Week of May 23, 1971

Speaking at West Point, President Nixon tells cadets his highest hope was that

“the great majority of you will never be called to serve in any war.”

Passing - Former Sen. Thomas Dodd. He was 63.

Mariner 9 rockets from Cape Kennedy on a 247-million-mile race to orbit Mars in

November.

Susan Atkins changes her plea in the Hinman -

Shea murder case and pleads guilty to killing musician

Gary Hinman nearly two years ago.

An estimated 4,000 police officers, some from cities as

far away as Boston and Cleveland, form ranks before

a simple Negro church in the Bronx to pay their last

respects to Waverly Jones. He and his partner,

patrolman Joseph Plagentini were shot to death in

Harlem.

Play - NY - Andy Warhol’s “Pork” just got a closed

two-week trial run at the La Mama Experimental

Theater and will soon open in London. It was inspired

by some taped raps between Andy and

various hands at the Factory, the downtown

loft (referred to in “Pork”” as the Locale) where

he makes his movies. (Pictured is Warhol and

cast).

Two congressmen, investigating mounting

heroin addition among GI’s in Vietnam say

that so many were now addicted - up to 15% -

that the drug problem alone was reason

enough to speed troop pullouts.

U.S. Treasury Secretary John B. Connally

says the world financial crisis will be solved

only when the “United States major partners

shape up to their trade, fiscal and defense

responsibilities.’

A federal judge orders Dist. Atty. Jim Garrison to stop prosecuting Clay Shaw

because Garrison has a “significant financial interest’ in continued prosecution

Week of May 23, 1971

and in his JFK assassination investigation. Three days after Shaw was acquitted

on March 1, 1969, on charges of conspiring with Lee Harvey Oswald and others

to assassinate President John F. Kennedy, garrison filed perjury charges against

Shaw.

The Soviet Union’s supersonic TU-144 airliner makes its debut in the West,

swooping down like a giant bird with a hooked beak at Le Bourget Airport for the

29 th Paris Air show.

Census gains - The typical 1970

family of a husband, wife and two kids

still is about the same size it was in

1950, but the children are in their

middle or late teens instead of under 5

as they were 20 years ago. parents

are a bit older too. The average father

is now 45 instead of 42 and the

median family income was $9,870 an

increase of nearly 200% from the $3,300 median in 1950. With inflation, a 1970

family still could buy $6,100 worth of goods - twice that of the 1950 family. That’s

partly because more wives and children are working today.

Charges against actress Jane Fonda of assaulting a customs officer and

fraudulently bringing pills into the country are dropped.

Indy 500 - Al Unser becomes the

fourth driver in history to win back-to-

back Indy 500 races. Some 20 persons

were injured, one critically in a pace

car accident. The speeding stock car,

which set the 125 mph getaway pace

for the 500-mile auto race field, went

out of control on the it apron,

careening into a photographers’ stand and injuring 20. And, gasoline Alley, the

last bastion of a mechanic’s independence, is opened to ladies for the first time in

the 55 years of the Indianapolis 500.

Sports -

Lee Trevino reconfirms he would end his boycott of the Masters tournament after

winning the $175,000 Danny Thomas Memphis Golf Classic.

Golfer Dave Hill files a $1 million damage suit against the Tournament Players

division of the PGA. The suit charges the TPD with violating of Hill’s civil rights,

Week of May 23, 1971

violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law and abridgment of his right of free

speech.

Milwaukee Bucks’ Lew Alcindor plans to get married then fly to the NBA-ABA All-

Star game in Houston .

Radio news -

Los Angeles transplant Bob Grant now does an

afternoon (two-way) talkshow over WMCA New York.

Grant says that New York is not like Los Angeles,

where he spent many a year doing telephone talk

radio over KABC and KLAC. “L.A. radio is really hip

compared to New York. Here the scene is very

provincial and ethnic and liberal. Being a conservative,

I am referred to by most of my callers as the house

right-winger or fascist. Actually, it gets pretty funny

because they do more yelling at me than engaging in

useful debate. The audience in Los Angeles was much

more sophisticated.” “Since WMCA started Dialog

Radio, it’s really shot up in the ratings, we’ve gone from around 12 th to third in the

market.” “One of the things WMCA is big on, though, is newsmaker calls and I do

a lot of them. And management is hot on special reports. In fact, soon I’m leaving

for Israel to do a special series.”

Music news -

At the Apollo in Harlem - Robert Flack,

Donny Hathaway, Joe Williams and the

Cannonball Adderly 5.

Sonny and Cher will be star-hosts of a

comedy-variety series debuting Aug. 1 on

CBS-TV.

The BBC imposes a ban on songs about

drugs. The first victim - a song by “Mongo

Jerry” from the album Lady Rose called

“Have a Wiff on Me.”

Television news -

Underdog “All in the Family’ has shot up

into 2 nd place (would have been first except

for the Emmy telecast). The show, which

debuted to no-so-favorable reviews by TV

Week of May 23, 1971

critics, was #55 in the rankings when it debuted in mid-March. By mid-April the

program, spurred by word-of-mouth, began to get better ratings, then hit the 14 th

position. Creator Norman Lear credits its success in large part to Robert Wood,

president of CBS-TV who “stuck his neck out for the program when it counted.”

Francis Ford Coppola who won an Oscar for coauthoring “Patton,” has a deal

with Metromedia Producers’ Corp. to develop and produce a TV feature of the

ABC Movie of the Week.

Muhammad Ali has invited Lester Maddox and George Wallace to appear on his

first television program. His weekly half-hour talkshow is to begin in about six

weeks. Maddox, Lt. Gov. of Georgia, and Wallace, governor of Alabama, are

self-proclaimed segregationists.

Monday night television -

CBS - Gunsmoke, Here’s

Lucy, Mayberry RFD , Doris

Day Show, Suspense

Playhouse, Merv Griffin

NBC - From a Bird’s Eye View,

Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In,

NBC Monday night at the

Movies, Tonight

ABC - Dating Game,

Newlywed Game, It Was A

Very Good year, Movie, Dick

Cavett

Rowan and Martin - Joey

Bishop.

It Was A Very Good Year -

Giselle MacKenzie tells us

about 1959.

Merv Griffin - Walter Matthau, Willie Shoemaker, Danny Arnold, Sheeley Green.

Tonight - Joan Rivers, Cliff Gorman, Irving Stone.

Dick Cavett - Phil Silvers, Victor Borge.