Remember A Day | A millionaire corpse collector, a daring rescue operation and a KGB assassination plot: headlines from four decades ago
A journey back through time to look at significant news and events reported by the South China Morning Post from this week in history
Grabbing headlines four decades ago this week was news about Indonesian police hunting for a local millionaire who collected corpses as a hobby, and a daring James Bond-style operation carried out by an Australian journalist to sneak his lover out of Laos.
June 4, 1978
• KGB agents allegedly killed former UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjold in a 1961 plane crash, according to a Penthouse magazine article to be published in August that year.
The article, which quoted a secret CIA report, said Hammarskjold was assassinated because he had refused to inaugurate a three-man leadership system at the world body. The document claimed a Soviet-designed explosive device had been placed on the aircraft carrying him.
• Argentina, which had just signed a trade agreement with China, planned to use Hong Kong as the centre of its trade thrust into Asia and had already set up a trade commission in the city.
