May 23, 1960

A Snapshot in TIME

Summit in Shambles...

A super-power summit was a disaster as Soviet-US relations plummeted in the wake of "U-2 Incident",  in which a US U-2 spy plane crashed while conducting covert surveillance missions in Soviet airspace.

"For more than two years the leaders of the two great power blocs have been slowly picking their way toward the summit. This week, under the long, tapering shadow of the U2's wings, the summit conference and the dream of peaceful coexistence smashed against the rock of Nikita Khrushchev's intransigent belligerence."  Read more
 

The Three Issues...

"Before Nikita Khrushchev made the U-2 the summit's principal topic, there were three official agenda items: 1) disarmament, 2) East-West tensions, 3) Berlin and the fate of Germany. Of these, disarmament was the only one remotely expected to produce concrete achievement."

Read more
 

Lunch Counter Equality...

Sit-ins at Nashville lunch counters began in February 1960 as non-violent action to end segregation at lunch counters.  Similar actions were being taken throughout the south including a notable sit-in at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.

"After three months of sit-ins marked by a near-riot, mass arrests and the dynamiting of a Negro city councilman's home, urbane Nashville last week asserted its moderate nature by becoming the South's first city to yield to Negro demands for lunch-counter equality. Opened to Negroes after secret, month-long negotiations between businessmen and Negro leaders were lunch counters in half a dozen variety and department stores."  Read more

Also featured in this issue were stories on Cuba, South Africa, and a scathing review of Elvis's recent appearance on Frank Sinatra's Timex Show!

TTFN... Rob; in Vancouver

"Some people tap their feet, some people snap their fingers, 

and some people sway back and forth. 

I just sorta do 'em all together, I guess." 

Elvis Presley