The London Sunday Times reported that the American CIA and other intelligence groups believe that many terrorist attacks are imminent throughout Europe. British troops are on guard at London’s airport; Scotland Yard continues to hold three persons, including American Allison Thompson. The three have been charged with importing guns and ammunition illegally on behalf of Arab terrorists. Another American believed to have been involved, Robin Orbin, returned to New York City today. In California, Theodore Dean Brown, who is suspected of shipping guns and ammunition to England, will be arraigned tomorrow.
For a second day, troops, tanks and armored cars surrounded London’s Heathrow Airport in a full-scale alert ordered after reports that Arab terrorists planned to shoot down airliners with Soviet-built surface-to-air missiles. Informed sources said that a “mixture” of intelligence reports about plans of Arab guerrillas had led the government to put into effect contingency plans for protecting the airport.
United Kingdom begins three-day work week during energy crisis.
The shooting of an East German border guard who was trying to flee to the West with another guard as hostage brought protest statements from U.S. and West German officials in Berlin. The escaping guard was killed from a watchtower when he lowered the gun he was pointing at his hostage. The U.S. Army in Berlin said the killing was “an irresponsible and unnecessary use of force” and a member of the West German parliament asked that the shootings at the wall be brought before the United Nations.
An oil refinery fire, the second to hit France in a week, burned up more than half a million gallons of fuel at Macon and officials said the blaze was deliberately set. A fire at the Roche les Beaupre refinery December 29 destroyed more than 300,000 gallons of fuel and also was attributed to arsonists, as was a lesser blaze in Belfort last year.
Six persons, two of whom were arrested in the home of an Israeli diplomat, go on trial in Oslo, Norway, in a murder case that has raised the question of whether Israeli-backed squads may be hunting down Arab terrorists in Europe. Chief prosecutor Hakon Wiker said that some of the defendants, charged in the slaying of Moroccan-born waiter Ahmed Bouchiki, have claimed membership in an Israeli group fighting the Palestinian Black September movement. Police sources, who have said they doubt Bouchiki was involved with Black September, said one defendant was suspected of being a full-time official of Israeli intelligence.
Dr. Ashraf Ghorbal, Egypt’s Ambassador designate to the United States, said in a television interview in Washington that if Egypt and Israel reached an agreement in Geneva on the separation of their military forces, “then I can say that we are on the right road” for lifting the Arab oil embargo against the United States.
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan of Israel gave a 90-minute report to the Israeli cabinet on his two days of talks in Washington with Secretary of State Kissinger. A strict news blackout was imposed on the specifics of his remarks.
The United Nations Emergency Force headquarters in Cairo reported that the shooting along the Egyptian-Israeli lines east and west of the Suez Canal declined in the last few days, but the threat of serious disruptions was said to persist in one area east of the canal.
President Anwar Sadat, clearly confident that Egypt will achieve a settlement with Israel, is believed to be preparing a major shake-up in the country’s political structure and economic policies to open the way for industrial and social development. The key element would be a liberalization of Egypt’s rigid socialist doctrine to attract foreign investment, particularly from the Arab oil-producing countries.
Christmas came to Bethlehem again as Greek Orthodox ceremonies were staged at Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity. The Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, Benedictus I, led a procession from Jerusalem’s Old City to the Crusader-built basilica in the town of Christ’s birth as hundreds of worshipers gathered under stormy skies for the second of Bethlehem’s three Christmases. Armenian Christmas ceremonies are scheduled for January 18.
An army prosecutor in Tehran demanded the death penalty for a dozen film producers, photographers and reporters-including two women-charged with planning to assassinate the Shah of Iran and kidnap members of the royal family. The prosecutor told the opening session of a military tribunal that the defendants planned the assassination at the shah’s palace on the Caspian coast or at the palace of his younger sister, Fatima, in Switzerland. The kidnappings were to take place at a children’s film festival in Tehran. He said the conspirators had planned to demand the release of political prisoners in Iran.
The chief of the Viet Cong delegation holding political talks in Paris with Saigon representatives accused South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu of attempting to destroy the year-old Paris peace agreement. The Viet Cong representative said that his side is meeting all attacks but has no intention of launching a major drive of its own. He also indicated that at a December 14 Paris meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Hanoi’s Le Duc Tho merely discussed grievances over implementation of the cease-fire and made no decision that would improve the prospects of peace.
Student leaders placed a black wreath outside the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok to protest the presence of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Thailand. The action came after an embassy spokesman admitted in November to Thai Prime Minister that a CIA agent sent a bogus letter Sanya Dharmasakti which purported to contain a call for a truce from a That Communist rebel leader. The Embassy spokesman said the letter was “regrettable and unauthorized,” but he refused to name the CIA agent nor was there an explanation of why the agent sent the letter. A Thai newspaper disclosed the existence of the message.
The Global Television Network became Canada’s third English-language television network (after CTV and CBC) when it began broadcasting in Toronto and southern Ontario.
In response to the oil crisis, at 2 a.m. the United States began a trial period of year-round daylight-saving time for the first time since World War II. The change had been enacted by the U.S. Congress and was intended to run through 2 a.m. on April 27, 1975. Clocks which had been set back an hour across the U.S., less than three months earlier, were set ahead an hour. The act would later be amended to return to standard time for four months from October 1974 to February 1975.
The crash of Air East Flight 317 killed 12 of the 17 people aboard. The flight crashed on approach to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, after having departed 35 minutes earlier from Pittsburgh. The Beechcraft 99A turboprop made a premature descent and clipped a bank of elevated approach lights, then slammed into a steep embankment 100 yards (91 m) from Runway 33. The Federal Aviation Administration would shut down the Air East commuter airline two months later.
Vice President Ford said in a television interview on “Meet the Press” that some compromise might be possible between the White House and the Senate Watergate Committee on the new confrontation over presidential tape recordings and documents. He backed the President’s refusal to yield the materials, but suggested compromise rather than confrontation.
The Roper survey organization revealed that President Nixon has only a tenuous hold on the presidency. A slim majority is against impeachment proceedings at this time, however.
President Nixon attended church services in what was only his second announced departure from his San Clemente estate Since his arrival there December 26. The President’s attendance at church called attention to the fact that his only other announced activity outside the estate during his post-Christmas vacation was on December 28, when he attended the wedding of the White House physician, Maj. Gen. Walter Tkach of the Air Force. Except for Secretary of State Kissinger, who spent three days at San Clemente, no member of the cabinet has been in touch with Mr. Nixon since before Christmas.
Special counsel John Doar will meet privately with senior members of the House Judiciary Committee; presidential impeachment proceedings will be the topic.
William E. Simon, director of the Federal Energy Office, called for a rollback of foreign crude oil prices within months. He said that a rollback “should definitely be a major item on the agenda” of the international oil conference sought by President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger.
Simon also said that gasoline prices will level off soon. No need for formal gasoline rationing is likely.
Four out of five persons interviewed believe President Nixon might be responsible for one or more of the serious charges against him, according to a poll by the Roper organization. At the same time, the poll shows a slim majority of 45% to 44% against impeachment, with 11% undecided. Only 11% of those opposed to impeachment said they thought the charges were untrue, while 24% said they thought the process would be too destructive for the country. “The President would seem to have a thin hold indeed on his office in the court of public opinion,” Roper analysts concluded. The poll, taken in early November, used a sample of 2,020 persons.
Rep. Wilbur D. Mills (D-Arkansas) said he knew nothing about the use of corporate funds to pay rent for two Washington apartments used in a “draft Mills” movement that preceded the congressman’s unsuccessful 1972 presidential campaign. George Mehren, general manager of Associated Milk Producers, Inc., has said funds from the cooperative were used for the apartments by company employees to help the campaign. Mehren said also that some co-op money “went to the primary campaign of Mr. Hubert Humphrey and Mr. Mills may have benefited, not to his knowledge.” Mills said, however, he had not benefited.
A government civil suit to recover $108,968 from former Senate secretary Robert G. (Bobby) Baker, a protege of President Lyndon B. Johnson, goes to trial today in Washington. The Justice Department claims he obtained the money illegally through influence peddling while he served in the Senate post for the Democrats prior to his conviction on criminal charges of theft, income tax evasion and conspiracy. The suit, filed in 1969, asserts that Baker “subverted the trust placed in him” by taking payments from outside interests. Baker contends that the money was legally paid to him for work done outside his Senate duties. Baker served 17 months of a three-year sentence and was paroled in 1972.
About $4 billion was added to 1974 outlays by congressional budget actions during the last session, according to an analysis released in Washington by the Council of State Chambers of Commerce. The analysis projected a 1974 expenditure of $271.1 billion and receipts of $270 billion but warned that expenditures could be higher if the effects of inflation have been underestimated. The council added that the fuel crisis might well increase the deficit.
Authorities in Madisonville, Tennessee, have charged a millworker with the slaying of his grandfather 19 years ago. Willard L. Robinson, 48, of Hickory, North Carolina, was charged with the 1954 slaying of Lidge McCullock, police said. The arrest was made in Hickory on a tip provided by an unidentified person who claimed to have been an eyewitness, police said. McCullock had been found dead at his home in Sweetwater, near Madisonville. Police said he had been struck on the head and then strangled with copper wire and robbed of about $500.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater, hosted by E. G. Marshall, premiered on 218 stations affiliated with the CBS Radio Network, in an attempt to revive radio dramas that had been popular in the U.S. prior to the introduction of television. The show would last for eight seasons until going off the air on February 1, 1982. The first episode, “The Old Ones Are Hard to Kill”, starred film and TV star Agnes Moorehead.
Born:
Marlon Anderson, MLB second baseman, pinch hitter, and outfielder (Philadelphia Phillies, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets, Washington Nationals, Los Angeles Dodgers), in Montgomery, Alabama.
Paul Grant, NBA center (Minnesota Timberwolves, Milwaukee Bucks, Utah Jazz), in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Marcus Crandell, CFL quarterback (CFL Champions, Grey Cup-Stampeders, 2001 [MVP]; Edmonton Eskimos, Calgary Stampeders, Saskatchewan Roughriders), in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Paolo Camossi, Italian Olympic triple jump athlete and 2001 World Champion; in Gorizia, Italy.
Romain Sardou, French novelist; in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine département, France.
Died:
Pyotr Nikiforov, 91, Russian revolutionary who served as the Premier of the Far Eastern Republic in 1921, later a Soviet government official.
David Alfaro Siqueiros, 77, Mexican painter and muralist.
Sister Margit Slachta, 89, Hungarian social activist and politician who founded the Sisters of Social Service in 1923; recognized in 1985 as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.
[“I’ll take ‘relationships that don’t end well’ for $500, Alex…”]
History Diaries 