Add to Google

Saturday, September 09, 2006

September 9, 1960: Berlin Ban Resumes, 'Slaughter' Charged in Congo, Nixon Recovered, JFK Feels Impugned, Khrushchev Sails for US, Iran Rally Blocked

Three days after East Germany lifted a five-day ban on travel by West Germans, the East said it was permanently restricting entry into East Berlin by Westerners, according to news reports on this day in 1960.

In New York on this day in 1960, United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold criticized Congolese leaders for not cooperating with the UN and said Congo army soldiers had "engaged in slaughter not only of combatants but of defenseless civilians."

Meanwhile, in the Congo province of Katanga, which has declared its independence, armed police took over the airport in Elisabethville, the provincial capital, from UN troops.

In Washington, Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate for president, left the Walter Reed Army Medical Center after a 12-day stay for an injured knee.

In Los Angeles, the Democratic nominee for president, Senator John F. Kennedy, said attacks against him based on his Catholic religion challenged his loyalty as a citizen. "I do not accept the view that my church would place pressures on me," he said at a new conference.

In Moscow, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev left for a 10-day ocean voyage to the United States to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

In Iran, police blocked a rally that was to be led by the Guardians of Freedom, which has been critical of the government. The group's leader said the police were working "against our Constitution and laws."