Rebellious Ethiopian Army troops took control of most of the capital of Addis Ababa. Roadblocks were set up around the city, particularly at approaches to the city’s airport, in an attempt to arrest the 19 members of the Cabinet who had resigned the day before. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia appointed a new Premier and granted a new military pay raise in an effort to placate mutinous army troops. But it appeared that the emperor’s near absolute authority had been deeply eroded. Though the new Premier called for an end to the rebellion that began with demands for higher pay and expanded to include calls for political reform, it appeared that most of the armed forces had joined the revolt.
Egypt and the United States restored full diplomatic relations for the first time in almost seven years as the U.S. Embassy reopened in Cairo. U.S. Ambassador Hermann F. Eilts was received by Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Egyptian Ambassador Ashraf Ghorbal was designated to come to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington. Egypt and the United States announced in Cairo that they would resume formal diplomatic relations tomorrow, closing a seven-year breach. The announcement came after President Anwar Sadat met with Secretary of State Kissinger, who will attend the flag-raising ceremony at the United States Embassy before returning to Israel. On the question of the Arab oil embargo, Mr. Sadat did not predict when it would end, but said it would be discussed by Arab oil ministers this month.
Israel plans to propose the establishment of a buffer zone manned by United Nations forces to separate Israeli and Syrian troops, according to reliable sources in Jerusalem. Under the Israeli plan, to be offered to Secretary of State Kissinger tomorrow, the buffer zone would be established in the area captured by Israel in the October war, and Israel would not return Syrian territory seized in the 1967 war.
Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, stressing the need for greater Soviet‐Arab solidarity, warned Arab states today to be wary of Israeli “tricks and maneuvers” to split the Arabs and retain their territory. In a speech in Damascus the veteran Soviet diplomat asserted that not only Israel but also those “beyond it,” implying Washington wanted to see the Israeli retention of Arab land. His speech was relayed here by Tass, the Soviet press agency. Mr. Gromyko spoke at a luncheon given in his honor by the Syrian Foreign Minister, Abdul Halim Khaddani Mr. Gromyko flew into Damascus yesterday for talks with President Hafez Assad and other top Syrian officials, arriving a few hours after the departure of Secretary of State Kissinger.
Mr. Gromyko did not refer directly to Mr. Kissinger’s efforts to arrange a disengagement between Syrian and Israeli forces on the Golan Heights front. But his comments Indicated concern that Mr. Kissinger’s diplomatic initiative was promoting American influence in the Arab world, possibly at Soviet expense. They also suggested Moscow’s concern that a Syrian‐Israeli disengagement might lead to a lifting of the Arab oil embargo against the United States, possibly reducing pressures on Israel for a total withdrawal from territories captured in the 1967 war. “The opponents of a just and lasting peace both in Israel and beyond it want to retain the Arab territories captured by them.” Mr. Gromyko said.
The British general election appeared headed toward deadlock with the opposition Labor party holding a slight edge over the incumbent Conservatives. Computer projections on the basis of almost half the returns, however, indicated that Labor would not win the 318 seats needed to control the 635-seat House of Commons, and it appeared that the tiny Liberal party would hold the balance of power. The British general election ended in the first hung parliament since 1929, with no party having the required 318 seats to form a majority government in the 635-seat House of Commons. Prime Minister Edward Heath’s Conservative Party lost its majority, losing 28 seats to fall from 330 seats to 297, while Harold Wilson and the Labour Party gained 14 to win a plurality of 301 seats. The Liberal Party, led by Jeremy Thorpe won 14 seats, its largest share ever, while 21 other seats went to six other parties. After being unable to form a coalition government, Heath stepped down and was replaced as Prime Minister by Wilson on March 4.
The Spanish government was reported to be seeking an “enforced vacation” for the dissident Basque bishop of Bilbao, Monsignor Antonio Anoveros, in what church sources called the “Spanish variant of the Solzhenitsyn formula.” The bishop has been under house arrest since he was prevented from presiding at an Ash Wednesday religious ceremony. The bishop had delivered a Sunday sermon calling for “just freedom” for the Basques and the recognition of Basque political and cultural independence within the Spanish state.
The family of missing balloonist Thomas Gatch, who is believed to have ditched while attempting to cross the Atlantic, said in Washington search efforts for him have been inadequate. His niece, Miss Jocklyn Armstrong, said the Navy should resume the search for Gatch, 48, who was last seen eight days ago more than halfway across the ocean. A Pentagon spokesman said all ships and planes passing through a 6-million-square-mile area of the Atlantic have been told to be on the lookout for Gatch, but he added the area was too large to send out search planes.
The State Department’s top economic official said that the Soviet government may seek to use American technology to upgrade Soviet military capability. However, the official, Undersecretary for Economic Affairs William J. Casey, told a government-arranged seminar that the United States has “no intention of knowingly contributing to that process.”
Dr. Michael DeBakey, chief of the Houston medical center, has been elected a member of the Soviet Medical Academy in recognition of his contribution to vascular surgery, the news agency Tass reported. DeBakey, known for his pioneer work in heart surgery, was elected during a Moscow meeting of the academy. He joins 23 other foreign members.
Three helicopters flying an International Commission of Control and Supervision team to Communist-held Lộc Ninh in South Vietnam were twice forced back by South Vietnamese fighter planes, the Việt Cộng charged. Saigon, meanwhile, accused the Việt Cộng of shooting at a helicopter carrying prisoners to Lộc Ninh. The commission team eventually reached Lộc Ninh and supervised the return of 191 prisoners to the Việt Cộng, a spokesman said.
The Việt Cộng’s Provisional Revolutionary Government lost by a one‐vote margin today a bid to win recognition as a sovereign state at an international conference convened by Switzerland to modernize the rules of war. The 119‐nation conference rejected by a vote of 38 to 37, with 33 abstentions, a proposal to admit the Việt Cộng delegation as a full participant. Eleven delegations were either absent or did not take part in the vote.
An aborigine invaded the Department of Aboriginal Affairs today shortly after Queen Elizabeth II, visiting Canberra, capital of Australia, opened the Australian Parliament He held two officials at gunpoint and then surrendered to police. There was no shooting and nobody was hurt. The gunman was reported to have said he was from the “aboriginal embassy.” He demanded that an aboriginal Government official, who was suspended from his job on Monday, be brought to the office. Policemen complied with the demand and the official, Charles Perkins, talked the man into surrendering. The policemen took the gunman away for questioning.
Earlier, on her arrival at Parliament House, the Queen was greeted by 200 demonstrating aborigines whose chants of “land rights now” drowned out the singing of the national anthem. The Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, stood impassively at the top of the Parliament House steps during the demonstration. There was no violence. The Queen interrupted her tour today and left for Britain to receive the results of the general election being held today and to designate the next Prime Minister. She plans to return to Australia March 9 for visits to Perth, Adelaide and Darwin.
A twin-engine private jet with nine persons aboard was spotted near Frobisher Bay in the Northwest Territories after it made an emergency landing when it apparently ran out of fuel, a Canadian Forces spokesman said. The plane was en route to Toronto from Spain via Germany and Iceland. It carried seven men and two women. The jet apparently landed on a frozen lake near Frobisher Bay, on Baffin Island, about 1,100 miles directly north of Montreal. There were no signs of survivors.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) accused the Nixon Administration of standing idly by while the military junta that overthrew President Salvador Allende in Chile September 11 continued its policy of torture and oppression. He said that despite direction by Congress to make every effort to encourage the junta to respect human rights, President Nixon has remained inactive except to label the deprivations there an “internal problem.”
The dollar fell on European money markets today while the price of gold plunged. In London, the price of gold was fixed in the afternoon at $162 50, off $11 from last, night’s close. Gold closed at $162. Dealers on the bullion markets noted heavy profit‐taking in gold by speculators throughout the day but an absence of new buying. Gold dropped $12.75 an ounce in Paris to $170.36 on the financial dollar level There were reports on the bullion market that the French Government had sold heavily in order to drive down the price of the gold Napoleon coin by 15 percent. Monthly interest payments on state loans are pegged to the Napoleon.
The jury has been chosen in John Mitchell’s and Maurice Stans’ trial; the last barrier to Watergate indictments has been removed. Judge Lee Gagliardi chose the jury carefully in an effort to strive for an impartial hearing. The jury will be sequestered throughout the trial. New Watergate indictments are expected tomorrow.
President Nixon’s attorney James St. Clair issued a report to the House Judiciary Committee regarding his definition of impeachable offenses. The committee is taking a broader view of impeachment. President Nixon’s lawyers released a 61‐page analysis arguing that criminal conduct of “a very serious nature” is the only constitutional ground for Presidential impeachment. The report, supervised by James D. St. Clair, was rebuttal of the report prepared by lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee, who held that a President can be impeached for acts not indictable under criminal law.
Democrats agreed to settle out of court their suit against Republicans regarding damages from the Watergate break-in.
American Petroleum Institute figures show that gasoline stockpiles have increased steadily for the past six weeks. The figures also reveal that crude oil imports have climbed 25%, but energy czar William Simon warned against being overly encouraged by the numbers.
President Nixon spoke to a conference of Young Republicans in Washington, DC. He predicted that Republicans will control the White House until at least 1984. The President also discussed the emergency energy bill and vowed that he would veto it to avoid any possibility of gasoline rationing. Senator Barry Goldwater spoke before the same group and criticized the President’s budget. Goldwater stated that the budget would be detrimental to the U.S. economy.
President Nixon said he would veto the emergency energy bill and vowed that the country would not have gasoline rationing. Mr. Nixon told a meeting of young Republican leaders that the energy bill, which would roll back the price of some domestic crude oil, would “result in longer gas lines and would also inevitably lead to compulsory rationing, and that,” he said, “we are not going to have.”
Republican party chairman George Bush charged that labor unions illegally helped Democrats in the 1972 election. Watergate committee chairman Sam Ervin refused Bush’s request for an investigation into the matter.
The House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would establish the first Federal standards for private pension plans. The measure, passed by a vote of 375 to 4, now goes to conference with the Senate, which unanimously passed a pension reform bill last fall. Though differing in detail, both bills would set standards for eligibility, vesting right and funding and would require Federal insurance to protect workers if their plan failed.
If you forget to mail that letter tomorrow, the lapse will cost you an extra 2 cents. At 12.01 A.M. Saturday the first-class postal rate goes up from 8 cents to a dime and the air-mail rate goes from 11 cents to 13 cents. These and other increases had been scheduled to take effect two months ago.
Promotions for four Air Force and one Navy officer involved in three separate Pentagon scandals have been held up by Senator Harold E. Hughes (D-Iowa), Senate sources said. They include subordinates of Admiral Thomas E. Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — Navy Captain Arthur Knoizen and Air Force Colonel Bennie Davis, who would become rear admiral and brigadier general. Both were named in the military spying scandal involving White House documents. Two other officers involved in the unauthorized bombing of North Vietnam in 1972, Major General Alton D. Slay and Brigadier General Charles A. Gabriel, were in line for an extra star. The fifth man, in line for a star, was Air Force Colonel Hans Driesnack, who was involved in the firing of cost control expert A. Ernest Fitzgerald.
Even after a year of rumblings of consumer discontent that prompted boycotts and demonstrations over rising food costs, the family grocery bill is higher than ever. An Associated Press market basket survey put the bill at 16% above last March’s level. Prices of 15 food and nonfood items in Los Angeles went from $10.34 to as high as $11.27 and then dropped to $11.15. It declined 1% between February 1 and March 1 and went up only 8% over the 12-month period, the smallest decline among the 13 cities in the survey.
The Democratic Party’s executive committee voted to require a proportional representation system throughout selection of 1976 presidential convention delegates. This means delegates would be allocated according to the strength of the different candidates. In the past, the candidate with the most votes often got virtually all of the delegates. The committee, meeting in Washington, also voted to expand from 17 to 25 members the commission that will supervise the efforts by state Democratic parties to comply with the 1976 rules. The issues now go before the full 303-member Democratic National Committee today.
Acts of terrorism are less likely the result of political motivations than of everyday frustrations, such as long lines at service stations, inflation and dissatisfaction with government, a psychiatrist told Congress. Testifying before the House Internal Security Committee, Dr. F. Gentry Harris of the U.S. Public Health Service said he studied 60 air hijackings and found evidence of “serious mental problems” in all of them but not a single case where political motives or philosophies were a genuine factor.
A Soviet weather plane ran out of fuel and made an emergency landing at the Alaskan village of Gambell, on St. Laurence Island in the Bering Sea just 36 miles from Siberia. The plane, a twin-engined turboprop with 12 scientists aboard, was awaiting the arrival of a U.S. Air Force C-130 with extra fuel and a team of mechanics that were dispatched at the request of the Soviet Union. The Russian scientists were making routine weather observations and studying ice floes at the time.
An enraged man sprayed the words “Kill Lies All” on Picasso’s painting “Guernica” at the Museum of Modern Art yesterday. He was seized immediately and the red‐paint lettering was removed from the masterpiece, leaving no damage. The vandal, who shouted that he was an artist, was identified as Tony Shafrazi. As stunned visitors looked on helplessly in the third‐floor gallery where the huge antiwar painting hangs, the man drew a can of spray paint from his pocket and scrawled the three words in foot‐high letters across the gray, black and white masterwork. “We couldn’t move — we were all stunned,” said Gregory Losapio, 16 years old, who was in the museum with his Scarsdale High School class. “A man started to mm toward the guy when he turned around, cursed and said, ‘I’m an artist,’” the student said. “Then everybody started yelling and a guard came.” It was later surmised that Shafrazi was protesting the announcement, the day before, of the release on bail of U.S. lieutenant William Calley.
The Palais des congrès de Paris was inaugurated, with Georg Solti conducting a performance of the finale of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 860.53 (-2.89, -0.33%).
Born:
Katie Allen, Australian field hockey utility back (Olympic gold 2000; World Cup gold 1994; Champions Trophy gold 1995, 1997, 2003), in Adelaide, Australia.
Kevin Abrams, cornerback (Detroit Lions), in Tampa, Florida.
Michael Swift, NFL defensive back (San Diego Chargers, Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars), in Dyersburg, Tennessee.
Died:
Bobby Bloom, 28, American singer and songwriter (“Montego Bay”), was shot to death at the home of his former girlfriend, either in a suicide or a murder.
Carole Lesley (born Maureen Rippingale), 38, English actress, committed suicide by drug overdose.
Roland Rohlfs, 82, American aviator who held the world record for highest altitude in 1919 for reaching 34,610 feet (10,550 meters).
History Diaries 