Photograph: Richard M. Nixon at the National Association of Realtors convention in Washington D.C., November 15, 1973.
The exchange of Israeli and Egyptian prisoners of war began the day after the announcement of an agreement between the two nations for repatriation of personnel captured during the Yom Kippur War. The International Red Cross flew a group of Egyptian POWs from Tel Aviv to Cairo on a DC-9, while an IRC DC-6 flew 26 wounded Israelis back home at the same time. The exchange was completed by November 22.
The Mideast cease-fire agreement moved forward as the first Israeli prisoners flew home and Israelis turned over checkpoints on the Cairo-Suez Road to United Nations troops. The first planeload of Egyptian prisoners departed for home as Israeli prisoners landed in Tel Aviv. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan greeted his returning soldiers. A second Egyptian plane arrived — without Israeli prisoners, causing intense disappointment. Twenty‐six wounded Israeli prisoners of war came home to tears, flowers and warm applause as Israel and Egypt began their prisoner exchange, which is expected to last a week. The soldiers arrived in Tel Aviv aboard a Red Cross plane that later returned to Cairo with 44 wounded Egyptian prisoners. Afterward, another plane took 250 wounded Egyptian prisoners to Cairo.
Fewer names of Israelis exist on Egypt’s prisoners of war list than was first expected. Half of those presumed to be POWs are now listed as dead.
The United Nations began exercising its right to supervise the daily flow of food, water and medical supplies to Suez city under the cease‐fire arrangement, but in other respects Israeli forces remained in control of all access roads.
The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar el‐Qaddafi, said in a message made public in Beirut tonight that he was “extremely furious” at what was happening on the Cairo‐Suez Road. This was interpreted here as a denunciation of the recent negotiations between Egyptian and Israeli officers in that area, aimed at consolidating the cease‐fire and exchanging prisoners of war. The Libyan leader’s message — in the form of a cablegram to President Anwar el‐Sadat of Egypt — was disclosed here tonight in a report distributed by the official Libyan press agency.
North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese government troops clashed repeatedly in the remote province of Quảng Đức on the Cambodia border, in battles that involved hand-to-hand fighting and the use of aircraft and armor, Saigon military sources said. They estimated that about two to three North Vietnamese regiments operate in the area. In Cambodia, advance elements of a government task force pushing down Highway 2 entered the town of Siem Reap for the first time in more than seven months, but only scattered fighting was reported. The insurgents apparently had decided to withdraw.
Secretary of State Kissinger ended two days of talks with Japanese leaders, apparently without giving them assurances on when the Arab nations would lift their oil embargo. The talks reportedly focused almost exclusively on oil, and statements by Japanese Cabinet ministers left the impression that they had been disappointed by the lack of assurances on oil, which has become the major political issue in Tokyo.
Secretary of State Kissinger flew into and out m Seoul today in an effort to assure the South Koreans that he had made no deals with the Chinese at the expense of South Korea. Mr. Kissinger, on the last stop of his 10‐day around the world tour, spent about three hours with President Park Chung, discussing his visit three days ago in Peking, where the secretary met with Chairman Mao Tse‐tung and Premier Chou En‐lai of China. Officials earlier indicated there concern that Dr. Kissinger was going to inform them that the United States would withdraw its remaining forces from Korea at Chinese insistence. The continued presence of those forces here has long been the major issue between Seoul and Washington.
The United States suggested today that it was willing to see new arrangements made for safeguarding peace and security in the divided Korean peninsula. But the United States delegate, John A. Scali, said that until an, alternative was devised it would be “foolhardy in the extreme” to scrap the United Nations military command. Dissolution of the command, under which 40,000 American troops are serving, was demanded yesterday by North Korea and China and again today by the Soviet Union in the General Assembly’s Political Committee.
About 2,000 students at Korea University demonstrated for about four hours today in the most sustained and violent outburst in the spreading defiance of the Government of President Park Chung Hee. First the students rallied at the university and adopted resolution saying that “no one can clamp down on the freedoms God gave us.” They then tried to carry their demonstration into the streets of Seoul. But after fights with the police marked by rock‐throwing, the students were stopped twice by tear gas from pressing into the streets. At least one student was said to have been seriously hurt in the clash and several more reportedly received minor injuries. A small but unknown number of students were also arrested.
Eight Irish Republican Army guerrillas were sentenced in England to life imprisonment for launching car-bomb attacks in London March 8. One man died and 216 were injured in the two blasts. The squad was led by a 22-year-old girl. Sentenced with her was her sister, 19, and six men, all of them from Roman Catholic areas of Belfast. All pleaded innocent. A ninth defendant received 15 years after he pleaded guilty and described the expedition. A girl, 18, the only one acquitted, was in hiding after reportedly being placed on the IRA’s death list for giving a full confession.
Two thousand students held control of the Athens Polytechnic Institute for the second day and vowed to remain there until their demands for academic and Greek political reforms are met. “Out with the Americans” and “People revolt,” they chanted. A spokesman for the civilian government of Premier Spyros Markezinis said the government would respect the principle of university asylum and order police to stay off the campus.
Two kidnappers traded the 22-year-old daughter of West Germany’s “fried chicken king” for $1.2 million in ransom and escaped a police ambush in a sports car. One of the two men, Peter Knapp, 29, later called police in Augsburg and said he wanted to give up. But Knapp apparently changed his mind and police had to chase down his car to arrest him. A spokesman said he had only $2,800 of the ransom. Evelyn Jahn, daughter of Friedrich Jahn of the Wienerwald restaurant chain, was released unharmed on a country road near Munich.
Britain’s royal newlyweds, Captain and Mrs. Mark Phillips (Princess Anne), left London for their honeymoon.
Indians and Eskimos won a temporary injunction halting work on a $6 billion hydroelectric project they claimed threatened their way of life in the Canadian hinterlands. The Quebec Superior Court in Montreal forbade developers to trespass on the project area without the Indians’ permission. The James Bay development scheme covers about one-fifth of Quebec province. The area is 450 miles northwest of Montreal. Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa’s Liberal government had pushed the proposed dams, powerhouses, airports and highways as vital to the expanding energy needs of the province.
Three small daughters of two Acapulco businessmen were kidnapped, but released before a $44,400 ransom demand was met. Police said the children were taken from their kindergarten school on a ruse, but released on a highway north of Acapulco shortly after a ransom note was received by one of their parents. The girls, all under five, are Yumel and Jasmine Kuri, daughters of a clothing store owner, and Maria Teresa Rivera, daughter of the controller of the Paraiso Marriott Hotel.
President Nixon is continuing his Watergate offensive. He intends to speak to the Associated Press managing editors convention in Florida on Saturday.
Congressmen breakfasted with the President today in an effort to learn more about his role in Watergate. Rep. William Scherle called Nixon’s attempt to clear up Watergate a “monologue of reminiscences”, but some other Congressmen were impressed. Representative Joseph Maraziti said that if the President continues to speak out, his credibility will be restored. Later, President Nixon spoke to the National Association of Realtors and talked of his accomplishments. The President will speak again in Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee to friendly crowds in an effort to build credibility.
By an 87-0 vote, the Senate completed congressional action on a $2.7 billion military construction authorization bill and sent it to the White House. The bill, $241.1 million under President Nixon’s budget, authorizes construction of 10,679 units of military housing this year. The limitation on average cost was raised to $27,500 from $24,000 per unit.
To save energy, the President’s jet will fly slower.
Former Treasury Secretary John Connally announced that he will not run for president in 1976 if the political climate which has been generated by Watergate persists. Connally met privately today with the Senate Watergate committee to discuss federal subsidies which were given to the dairy industry. Connally insisted that there was no connection between campaign contributions to the President and the increased subsidies. But the issue may linger and be damaging to any “Connally ’76” campaign.
The Senate Watergate committee heard from more corporate officials regarding illegal contributions to the Nixon re-election campaign. Former American Airlines CEO George Spater reported that he gave a contribution out of fear. Goodyear chairman Russell DeYoung said that his contribution was made for the good of the country.
The House approved more money to investigate impeachment resolutions against President Nixon. House Judiciary Committee chairman Peter Rodino promised Republicans part of the money to make their own study.
Vice President-designate Gerald Ford made it through the first session of his confirmation hearings with no problem.
An attorney for House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford once offered Ford’s assistance to financier Louis Wolfson in a legal case if Wolfson would aid Ford in his attempt to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, a House committee was told. The charge was raised during Ford’s vice-presidential confirmation hearings before the Judiciary Committee. Ford and the attorney, Benton L. Becker of Washington, D.C., both denied that Becker had made the offer on behalf of Ford and Reps. Louis C. Wyman (R-New Hampshire) and Joe D. Waggonner Jr. (D-Louisiana). But William O. Bittman, attorney for Wolfson in a case brought against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission, insisted that his version was correct.
Three rookie astronauts will be launched Friday to make the longest stay in space. Gerald Carr, William Pogue and Edward Gibson will man Skylab 3 and perform experiments while in space. Technicians made final preparations for the scheduled 9:01 A.M. blast‐off of the Skylab 3 astronauts to begin their planned 84‐day mission aboard the orbiting laboratory. During the record length of time the three astronauts are to stay in space, they are to observe the Kohoutek comet, study the outer atmosphere of the sun and breed gypsy moths.
The Pentagon may be forced to dip into U.S. oil reserves to run half of American military operations.
The administration hopes that increased coal production will ease the fuel shortage, but to mine coal, oil is needed. Oil allocations to mines have been cut from last year. Mining operations are now at a minimum and present demand can’t be met. Underground coal mines require less oil than strip mines, but a shortage of roof bolts is keeping production down.
The House passed an 11% increase in Social Security benefits.
A jury in Austin convicted Darrel L. Cain, a suspended Dallas police officer, of murdering a 12-year-old Mexican-American boy whom he suspected of being a burglar by shooting the youth point blank in the head. The trial was moved to Austin because of heavy publicity and protests over the July 24 shooting. Cain, 30, a five-year veteran, admitted that he had played a form of Russian roulette with Santos Rodriguez while the boy and his 14-year-old brother sat handcuffed in Cain’s patrol car. Cain said he only wanted to get a confession from the boys and thought the gun he pressed to Santos’ head was unloaded. Police testified they never found evidence linking the boys with the robbery.
A paramedic who performed abortions on 15 Chicago women bused into Philadelphia on Mother’s Day, 1972, was found guilty on two counts of practicing medicine without a license. Judge Joseph R. Glancey fined Harvey L. Karman of Los Angeles $250 on each count and $100 for court costs. Glancey also recommended that the state change the law to permit paramedics to practice in Pennsylvania. Karman admitted that he performed the operations with an experimental device he had developed.
Governor Daniel Walker of Illinois, a Democrat who literally walked his way into office, warned his party to “stop secretly enjoying the plight of the Republicans” over the Watergate scandals. Walker, who said he learned something of the mood of the people during his 1,197-mile, four-month campaign walk through his state, told a Democratic fundraising dinner in Beverly Hills that the voter was in no mood for any gloating by President Nixon’s enemies. He also warned Democrats that their party’s programs of the past, “massive amounts of money and armies of bureaucracies in Washington,” were not the “automatic” answer to the nation’s problems.
An apartment building fire in the U.S. city of Los Angeles killed 24 residents and injured 52 others after starting on a sofa in the building’s lobby and then spreading quickly through open stairwells in the wood-frame structure. Although firefighters arrived at the Stratford Apartments within five minutes after the alarm sounded, many of the casualties died from jumping from their windows.
Six weeks before the speed limit in the United States would be dropped to 55 miles per hour (89 km/h), the U.S. state of Washington enacted a law lowering its speed limit to 50 miles per hour (80 km/h). The traffic fatality rate would drop by 11 percent for the rest of the year.
Novelist Kurt Vonnegut is against book burning but his “Slaughterhouse 5” was destroyed in just that manner in Drake, North Dakota. English teacher Bruce Severy reported that his assignment for his class to read “Slaughterhouse 5” was met with anger by many parents. The school board decided to burn the book. School superintendent Dale Fuhrman insisted that the book burning was not merely symbolic, and board member Mel Alme observed that parents have the right to comment and act on the reading materials assigned to their children in school.
No students supported the ban. Student Ron Bloomhagen said that the controversy over the book reminds him of Nazi Germany. Two other books were banned also. Severy may be forced to find a new job next year.
The Junior League of New York and the city’s Bureau of Venereal Disease Control announced a joint campaign to get women to demand regular testing for gonorrhea, which a bureau spokesman called “the most prevalent disease that women here have to worry about,” one that is “rapidly moving into the suburbs and Park Avenue.” As part of the campaign, a bureau technician tested the blood of 12 members of the league’s venereal disease education committee.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 874.55 (+4.67, +0.54%).
Born:
Jason Dunn, NFL tight end (Philadelphia Eagles, Kansas City Chiefs), in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.
Jorge Diaz, NFL guard (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys), in New York, New York.
Kevin Gryboski, MLB pitcher (Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals), in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Brian Dallimore, MLB pinch hitter, second baseman, and third baseman (San Francisco Giants), in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Sydney Tamiia Poitier, American actress (“Abby”, “Carter”), daughter of Sidney Poitier, in Los Angeles, California.
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