U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger returned to Washington after three days of talks with Soviet leaders had failed to achieve the “conceptual breakthrough” that he had hoped would lead to a new Soviet-American strategic arms agreement. This apparently means that President Nixon will not be able to sign an accord during his expected visit to the Soviet Union in June.
Secretary of Defense Schlesinger said that President Nixon would not rush into a strategic arms limitation agreement with the Soviet Union just to improve his domestic political position. In response to questions at a news conference, Mr. Schlesinger said that if the Soviet Union believed it could take advantage of President Nixon’s difficulties over Watergate it would “soon be disabused of this notion.”
Cambodian insurgents occupied a besieged temple compound north of Phnom Penh today after government forces and refugees evacuated it in confusion and panic, military and diplomatic sources said. They said government planes then bombed the compound at the Tep Pranam Pagoda to destroy abandoned artillery and vehicles as the rebels captured hundreds of civilians who fled the area, where they had been holed up for 10 days. The Cambodian command announced that a garrison of about 600 had been pulled out of the Buddhist compound, where it had braved constant shelling and ground attack since the fall of nearby Phsar Oudong on March 18. Phsar Oudong, the 17th century royal capital, is 23 miles north of Phnom Penh, the modern capital. When the ammunition supply blew up, many of the nearly 3,000 civilian refugees crowding the temple panicked, diplomats said, and some soldiers joined them in flight. The camp commander was reported missing.
More than 500 North Vietnamese and Việt Cộng soldiers attacked a South Vietnamese camp 35 miles northwest of Saigon and held parts of it for more than 24 hours before the 300‐man garrison drove them off this morning, the South Vietnamese command reported. The command claimed 84 North Vietnamese and Việt Cộng had been killed in the close fighting at the camp. Government losses were 14 killed and 10 wounded, the command said. Other military sources reported that a South Vietnamese Skyraider was lost during the battle and the pilot killed. There was no immediate report on damage to the camp. It lies on the eastern edge of the Parrot’s Beak area of Cambodia, long a North Vietnamese and Việt Cộng staging area for forays into South Vietnam. The Communist forces invaded the camp at 3 AM yesterday under cover of a heavy mortar and artillery barrage that pinned down the garrison, a spokesman for the Saigon command reported. They were completely driven off by 9:45 AM, he said. The spokesman said that government forces welt pursuing them but would not cross into Cambodia.
Russia demanded from China the immediate return of an army helicopter that came down in Sinkiang earlier this month and accused Peking of violating international law by holding its three-man crew. The demand came in a note, handed to the Chinese ambassador in Moscow, that rejected Chinese charges that the helicopter had been on a spying mission.
The wife and three sons of exiled Soviet writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn were allowed to leave the Communist nation, one month after he had been arrested and sent into exile. Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s family left the Soviet Union to join the exiled writer in Switzerland. “Don’t cry. We will surely be back,” the author’s wife, Natalya, told friends at a tearful airport farewell. Accompanying Mrs. Solzhenitsyn were her three small sons by the writer, her 11-year-old son by her first husband and her mother. They took a Swissair flight to Zurich.
West European diplomats are baffled by Secretary of State Kissinger’s assertion that the United States is no longer interested in obtaining any new written definition of American-European relationships. After Mr. Kissinger’s call last year for “a new Atlantic charter,” a draft statement was prepared by the 15-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization and work on a separate declaration by the United States and the Common Market was begun.
The 369 members of the Great National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Romania gave unanimous approval to the election of Nicolae Ceaușescu (who was already the General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party and the Chairman of the 21-member Consiliul de Stat) to a five-year term in the newly-created office of Primul Președinte al României, President of the Republic. Ceaușescu was elected Romania’s first president in a move that legalized his almost unlimited authority over the nation. His election by the national assembly followed the resignation of Premier Ion Gheorghe Maurer, 71. The upgrading of Ceaușescu, the 56-year-old general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party, to president of the republic was viewed by Western diplomats as a mere technicality.
Terrorists set off bombs in Belfast and Londonderry, wrecking buildings, starting fires and injuring 24 persons with flying glass. The injuries occurred when a 500-pound bomb in a hijacked truck blew up outside a British army headquarters on Belfast’s main shopping street.
Ian Ball, the man charged in last week’s kidnapping attempt on Princess Anne, was described by his lawyer today as mentally ill. “It should be known in the defendant’s interest and the public interest that this defendant has a confirmed history of psychiatric illness,” said David Napley, Mr. Ball’s lawyer. The disclosure about the 26‐year‐old defendant was made in Bow Street Magistrates Court. It was a routine pretrial hearing to confirm Mr. Ball’s detention without bail. According to Mr. Napley, the defendant was examined in hospital in 1967 and found to be a schizoid, a person with schizophrenic tendencies but in whom the disease has not fully developed. He said the illness was “being thoroughly investigated at the moment by eminent psychiatrists.”
Italian police working with the U.S. Narcotics Bureau have smashed a major Mafia drug smuggling gang operating between the United States and Europe, a police spokesman said in Rome. Eleven persons have been arrested-seven in Rome and Palermo and four in New York-and more arrest warrants are likely soon, he said.
Syria served notice that Israel must recognize “Palestinian national rights” and her “obligation to withdraw from all the Arab territories” she occupies to achieve a disengagement with Syria on the Golan Heights. The assertion was made on the last day of an Arab ministers’ conference in Tunis by Syria’s Foreign Minister, Abdel Halim Khaddam, who said Syria would send a representative to Washington next month to start discussions on disengagement.
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said today that an exchange of prisoners would be a condition of an agreement on separation of forces with Syria on the Golan Heights. “This is an organic part of the separation,” he said at news conference before leaving for Washington to discuss the matter with Secretary of State Kissinger.
Artillery shells exploded this evening in a Syrian village, Harfa, on the Israeli‐occupied Golan Heights one hour after the village leader had broadcast an emotional appeal to President Hafez al‐Assad of Syria to halt the repeated attacks. Two villagers, a man and a woman, died in earlier attacks during the week.
Rebel troops ended a three-day occupation of Asmara, Ethiopia’s second largest city, but the heat wasn’t off the government of the strife-torn country. Mounting civil unrest and the constant threat of confrontation between rival military units have all but paralyzed Emperor Haile Selassie’s foundering regime. “Every time someone makes demands the government just capitulates,” a diplomatic observer said.
The “France”, the largest and most luxurious of the world’s vanishing ocean liners, is to be retired from service, probably within the next six weeks. The fate of the ship, a victim of rising operating deficits aggravated by rising fuel costs, is not known. There are reports, however, that the Arab League may be interested in buying the vessel to transport pilgrims to Mecca.
Flooding of the Tubarão River killed 199 people and left 45,000 others homeless in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, primarily in the city of Tubarão. The Brazilian government mounted a massive aid and rescue program for thousands of flood victims in seven states. The worst hit was the southern state of Santa Catarina, which was declared a disaster area with 100,000 persons homeless. The government said 1,000 persons were missing, but a Sao Paulo newspaper, O Estado, which sent 42 reporters in planes and helicopters to the flooded region, estimated the death toll at up to 10,000. An army official said Tubarão, a city of 70,000 population, “does not exist anymore.”
Bradford Cook testified at the Mitchell-Stans trial that Maurice Stans had admitted lying to a federal grand jury. Mr. Cook, who said he himself had twice lied to the same grand jury while he was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Mr. Stans had made the admission during a meeting between the two men at the White House mess hall.
Attorney General William Saxbe has asked the United States Court of Appeals to sustain President Nixon’s refusal to give the Senate Watergate committee five White House tapes. Mr. Saxbe’s request was his first intervention in a Watergate lawsuit. Senator Sam Ervin, the committee chairman, accused the Attorney General of violating “his solemn agreement” to leave all Watergate matters to the special Watergate prosecutor. The Justice Department has urged in a brief that a federal appeals court reject the Senate Watergate committee’s demand for the tapes of five White House conversations. Senator Sam J. Ervin Jr. (D-North Carolina), committee chairman, retorted that the intervention of Attorney General William B. Saxbe, who signed the brief, had violated a promise to Congress that he would stay out of the Watergate case. Saxbe replied that the brief “addressed itself to institutional issues and not to merits in the case.” The brief, in arguments similar to those presented by President Nixon’s lawyers, claimed that disclosure would improperly breach executive privilege and could prejudice the trials of Watergate defendants. The five tapes in question have all been given to the special prosecutor and to the House Judiciary Committee for its impeachment inquiry.
It is a matter of court record that at least 10 of the 42 presidential conversations reportedly sought by the House Judiciary Committee were never recorded, according to a White House spokesman, who declined to say whether any of the others had also not been recorded. The 10 conversations were between President Nixon and his aides last April 15.
Political treasuries for the fall congressional campaigns are already filled with at least $14.2 million, according to a study by Common Cause, the lobbying group. The report said that the figure included $11.6 million that had been set aside by special interest groups, such as labor unions, business organizations and industry groups.
Congress gave its final approval to legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage for most workers by 25 percent, with further increases next year. Congress cleared today and sent to President Nixon legislation that would increase the Federal minimum wage for most workers, by 25 percent to $2 an hour this spring. The votes of approval in both houses were wide — 71 to 29 in the Senate and 345 to 50 in the House. The measure is almost identical with one vetoed by President Nixon last year, but Congressional leaders said today that they had received assurances that Mr. Nixon would sign the new bill. Neither the leaders nor the White House could say, however, whether the President would sign the measure by Sunday; If he does so, the new wage rates would go into effect on May 1. If the measure does not become law until after March 31, the rates would not become effective until June 1.
Two jailed members of the group that calls itself the Symbionese Liberation Army urged today the “safe return” of Patricia Hearst, who was kidnapped February 4. In a letter sent from Alameda County jail, Joseph Remiro and Russell Little said: “We do not hold Patricia Hearst responsible for the actions of the Hearst Corporation or the part it plays within the ruling class. We do, in fact, admire the level of courage and objectivity she has displayed and send her our warmest regards.” Miss Hearst has not been heard from since March 9 when a tape‐recorded message was delivered to her parents. The so‐called Symbionese Liberation Army has said it was responsible for her abduction.
Mr. Remiro and Mr. Little were indicted tonight in the murder of the Oakland Schools Superintendent Marcus Foster. An Alameda County grand jury returned the indictments after a three-day hearing in which 47 persons were called to testify. The two also were indicted on charges of attempted murder in the shooting of Mr. Foster’s chief aide, Robert Blackburn, now the Acting Superintendent. Mr. Foster was killed and Mr. Blackburn wounded by cyanide‐packed bullets outside Oakland school offices last November 6.
Seven Vietnam veterans said they were beaten and forcibly ejected when they attempted to stage a nonviolent protest at the top of the Washington Monument in the nation’s capital. Park police issued a general disclaimer of violence but said they were investigating. The seven veterans told spectators they were members of the American Veterans Movement, all from the VA hospital at Long Beach, California. They were led by Ronald Kovic, 27, who has been in a running feud with VA Administrator Donald E. Johnson, and were protesting what they described as inaction by the Nixon Administration on veterans’ grievances. Two of the men, one a paraplegic, were treated at a hospital and released in good condition.
A federal court convicted seven officials of the Norfolk, Virginia, Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. of conspiracy to bribe Navy ship surveyors with food, drink and electric appliances. The jury will hear final arguments today on charges that the defendants actually bribed the surveyors. The prosecution had alleged that the bribes were offered in return for preferential treatment for the shipyard, including padding repair cost estimates.
A three-judge federal court panel in Chicago refused to reconsider a February 19 decision that upheld the convictions of former Illinois Governor Otto Kerner and Theodore J. Isaacs, former state revenue director. The decision by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, of which Kerner is an inactive member, means the two men have 30 days to appeal. Both were convicted of conspiracy, bribery, mail fraud and income tax evasion in connection with a race track stock scandal. They were sentenced to three years in prison and fined $50,000.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced it would ask pesticide makers to voluntarily stop use of an aerosol propellant gas, vinyl chloride, that has been linked to a rare form of liver cancer. A mandatory crackdown could follow if the makers fail to act. The agency said 23 such products now are registered for public sale. A public interest health group had asked the EPA to announce the brand names of the pesticides but the agency indicated it was not yet ready to do so. The pesticides are registered for use for restaurants, food plants, households, dog and cat sprays and in other products.
The FBI has arrested the seventh and last man accused of killing seven Hanafi Muslims 14 months ago in Washington, D.C. Ronald Harvey, 33, of Philadelphia, was armed with a gun when arrested by agents in Chicago, the FBI said. Camden County, New Jersey, officials said they also want to question Harvey in connection with the murder last year of Major Coxson of Cherry Hill. Coxson was a former candidate for mayor of Camden.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 854.35 (-16.82, -1.93%).
Born:
Eric Beverly, NFL center, guard, and tight end (Detroit Lions, Atlanta Falcons), in Cleveland, Ohio.
K. C. Jones, NFL center (Denver Broncos), in Midland, Texas.
Kerry Cooks, NFL defensive back (Green Bay Packers), in Dallas, Texas.
Sharon la Hechicera (stage name for Edith Bermeo Cisneros), Ecuadorian TV actress and singer; in Guayaquil, Ecuador (killed in traffic accident, 2015).
Died:
Dorothy Fields, 68, American singer (“The Way You Look Tonight”).
Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, 68, American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist (That’s Alright), of a heart attack.
H. E. Merritt, 74, British mechanical engineer and co-inventor of the Merritt–Brown triple differential tank transmission.
Dorothy Fields, 69, American librettist and lyricist.
Mary Strange Reeve, 83, English book illustrator.
History Diaries 