LODGE CHARGES SOVIETS WITH ESPIONAGE
Less than a month after an American U2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet air space, UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. today charged the Soviets with placing "bugging" devices at the US Embassy in Moscow.
Ambassador Lodge held a wooden reproduction of the Great Seal of the United States in which he claims was found a hidden microphone transmitter.
Lodge went on to say that more than 100 such devices were found at the embassy.*
*JFK defeated Lodge in the 1952 Massachusetts Senate race & then as President appointed him US Ambassador to South Vietnam.
Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Cabinet Room, The White House
LBJ Library Photo (1968)
May 26, 1965
AUSSIE TROOPS ON THE WAY TO VIETNAM
The United States & South Vietnamese armies received some good news today.
800 additional Australian troops are on their way to South Vietnam to lend assistance in the fight against the communists.
The Aussies 1st arrived in South Vietnam in 1964 with a small aviation detachment & an engineering civic action team.*
*By 1969 there will be 8000 Australian & 1000 New Zealand forces in South Vietnam.
Australian Army emblem
photo by Ruob (2010)
May 26, 1967
JFK BIRTHPLACE BECOMES NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
The house at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, where the late President John F. Kennedy was born, was proclaimed a "National Historic Site" today by the National Park Service.
Previously, the house was a "National Historic Landmark".*
*The JFK Birthplace will be opened to the public on the 52nd anniversary of JFK's birth, May 29, 1969.
*My wife & I had the pleasure of visiting in July 1986.
As we looked in each room there was an audio recording of Rose Kennedy talking about the activities that took place there.
I was particularly interested in the nursery which had the copy of the "Billy Whiskers" children's book that JFK read as a child.
JFK Birthplace, 83 Beals Street
Brookline, Massachusetts
National Park Foundation Photo
May 26, 1924
COOLIDGE SIGNS IMMIGRATION ACT
President Calvin Coolidge signed into law today the Comprehensive Immigration Act.
This act puts into place the most strict guidelines for immigration into the United States in the history of this nation.
A quota of 2% of any given nation's number of residents living in the US in 1890 will be established by the act.
This virtually eliminates all immigration from Japan.
In response, the Japanese government has declared today "National Humiliation Day" in their country.*
*The Immigration Act of 1924 reflects the "anti-foreign" attitude of the majority of Americans in the post-WWI period.
Coolidge Signing the Immigration Act
May 26, 1868
ANDREW JOHNSON SAVED BY ONE VOTE
After 2 months of trial, the United States Senate today failed to remove Andrew Johnson from the office of President of the United States by a single vote.
The vote was on the 2nd of 2 impeachment charges brought against Johnson. The 1st charge had the same result as today's.
The final vote was 35 Guilty, 19 Not Guilty.
The US Constitution requires a 2/3 majority for conviction. 36 guilty votes were required for removal.
President Johnson will finish out the term that he & Abraham Lincoln were elected to in 1864.*
*It has been a long-standing historical view that the "deciding" vote was cast by Edmund G. Ross Republican of Kansas who in opposing his party's view would lose his bid to be re-elected.
JFK's 1956 book, "Profiles In Courage", includes a chapter on Edmund G. Ross.
According to JFK (& previous biographers of Ross), the Senator showed moral courage by voting against his party to "preserve constitutional principles".
In Senator Ross's own 1896 autobiography (from which JFK takes this quote), he says:
"I almost literally looked down into my open grave. Friendships, position, fortune....were about to be swept away...."
In 1999, David Greenberg, posting on "Slate", wrote that JFK's view of Ross, supported by previous biographers, is wrong.
While Greenberg admits that Ross "cast the deciding vote", he claims the Kansas senator "was no profile in courage".
The tile of his article, by the way, is "Andrew Johnson: Saved By A Scoundrel".
Edmund G. Ross of Kansas
Photo by Matthew Brady &
Levin Corbin Handy
