The British coal strike came to an end as an agreement between the new government of Prime Minister Wilson and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was approved by the NUM’s executive board, 25 to 2. The new one-year agreement with the National Coal Board included weekly wage increases for all miners, and increased measures for mine safety. Britain’s new Labor government and leaders of the striking coal miners agreed on a wage settlement that gives the strikers virtually everything they had demanded. The workers are expected to return to their jobs early next week and Prime Minister Wilson will move to end the three-day work week that has crippled most of British industry for more than two months.
France’s Prime Minister Pierre Messmer announced his government’s decision to implement the Tout-nucléaire (“Total Nuclear”) plan for all electricity in France to be generated by nuclear reactors by the year 2000. The plan, announced by Messmer in a televised speech, required no approval from parliament or debate, and construction began on the first three plants later in the year. By 1990, 56 reactors had been activated by 1990.
The French reacted sharply to new American criticism of their policies and those of their European partners. French diplomatic sources challenged the State Department’s assertion that the Common Market had failed to consult the United States before making a broad offer of cooperation with Arab countries. And government-inspired press comment indicated that a war of words has broken out.
High administration officials said the government has begun to re-examine its policy toward France in light of what it regards as French attempts to separate the European Common Market from the United States. Though Secretary of State Kissinger reportedly wants to avoid a confrontation that would force Europe to choose between the United States and France, he is apparently anticipating developments that would require a sharp anti-French response.
Two young Arabs who hijacked a British Airways VC-10 airliner to Amsterdam and set it afire claimed that the arms and explosives for the operation were hidden in the plane by accomplices before they boarded, Dutch police said. The Arabs said they had instructions on where to sit in the plane and that they found grenades, pistols and two fuses under their seats. All 102 passengers and crew were permitted to leave the plane before the hijackers burned it.
West German State Secretary Guenter Gaus said after nearly five hours of talks in East Berlin with East German Deputy Foreign Minister Kurt Nier that some progress had been made toward the setting up of representative offices in Bonn and East Berlin. However, “the devil is in the details,” Gaus added before leaving for Bonn. He returns today to continue the negotiations on permanent representation and the first follow-up agreements to the 1972 inter-German “good neighbor” treaty.
A court in Orel, 210 miles south of Moscow, sentenced dissident Viktor Khaustov to four years in prison for activities against the state. Khaustov has already served three years for publicly protesting at trials of other dissidents in the late 1960s. According to dissident sources, the trial was disrupted briefly when a friend of the accused, Gavriel Superfin, who apparently had agreed to cooperate with the prosecution, refused to testify against Khaustov.
Italian President Giovanni Leone asked outgoing Premier Mariano Rumor to form a new government. Rumor wasn’t expected to announce a decision until after trying to put together another center-left coalition government. No party has a majority. Rumor — who was premier eight months — resigned Saturday after his four-party coalition broke up over how to tackle Italy’s economic ills.
Premier Golda Meir announced the formation of a new coalition Cabinet tonight, ending nine weeks of domestic political stalemate in Israel. The 75‐year‐old Premier conveyed the composition of her Cabinet to President Ephraim Katzir shortly before her mandate expired at midnight. Most of the ministers are carryovers from the outgoing Cabinet, including Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Late last night, citing reports of a threatening Syrian build‐up along the Golan Heights ceasefire line, Mr. Dayan reversed an earlier decision not to serve Despite the reports, the Syrian front was quiet today, and Israeli military sources said tonight that they doubted new fighting was imminent.
In party make‐up, Mrs. Meir’s new Cabinet — which will be presented to Parliament on Sunday for approval — is expected to be identical in composition to the outgoing one. It is expected to command the loyalties of 68 members of the 120‐seat Parliament. The coalition will include Mrs. Meir’s Labor party, an affiliated list of Arab representatives and two partners in the outgoing administration: the Independent Liberal party and the National Religious party.
Nixon Administration officials expressed pleasure today at the apparent resolution of the Cabinet crisis in Israel. Premier Meir announced yesterday that she was forming a government that would include Mr. Dayan as Defense Minister. American officials had feared that if Mrs. Meir was unable to put a government together, the opposition Likud faction, which opposes negotiations with the Arabs, would be invited to participate, which might have halted progress on the diplomatic front. Secretary of State Kissinger said: “We are glad that the governmental crisis in Israel has been resolved.” On the reports of Syrian activity on the Golan front, American officials said they could confirm some unusual signs that were a cause for concern. They said that it was not clear whether the redeployment of Syrian forces was a tactic to put pressure on Israel in advance of negotiations or that it foreshadowed a renewal of fighting.
The government of North Vietnam returned the bodies of 12 U.S. servicemen who had died while held prisoner of war in Hanoi. The exchange took place at the Gia Lâm airport in Hanoi, where two U.S. Air Force C-130 transports were allowed to land. Among the persons whose remains were returned was Lance Sijan, who had ejected from his disabled F-4 Phantom II on November 9, 1967, was severely injured, and died in the Hỏa Lò Prison on January 22, 1968. United States Air Force First Lieutenant Sijan would be awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously on March 4, 1976.
Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) opened a drive to scrap the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization by saying the 1954 defense pact was “largely moribund” and should be wiped off the books. Other testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee raised concern that SEATO may be used to entangle the United States in military action in Thailand and the Philippines.
China, at the 119-nation conference on arms limitations in Geneva, demanded the banning of nuclear weapons as the first step toward updating the 25-year-old Geneva war conventions. Chinese chief delegate Pi Chi-lung, in a speech, accused the United States and Russia of using their nuclear arsenals to “act the overlord in the world.”
U.S. Marine Pfc. Clayton Fountain was overpowered after he shot and killed a Marine sergeant and held eight persons hostage at gunpoint in a recreation area south of Manila. A rear admiral spoke to Fountain by telephone and said the private indicated he would give up peacefully in order to see his wife, who lives in Olongapo City near Fountain’s Subic Bay base.
Michael Ondoga, Uganda, became the latest casualty of the African nation’s President Idi Amin when he was kidnapped by three men while dropping off his son and daughter at the Nakasera Primary School in Kampala. Ondoga’s body was found two days later, floating in the Nile River.
The Defense Department said it is abandoning its search for balloonist Thomas Gatch, the 46-year-old former Army colonel who set out February 17 to become the first person to cross the Atlantic by balloon. Gatch’s two sisters have offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to his safe recovery. The balloonist was last spotted on February 21, about 1,000 miles west of the Canary Islands.
An unnamed Italian industrialist loses a record $1,920,000 at roulette over 5 hours in Monte Carlo Casino.
Attorney James St. Clair revealed that President Nixon is willing to turn over the same evidence to the House Judiciary Committee as was given to the Watergate grand jury. The President also agreed to answer the committee’s questions pertaining to its impeachment probe. St. Clair made the announcement during Judge John Sirica’s hearing regarding the Watergate grand jury’s report. Committee counsel John Doar stated that the committee wants the report, but John Wilson, the attorney for H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, insists that the report should not be released.
House Judiciary Committee members disagreed with Judge Sirica’s suggestion to the delay the impeachment probe. They are also skeptical of the President’s intention to cooperation with the committee. Representative Jerome Waldie stated that postponement of the impeachment inquiry is “unthinkable” and the White House offer of cooperation is inadequate. Other committee Democrats agreed with Waldie.
The White House offer to cooperate only goes so far; the committee’s request for evidence goes beyond that offer. Committee chairman Peter Rodino refused to rule out using subpoenas to obtain evidence.
President Nixon announced a press conference for tonight. Not included among the likely topics for discussion is an announcement that the Arab oil embargo is being lifted. The news conference will be broadcast at 7:30 p.m. by CBS.
White House press secretary Ron Ziegler corrected Gerald Warren’s earlier statement regarding President Nixon’s telephone conversation with H.R. Haldeman. Ziegler stated that the President only congratulated Haldeman on his silver wedding anniversary and made no mention of the Watergate indictments.
The Democratic candidate won in Ohio’s special congressional election; Republicans held on to the seat in California’s 13th district.
In Ohio, Cincinnati Democrat Tom Luken won over Willis Gradison. Democratic strategist Mark Shields declared that voters found a connection between America’s problems and corruption in Washington. Republican strategist Eddie Maye blamed Gradison’s loss on the candidate’s strategy and voter dissatisfaction with government. In Ventura County, California, Republican Robert Lagomarsino won against seven Democrats, so the Democratic vote was heavily divided. Lagomarsino warnedthat his win is a victory only for himself and his supporters, not the President. The major issue in Ohio concerned abortion; Gradison refused to back an anti-abortion amendment and lost many Catholic votes.
Vice President Gerald Ford said that Republicans are beginning their comeback now and the California win was encouraging. He admitted that President Nixon figured into the Ohio loss, however. Senator Robert Dole noted that every Democrat elected means another vote for impeachment. Senator Robert Taft pleaded that Watergate be cleared up so independent votes can again go to Republican candidates. Disapproval of the President was the biggest single factor in the win for Democrat Tom Luken in Ohio.
The Internal Revenue Service revoked a 1969 tax ruling that enabled the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation to acquire the Hartford Fire Insurance Company in the nation’s largest corporate merger. The revocation, which is retroactive, could cost stockholders who exchanged Hartford stock for I.T.T. shares an estimated $35 million to $100 million in capital gains taxes that had been deferred under the 1969 I.R.S. ruling.
A government witness at the Mitchell-Stans trial testified that he had been told that Maurice Stans had asked Robert Vesco to make his $200,000 contribution to President Nixon’s re-election campaign in cash. The testimony of the witness, Harry Sears, appeared to contradict testimony that Mr. Stans made to a federal jury in 1973.
The Senate sidestepped the politically sensitive issue of congressional pay increases in an election year by killing all proposed raises for Congress, the judiciary and top-level federal officials. By rejecting the President’s entire 22.5 percent three-year package of pay increases, the Senate effectively killed any raises for Congress and other high-level officials for the immediate future.
The young son of a wealthy tire wholesaler was kidnaped by three persons as he was walking home from school in Dix Hills, New York, police said. He was identified as John Calzadilla, 8, whose father, Michael, 38, is a co-owner of the Irving Tire Co., of Carle Place, New York. Police said the Calzadillas had received three calls from the kidnappers since the boy’s disappearance but no ransom demands have been made. An unidentified 10-year-old boy who was walking home with John at the time of the kidnapping said a car containing a black man and a white woman and white man pulled up alongside them. The woman called John by name, said his grandmother was ill and she had been sent for him. John voluntarily got in the car, police said.
The ranking Republican member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Herman T. Schneebeli of Pennsylvania, gave his support to a plan to end the oil depletion allowance, virtually assuring a committee vote to phase out the much-criticized tax advantage. Schneebeli said he would support a proposal by Rep. Sam Gibbons (D-Florida) to phase out the allowance over seven years. The allowance gives oil companies the right to deduct 22% of gross income from oil properties for tax purposes. That proposal and another on a temporary windfall profits tax could cost the industry an estimated $2 billion a year.
Rep. Bella S. Abzug (D-New York) told the Senate constitutional amendments subcommittee that its consideration of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment meant “the fate of women is once again to be decided by men.” The subcommittee, headed by Senator Birch Bayh (D-Indiana), opened two days of hearings on proposals by Senator James L. Buckley (Cons.-New York) and Senator Jesse A. Helms (R-North Carolina) to amend the Constitution to “protect the rights of the unborn,” and, in effect, overturn last year’s Supreme Court decision striking down most states’ anti-abortion laws.
A House Judiciary subcommittee that has been studying the nation’s prison system says the people would insist on improving it if they knew more about it. “Prison walls serve just as well to keep the public out as they do to keep inmates in,” according to a report released by Chairman Robert W. Kastenmeier (D-Wisconsin). The report concluded that the present system has failed utterly as a means of rehabilitating offenders and might even be generating crime by creating a spirit of vindictiveness in prisoners. It said probably two-thirds of all serious crimes were committed by ex-convicts.
Mary Brooks, director of the United States Mint, unveiled the design of the bicentennial quarter and two other temporary redesigns for the Kennedy half dollar and the Eisenhower dollar, to be issued during 1976, the celebration year for the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The winning design for the 1976 quarter was submitted by Jack L. Ahr while the 50 cent and one-dollar coins were designed by Seth Huntington and Dennis R. Williams, respectively.
“Over Here!” musical written by Richard & Robert Sherman opens at Shubert Theater, NYC for 341 performances (top-grossing production 1974).
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 879.85 (+7.43, +0.85%).
Born:
Gabe Álvarez, Mexican MLB third baseman and rightfielder (Detroit Tigers, San Diego Padres), in Navojoa, Mexico.
James Lofton, MLB shortstop (Boston Red Sox), in Los Angeles, California.
Ron Leshinski, NFL tight end (Philadelphia Eagles), in Sandusky, Ohio.
Cooper Manning, American TV host for Fox Sports, son of New Orleans Saints quarterback Archie Manning; in New Orleans, Louisiana. Spinal stenosis prevented him from pursuing a football career after high school.
Kate Paye, WNBA guard (Minnesota Lynx, Seattle Storm), women’s basketball associate head coach (Stanford), sister of Stanford and NFL quarterback John Paye, in Woodside, California.
Anthony Carelli, Canadian professional wrestler; in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
Sebastian Siegel, British-American actor (“Lost”, “Hawaii Five-0”), in Oxford, England
Died:
Ernest Becker, 49, American anthropologist and writer, died of colon cancer nine weeks after the release of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Denial of Death.”
History Diaries 