Secretary of State Kissinger said he had again made “good progress” toward removing the main obstacle to a Syrian-Israeli disengagement agreement — the size of forces to be allowed in the front-line disengagement zones. Mr. Kissinger offered the assessment at the end of another day of negotiations in both Syria and Israel. Kissinger introduced some new American ideas for getting Israel and Syria to agree on how to thin out their forces in the proposed disengagement zone on the Golan Heights —the major issue holding up the accord. Mr. Kissinger has now spent 26 days in the area traveling between Israel and Syria.
Israeli troops killed six Palestinian guerrilla infiltrators in the Golan Heights and captured two who reportedly said the group had planned to carry out another “massacre,” patterned on the attack at Ma’alot. The group, which had slipped past Israeli lines in occupied Syrian territory, had apparently intended to raid one or two collective farms in Israel proper, taking hostages and demanding the release of guerrillas held by Israel.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat issued a decree reshuffling the top editorial posts of Cairo’s major newspapers, all of which are owned by the Arab Socialist Union, the country’s only political party. Ahmed Bahaddin was named editor of the semiofficial Al Ahram, the paper from which he was fired as a columnist by Sadat in 1973. Ali Amin, editor of Al Ahram since February, becomes chairman of the Akhbar el Youm publishing house, which puts out a daily newspaper and a mass circulation weekly.
President Nixon told a visiting Soviet group today that his plans were moving ahead for meeting in Moscow with Leonid I. Brezhnev, the Communist party chief, probably at the end of June. The leader of the eight‐member group, Boris N. Ponomarev, brought Mr. Nixon what the White House described as “personal and private message” from Mr. Brezhnev. A national party secretary, the 69‐year‐old Mr. Ponomarev is a close associate of Mr. Brezhnev within the inner circle of the Soviet leadership. Later a White House spokesman, Gerald L. Warren, told newsmen that Mr. Nixon had “not given any consideration to canceling the trip” because of the threat of impeachment. Mr. Warren said Mr. Nixon would “be dealing from a position of strength” in Moscow because of bipartisan support for his foreign policy. The visitors, all members of the Supreme Soviet, the national legislature, arrived in Washington on Sunday and have been involved in meetings with members of Congress, who are their official hosts.
Leaders of the extremist Protestant groups in Northern Ireland said they would intensify their protest strike and expressed confidence that they would bring down the provisional administration, Although the barricades largely disappeared from Belfast streets, spokesmen for the strikers said their efforts to restrict gasoline deliveries would be enough to halt all but medical traffic. British and provincial government officials have refused to negotiate with strike leaders, who rejected as meaningless a decision by the provincial government to water down proposals for an all-Ireland council.
The Airbus A300, the world’s first twin-engine, double-aisle (wide-body) airliner, was introduced into commercial service with a flight by Air France from Paris to London.
All 29 people aboard an Aeroflot Yakovlev Yak-40 airliner were killed when the airplane crashed during its scheduled approach to Kiev from a flight that had originated in Leningrad and had stopped at Khmelnitskiy in the Ukrainian SSR. Crash investigators concluded that the crew had been overcome by carbon monoxide as they were making their approach to Kiev’s Zhulyany Airport and had failed to set several instruments. With the crew and passengers unconscious or dying, the Yak-40 crashed into a training range near Gorenychi at a speed of 260 miles (420 km) per hour.
A new Soviet novel extols the “greatness” and “immortality” of Josef Stalin in the most lavish praise for the late dictator to appear in the Soviet Union in recent years. The novel, “War,” by Ivan Stadnyuk, seeks to remove the stigma of blame from Stalin for the country’s lack of military preparation at the start of World War II.
An electoral college met in Bonn to select the new President of West Germany, the largely ceremonial role of the nation’s head of state. All 518 members of the parliament (496 from the Bundestag and 22 from the Bundesrat) and an equal number (518 delegates) from the West German states, for a total of 1,036 electors, participated. Vice Chancellor Walter Scheel of the Social Democrats defeated Richard von Weizsäcker of the Christian Democrats, 530 to 498, with eight abstentions.
Pope Paul VI issued a papal bull proclaiming 1975 a Holy Year and appealing for world governments to grant amnesty to prisoners.
One of the domes of Sacré-Cœur, Paris, was seriously damaged in an explosion which caused no deaths or injuries. Callers to the Agence France-Presse news service said they had set off the explosion to protest Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s election as President and to commemorate the 103rd anniversary of the Paris Commune. The police said the blast sent huge blocks of stone into the street and damaged several cars, but caused no casualties.
Two non-American employees of the U.S. Embassy in Brussels have been fired for involvement in embezzling at least $41,000, but they still will get their U.S. State Department pensions, an embassy spokesman said. The two have not yet been prosecuted and their identities were not revealed. The spokesman said that pensions can be denied only when a person is fired for security reasons.
Bangladesh authorities have arrested 30 persons as a result of political killings which have been sweeping the country over the past few months, police sources said. Three young men-two of them political workers in the youth wing of Prime Minister Mujibur Rahman’s ruling Awami League and an air force man -were shot to death in Barisal, bringing to six the number of political killings in the past four days alone.
The Soviet Union set forth new restrictions on Chinese vessels using inland waterways near Khabarovsk in the southeastern portion of the Soviet Union. The waterways are in Russian territory near the Amur and Ussuri rivers and are used by the Chinese when dry weather blocks the use of their own waterways. The Soviet move was seen as another development in the long border dispute between the two countries.
Wall posters accusing Premier Chou En-lai of being “a swindler like Lin Piao and his ilk” reportedly have appeared in Kwangtung province of southern China, Taiwan’s Central News Agency said. Lin, a former defense minister who, according to Peking, died in 1971, was accused of twice plotting to kill Chairman Mao Tse-tung. The news agency said posters attacking Confucius in Kwangtung depicted the ancient sage in Chou’s likeness.
More than 200,000 Argentine teachers — in the first such walkout since Juan D. Perón returned to power seven months ago — went on a 24-hour strike, closing most of the nation’s schools. The teachers’ union is demanding wage increases, better pension plans and less interference by the state intelligence agency in the appointment of teachers.
About half a million Cubans are participating in an unusual experiment by casting ballots in what the Fidel Castro regime describes as a “democratic general election.” Cuba’s official Communist Party newspaper says Matanzas province is serving as a testing ground in a pilot project under which members of municipal, regional and provincial governing councils will be elected.
Great Britain performs a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
Lawyers for the House impeachment inquiry declared that the Judiciary Committee had a constitutional obligation to reject the edited White House transcripts as a substitute for the Watergate tapes subpoenaed by the committee. In an apparent effort to generate public support for formal action by the committee against the President next week, John Doar, the chief counsel, called the transcripts “inadequate and unsatisfactory,” and Albert Jenner, the chief Republican counsel, said the House “would not be acting responsibly” if it accepted the transcripts in place of the tapes.
The United States Court of Appeals in Washington turned down efforts by the Senate Watergate committee to subpoena five White House tapes, calling the committee’s need for the tapes marginal. In a unanimous decision, the court noted that the House Judiciary Committee had already obtained copies of the five tapes and said that the Senate committee had failed to demonstrate a legislative need for them.
Vice President Ford urged the White House last night to release all relevant evidence to the House Judiciary Committee, “the quicker the better.” When the committee completes its study of ‐tapes and documents that Mr. Nixon has already yielded and then needs more, “I hope the President will give it to them,” Mr. Ford said. “I don’t think when all the evidence is in, they’ve got a case,” Mr. Ford told a Republican gathering here last night. “From any evidence I’ve seen, the President is innocent. But let’s get it all out there, the quicker the better.” The White House, however, appears to be unwilling to take Mr. Ford’s advice. Mr. Nixon refused yesterday to hand over a total of 77 tapes and documents to the committee for its impeachment inquiry.
A convicted Watergate conspirator, James W. McCord Jr., says in a book released today that he believes President Nixon set in motion both the Watergate break‐in and the subsequent cover‐up. “I believe that the President knew of the cover‐up long before March 21, 1973, Mr. McCord says in the book, “A Piece of Tape — The Watergate story: Fact and Fiction.” Mr. Nixon has said he first learned of the cover‐up from the then White House legal counsel, John W. Dean 3d, on March 21, 1973. “I believe he set it (the cover‐up) in motion in June 1972, “Mr. McCord says, “just as I believe he had set the original operations in motion in the spring of 1972 by approving it.”
The attorney for G. Gordon Liddy contended today that President Nixon severely prejudiced his client’s constitutional right to a fair trial when he told the nation in televised speech on April 29 that Mr. Liddy’s “refusal to talk” was one of the “obstacles to the case.” The attorney, Peter Maroulis, urged Judge Gerhard A. Gesell to dismiss the pending criminal charges against Mr. Liddy, who, the lawyer said, has been “unfairly branded as being guilty.” Mr. Liddy is one of five defendants accused of conspiracy in the burglary of the office of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist. Judge Gesell said that the President’s statement posed a difficult problem” and indicated he would rule later on the request.
A 21-year-old man hijacked a helicopter at the 34th Street heliport in New York City and forced it to fly to the roof of the Pan Am building, where he was captured after the helicopter’s pilot was shot while attempting to escape. The suspect told the pilot and another hostage that he wanted a bikini-clad girl to deliver $2 million to buy guns for the Jewish Defense League, which said it had never heard of him. David Frank Kamaiko, a 21-year-old man from Greenwich Village claiming to be a member of the Jewish Defense League, hijacked a helicopter from the East 34th Street Heliport and demanded $2 million in ransom. After landing on top of the Pan Am Building, the pilot tried to escape and Kamaiko shot him in the arm. The other hostage inside the helicopter disarmed the hijacker, and police took him into custody.
The United States assured the Geneva Disarmament Conference that it would not develop miniature nuclear weapons that could be used interchangeably with conventional weapons on the battlefield. There has been concern that such low-yield “mini nukes” could blur the distinction between conventional and nuclear warfare and thus increase the chances for full-scale nuclear war. In issuing the policy statement on the last day of the conference’s spring session, the United States left itself free to improve its present tactical nuclear arms.
Attorney General William B. Saxbe assured a Senate subcommittee investigating wiretapping that “no American citizen can be wiretapped (by the U.S. government) anywhere in the world without approval from me.” Saxbe declined to tell the panel how many taps were now in effect but said only the Justice Department had authority to order them. “We know there are illegal wiretaps in this country,” he said, but that there were no other government agencies engaged in such activity.
A state police lieutenant climbed on stage in Cambridge, Mass., during a performance of the one-act play “Sweet Eros” and arrested the performers on charges of open and gross lewdness. Lieutenant Peter Agnes told the 150 members of the audience at Theater Two they were free to go as he handcuffed actor Joel Polinsky and led him away along with actress Tisa Ingalls. The two, both nude, were simulating sexual intercourse when Agness made his appearance.
A 1.1% decline in retail prices of farm-produced food from March to April meant a $20 drop in a year’s supply of groceries for a typical household, according to Agriculture Department figures. The decline, first since October, meant it cost $1,728 a year to feed a theoretical household of 3.2 persons. The indicator had risen to a record rate of $1,748 a year in March.
The New York City Council defeated a homosexual rights bill by a vote of 22 to 19. Politicians attributed the bill’s defeat to opposition by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. Supporters of the bill in the balcony shook their fists and shouted “bigot” at the councilmen below. Passage had been expected until the Roman Catholic archdiocese mounted an intensive campaign against it in recent weeks.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission warned the owners of 4 million electric frying pans that some of them might present a shock hazard and should not be used. The pans were made by National Presto Industries, Inc., and distributed under the Presto brand as well as under the Sears & Roebuck brand. They all were produced prior to September, 1973. The commission, in a joint statement with Presto, said the problem was confined to pans that were not used regularly or had not been used at all.
A four-engine turboprop cargo plane chartered for military use crashed about four miles northeast of Springfield during a thunderstorm, killing the three-man crew and a U.S. Navy courier. The plane operated by Saturn Airways, was en route from Alameda, California, to Indianapolis and apparently broke up in the air, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said. He also said he had been told there was “a small piece of radioactive material” on board but that it was “not harmful at all.”
Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Common Pleas Judge George White acquitted television actor Mel Stewart, the “Uncle Henry” in All in the Family, of a rape charge. Stewart, 45, accused of raping a 16-year-old Cleveland Heights girl last December 1, had denied it. White, who heard the case without a jury, said he found there was no doubt that Stewart had sexual relations with the girl but there was reasonable doubt that the act was forcible and against the girl’s will.
Niki Lauda of Austria set the fastest time today in the opening practice session for Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix auto race before crashing in his Ferrari on the swimming pool curve. He was not injured.
George Scott and Bob Hansen drove in two runs apiece to back the six‐hit pitching of Jim Slaton as Milwaukee beat the Detroit Tigers, 7–3, to win its fourth game in its last five. Scott drove in the run that broke a 3–3 tie in the seventh with a triple and walked with the bases loaded in the eighth when the Brewers added three runs. Slaton (5–5) walked one and fanned five.
The San Francisco Giants edged the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7–6. Dave Rader’s line single drove in the tiebreaking run as the Giants rallied for four runs in the seventh. Elias Sosa, who pitched one shutout inning, gained credit for the victory, his fifth without a loss, and Randy Moffitt finished up and earned his ninth save. Mike Marshall, (2–2), appearing in his seventh straight game, suffered the defeat. Steve Garvey continued his heavy hitting, driving in three Dodger runs with his ninth and 10th homers.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 805.23 (+2.66, +0.33%).
Born:
Jewel [Jewel Kilcher], American singer-songwriter (“Pieces of You”; “You Were Meant For Me”; “Standing Still”; “Intuition”), in Payson, Utah.
Ken Jennings, American game show contestant and TV host (“Jeopardy!”) in Edmonds, Washington.
Duane Clemons, NFL defensive end (Minnesota Vikings, Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals), in Riverside, California.
Duane Starks, NFL cornerback (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 35-Ravens, 2000; Baltimore Ravens, Arizona Cardinals, New England Patriots, Oakland Raiders), in Miami, Florida.
Charlie Yeung, Hong Kong actress and singer (“Seven Swords”), in British Hong Kong.
Died:
Leif Høegh, 78, Norwegian shipowner, founder and chairman of Leif Höegh & Co.
Kathleen Cannell, 82, American fashion and dance writer.
History Diaries 