Part 3

(adapted from & inspired by material previously published at Othertimelines.com)

by Chris Oakley

From the July 10^th, 1967 edition of The Age:

PLAGUE SHIP

From the July 11^th, 1967 Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal:

From the July 13^th, 1967 O Estado do Sao Paulo:

From the July 15^th, 1967 Irish Times:

temporarily ceasing publication....

From the July 18^th, 1967 Rand Daily Mail:

From an AP dispatch in Cheyenne, Wyoming dated July 19^th, 1967:

the Oval Office. At 1:30 this afternoon Vice-President and former Speaker of the House

John McCormick will take the oath of office to become the 38^th President of the United

States; McCormick succeeds the late Hubert Humphrey, whose death in a helicopter crash

near Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska was confirmed forty minutes ago...

From the July 22^nd, 1967 Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Was Last Remaining Regularly Published Newspaper In Texas

From the daily report log of a Lebanese border guard, entry dated July

24^th, 1967:

sign of human activity on Israel’s side of the frontier...

From an AP bulletin out of Baghdad dated July 26^th, 1967:

government has been shot by supporters of the former Baathist regime...

From a UPI dispatch out of Doha, Qatar dated July 28^th, 1967:

Syria’s ruling Islamic council has in fact been assassinated by pro-Baathist gunmen.

This announcement comes as Syrian occupation forces in Beirut are engaging

Lebanese troops in what both sides call the most important battle so far in the five-

month-old war between Syria and Lebanon...

From the July 31^st, 1967 Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal:

SYRIANS LOSING GROUND IN BEIRUT

From the August 1^st, 1967 East African Standard:

Foreign Minister Acknowledges His Country No Longer Able To Press Its Case Against U.K.

From a UPI bulletin out of Santiago dated August 3^rd, 1967:

and Tunisian ambassadors to the UN announced today that their countries were pulling out of

the world body effective immediately.....

From the August 6^th, 1967 Denver Post:

LEBANESE ARMY IN CONTROL OF MOST SECTORS OF BEIRUT

From the logbook of a US nuclear submarine on patrol in the Bering

Straits, entry written by the ship’s XO on August 8^th, 1967:

sonars haven’t picked up any contacts in over a month except the occasional passing

whale. For that matter, the CO still hasn’t gotten a reply to the last cable he sent to

Pearl....

From the August 9^th, 1967 Sydney Morning Herald:

First Case of RDS In Philippines Reported

From the August 11^th, 1967 edition of The Australian:

From the August 13^th, 1967 Rand Daily Mail:

Other Health Experts Skeptical

From the August 17^th, 1967 Des Moines Register:

Iraq Seals Its Border With Jordan

From the August 23^rd, 1967 Manila Chronicle:

WORLDWIDE CASUALTIES APPROACHING 2.2 BILLION

From the August 26^th, 1967 Times of Zambia:

KENYA’S EAST AFRICAN STANDARD CLOSING DUE TO FINANCIAL PROBLEMS

From a UPI bulletin out of Canberra dated September 1^st, 1967:

request from deposed former Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda, who

have been in exile in Hawaii since the Marcos government collapsed two days ago due to

widespread panic over the current RDS out break in the Philippines...

From the September 5^th, 1967 Denver Post:

related to the worldwide RDS epidemic suggests that the date for the extinction of

the human race may be even closer than the worst-case scenario predicted in

past editions. The new study warns that given the acclerating increase in deaths

from the virus itself and the unrest and chaos stemming from the panic caused by

the virus, the last human beings on Earth could die out within less than five years...

From an exchange between two ham radio operators in Madagascar dated

September 8^th, 1967:

SB91L3(Receiving station, hereafter referred to as SB91): No, why?

ZK74: Ian Smith’s dead.

SB91: Who?

ZK74: The president of Rhodesia.

SB91: Oh, him. When’d it happen?

ZK74: Last night around 11:30-- they found him in his office. Doctors say it was a heart attack.

SB91: I thought he was too young for that...

ZK74: Nobody’s too young for that these days...

From the September 12^th, 1967 El Mercurio:

From the September 17^th, 1967 Rand Daily Mail:

TIMES OF GHANA SUSPENDS PUBLICATION

From the September 22^nd, 1967 Tulsa Herald:

HAWAII STATE SENATE APPROVES SECESSION BILL; HOUSE TO VOTE ON BILL NEXT WEEK

From the September 30^th, 1967 Honolulu Star-Bulletin:

INDEPENDENCE TO BE DECLARED TOMORROW

From the October 8^th, 1967 Denver Post:

CALGARY ALBERTAN CLOSED

From a UPI bulletin out of Melbourne dated October 16th, 1967:

on Australia’s western coast...

From the October 20th, 1967 edition of The Australian:

From the Sydney Morning Herald the next day:

From the October 25th, 1967 Las Vegas Review-Journal:

AUSTRALIAN GOVT. SAYS BROOME RDS DEATH COUNT NOW AT 17

From the November 1967 issue of National Review(USA):

How Hawaii’s Secession And The RDS Plague Are Shattering America’s

Foundations

From the November 3rd, 1967 Sydney Morning Herald:

WORLDWIDE TOLL NOW AT 2.4 BILLION

From the November 8th, 1967 Rand Daily Mail:

From the November 12th, 1967 Des Moines Register:

From a UPI bulletin out of Canberra dated November 18^th, 1967:

The death toll in Australia’s Broome RDS epidemic has now reached 78 and

counting...

From the November 23^rd, 1967 Tulsa Herald:

Was Last Remaining Regularly Published US Daily Paper East Of The Missisippi

From the November 28^th, 1967 edition of The Australian:

Fremantle On Alert For Outbreak

From the December 3^rd, 1967 Hindustan Times:

Australia RDS Epidemic Death Toll Nearing 300

From a UPI bulletin out of Honolulu dated December 8^th, 1967:

the provisional government of the so-called Republic of Hawaii is already facing a

constitutional crisis as residents of the island who opposed secession are calling for

the repeal of the Hawaii Union Dissolution Act that was passed back in September…

From an official Iraqi Information Ministry press release dated

December 13^th, 1967:

Revolutionary Command Council Chairman Hussein is dead...

From the December 14^th, 1967 Tulsa Herald:

From the December 17^th, 1967 edition of The Age:

From the December 20^th, 1967 Denver Post:

Lack of Money Forces Las Vegas Review-Journal To Close

From the December 24^th, 1967 Tulsa Herald:

First Chief Executive to Commit Suicide While In Office; Leaves Behind

Farewell Note Saying United States Now Only "A Legal Fiction" Due To RDS

Pandemic

From the December 26^th, 1967 Sydney Morning Herald:

300 DEMONSTRATORS, 17 TROOPS DEAD AS ANTI-QUARANTINE PROTEST IN

BROOME DEGENERATES INTO RIOT

From the December 31^st, 1967 El Dia:

Brazil’s largest television channel to temporarily cease broadcast operations...

From a UPI bulletin out of Canberra dated January 4^th, 1968:

Australia’s prime minister has been wounded in an assassination attempt whose

motives are apparently linked with the RDS quarantine in Broome...

From the January 7^th, 1968 Manila Chronicle:

WORLDWIDE TOLL STANDING AT 2.5 BILLION

From the January 12^th, 1968 Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal:

From the private diary of an American research scientist in Antarctica,

entry dated January 16^th, 1968:

hell with orders. If we stay here much longer it’s a toss-up whether

we die from starvation or frostbite...

From a UPI bulletin out of Omaha dated January 20^th, 1968:

has reduced the United States to "a legal fiction", President Carl Hayden

today announced the dispatching of a diplomatic team to Honolulu with

the intention of trying to persuade Hawaii to rejoin the rest of the US....

From the January 23^rd, 1968 Tulsa Herald:

From a UPI bulletin out of Riyadh dated January 27^th, 1968:

been killed in what appears to be an attempted coup by the Saudi armed forces....

From the February 2^nd, 1968 Winnipeg Sun:

and chronic shortages of all the supplies needed to publish this newspaper will

force us to close our doors permanently as of tomorrow. Unfortunately, the

RDS pandemic and the global economic collapse it has caused have left us no

other choice...

From the February 6^th, 1968 Sioux Falls Argus-Leader:

UN HEALTH OFFICIALS EXPECT WORLDWIDE TOLL TO REACH 3 BILLION BY DECEMBER

15,000 DIE IN SANTA FE IN LARGEST MASS SUICIDE IN U.S. HISTORY

From the diary of a University of New Mexico senior, entry dated February 12^th, 1968:

all know damn well the world hasn’t got one?! Every day I hear about another paper

closing, another TV station off the air, another city being abandoned. Makes me

wonder why the hell Kennedy bothered to stop Khrushchev from putting those

missiles in Cuba. What more damage could do a few A-bombs to do us than that

bug has done already?!!

From a UPI bulletin out of Doha dated February 17^th, 1968:

of what was once the Saudi Arabian defense ministry...

From the February 20^th, 1968 Sioux Falls Argus-Leader:

From a memo written by the paper’s editor-in-chief to his employees

three days later:

to pack it in…Like it or not, we’re the last remaining regularly published

major newspaper left in the United States, and we still have a responsibility

to our readers even though there are fewer of them than there were before.

I still have hope that one day soon a cure will be found for the Morgan’s

scourge…

From the February 28^th, 1968 Rand Daily Mail:

From the March 2^nd, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

No Official Word From Canberra on Rumours Quarantine Barrier May Have Been

Breached

From the March 4^th, 1968 edition of The Australian:

From the March 5^th, 1968 Rand Daily Mail:

From the diary of a University of North Dakota medical student, entry

dated March 10^th, 1968:

The good news is the worldwide infection rate for the Morgan’s virus seems to

be finally slowing down…the bad news is we still haven’t found a cure for the sucker.

And the way things are going in the rest of the world, it may be a moot point anyway;

I just read in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, which is practically the only paper that’s

still able to print in this country, that the war in Kashmir is getting worse every day.

Not much information from the outside is getting into the States anymore, but from

what does get in it looks there’s going to be nobody left alive in there by the time

the shooting stops. Yesterday I heard a guy actually stood in front of an Indian tank

and blew himself up....

From the March 12^th, 1968 edition of The Age:

FEDERAL GOVT. CONTINUES TO DENY BREACH OF BROOME QUARANTINE SEAL

From a reader’s letter in the same paper:

one can get through the Broome quarantine seal, and yet we keep hearing

reports that the seal’s been breached. We need to know the truth, and we

need to know it now before the same thing that happened to Rome and New

York and Montreal happens to us...

From the March 15^th, 1968 El Dia:

From the March 17^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

From the March 22^nd, 1968 Rand Daily Mail:

AUSTRALIA CONTINUES TO DENY BROOME QUARANTINE SEAL BREACH

RUMOURS

Outside Sources Claim Death Of Fremantle Woman Linked To Broome RDS Epidemic

From the March 25^th, 1968 Sioux Falls Argus-Leader:

From the March 30^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

TO DEMAND INQUIRY INTO BROOME QUARANTINE RUMOURS

GLOBAL RDS CASUALTIES STAND AT 2.72 BILLION

From a South Africa Broadcasting Corporation news report dated April 2^nd, 1968:

billions of people abroad has finally reached this country. Within the past

hour health officials in Johannesburg have confirmed that three residents of

a town on the border with Botswana have been hospitalized with symptoms of

the Morgan’s virus...

From an Australia Broadcasting Corporation news report dated April 4^th,

1968:

coverup regarding a possible breach in the quarantine seal around the now-deserted coastal

town of Broome....

From the April 5^th, 1968 edition of The Age:

From the April 7^th, 1968 Sioux Falls Argus-Leader:

PRESIDENT HAYDEN DEAD OF HEART ATTACK

From the April 14^th, 1968 edition of The Australian:

BREACH

13 DEAD IN FREMANTLE

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL BANKRUPT, FORCED TO

CLOSE

From the April 16^th, 1968 People’s Daily Worker:

notify our readers that this newspaper must halt publication until

further notice. Though we have tried our best since our evacuation

from Beijing to continue to keep the people informed of daily events

both here and elsewhere, we are forced to acknowledge that the

present circumstances in our country have temporarily rendered this

task impossible to achieve...

From the April 20^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

CONFIRMED BY INQUIRY BOARD

SIOUX FALLS ARGUS-LEADER, LAST SURVIVING MAJOR NEWSPAPER

IN NORTH AMERICA, FORCED TO CLOSE ITS DOORS

From a South Africa Broadcasting Corporation news report dated April 25^th, 1968:

The death toll in the Morgan’s disease epidemic here in South Africa has

now climbed to 31, according to health officials in Johannesburg. The lethal

virus, which to date has claimed 2.74 billion lives worldwide, was first introduced

to this country at a village near the Botswanan border earlier this month....

From the April 28^th, 1968 edition of The Australian:

From an Australian Broadcasting Corporation news report dated May 1^st,

1968:

a new outbreak of respiratory disintegration syndrome in the port of Fremantle. This news

comes as massive demonstrations are being held in Canberra to demand the resignation of

the prime minister for his failure to prevent the quarantine breach at Broome which is now

thought to have led to the Fremantle outbreak...

From the May 5^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

CLOSED DUE TO SEVERE FINANCIAL STRAINS

From the May 8^th, 1968 edition of The Age:

From a South African Broadcasting Corporation News Report dated May 10^th, 1968:

direct orders of the prime minister...

From the May 13^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

AS FREMANTLE BODY COUNT HITS 51

From a New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation news report dated May

17^th, 1968:

charges of violating the ban travel between New Zealand and Australia

imposed by the Wellington government after the Broome RDS outbreak

began last October….

From the May 20^th, 1968 Johannesburg Times:

From the May 24^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SCHEDULED TO VOTE TOMORROW ON WHETHER TO

DISBAND

From an editorial in the May 27^th, 1968 edition of The Australian:

since the 1^st Great Depression. In spite of valiant efforts to rally hope for

the future, many of our fellow Australians seem to take it for granted that

the RDS plague will inevitably wipe out this country just as it has done with

nearly every other country where the virus has appeared…

From a South Africa Broadcasting Corporation news report dated June 1^st, 1968:

officials in Johannesburg. The deadly airborne virus, which to date has claimed almost

2.78 billion lives worldwide, shows every sign of spreading further into the South African

interior…

From the June 3^rd, 1968 edition of The Australian:

HIS PAPER UNLIKELY TO PUBLISH AGAIN IN NEAR FUTURE

From the June 7^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

PM JEERED BY CROWD DURING SPEECH IN CANBERRA

From an Australian Broadcasting Corporation news report dated June 10^th, 1968:

Australian health officials. This news comes just as a new round of anti-government riots is

plaguing Brisbane and Melbourne...

From the June 12^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

SOUTH AFRICAN CASUALTIES AT 103

WORLDWIDE DEATH TOLL EXPECTED TO REACH 2.9 BILLION BY JULY

From a South African Broadcasting Corporation news report dated June 16^th, 1968:

martial law in an effort to keep the mounting RDS crisis from extending

to those cities. In a related development, the Robben Island prison

camp has been placed in lockdown...

From a New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation news report dated June 21^st, 1968:

at 144...

From the June 24^th, 1968 Johannesburg Times:

WORLDWIDE CASUALTIES AT 2.83 BILLION

From the June 29^th, 1968 edition of The Age:

riots continue to devastate the city. In a related story, the prime

minister is expected to dismiss his minister of health later today

in response to the findings of the Broome inquiry panel...

From the July 1^st, 1968 Johannesburg Times:

FREMANTLE BODY COUNT STANDS AT 160

From the July 5^th, 1968 edition of The Australian:

continue, the RDS plague in Fremantle will have killed 200 people

by next week; these deaths, combined with the 9000 who perished

as a result of the epidemic that wiped out the seaside town of Broome

earlier this year, would put this country on course for a total 10,000

by September due to both the lethal airborne RDS bug and the civil

unrest that the bug’s arrival on Australia’s shores has triggered...

From the July 10^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

EL DIA, SOUTH AMERICA’S LAST SURVIVING MAJOR NEWSPAPER,

CLOSES PERMANENTLY

From the July 14^th, 1968 Johannesburg Times:

From the July 20^th, 1968 edition of The Australian:

From a Channel 9(Australia) news report dated July 22^nd, 1968:

prime minister is being targeted with an ever-growing number of

death threats for his failure to control the Broome and Fremantle

RDS epidemics...

From the diary of an American expatriate (hereafter referred to as Mr. L) living in Christchurch, New Zealand, entry dated July 27^th, 1968:

morning. There’s less and less to live for every day, and eventually there

there won’t be anything to live for at all...The news on the radio says we

could hit three billion dead by early December if not sooner. The best I

can hope for right now is that the RDS bug miraculously stays out of New

Zealand until I’m old and gray. Which, I admit, might be a forlorn hope

considering how fast it manages to spread when it gets the chance...

From the August 4^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

Latest Deaths Bring Total Number Of RDS Casualties In Australia

To 9500

From Mr. L’s diary entry of August 11^th, 1968:

York RDS outbreak started, I thought about moving to Australia but I

decided against it, and it looks like I was right to. That place is tearing

itself to pieces...An hour ago the radio said their prime minister’s chief of

staff hung himself because things are so rotten over there...

From a South African Broadcasting Corporation news report dated August

14^th, 1968:

158 as the government prepares to institute martial law in the black

township of Soweto....

From an editorial in the August 22^nd, 1968 edition of The Australian:

With regret, we must announce that tomorrow we will be

From Mr. L’s diary entry of August 31^st, 1968:

the human race is just giving up on itself....The Catholic Church used to frown

on suicide of any kind, but with it being split into a hundred pieces you don’t

hear much protest from the clergy about that; they’re too busy blaming each

other for not finding somebody to take over after Pope Paul VI bought it....

From the September 2^nd, 1968 edition of The Age:

South African Coroner Believes Ex-United Nations Leader Poisoned Himself

From an editorial in the next day’s edition:

what was once a shining dream of lasting global peace. We will never know what

went through Waldheim’s mind in the final days of his life, but we can surely

imagine the heartbreak he must have felt at seeing the once-proud UN collapse

in the face of the horrors brought on by the RDS pandemic....

From the September 10^th, 1968 Johannesburg Times:

From the September 15^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

In Next 5-7 Days

From Mr. L’s diary entry of September 21^st, 1968:

Like things over there weren’t bad enough already...

From a South African Broadcasting Corporation news report dated September 29^th, 1968:

syndrome, bringing the nationwide total number of casualties from the

current epidemic up to 237...

From the October 7^th, 1968 Wellington Telegraph(New Zealand):

WITHIN LESS THAN 45 DAYS

NZ’s Top Biologist Warns Human Race Only One Year Away From Extinction

From Mr. L’s diary entry of October 14^th, 1968:

being shot, or getting shot yourself. Half the people in Australia are mad at the

government for what happened with the Broome quarantine and the other half are

busy dodging bullets...it’s like the Wild West in some towns.

The Parliament here, meanwhile, is busy arguing over whether to send a survey

party across the Pacific to investigate how things are back in what used to be

the United States and Canada. The guys who support the expedition say it’s our

only chance to know the truth about whether there’s still anybody left alive in

North America; the guys who are against it insist that it violates the overseas

travel ban, and even if it doesn’t it risks bringing the RDS bug here...

From a New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation news report dated October 18^th, 1968:

to South African health officials in Johannesburg. Closer to home, the

Parliament is scheduled to vote tomorrow on the prime minister’s proposal

to form a survey expedition for the purpose of investigating whether there

are any human inhabitants left in North America...

In Australia, the mayor of Sydney and three of his aides were lynched by

anti-government mobs...

From the October 24^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

BRISBANE UNDER MARTIAL LAW AFTER LATEST STRING OF CIVIL UNREST

From a New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation news report dated November 2^nd, 1968:

departure in five days’ time. The 65-man scientific party, comprised of people

representing all of New Zealand’s finest science institutions, has been assigned

to explore the western parts of the United States and Canada in hopes of

learning whether there are any human inhabitants left in either country...

From Mr. L’s diary entry of November 7^th, 1968:

about it makes me think about all the things I still miss over there. I can’t begin

to say how long it’s been since the last time I went to a ballgame or saw a show on

Broadway…

From the November 10^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

From a South African Broadcasting Corporation news report dated November 14^th, 1968:

in this country’s RDS epidemic now stands at 315…

From the November 21^st, 1968 Wellington Telegraph:

SOUTH AFRICAN PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET EVACUATE PRETORIA

From Mr. L’s diary entry of November 25^th, 1968:

I didn’t catch everything they said, but I did hear them mention that it was

a South African farmer who’d been admitted to the hospital the day before…

From the November 30^th, 1968 Sydney Morning Herald:

NATIONAL BANK OF SOUTH AFRICA COLLAPSES

NZ SPECIAL EXPEDITION TO NORTH AMERICA REPORTS NO SURVIVORS

IN LOS ANGELES

Civil Unrest Believed To Have Killed Off Last Of City’s Human Population In Late

1966 Or Early 1967

From the December 3^rd, 1968 Johannesburg Times:

MAYOR OF PRETORIA SAYS HIS CITY ‘IN SHEER PANIC’

To Be Continued