Arab oil ministers reportedly agreed to end the embargo against oil shipments to the United States. Informed sources said that the decision was made during a private four-hour meeting in Tripoli, but that a formal announcement had been postponed until Sunday in Vienna. At a meeting of representatives of the Arab nations OPEC, the nine OAPEC members agreed to lift the embargo against the U.S. for two months and restore full production, which had been reduced in October after U.S. support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War.
Israeli and Syrian forces shelled each other today for the second day along the Golan Heights front, and Syria said her gunners destroyed an Israeli artillery position and hit another, killing a number of Israelis. A military spokesman in Tel Aviv said, according to Reuters, that there were no Israeli casualties in the shelling, which he described as heavier than the clashes of Tuesday. Military sources said there were no indications that Syria was about to start any offensive.
The action today followed the Syrian pattern of recent weeks of directing harassing gunfire against the Israeli salient that was opened to within 27 miles of Damascus during the fighting last October. A particular objective was said to be to hamper any strengthening of Israeli emplacements along the cease‐fire line. But there was no evidence in Syria that anything beyond the artillery exchanges was in preparation.
The streets of Damascus were filled with soldiers on leave. Neon signs burned brightly over shops and hotels along the main boulevards. Tourists and other travelers entered the country from Lebanon with the usually routine formalities. Late last week, the Israeli Premier, Mrs. Golda Meir, reported that Israel had obtained information that Syria was preparing an assault. There was no indication in Damascus today, however, that the Syrian leaders had changed their minds about pursuing a diplomatic solution to the problem of troop disengagement on the Golan Front. The Syrians continued to insist emphatically that Israel, in the end, must relinquish all the Golan Heights territory conquered in the 1967 war.
A special court has been set up to try eight Palestinian commandos accused of killing three Western diplomats inside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum last March, the Sudanese news agency reported. The Khartoum daily Al Ayam said the date of the trial would be determined within two or three days.
The Union of Arab Banks was founded as a cooperative network for banks in Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan and Jordan.
In a landmark declaration, Ireland’s Prime Minister, Liam Cosgrove, formally acknowledged that neighboring Northern Ireland was a province under British control, telling the Irish Parliament in Dublin that “my government accepts this as fact.” It was the boldest statement on the issue ever made by an Irish political figure and was aimed at mollifying hardline members of Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority, who are opposed to links with the Irish Republic through a new Council of Ireland. The declaration was made in an effort to stop the ongoing violence in Ireland as a whole.
The United States turned over the first four of a projected 150 new F-5E Tiger II fighter-bombers to South Vietnam, Saigon sources said. The Việt Cộng said the delivery violated the Paris cease-fire accord, charging that the new planes were not equal replacements — as the accord allows — but were so superior to the older Northrop F-5 that they are new weapons.
The remains of the last of the American serviceman known to have died in North Vietnamese prison camps were returned to United States custody today in Hanoi and flown to Thailand for identification. North Vietnamese officials who turned the remains of the 11 men over to United States authorities said they had no more bodies of American prisoners who died in captivity. Twelve were returned last week. The body of one B‐52 crewman who died when his plane was shot down is still held by the North Vietnamese. “We did not learn anything about the 24th body,” said Brigadier General Joseph R. Ulatoski, who heads the Center for the Accounting of Missing in Action. “As I understand it, any consideration of that case was not to be part of this exchange.” All but one of the men whose remains were returned today were Air Force or Navy pilots, United States authorities said. The other was a Marine warrant officer.
An American military adviser is working in the field with Cambodian combat troops, according to a dispatch from Cambodia printed in The Washington Post today. The State Department said that it had asked the United States Embassy in Phnom Penh for a full report on the dispatch. The Washington Post identified the officer as Major Lawrence Ondecker, and said he was advising Cambodian officers in the government command post at Kampot, a coastal town 80 miles south of Phnom Penh. Congress has passed a law banning direct American military involvement in Indochina and the newspaper report prompted an angry Senate demand for an investigation. The State Department noted that military personnel are required by law to maintain close liaison with Cambodian officials to insure safe delivery of United States military equipment. “However, I do acknowledge that they are not supposed to function in a combat advisory role,” the department spokesman, John King, said.
Eight congresswomen urged the Soviet Union to allow ballet dancers Valery and Galina Panov to emigrate together to Israel. The eight sent a letter to Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid I. Brezhnev asking that Panov’s non-Jewish wife be given permission to leave. Her husband, who is Jewish, has been ordered to leave.
Two New York Democratic congressmen, Lester L. Wolff and Charles B. Rangel, threatened to try to cut off half a billion dollars in U.S. aid and credits to Turkey if that nation allows farmers to resume growing opium poppies. Turkish Ambassador Melih Esenbe, meanwhile, met with Undersecretary of State Joseph J. Sisco and told him Turkey has not yet made a decision on resuming production of poppies, although it will plant a seed crop this year.
The discovery and the disruption of three pro-Communist underground organizations in Athens and in Salonika was reported by the Greek government. The announcement said 42 persons were arrested.
Pope Paul VI, addressing the Vatican committee for the family, said any society that tolerates divorce, contraception and abortion is doomed to dissolution or slavery. His remarks opened the Vatican’s unofficial campaign to remove divorce from Italy’s law books. “Woe to a society that would not honor the institution of the family,” he declared.
Tropical cyclone Zoe, cause of three deaths in Australia and heavy week-long flood rains over southern Queensland and northern New South Wales coastal areas, moved out to sea and weakened. Eleven large towns on the north coast are cut off from the rest of New South Wales and flood warnings are still in effect for six major rivers. But the weather bureau said the rain will ease.
The Exxon subsidiary in Argentina said it had paid $14.2 million for the release of an executive kidnapped by a left-wing guerrilla group last December. The executive is expected to be released tomorrow in return for $10 million paid to his kidnappers and $4.2 million to flood victims.
Meeting in Athens, scientists from 13 nations on the Mediterranean Sea warned that the vast body of water between Europe and Africa would “become a dead sea” by 2004 if measures were not taken to reduce water pollution. The experts decided to coordinate efforts to prevent pollution. They were attending a conference to prepare for the International Conference on the Law of the Sea to be held next year.
William Simon, the federal energy chief, said that the United States would continue to experience spot shortages of gasoline despite a lifting of the Arab oil embargo. Mr. Simon, who said inadequate refining capacity here and in Europe would lead to continuing shortages, said that once the embargo is lifted one of his main tasks would be to convince the public that the problem had not been solved.
Leading members of the House Judiciary Committee indicated that there would be no rush to subpoena White House material sought by the impeachment inquiry despite a reported overwhelming support for such a step and belief that it will have to be taken eventually. At a private caucus, angry Democrats reportedly agreed not to be goaded by the White House into a premature showdown “on the wrong issue at the wrong time.” And at a news conference in which members rebutted the White House arguments on the issue, Peter Rodino, the committee chairman, said, “we expect and will continue to expect full cooperation from all persons.”
Attorney General William Saxbe said that a President is “no different than any other person” in the duty to report immediately any information he receives about a crime. But Mr. Saxbe declined to say whether President Nixon acted improperly in not making an immediate report to federal prosecutors when he learned that hush money had been paid to Watergate defendants last year.
James Hoffa filed a lawsuit charging that President Nixon and Attorney General Saxbe illegally prevented him from holding union office. Mr. Hoffa, who was president of the Teamsters union before he was imprisoned for mail fraud and jury tampering, said that in granting him clemency Mr. Nixon included restrictions on his union activity in return for political favors and campaign contributions by the union and its current president.
A government witness testified at the Mitchell-Stans trial that within minutes after Robert Vesco promised to contribute $500,000 to the Nixon re-election campaign, Maurice Stans tried to get Mr. Vesco an immediate appointment with John Mitchell. The witness, Laurence Richardson, a former Vesco associate, said that he did not know if the meeting took place that day.
The Senate approved legislation designed to meet Supreme Court objections to the death penalty and to restore it for a group of serious federal crimes. The vote on the measure was 54 to 33. The measure now goes to the House, where similar sentiment favoring the use of capital punishment as a weapon against crime exists. The bill has the support of President Nixon and the Department of Justice. Under the bill approved by the Senate, the death penalty may be imposed for treason, espionage and for cases of crimes such as kidnapping, hijacking, escape from custody, and the blowing up of government buildings when these actions result in a death. Also classed as capital offenses by the legislation are murders committed “in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner,” murder for hire and the killing of the President, Vice President, President-elect, heads of foreign governments and foreign diplomats, Justices of the Supreme Court, and federal law enforcement and corrections officers.
But no defendant would be executed if he was under 18 years old, if his capacity to appreciate that his conduct was wrong was “significantly impaired,” if he was ‘’under unusual and substantial duress”, if his participation in the crime was “relatively minor” of if he could not have reasonably foreseen that his actions would “create a grave risk of causing death.” Final action came after more than eight hours of debate over a series of amendments, but with almost no discussion of the basic issue of life or death for convicted criminals. It appeared that most of the members had made up their minds long ago and were not interested in further discussion.
The FBI has assigned agents to provide almost constant protection for Attorney General William B. Saxbe, the Justice Department disclosed. John W. Hushen, director of public information, said the security program was begun two weeks ago at Saxbe’s request after several kidnappings in the nation and a recent threat on the attorney general’s life. He said Saxbe had recommended to other Cabinet officers that they also institute some additional security measures for themselves. Each Cabinet department would be responsible for the security of its own chief.
Minority recipients of Small Business Administration contracts were urged in 1972 to contribute to President Nixon’s reelection campaign, a Senate small business subcommittee disclosed. A letter written by Charles Wallace of Hollis, New York, went to all SBA minority contractors, said subcommittee Chairman Alan Cranston (D-California). A Cranston aide identified Wallace as a major New York supporter and contributor to President Nixon’s campaign, Cranston said the letter clearly implied that if minorities with SBA contracts wanted to keep receiving government assistance, “they should contribute to the Committee to Reelect the President.”
A bill that would increase the minimum wage, now $1.60, to $2 an hour this year and $2.30 in two years for most workers was unanimously approved by the House Education and Labor Committee. The measure also would extend coverage to federal, state and local employees and domestic workers. Similar legislation has passed the Senate. The bill differs only slightly from one vetoed by President Nixon last year.
All 36 people on Sierra Pacific Airlines Flight 802 chartered aircraft were killed in the crash of the Convair 440 airplane. Of the passengers, 31 were employees of Wolper Productions, working on the documentary Primal Man. At 8:24 p.m., the Convair 440 crashed into a foothill in the White Mountains at 6,100 feet (1,900 m), four minutes after takeoff from Bishop, California and were on their way back to Burbank.
The Maryland Bar Association urged that former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew be disbarred for violating a position of public trust by evading income taxes when he was governor of Maryland. Agnew’s attorneys, in a brief filed with the state appeals court in Annapolis, have argued that Agnew should not be made a special example because of his former high office. The appeals court, the final judge of disciplinary action against lawyers, will hold a hearing April 2.
The Senate voted 80 to 0 to extend for three months the right of states with high jobless rates to pay an extra 13 weeks of unemployment compensation benefits. The right now expires March 31. Regular benefits in most states run for 26 weeks. The extra benefits can be paid if the insured unemployment rate is 4% or more. Seven states — Alaska, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington — now are paying the additional 13 weeks and could continue to do so. Sixteen other states, among them California, may reach the 4% rate soon.
A federal judge ruled that the District of Columbia and a police inspector must pay damages to 123 Quakers arrested during an April 25, 1971, prayer vigil in front of the White House. U.S. District Judge Oliver Gasch said the arrests were “unlawful and unreasonable” and violated First Amendment rights. He rejected the district’s claim that the Quakers posed an “imminent danger of property damage and personal injury, as required for such arrests. A hearing will be held later to determine the amount of the damages.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 891.66 (+4.54, +0.51%).
Born:
Tony Hutson, NFL guard (Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins), in Houston, Texas (d. 2024).
Maxim Galanov, Russian NHL defenseman (New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Atlanta Thrashers, Tampa Bay Lightning), in Krasnoyarsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Thomas Enqvist, Swedish tennis player (Australian Open 1999 runner-up), in Stockholm, Sweden.
Died:
Howard St. John, 68, American actor (“Investigator”, Dr Lewis-“Hank”), from a heart attack.
Janos Prohaska, 54, Hungarian actor (“Andy Williams Show”).
History Diaries 