Israel declared that both she and Syria could accept the Golan Heights cease-fire line proposed by Secretary of State Kissinger to clear the way for a Syrian-Israeli disengagement of forces. The announcement followed the latest round of discussions between Mr. Kissinger and Israeli leaders on the 21st day of his Middle East peace mission. Mr. Kissinger is expected to continue his Jerusalem-Damascus shuttle diplomacy for the rest of the week — or until final agreement is reached. The statement by the Israeli spokesman, Shimon Peres, followed three hours of discussions this afternoon by Mr. Kissinger, Premier Golda Meir and, their top aides on the details of the disengagement package now being worked out after negotiating a breakthrough yesterday in Damascus. American officials said that Mr. Kissinger, who now believes an accord is in sight, would go to Damascus tomorrow morning and return to Jerusalem in the evening, continuing that daily pattern for the rest of the week — or until the final agreement is reached.
Until yesterday, the key issue holding up a breakthrough was the small but significant difference between Syria and Israel, over the placement of the demarcation line to which Israel would withdraw from occupied Syrian territory. Mr. Kissinger had said that he believed he could negotiate the rest of the disengagement agreement once the line was worked out. Although a senior American official had said that in geographic terms the two sides were only a mile or so apart, Syria and Israel apparently could not bridge that gap until Mr. Kissinger offered his compromise proposal.
Israel wants certain guarantees from the United States similar to those included but not published in the Egyptian‐Israeli disengagement agreement, in January. These include willingness by the United States to conduct impartial reconnaissance flights over the area and a commitment by the United States that it would use its veto to prevent dissolution of the United Nations force in the area. Last night, Mr. Peres said that Israel would not sign disengagement accord until Syria agreed to an exchange of prisoners as the first item of business.
Israel continued her reprisal raids on Palestinian targets with the naval bombardment of the Rashidiyah refugee camp in Lebanon. A Palestinian guerrilla leader there said eight people were killed. About 50 cement block houses were damaged including some along the waterfront that were said to house the camp’s guerrilla guard. Lebanon reported that coastal guns returned the fire and hit one Israeli boat.
Meanwhile, the small war of attrition between Israel and Syria continued into its 69th day, and Israel said that three of her soldiers had been wounded by Syrian shelling. The death of an Israeli soldier in yesterday’s shelling was also announced. Optimistic reports that an American-sponsored military disengagement might be near did not seem to have limited the artillery exchanges. Unofficial sources said that they were still fairly intense. The struggle, while small-scale, goes on without interruption. At night Israeli infantry men lie in the bitter cold of contested Mount Hermon in ambush positions to thwart Syrian attempts to place land mines on the vital road along the mountain spine held by Israel. Both sides occasionally send out patrols, “if only to give the bored infantry something to do other than sit under shelling,” one source said.
Kurdistan radio said three more Iraqi air force planes had been shot down, bringing to 18 the total claimed downed by rebels since fighting broke out in March. The radio said fierce fighting continued in the Suleymaniye and Zakho areas. The radio also reported mass desertions from Iraqi army and police units.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was elected President of France, defeating François Mitterrand by less than 425,000 votes out of more than 26 million cast, in what remains, as of the last vote in 2022, the closest presidential election in French history. Finance Minister Valery Giscard d’Estaing Won the French presidential election by a slender margin, turning back the most effective challenge yet made by the French left. The Socialist leader Francois Mitterrand, backed by the Communists, came within 1.4 percentage points of winning and conceded. Mr. Giscard d’Estaing, in claiming victory, promised a new era of politics and change for France.
Portuguese newspapers published pictures of 29 former members of the disbanded State Security Police wanted for questioning by army officials and who had not surrendered voluntarily. Meanwhile, Portugal’s minister for overseas territories, Antonio de Almeida Santos, was on his way to Angola and Mozambique to sound the opinion of the African territories on their future under the new regime. Representatives of the African Party of Independence of Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands will meet with Portuguese government officials in London on Saturday to work out a cease-fire agreement for Guinea.
Five finance ministers of the European Common Market met informally to discuss the international monetary situation, including the softening of the U.S. dollar early last week. The gathering of the finance ministers of the Benelux countries, Denmark and West Germany in Bonn was headed by Hans Apel, West Germany’s new minister of finance.
Striking Protestant workers in Northern Ireland lifted a threat to black out the entire electric power system. They did so after the British government declared a state of emergency giving it sweeping powers to regulate the economy, now virtually paralyzed by militant Protestant strikers.
Ukrainian Communist party leaders have acknowledged that nationalism in the Soviet Union’s second most populous republic remains a persistent problem despite a crackdown over the last two years by the Communist party secretary there, Vladimir V. Shcherbitsky. At a meeting of the party’s Central Committee two weeks the Ukrainian leaders mentioned this issue and went on to cite other deficiencies, ranging from incompetence in the party to Western influences in art. They asked that ideological indoctrination be increased throughout the Ukraine.
India’s first nuclear blast caused a tremendous upheaval of the earth and created a hill in the desert, the scientist who supervised the test said, Raja Ramanna told of going up to within 100 yards of the 600-footwide crater. “There,” he said, “we could see this artificially produced hill. A most beautiful sight.” It was believed that the test was conducted in the Rajasthan Desert of western India.
Leaders of India’s striking rail unions called on workers to stand firm despite government claims that their 12-day-old nationwide walkout was caving in. The government, which had claimed that only 10% of the rail workers had ever heeded the strike call, reported more workers returning to the job and a “spectacular improvement” in rail service. But union leaders said service had been widely disrupted, with some essential goods such as fuel and food bottled up.
Seven French diplomats were surrounded by a hostile crowd and later held by police after one of them went strolling near the Ming dynasty tombs outside of Peking. The diplomats were at a picnic near one of the tombs when one of them, a woman, went for a walk. She was surrounded by a hostile crowd of mostly children. Her colleagues came to her aid and also were blocked by the crowd. Security personnel came to the diplomats’ rescue and they were taken to a police station and held for two hours before being allowed to call their embassy to gain their release.
Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Tse-tung and Archbishop Makarios, president of Cyprus, held “cordial and friendly” talks, it was announced in Peking. The official People’s Daily published photographs of the two leaders shaking hands in Mao’s book-lined study, but gave no details of what they discussed. Premier Chou En-lai, party Vice-Chairman Wang Hung wen and Vice-Premier Teng Hsiao-ping reportedly were also present at the audience at Mao’s residence in Peking’s Forbidden City.
Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s Labor party government is expected to remain in office in Australia after an apparent narrow victory in a midterm election, But the main winner appeared to be Bill Snedden, the opposition leader, whose Liberal party trimmed the government’s majority.
A policeman in Belém, Brazil, fired on rioting fans at a soccer match between Clube do Remo and Paissandu-Belém. One fan was killed and three were critically injured.
The Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) police opened fire on bottle-throwing spectators who invaded the field in an attempt to join fighting players in an African club championship soccer game today. Eyewitnesses said several persons were seen bleeding after the shooting, but it was not clear whether their injuries were caused by shots or bottles. The game, between Asmara of Ethiopia and the Kenyan team of Abaluha, was stopped by She referee from Zaire.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation classified Patricia Hearst, daughter of Randolph Hearst, the newspaper executive, as an “armed and dangerous fugitive” and said it was she who raked a Los Angeles storefront with gunfire last Thursday. The incident occurred when store employees stopped two accomplices for shoplifting, the bureau added. It said that criminal charges would be filed against her.
The Republican national chairman, George Bush, rejected the suggestion that a “vendetta” by political enemies had caused President Nixon’s present troubles, saying that it was the Republicans rather than their opponents who cared most about Watergate. Mr. Bush also asserted that his party’s fate was not inextricably interwoven with that of Mr. Nixon, a contention seconded separately by two Republican congressional leaders, Senator William Brock of Tennessee and Representative Robert Michel of Illinois.
Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a main Republican conservative leader, thinks President Nixon may change his mind and consider resigning instead of putting the country through the “televised horror” of impeachment, Newsweek magazine reported. The senator said, however, that he was not ready to ask the President to step down, that it would depend on what the public concluded in the next few weeks and what people told their congressmen during the Memorial Day recess. The President has vowed repeatedly to stay in office, not to resign, and to let the impeachment process run its course.
Biochemists working in California have developed a method of transplanting genes, the chemical units of heredity, from cells as complex as those of animals into the simple, fast-multiplying cells known as bacteria. The discoverers say the technique promises to meet some fundamental needs of both medicine and agriculture by supplying scarce hormones and reducing the need for chemical fertilizers.
A private study of federal coal leasing policies in seven Western states disclosed that 70% of the leases were controlled by 15 corporations, including five oil companies. The study, by the Council on Economic Priorities, a nonprofit organization that studies U.S. corporate practices, criticized the Interior Department, saying it “has not planned for or even considered the environmental, social, cultural or economic effects of its leasing practices.” The study noted that leases were adjusted every 20 years and only then could safeguards and royalty rate increases be made. The council said only 11% of the lease land was currently producing coal, with the rest being held in speculation of higher coal prices.
Women police officers on patrol duty in the District of Columbia are much less aggressive than their male counterparts, a new study concludes, both in making arrests and in getting themselves into trouble. New policewomen made arrests less than half as often as new policemen, and they received lower performance ratings for street duty from their superiors. But, the study says, overall they did their jobs well enough to show that “sex is not a legitimate qualification” for patrol work. “Women act less aggressively and they believe less in aggression,” according to the 16-month report financed by the Ford Foundation.
Floodwaters in the Little Blue River in western Missouri swept five youths off a bridge, drowning one of them. He was not identified. It was the third drowning of the weekend in the Kansas City area, where flash flooding has caused damage estimated in the millions. The Clay County communities of Smithville, Birmingham, Gladstone and Excelsior Springs, all north of the Missouri River, suffered the most damage in flooding caused by seven inches of rain in two days. Hundreds of people were forced to flee their homes.
Interior Undersecretary John C. Whitaker said oil and gas development off the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Alaska might begin as early as next year, if legal and environmental hurdles could be cleared fast enough. Whitaker said in a Washington interview that the department would prepare an environmental impact study covering all undeveloped areas of the Outer Continental Shelf — the ocean bottom just off the U.S. coasts. Whitaker disclosed also that Sun Oil Co. was trying to line up 20 or 30 other oil companies to join in drilling bottom-sampling holes in those new offshore areas of the Atlantic, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
Two deans at a Bronx junior high school, each over 6 feet tall and weighing more than 200 pounds, are accused by teachers and students of using a heavy paddle, leather straps and their fists to enforce discipline in the largely black and Puerto Rican school. The practice of corporal punishment, banned by New York City school regulations, was alleged to have occurred at Jordan L. Mott Junior High School 22 with the reported backing of the acting principal.
Arm wrestling, thought of by most as a male diversion practiced in taverns after a few drinks, has its serious practitioners as well. One hundred and fifty of them, men and women, gathered in Las Vegas for their national championships.
Australia won the 1974 Federation Cup women’s tennis tournament, held in Naples, Italy, defeating United States in the final.
New Orleans, the new National Basketball Association franchise, will be stocked today with players from the other 17 teams in the league. Each N.B.A. team was permitted to protect seven players and leave the remainder of its roster vulnerable to the expansion draft. Each team can only lose one player. New Orleans’ first pick must be a center. The first forward and backcourt man selected will go to the Atlanta Hawks as part payment for the deal that sent Pete Maravich to New Orleans earlier.
After losing the opener, 8–2, to the Giants, the Padres come back to win game 2, 10–7, in 12 innings. Only one of the three runs in the 12th is earned. Willie McCovey belts a grand slam against his old team. It is the 15th of his career.
At Comiskey, Angel Mangual hits a 1st-inning grand slam and drives in 5 runs as the Angels clip the White Sox, 8–3.
The Houston Aeros won the Avco World Trophy, defeating the host Chicago Cougars for the championship of the World Hockey Association in winning game four of the best-4-of-7 series, by a score of 6 to 2.
The Philadelphia Flyers won the 1974 Stanley Cup Finals, defeating the Boston Bruins 1 to 0 to win the series and the National Hockey League title, four games to two. The Flyers, created in 1967 when the National Hockey League expanded from six teams to 12, became the first expansion team to win the Cup.
Born:
Andrew Johns, Australian rugby league player with 26 caps for the Australia national team; in Kurri Kurri, City of Cessnock, New South Wales.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Indian film actor, 2016 Filmfare Awards winner for “The Lunchbox”; in Budhana, Uttar Pradesh, India.
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