Mário Soares, the exiled leader of Portugal’s banned Socialist Party, returned to Lisbon by train after years of living in from Paris, and was greeted by 4,000 people. He would become Prime Minister of Portugal in 1976, serving twice (1976–1978 and 1983–1985) and President from 1986 to 1996. Power is now held by a seven‐man military junta that toppled the country’s rightwing authoritarian rulers last Thursday. The junta has promised to form a provisional government within the next three weeks. But it was not known what political elements would be admitted into the government or what policies it would pursue, particularly on the war against black rebels in Africa.
Amid the carnival atmosphere here, surface unity prevailed both among the disparate political forces in the country and between them and the armed forces. The holiday mood is expected to reach high point on Wednesday with a huge May Day demonstration by leftists. Mr. Soares, who had been in jail a dozen times for opposing the previous rulers, received an emotional welcome from thousands of supporters as he arrived by train after an overnight journey from Paris. An exuberant crowd chanted “A united people cannot be vanquished” and sang the national anthem over and over again. There were also a few tears as fallen heroes of the long fight against a seemingly impregnable regime were cited.
The arrest last week of an East German Communist spy on Chancellor Willy Brandt’s staff began this weekend to take on grave domestic and international political implications. “I shouldn’t say this, but I have the feeling it may be the beginning of the end for us,” one high official said, alluding to the internal political problems Mr. Brandt’s Social Democratic party has had this year. The party faces a key state election in Lower Saxony on June 9. Mr. Brandt has already decided, a government spokesman said, to postpone the formal establishment by East Germany and West Germany of missions in each other’s capitals. The move will be postponed from May 15 to the end of the month as an expression of displeasure with the East German Government. The postponement, and similar moves udder consideration, will unavoidably have adverse effects on Mr. Brandt’s own party, however.
Northern Ireland police announced the recapture of the former Belfast commander of the Irish Republican Army’s Provisional wing. Ivor Bell escaped from the Maze prison two weeks ago. The police announcement came 24 hours after a wave of bombings damaged a Catholic boys’ school and several shops in the border town of Newry.
Security officials investigating the theft of $20.4 million in paintings stolen Friday in Ireland believe the thieves may use them to force the repatriation to Ireland of hunger-striking extremist prisoners in British jails, police sources said. Meanwhile, Irish police searched houses, manned roadblocks and watched harbors and airports for the 19 paintings stolen from the Blessington County mansion of millionaire Sir Alfred Beit. Sketches were prepared of the five thieves.
Pope Paul VI beatified Maria Franziska, a goddaughter of Emperor Franz I of Austria, who rebelled against her wealthy social-climbing father to become a nun and devote her life to the poor. The 19th century nun founded the order of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, and more than 700 nuns of that order were among the 10,000 or more pilgrims and visitors attending the ceremony at St. Peter’s Basilica.
Secretary of State Kissinger arrived in Geneva on his way to the Middle East and talked with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, hoping to obtain Soviet help in his efforts to persuade Israel and Syria to compromise on a troop separation agreement in the Golan Heights. An hour after his arrival, the first stop in a journey aimed at persuading Israel and Syria to compromise on an agreement to separate their troops in the Golan Heights, Mr. Kissinger went to the Soviet mission for talks with Mr. Gromyko. Mr. Kissinger planned to pursue with Mr. Gromyko the full range of agenda items for President Nixon’s trip to Moscow set for late June. Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Gromyko plan to go into detail on the Middle East situation — the main reason for Mr. Kissinger’s stop here — at tomorrow’s meeting in Mr. Kissinger’s suite in the Inter‐Continental Hotel.
President Anwar el‐Sadat of Egypt, in an interview televised yesterday, said he thought Secretary of State Kissinger would succeed in getting a cease‐fire between Syrian and Israeli forces. “He’s a man of miracles,” the Egyptian leader said of the American negotiator. “I think he will be doing it again in Syria.” President Sadat, at his home in Alexandria, was questioned by a team of American Broadcasting Companies reporters for the program “Issues and Answers.” The show was filmed Friday. Mr. Sadat, puffing on a pipe, spoke warmly of the Secretary of State, calling him “Henry” throughout. He said their friendship worried the Soviet Union. “Since the first visit of Henry to me here, and this was last November, my relations with the Soviets are very strained,” he said.
Israeli and Syrian forces continued to spar with small-scale air strikes and sporadic shelling along their front lines. With Mr. Kissinger on the way to the Middle East, many Israelis believed that Syria might attempt a more serious military attack to make a future agreement seem to be the result of Syrian initiative. But there was no sign of this.
Twice today Israeli planes attacked Syrian positions on Mount Hermon, the 9,200‐foot peak that overlooks the salient in Syria that Israel occupied in last October’s war. Targets in the salient were also attacked. As usual the Israeli military spokesman did not say how many aircraft were involved, but he said they all returned safely. One raid early in the morning hit targets on Mount Hermon. Later other pilots hit targets intermittently for an hour and a half in the area of the mountain and in the Syrian territory south of the salient, a military communiqué said. The Israeli spokesman said that two Syrian planes bombed Israeli forces on Mount Hermon, but asserted that there were no Israeli casualties. The Israelis also announced that during the day Syrian gunners directed artillery fire in a wide fan from Mount Hermon to the southern part of the Golan Heights, which was first occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Again, the spokesman said there were no Israeli casualties.
A Syrian military communiqué said that air defense systems shot down an Israeli plane today and Syrian gunners pounded Israeli troops on Mount Hermon and other sectors of the Golan Heights battlefront. The communiqué said that two Israel planes later repeated an attempt to raid Syrian positions, without causing casualties. Another communiqué said Syrian gunners had destroyed 10 Israeli tanks and armored vehicles and an antitank rocket base. The Syrians also scored direct hits on a radar station, three observation posts and several bunkers, the communiqué said. The short-lived Bangsamoro Republik was proclaimed by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and its chairman, Nur Misuari, at Talipao on Jolo Island in the Philippines.
Communist forces overran two large militia outposts at opposite ends of South Vietnam, killing or capturing 80 government troops, military sources reported. In a third attack, Việt Cộng guerrillas blew up an important bridge 15 miles northwest of Saigon in the same area where the first American soldier was killed in Vietnam 13 years ago. The latest attacks brought to 11 the number of government posts overrun last week, most of them in the Mekong Delta, the military said.
Communist forces using captured U.S. artillery stepped up attacks on isolated Long Vek, the last Cambodian government outpost on northwest approaches to Phnom Penh, military sources said. The Communists are within five miles of the capital to the north and four miles to the south.
The former commander of Ethiopia’s imperial bodyguard and two other top generals were arrested by the army, according to the government radio in Addis Ababa. The arrests were reported to have the full backing of Prime Minister Endalkachew Makonnen. Earlier, the military announced that more than 60 officials were being investigated on charges ranging from illegal self-enrichment to abuse of power during the country’s severe drought. A number of those were reportedly released.
Two men on a motorcycle shot a former judge to death in downtown Buenos Aires, police said. The victim, Jorge V. Quiroga, was a judge in a now-defunct federal court which handed out stiff sentences to terrorists during the previous military regime in Argentina.
The Soviet Union was awarded a $50 million contract by Argentina and Uruguay to install six turbines at a hydroelectric project on the Uruguay River. It will be the first major Soviet operation in either country and one of the first such Soviet ventures in Latin America other than those undertaken in Cuba and Chile.
John Mitchell and Maurice Stans were acquitted in New York of all charges in their conspiracy case, ending the first trial of former cabinet officials since the aftermath of the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920’s. A jury of nine men and three women deliberated 26 hours over a period of four days.
The jurors voted to acquit the two former cabinet officers of all criminal charges because, they said, they could not believe the testimony of crucial government witnesses. Again and again, the jurors, when speaking about testimony of those witnesses after the verdict was announced used the words “incredible” or “unbelievable”.
The acquittal verdict heartened the White House, virtually eliminated the key issue in the House impeachment inquiry, and underscored the importance of tape recordings in other criminal and impeachment proceedings related to Watergate. The reaction in the White House, which is apparently preparing a counteroffensive against impeachment proceedings, was probably understated.
The acquittal of Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Stans does not end their legal problems. Mr. Mitchell has been indicted in Washington on six counts in the Watergate conspiracy case, and he is said to be a target of the investigation in two other cases being prepared by the special Watergate prosecutor. Mr. Stans’ problems are considerably less severe, but the special prosecutor reportedly is investigating whether he solicited illegal corporate contributions to President Nixon’s re-election campaign.
President Nixon, who was at Camp David preparing to step up his campaign against impeachment, is directing his appeal increasingly to the minority conservative bloc in the Senate. The strategy is being pursued on two levels — first, on policy and legislation, and second, on public appearances and speeches across the country.
Recent interviews with workers around the country indicate that most of them are worried about what the impact of the removal of wage and price controls, due to expire at midnight on Tuesday, will have on the already skyrocketing cost of living. Many of them can look forward to increases in wages and fringe benefits negotiated through collective bargaining this year, and unions, freed from the controls, are expected to push hard for substantial contract improvements.
Striking Kansas City school teachers ratified a tentative agreement between their local of the American Federation of Teachers and the Board of Education at the end of a month-and-a-half strike. The vote by 1,700 teachers indicated a 95% approval of the pact. The agreement included an 8% pay increase for teachers and paraprofessionals, with an additional 2% if a $1.25 school levy vote on June 11 is successful. The district’s 62,000 school children were expected to report to classes today.
Pennsylvania state police stopped and detained 165 members of the Pagans motorcycle gang near Reading as the cyclists headed toward a motorcycle race. The Pagans were stopped at a roadblock where the highway funnels through a valley. Sharpshooters had been stationed on adjacent ridges. A spokesman said the Pagans were frisked and several weapons were confiscated. “We’re arresting them for following each other too closely,” said state police Captain Michael Kostow. “That’s a violation of the state motor vehicle code…”
A federal official who is also a lieutenant colonel in the inactive Marine Reserves was in jail in Alexandria, Virginia, after the FBI seized an arsenal of about 200 combat rifles and other weapons at his home in a Washington, D.C., suburb and in his mother’s house. He was identified as Eugene S. Burcher, 43, of Alexandria, a supervisor of the noise abatement division of the Environmental Protection Agency. The FBI said Burcher was charged with embezzling ammunition from military stores. A search turned up the rifles, 135 cases of ammunition, silencers, gunpowder and military uniforms.
The General Services Administration is setting up a computer network that has the potential to store information on individuals and institutions across the country, the Detroit News reported. The plan, called Fednet, calls for other federal agencies to hook into the network, which would create a potential for the GSA to gather personal information from the files of many government departments, the newspaper reported. Construction of the network is scheduled to start next year, it said. In a letter to GSA Administrator Arthur F. Sampson, Rep. John E. Moss (D-California) said, “Experts tell me cooperation among various federal agencies would allow assembly of dossiers on any individual or institution,” the paper reported.
The District of Columbia’s Arlington National Cemetery, which is so crowded now that most veterans are no longer allowed to be buried there, has announced plans for a huge expansion that will boost the number of burial sites by almost 20 times The cemetery, started 110 years ago when General Robert E. Lee’s estate was seized by the federal government during the Civil War, contains the remains of 162,669 servicemen and members of their families. But only 7,300 plots, each able to hold two or more bodies, are still available. Officials said the cemetery was in the process of adding 200 acres to the current 420 acres and that it had asked for funds to build a columbarium of 26,000 niches in which 100,000 cremated remains could be interred.
Veteran newsman Walter Cronkite accused the Nixon Administration of “indulging in a conspiracy” to undermine the news media. “The normal adversity between the press and government has been pushed by this Administration,” Cronkite told a news conference before addressing the Georgia County Commissioners Association in Atlanta. The CBS newscaster said the press should “stand up in righteous wrath” to what he called the Administration’s attempts to suppress the media. He charged that the government was responding with “conspiracy” to heavy news coverage of Watergate and other government scandals.
With priests, ministers and rabbis in the vanguard, a New York crowd estimated by the police at more than 100,000 paraded down Fifth Avenue yesterday to demonstrate solidarity with Soviet Jews denied the right to emigrate to Israel. The parade reached a high point when the outpouring of men, women and children filled Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on East 47th Street for the event, titled “Solidarity Sunday for Soviet Jewry.” Governor Wilson, in a proclamation on Soviet Jews, read by Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz, said that Solidarity Day served “to remind us that the basic human rights which all Americans enjoy are still being denied to peoples in other parts of the world.” At Hammarskjold Plaza, the throngs stood from building wall to building wall, with little room to move on 47th Street from First Avenue almost to Third Avenue.
The U.S. television series “The F.B.I.,” starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., broadcast its 241st and final original episode after nine seasons on the ABC network.
The Women’s FA Cup, championship of the Women’s Football Association in England was played at Bedford and was won, 2 to 1, by Fodens Ladies F.C., over Southampton Women’s F.C., on the second of two goals by Alison Leatherbarrow before 800 people.
The Cleveland Indians break a 2-2 tie with 8 runs in the bottom of the 8th to beat the California Angels, 10–2. George Hendrick has a pair of homers, including a grand slam.
Born:
Penélope Cruz, Spanish film actress (“Vanilla Sky”, “Waking Up in Reno”, 2008 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”), in Alcobendas, Spain.
Margo Dydek, Polish WNBA center (WNBA All-Star, 2003, 2006; Utah Starzz, San Antonio Silver Stars, Connecticut Sun, Los Angeles Sparks), in Warsaw, Poland.
DeAuntae Brown, NFL defensive back (Philadelphia Eagles), in Detroit, Michigan.
Died:
Paul Page, 70, American actor (“Girl From Havana”, “Moth”).
Yu Chin-san, 68, South Korean politician and leader of the opposition New Democratic Party, died of cancer.
History Diaries 