The Soviet Union joined North Vietnam’s demand that the United States halt “violations” of the section of the Vietnam cease-fire agreement that banned shipments of armaments, munitions and other materiel into South Vietnam. The Soviet position, issued by Tass, the Soviet press agency, was the sharpest attack on the United States on the Vietnam issue in many months. The statement, which carries almost the force of a government pronouncement, endorsed a North Vietnamese diplomatic note sent on March 18 to the parties that participated in the Vietnam peace conference in Paris a year ago. The North Vietnamese note called for measures to end what it said were American violations of Article 7 of, the Paris cease‐fire agreement signed in January, 1973 — the provision requiring that, neither side in South Vietnam accept the introduction of military personnel or war materiel from the outside.
Tass, in its statement, said that persistent tension in South. Vietnam was a result of the grossly provocative activities of the Saigon authorities, which, leaning on the support of U. S. imperialist circles, refuse to reckon with the two zones of control, two administrations, and two armed forces really existing in South Vietnam.” It added that “any actions leading to the violation and subversion of peace in Vietnam, in whatever form, are resolutely condemned in the Soviet Union.” That Moscow has now spoken out is read here as a response to North Vietnamese pressure on the Soviet Union, Hanoi has urged stronger Moscow pressure on Washington and Saigon to cut back military operations against Việt Cộng forces. The North Vietnamese Premier, Phạm Văn Đồng, visited Moscow in the middle of the month and held talks with Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin, shortly before the visit here last week of Secretary of State Kissinger.
Secretary of State Kissinger says that by signing the Paris agreement to end the Vietnam war the United States committed itself, politically and morally, to giving long‐term military and economic aid to South Vietnam. Mr. Kissinger’s comment was in a letter to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, who said it “seems to propound a new rationalization for our continued heavy, involvement in Indochina.” Senator Kennedy noted that the 1973 Paris agreement never had been submitted to the Senate as a treaty for ratification and added: “Rather than chart a new beginning, the Administration’s interpretation of the Paris agreement is perpetuating old relationships and continuing old policies, as if nothing had changed.”
In his letter outlining United States objectives in Southeast Asia, Mr. Kissinger said that the United States “has no bilateral written commitment to the Government of the Republic of Vietnam.” But, under the Paris agreement, he said, “the United States committed itself to strengthening the conditions which made the cease‐fire possible and to the goal of the South Vietnamese people’s right to self‐determination.” “With these commitments in mind,” he said, “we continue to provide to the Republic of Vietnam the means necessary for its self‐defense and for its economic viability.” “We have thus committed ourselves very substantially, both politically and morally,” Mr. Kissinger said.
President Lon Nol tonight dissolved Cambodia’s Supreme State Council, an emergency body with sweeping powers, and three ministers immediately resigned in protest. Mr. Lon Nol said that the council — set up last May when Parliament was suspended for six months — was no longer necessary now that the legislature was functioning again. However, Justice Minister Ly Khvan Pan, Health Minister Sok Heang Sun and Industry Minister Duong Sareth resigned while the council’s Deputy President, Cheng Heng, called on Marshal Lon Nol to form a new coalition government. Mr. Cheng Heng said at a news conference that the dissolution of the council automatically meant the dissolution of the Government.
Israeli and Syrian forces exchanged fierce artillery, tank rocket fire for several hours on the Golan Heights today, a military spokesman here reported. The Israeli Cabinet met in Jerusalem and was briefed by the chief of staff, Lieutenant General David Elazar, and the director of military intelligence, Major General Eliahu Zeira. Welfare Minister Michael Hazani said later that the Cabinet had heard “fresh and worrying information.” He said that the situation with Syria was serious and becoming ever more disturbing, both militarily and politically. It was the 20th consecutive day of heavy fire in the salient occupied by the Israelis during the October war.
An Israeli communiqué said that Syria had tried unsucessfully to infiltrate two reconnaissance patrols into the northern sector of the salient. The. Syrians then opened an artillery barrage in the northern sector, and this led to an intermittent two‐hour duel, the Israelis stated. Later in the morning, the Israelis said, Syrian tanks and rocket launchers opened fire in the southern part of the salient. Soviet‐made Katyusha rockets blasted at Israeli positions at Tel Antar and then more tank shells were fired at Tel Mari in the north, according to the Israelis. The spokesman said that Israel had suffered no casualties.
A Syrian military spokesman reported an intense tank and artillery duel on the Golan Heights front today. The spokesman said that the Syrians had inflicted heavy casualties and material damage on the Israelis in the early morning. Some members of an Israeli patrol were killed, he said. The spokesman accused the Israelis of having started the exchanges in most cases by trying to improve their positions.
President Nixon is expected to decide shortly that the United States will provide Israel with $700 million in additional military aid, administration sources said. It would supplement the $1.5 billion in weapons and ammunition that the United States has provided Israel since October.
Strife-torn Ethiopia was calm after a week of violence and civil and military disorder. However, there was no word on the whereabouts of five oil prospectors, three Americans and two Canadians, who were captured when their helicopter crashed in the northern province of Eritrea. The government said bandits seized them, but others said they were captured by Eritrean guerrillas who seek independence from Ethiopia.
Iran will lend money to Pakistan on “special and friendly terms” to help Pakistan overcome the effect of oil price increases, a joint Iranian and Pakistani communique said. The amount of the loan was not given. The announcement came at the end of three days of meetings in Tehran between Pakistani Premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the Shah of Iran.
Five people were killed in weekend violence in Northern Ireland and British Prime Minister Harold Wilson conferred with Northern Ireland Secretary Merlyn Rees, government officials in London reported. Four of the deaths resulted from Catholic and Protestant bombings and the fifth was apparently an execution by the Irish Republican Army. The victim was Sean MacStocker, a Roman Catholic.
Pope Paul VI appeared fully recovered from a bout with the flu as he spoke for seven minutes in his regular homily to 5,000 persons in St. Peter’s Square. He spoke with a strong, firm voice and betrayed nothing of the “slight indisposition” that caused him to cancel a general audience last week.
British Airways was created by the merger of four airlines that had been nationalized by the government of the United Kingdom. British Overseas Airways Corporation (popularly known as B.O.A.C.) and British European Airways (BEA) were combined, and the regional carriers Cambrian Airways and Northeast Airlines were included.
As goes oil, so go bananas. Ministers of six banana-producing countries have ratified the Union of Banana Exporting Nations and scheduled a surcharge on exported bananas starting April 15. Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama plan a surcharge oscillating between 1 and 21⁄2 U.S. cents per pound. Ecuador, which had met earlier with the other six countries, did not ratify the union or the surcharge.
More cities in the northern part of Brazil were reported under water in the country’s worst flood disaster in living memory. Hundreds of people are dead and thousands are missing. Many have been buried in mass graves to lessen the risk of epidemics. About 250,000 people are homeless, according to unofficial estimates, and 10 states have been declared emergency zones. Floods have begun to recede in the southern part of the country.
Soaring oil revenues boomed the Nigerian budget to a record $4.7 billion, military ruler General Yakubu Gowon announced. The new spending plan lays heavy emphasis on government investment in agriculture and education. Gowon said 1973 oil revenue was $3.3 billion or 83% of the nation’s exports. Industry officials estimate, however, that 1974 revenue will exceed budget expenditures by $2 billion.
General Idi Amin told Organization of African Unity delegates arriving in Entebbe, Uganda, that black Africa should form a combined military force to battle white minority governments on the continent. The OAU is holding its first meeting in Uganda, beginning today. Amin said guerrilla tactics haven’t been successful against white governments and that it was time to mount a war for African liberation with regular troops.
The pre-presidential papers for which Mr. Nixon claimed a $576,000 tax deduction were culled to eliminate “sensitive” documents, even though he turned the papers over to the National Archives with the specification that no unauthorized person could see them until after he left the White House. According to testimony to the congressional Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, the items removed from the 1,176 boxes of donated papers included “sensitive files respecting J. Edgar Hoover, Jacqueline Kennedy and the Vietnam War.”
President Nixon announced in a radio broadcast that he was establishing a committee to coordinate the nation’s scattered programs for war veterans. He said, “To ensure that we have policies that pull together the activities of the entire government, and more fully meet the needs of veterans, I am today creating a new Domestic Council Committee on Veterans Services.”
Dwight L. Chapin, President Nixon’s former appointments secretary, is scheduled to go on trial in United States District Court here tomorrow on charges of lying to a Federal grand jury that was investigating political spying and sabotage during the 1972 Presidential campaign. The trial is the first to be based on indictments brought by the Watergate special prosecutor’s office. Mr. Chapin told the grand jury last year that he did not know of bogus campaign literature distributed by Donald H. Segretti, did not give instructions to Mr. Segretti to operate against specific candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and did not know how Mr. Segretti was paid.
Mr. Segretti, who admitted responsibility for a number of “dirty tricks” against Democratic candidates on behalf of the White House, was released from prison last week after serving more than four months of a six‐month sentence. Mr. Segretti, Herbert W. Kalmbach, once Mr. Nixon’s personal attorney, and John W. Dean 3d, former counsel to the president, are scheduled to be witnesses against Mr. Chapin.
Interviews with a score of leading economists in recent weeks found not one who expected that the pace of consumer price increases would drop back to the 2.8 percent average of the 1960’s. Professor Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago predicts that three or four years from now inflation will be soaring annually 10 to 12 percent, although most other experts expect less.
In two important actions that could speed the elimination of job discrimination in the South, the city of Jackson, has agreed after long negotiation to grant hiring preference, to blacks and the highest federal court in lower Dixie has come within a legal hair of setting black-white hiring goals, for the Mississippi Highway Patrol. At the same time, Jackson has agreed to award up to $1,000 each to black employes, such as janitors, who have never been offered opportunities to work in better‐paying jobs. Preferential‐hiring, quota‐hiring and reparation pay are employment devices that many Southern employers have traditionally feared and resisted, particularly as the civil rights movement has left the streets and gone into such areas as unemployment and under‐employment. The Jackson agreement is thought by Justice Department lawyers, who helped negotiate it, to be the most comprehensive ever reached within an American city, Northern or Southern.
The boom is over for cattlemen. The steadily growing profits they were enjoying until a few months ago have turned to heavy losses, wiping out much of their capital and in many instances wiping out small investors entirely. The results, observed in the heart of the cattle country from Iowa to the high plains of the Texas Panhandle, will mean less beef for consumers at probably higher prices.
Two million Americans are stricken each year with food poisoning and the number is rising, says Alexander M. Schmidt, head of the Food and Drug Administration. Too many people are too worried about possible cancer-causing substances and additives, he said in the current issue of the U.S. News & World Report, and too little about food poisoning, which is their chief peril. “Most housewives don’t appreciate that, no matter how carefully processed, poultry can have salmonella as a contaminant when it enters the home.” Schmidt said the telltale sign that canned foods were carriers of bacteria that could cause botulism “generally is a swollen can — not bad odors or decay.”
Four persons in Gadsden, Alabama, have died from abuse of a mild sedative containing talcum powder, the Etowah County coroner said. Coroner Noble Yocum said autopsies had shown that they all “literally suffocated” from talcum powder accumulated in their lungs. Yocum said abuse of the drug was indicated in three other deaths over the last seven months, although conclusive tests were not conducted at the time. The coroner said friends of the victims reported they had injected a combination of pentazocine and hydroxyzine mixed with water, producing a “highly euphoric state.” Talcum is used to hold tablets of pentazocine together. In normal usage it is expelled from the body but when injected it accumulates in the lungs.
The Miami Herald reported that the fund-raiser for Senator Edward J. Gurney (R-Florida) had testified that the senator personally approved a deal that would get him a free oceanfront apartment in exchange for influence with the Federal Housing Administration. The front-page story said Larry E. Williams had told FBI and IRS investigators under oath that Gurney said “fine” when informed that a free apartment would be given to him in return for influence at the FHA. The Herald report added that the exchange of favors never occurred. It said that Gurney paid $55,000 for the Vero Beach condominium apartment just after the building was completed.
An ultraviolet scanner aboard the Mariner 10 spacecraft has detected what seems to be a small moon in orbit around Mercury. It would be the first moon discovered orbiting either Venus or Mercury, the two planets between the sun and the orbit of the earth. Despite an electrical problem that is overheating the craft, its television cameras have been turned on to look for the object.
[Ed: This turned out to be a mistake.]
Governor Wilson of New York declared that the nation’s poorest old people will not get any help from a 7 percent increase in Social Security benefits that becomes effective tomorrow. He said they were victims of “a cruel hoax” and “rank federal discrimination.” The people affected are about 108,000 elderly in New York state — about 1.9 million nationally — who are participants in the Supplemental Security Income program that began Jan. 1, shifting the aged as well as the blind and the disabled from welfare rolls to a new federal guaranteed-income program.
Freezing rain and snow blew from the Rockies across the northern plains while temperatures climbed above freezing in the storm-ridden Northeast. Advisories alerting ranchers to protect their livestock were in effect for parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado and Nebraska. Heavy snow warnings were issued for the mountain areas in Colorado. High winds and snow had pelted the East Coast from Maryland to southern Maine over the weekend and snow was continuing to fall at higher elevations. Winds gusting to more than 40 m.p.h. were raising dust and causing hazardous driving conditions over much of New Mexico. Clear skies extended from Texas to the south Atlantic Coast.
American golfer Lee Trevino goes bogey-free for the full 4 rounds as he wins the Greater New Orleans Open by 8 strokes from Bobby Cole and Ben Crenshaw
Born:
Jason Odom, NFL tackle (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), in Winter Haven, Florida.
James Burgess, NFL linebacker (San Diego Chargers), in Miami, Florida.
Carol Ann Plante, actress (Sara Henderson-“Harry & the Hendersons”), in Harrison, New York.
Natali (stage name for Natalia Rudina), Russian pop music singer; in Dzerzhinsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Jani Sievinen, Finnish Olympic swimmer with five world championships in the 100m, 200m and 400m medley; in Vihti, Finland.
Died:
Andrea Checci, 57, Italian actor (“2 Women”, “The Assassin”, “Black Sunday”)
Elena Zelayeta, 75, Mexican-born U.S. cook whose 1944 book “Elena’s Famous Spanish and Mexican Recipes” and San Francisco TV cooking show “It’s Fun to Eat” introduced traditional Mexican cooking to non-Hispanic residents.
History Diaries 