A United States C‐130 transport parachuted ammunition to beleaguered Government troops in the seaport of Kampot while the troops opened a counteroffensive against insurgent positions, military sources said today. The reports said that the transport, flying from Thailand, dropped three containers of ammunition into the town, accidentally killing one person on the ground. Although American air attacks are now forbidden in Indochina, United States military aircraft have parachuted ammunition before to isolated Cambodian towns and outposts as part of the military equipment delivery program. The troops in Kampot, which is 85 miles southwest of Phnom Penh, attacked insurgent lines northwest and east of the town, military sources said. Sharp fighting was reported, but little headway.
Meanwhile, north of Phnom Penh, Government troops supported by naval gunboats fought reinforced rebel units on Chong Koh island in the Mekong River, according to reports from the field. Casualty figures were not immediately available. Fleeing villagers said the rebels commandeered about 30 motor‐driven sampans from villagers on the northern tip of the island, 10 miles north of the capital, and used them to ferry in the reinforcements during the night.
Cambodian army sources reported that near Takeo, halfway between Kampot and Phnom Penh, Government forces abandoned two small outposts to North Vietnamese troops that the sources said recently moved from South Vietnam into the area. It was the first Government setback reported around Takeo after two months of steady but small‐scale successes.
The South Vietnamese Government and the Việt Cộng bitterly denounced each other today over a mortar shell that killed 32 children and wounded 56 children and adults at a primary school in the Mekong Delta last week. Both sides asked for an investigation of the incident by the International Control Commission, whose work of looking into cease‐fire violations has been blocked for several months by procedural problems. At a meeting of the Joint Military Commission, the South Vietnamese representatives demanded an admission of responsibility by the Việt Cộng and the payment of indemnities to the families of the dead and wounded. A Việt Cộng representative said that the shelling last Saturday at the town of Cai Lậy was not a cease‐fire incident but a crime by South Vietnamese troops. Trying to shift the blame on to the Việt Cộng was “a contemptible, base slander,” he said.
The South Korean Central Intelligence Agency announced today that it had rounded up 47 South Koreans allegedly involved in an espionage ring in the service of North Korea. It said that the arrested included 23 “spies” and 24 “collaborators.” It was reported that the alleged ring was headed by Chun Hyung Kwan, a fishing boat owner on the island of Ullung Do, 100 miles off South Korea’s east coast. The statement said that the ring had been operating for the last 11 years, using the island as its base. Among those reported held were a university professor and three provincial politicians. Shin Chik Soo, the director of the intelligence agency who made the announcement at news conference broadcast over national radio, charged that the ring had attempted to infiltrate South Korean military, student, religious and intellectual circles for the purpose of gaining support for the overthrow of the Seoul Government.
President Nixon, urging Arab nations not to attach conditions to their expected lifting of the oil embargo, said today that the United States was “not going to be pressured” in its efforts to bring about a pullback of Israeli and Syrian troops. Any implications of pressure, Mr. Nixon said, “would simply slow down, in my opinion, our very real and earnest effort to get the disengagement on the Syrian front and also to move toward a permanent settlement.” The President used this uncommonly direct language in referring to news reports from Tripoli, Libya, that the Arabs had decided to suspend the embargo, rather than end it, and would review their action in two months in light of the American role in inducing Israeli troop pullbacks.
Syrian gunners fired on Israeli positions near Tel Farass today for the fourth day. No casualties were reported. An Israeli Army spokesman said that only a few shells had been fired by the Syrians’ and that the shooting lasted for about five minutes. In Damascus, a military spokesman said artillery and mortar exchanges lasting half an hour flared during the day when Israeli “forces tried to fortify their advance positions.” He said Israeli, engineering equipment, armored vehicles and an ammunition depot had been destroyed. The action today contrasted with the fierce exchanges of the last three days. Yesterday three Israeli soldiers were wounded in sporadic but frequently heavy shelling.
The bodies of four Jewish women have been found in a cave in Syria near a mountain trail leading to Lebanon. According to Syria’s Minister of the Interior, the women had been killed by four smugglers, two of them members of Syria’s small Jewish community. In his statement, reported by the Syrian press agency, the minister, Ali Zaza, did not say that the women were Jewish, but this was well known in Damascus. According to residents of Damascus, the trail near which their bodies were found last week has been used by Jews leaving Syria and hoping to pass surreptitiously through Lebanon. A diplomat in Damascus said it was believed the Jewish women had been carrying money and valuables, and were robbed by their smuggler guides, who killed them in an effort to avoid detection. The Syrian minister said that the four smugglers have been apprehended.
Fifteen passengers on Sterling Airways Flight 901 burned to death and 37 others were injured when the SE-10 Caravelle jet caught fire while taxiing for departure from Tehran in Iran on a return trip to Copenhagen in Denmark. The airplane, chartered by the Tjæreborg travel agency, had stopped for refueling after a 12-day tour of Asia for 92 customers, mostly from Denmark and Sweden. After it departed from the gate, the jet sustained the collapse of the landing gear on the right side. The fuel line of the right wing was ruptured and ignited.
President Nixon warned the European allies today that failure to cooperate with the United States in political and economic fields could lead to a substantial cut in American military forces based in Europe. Asserting that “the Europeans cannot have it both ways,” Mr. Nixon said that the Atlantic alliance could not expect Washington to maintain forces in Europe at their present levels if the Common Market countries “gang up against the United States” in political and economic areas. At the same time, he told Chicago audience in his nationally televised question-and-answer session that his policy of improved relations and negotiation with the Soviet Union was vital to prevent “a massive crisis” that might produce a nuclear confrontation.
Britain’s new Labor party Government expressed a desire today for closer American ties and voiced hopes for easing the tensions in the Atlantic alliance. In turn, two senior American officials told James Callaghan, the new Foreign Secretary, of their complaints about Europe’s failure to consult the United States on issues of deep concern to Washington. And they sought Mr. Callaghan’s understanding and support in the growing rift between the United States and its European allies.
Three persons were killed today as terrorists staged a series of bombing attacks and hijacked trains, buses, and trucks throughout Northern Ireland. Two were killed in an explosion at a lumber yard in Dungannon, 12 miles north of Armagh, and, the third died in a blast at Magherafelt, 20 miles south of Coleraine. According to a British Army officer, the Magherafelt bomb, which contained an estimated 600 pounds of explosives, “ripped the heart out of the town,” demolishing several houses and plunging the city center into darkness. The victim was standing 200 yards from the bomb, which had been left in a truck.
The violence first flared in Londonderry, where the militant Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army issued a statement warning that it planned to step up its campaign against British troops. Hijacked vehicles were used to block nine roads leading into the predominantly Roman Catholic Bogside district, and soldiers who moved in to clear the roads were attacked by gunmen. One soldier was injured. The statement from the I.R.A. Provisionals alleged that Army patrols had encouraged children to accompany them, to discourage snipers. An Army spokesman had said earlier that a terrorist used children as a shield when he attacked a patrol yesterday.
Leonid I. Brezhnev today announced vast agricultural development project for the northern regions, costing $44‐billion in the next Five‐Year Plan, on the model of Nikita S. Khrushchev’s famous and controversial virgin lands program. The Soviet Communist Party leader chose the 20th‐anniversary celebrations of the Virgin‐lands project, being held today in Alma‐Ata, capital of the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, to unveil the project. In a nationally televised speech, Mr. Brezhnev disclosed that the Communist party’s Central Committee had approved the ambitious development of the “non‐black‐soil zone” of the Russian Republic. Implementation of the program, he said, “will help transform a vast area in the center of our country and speed the further growth of the entire national economy.”
The 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph) speed limit that had been imposed on West Germany’s autobahn traffic in October because of the energy crisis, expired on its own terms after the parliament rejected a proposal to set a limit of 140 kilometres per hour (87 mph).
General Ernesto Geisel was inaugurated to a five-year term as the 29th President of Brazil, succeeding Emílio Garrastazu Médici, who had selected Geisel for certain approval by the National Congress. The chiefs of state of three other military‐ruled Latin American nations and Mrs. Richard M. Nixon led the delegations from 88 countries attending the sober inaugural in this handsome young inland capital. A couple of hundred civil servants and other spectators stood outside the presidential palace where the outgoing President, Gen. Emilio G. Medici transferred the sash of office to General Geisel. But aside from this, there was, virtually no show of public interest in the inauguration.
The whereabouts of Victor Samuelson, the kidnapped American oil company executive, remained a mystery today. He was presumed held by his Marxist guerrilla abductors for the 99th day even though a huge ransom had been paid. Captured on December 6 at the oil refinery he managed in Campana, about 60 miles north of here, the 36‐year‐old Cleveland native has been ‐held in a so‐called “people’s jail” by Argentina’s biggest guerrilla group, the People’s Revolutionary Army. A record $14.2‐million ransom was paid on Monday by Exxon Corporation officials from New York who secretly handed over a suitcase of 142000 $100 ‘bills at a rendezvous with guerrillas.
President Nixon made several important foreign policy statements in a nationally televised question-and-answer session at the Executive Club of Chicago. He warned Arab nations not to attach conditions to the expected removal of the oil embargo and said the United States “is not going to be pressured” in its efforts to bring about a disengagement of Israeli and Syrian troops. The President also warned this country’s European allies that failure to cooperate with the United States in political and economic fields could lead to a substantial cut in American forces in Europe.
President Nixon declared that he would not resign because he refused “to be a party to the destruction of the presidency of the United States.” He told more than 1,900 members of the Executive Club of Chicago that “resignation is an easy copout,” and that “it might satisfy some of my friendly partisans who would rather not have the problem of Watergate bothering them.”
Inside the cavernous grand ballroom of the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago, President Nixon’s huge luncheon audience of Chicago business and professional people was friendly and polite. Outside, across Michigan Avenue, more than 300 shouting, sign-carrying demonstrators stood in a cold rain and demanded the President’s impeachment, and about 50 counter-demonstrators held up an enormous banner urging the nation to back the President.
Senator Charles H. Percy, Republican of Illinois, said today that President Nixon’s refusal to give up documents sought by Watergate investigators on the ground of “protecting the rights of future Presidents” was not valid. “The best way to protect future Presidents is to protect this President,” Senator Percy said. “And the way to protect this President is to produce the documents that will show his innocence.” He emphasized at a news conference that he was not assuming the documents would show Mr. Nixon’s innocence in the Watergate case.
Daniel Hofgren, a former White House aide, testified that he asked John Mitchell if he had a meeting with Robert Vesco and was told “you stay away from that.” He added “When John Mitchell says ‘you stay away from it’, I stay away from it.” Mr. Hofgren’s testimony in federal district court in New York City went to the heart of one of the perjury counts against Mr. Mitchell, who told a grand jury that he “never told Mr. Hofgren to stay away from anything.”
Jake Jacobsen, a former aide to President Johnson, pleaded not guilty today to perjury charges arising from his statements to a Watergate grand jury about milk producers’ political funds. Mr. Jacobsen, 54 years old, of Austin, Texas, appeared briefly today before Judge George L. Hart Jr. in United States District Court. The gray‐haired lawyer was indicted February 21 on charges growing out of his dealings with officials of the Nixon Administration. He was released in the custody of his lawyer, Charles A. McNelis. He declined to comment on the charges against him, which grew out of the Watergate special prosecutor’s investigation of political donations by milk producers’ organizations.
In a related Watergate matter, Chief Judge John J. Sirica’s office said that the judge would rule Monday on disposition of a sealed grand jury report thought to bear on Presidents Nixon’s possible role in the Watergate cover‐up. On March 1, when a grand briefcase filled with papers and jury returned indictments against seven men charged in the cover‐up, it also delivered an accompanying report. Judge Sirica has been weighing whether to turn the report and the papers over to the House Judiciary Committee, which is studying possible impeachment.
The General Accounting Office says that using Government funds to provide office space and services for former Vice President Agnew is legally proper but it has questioned the use of a Presidential fund to pay the salaries of his staff. In a letter released today by Representative John E. Moss, Democrat of California, Controller General Elmer B. Staats recommended that Congress in the future state more clearly exactly what a Vice President who resigns is entitled to in Government services. At issue is the money spent for Mr. Agnew’s staff and office space since he resigned October 10 after pleading no contest to charge of income‐tax evasion. The staff is helping Mr. Agnew sort through his Vice‐Presidential papers.
Vice President Ford said today that the staff of the House Judiciary Committee appeared to be seeking to “dictate proceedings” involving impeachment of President Nixon. “If I were a member of the Committee on Judiciary, would start corralling the staff and saying, ‘You work for us, you aren’t telling us how the impeachment proceedings should go ahead,’ the Vice President said. His criticism of the Judiciary Committee staff came in response to questions at a news conference early this afternoon on the campus of the Citadel, a military college in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Cost of Living Council exempted the newspaper, broadcasting, advertising and other communications industries from price controls. All were exempted from wage controls as well, the council said, except newspapers, which are currently involved in some important labor negotiations.
A federal judge in Washington ordered the government to stop paying for sterilization of children and mentally incompetent persons and also to re-draft its regulations for all such operations on welfare patients. Judge Gerhard Gesell of federal district court said regulations drafted by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare were arbitrary and unreasonable because they did not sufficiently protect welfare citizens against coercion when they agreed to sterilization.
The $2‐million food giveaway established in an effort to obtain the release of Patricia Hearst, a kidnapping victim, was reported near an end today because of a lack of funds. In a Seattle television interview, A. Ludlow Kramer, administrator of the program, said, “My role in the Hearst kidnapping will be coming to an end relatively shortly because the commitments of funds that are available and the amount of dollars we’re spending each week aren’t going to be there much longer.” He said yesterday that the next food distribution, possibly next week, might be the last. But he added: “We’re not necessarily saying we are wrapping this program up next week. We’re walking on eggshells. We can’t tell what will happen in negotiations.”
The Mobil Oil Company has offered to buy time on the television networks for its critics, provided the networks allow Mobil to buy an equal number of commercials to state its own position in the energy crisis in the way it chooses. But the three national networks, ABC, NBC and CBS, have rejected the proposal as a dangerous precedent. Mobil’s unusual offer grew out of the company’s attempts to purchase commercials that would sell its point of view on the energy crisis rather than its products.
The police in California reported today what they said was the city of Pasadena’s first “gasjacking.” A driver for the Arco Petroleum Company rolled into a service station shortly after midnight to fill the station’s underground tanks. Two men with shotguns appeared, bound the driver, put him into a car and drove him to a nearby town where he was released. His gasoline tanker was found an hour later, its cargo of 8,500 gallons missing.
The San Francisco Giants 24-game winning pitcher Ron Bryant is injured in an alcohol-related swimming pool accident in Yuma, Arizona. The promising southpaw’s record will drop to 3-15 this season, and the Redlands, California native’s career will end in 1975 after a brief 0-1 stint with St. Louis.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 887.83 (-1.95, -0.22%).
Born:
Robert Fick, MLB first baseman, right fielder, and catcher (All-Star, 2002; Detroit Tigers, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, San Diego Padres, Washington Nationals), in Torrance, California.
Stacy Roest, Canadian NHL right wing (Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota Wild), in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
Imad Baba, soccer midfielder (Olympic gold medal, 1996), in Humble, Texas.
John “Beatz” Holohan, American drummer (“Bayside”), in Long Island, New York (d. 2005).
History Diaries 