Twenty-five years ago, America struggled with the question of committing ground troops in another war-torn area of the globe - Vietnam.
Unlike today's continual news barrage from Kosovo, news reports about the conflict in Southeast Asia trickled in at the beginning of June 1964.
"The Army currently has 10,000 men deployed in South Viet Nam, Secretary of the Army Stephen Ailes said today," a tiny Associated Press brief reported on page 34 of the June 4, 1964, Amarillo Daily News. "This was the first time an official figure on the major element of the U.S. military manpower had been given. Ailes announced the total in an address prepared for commencement exercises at the U.S. Military Academy. In Washington, the Pentagon said the overall total of U.S. forces in South Viet Nam is about 15,500 - 1,000 below last fall's peak - but did not officially detail the totals for each branch of service."
By June 6, Vietnam news had moved to page 7, with this AP piece from Tay Ninh, South Viet Nam: "Loudspeakers blared strident orders Monday night above Vietnamese villages in a 20-mile-long strip of Communist-infested territory adjoining the Cambodian frontier.
" 'We are going to clear out this area,' warned an airborne spokesmen for a jungle-trained task force of Americans and South Vietnamese. 'There will be no life left here. Move out!'
"Friday, that strip of territory - winding along the Vaico Oriental River west of Tay Ninh - was wrecked and barren.
"A hazardous scorched earth operation that may set a new pattern in the war against Viet Cong guerrillas ended Thursday night. About 25 guerrillas were killed, but the prime targets of air and ground attacks were shelter, food and transport.
"Huts are in ashes. Sampans are sunk. Bullock carts are smashed. Rice stores, poultry and livestock are destroyed or carried off. 700 civilians - women, children and old men - have been moved. That clears the region for later all-out strikes."
On June 18, a reporter for the New York News criticized White House silence on the U.S. air operation in Laos.
"The President's (Lyndon Baines Johnson) determination on an extremely tough policy to save Southeast Asia from the Communists there involves the acknowledged risks of accelerated hostilities which would not only engage more of our air power but could require commitment of American ground forces.
"Because of the wraps placed around officials - forbidden to reveal the details of our air operations - exactly what has been going on has leaked out only in fuzzy fashion. More important, there has been a definite effort to downplay its significance."
A June 21 AP article from Bangkok, Thailand, reported the United States was beefing up stockpiles of military equipment there "to assure a quicker, heavier punch if Communist aggression brings on a showdown in Southeast Asia."
"There was no indication here that U.S. troops except those needed to handle and maintain the supplies would be sent to Thailand at this time," the story said.
By June 25, reports declared that United States planning for strikes by the South Vietnamese Air Force against Communist supply bases in Laos and North Vietnam had been stepped up.
The next day, the Amarillo Daily News published a story on page 32 under the headline, "LBJ wants a full buildup in Viet Nam."
"President Johnson has passed the word to aides that along with the assignment of his new top command team to South Viet Nam, he wants the whole U.S. mission in Saigon beefed up as much as possible," the article said. "In taking a new look at the Southeast Asian crisis because of the resignation of Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Johnson is said to have determined that the time has come for the United States to make a major effort, as some officials phrase it, 'to turn the war around.' "
On the homefront
American legislators debated civil rights legislation, protesters staged civil rights demonstrations across the nation, the Warren Commission pondered the question of who killed President John F. Kennedy and a jury heard witnesses in the $25 million pension fund fraud trial of union leader Jimmy Hoffa in June of 1964.
Action on the civil rights bill took place in the Senate; the House of Representatives had already passed it.
The June 20 Daily News reported passage of the act, which contained "strong new barriers to racial bias in employment, public facilities, business and federal aid programs. The roll call vote was 73 to 27."
The vote came after a 15-week struggle, including a 75-day filibuster.
Two days later, the Daily News told readers that 70,000 people had gathered at Chicago's Soldier Field to mark the passage. Dr. Martin Luther King told the crowd, "We haven't reached the promised land or civil rights. Far from it. We have to continue to work, testing compliance with the bill in the South. The negro must take full and creative use of the freedom he now possesses."
The next day's newspaper reported the discovery, in Philadelphia, Miss., of a burned out station wagon driven by three young men - one black, two whites - who had disappeared after investigating the report of a black church bombing in the area. The trio were part of a desegregation drive called the Mississippi Project.
An article on June 28 mentioned Johnson's reference to the tense situation in a Minneapolis speech: "The events of the past few days again illuminate how painful can be the path to racial justice."
The story continued, "While he spoke, four boats, each manned by an FBI agent, a Mississippi conservation agent and a state trooper plied the Pearl River with grappling hooks." The search ended at dark, with no bodies recovered.
While the Warren Commission interviewed its last witnesses and prepared to report to President Johnson, the nation was grabbing up Kennedy half-dollars minted in honor of the fallen leader.
An article in the same edition detailed the long list of tragedies endured by the Kennedy family - prompted by Sen. Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy's hospitalization after a plane crash in Massachusetts. Four years would pass before the assassination of Attorney Gen. Robert F. Kennedy while on a California presidential campaign swing in June 1968.
In fact, the Daily News reported on June 24 that Robert Kennedy, "still trying to decide what to do with his future," had removed himself from the race for a New York Senate seat, a decision made "on the eve of a sentimental visit to West Berlin in the shadow of his brother, John F. Kennedy."
In Berlin, East and West were dealing with the presence of the Wall. East Germans introduced 105 dogs to help them stop citizens trying to flee west, a June 1 Associated Press story said.
"West Berlin police patrolling the wall say the dogs are starved to make them more savage. ... Sometimes patrols on the west side hear the barking of dogs, shouts, a human scream. Was the refugee killed, or wounded? It is impossible to tell from the West."