North Vietnamese troops captured three South Vietnamese militia posts northeast of Kon Tum in a battle for a strategic five‐mile stretch of road in the Central Highlands, reports from the field said today. South Vietnam’s chief military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Lê Trung Hiền, said the positions along, a two‐and‐a‐half‐mile section of Route 5B near Kon Tum were manned by 270 soldiers. He said that only 150 had been accounted for and that the commander had been killed. Colonel Hiền said that 124 North Vietnamese were killed during the day‐long battle yesterday, many by bombers and artillery.
It was the second big battle in the area 250 miles northeast of Saigon in less than three weeks, On March 16 and 17, the Saigon command reported 448 North Vietnamese and 68 Government troops killed in heavy fighting. The South Vietnamese say control of the territory along Route 5B would give the North Vietnamese a supply corridor running from their bases at the juncture of Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam across the highlands to the coast, cutting South Vietnam in half and enabling Hanoi to move troops to the coast in any future offensive.
Administration efforts to increase military aid to South Vietnam were set back today in both the Senate and the House. The Senate Armed Services Committee, which normally support the Administration, approved a $226‐million increase in military aid to South Vietnam in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. That, however, was only about half the increase the Administration sought. It had requested that the Congressional ceiling on military aid be raised from the present level of $1.126‐billion to $1.6‐billion. An even smaller increase was approved by the House Appropriations Committee. Congressional sources said that the committee, in an action still to be announced, had voted to increase the ceiling to $1.3-billion.
The Laotian Premier, Prince Souvanna Phouma, announced today that the long‐anticipated coalition government would be presented to King Savang Vatthana on Friday. The announcement followed a meeting between Prince Souvanna Phouma and his half-brother, Prince Souphanouvong, the leader of the pro‐Communist Pathet Lao, whom he had not seen for a decade. They met this afternoon at the Premier’s spacious residence on the Mekong River. The 72‐year‐old Prince Souvanna Phouma, a neutralist who is the head of the present Government in Vientiane and will hold the same post in the new coalition, last saw his 62‐year‐old half‐brother at LaCelle‐St.‐Cloud, France, in 1964. At that time, they made a last‐ditch effort to rescue a tottering coalition Government created two years earlier.
Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) said President Nixon is “very much in favor” of a speech Tuesday that most-favored-nation trade status be given to China. Mansfield said Mr. Nixon volunteered his agreement during a breakfast meeting at the White House. In his speech, Mansfield said he would introduce such legislation shortly.
South Korea President Park Chung Hee outlawed the activist National Democratic Students Federation and set a maximum penalty of death for any of its members protesting the present constitution. The penalty extends to their sympathizers as well as media employees reporting their activities. Park acted after a demonstration by a few hundred students demanding the release of colleagues convicted for campaigning against the constitution.
The Senate Armed Services Committee deferred action on a Navy request for immediate authorization of $29 million to expand facilities on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. The request will be considered later as part of the regular defense authorization bill for the next fiscal year. The committee did. approve $571.3 million in supplemental appropriations for this fiscal year.
Syrian and Israeli forces exchanged tank and artillery fire for more than nine hours in the Golan Heights today for the 23rd consecutive day, a Syrian military spokesman said. He stated that the Syrian fire killed or wounded several Israeli soldiers and silenced seven Israeli gun batteries. Two Israeli antitank rocket bases and an ammunition dump were also destroyed, he added. Israeli F-4 Phantom jets today flew in low near front‐line positions on the Golan Heights for the first time since the cease‐fire six months ago.
The initial findings of an Israeli commission investigating the October war were attacked from both the left and right in Israel as excessively severe on the military command, and too lenient on the political leadership of the country.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat said that he expelled Soviet military experts from Egypt in July, 1972, because Moscow failed to keep its promises on arms deliveries to Cairo. He told an audience of students in Alexandria that after this decision, Egyptian relations with Russia were frozen for several months.
Arab oil ministers will hold a one-day meeting Saturday in Geneva before a full conference of the world’s major oil-producing countries opening the following day, conference sources said. The ministers will meet under the auspices of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Ethiopian paratroops lifted a siege of the country’s main air force base as political turbulence showed more signs of settling. The air force has been the most radical arm of the services during the past two months of unrest. Addis Ababa university students, however, demanded that a state of emergency be declared to deal with serious famine in the south, and city garbagemen struck for better pay and working conditions. Meanwhile, Ethiopian guerrillas herded five American and Canadian captives across the country’s rugged mountains, hotly pursued by tribal chiefs and village elders trying to secure their release.
No new foreign military installations will be permitted in Australia, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam told Parliament. He was responding to opposition leader Billy Snedden, who had asked the government to reject establishment of a Soviet-Australian scientific base in Australia. Whitlam said the proposal is still under study.
Alain Poher, the centrist president of the French Senate, was officially proclaimed the Acting President of France as the death of President Pompidou left an atmosphere of grave uncertainty and political confusion. Mr. Poher will serve until a new president is elected — no later than May 5. Among the leading prospective candidates are a former premier, the finance minister, the president of the National Assembly, and the head of the Socialist party.
Administration officials said that President Nixon plans to fly to Paris for a Saturday service in memory of President Pompidou, and that he might extend his stay to meet with leading contenders for the French presidency, perhaps with the idea of easing recent diplomatic strains.
The Moscow government offered 15-year loans of up to $4,606 to settlers willing to participate in its ambitious plan to develop marginal, non-black soil lands of Russia. Details of the project, announced by party leader Leonid I. Brezhnev in a March 15 speech, were published in the party newspaper Pravda, which said 35 billion rubles ($46 billion) had been allocated for the scheme over the next five years.
After two days adrift in the Atlantic, 1,648 cruise passengers abandoned the crippled Queen Elizabeth 2 and were ferried by a bobbing flotilla of launches to the Norwegian cruise ship Sea Venture. Then, their ordeal at sea behind them, the passengers steamed toward Bermuda for air connections to New York.
Gold hits a record $197 an ounce in Paris. The death of President Georges Pompidou of France yesterday and uncertainties about his succession raised money fears in France today and touched off a new rush into gold, pushing it to record levels in Paris. The President’s death added a new factor to Europe’s current political disarray, coming within 24 hours of the outbreak of a fresh Common Market crisis. On Monday, Britain told her European partners that, unless changes were made in the terms under which she had entered the market, she would put the question of withdrawal to a popular vote.
Two months after being kidnapped, Patty Hearst announced in an audiotape that she had joined her captors at the Symbionese Liberation Army and that she had adopted the name “Tania” for the SLA. In a tape-recorded message delivered to a Berkeley, California radio station, Patricia Hearst declared that she had decided to join the forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army. The development came a day after the S.L.A. said it was planning to release Miss Hearst, who the police say was kidnapped on February 4. She said had chosen to join the forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army and fight for “the freedom of oppressed people.” She said that she had been offered the choice of being released or the chance to join the underground terrorist group. “I have chosen to stay and fight,” she said.
In a brief meeting with reporters several hours after the message from his daughter was broadcast, Mr. Hearst said he did not believe that his daughter had joined the terrorist group. “We’ve had her 20 years, he said. “They’ve had her 60 days, and I don’t believe she is going to change her philosophy that quickly and that permanently, and I’ll never believe it until she comes to me or her mother, or her sisters of one of her cousins and free to talk without any interference whatsoever. At that time if her choice is to become a member of an organization this, we’ll still love her and, she’s free to do whatever she wants.” However, earlier, Mrs. Hearst said, after listening to the tape, that, the voice was her daughter’s.
The White House Press Office announced that the Internal Revenue Service had determined that U.S. President Richard Nixon owed $432,787.13 in back taxes and an additional $43,644 in penalties and interest, an amount almost half of Nixon’s stated net worth. The ruling by the IRS disallowed deductions including a declaration one for $576,000 for the claimed worth of Nixon’s vice-presidential papers.
President Nixon announced that he would pay $432,787.13 in back taxes plus interest after congressional investigators and the Internal Revenue Service concluded that the President had underpaid his taxes by more than $400,000 in his first four years in the White House. The President’s announcement came shortly after a joint congressional committee issued a staff report finding that the President had failed to report five separate categories of taxable income and had claimed six different categories of unwarranted deductions.
While the White House statement said that Mr. Nixon would pay the full amount of back taxes assessed by the Internal Revenue Service, it said he could have legitimately contested the findings. Though the White House said the I.R.S had concluded that the President had not committed fraud in underpaying his taxes, and congressional investigators did not address the question, the staff of the House Judiciary Committee began a study of the investigators’ report to determine whether the President’s tax matters provide grounds for impeachment.
The conservative majority of the Senate Finance Committee decided to oppose any major income tax cut to stimulate the economy. The panel, however, did agree to send to the floor a minor House bill that could be used as a vehicle for amendments providing for such a cut. Chairman Russell B. Long (D-Louisiana) said he and at least four others of the 17 members favored a big tax cut. “But it was clear that a majority of the committee did not.” No formal vote was taken, he said.
Senator Jacob K. Javits (R-New York) said if “impeachment politics” interferes with President Nixon carrying out his duties, the President should step aside temporarily and name Vice-President Ford acting President. Such a move could be carried out under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which deals with presidential disability. Javits stressed, however, that he was not recommending that Mr. Nixon take this step. “This must be his choice and his responsibility,” he said.
The Food and Drug Administration disclosed that it has asked two cosmetic manufacturers to recall aerosol hair sprays containing vinyl chloride, a chemical recently linked to a rare form of liver cancer. A spokesman said the FDA sent telegrams last Friday requesting Bonat, Inc., of West Patterson, New Jersey., and Clairol, Inc., of New York City to recall all products containing the toxic material. Clairol complied immediately and began by taking about 100,000 cans of Summer Blonde and Miss Clairol Aerosol Hair Spray off retail shelves. The FDA said Bonat also had agreed to recall but the brand names and amount of cans involved have not yet been determined.
Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) joined the Navy’s top procurement expert in calling for delay and reappraisal of a new $3.5 billion patrol frigate construction program due to begin in October. Proxmire said Congress should turn down the Pentagon request for $436.5 million in additional funds and “reevaluate the 50-ship program next year.” He said in a statement prepared for Senate delivery that cost estimates increased by $238 million during the final three months of 1973. Gordon W. Rule, the Navy’s director of procurement control, warned last week that the project was heading for disaster unless time was taken for more testing of a Dutch fire control system and an Italian rapid-fire gun system. Navy officials have denied the charge.
[Ed: William Proxmire. Always Wrong. About the military, about space. Always.]
Three witnesses gave testimony in a civil lawsuit supporting a contention that a suitcase containing a $50,000 cash campaign donation from Howard Hughes had been placed at the feet of Hubert Humphrey in 1968, when Senator Humphrey was Vice President. Senator Humphrey has denied under oath that he ever received the money, which witnesses said was placed in his limousine as he left a Los Angeles hotel after a fundraising dinner in July, 1968.
The Republican Lieutenant Governor of California, Ed Reinecke, was indicted by a Watergate grand jury on charges of lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the timing of conversations he had with then Attorney General John Mitchell in 1971 concerning the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation’s offer to help underwrite the 1972 Republican National Convention. The charges stem from an investigation into possible political influence in the settlement of three antitrust suits against I.T.T.
A federal grand jury in Philadelphia has indicted four Pennsylvania truck drivers with conspiracy in connection with the death of another trucker during the gasoline protest strike earlier this year, the Justice Department announced. Ronald Hengst, 33, of Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, died January 31 when a 22-pound rock was dropped from an overpass onto the windshield of his truck. Two other truckers charged separately with participating in the conspiracy pleaded guilty last week and are awaiting sentencing. Indicted were Nolan D. Benner, 33, of Perkasie, Earl E. Hoffman, 32, of Slatington, Edward J. Ostrander, 41, of Easton and Earl O. Zellner, 40, of Slatington.
A system of 148 confirmed tornadoes killed 319 people and injured 5,484 others in 13 of the U.S. states (Alabama, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia and West Virginia) and the Canadian province of Ontario. Hardest hit was the city of Xenia, Ohio, where 36 residents were killed after the tornado struck at 4:40 PM local time. A police official said that about half of that city of 25,000 had been destroyed by a large twister. Other areas struck were Brandenburg, Kentucky (31 dead) and Guin, Alabama (28 dead). The area in and around Tanner, Alabama, was struck by two tornadoes 30 minutes apart, killing 44 people.
The FIBA European Champions Cup, emblematic of the professional basketball championship of Europe, was won by Spain’s Real Madrid Baloncesto in an 84 to 82 defeat of Italy’s Pallacanestro Varese in a final before a sellout crowd at the Palais des Sports de Beaulieu in France. Wayne Brabender was the high scorer for Madrid with 28 points while Bob Morse of Varese had 24 points.
The Los Angeles Dodgers trade pitcher Bruce Ellingsen to the Cleveland Indians for 17-year-old minor league infielder Pedro Guerrero.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 858.03 (+11.42, +1.35%).
Born:
Jim Pittsley, MLB pitcher (Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers), in Du Bois, Pennsylvania.
Marcus Brown, NBA shooting guard and point guard (Portland Trailblazers, Detroit Pistons), in West Memphis, Arkansas.
Juliana Awada, Argentine businesswoman who served as First Lady of the Argentine Nation from 2015 to 2019; in Villa Ballester, Argentina.
Wu Jing, Chinese actor and martial artist (“Wolf Warrior”), in Beijing, China.
Died:
Andor Kertész, 45, Hungarian mathematician, died of a chronic illness.
History Diaries 