Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s first installment of the book “The Gulag Archipelago,” was published for the first time, as the book about Soviet prison camps was put on sale by a French company, Éditions du Seuil of Paris. The manuscript had been smuggled out of the U.S.S.R. and translated into the French language. Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning author, published in Paris an extensive documentary expose of the Soviet secret police, prison camp and terror system, called “The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956.” His controversial book is so explosive that it may produce a confrontation between the author and the Kremlin.
Two of Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s most dramatic accusations relate to Stalin. The author charges that in his last days Stalin was preparing a campaign against Jews in Moscow — a pogrom on a mass scale — to be followed by the survivors’ exile to Siberia. He also presents evidence in support of a long-harbored suspicion that Stalin in his early days was in the service of the Okhrana, the Czarist secret police.
Venezuela increased taxes and royalties on its crude oil exports; Venezuelan oil will now be the most expensive in the world. In Canada, the crude oil export tax will increase in February. Canada is the largest foreign oil supplier to the United States.
Israeli and Egyptian negotiators agreed in principle on some points regarding troop pullbacks on the Suez Canal. Israeli and Egyptian generals reportedly agreed today on some of the principles that would govern the separation of their forces on the Suez Canal front. This progress was reported by a United Nations spokesman after the second session of the series of meetings Israel and Egypt were holding here in an attempt to break a deadlock over disengagement on the Suez front. The previous series of meetings, held in a tent on the Cairo‐Suez Road, ended in deadlock on November 29, with Egypt accusing Israel of stalling. Reporting on today’s meeting, held under the chairmanship of Lieutenant General Ensio Siftsvuo of Finland, commander of the United Nations Emergency Force in the Middle East, a United Nations spokesman said that “consensus was reached on some principles of disengagement.” “Clarifications were also sought by both sides regarding details of these principles,” a statement read by the spokesman said. A “further frank exchange of views on other principles” was also reported.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy has flown to Aswan in southern Egypt to report to President Anwar el‐Sadat on the first round of the Geneva peace conference. Mr. Fahmy returned from Geneva last night, announcing that the talks were only the first steps toward a settlement. The decisive factor, he said, would be “the Arabs’ determination to continue their political and military struggle.”
Egypt has complained to the Security Council that Israeli authorities subjected 43 Egyptian prisoners of war to “cruel, inhuman and illegal treatment.” In a letter made public today, Egypt identified the prisoners by name and rank and charged that a number were beaten or tortured. Israel and Egypt completed an exchange of prisoners in November, when 8,400 Egyptians and 238 Israelis were released. Israel has also accused Egypt of mistreating Israeli soldiers taken during the fighting, and has further charged that at least 42 Israelis were tortured and killed in Syria. The Egyptians’ letter said that Israeli forces had attacked civilian targets indiscriminately and had used weapons prohibited by international law.
Syria still refuses to supply a list of Israeli POWs; Israel charged Syria with murdering many POWs. Israel claims that one-third of its POWs in Syria were tortured and murdered on the battle front. Syrian deputy foreign minister Abdul-Ghani Rafei denied the charges and stated that delegates from the World Council of Churches saw all of the Israeli prisoners. The council reported that it saw only two prisoners.
Egypt said today that her troops shot down an Israeli plane that intruded over Egyptian lines this morning near the city of Suez at the southern end of the Suez Canal. This statement was denied in Tel Aviv by an Israeli military spokesman, who said there had been no incidents in the air during the day. According to the Egyptian military spokesman, the Israeli plane was seen falling in flames while the others in the formation fled eastward. Reconnaissance planes have been over the lines in the Suez area almost every day since the cease‐fire officially went into effect in October.
The Libyan leader, Colonel Muamar el‐Qaddafi, was quoted today as saying that every possible means should be used, including revolution, to stop Egypt from concluding peace with Israel by herself. In an interview with a Lebanese weekly magazine, Beirut Al Massa, Colonel Qaddafi declared: “Any Arab state may commit the crime of a unilateral peace. The only possible measure to counter it is a revolution backed by the Arab revolutionary regimes.” The Libyan leader added that the Palestinian guerrilla movement should play a role in stopping any Arab country from making peace with Israel. Beirut Al Massa, which is close to Colonel Qaddafi, disclosed that the Libyans tried but failed to persuade Egypt to boycott the Geneva conference. It said that Major Abdul Salam Jalloud, the Libyan Premier, visited Cairo twice this month for that purpose.
The people of Saigon, who once thought that there might be peace, are now being told that there is going to be much more war. Over their television sets and radios, they hear President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu telling them in his blunt, unadorned Vietnamese that they must steel themselves for a Communist offensive. When they believe him—and some do — many react not in panic but with a profound lassitude and numbness, something almost beyond caring.
“Listening to all this talk about another offensive, the only thing I feel is very sad,” said Long Hải, the owner of a small ceramics factory in Hàng Xanh, on the northern outskirts of Saigon. Hàng Xanh was obliterated by American and South Vietnamese planes after Viet Cong troops took it during the Tết offensive of 1968. The ceramics factory was destroyed, and Mr. Hải fled with his wife and eight children. “There is nothing we can do,” said Mr. Hải, who almost nightly hears South Vietnamese artillery hammering Communist positions north of the city. “Our skins are no longer sensitive.”
Some sophisticated Saigonese disbelieve the Government’s claims about an offensive. They think that President Thiệu is simply trying to distract his people from their sharpening economic plight, camouflage his army’s own offensive actions and use the atmosphere of crisis to reshuffle his top command. “It’s the politics of the bicycle,” said Hồ Ngọc Nhuận, a Catholic Opposition parliamentary deputy who represents the poor western districts of the city. “As long as you’re on the bicycle, you have to pedal.” “No one believes it,” said Mr. Nhuận in his tiny office, which was cluttered with anti‐Government tracts.
[Ed: Trust me, you’ll believe it in ’75…]
Japanese Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira said today that he would visit China from January 2 to 6 at the invitation of the Chinese Foreign Minister, Chi Peng-fei. Mr. Ohira said at a news conference after a regular Cabinet session that he would sign a recently negotiated trade pact. It will be the first practical agreement between the two nations to be signed since the restored diplomatic ties in September last year. Mr. Ohira said that he would also discuss other bilateral issues and the international situation with the Chinese leaders during his visit.
The Soviet Union, pursuing its arguments with China, has given new indications that the border dispute between them remains unresolved despite nearly four years of spasmodic border talks. The latest issue of the quarterly journal Problemy Dalnego Vostoka, Problems of the Far East, contains a lengthy article accusing Peking of “map aggression” — a reference to a series of Chinese maps, dating back to 1950, that challenge the existing borders. The maps, brought together in a Chinese Atlas of the World published in February, 1972, and periodically attacked since then by Soviet newspapers and magazines, would call upon Moscow to surrender about 600,000 square miles of territories.
Western diplomats have long found it hard to believe that the Chinese leadership expects the Soviet Union to surrender such large portions of territory, but rather wants Moscow to admit that the 19th‐century treaties under which present frontiers were fixed were negotiated by “unequal powers” giving Russian czars advantages over Chinese emperors, and then to make some modest adjustments. Leonid F. Ilyichev, the chief Soviet negotiator in the border talks, was reported to have come back to Moscow from Peking in late September and his return to Peking has not been reported. It is widely presumed that the border talks remain deadlocked and suspended.
The U.S. Air Force is seeking congressional approval to test-fire underground Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles near Great Falls, Montana, over five Western states into the Pacific Ocean. The Pentagon hopes to launch the missiles with dummy warheads from Montana into the Pacific Ocean. The Pentagon said the tests, the first in which the missiles would be launched over the land area of the United States, were necessary to “demonstrate the effectiveness and reliability of the Minutemen strategic deterrent force.” The missile test is called “Operation Giant Patriot”.
A Washington Post story by reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward alleged that senior White House officials believe that President Nixon was involved in the Watergate cover-up. White House counsel Melvin Laird denied the story.
President Nixon has apparently scaled down “Operation Candor”. The President now opposes the release of summaries of any of the White House tapes, though aides deny that the tapes could implicate the President in the Watergate cover-up as John Dean testified.
President Nixon signed into law legislation giving state and local governments a larger role in determining their need for a variety of employment and training programs. The legislation consolidates for the first time programs established under the initial manpower legislation approved in 1962, and represents a compromise between the White House and Congress over the need for public service employment and for giving the state and local authorities flexibility in the use of manpower funds.
Watergate conspirators E. Howard Hunt and Bernard Barker will be released from federal prison; appeals of their sentences are under consideration. The United States Court of Appeals in Washington ordered that E. Howard Hunt Jr. and Bernard L. Barker be released from prison without bail pending the appeal of their conviction in the Watergate case. The defendants’ request to change their plea of guilty on a conspiracy charge to not guilty had been refused by Federal District Court Judge John J. Sirica.
A tax reform group associated with Ralph Nader filed suit in Washington to gain access to Richard Nixon’s vice-presidential papers which are now in the National Archives. A joint committee of Congress is studying circumstances of the tax deduction which Nixon received for donating those papers.
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was signed into law by U.S. President Nixon, after having passed the Senate on a voice vote on December 9, and by the House of Representatives on December 20, by a margin of 355 to 4. Nixon also signed the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) into law to train workers for jobs in public service, in a program that would last for nine years until replaced by the Job Training Partnership Act of 1982.
More details of the government’s new fuel regulations were released. Enough home heating oil will be allocated to keep homes at a constant 68 degrees. Energy czar William Simon conceded that gas stations will not have as much gasoline as they did last year. Appearing on the CBS morning news, Simon agreed that allocation is a moderate form of rationing.
General Motors announced that it will lay off 86,000 workers. The General Motors Corporation announced that it planned to lay off 86,000 workers because of the drop in sales of its standard‐size cars resulting from the energy crisis. Of those laid off at 10 plants throughout the country, 48,000 will be on temporary furlough lasting up to 10 days, while 38,000 will be on indefinite leave. American Airlines and TWA also plan more layoffs.
Government officials insist that the energy crisis is not as severe as expected; the impact of oil shortages may in fact be felt less. Home heating oil supplies are near normal levels though gasoline supplies are down. Total oil imports are actually up though imports were expected to drop considerably. However, industries are believed to be hoarding fuels. Economist Walter Heller stated that oil companies are too secretive regarding fuel shortages.
Acting Attorney General Robert H. Bork announced that the Department of Justice would seek restraining orders against gasoline dealers found to be charging motorists excessive prices over this weekend.
Because many gasoline stations will be closed on Sunday and on New Year’s Day, panic buying is occurring across the nation. In Terryville, Connecticut, station owner Warren Wheeler requires appointments for gasoline. Wheeler admitted that he cannot please everyone, but more people are content with the new arrangement than they were before. Business is booming.
William E. Simon said that automobile drivers faced a “moderate form of rationing” in January because service stations would be able to meet only 80 per cent of the demand for gasoline. The shortage will be caused by the Government’s fuel allocation regulations, released yesterday, and scheduled to become fully effective January 15.
The Texaco Oil Company has discontinued all deliveries to the Brooklyn gas station which charged 99.9 cents per gallon on Christmas day. The Department of Justice is seeking restraining orders to keep stations all over the country from overcharging customers.
Scores of oil tankers are lining up along the East coast for the dwindling dock space and scarce storage facilities to unload their cargo, according to Coast Guard and petroleum industry officials. In some rare instances, captains of ships owned by freelance “speculators” were said to be looking for the best price they can get for their precious product.
The U.S. Postal Service announced that increases in postal rates have been delayed until March 2.
A federal jury yesterday acquitted Joanne D. Chesimard and Fred Hilton, suspected members of the militant Black Liberation Army, on charges of robbing a Bronx bank. The reason, according to six jurors interviewed after the trial, was that they did not believe the testimony of the two key prosecution witnesses. As in the previous seven‐day trial in United States District Court here, a trial that ended on December 14 with the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 for conviction, the defendants were absent from the nearly empty courtroom when the forewoman of the jury announced the verdict at 10:10 A.M., after the jurors had deliberated for 10 and a half hours. The defendants had been banished from the courtroom for insulting Judge Arnold Bauman and the two chief Government witnesses, Avon White and John Rivers, the admitted participants in the holdup who later formed the nucleus of the Government’s case. Mrs. Chesimard and Mr. Hilton were acquitted on all three counts in the indictment — conspiracy, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.
Mrs. Chesimard, 25, identified by law enforcement authorities as a leader of the Black Liberation Army, a group that allegedly plotted to kill policemen, was immediately returned, under heavy guard to Morristown, New Jersey. She is to await trial there Wednesday on charges that she and an accomplice murdered a state trooper on the New Jersey Turnpike last May 2.
Authorities believe that mechanical failure caused the derailment of Amtrak cars in Anderson, California. Eighty passengers were injured when six cars jumped the track.
In Schenectady, New York, funeral services were held today for Mr. and Mrs. Frank Baker who were found dead in their home on Christmas Eve. Police are investigating the possibility that the couple froze to death after the power company cut off their heat. Legislation has been proposed in New York to stop a company from arbitrarily shutting off electricity. The Niagara-Mohawk Power Corporation, which cut the electricity to the Bakers, announced that the company is also investigating the case.
David N. Dinkins, the first black to be selected for the job of Deputy Mayor in New York City, asked Mayor‐elect Abraham D. Beame to withdraw the appointment because of difficulties that stemmed from his failure to pay Federal, state or city personal income taxes for four years. Black political figures who vigorously supported the appointment of David Dinkins as the city’s first black Deputy Mayor said yesterday that they were stunned by his withdrawal, but that they were determined to have black community representation at the Deputy Mayor’s level.
Akron, Ohio’s Chamber of Commerce terminates itself from the Soap Box Derby.
The eagerly-anticipated Comet Kohoutek made its closest approach to the Sun and, though at its brightest, was not visible from Earth because it was directly on the opposite side of the Sun, making “Kohoutek” synonymous with disappointment.
An unplanned communications break occurred during the Skylab 4 mission: its crew did not communicate with mission control for the portion of one orbit during which Skylab had line of sight to its tracking stations. Before the midpoint of the mission, the Skylab 4 crew had started to become fatigued and behind on the work. In order to catch up, they decided that only one crew member needed to be present for the daily briefing instead of all three, allowing the other two to complete ongoing tasks. At one point, according to both astronauts Carr and Gibson, the crew forgot to turn their radios on for the daily briefing, leading to a lack of communications between the crew and ground control during that orbit’s period of communications availability. By the next planned period, the crew had reaffirmed radio contact with ground control. There have been rumors ever since, but never confirmed, that the astronauts had gone “on strike” and cut communications intentionally after their concerns had been ignored.
Peach Bowl: Georgia 17, Maryland 16. Andy Johnson scored one touchdown and passed for another and a defensive back, Dick Conn, recovered two crucial Maryland fumbles to give Georgia a 17—16 Peach Bowl victory tonight. Conn recovered a wild pitchout from Maryland’s quarterback, Ben Kinard, on the Terrapins’ 8‐yard line late in the third quarter and Johnson scored moments later on a 1‐yard plunge to break a 10‐10 tie. Maryland drives were stopped twice after that inside the Georgia 15 and the Terps had to settle for two Steve Mike‐Mayer field goals. Mike‐Mayer and Georgia’s Allan Leavitt matched field goals in the first half. Georgia’s first‐half touchdown carne on a 62‐yard pass play from Johnson to the tailback, Jimmy Poulos, and Maryland scored when its tailback, Lewis Carter, hurled a halfback option pass to Walter White for 68 yards.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 848.02 (-2.99, -0.35%).
Born:
Seth Meyers, American actor, comedian, writer and producer (“Late Night with Seth Meyers”, “Saturday Night Live”), in Evanston, Illinois.
Fatuma Roba, Ethiopian long-distance runner and 1996 Olympic gold medalist in the women’s marathon, winner of the Boston Marathon three consecutive times (1997, 1998 and 1999); in Bekoji, Ethiopia.
Bobby Taylor, NFL cornerback (Pro Bowl, 2002; Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks), in Houston, Texas.
Died:
Rasheed Turabi, 65, Pakistani Shia Islamic scholar.
History Diaries 