The position of the United Nations peace-keeping force in Cyprus, which numbered 2,300 men when the Turks invaded the island, is both ignominious and ineffectual. Greek and Turkish Cypriote civilians criticize the inability of the United Nations group to prevent forced detentions, arson, looting, the displacement of persons, and other violations of human rights. The major disillusionment has been the refusal of the Turkish military to allow the United Nations to extend protection to Greek Cypriot refugees trapped in the sector occupied by Turkish troops. General Prem Chand, who commands the United Nations force, said: “We can do nothing more than the parties are willing to have us do — we are not an occupation army that can impose itself.”
Greek Cypriots from small villages around Kyrenia told stories today of murder, rape and looting by the Turkish Army after its invasion of Cyprus. The villagers are among 20,000 civilians driven from their homes by the Turks along the northern coast of the island. One ashen‐faced man told tearfully how his wife and two young children were shot before his eyes by Turkish soldiers who rounded up villagers before shooting them. A married woman whose husband was shot by the Turks and young girl who saw her fiancé shot told how they were then raped at gunpoint by Turkish soldiers.
After two weeks of living under Turkish occupation with shortages of food and facing constant harassment, more than 600‐villagers from Ayios Yeórios, Trimithi and Karmi were deported by the Turks to the Green Line, which separates Greek and Turkish communities, here Saturday. More than 100 men between the ages of 16 and 65 from the villages were herded off to prisoner‐ofwar camps by the Turks. Since the invasion began Greek Cypriots in the Kyrenia area have fled in thousands to friends and relatives in other parts of the island, Those presented to journalists were among a group who are being cared for in an orphanage just across from the Hilton Hotel in Nicosia. Like the rest they fled with the clothes they wore and a few bare essentials.
In another development, Turkish Cypriot leaders accused the Greek Cypriots of killing civilians, looting houses and executing 30 men by firing squad in the early days of the fighting. The charge came a day after President Glafkos Clerides, in a letter to world leaders and international organizations, accused the Turkish invasion force of committing atrocities.
Progress was reported by Turkish and Greek military delegates tonight toward establishment of a cease‐fire line, but heavy firing broke out around the encircled Turkish quarter of Famagusta. After a helicopter carried the Turkish and Greek military representatives to the eastern end of the occupied Turkish sector of the island, a communiqué said that “provisional agreement was reached on a substantial part of the demarcation line, subject to the approval of the Greek and Turkish authorities.” This was the first sign of agreement on a cease‐fire line that could lead to a separation of forces under the supervision of the United Nations peacekeeping force here. Turkish and Greek military delegates are now in their fourth day of talks under the chairmanship of Colonel Jerry Hunter of the British Army. Britain, Turkey and Greece are the guarantors of the independence of Cyprus under the treaty of 1960 that gave Cyprus independence after 80 years of British colonial rule.
The reports of heavy shooting in Famagusta, off the southern coast, indicated an important break of the cease‐fire. The truce has been effective for the last two days despite sporadic shooting on the western side of the Turkish‐occupied sector around Lapithos and the mountain villages of Larnaca and Siskipos. In this sector, the military delegates said, the agreement on a demarcation line was “under active consideration.” A new meeting was scheduled for tomorrow morning. There are reportedly within the walls of the old city of Famagusta, 10,000 Turkish Cypriots, many of them refugees from surrounding Turkish communities that were overrun by the Greek Cypriot National Guard. The firing in Famagusta included mortars and artillery, according to witnesses, as well as heavy machine‐gun and rifle fire.
Four bombs apparently set by Spanish extremists exploded in Brussels, shattering windows of office buildings and injuring several people. The largest blast was outside the downtown offices of Spain’s National Iberia Air Lines. Police said they found pamphlets signed by the internationalist Revolutionary Action Group at the site of two of the explosions. The group has staged a number of protests against the Spanish government.
A neo-Fascist terrorist group in Italy called the Black Order left a note in a phone booth in Bologna claiming responsibility for the bomb explosion that took 12 lives on an express train traveling through a tunnel between Florence and Bologna. Italy’s powerful leftist-dominated unions denounced the bombing and backed demands for tough action with a series of protest strikes. Union leaders in the province of Bologna had earlier called for an eight-hour general strike.
Yugoslavian dissident writer Mihajlo Mihajlov, author of “Moscow Summer” and “Russian Themes,” both of which were published in the West, appealed personally to President Tito for intervention after a court ordered him out of his apartment at Novi Sad, 45 miles northwest of Belgrade. Mihajlov was ordered evicted from his apartment on grounds he did not fulfill title requirements.
A Palestinian guerrilla leader underscored the deteriorating relations between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Arab governments today, criticizing King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and warning against attempts to sabotage the guerrilla movement’s position in Lebanon. The guerrilla leader, Salah Khalaf, better known as Abou Iyad, spoke At the opening session here of a five‐day conference by the Palestinian Women’s Union. Abou Iyad, who is the second in command of the largest guerrilla organization, Al Fatah, declared: “We tell Faisal ‘no’ strongly as we told it to Sadat.” He was commenting on reports from Cairo that the Saudi King, who is on a visit to Egypt, has praised President Anwar el‐Sadat for an agreement with King Hussein of Jordan recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization as the representative of all Palestinians outside Jordan.
Indian Army units have been alerted to deal with the deteriorating flood situation in parts eastern Assam State and West Bengal State, a Government spokesman said today. Military and civilian rescue teams were working to evacuate thousands of marooned villagers as swollen rivers rushed down the Himalayan Mountains, claiming lives, destroying crops and causing other damage in the four northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam. More than 3,000 villages have been inundated in Assam alone by the Brahmaputra River. The authorities described the situation as critical, and estimated that 50 persons had lost their lives in the four states because of the flooding. Unofficial reports put the death toll at more than 100.
Floods have plagued Bangladesh for 50 days. The flooding and a related cholera outbreak have claimed more than 500 lives, inundated nearly half of the nation’s land area and caused more than $600‐million of damage.
Two San Francisco taxi drivers began the eighth week of a hunger strike in Calcutta and reportedly vowed to starve themselves to death unless they received an immediate public trial on spying charges. Richard Winn Harcos, 27, a Vietnam veteran, and Anthony Allen Fletcher, 30, have been imprisoned more than 15 months on suspicion of espionage. Harcos was arrested April 26, 1973, in a restricted area of the Calcutta docks dressed in scuba gear. Fletcher was seized thereafter in a downtown Calcutta hotel. Neither has been formally charged.
The United States Embassy in Saigon was criticized by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for adhering too closely to the official Saigon government line in its reports to Washington. “Over the years,” a committee staff study on Vietnam said, “the American Embassy in Saigon has acquired a reputation, among both official and unofficial observers, for close identification with the policies of the South Vietnamese government and for selective reporting,” and added that “these same tendencies are apparent today.” U.S. Embassy officials in Saigon have doctored their reports to Washington on cease-fire violations and declining government security in South Vietnam, a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff study charged. It cited deletions in reports from U.S. consul generals to screen out adverse news, downplaying field reports of weakening government authority. The pattern of reporting from the Saigon Embassy, headed by Ambassador Graham Martin, was to minimize South Vietnam cease-fire violations and to play up Saigon military successes, the study claimed.
Counter-attacking South Vietnamese rangers recaptured two of 11 outposts lost in bloody weekend fighting on the approaches to Đà Nẵng, but military spokesmen said two key towns there are still in “imminent danger.” Casualties were listed as 208 Communists and 30 government troops killed, with 98 government troops wounded and 25 missing. Fresh fighting was reported on a broad front west and south of Đà Nẵng, second largest city in South Vietnam.
Fighting between Philippine government troops and Muslim rebels has spread to the outskirts of the southern port city of Davao, travelers from there reported in Manila. Davao, a city of almost 400,000 located 600 miles southeast of Manila, had been untouched by violence since the rebels took up arms in September, 1972. A military spokesman in Manila said he had no information on the reports.
A Santiago, Chile, military judge today commuted death sentences given to three Air Force men and a civilian by a court martial last week. The three Air Force men and Charles Lazos Frias, a member of the Socialist party of Salvador Allende Gossens and former vice president of the state bank, had been sentenced to death for treason and sedition by their support of the late president, who was deposed in a coup last September. Dr. Allende died in that coup. The judge, Jose Berdichevski, an Air Force general, commuted the death sentences to prison terms of 30 years for each of the four men. They were among 56 airmen and seven civilians sentenced to penalties ranging from 300 days in jail to death. The three airmen and Mr. Lazos were accused of masterminding attempts to create leftwing cells in the Air Force.
The “Smoking Gun” tape is released. U.S. President Richard Nixon released transcripts of three conversations between himself and the former White House Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, on June 23, 1972, six days after the Watergate break-in. One of the transcripts showed that Nixon had ordered that the Federal Bureau of Investigation halt its inquiry into the case.
In a sharp setback to his fight against impeachment, President Nixon admitted that six days after the Watergate burglary he ordered a halt to the investigation of the break-in for political as well as national security reasons and that kept the evidence from his lawyers and supporters on the House Judiciary Committee. He said this in a statement accompanying the release of transcripts of three conversations of June 23, 1972, which he said might further damage his case against impeachment.
Six days after the Watergate break-in, President Nixon, informed that his campaign director had urged the illegal bugging operation, ordered that the Federal Bureau of Investigation be told, “Don’t go any further into this case!” He gave the order to H.R. Haldeman on June 23, 1972, according to a transcript of the conversation, one of three made public by the President today. Mr. Haldeman began the 90-minute meeting with the President by telling him that the F.B.I. “is not under control.”
Nixon also released a statement saying that after he listened to the June 23 conversations, “Although I recognized that these presented potential problems, I did not inform my staff or my counsel of it… This was a serious act of omission for which I take full responsibility and which I deeply regret.” He added that “a House vote on impeachment is, as a practical matter, virtually a foregone conclusion, and that the issue will therefore go to trial in the Senate.”.
“I just think he loses. I just think everything is downhill,” said Senator Robert Dole of Kansas, one of the key Republican Senators who said they believed that President Nixon’s release of more Watergate transcripts would weaken his defense in what they expect may be an expedited Senate trial. Senator Robert Griffin of Michigan, who early in the day had called on President Nixon to resign, expressed disappointment that he seemed determined to force a Senate trial.
Many of President Nixon’s strongest supporters in Congress withdrew their support after the transcripts’ release, including Representative Charles E. Wiggins of California, Nixon’s most prominent defender on the House Judiciary Committee, who said he would now vote for impeachment on the charge of obstruction of justice.
Representative Charles Wiggins, President Nixon’s strongest defender during the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry, and many other influential Republicans announced that they would vote for impeachment. Representative Tip O’Neill, the House Democrat leader, predicted that not more than 75 of the 435 Representatives would vote against impeachment. His estimate was unchallenged by those who had supported the President until today.
At 10:24 in the morning, the roof of a U.S. government office building in downtown Miami, Florida, collapsed, killing 7 employees of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and injuring 15 others. An inspection would later conclude that materials used in resurfacing of a parking lot on top of the building, as well as salt and sand, had eroded and weakened the supporting steel structure.
The withering summer drought, already costing ranchers and farmers in 16 states billions of dollars in crop and livestock losses, could spread to other states and almost certainly will result in higher food prices, farm state officials said. Already several governors have requested that their states be declared disaster areas. Texas and Kansas reported losses of $2 billion each. Nebraska estimated a $2.23 billion loss, Illinois about $1.6 billion and Ohio over $300 million. Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz said in Washington that too many people are panicking in the face of the drought.
New government figures included in an annual income review published by the Department of Agriculture show that 109,000 super farms with sales of $100,000 or more each year turned out nearly one half of the nation’s food and fiber last year. At the same time, the review revealed, small farms with sales of only $2,500 or less produced a declining share of U.S. farm goods. The report also disclosed that the per capita disposable personal income of farmers in 1973 rose to $4,820 on a farm per-capita basis, compared with $3,153 in 1972.
U.S. District Judge Santiago E. Campos said in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he would order the U.S. Army to allow a group to search for a fabled cache of gold on the White Sands Missile Range. Campos said that should they find the Victorio Peak treasure — said by some to be valued as high as $250 billion — they would be required to place it in his custody. “The fragrance of a lost or abandoned treasure is an exciting one,” Campos said. “It should be found so the excitement can die.”
FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley said Americans should be more concerned by the rising U.S. crime rate than by government invasion of privacy. “I would suggest that, to a man looking down the business end of a robber’s pistol, the supposed menace posed by the FBI’s computerized files would seem remote indeed,” Kelley said in a speech prepared for a meeting of the National District Attorneys Association in Lake Ozark, Missouri. There are proposals before Congress to limit the use of the crime data bank.
[Ed: Who has killed more people in the past century — common criminals or governments? If you know, You Know.]
Peter Leonard, 22, pleaded innocent to all charges, including 24 counts of murder, in an indictment stemming from a June 30 fire at Gulliver’s Discotheque in Port Chester on the New York-Connecticut border. He was arraigned in a Westchester County, New York, court where further motions in the case were set for August 16. More than 30 persons were injured in addition to the 24 killed.
Four steel companies and four of their officials were indicted by a grand jury in Tampa, Florida, on charges of violating antitrust laws by conspiring to distribute contracts among the firms during a 12-year period. The contracts involved use of steel reinforcing bars among the firms between 1960 and 1972. Named as defendants in the Sherman antitrust action were: Bethlehem Steel Corp. of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Richard E. Volland, product supervisor in Tampa; Florida/Steel Corp. of Tampa, Edward, L. Flom, company president and Frank W. Hunsberger, a former vice president and member of the board of directors; Laclede Steel Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, and David L. Hoffman, district manager for Tampa; and Owen Steel Co. Jacksonville, Florida.
A 2‐year old girl fell 10 stories and lived yesterday, after locking her mother out of their Harlem apartment, the police said. The girl, Sharay Vaughan, of 212 West 129th Street, apparently landed in a clump of bushes. She was treated at Harlem Hospital for a broken ankle. A hospital spokesman said the child had been placed in the pediatric intensive careunit “as a precaution.” He said she was listed in condition because it was standard procedure to list children involved in serious accidents as “critical.” The girl’s mother, Mary, left the apartment to take out the trash when her daughter playfully slammed the door, locking her out. The girl fell while her mother was attempting to reenter the flat.
Joan Jett forms her rock group Runaways in England.
The comic strip Tank McNamara, created by Jeff Millar and Bill Hinds, made its debut with distribution by United Press Syndicate. Billed as a satire on the American obsession with organized sports, the strip commented on the sports world through its title character, a former pro football player who had become a TV sports newscaster.
The sport of dogs catching flying discs (including the Wham-O Frisbee) gained national exposure in the U.S. when a 19-year-old college student, Alex Stein, brought his dog, Ashley Whippet, onto the field at Dodger Stadium for an unauthorized interruption of a nationally televised baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the visiting Cincinnati Reds. Prior to the start of the ninth inning a crowd of 51,062 fans and millions of NBC viewers watched the whippet dog catch four out of five tosses with high leaps; the Dodgers won, 6 to 3. The crowd roars and the two are caught on NBC cameras, initiating a disc craze. The game is stopped and Joe Garagiola announces the disc–tossing exhibition. Stein, who snuck his dog into the stadium, is arrested when he leaves the field. He goes on to start the Disc Dog competition.
30‐year‐old New York Yankees left‐hander Rudy May, making his first start since coming off the disabled list last Thursday, subdued the Boston Red Sox with a two‐hitter that kept the crowd of 20,367 at Shea Stadium in a high state of ebulliency as the Yankees pounded out an 8–0 triumph.
At Dodger Stadium, Steve Yeager belts a 7th–inning grand slam as the Dodgers turn back the Reds, 6–3. Doug Rau goes 7 innings for the win. The Dodgers now lead the National League Western Division by 7½ games.
Greg Gross raps five singles to lead the Houston Colts over the San Francisco Giants, 7–2. In fact, it might have been Singles Night since 18 of Houston’s 19 hits are the one-base variety. Pitcher Don Wilson has the double and two singles to help himself. Milt May drives in three.
The Montreal Expos jumped on Tom Seaver, the Mets’ two-time Cy Young Award pitcher, for six hits, five walks and four runs. But a counterattack led by Tug McGraw brought victory to New York by the score of 10–4, the Mets’ fifth straight over the Expos. Seaver was trailing, 4‐2, when Ken Boswell pinch‐hit for him in the seventh inning and hit a two‐run homer to tie the score and take Tom off the hook. Relieving him was McGraw, who also has been having his problems on the mound this season. Only this time Tug brought a double‐barrel’s worth of ammunition with him. The first barrel consisted of his strike‐out pitch, as he set down two of three batters that way in the seventh, Then because Manager Yogi Berra said he “had no one to go to in the bull pen and Tug was pitching well,” McGraw was allowed to bat in the eighth inning with the bases loaded. Here the second barrel was unloaded, as Tug smashed a double between right field and center to clear the bases. “I haven’t had a hit all year,” Tug said, “and the kid on the mound knew it. He threw it straight down the middle, but I surprised everybody including myself by getting a good piece of it.”
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 760.40 (+7.82, +1.04%).
Born:
Kajol Devgan [as Kajol Mukherjee], Indian film star (“Fanaa”, “My Name Is Khan”) with six Filmfare Awards for best actress; in Bombay (now Mumbai), Maharashtra, India.
Frankie Hejduk, American soccer defender (Olympic gold medal, 1996), in La Mesa, California.
History Diaries 