23 NOME NUGGET
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
62nd Year No. 87 NOME. ALASKA, MONDAY, JULY 24, 1961 Per Copy 15^
EAL Electra Jet
Hi jacked-Flown to
Cuba at Gunpoint
MIAMI, Fla. (/PI — An Eastern
Air Lines prop-jet Electra was hi
jacked today and the pilot flew
it to Cuba at gunpoint. A United
States jet fighter accompanied
the captive airliner to a point
three miles from Cuba.
The plane took off from Miami
International Airport bound for
Tampa, New Orleans and Dallas
with 33 passengers and five crew
men. It landed at Jose Marti Air
port in Havana,
In his last radio report, Capt.
W. E. Buchanan, said: “I am pro
ceeding to Havana at pistol point.”
First indication that something
was amiss, however, came when
the $3!fj million plane went sharp
ly off course on the radarscope.
A fighter from the Homestead
Air Force Base near Miami tailed
the airliner. There were reports
that the fighter tried unsuccess
fully to turn the big plane back.
The Electra carried 21 paying
passengers, 12 pass-carrying EAL
employes, and the crew members.
In the last two years, nine pas
senger planes have been hi-jacked
between Florida and Cuba. Seven
were Cuban planes which were
forced to land in Florida. Pre
viously, one other American plane
was forced to fly to Cuba.
Capt. H. G. Hayes, the pilot of
the fighter plane, an F-102 Delta
Dagger, was helpless to act when
his efforts to turn the airliner
around went unheeded, because
any overt action would have en
dangered the American pas
sengers.
The plane was fully armed with
air-to-air missiles.
The U. S. government promptly
asked the Castro regime to re
lease today’s hijacked plane.
The request was made through
the Swiss Embassy in Havana,
which represests American in
terests in Cuba in the absence of
U. S.-Cuban diplomatic ties.
LARGE FOREIGN
FREIGHTER SIGHTED
OFF GAMBELL
Natives from Gambell on St.
Lawrence Island report an un
usually large foreign freighter is
situated about 15 miles northwest
of the village. The ship has with
it several small boats and a heli
copter. The people on the island
are concerned at the proximity of
the ship and the lack of interest
being shown as there are no Am
erican aircraft in the vicinity to
ascertain what they are doing
that close to the island.
Thought for Today . . .
The true perfection of man lies,
not in what man has, but in what
is . . . nothing should be able to
harm a man but himself. Noth
ing should be able to rob a man
at all. What a man really has
is what is in him. What is out
side him should be a matter of
no importance — Oscar Wilde.
WEATHER FORECAST
Cloudy through Tuesday with
intermittent rain tonight and lit
tle change in temperature.
In the past 24 hours: highest
temp. 52, lowest 49. Sunrise at
2:38 a.m., sunset at 9:36 p.m.
A year ago today: highest temp.
69, lowest 53. Extremes on this
date since 1907: highest 69 in
1960, lowest 30 in 1914.
Kennedy to Address
Nation Tuesday on
Measures He Has Decided
WASHINGTON UP — President
Kennedy, after another weekend
on Cape Cod, returned today to
the White House to tie down de
tails of the major address he
will make to the nation Tuesday
night.
That speech, to be broadcast
nationally on television and radio,
will reveal what measures he has
decided are necessary for the na
tion to face up to the Soviet
threat to Berlin and world peace.
He will tell Congress on Wed
nesday what action he hopes it
will take to carry out his de
cisions.
There have been reports that
Kennedy was considering adding
two or three billion dollars to his
$43-billion defense budget.
Word has spread that he was
considering such steps as calling
out reserves and National Guards
men, increasing their training or
service, expanding the draft and
Army manpower and buying more
arms for conventional forces, pull
ing some ships from the “mothball
fleet,” calling for a special tax
increase and trying to persuade
the allies to take parallel steps.
The White House has fended
off all efforts to clarify details.
Ranger Spacecraft
To Head for the
Moon in a Few Days
WASHINGTON (JP — A Ranger
I spacecraft — first version of
a vehicle that later this year may
crash-land on the Moon — will
toe launched on a million-mile
round-trip journey into space
within the next few days.
The National Aeronautics and
j Space Administration described
| in detail today its newest and
most complicated experiment in
Lunar and Planetary Exploration.
But NASA declined to give the
exact date the launch attempt
will be made at Cape Canaveral.
NASA said the 675-pound Ran
ger will be fired first into a brief
“parking orbit” 115 miles above
the earth. For about 13 minutes
Ranger I will zoom along at
18,000 miles an hour, high above
the Atlantic Ocean as though it
were a regular earth satellite
Then its Agena-B second-stage
rocket will fire up for a second
time to accelerate Ranger I to a
velocity of 23,900' miles an hour
and start it on a trajectory 685,
000 miles out into space.
Soviets Release Some
Details on Gagarin's Flight
WASHINGTON un — The So
viet Union has permitted some
of the details of Yuri Gagarin’s
space flight to trickle out — for
the sake of the record book.
According to Soviet authorities
Gagarin rode his space craft to
earth.
That has been the subject of
some speculation.
Eyewitness accounts released in
Moscow after Gagarin’s April 12
flight indicated he descended by
parachute. At a news conference
three days later, Gagarin said
said only that the flight employed
“new devices” other than the
parachute tested on a previous
experiment.
The Central Aero Club of the
Soviet Union was permitted to
give some details to the Federa
tion Aeronautique International
in Paris, which keeps track of
flight records.
Soviet Trawler
Sighted Near Spot
Of Capsule Landing
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. UPl —
A Soviet trawler equipped with
radar reportedly cruised within
20 miles of the spot where astro
naut Virgil Grissom’s space cap
sule landed in the Atlantic Ocean.
That was the gist of reports
from a National Aeronautics and
Space Administration official and
another source Sunday.
There was no indication steps
were being planned to prevent
this happening during another
sub-orbital flight. Soviet trawl
ers have been seen many times
off the United States coast in re
cent months.
Lt. Col. John A. Powers, per
sonal spokesman for the astro
nauts, reported recovery forces
saw the trawler in the general
area of the impact zone Friday.
James E. Webb, NASA Admin
istrator, was asked about the re
ports that Soviet trawlers had
been sighted during a TV-radio
interview in Washington.
For Grissom the big adventure
began with the roar of the 78,000
pound thrust Redstone rocket at
, 7:20 a. m. It ended 16 minutes
I later in the Atlantic Ocean after
| Grissom reached an altitude of
188 miles and had flown like a
] bullet 303 miles down range from
t here.
At the end there was near
j tragedy.
: The side hatch on the space
capsule, Liberty Bell 7, secured
by 70 explosive bolts, blew off
I prematurely. The capsule subse
quently sank in 16.800 feet of
water.
A verbatim transcript of Gris
som’s news conference Saturday
indicated that he was much closer
to drowning that has been gen
j erally realized.
Comet to Be Named
After Pan Am Navigator
SEATTLE (ffi — A comet dis
covered early Sunday by Stewart
Wilson, Seattle, navigator for
Pan American World Airways, on
a flight home from Honolulu, will
be named for him.
The naming, Comet Wilson,
Monday was announced by Har
vard Observatory, Cambridge,
Mass., to which Wilson wired a
report Sunday, his wife said
here. Comet Wilson has an as
tronomical magnitude of 3, which
means to a layman much bright
er than the Milky Way, the obser
vatory said.
Wilson, 34, was on his way
here today from Fairbanks, and
had not been notified of the con
firmation of his discovery.
He noticed it at about 31,000
feet just before dawn on his way
home from Honolulu,” Mrs. Wil
son said.
“He was all excited and made
a small bet with the captain that
it was a comet. They thought it
was the Northern Lights.”
The discovery was confirmed
later by McDonald Observatory,
Fort Davis, Tex., and another
pilot flying over Arizona.
Soviet Astronomers Witness
Fiery Cloud Mushroom from Sun
MOSCOW M’) — Soviet Astron
omers witnessed a fiery cloud
mushrooming from the sun to an
estimated height of 600,000 miles 1
Sunday, Tass News Agency re
ported. Scientists at Vladivostok '
watched the phenomenon and said j
it lasted about 90 minutes.
National Guardsmen
Quell Rioters in Idaho
COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho UP> —
Hundreds of rioters swung fists
and threw bottles yesterday for
4 Vi hours before officers and Na
tional Guardsmen calmed down
this town of 15,000.
Officers estimated up to 1,000
took part in the violence, and an
other 2,000 onlookers milled
around to watch the excitement.
Fire hoses and tear gas were
used to quell the outburst, but it
wasn’t until National Guardsmen
appeared that peace returned.
Officers arrested 41 of the brawl
ers, ranging in age from 15 to 26.
A special session of police court
was held, and Judge Don Averitt
fined most $100 and gave then sus
pended sentences on such charges
as minors possessing and consum
ing liquor.
Streets and sidewalks were lit
tered with broken beer bottles.
The town was jammed with a
crowd of about 60,000 who came to
see hydroplane racing on Lake
Coeur D’Alene.
The mob starting bulding up
about midnight—this is the time
beer sales stop on Saturday nights
in Washington, which is 12 miles
west. Sales are unrestricted in
Idaho.
French Paratroopers
Storm Through Metz
Attacking Algerians
METZ, France UP) — At. leas
9 persons were killed and 22
wounded Sunday night when
French paratroopers, angered over
the slaying of a comrade by Al
| gerian gunmen, stormed through
[■Metz attacking anyone who looked
like an Algerian.
Police said a gang of Algerians
fired into a bar thronged by para
troopers recently brought back
from duty in Algeria. The shots
killed a paratrooper and a French
bartender and wounded several
soldiers.
The paratroopers surged into the
railway station buffet attacking
Algerians at random. Authorities
said the dead included two para
troopers, the barman and an Al
gerian worker. Five paratroopers
and 17 Algerians were badly
wounded.
Marine Lt. Col. Glenn
To Make Next U.S.
Short Sub-Orbital Flight
WASHINGTON OB — Marine
Lt. Col. John H. Glenn will make
the next short sub-orbital U. S.
space shot, if there is one.
This was disclosed Sunday by
James E. Webb, Chief of the Na
tional Aeronautics and Space Ad
ministration, in a radio-TV inter
view.
Webb said there has been no de
cision on whether this nation will
try a third sub-orbital shot be
fore its first round-the-world
space flight, scheduled either late
this year or early in 1962.
He said all seven U. S. astro
nauts are in the running for the
first orbital flight.
First Isotope-Powered Weather
Station to be Installed in Arctic
OTTAWA UP) — The World’s
first isotope-powered automatic
weather station will be installed
next month on a remote, unin
habited island near Norwegian
Bay in the Canadian Arctic. The
joint U. S.-Canadian project will
be able to function unattended
for up to two years.
Crime Kale
Skyrockets to
New High in I960
r
WASHINGTON W — There
were more serious crimes in the
United States last year than in
any year in history, FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover reported today.
The surge of lawlessness reflect
ed an astounding 98 per cent
increase over 1950, he said.
By the FBI's crime clock there
was a murder every 58 minutes.
An aggravated assault every
4 minutes.
A robbery every 6 minutes.
These chilling statistics shaped
the pattern of violence in 1960
with a serious crime committed
every 15 seconds or a total of
1,861,300.
Hoover noted in the big rise
in crime over 1950 that the popu
lation increase for the decade was
only 18 per cent.
The FBI data, published in the
annual “Uniform Crime Reports,”
covered information supplied by
more than 7,700 police agencies,
and showed that 1960 topped 1959
by 14 per cent in murders, forc
ible rapes, robberies, aggravated
assaults, burlaries, auto thefts and
larcenies of $50 or more.
I Crimes against property, Hoover
said, were in general even more
frequent, with a burglary every
39 seconds, a major larceny every
minute, a car theft every two
minutes.
i Crime Rate in Alaska
Takes Upward Trend in ’60
j WASHINGTON <JP> — Serious
j crime in Alaska followed the na
; tional upward trend during 1960,
i with increases in both the number
j of offenses and the rate for each
I 100,000 population.
There were 2.332 major crimes
in seven categories reported by
Alaska officials during I960, com
pared with 2,158 in the previous
year, according to the FBI Uni
form Crime report issued today.
That means the rate of crime
for each 100,000 population in
Alaska went from 963.9 to 1,031.1
during the period.
Here is the breakdown of of
fenses for Alaska — 1959 figure
first — murder and non-negligent
manslaughterl2-23. forcible rape
17-47, robbery 57-64, aggravated
assault 94-102, burglary 543-751,
larceny over $50 706-797, auto
theft 729-548.
Here is the breakdown for An
chorage, the only Alaska city list
ed—1959 figure first — murder
and non-negligent manslaughter
4-4, forcible rape 3-15, robbery
19-31, aggravated assault 31-36,
burglary 160-253, larceny over
$50 168-160, auto theft 194-185.
Wassila Woman Killed
In Auto Accident in Mont.
Missoula, Mont. UPi — Mrs.
Ruby Cochran, 55, Wasilla, Alas
ka, who suffered a broken neck
in an accident Saturday morning,
died yesterday in a Missoula hos
pital.
Mrs. Cochran was traveling
with her son, John Cochran, driver
of the car; his wife, Joyce, and
their son when the accident oc
curred near Ivando. The others
escaped injury.
The family was enroute to
Alaska from Houston, Tex.
Cochran told officers he hit
loose gravel on the shoulder of
the road and then struck some
thing solid which caused the car
to roll.