L . T . -OLDS . DA Y, J A NU A R Y 2 , 1 63 C O NG O The mora l o f t oday's disp a tche s from Wash i ngton and the United Nations - 1s perfectly c l ear. President Kennedy and secretary General U Thant - have run out of patience with Moise Tshombe. And are determined to end the turmoil in the Congo - caused by the attempted secession of Tshombe 1 e Katanga province. In Washington, it has been announced - that American aid to the U.N. forces in the Congo will be stepped up. With emphasis on - trucks , personnel carriers and eou1pment for detecting land mines. Meanwhile, the U.N. is showing - that it can get tough too. Secretary General U Thant, rulin g out - any more dickering with Tshombe. Ordering U.N. troops to press forward with their campaign - to end Ka tanga 1 s secession. No cease-fire this time because the U.N. command feels that Tshombe cannot be trusted. ,-r: . , VIET IAN The Plain of Reeds in South Viet Nam - ls a battlefield tonight. The biggest battle of the guerrilla war, erupting - when American helicopters dropped more than a thoueand paratroopers behind the enemy. The picture we get tonight - is of ferocious fighting at close quarters. The •nor both sides, poking cautiously - through dense tropical und•rgrowth. Opening up with sub-machine guns - at the slightest ■ove•nt. An 1nterno ot individual gun duels - in the Plain or Reede. Among the casualties today - aeven A•rlcane. An Ar-, Captain and two sergeants, killed - when their helicopters •re shot down by guerrilla ground tire. Pour helicopter cr•-n- wounded. INTRODUCTION TO TAPE AUSTRALIA IV (peter Severin) I suppose you all know that Lowell Thomas is back home - after his trip to the south Pole. But Lowell travels so fast that hie reports on tape are still arriving from below the Equator. They•re always interesting - eo let•s listen to this one. A_.5 · HA ..... A #4 ( P ETER S E V ER IN) Hello Everybody : 1 suppose we all know how fast this world of ours is changing. Here's a small item to illustrate it. Four y,ears ago, this m onth, I led an expedition into the Great Australian Desert: a region difficult even for camels brought here fro ■ Central Asia. le had a aechanized caraTan, with light weight four-wheel drive cars in the lead, followed by big six-wheel drive GM trucks, with our food and b~er. One of the ■ with a specially built deep freeze unit in which we kept our drinking water, some food - chickens and meats, and, moat important, our film. This deep freeze was welded onto the GW truck so it could take the pounding it g ot in crossin g unc h arter ed desert an d unexplore d mountains - the Peterman ran g es, where roam the Emu, the Wallaby and Kangaroo, the dingo and a few naked abori g ines who still live in the Stone Age. It was an expensive deep freeze, but when the expedition returned to Alice Springs, we didn't need it any more. ln fact, we turned it over to a cattle man and his wife who live in •the back of the Beyond•, on the edge of "the Never Never Land•, two hundred ■ iles southwest of Alice. You aay remember Peter Severin in our High Adventure fil ■• You may or may not recall that when I asked hi ■ how far it was to his nearest neighbor, he replied: •Fifty miles•; that they usually called on each other once a year. That ·r it was any nearer and they saw each other any oftener, they'd both think the country was getting over - crowded! Now guess what has happened. We let Peter and his wife have that big deep freeze for a song - five hundred dollars, hen and if he ever had any money. There had been a drought and his cattle had died like flies. Our using his spot on the edge of the unknown as a base had been a God-send. Then, as a result of our film, and Nevil Shute's novel and film •A Town Called Alice•, and promotion on the part of the Governaent, buses began bringing tourists for a look at Alice Springs, Ayres Rock, a stunning natural wonder only sixty ■ ilea fro ■ Peter's cattle station. He put up a sign reading : •Ice-cold drinks available just sixty miles up the track at Curtain Springs•. This past season, sixteen thousand tourists visited Alice Springs and Ayres Rock, and Peter Severin and his gaunt, hard working little wife, got as many as three hun d re d a n f i f ty a da y. ou et de h ydrat e d in a hurry in t h at country ri g ht at t h e center of Australia. So they probably sold a thousand drinks to that one group. Anyhow, they paid for our deep freeze without any strain. Doug and Dick, if you ever visit the Australian Never Never Land, drop in at Curtain Springs, where ice-cold drinks are "now available• from a dee freeze left behind by an L.T. CBS High Adventure expedition t• the back of the Beyond. So long. FOLLOW L.T. Well, Lowell, 1 1 11 remember your advice - if I ever come trudging across the outback Down Under. Sounds as if 1t 1 a easier to get a cold drink in the Australian Bush - than at Coney Island 1n July. • EXPLOOIONS Of those two explosions - in Terre Hau1e, Indiana, and Riverside, California - the former was the more d11aetrou1. Apparently, a boiler exploded - in the meat packing plant. The toll - eighteen dead, dozens injured. The explosion at Riverside, California - ruined a top-secret ordnance project. The toll, thia time - seventeen 1qJlred, two seriously. • COMMUNISM Fidel Castro had a high old time in Havana today, presiding at his regime's fourth anniversary -- calling President Kennedy a pirate and parading hie military might but he laid to rest any lingering doubts about the reality or the Sino-Soviet split. The bearded dictator, admitting that it has him worried - because hie wants the support of both Khrushchev and Mao Tse-tung. And - they don•t seem able to get along. An interesting commentary on the New Year's greeting• - that Khrushchev and Mao exchanged. • WE ATHE R Engla nd and New E n g land - ar e having the same k ind of we a the r , t oni g ht. The Mother C ountry i n the g rip of - its worst wi n ter i n almost a centur y . London, paralyzed by snow, ice - a nd t h at deadly fo g floating up the Thames from the Channel. T he toll of dead over the holiday - more than one hundred and eixty. And the RAF is dropping food supplies~ to hundreds of marooned villages. on this side of the Atlantic - New England hae snow drifts twenty eet deep. Hardest hit - Maine. Rescue parties are out tonight, in search of those who were trapped by the snowfall - drivers, hunters, fishermen, and others. That's the news for tonight.