Photograph: Rosemary Woods, Nixon’s secretary in 1973, photographed by Richard Avedon in 1975.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is currently in Cairo, after meeting in Morocco with King Hassan regarding the Mideast situation. Hassan was reportedly encouraged by Kissinger’s remarks. In Egypt, Kissinger hopes to persuade President Sadat to release Israeli POWs in return for a pullback of Israeli forces.
Both Israel and Egypt warned of possible renewed aggression in the Mideast. Israel continues to allow supplies to cross the Suez to relieve the trapped Egyptian 3rd army. The Israelis dislike doing so, but the U.S. has applied pressure on Israel to keep the 3rd army supplied. The West bank of the Suez Canal seems tense and a general expectation of war hangs in the air. Israel released a casualty report indicating that they have suffered a huge death toll. Arab casualty figures have not been released.
The Israeli Defense Forces revealed that the death toll from the recent Yom Kippur War had been far higher than expected, with 1,854 dead and nearly one out of every 400 residents of the Middle Eastern nation killed or wounded. In contrast, Syria had one out of every 884 citizens as casualties, and Egypt had one of every 4,550.
A PAVN rocket attack on Biên Hòa Air Base in South Vietnam destroyed three RVNAF F-5As. The Viet Cong’s Provisional Revolutionary Government said in an unusually frank statement yesterday that it had attacked Biên Hòa air base, near Saigon, with rockets to retaliate for recent air strikes originating at the base against Communist positions. The South Vietnamese Government said the rocket attack yesterday on the base, 12 miles from Saigon, was “clear evidence that a new general offensive is on.” The Saigon military command, however, characterized the attack less dramatically as an indication that the Communists were in the process of preparing for a general offensive. The Viet Cong delegation, installed in a compound on the edge of Saigon, said the attack was made on Biên Hòa because “it is from this airfield that the Saigon administration has, sent its aircraft to bomb and strafe liberated zones on the Provisional Revolutionary Government.”
The statement by the delegation seemed to indicate shift in the tone of Communist pronouncements on the ceasefire agreement, which was signed last January. The delegation has been issuing statements on the activities of the Communist forces in South Vietnam, but has usually described them as defensive tactics. Yesterday’s statement said nothing about defense, but termed the action an “attack” and “a punishment.” The Biên Hòa attack was easily the most conspicuous military activity by the Communists in the Saigon area since the cease‐fire agreement was signed more than nine months ago. Biên Hòa is the largest air base in the country and is also the location of one of the units of the International Commission of Control and Supervision set up under the agreement. The South Vietnamese Government said the attack, which began shortly before 6 A.M. and lasted 20 minutes, killed two persons, injured 22 and destroyed three F‐5 fighter‐bombers on the base and demolished five civilian houses near it.
U.S. Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger launched a determined effort to heal the wounds of Washington’s failure to consult North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies on its worldwide military alert October 25. He gave a detailed briefing to seven NATO members attending a two-day meeting in The Hague of the nuclear planning group. One reliable source said Schlesinger explained the Soviet Union was thought to be bringing troops into the Middle East and there had been no time for consultation. The ministers reportedly accepted the explanation without protest.
Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger notified the Nobel Prize committee that he would not be able to go to Oslo December 10 to receive the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize “because of the press of business in a world beset by recurrent crisis.” The State Department said Kissinger designated Thomas Byrne, U.S. ambassador to Norway, to accept the award in his place. Kissinger is scheduled to attend meetings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization December 10 and 11. Le Duc Tho, who was to share in the prize, refused the award because, he said, there still was no peace in Vietnam.
A gunman in a speeding car sprayed machine-gun bullets at a British soldier guarding a courthouse in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killing him, then sped off toward the nearby Irish Republic border. Monday night, British troops wounded one of two snipers who fired on their observation post in Armagh, 40 miles southwest of Belfast.
Portuguese Prime Minister Marcello Caetano announced a government reshuffle, making changes in five ministries and appointing a civilian defense minister for the first time in more than 40 years. Major changes, expected since last month’s National Assembly elections, were the move of Professor Joaquim Silva Cunha from the Overseas Ministry to defense and Dr. Baltazar Rebelo de Sousa from labor and health to the Overseas Ministry. Both are 53 and were seen as forming a strong team to tackle overseas policy. About 40% of Portugal’s budget is spent on defense, largely in Africa.
Seven Roman Catholic priests held on political charges in Spain set fire to chairs and mattresses in their prison, Justice Ministry sources said. A spokesman for the priests in Madrid claimed a column of smoke poured from the Zamora provincial prison in central northwest Spain before prison authorities put out the blaze.
Work stoppages continued to plague France. Many private and state-owned theaters were closed as staff staged a one-day strike to protest lack of government financial support. Some civil servants in northern France also stopped work to press for pay increases, with similar stoppages planned later in the week in Paris and the south of France. Monday’s one-day strike against broadcasting services, in protest to alleged government interference and plans to decentralize the state-run network, was joined briefly by journalists at French newspapers and news agencies.
A member of the Russian Bolshoi ballet company has requested political asylum in Italy during the company’s appearance In Milan, the police said today. She was identified as Renata Babak, a 36‐year‐old soprano.
A strike protesting high prices almost paralyzed New Delhi and brought two major demonstrations against the government. Police battled a mob in a downtown shopping area and blocked Communist demonstrators from marching on the residence of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The strike was a joint effort by Communists, Socialists and Nationalists. Police and strike leaders called it a partial success.
U.S. financier Robert L. Vesco, who had fled to the Bahamas after being investigated for embezzlement in making a donation to President Nixon’s re-election campaign, was arrested in Nassau on a U.S. federal extradition warrant.
The Liberian supertanker SS Golar Patricia exploded and sank in the Atlantic Ocean, but 44 of the 45 people on board were rescued by the Spanish liner MV Cabo San Vicente.
In Oakland, California, the assassination of school superintendent Marcus Foster was carried out by three members of a U.S. terrorist group, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Foster who was shot multiple times, was the first African-American superintendent of schools for a major U.S. city. The white Deputy Superintendent, Robert W. Blackburn, was seriously wounded in the same attack. Two days later, the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter from the SLA, claiming responsibility for the shooting and declaring that Foster was “guilty of crimes against children and the lives of the people.”
Judge John Sirica has learned that President Nixon’s personal secretary Rosemary Woods has a number of White House tapes in her possession. White House aide Steven Bull disclosed Miss Woods’ connection with the tapes. Bull admitted that he, Woods and the President worked on typing the transcripts of the White House tapes at Camp David, Maryland. The tapes were later taken to Key Biscayne, Florida, and placed in a safe under constant guard.
Bull was questioned about Miss Woods typing the transcripts and stated that he did not know the reason for her actions. White House aide John Bennett testified that Woods has 14 of the tapes currently. Judge Sirica then requested that Rosemary Woods appear in court. He also met secretly with White House lawyers Leonard Garment and Fred Buzhardt today.
Former Attorney General Elliot Richardson opposes having the courts name a successor to former special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to propose that the Watergate prosecutor be confirmed by the Senate after being appointed by the executive branch. Richardson suggested the confirmation process be used as a weapon to get the President to drop his claims of executive privilege regarding Watergate-related tapes and documents which are needed in the investigation. Richardson concurred that talk of impeachment and resignation would increase if such pressure on the President failed to budge him. Richardson also revealed that President Nixon mentioned getting rid of Cox as long ago as late September.
The Senate Watergate Committee agreed to invite President Nixon for a session to discuss the President’s side of the Watergate issue. The committee heard testimony today involving Democrat dirty tricks during the ’72 campaign.
Edward Gurney, a member of the Senate Watergate Committee, called the committee’s investigation a “travesty”. Gurney himself has been investigated by the Ervin committee twice.
President Nixon may announce his plans to cope with heating oil and gasoline shortages tomorrow.
While today’s New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races may provide insight into the impact of Watergate on local elections, a proposition in Washington state might be a better indicator. Bruce Helm is fighting to keep politicians, including members of the state legislature and Governor Dan Evans, from getting enormous raises. Helm, a political novice, stated that politicians have no right to take advantage of their position to boost their income.
President Nixon’s few remaining supporters are rallying behind him. In Lafayette, California, a committee for the support of President Nixon insists that pro-Nixonites call committee headquarters daily. Committee co-founder Mrs. Bernice Pantell says that the group supporting President Nixon is strong but silent.
The Dayton Daily News reported that the FBI is investigating the relationship between Attorney General-designate William Saxbe and an Ohio slot machine manufacturer.
Abe Beame is elected first Jewish mayor of New York City. By a heavy margin, New Yorkers have chosen Controller Abraham D. Beame as the city’s next Mayor. The dimensions of his victory attest to the esteem he has earned through years of dedicated public service as well as to the weakness of his opponents. The Beame vote cut across economic, ethnic and racial lines, an augury that the new Mayor will be able to count on broad support in efforts to ease tensions and rebuild community unity.
The problems Mr. Beame will have to surmount in the next four years are monumental. Even as the voters went to the polls, the city’s firemen abandoned their posts in a blackmail tactic made no less outrageous by the speed with which it was called off under court pressure. The city’s voluntary hospitals remain crippled by a strike begun in defiance of law and court order.
These evidences of resurgent militancy among unions in vital services, with all the potential consequences in public hardship and swollen municipal budgets, must share attention with such endemic challenges as crime and breakdowns in the system of criminal justice, inadequate housing and rotting neighborhoods, the need for job creation and economic development, welfare reform and better schools, environmental protection and improvement, mass transit, air, water, parks, streets and a thousand other urgent tasks.
Coleman Young is elected Mayor of Detroit, Michigan. State Senator Coleman A. Young became the first black man to be elected Mayor of Detroit by scoring a narrow victory today in the face of a strong law-and-order appeal by his white opponent, former Police Commissioner John F. Nichols. In capturing the top elective post in the country’s fifth largest city, Mr. Young also became the third black to be elected Mayor of a major metropolis this year. Blacks won earlier in Los Angeles and Atlanta.
Charges of arson and rioting were dropped against activist H. Rap Brown in Maryland. Maryland dropped felony charges against H. Rap Brown more than six years after blacks in Cambridge burned buildings and rioted after a speech by Brown. Brown, 30, former director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, then pleaded guilty in court in Ellicott City to a misdemeanor charge of jumping bail after failing to appear for trial in 1970. Judge James Macgill sentenced Brown to a year imprisonment, retroactive to October 16, 1971, the day Brown was arrested in New York City after a holdup of a liquor store and the shooting of a policeman. He will be returned to New York’s Attica prison.
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, urged the Federal Communications Commission to remove all restrictions on the showing of movies on pay cable television. Calling for an end to the FCC rule that keeps pay TV from showing movies that still might be found on movie theater screens, he said the market should be open to all. In testimony prepared for a three-day FCC hearing in Washington, Valenti had the support of actors Charlton Heston, Robert Stack, and Greg Morris as well as screenwriters, producers and union spokesmen. Valenti said relaxation of the rules would mean more entertainment for low-income families.
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark said the grand jury that indicted the Chicago Seven also voted to indict eight policemen in connection with the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots but its foreman refused to sign the indictments. Clark also testified that Chief U.S. District Judge William Campbell ordered the grand jury investigation of the street and park disorders over Clark’s instructions that “we would not begin with a grand jury.” Clark’s testimony, given at the current contempt trial of five of the Chicago Seven and their two original trial lawyers, brought objections from federal prosecutors that it was irrelevant to the contempt proceedings.
Twenty persons were injured, three critically, in an explosion and fire on the ninth floor of a 31-story building under construction in downtown Chicago. The $30 million structure is being erected by the Northern Trust Bank. Officials estimated damage at $150,000. A short circuit in a 12,000-volt transformer caused the explosion in an electrical vault, firemen said.
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Russell Train announced that catalytic converters must be installed on new cars immediately. But catalytic converters are controversial; some scientists believe that the converters are potentially dangerous, as people with asthma and chronic lung and heart conditions may suffer more as a result of the converters. General Motors officials insist that the converters pose no serious threat, although evaluations cannot be completed due to the EPA’s forced deadline. At a Senate hearing, Train insisted that any postponement would delay implementation of the clean air standards which have been proposed for the upcoming years.
New York City firemen went on strike for five hours today.
Pioneer 10, launched from Earth on March 2, 1972, began returning its first photographs of the planet Jupiter, starting from 16 million miles (25 million kilometers). It would make its closest approach to the solar system’s largest planet on December 3.
The James Bond film “Man With the Golden Gun” starring Roger Moore begins filming.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 913.08 (-6.32, -0.69%).
Born:
Justin Speier, MLB pitcher (Chicago Cubs, Florida Marlins, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, Toronto Blue Jays, Los Angeles Angels; son of MLB shortstop Chris Speier), in Daly City, California.
Carlos Almanzar, Dominican MLB pitcher (Toronto Blue Jays, San Diego Padres, New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers), in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
Taje Allen, NFL defensive back (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 34-Rams; St Louis Rams, Kansas City Chiefs), in Lubbock, Texas.
Died:
George Biddle, 88, American mural painter
History Diaries 