It was not apparent that formal diplomatic relations between the United States and Syria were non-existent as hundreds of American flags flew and many thousands of people jammed the streets of Damascus to welcome President Nixon as he rode in an open car with the Syrian President, Hafez al-Assad. When Mr. Nixon arrived at Damascus International Airport, he was met by a large group of Syrian officials, platoons of troops and honor guards. The Assad government appeared anxious to improve relations with the United States and gave Mr. Nixon’s visit favorable notice in the newspapers and broadcasts. There was speculation in Damascus and Washington that diplomatic relations between the two countries, broken during the Arab-Israeli war in 1967, would be restored tomorrow before Mr. Nixon moves on to Israel.
Syria, in accordance with her troop separation agreement with Israel, got back a big piece of her territory that was taken by Israel, in the October war. A 40-square-mile area southwest of Damascus was evacuated by the Israeli army, and units of the Syrian army, led by the defense minister, General Mustafa Tlas, and some civilians, moved in. Israel is scheduled to withdraw from virtually all the territory captured in the October war by June 25.
Syrian villagers and troops returned for the first time to territory in the Golan Heights that had been occupied by the Israelis since last October’s Middle East war. The return came about as part of the Israeli-Syrian disengagement pact worked out earlier this month. Major General Mustafa Tlas, the defense minister, led units of the army and some civilians at 8 AM (1 AM, Eastern Daylight Time) to the 40‐square mile area evacuated by the Israeli Army yesterday, which begins about 25 miles southwest of Damascus. The Israeli withdrawal and the Syrian return followed the schedule of the agreement on separation of forces signed by the two countries in Geneva on May 31. The area reoccupied this morning had been under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force since the Israelis left it.
In the second phase of the separation, Israel is scheduled to remove her forces from an area west of the area reoccupied by Syria today. By June 25, Israel is scheduled to complete her withdrawal from virtually all the territory taken in October. The United Nations force headquarters in Damascus confirmed the return of the Syrians to the territory where the Israelis made deepest penetration in the war eight months ago. Under the separation agreement, the next partial Israeli withdrawal should be completed by Tuesday, a headquarters spokesman said. The United Nations command his reported repeatedly that disengagement has been carried out smoothly since the process began, on June 6. To the west of the territory that Israel is relinquishing, a United Nations buffer zone is to be created, separating the land Israel is giving back and the Syrian territory taken in the 1967 war. Both sides are to reduce the number of their troops and their heavy military equipment in areas bordering the buffer zone. According to the United Nations, both sides are also complying with this part of the agreement.
In the first trial of Palestine guerrillas in an Arab country, Sudan’s prosecutor general demanded the death penalty for eight guerrillas of the Black September organization who stormed the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum in March, 1973, and killed three Western diplomats — including U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel and his deputy, Curtis Moore. The prosecutor said the eight should be charged with first-degree murder, which carries the death penalty, rather than under wartime law as the defense has asked.
North Yemen’s army chief of staff said that the nation’s new military rulers have pledged to turn the Red Sea republic into a parliamentary democracy and hold general elections within six to eight months. Colonel Hussein el-Miswari said the junta planned to retire from politics after elections are held.
The Saigon command reported that North Vietnamese forces poured 400 rounds of artillery and mortar fire into government positions just southwest of Bến Cát, a district town 25 miles north of Saigon. Communist infantry assaults followed, a communiqué said, listing 66 North Vietnamese troops killed while government forces suffered seven dead and 42 wounded.
Protesting alleged racial discrimination and harsh discipline, a number of American sailors assigned to the United States aircraft carrier USS Midway in Yokosuka, Japan, have jumped ship. Estimates by Japanese police and American anti-military organizations off the base and by the men themselves put the number involved at from 20 to 200. The crew totaled about 4,000.
China has launched a new propaganda drive against Christianity and particularly the Roman Catholic Church, according to an authoritative Jesuit publication. Luigi Ladany, the Jesuits’ veteran China watcher, wrote in the current issue of La Civilta Cattolica that radio stations in Fukien and Yunnan have renewed atrocity charges against Roman Catholic missionaries.
Vandals scratched the letters I.R.A. two feet high across Rubens’ celebrated “Adoration of the Magi” in King’s College chapel at Cambridge University in Britain. Although the large painting’s surface had been damaged, the pigment did not break. “It will be an expensive job to repair,” the chapel’s dean, the Rev. Michael Till said. The painting was completed by Rubens in 1634. It was given to King’s College in 1960 by Major Alfred Allnatt, an industrialist, who had bought it two years earlier for $770,000.
The government of General Antonio di Spinola in Lisbon prepared greater restraints on the country’s news media. Portugal’s television system, which has been privately owned only in part, will be brought under complete official control and management. Regulations providing for military supervision of the press are being put into force pending promulgation of a new press law in the next few weeks.
In London, the National Front held a march through central London in support of the compulsory repatriation of immigrants. The march was to end at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square. A counter-demonstration was planned by Liberation, an anti-colonial pressure group. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the London council of Liberation had been increasingly infiltrated by hard-left political activists, and they invited several hard-left organisations to join them in the march. When the Liberation march reached Red Lion Square, the International Marxist Group (IMG) twice charged the police cordon blocking access to Conway Hall.
Police reinforcements, including mounted police and units of the Special Patrol Group, forced the rioting demonstrators out of the square. As the ranks of people moved away from the square, Kevin Gately, 20, was found unconscious on the ground. He was taken to hospital and died later that day. Two further disturbances took place in the vicinity, both involving clashes between the police and the IMG contingent. Gately was the first person to die in a public demonstration in Great Britain for at least 55 years.
Spain ousted General Manuel Diez-Alegria as head of the joint chiefs of staff, reportedly because of too much liberal similarity to Portugal’s new president, Antonio de Spinola. Diez-Alegria was replaced by Lieutenant General Carlos Fernandez Vallespin as top military officer after General Francisco Franco. The ouster had been widely expected.
More than 160 million Soviet citizens vote today in Communist-style elections in which both the candidates and government programs are presented by the authorities without possibility of change. Balloting — which consists of dropping a voting paper into a box without alteration — is to endorse 1,517 candidates for the Supreme Soviet.
Gaston Thorn took office as the 20th Prime Minister of Luxembourg after having been appointed by Jean, Grand Duke of Luxembourg on June 1.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said that India would sign a pact totally banning nuclear tests, “if everyone else agrees to it.” She declared that future nuclear pacts must not discriminate against developing nations. The premier also indicated she would like the United States to resume its aid program to India, but made it clear that she would not beg for aid.
The Organization of African Unity has pledged all necessary military and financial support to guerrilla movements in Portuguese Africa, unless Portugal agrees to grant the territories independence.
The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether a Watergate grand jury had the right to name President Nixon as a participant in the Watergate cover-up without indicting him for a crime. The Court in effect made the White House challenge to the grand jury’s action a part of the dispute between Mr. Nixon and Leon Jaworski, the special Watergate prosecutor, over access to 64 tape recordings that the President has refused to surrender. The Justices refused to unseal the record of the tapes case as it developed before Federal Judge John Sirica, except for one sentence in which the grand jury declared that there was “probable cause to believe that Richard M. Nixon (among others) was a member of the conspiracy to defraud the United States and to obstruct justice.”
President Nixon, Secretary of State Kissinger and General Alexander Haig have been subpoenaed by John Ehrlichman as defense witnesses in the “plumbers” trial due to begin June 26, well-informed sources said. They said that the subpoenas were served about 10 days ago on Fred Buzhardt, the White House counsel. Federal Judge Gerhard Gesell is reliably reported to be considering the acceptance of written interrogatories from the President in lieu of his appearance in court. He could also rule that the President’s subpoena was not relevant to Mr. Ehrlichman’s defense and quash it.
One man was killed, five were injured and six were missing after an explosion and flash fire aboard a Chevron Oil Co. rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Rescue crews called off a search for the night with little hope of finding the missing men. The fire aboard the rig, six miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River, was quickly extinguished, but there was considerable smoke and leaking oil. The dead man was identified as construction foreman Dave Davison of Mandeville, Louisiana. A Chevron spokesman said two men had been admitted to a hospital with burns and three others had been released after treatment.
Escaped killer Carl Cletus Bowles exchanged shots with FBI agents on a Eugene, Oregon, street and then eluded an army of policemen. One hundred officers made a door-to-door search over a four-square-mile area but failed to find Bowles. They arrested Joan Coberly, 24, who disappeared from a Salem motel with Bowles on May 17. Bowles, 33, had been out on a “social pass” from Oregon State Penitentiary. He was convicted in 1965 of killing an Oregon sheriff’s deputy and kidnaping California Finance Director Hale Champion and his family.
President Nixon’s tax accountant said the chief executive’s 1973 federal income tax return had been filed within the last several weeks. A 60-day extension had expired Saturday. Arthur Blech, Mr. Nixon’s accountant in Los Angeles, made the disclosure. The White House earlier had refused to say whether the return had been filed or another extension sought.
John D. Ehrlichman now plans to seek written answers from President Nixon as part of his defense in the Watergate “plumbers” trial, a well-informed source said. Earlier, he reportedly had subpoenaed the President, but the subpoena lapsed when the trial was delayed. The former chief domestic adviser to Mr. Nixon reportedly plans to try to subpoena Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Alexander M. Haig Jr., White House chief of staff, to testify as defense witnesses. Ehrlichman goes on trial June 26 with three other persons in the break-in of the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, psychiatrist to Daniel Ellsberg.
Mel Greenberg, who allegedly persuaded many women in Lexington, Virginia, to pose in the nude while pretending to be a movie producer, was arrested in Highland County, Ohio, and charged with cashing bad checks. Rockbridge County Sheriff William B. Chittum said Greenberg had told Hillsboro, Ohio, residents he was going to use that area to film a movie starring Rock Hudson. However, police found he was wanted in Lexington on bad check charges. In Lexington, Greenberg had said he was going to produce a film called “The Southern Past,” a musical comedy about the Civil War. Then he interviewed hundreds of area residents, reportedly promising many of them jobs as movie extras.
Pat Boone was ordered to pay more than $52,000 in back income taxes after a judge in Washington ruled that the entertainer could not write off losses in an Arizona land development venture. The case involved Boone’s attempts in 1965 and 1966 to save the Desert Carmel Development Corp. from bankruptcy. The judge rejected Boone’s argument that the surrender of $92,500 in debenture bonds was a business expense necessary to “protect his business reputation as an entertainer and an endorser of commercial products.”
A bill that places restrictions on New York state’s four-year-old abortion law was signed by Governor Wilson. It requires that abortions performed after the 12th week of pregnancy take place in a hospital only on an inpatient basis, and that a second physician be present during abortions performed after the 20th week of pregnancy.
In all except a few states, buyers of condominiums, which are proliferating across the country, can expect little protection against deception or fraud under the real estate laws. New York is one of the exceptions. Under what is believed to be the country’s strongest law, realty developers must make detailed disclosure statements approved in advance by the state Attorney General. It is estimated that there are fewer than 10 states with protection laws similar to New York’s. Among these are California, Michigan, Virginia and Hawaii.
Frank Serpico, the former New York City policeman whose disclosures of police corruption led to the formation of the Knapp Commission, returned from hiding in Switzerland to make a surprise political appearance. After traveling here under an assumed name, Serpico, 38, placed the name of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark in nomination for a U.S. Senate seat at a state Democratic Committee convention in Niagara Falls, New York. Serpico, whose exploits were chronicled in a book and a film bearing his name, was shot and seriously wounded in a 1971 narcotics raid and retired the following year to live abroad.
“All the President’s Men” by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward detailing their Watergate investigation is published by Simon and Schuster in the United States.
Robert Wilson, Alan Lloyd and Michael Galasso’s musical theatre work “A Letter for Queen Victoria” premieres at Caio Melisso Theater, Spoleto, Italy.
“Back Home Again” 8th studio album by John Denver is released (Billboard Album of the Year, 1975).
French Open Women’s Tennis: American teenager Chris Evert beats Olga Morozova of Russia 6–1, 6–2 for first of a record 7 French singles titles.
The USC Trojans baseball team defeated the Miami Hurricanes, 7 to 3, to win their fifth consecutive College World Series.
The California Angels sell Rudy May (0–1) to the New York Yankees where he will post an 8–4 record this year.
Baltimore beats the Chicago White Sox, 4–3, in 11 innings. Oriole Don Baylor enters the game in the 9th as a pinch runner and makes the record books with a steal and twice getting caught stealing, thanks to misplays by the Sox. Bobby Grich opens with a single and Tommy Davis singles him to third. Davis is then picked off, but an error by Dick Allen at first base allows both runners to move up. After an out, Ellie Hendricks singles Davis home and Baylor pinch runs. Baylor gets caught stealing second but second baseman Ron Santo drops the throw from Herrmann. Baylor then swipes third and, following an intentional walk to Brooks Robinson, he is caught stealing home, Herrmann unassisted. Etchebarren strikes out to end the unique frame. Baylor’s mark is a Major League record, but will be matched four times in the National League between 1987 and 1992.
At Oakland, Vida Blue allows 4 hits in 8 innings as Oakland beats the New York Yankees, 9–1. Joe Rudi has a grand slam for the A’s.
Born:
Mike Flynn, NFL center and guard (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 35, 2000; Baltimore Ravens), in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Radek Hamr, Czech NHL defenseman (Ottawa Senators), in Usti nad Labem, Czechoslovakia.
Chris Wakeland, MLB outfielder (Detroit Tigers), in Huntington Beach, California.
Chakri (stage name for Gilla Chakradhar), Indian composer for Telugu cinema; in Kambalapalli, Andhra Pradesh state, India (d. 2014).
History Diaries 