The South Vietnamese government charged that the Việt Cộng attempted to sabotage provincial and local elections with the highest number of terrorist attacks in 17 months. A government spokesman said 24 civilians were killed and 120 wounded in the attacks, mostly shellings and actions against polling places. The Saigon military command said 276 violations of the cease-fire — 112 of them listed as directly related to the elections — were reported by this morning. Final returns were not expected until later today, but political sources expected President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu’s Democracy Party to capture a majority of the 478 local council seats.
Resting under close medical care in his residence in Vientiane, Laos, Prince Souvanna Phouma, the 72‐year‐old neutralist Premier, was reported to be still conscious today after suffering a heart attack Friday afternoon. Vientiane was subdued as leading political figures attempted to come to grips with the major crisis presented by the illness of the Premier, who has played a crucial mediating role in Laos’s three‐month‐old coalition Government. Prince Souphanouvong, the ailing Premier’s half‐brother and the senior Pathet Lao member of the coalition Government, flew from Luang Prabang, the royal capital, this morning with a vast entourage of aides and bodyguards.
The Soviet Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda chided Japan today for continuing to permit the operation of American bases and aerial reconnaissance units on Okinawa. The article appeared to be an indirect response to a request by the Japanese Foreign Ministry last Friday that the Soviet Union cancel a shelling and bombing exercise scheduled to begin tomorrow in waters near Japan. Japanese sources here said that ordinarily the Soviet Union simply ignored Japanese representations concerning such firing exercises. Tokyo has told Moscow that the projected target practice would pose serious problems for Japanese fishing vessels and other ships. The Soviet article, clearly intended to reduce the moral force of the Japanese complaint, also seemed aimed at encouraging Japanese and Okinawan critics of the American presence on the island to push for the removal of the bases.
The United States Government was urged yesterday to protest “the injustice and the inhumanity” of President Park Chung Hee’s acts in South Korea and to limit further aid to that country. A statement signed by 35 prominent Americans and Koreans resident in the United States said they had watched with “mounting distress the acts of President Park Chung Hee which have systematically sought to eradicate all criticism or protest against his dictatorial rule.” Last week 14 persons were sentenced to death in Seoul by South Korean courts‐martial, and others to long prison terms for organizing student demonstrations and other anti‐Government activities.
It was parade of men, not machines, on this Bastille Day of 1974. It was decorative and festive rather than grimly military, a vivid splash of cockades, plumes, fringed epaulets, spats, bicornes, and berets — an old‐fashioned march past decreed by France’s new President, Valery Giscard d’Estaing. And, for the first time since 1945, the July 14 parade was returned; from the fashionable Champs‐Élysées, to the site of its revolutionary origins the Place de la Bastille in a densely populated working‐class district of Paris. Gone were the drab and forbidding tanks, missile launchers and armored vehicles that had rumbled in increasing numbers down from the Arc de Triomphe in recent years. By presidential order, the 13,000 marchers trooped past on foot, with the horse-mounted, helmeted Garde Republicain clattering ahead of them.
General Francisco Franco, 81, is continuing his recovery from an 11-day-old attack of phlebitis in his right leg and medication has been reduced, his doctors reported. He heard Mass in his Madrid hospital suite, the hospital said. Phlebitis is a circulatory ailment that also has plagued President Nixon.
Bombs exploded in the northern England industrial cities of Manchester and Birmingham, police reported. Two persons were injured when a bomb went off in a downtown Manchester building. Police said telephoned warnings were made shortly before the blast. In Birmingham, a bomb ripped through a 20-story office building but no one was reported injured. Police said a man telephoned prior to the blast, using a special code word employed in the past by the Irish Republican Army to identify genuine bomb warnings.
Treasury Secretary William Simon began three days of talks with Egyptian officials on the question of how to make Egypt safe and attractive for American and other foreign capital. He conferred for more than two hours with Deputy Premier Abdel Aziz Hegazi, who explained the structure of the Egyptian economy. Mr. Hegazi assured him that the foreign-investment liberalization measures recently adopted in Egypt are far-reaching, members of Mr. Simon’s delegation said.
A five-man team from the U.S. Defense Department arrived in Cairo to study the results of the October war. They will visit the Egyptian 2nd Army and 3rd Army on the Suez Canal front. The group, led by Army Lieutenant General John Hennessey, will also visit air force, air defense and naval units. It is scheduled to leave Egypt July 23.
The armed forces, which have seized control of Ethiopia, said they would not return to barracks until widespread reform has been achieved. “We will not go back until we liberate the whole of Ethiopia or until everything in the country has been cleared up,” the Armed Forces Committee said on the government-controlled Radio Ethiopia.
Iranian firing squads have executed 239 drug peddlers in 22 years, the government announced. It added that the country’s narcotics traffic has been halved. The government also announced a new committee of six cabinet ministers to assist smuggling and addiction. in the campaign against narcotics.
Indian farmers in the Punjab pleaded with a government minister yesterday for more fertilizer, and in the state of Uttar Pradesh, officials expressed fear that dwindling wheat supplies would not reach government shops in cities. In New Delhi, government reserves of food have ebbed to the lowest point in years. The monsoon rains are sporadic and late, fertilizer and power for electricity are scarce and the government authorities are anxious about the impact of the threatened world food shortage on this perennially needy nation of 570 million. The food minister, Chidambara Subramaniam, appealed yesterday to farmers in the Punjab, the most productive wheat state, to bring out all their marketable surplus. He said that otherwise mass hunger would strike India and that no outside nation could now feed “this elephant of teeming millions.” In turn, the farmers asked the Minister for emergency supplies of fertilizers or chemical nutrients, whose costs have more than tripled in a year.
[Ed: Modern fertilizers are petrochemicals. The Oil Crisis, caused by rising global demand, and the politicalization of pricing by Arab nations, in response to the Yom Kippur War of 1973, has had deep effects on the global economy, including the price of fertilizer and food.]
British Columbia pulp and paper workers headed back to their jobs after tentative settlement of a labor dispute. They produce newsprint and other products. But a group of striking forest workers of the International Woodworkers of America urged other members not to return to their jobs despite the fact that their negotiators have accepted a contract offer from management.
More than 100 Americans and other foreigners continued their hunger strike at two Mexico City prisons to protest alleged unresponsiveness of their governments to their complaints of torture and forced confessions. At the Lecumberri men’s prison one of the 76 strikers was removed to the prison infirmary, prison sources said. They identified him as Robert E. Hanavan, 24, of Hollywood, Florida.
United Nations appeals for food for seven drought‐stricken nations at the southern edge of the Sahara are being met, relief officials in Lagos, Nigeria report. The officials say that more than a million tons of food, or slightly more than had been asked for at the beginning of this year, is being transported to aid the 25 million people of Chad, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania. Niger, Senegal and Upper Volta. The food shipments are mostly of sorghum and corn. While the total food available is thought to be adequate, officials are reluctant to declare that the emergency in the region has ended, African and international relief workers are not relaxing their efforts in this second consecutive summer of large‐scale aid, for they face complex logistical problems.
“There is the problem of getting food from ports to capital cities, then to village distribution points and then to even smaller distribution centers,” K. A. P. Stevenson, director of the United Nations office for relief operations in the area, said. “For the smaller distribution centers, we must have four‐wheel‐drive vehicles, and if the rains come for’ five or six days straight, even our four‐wheel-drive vehicles are useless for a time.”
Seven hostages who had been held by two armed convicts for nearly three days in the basement cell block of the Federal District Courthouse in Washington escaped by using an elevator key smuggled to them in a box of sanitary napkins. After the escape, the convicts reportedly agreed to surrender if they were transferred from the District of Columbia jail to another one. But an impasse developed as they imposed additional demands that were rejected.
Baltimore’s Police Commissioner, Donald Pomerleau, announced last night that striking policemen would be dismissed unless they returned to work immediately. His “no general amnesty” statement came while city officials and union negotiators for the 8,000 striking municipal employees were reportedly “exploring new ideas” to settle the spreading walkout.
Informed government sources said that both Congress and the Justice Department were reluctant to pursue allegations of corruption in the Immigration and Naturalization Service because of adverse information about Congressmen, legislative staff members, a federal judge and certain officials of the executive branch. Representative Chet Holifield, California Democrat and chairman of the House Government Operation Committee, has reportedly made it clear that the inquiry is not to proceed to the point of embarrassing members of Congress.
The Internal Revenue Service is investigating an offer made in 1972 by Michele Sindona, the Italian financier who is the largest single shareholder in the troubled Franklin National Bank, to contribute $1 million to the Committee to Re-elect the President, according to information obtained from government sources. The. I.R.S. reportedly wants to know whether the contribution was ever made and where Mr. Sindona, who controls an empire of banks, holding companies and other interests, planned to obtain the funds.
The Administration is considering killing the GI Bill of Rights for future veterans, congressional and Administration sources said. The officials emphasized that no consideration was being given to cutting benefits for those who have already served, but they cited three reasons for not extending the bill: wartime service is no longer involved; the men now entering the service are volunteers, not draftees, and because of large pay increases, a serviceman now receives a salary commensurate with civilian wages.
About 1,600 members of the International Association of Machinists went on strike at midnight against National Airlines while contract talks continued. Earlier, the union had said that while there was “movement on a few items,” progress was “slowed.” An airline spokesman said no decision had been reached on whether the line would attempt to continue operations during a strike. The contract expired last September 1. A union spokesman said issues included a shorter work week, holidays, vacations, shift premiums, cost of living, wages and other items. Mechanics currently earn $6.60 an hour, which is about $1 lower than other airlines, a union spokesman said.
A strike for higher pay by more than 2,000 prison guards and other blue-collar state employees of Ohio was sanctioned by the Teamsters, one of three unions with members on strike. Walkouts over legislative inaction on wage increases began July 6 and have spread to seven prisons and five mental health centers. There were indications the strike might spread to other state facilities today.
Ted Bundy’s murder victims Janice Ott and Denise Naslund disappear, at Lake Sammamish, Washington. Bundy was charming when he asked for help getting unhooking his boat from his tan VW Bug. Most of the young ladies refused for some reason or another, but petite, blonde Janice Ott eagerly accompanied the young man to his car. She was never seen again. Four hours later, beautiful brunette Denise Naslund argued with her boyfriend then went off to use the park’s public restroom. Her friends, dog, and boyfriend waited for her until the park closed, then called the police when she didn’t return. Later, Denise’s mother was interviewed by the police and told them Denise was not in the habit of leaving on her own. Bundy was asked about these crimes while in prison in Florida. He told investigators that Ott was still alive when he kidnapped Naslund and one was forced to watch as he murdered the other.
Utah joined Massachusetts as the second state to announce it was nearly out of blood. In Massachusetts, 130 of 172 hospitals had no blood in stock and “they’re in a state of panic,” a Red Cross spokesman said. In Utah, the spokesman added, “If there was a plane or bus accident, there would be just nothing we could do.” Blood banks in many other areas reported they were experiencing some shortage, which many described as seasonal. The supply frequently dips at this time of year when regular donors are on vacation.
An estimated $5.4 million in easily cashed securities are missing from a New York City vault, according to an independent audit, but it was unclear if the securities had been stolen. “Theft is one possibility, but not the only one,” said a spokesman for City Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin, who commissioned the audit. The (city’s) record books “could be wrong or there could be another explanation,” he said. The audit found in the vault securities worth about $1 million that had not been recorded, Goldin’s office said. The audit was to check procedures for handling the nearly $10 billion in securities, cash and mortgages in custody of the comptroller and the Finance Administration.
At least two persons were killed as a sudden thunderstorm raced through the Chicago area, capsizing boats on Lake Michigan, driving thousands of persons from the beaches and causing heavy damage at O’Hare International Airport. One woman drowned when a boat capsized in Lake Michigan about four miles off shore and the Coast Guard was swamped with distress calls from boaters. Another was killed when a tree collapsed on a van.
General Carl Spaatz, an aviation pioneer who became the first Chief of Staff of the Air Force, died at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington at the age of 83. General Spaatz was appointed the Air Force Chief of Staff by President Harry S. Truman in 1947.
In the finals of the 1974 FIBA World Championship basketball competition, played in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Soviet Union won its second title. Rather than a knock-out tournament, the final was a round-robin of 8 teams (Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Soviet Union, Spain, the U.S., and Yugoslavia) playing against each other. Despite that, the decisive game was the Soviet Union’s 105 to 94 win over the United States. Since the Soviets, the Americans and the Yugoslavian team each finished with records of 6 wins and one loss, the medals were “decided on the goal average in the three games among each other.”
Mario Andretti was a 13.57‐second victor over Brian Redman of England in the Formula 5000 race that was the highlight of the windup of the Five Star weekend, at Watkins Glen in New York. It was his first road‐course victory in this country in more than three years.
The Boston Red Sox bounded from third place to first as Luis Tiant hurled a seven‐hitter against the California Angels for his 13th triumph and his 11th in 13 decisions since mid‐May. He also picked up his fourth shutout of the year as the Red Sox won, 3–0. The Angels, who had won a pair of decisions from the Red Sox after losing 11 in a row, helped Boston to all of its runs. In the second inning, Joe Lahoud misplayed Tim Blackwell’s fly ball into a triple, allowing Rico Petrocelli to score from first. In the next inning, Bernie Carbo’s long fly to center field was misjudged by Mickey Rivers, and the hit scored Cecil Cooper from first. Petrocelli tallied again in the eighth after leading off with a base on balls. He moved to third on two groundouts and scored when Dave Chalk booted Tommy Harper’s hard grounder.
In a split with the Milwaukee Brewers, the Texas Rangers’ Billy Martin is the first American League manager to be tossed by umpires from 2 games in one day. Milwaukee wins 9–2 in game 1, with the Rangers winning the nightcap, 5–4. Martin and Pete Broberg, his pitcher, were both ejected in the opener over “brushback” pitches thrown at Milwaukee batters. Martin was also thrown out of the second game for protesting a called third strike.
The Chicago White Sox knocked Baltimore out of first place, winning 3–1, as Bill Melton pounded a two‐run homer in the first and Stan Bahnsen, with help from Rich Gossage, contained the Oriole attack. Bahnsen, who won for the first time in three weeks, blanked the Orioles for seven innings, then, was bailed out of serious trouble by Gossage in the eighth. Melton’s blast, following a single by Carlos May, ended Ross Grimsley’s streak of six complete‐game victories.
The New York Yankees, trying to come up in the standings, got their comeuppance instead yesterday at Shea Stadium. The Oakland A’s, who, it seems, play only as hard as necessary to win the pennant, finally rose up and smote their New York tormentors twice, 7–3 and 6–1, before 42,915 sun‐drenched fans. Winners of six of the seven previous contests they had played with the world champions, the Yankees outhit the A’s, 14–13, during the long afternoon. But the Yanks also had more errors, which in the long, run was what cost them two ball games and ended their winning streak at six.
The Houston Astros’ Bob Gallagher drives in Milt May in the bottom of the 12th for a 7–6 win over the Chicago Cubs. It rains indoors! Workers forget to replace some tiles in the Astrodome roof and an evening downpour creates puddles in right and center fields while showering a few lucky outfield ticket-holders who are handed plastic trash bags for shelter.
The Atlanta Braves blanked the St. Louis Cardinals, 7–0. Phil Niekro scattered five hits for his ninth victory and first since June 17. His main support came from Davey Johnson, who hammered a three-run homer. Hank Aaron, making his final appearance in St. Louis as an active player, received an ovation his first time at bat. He has hit 90 of his 725 home runs off St. Louis pitching.
The Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates split a doubleheader at Three Rivers Stadium marked by a free–for–all which is later credited with inspiring Pittsburgh and turning its season around. The fight starts in game 2 after a 4th inning beanball when Jack Billingham plunks pitcher Bruce Kison, bringing both teams onto the field. When Sparky Anderson accidentally steps on Ed Kirkpatrick’s foot, the Buc catcher shoves the Reds manager, earning him a punch from the Reds Andy Kosko. Pedro Borbon pins Daryl Patterson, pulling his hair out and a piece of flesh, and biting him. The Pirates win the nightcap, 2–1, after losing the opener, 3–2.
Born:
Nathan Dempsey, Canadian NHL defenseman (Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Blackhawks, Los Angeles Kings, Boston Bruins), in Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada.
David Mitchell, British comedian and actor, 2009 BAFTA award winner; in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Died:
Sibyl Hathaway, 90, hereditary ruler of the island of Sark in Britain’s Channel Islands since 1927, died after a short illness. Dame Sibyl, described as the leader of “Europe’s last feudal fiefdom” by the Associated Press, had absolute authority on an island with “no automobiles, no taxes, no labor unions or strikes and almost no crime.” She was succeeded by her grandson, Michael Beaumont.
General Carl Spaatz, 83, retired Air Force four-star general and the first Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force.
Janice Ott, 23, murdered by Ted Bundy at Lake Sammamish State Park, Washington.
Denise Naslund, 19, murdered by Ted Bundy at Lake Sammamish State Park, Washington.
A. E. Barit, 83, American industrialist who was CEO and president of Hudson Motor Car Company and oversaw its 1954 merger with Nash Motors to create American Motors Corporation.
Elizabeth Reller, 60, American radio actress best known as the star of (with Don Ameche) of “Betty and Bob” on the NBC Blue Network (later ABC), as well as CBS and the NBC Red Network.
History Diaries 