Egypt has requested the United States and the Soviet Union to break the new deadlock in the Middle East by putting pressure on Israel to withdraw her forces to the cease-fire lines of October 22. The request was made by Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy in separate meetings with the American Ambassador, Hermann Eilts, and Vladimir Vinogradov, the Soviet Ambassador. The Egyptian government also declared that it would not return to military talks on the Cairo-Suez highway until it was sure that Israeli “obstruction” there was ended.
Premier Golda Meir of Israel conceded that the negotiations with Egypt over a disengagement of forces along the Suez Canal had hit a serious snag, but said she hoped that further meetings would be held. In a radio interview, Mrs. Meir asserted that Israel had offered Egypt proposals that “went beyond what they could have expected or demanded to achieve complete disengagement” of Israeli forces.
David Ben-Gurion, a founding father of modern Israel and its first Premier, died in Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv at the age of 87. He succumbed to a brain hemorrhage that struck him two weeks ago.
State Department officials reported that despite the Arab-Israeli war, Soviet authorities permitted a record number of Jews to emigrate to Israel in October and that the number has remained high since. They said that according to United States intelligence figures, about 3,660 Jews left the Soviet Union in October, and the number in November was believed to be close to that.
Papua New Guinea was granted self-government by Australia in advance of eventual independence. No ceremonies were held because of the danger of violence from anti-independence groups, and at 10:00 a.m. at Port Moresby, Australian administrator Les Johnson administered the oath of office to Chief Minister Michael Somare.
The United States has launched a worldwide program of overseas military base closings, reductions and consolidations that will affect 59 installations in 12 countries and will save an estimated $34.7 million per year when completed. The program was outlined by Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger and other officials as part of the new look emerging in the U.S. defense establishment to meet reduced manpower levels, congressional pressure for budget reduction and new international conditions.
The governments of Britain, France and West Germany have become convinced that the United States is determined to withdraw some of its military forces from Europe. Conversations with senior officials of the three countries convey a sense of profound insecurity about the future defense of Western Europe.
President Nixon signed a $2.77 billion military construction authorization bill — $283.5 million less than requested by the Pentagon. A spokesman said it reflected consolidation and realignment resulting from the shift to volunteer forces. Mr. Nixon also signed a $215.6 million authorization bill for the U.S. Information Agency, He vetoed an earlier measure because it carried a section requiring a fund cutoff if the agency refused to comply with congressional requests for USIA documents. The provision was dropped from the new measure.
The United States will have a net balance of payments deficit in its military commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the current fiscal year of between $600 million and $1.4 billion, a Senate report said. The deficit was estimated as the amount remaining after payments by West Germany and arms sales receipts to other NATO allies were deducted from a gross of $2.5 billion. A bill recently passed by Congress orders that beginning in October U.S. troop strength in Europe shall be cut the same percentage by which NATO allies fail to make up the military payments deficit.
Gunmen ambushed a police patrol in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, killing one policeman. Two others escaped injury, A policeman in Londonderry was shot at from a speeding car but his flak jacket saved him. Ten persons have died in the past week in the latest wave of violence and the British army says the Irish Republican Army is largely responsible. Extra troops patrolled Belfast to prevent clashes between Protestant and Roman Catholic militants gathered in separate rallies. Both factions are demanding the release of hundreds of gunmen being held without trial.
A representative of the family of oil billionaire J. Paul Getty arrived in Rome to pay kidnappers a $3.4 million ransom demanded for the release of J. Paul Getty III. A lawyer for the missing 18-year-old’s mother, Mrs. Gail Harris, said J. Paul Getty II, the youth’s father, had agreed to pay the entire sum demanded. Young Getty’s grandfather has refused to pay any ransom, contending it would endanger his other relatives.
An 18-year-old Swiss kitchen helper described as mentally unstable surrendered to police in Geneva after trying to hijack a Swissair airliner carrying 145 passengers. Officials said the youth entered the cockpit with a small-caliber revolver as the plane approached Geneva from Zurich, demanded $50,000 for hungry Africans, a ticket to New York, and a safe-conduct guarantee. On landing, the pilot and two policemen talked him into surrendering. An airline spokesman said the youth would be examined by psychiatrists.
In West Germany’s Baden-Württemberg state, the villages of Conweiler, Schwann, and Pfinzweiler-Feldrennach were merged to create the small town of Straubenhardt. A fourth village, Ottenhausen, was added one month later and Langenalb would follow on January 1, 1975.
Commercial diver Timothy House was lost at sea while conducting a surface-orientated dive in the North Sea from the semi-submersible drill rig Blue Water III. House, who was performing routine maintenance, was assumed to have cut through his umbilical due to hypothermia.
Uruguay decreed the dissolution of its 50-year-old Communist Party, also outlawing several smaller leftist groups, and closed down the Communist newspapers El Popular and Cronica. The measures were in line with the anti-Marxist campaign by the regime of President Juan M. Bordaberry who took dictatorial power June 27. The Communist Party received more than 100,000 votes in the last election, in 1971, winning five seats in the congress. The Socialist Party, also banned, had 39,900 votes and one representative.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, president of Bangladesh, announced an amnesty for 36,400 prisoners who had been accused, during the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Bangladesh genocide, of collaboration with the Pakistan.
Bob Foster of the United States became the first black boxer to defeat a white challenger in a bout in South Africa, which had strict racial segregation under its apartheid policies at the time. Foster, the world light heavyweight champion, outpointed South Africa’s Pierre Fourie in a 15-round bout at Rand Stadium in Johannesburg.
In a major executive branch shake-up, President Nixon has decided to establish a Federal Energy Administration to be headed by William E. Simon, a former Wall Street investment banker who has been Deputy Secretary of the Treasury for the last 11 months, high Administration sources said. Mr. Simon, who will continue as deputy secretary, will get the additional rank of counselor to the President.
The Senate failed to break a deadlock over campaign spending legislation that has forced the government to operate with a total debt of about $63 billion over the legal ceiling. The resulting fiscal problem, academic over the weekend but real when business resumes Monday, was serious enough for the Treasury to halt the sale of savings bonds on the ground that the government’s credit had run out at midnight Friday and no further borrowing was possible. When an effort to cut off debate on the measures was defeated by a vote of 47 to 33, or seven short of the required two–thirds, supporters of the campaign financing act accused the Nixon Administration of aiding the filibuster with a lobbying effort so that President Nixon would not have to veto the campaign provision.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee are prepared, by a substantial majority, to recommend the impeachment of President Nixon if they find evidence of serious misconduct that falls short of criminal wrong-doing. The Judiciary Committee will not get into the thick of its impeachment inquiry before February, and it is not likely to reach a determination on Mr. Nixon’s conduct in office before spring. But a check that The New York Times made among the 21 Democrats and 17 Republicans who serve on the committee produced a surprising consensus on the question that will be central to the outcome of the inquiry: What is an impeachable offense under the Constitution?
Anticipating a virtually complete voluntary shutdown of the 220,000 service stations in the country tomorrow, motorists lined up at gasoline pumps throughout the New York area and across the United States to stock up on fuel. Many motorists found that some gasoline prices were higher following the announcement of increases by three major oil companies. Surveys in the New York metropolitan area and other sections of the country indicated that, in most cases, 90% or more of the service station operators intended to observe the voluntary weekend closing suggested by President Nixon as a way to conserve gasoline.
Defense motions to dismiss contempt of court charges against five Chicago conspiracy trial defendants and two of their attorneys were denied by U.S. District Judge Edward T. Gignoux, who set Monday for closing arguments. The defense has argued for dismissal on the ground the riot-conspiracy trial in 1969-70 had been tainted by government spying on the defendants. Gignoux termed the testimony of a professed Army spy “utterly incredible,” said he believed government witnesses who disputed that testimony and concluded that any surveillance of the defendants had not violated their civil rights.
A three-judge federal panel ruled in Washington that a new law limiting spending for political campaign advertising was an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech. The judges suggested that the statute’s other provisions requiring public disclosure of campaign contributions also might be of questionable constitutionality. The suit had been brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The New York Criminal & Civil Courts Bar Association. wrote to President Nixon complaining that regional divisions of the Veterans Administration and the Internal Revenue Service were illegally wiretapping and monitoring office phone calls made by employees of the two agencies. Stuart E. Levison, president of the association, told a news conference that the bugging had been going on at least since last spring and possibly since last year.
Three major drug concerns — Charles Pfizer & Co., American Cyanamid Co. and Bristol Myers Co. — were acquitted in New York of federal charges that they had conspired to fix prices and monopolize the market in antibiotics derived from the drug tetracycline. The firms had been convicted of the charges in 1967, but their conviction was overturned on appeal and they were retried. Since 1967, the three firms and two others, Upjohn Co. and Squibb Beech-Nut, Inc., have refunded more than $132 million to tetracycline users who filed civil lawsuits charging overpricing.
Davis Cup Men’s Tennis, Cleveland, Ohio: Rod Laver and John Newcombe beat American pair Stan Smith and Erik van Dillen 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 to give Australia an unassailable 3-0 lead, (ends 5-0); 23rd Cup title for Australia.
Jack Nicklaus finishes at 13-under-par 275 to win the Walt Disney World Open by 1 stroke from Mason Rudolph; becomes the first player to reach $2 million in PGA Tour career earnings.
38th Iron Bowl: Alabama beats Auburn 35—0 in Birmingham.
Born:
Sean Manuel, NFL tight end (San Francisco 49ers), in Los Gatos, California.
Matt Keneley, NFL defensive tackle (San Francisco 49ers), in Santa Ana, California.
Jon Theodore, American drummer (Queens of the Stone Age), born in Baltimore, Maryland.
Bahareh Rahnama, Iranian film actress; in Arak, Iran.
Rajesh Sharma, Indian film actor; in Kollam, Kerala state, India.
Died:
David Ben-Gurion, 87, Polish-born Zionist leader and first Prime Minister of Israel, died 13 days after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. He had been in a coma since November 23.
History Diaries 