Prime Minister Heath moved to win the support of the British Liberal Party in his attempt to remain in power despite the severe setback to the Conservatives in the general elections. Mr. Heath, whose party will be outnumbered by the opposition Labor party in the House of Commons, conferred with Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal leader, who with 13 other Liberals in the 635-seat House, will hold much of the balance of power. The discussions between Mr. Heath and the Liberals are regarded as crucial to breaking the parliamentary stalemate. Britain has not faced such political crisis in 45 years.
After an 80‐minute meeting, a statement from 10 Downing Street said that the two party leaders had discussed the “urgent need for an administration which could carry on the business of government.” It added that no commitments had been made by either side, and that it had been agreed to treat the talks as “entirely confidential.” As he emerged, Mr. Thorpe said that “quite clearly it is in the interest of the country that some government should be formed.” He added that it should be one that would “unite the nation on moderate policies and under moderate leadership” and said he would talk it all over with his colleagues. There were reports tonight that Mr. Heath had offered Mr. Thorpe an important post in the Cabinet to seal a two‐party coalition. Minor posts might go to other Liberals to give them a taste of administrative experience, if an agreement could be reached.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has addressed a long letter to the Soviet leaders, asking them to abandon Communism as an alien, unworkable political philosophy, dismantle the Soviet Union and focus on developing Russia proper as a separate state. His 15,000-word proposal of national priorities, dated September 5, also urges a halt in the headlong rush into an urbanized, industrial society and a return to the traditional Russian rural way of life, including more settlement of the vast, empty reaches of northern Russia and Siberia.
After several months had passed without a reply from the Soviet Government, Mr. Solzhenitsyn decided to make his statement public. The author wrote a preface to the letter for purposes of publication. In the preface he wrote that the letter developed “from a single thought: how to avoid the national catastrophe” that threatened the Soviet Union. The letter offered advice to the Kremlin on foreign and domestic policy and national defense and said China posed the only real danger to Russia.
The rate of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union dropped off considerably in the first two months of this year, according to Western diplomatic sources. The reported decline has prompted uncertainty in diplomatic circles over whether the Kremlin might have curtailed the emigration of Jews somewhat to try to induce the American Congress to approve tariff and credit concessions for the Soviet Union. But the diplomats who reported the decline in emigration In response to inquiries from The New York Times said that the trend was not sufficiently pronounced to reach a definite conclusion yet.
A 25-year-old Catalonian anarchist, Salvador Puig Antich, was executed by garroting in Barcelona despite widespread appeals to Generalissimo Francisco Franco for clemency. A few hours later, the government was reported on the point of expelling the Roman Catholic Bishop of Bilbao, the Most Rev. Antonio Ailoveros Ataun, who has been under house arrest since last Wednesday for championing greater freedoms for Spain’s Basque minority. This was one of the most serious confrontations between the Spanish government and the Roman Catholic Church since the Franco regime took power in 1939.
Italy’s center-left coalition government, an alliance of Marxists and Catholics, collapsed under the weight of economic ills, political squabbles and a broadening oil scandal. Premier Mariano Rumor, a Christian Democrat, and his four-party coalition government resigned after only nine months in office, roughly the average lifespan of Italian governments since the end of World War II.
Two U.S. Navy planes searched a 95,000-square-mile area of the mid-Atlantic for Thomas Gatch without finding a trace of the balloonist, the Pentagon said. Missing since February 21 while attempting the world’s first transatlantic balloon voyage. Gatch probably used up his 10-day food supply by the end of the week, according to a friend. The current search is centered about 1,230 miles south-southwest of the Azores.
A U.S. Army soldier, Spec. 5 William A. Thompson Jr, stole a 50-ton M60 tank from the Turner Barracks in West Berlin and drove it through the Checkpoint Charlie border crossing and into Communist East Berlin, then caused chaos over the next 70 minutes, swiveling the turret and its 105mm cannon toward East German and Soviet troops. Thompson drove to the Drewitz checkpoint on the East Berlin side, where the Russians permitted his commanding officer, Captain Thomas Grace, and two other people to cross the border to persuade Thompson to surrender. Another soldier then drove the M60 tank back to West Germany and Thompson was led back across the border in handcuffs.
Five Arab guerrillas who firebombed an American airliner, killing 32 people, and hijacked a West German aircraft in Rome last December arrived in Cairo from Kuwait, airport security officials reported. The five had been handed over to the Palestine Liberation Organization before they left Kuwait and were flown to Cairo aboard a Kuwaiti military aircraft. One report said that the five were to be tried before a guerrilla “revolutionary court” in Cairo.
American officials said that Israel and Syria had agreed to send delegations to Washington later this month to continue independent discussions with Secretary of State Kissinger on achieving a separation of forces in the Golan Heights area. But as Mr. Kissinger flew from Damascus to Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital, and then to Amman, Jordan’s capital, newsmen aboard his plane were told that a “huge gap” still existed in the terms for a Syrian‐Israeli accord.
President Anwar el‐Sadat seemed to go out of his way today to demonstrate that his newly established warm relations with the United States did not preclude a continuation of Egypt’s friendship with the Soviet Union. Mr. Sadat conferred this afternoon with Andrei A. Gromyko, the Soviet Foreign Minister, in the same sand‐colored Government villa providing a view of the three pyramids of Giza where he had met with Secretary of State Kissinger Thursday — and for the same length of time, four hours. Afterward the President and his Soviet guest posed at the villa for photographers and for the same kind of impromptu press conference that has marked the end of all four Sadat‐Kissinger meetings since early November. Until today this had never been done here on a visit by a Soviet leader.
The Rafi faction of the Israeli Labor Party has decided to support Prime Minister Golda Meir’s minority cabinet in the Knesset (Parliament) when she presents the cabinet to the president Tuesday. The Rafi group, a segment of the governing Labor coalition, is represented in the outgoing government by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Communications Minister Shimon Peres. Dayan, who has announced that he will not serve again, had favored a broad national emergency coalition. But he said the Rafi faction must continue to support Mrs. Meir’s government in the Knesset.
William Colby, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was requested to testify in Congress on a press report that more than 200 American intelligence agents working overseas were posing as businessmen. Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) called for public hearings on the report. He said use of business operations as a cover for intelligence gathering might cast suspicion on legitimate U.S. businessmen operating abroad.
The National Socialist Liberation Front, a U.S. neo-Nazi paramilitary organization, was founded by Joseph Tommasi and 42 other former members of the white supremacist National Socialist White People’s Party.
An Argentine youth group reported after a visit to interim Governor Mario Dante Agodino, put into power by a police rebellion in the provincial capital of Cordoba, that Agodino told its members he has asked for federal assistance in putting down the uprising and returning the government to its deposed leftist leadership. Agodino, considered a conservative Peronist, allegedly told his visitors that he had sent a representative to Buenos Aires to request help in restoring Governor Ricardo Obregon Cano to his elected post.
The Watergate grand jurors concluded that President Nixon was involved in the Watergate cover-up and decided a month or more ago to urge the courts to turn over their conclusions and evidence to the House impeachment inquiry, well-placed sources said. According to the sources, the grand jury first began considering last summer the possibility that Mr. Nixon had joined in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, the central cover-up charge contained in the indictment issued Friday against seven former White House and Nixon campaign officials.
President Nixon’s job rating remains near its lowest point, with 27% expressing approval of the way he is handling his job, a Gallup Poll indicated. Mr. Nixon’s low point in popularity, 26% approval, was recorded in mid-January, and it has hovered near that mark in four national surveys taken since the beginning of the year. In the latest survey, 63% expressed disapproval of Mr. Nixon’s performance and 10% were undecided. The President continues to win approval from a majority of Republicans, with an average of 55% giving him a favorable rating in the last four surveys.
The activities of the White House “plumbers” unit will be among the subjects of further indictments expected this week in the broadening inquiry by the special Watergate prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, sources close to the investigation said.
The number of high-income individuals who pay no federal income tax is growing again, according to a report made public by Senator Walter Mondale, Minnesota Democrat. Information from 1972 tax returns, which has just been compiled by the Treasury Department, shows that there were 402 persons with incomes in excess of $100,000 in that year who paid no federal income tax, Mr. Mondale said. In 1971, the number was 276, a decline from earlier years.
Oregon Governor Tom McCall called for President Nixon to resign if he did not plan to release all information related to the Watergate scandal. “The President should not put us through the agony of impeachment and trial. If he is not going to open up, he should resign,” McCall said in a speech he was to give today before 500 Republicans attending a conference in Seaside, Oregon. His speech was released to newsmen in advance.
The kidnappers of Patricia Hearst continued their puzzling silence today even though the free food for the poor program they demanded has been put into full operation. Nothing has been heard from the group that says it is holding the 20‐year‐old daughter of newspaper executive Randolph A. Hearst since it demanded 10 days ago that $6‐million be put up for the food program. At that time the group threatened to break off communications with the Hearst family and hold Miss Hearst prisoner if its demands were not met. The group calls itself the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Mr. Hearst, who had raised $2‐million for the program, said that he was unable to meet the demand. However, the Hearst Corporation agreed to supply the additional $4‐million but said that it would do so only after the young woman was released unharmed. The counter proposal from the Hearst Corporation has never been answered. Today a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation refused to speculate on the continued silence. “We really don’t know how to read it,” he said. Mr. Hearst said today that he would make a televised statement tomorrow morning, breaking more than a week of silence. He did not indicate what he would say.
Owners of 1971 and 1972 Chevrolet and GMC pickup trucks were warned by the government to check the vehicles for steering defects that could cause loss of control. General Motors said it had received 85 reports of steering failures in the light-duty trucks and vans involving tie-rod faults and generally occurring in offroad use, where dirt and debris became lodged in the rods. The tie rod connects the steering mechanism to the front wheels through a ball and socket. There were no plans to recall vehicles.
The government lifted its seven-month ban on 13 brands of aerosol spray adhesives, no longer considered a health menace. The U.S. Consumer Protection Safety Commission said it had received no new evidence to suggest that spray glue caused birth defects or genetic damage that could cause mutations, as once was feared.
A former Communist Party member has won the right to practice law again almost two decades after his disbarment because of a conspiracy conviction at the height of the McCarthy era. Maurice Braverman, 58, who was found guilty of conspiracy to overthrow the government in 1952 and disbarred three years later, was reinstated to the bar by the Maryland Court of Appeals. He had been an attorney for the Communist Party in Baltimore at the time of his conviction and served 30 months of a three-year jail sentence. Braverman quit the party and became an accountant on his release from prison. He said he had joined it in 1943 because “I believed strongly in social and economic justice and the Communist Party was the only one making much of a stink about civil rights for blacks in those days.”
An automobile baby seat known as the “Carry Seat” was declared unsafe by the Department of Transportation. The agency said a child riding in the seat could suffer severe injury if the automobile hit something or stopped suddenly. The manufacturer, Baby World Co., Inc., of Great Neck, New York, agreed to urge those who had bought seats to discontinue their use in motor vehicles. About 400,000 “Carry Seats” have been sold.
First class postage is raised to 10 cents from 8 cents starting today.
16th Grammy Awards: Roberta Flack Best Record – “Killing Me Softly”, Stevie Wonder Best Album – “Innervisions”.
In England, Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. defeated Manchester City F.C., 2 to 1, to win the Football League Cup, after John Richards scored the winning goal in the 85th minute before a crowd of 97,886 spectators at Wembley Stadium in London. Wolverhampton would finish 12th in the League’s First Division and Manchester City in 14th place, while eventual champion Leeds United F.C. had been knocked out on October 8 in its first game of the Football League tournament.
Rosemary Casals of San Francisco and Virginia Wade of Britain, scored upset victories today in the semifinals of the $50,000 Virginia Slims women’s tennis tournament. Miss Casals defeated Chris Evert. 6—2, 6—3, for the first time in her professional career. Miss Wade ousted the top‐seeded Mrs. Billie Jean King, 6—2, 7—6. Miss Wade won the tiebreaker second set, 5—2, to qualify for the $10,000 final.
Born:
Hayley Lewis, Australian swimmer and broadcaster (World Championship gold, 200m freestyle, 1991; Olympic silver, 800m, bronze 400m, 1992), born in Brisbane, Australia.
Anthony Sanders, MLB leftfielder (Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners), in Tucson, Arizona.
Died:
Salvador Puig Antich, 25, Catalan anarchist who had been convicted of killing a Spanish police officer, was executed in Madrid by being strangled with the garrote in a prison in Barcelona. A fellow convict, Heinz Chez, was put to death in the same manner. Puig and Chez were the last convicts to be legally executed by the garrote method.
History Diaries 