mean railroad against the decent settlers.

'I Spy'

Debut: Wednesday, September 15, NBC

Summary: One of the more promising of the new series, this one co-stars actor Robert Culp and comedian Bill Cosby (who reveals himself to be a surprisingly good actor) as secret agents who don't mind romping all over the globe in order to fulfill their missions.

'Hogan's Heroes'

Debut: Friday, September 17, CBS

Summary: If you're willing to accept the fact that life in a German prisoner of war camp was a ball, this series brings you vivid slapstick substantiation. The camp is really run by Col.  Hogan (Bob Crane) of the air corps, under the noses of his captors. His men forge passport, smuggle spies, print counterfeit money, have a barbershop and engage in all the little niceties they wouldn't have if they were back with their own forces.

'The Wild Wild West'

Debut: Friday, September 17, CBS

Summary: The perils of an "undercover agent" in this one-hour action series are given added piquancy by the unique character of the time and setting -- the American frontier at its most turbulent.

'Honey West'

Debut: Friday, September 17, ABC

Summary: Anne Francis stars as a private eye who's quite an eyeful. Her partner tries to keep her out of trouble, but this honey attracts it.

'Get Smart'

Debut: Saturday, September 18, NBC

Summary: Starring Don Adams in a new half-hour comedy-adventure color series spoofing the current rage and cloak-and-dagger heroics. Adams portrays Maxwell Smart, Secret Agent 86, who has been carefully trained by a top-secret government organization known as CONTROL. Smart speaks several languages, has a working familiarity with every deadly weapon, is adept and karate and judo, and combines this knowledge with a zealous inefficiency and a remarkable lack of insight. But Smart means business in CONTROL's ceaseless conflict with the nefarious agents of KAOS. Despite Smart's incredible ineptness, he will manage each week to befuddle the enemy, with the aid of Secret Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon.)

'I Dream of Jeannie'

Debut: Saturday, September 18, NBC

Summary: A young astronaut is stranded on a mission and opens a bottle from which pops a beautiful genie who proceeds to complicated his life. 

'The FBI'

Debut: Sunday, September 19, ABC

Summary: Spellbinding stories based on cases in the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, linked with the personal drama of its agents. 

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Thursday, September 9, 1965: Hurricane Betsy

Hurricane Betsy, its awesome winds swelling to a top 150 miles per hour, slapped the southern tip of Louisiana on Thursday night and pushed on towards sprawling New Orleans and the plush Mississippi resort coast. The leading edge of the 500-mile-wide storm struck the Mississippi River Delta -- which juts south into the churning Gulf of Mexico -- just after dark. Grand Isle, 55 miles south of New Orleans, was struck by 75 mile an hour hurricane winds, as was Burrwood -- southernmost point in Louisiana.

     -- Associated Press, September 10: @

The tropical storm season, notable for billion dollar Hurricane Betsy, ended yesterday. There were four hurricanes and two tropical storms during the season that began June 1, but Betsy was the only hurricane to strike the United States. She took a heavier toll in damage than the San Francisco fire and the Alaska earthquake combined. Betsy's damages totaled $1,419,830, 429.
     -- United Press International, December 1: @

-- Tracking map from U.S. Weather Bureau preliminary report (September 15, 1965): @

* Summary (www.hurricanescience.org, University of Rhode Island): @

* Summary ("Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons and Cyclones" (David Longshore, 2008): @

* "The thirty costliest mainland United States tropical cyclones, 1900-2013" (Hurricane Research Division, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration; dollars not adjusted for inflation): @
* "A Hurricane Called Betsy" (film from Office of Civil Defense, Department of Defense, 1966): @

* "The Hurricane Season of 1965" (U.S. Weather Bureau, March 1966): @

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1965: Operation Match

In the Old World, the marriage broker learned the personality traits and financial status of all eligible men and women and did a fairly successful job of matching compatible types.

     Today, like almost any other project in the United States, the match can be programmed by the use of IBM Computer 7090.

     The computer is part of the program called Operation Match originated by two Harvard University students who now use the system on 500 college campuses in the U.S., England and Canada.

     The marriage broker had his fee, so does the computer -- $3 apiece. But the computer also wants answers to 105 questions such as religion, musical preferences, sports and personality tests. Then it will find a person ranging in age from 17 to 27 who seems compatible with the first set of responses.

     -- "IBM Computer Pairing Off Students on 500 Campuses" (United Press International, November 1965): @

* " 'Match' Eliminates Much Hit-Or-Miss; May Make Some UNC Misses Into Mrs." (The Daily Tar Heel, September 23, 1965): @

* "IBM Mating Hits Penn" (The Daily Pennsylvanian, October 14): @

* "$3 Will Get A Date With 'Computer Gal' " (The Pittsburgh Press, October 24): @

* "Operation Match" (The Harvard Crimson, November 3): @

* " 'Operation Match' Dates On Way" (The Daily Illini, December 1): @

* "boy ... girl ... computer" (Look magazine, February 22, 1966): @

* "Matching Them Up" (Harvard magazine, 2003): @
* "Looking for Someone" (The New Yorker, 2011): @
* "Love in the Time of Algorithms: What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating" (Dan Slater, 2013): @
* "This 50-year-old app foretold the future of dating and socializing online" (Fusion, 2015): @
* "What Online Dating Was Like In The 1960s" (video, FiveThirtyEight, 2015): @ 

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1965: 'Things Go Better with Coke'

Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, The Who, Petula Clark, Roy Orbison, the Supremes, Tom Jones ... these were just some of the popular musical artists who recorded advertising spots using Coca-Cola's slogan "Things Go Better With Coke" starting in 1965. The artists did not perform a standard jingle; instead, the radio ads mirrored their musical styles (or their hit songs) and incorporated the slogan.

* "How Coca-Cola Invited Music's Biggest Stars to 'Swing the Jingle' in the 1960s" (from Coca-Cola Co.): @

* "Swing the Jingle!" (partial list of artists; Coca-Cola Co.): @

* "Coca-Cola Commercials" (YouTube channel): @

* Record covers (www.vinylbeat.com): @
* "Things Go Better with Coke: Sixties Coca-Cola Commercials 1965-69" (CD; www.discogs.com): @
* "Coca-Cola Commercials" (CD; www.discogs.com): @
* "Coca-Cola Uncorks Teen Radio Drive" (Billboard magazine, July 10, 1965): @
* "Coke to Aim at Ethnic Groups" (Billboard, October 15, 1966): @
* "A History of Coca-Cola Advertising Slogans" (Coca-Cola Co.): @
* "Brand Image" (Michael Austin; from "Music in the Social & Behavioral Sciences: An Encyclopedia, 2014): @ 
* "For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It" (Mark Pendergrast, 2013): @

* "As Heard on TV: Popular Music in Advertising" (Bethany Klein, 2009): @

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Sunday, September 5, 1965: 'Hippie'

Following in the line of hep/hip and hipster, the term comes into wider use after Michael Fallon's series of stories for the San Francisco Examiner (and later with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen's frequent use of the term). The articles also serve to put San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district at the center of the counterculture movement.

-- Image from http://blog.littlehippie.com: @

Other early uses
* "Certainly most musicians in their teens start out as what people call "church" rather than as hippies." ("What's Wrong with the Clubs," Kenneth Rexroth, Metronome magazine, May 1961): @
* "Do What the Hippies Do" (song by Freddy Cannon, 1963): @
* "Where do all the hippies meet?" (from "South Street," song by The Orlons, 1963): @
* "New York hippies have a new kick -- baking marijuana in cookies" (Dorothy Kilgallen, June 1963): @
* "... finally the bar reaches a sort of equilibrium, the hippies return and the cycle starts all over again." ("Baby Beatniks Spark Bar Boom on East Side," Sally Kempton, The Village Voice, September 10, 1964): @
* "Their music is Berry-chuck and all the Chicago hippies." (Andrew Loog Oldham, liner notes for "The Rolling Stones, Now!", released February 1965): @

* ... "a kind of glorious spokesman for the pubescent hippie." (Gary Greene, writing about Bob Dylan, Tucson Daily Citizen, July 24, 1965; subscription required): @

* "The result is a thoroughly likable, relaxed performance of a well-educated hippie who moves through his role with no reference to the fact that he is a Negro." (United Press International article on Bill Cosby, September 28, 1965): @

References
* "American Hippies" (W.J. Rorabaugh, 2015): @
* "American Countercultures: An Encyclopedia of Nonconformists, Alternative Lifestyles and Radical Ideas in U.S. History" (edited by Gina Misiroglu, 2015): @

* Entry from "The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English" (edited by Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, 2013): @

* "Hippies: A Guide to an American Subculture" (Micah L. Issitt, 2009): @
* "Hip: The History" (John Leland, 2004): @
* "Hippie" (Barry Miles, 2005): @

* "San Francisco: A Cultural and Literary History" (Mick Sinclair, 2004): @
* "Debating the Counterculture: Ecstasy and Anxiety Over the Hip Alternative" (article by Michael Wm. Doyle, from "The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s," 2001): @
* "Beneath the Diamond Sky: Haight Ashbury 1965-1970" (Barney Hoskyns, 1997): @
* "The Haight-Ashbury: A History" (Charles Perry, 1984): @ 
* "Defining 'hippy' " (audio from John Gilliland's "The Pop Chronicles," 1969): @
* "The Social History of the Hippies" (Warren Hinckle, Ramparts, March 1967): @ 

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September 1965: Lead pollution

In the 1965 paper entitled "Contaminated and Natural Lead Environments of Man," Clair C. Patterson made his first attempt to dispel the then prevailing view that industrial lead had increased environmental lead levels by no more than a factor of approximately two over natural levels. ... He compiled the amounts of industrial lead entering the environment from gasoline, solder, paint and pesticides and showed that they involved very substantial quantities of lead compared to the expected natural flux. He estimated the lead concentration in blood for many Americans to be over 100 times that of the natural level, and within about a factor of two of the accepted limit for symptoms of lead poisoning to occur.

     -- From "Clair Cameron Patterson, 1922-1995: A Biographical Memoir" (George R. Tilton, 1998): @

A California geochemist presented in detail yesterday his argument that lead was contaminating the environment to a dangerous degree. A preliminary report by Dr. Clair C. Patterson, a research associate at the California Institute of Technology, was presented earlier in the week, and provoked the lead industry, the petroleum industry (which adds lead to gasoline) and at least one Public Health specialist to challenge his conclusions. The chief issues are whether the lead content in human blood has sharply risen and whether the level is dangerous.

     -- From "Warning is Issued on Lead Poisoning / But Findings of Geochemist on Coast Are Disputed" (New York Times, September 12, 1965): @

* Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (1995): @
* Interview with Patterson (California Institute of Technology, 1995): @
* "Protecing Public Health and the Environment: Implementing the Precautionary Principle" (edited by Carolyn Raffensperger and Joel Tickner, 1999): @ 
* "Lead in the Human Environment" (Committee on Lead in the Human Environment, National Research Council, 1980): @
* "Brush with Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning" (Christian Warren, 2000): @

* "Illness and the Environment: A Reader in Contested Medicine" (2000): @
* "Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution" (Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, 2002): @
* "Clair Patterson's Battle Against Lead Pollution" (Rebecca Adler, thesis, 2006): @

* "Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children" (Markowitz and Rosner, 2013): @

* "The Clean Room" ("Cosmos" episode, April 2014): @ 

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September 1965: Tiger Beat

Founded by Charles and Ira Laufer, Tiger Beat debuts and quickly rivals 16 magazine in its teen-crush coverage of pop stars (particularly the photos).

* Official website: @

* Website of former editor Ann Moses: @
* "The Rise of Tiger Beat and The Laufer Company magazines in the 1960s" (from Rewind the Fifties): @
* "Tiger Beat vs. 16" (from Mrs. Neugast's Fan Worship Page): @

* Covers, 1965-1969 (www.hermanshermits.com): @

* Covers (www.oprah.com): @
* The Monkees Live Almanac (search for Tiger Beat): @
* Articles on The Monkees (from fan site Sunshine Factory): @
* Excerpt from "Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia" (edited by Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, 2007): @
* Lloyd Thaxton obituary (Los Angeles Times, 2008): @
* Charles Laufer obituary (New York Times, 2011): @
* Laufer obituary (Los Angeles Times): @

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September 1965: Eight-tracks in cars

Starting with its 1966 models, Ford is the first American automaker to offer eight-track players (as an optional installment for around $130).

-- Top image from Mustang specs (Ford publication): @

-- Middle image from The Kansas City Times (October 6, 1965)
-- Bottom image from United Press International (December 1965)

* "Ford Will Offer Motorola Tape Units in 1966 Cars" (Billboard magazine, April 3, 1965): @
* "RCA Fires 175-Title Burst With Release of Stereo 8 Cartridges" (Billboard, September 25, 1965): @
* "Tape for Turnpikes" (High Fidelity magazine, June 1965, page 42): @
* "Lear Jet 8-Track Recorder May Be Tape 'Breakthrough' " (United Press International, January 3, 1966): @
* "Stereo In Your Car" (High Fidelity, May 1966, page 58): @
* The Rise and Fall of the 8-Track" (Doug Hinman and Brabazon, 1994): @

* "A History of The Eight Track Tape" (David Morton, 1995): @

* "The 8-Track Cartridge" (from "Magnetic Recording: The First 100 Years," edited by Eric D. Daniel, C. Denis Mee, Mark H. Clark, 1999): @

* 8-Track Heaven (website): @

* Mustang TV ads: @ and @

* Thunderbird TV ad: @

* Optional equipment, 1966 Thunderbird (automotivemileposts.com): @ 

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