Pentagon arms sales to foreign countries hit a record high $8 billion during the last fiscal year, officials said in Washington. About half the total went to Iran, which is using soaring oil profits to build up a potent military force. Second biggest buyer was Israel at about $1 billion.
An Israeli commission of inquiry on the Ma’alot incident in which 20 Israeli students were killed has found that copies of letters in Hebrew from Arab gunmen were not relayed by Israeli officials to the cabinet in Jerusalem. The commission said the precise terms would have aided the government in deciding earlier on its options.
Arab oil ministers agreed to lift their oil embargo against the Netherlands, imposed nine months ago as a protest against support for Israel in the Middle East war. The decision came at a Cairo meeting. The embargo had been imposed nine months ago against the United States and the Netherlands as a protest against their support for Israel in the Middle East war. At the same time, the Arab oil nations cut back on production to limit supplies to the rest of Europe and to Japan. The embargo was lifted for the United States March 19 but was officially maintained against the Netherlands, although that country continued to receive substantial oil supplies.
An EgyptAir Tupolev Tu-154 (registration SU-AXO) carrying four Soviet instructors and two EgyptAir pilots on a training flight crashed near Cairo International Airport in Cairo, Egypt, killing all six on board. The aircraft was a brand-new Tupolev Tu-154, with serial number 74A-048 and manufacturing number 00-48. It was built at the Aviakor аviation plant. It was the first Tupolev Tu-154 delivered to EgyptAir, on 1 December 1973 and was named Nefertiti after the wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten. The aircraft was performing a training flight at Cairo International Airport. After three hours and 14 minutes, the aircraft performed a touch-and-go landing on the runway known as Runway 23. during the maneuver, the aircraft pitched-up before entering a stall. This caused the aircraft to crash into the ground at 17:30 local time. Investigators determined that the pilot flying had applied too many pitch-up inputs, as well as incorrect center of gravity calculations. The shifting ballasts during the flight were also contributing factors.
Iran has expressed an interest in purchasing 250 of the F‐17 lightweight fighter planes being developed by Northrop Corporation for the Air Force, Pentagon sources said today. The Iranian overtures have caused some consternation among Pentagon officials since such a purchase could complicate the competition between two American manufacturers to develop a lightweight fighter for the Air Force. In addition to the F‐17 developed by Northrop, an F‐16 has been developed by General Dynamics. The two planes are now in competitive testing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. A Defense Department decision on which plane to produce is expected early next year. Some Pentagon officials, however, have privately expressed concern that Iran, by placing a large production order for the F‐l7, could in effect decide the competition. The new fighters are expected to cost around $4‐million each.
Prominent citizens announced the formation of the American Committee on U.S.-Soviet Relations, supporting the trend toward their improvement. Founders, at a news conference, sought to combat anti-détente views of Senator Henry Jackson and others. John Kenneth Galbraith of Harvard stressed that many Democrats disputed the impression that détente belonged to the administration as a partisan issue.
Portugal’s President, Antonio de Spinola, called in Premier Adelino da Palma Carlos, who with four of his cabinet ministers had submitted their resignations, in an effort to patch up the civilian coalition government. Communists, Socialists and centrists supported the attempt since the alternative would be military rule.
Portugal’s Premier Adelino da Palma Carlos said in Lisbon he would not withdraw his resignation. unless he was given the extended powers he has demanded to run the country. President Antonio de Spinola, who conferred with Da Palma Carlos for half an hour, had no comment on the meeting. He is expected to name a new premier soon and also replace the four ministers who walked out with Da Palma Carlos Tuesday.
The Bundestag, lower house of West Germany’s parliament, voted 262 to 167 to override a veto of the upper house (the Bundesrat) and to ratify a treaty normalizing relations between West Germany and the Communist nation of Czechoslovakia. The treaty normalizing relations between West Germany and Czechoslovakia won final approval as the German parliament’s lower house voted 262 to 167 to override objections raised by the upper house. The treaty, aimed at ending the bitterness dividing the two countries since the 1938 Munich agreement destroyed the Czechoslovak republic, will take effect as soon as Bonn and Prague exchange ratification instruments.
Turkish officials say that their decision last week to resume the cultivation of opium poppies should not cause a major rift in Turkish‐American relations. In an interview here, Foreign Minister Turan Gunes said that even if Washington cut off aid to Turkey, as some Congressmen had threatened, Ankara would not “change the status” of about two dozen vital military bases maintained here under the joint command of the two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. “The friendship and alliance between the two countries is a serious thing,” said the Foreign Minister. “The Turkish Government is not irresponsible enough to show undue reaction.” However, he added, if American aid is canceled, it might cause an “unstoppable” wave of adverse opinion among Turkish politicians and the public at large. That fear is mirrored by American diplomats, who worry that the political temperature will rise in both countries and lead to a damaging series of retaliatory moves that no one really wants.
The USSR performs a nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan.
South Korean prosecutors demanded the death penalty for Kim Chi Ha, the nation’s foremost contemporary poet, and six campus and youth leaders on charges stemming from student demonstrations in Seoul in April. A special court-martial is trying 32 Koreans for activities banned by presidential edict. The poet, 33, was arrested on charges of supplying money to finance student protests and earlier for his biting poems attacking corruption and official callousness.
More than 20,000 workers in British Columbia’s forest industry were off the job after a marathon mediation effort by Provincial Labor Minister Bill King failed to end the work stoppage. A new walkout at major pulp mills threatened newsprint supplies for newspapers in the western United States. The pulp workers’ walkout was the latest expansion in a labor dispute that threatened to shut down the entire forest industry in the province.
Five Americans — including Donald Warren Carter Jr., 27, of Los Angeles, and Alfred Leroy Hicks, 54, of Oceanside, California — have been charged in Guadalajara, Mexico, in connection with a recent wave of urban terrorism, police said. The charges included criminal association, illegal possession of arms, merchandise smuggling and violation of immigration laws. They were among 44 persons arrested last week in raids on several homes in the area, police said.
Panama denounced the United States for holding onto the Panama Canal and charged it with constantly threatening world peace. “The denial by a great power of the rights of Panama is a source of international tension and a constant threat to the peace and security of the continents and the seas,” Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Ozores told the 148-nation U.N. conference on sea law.
Floods in eastern Ecuador have isolated about 14,000 persons, claimed at least 10 lives and left dozens missing, according to reports reaching Quito. Some survivors, including head-shrinking Indians of the Jivaro tribe, were clinging to treetops. Many of those trapped were in danger of starvation with food stocks for only 24 hours. Many others were reported missing in the southern regions of neighboring Colombia.
A draft staff report of the Senate Watergate Committee has disclosed what it described as additional information supporting the charge that Charles “Bebe” Rebozo gave or lent part of a $100,000 “campaign contribution” to President Nixon’s secretary and two younger brothers. It contradicted the President’s public assertions and Mr. Rebozo’s sworn statements that the money was returned to its donor.
A federal grand jury in Jacksonville indicted Senator Edward Gurney of Florida and six other men of running an influence-peddling and extortion racket since 1971. It named 39 contractors and real estate developers as unindicted co-conspirators. Two of the six men accused with Senator Gurney were officials of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Florida.
It was by President Nixon’s personal decision, White House officials disclosed, that his discussion of the Watergate cover-up in taped conversation on March 22, 1973, was not included in the White House version of the transcripts. His remarks, included in the House Judiciary Committee version released Tuesday, were said to be of “dubious relevancy” to his role in the case.
President Nixon’s sworn, written answers to six questions from John Ehrlichman’s defense in the trial over the break-in into the office of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg’s former psychiatrist were read to the jury. He was thus in effect the final witness as the defense concluded its case. He said that he had not authorized a search of the physician’s files, and that he had set up the “plumbers” unit largely to halt vital security information leaks.
Former Attorney General John Mitchell reportedly asserted he had a loss of memory on Watergate when testifying in a closed session of the House Judiciary Committee. He had been summoned by the President’s counsel, but committee members of both parties said later that his answers had been too vague to help or hurt Mr. Nixon.
Senator J. W. Fulbright said today that he had asked President Nixon and the White House chief of staff, General Alexander M. Haig, to provide information to back up Secretary of State Kissinger’s contention that he did not mislead the Foreign Relations Committee last fall about his role in the wiretapping of 17 officials and newsmen between 1969 and 1971. Early this evening, General Haig said in a telephone interview that he had told Mr. Fulbright this afternoon that “I would be pleased to testify” before the committee to support Mr. Kissinger’s previous statement. General Haig’s comments appeared to indicate that a possible confrontation between the Foreign Relations Committee and the White House would be avoided.
Senate investigators have obtained information that federal drug agents were employed by an associate of fugitive financier Robert L. Vesco to search Vesco’s home and office for hidden electronic bugs in 1972. The Vesco associate was identified as Thomas H. Richardson, president of a Los Angeles brokerage firm. The two agents involved, no longer connected with the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, were identified as Robert P. Saunders and Sergio Borquez. Jackson said investigators on his permanent investigations subcommittee have obtained statements from witnesses charging that the agents were requested to carry out the sweep by a superior. The agency also has been accused by a former government informer of sabotaging a drug investigation when he turned up evidence that Vesco was involved in a heroin smuggling scheme.
Pan American World Airways and members of the Transport Workers Union reached a tentative contract agreement in New York shortly before a midnight deadline. A Pan Am spokesman said details would not be announced pending ratification of the pact by the 11,000-member union. The union represents stewardesses, inflight personnel, mechanics, ground service workers and dispatchers.
The Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision giving Reserve Mining Co. a 70-day reprieve from an order to shut down its Silver Bay, Minnesota, iron ore processing plant. A lower court first ordered the plant closed and then a circuit court suspended that order for 70 days. Reserve dumps 67,000 tons of ground up rock into Lake Superior daily. During trial of a suit by Minnesota officials and the federal government, specialists testified that the rock contains asbestos fibers which may be injurious to health if not removed from drinking water.
A Superior Court judge in Washington, D.C., has meted out sentences of at least 140 years each against three Black Muslims convicted of murdering seven members of the Hanafi Muslim sect. John Clark, 31, Theodore Moody, 21, and William Christian, 29, were sentenced to seven consecutive life terms each. Slain in the bloodbath at the Hanafi headquarters in northwest Washington were two adults, four infants and a 10-year-old boy.
A major report on alcohol and health has found that alcoholism and related problems are costing the nation more than $25 billion a year and that most American youth are drinking at least occasionally. Lost work, medical expenses and motor vehicle accidents account for most of the economic cost, the report said.
Attempts by a local newspaper to interview the families of jurors in the multiple murder trial of Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. produced a motion for a mistrial today. District Judge Preston H. Dial Jr. questioned the jury of six men and six women about the telephone calls to their homes last night and then allowed the trial, in its third day of testimony, to continue. However, he reserved decision on request by Will Gray, Mr. Henley’s attorney, to summon reporters and jurors’ family members to see if there had been any prejudicial effect.
Mr. Henley, 18 years old, is accused of taking part in murder and torture ring in Houston that claimed the lives of 27 teen‐aged boys before its discovery last August. The youth is charged with six of the murders. The trial was transferred here from Houston because of massive media coverage of the crimes there. In questioning the jurors this morning, Judge Dial established that seven had received calls from reporters for The San Antonio Light.
A wrinkle remover company has agreed to stop advertising that its treatments are safe and effective and will now warn customers they may be risking pain and infection, the Federal Trade Commission announced. The company, Forever Young, Inc., of Denver, has been using carbolic acid to remove the outer skin layer, giving persons a temporary change in appearance, the FTC said. But the acid can be poisonous and one patient allegedly died as a result of the treatment, the agency said.
The creation of the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 35 daily papers and 3.6 million subscribers, was announced with the merger of Knight Newspapers and Ridder Publications to form Knight-Ridder Newspapers Inc. The largest of the Knight papers were the Detroit Free Press, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Miami Herald while the Ridder papers included the San Jose Mercury and News. The merger put Knight-Ridder ahead of the Tribune Company, owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Daily News of New York, and five other papers for a total circulation of 3.5 million. The company would be acquired by McClatchy in 2006.
Lines of cliffs running hundreds of miles across the surface of the planet Mercury may have been created by compression of moon‐like outer layers following the shrinkage of a dense, iron‐rich and earth‐like planetary core, American space scientists reported this week. This speculation grew from the scientists’ detailed examination of 1,800 photographs of the lighted half of Mercury. The photographs were taken last March 29 to April 3 by Mariner 10, the first spacecraft to approach Mercury. The lines of cliffs, or scarps, cutting across some crater walls and interrupted by other craters, were said to be unlike any features on either the moon or on Mars.
The World Football League (WFL), a 12-team challenger to then 26-team National Football League played its first games, with the earliest (at 8:00 pm EST) being the Philadelphia Bell defeating the visiting Portland Storm, 33 to 8, before a crowd alleged to be 55,534 paying customers, and the Florida Blazers beating the Honolulu Hawaiians, 8 to 7 in Orlando. Rich Szaro of Philadelphia scored the first points, kicking a 27-yard field goal.
Bill Bergey, free of a World Football League commitment, was traded within the National Football League today, going from the Cincinnati Bengals to the Philadelphia Eagles for three future draft choices. The trade silenced a squabble between the Bengals and Bergey, a 6‐foot‐3‐inch, 243‐pound middle linebacker, over his jump to the W.F.L.’s Florida Blazers, effective with the 1976 season. Coach Paul Brown said Bergey went to the Eagles “with no strings attached. Bill had not received his July 1 bonus payment from the W.F.L. Orlando team, and Orlando was willing to release its contract with Bergey.”
Changing the script of some of their recent victories, in which they had staged early uprisings to gain strangleholds on the outcomes, the New York Yankees tonight stormed back in the closing innings to gain a 9–4 triumph over the Kansas City Royals. Kept hitless — indeed completely off the bases — by Marty Pattin for the first five innings, New York trailed at that point, 4–0. But then, paced by Bobby Murcer and Thurman Munson, the Yankees awakened to gain another power‐packed success. Murcer had a pair of two‐run homers.
Dwight Evans stole home on a successful double steal in Boston’s two‐run fourth inning, and Reggie Cleveland held the Texas Rangers to six hits in posting his seventh victory, as the Red Sox won, 3–1. Cleveland, who had yielded 125 hits in 108 innings, blanked the Rangers the first seven innings but lost his shutout in the eighth when Cesar Tovar singled home Lenny Randle, who had doubled. David Clyde was the loser, 3–6.
The Chicago Cubs, shocked by six Cincinnati homers on Tuesday, retaliated with three runs in the second inning, then added six more in the eighth, three of them on Andre Thornton’s homer, as they blew out the Reds, 11–3. Bill Bonham, with relief from Oscar Zamora, recorded his fourth triumph in his last five decisions to raise his won‐lost record to 8–11.
The San Francisco Giants beat the Montreal Expos, 4–2. Despite Montreal’s 10 hits, the Giants beat the Expos with a three‐run rally in the third. Jim Barr was the generous Giant pitcher but he managed to hold on for his fifth victory in 10 decisions.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 762.12 (-10.17, -1.32%).
Born:
(Idalmis) Marina Vidal, American actress, journalist and beauty queen (Miss Florida 1996), in Miami, Florida.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, British film and stage actor (“Twelve Years a Slave”), in London, England, United Kingdom.
Imelda May [Higham, née Clabby], Irish rockabilly singer-songwriter, guitarist and bodhrán player (“It’s Good to Be Alive”; “Mayhem”), in Dublin, Ireland.
Andy Haase, NFL tight end (New York Giants), in Odessa, Washington.
Died:
Nancy Wickwire, 48, American daytime television actress known for “As the World Turns” (1960–1964), “Another World” (1969–1971) and “Days of Our Lives” (1972–1973), died of cancer.
History Diaries 