A worldwide shortage of fertilizer, affecting both rich and poor nations, is increasing the possibility that millions may die of starvation in poor countries in the coming year. It was brought about by the doubling and tripling of the prices of fertilizer and fertilizer raw materials during the energy crisis, the exhaustion of inventories by an unprecedented demand from farmers in developed nations and “quasi-embargoes” on fertilizer exports by the United States and Japan last fall. It may be two to four years before there is sufficient fertilizer to meet the demand. Meanwhile, fertilizer mines and factories are being built all over the world, but during the interval the food outlook is gloomy.
West Germany agreed to lend Italy $2 billion to help get her out of her financial crisis. The loan was announced jointly by Premier Mariano Rumor of Italy and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany after a long meeting in Bellagio, a resort in Northern Italy. West Germany will transfer marks and other hard currencies from the West German Federal Bank to the Bank of Italy. Part of the Bank of Italy’s gold reserves will be put up as collateral, Mr. Schmidt said. Mr. Rumor said that only a “small portion” of the gold reserves would be used as collateral.
French police have arrested a member of a group calling itself the Japanese Red Army, which has been blamed for a number of bloody terrorist actions. Police sources in Paris said that when the man was arrested July 27 at Orly Airport he was carrying three false passports, counterfeit U. S. currency and what appeared to be plans for kidnapping prominent Japanese in Europe. Police said he refused to give his true name.
Premier Konstantine Karamanlis returned home to Macedonia today, and told a huge crowd in the bustling port city of Salonika that Greece was heading for elections in a “briefer period” than previously expected. He gave no timetable, but officials here were predicting a vote by the end of this year. In the tradition of politicians who go home to start an election, Mr. Karamanlis left Athens for the first time since being recalled from an 11‐year exile last month, and came hack to this historic region, where he was first elected to Parliament almost 30 years ago. The “national crisis” in Cyprus, which caused the downfall of the Greek military dictatorship five weeks ago, still continues, Mr. Karamanlis told an audience estimated at more than 100,000. “The dangers,” he said, “have not been elimineed.”
The Cypriot Socialist leader, Vassos Lyssarides, who escaped an assassination attempt in Nicosia yesterday, appealed to his paramilitary supporters today not to carry out revenge killings. But Dr. Lyssarides added that if the Government of President Glafkos Clerides did not take appropriate measures against the assassins, it would be considered an accomplice. The left‐wing leader was speaking to hundreds of supporters at the funeral of the journalist, Doros Loizou, who was killed in the attack by four gunmen in central Nicosia.
Meantime, Cyprus Government sources said that Turkish tanks and infantry entered the Greek Cypriot village of Akheritou, near Famagusta, today and took 15 male prisoners. The Turkish troops did not remain in the village, the sources said. The Turks were said to have mounted a similar operation yesterday when they entered the nearby village of Akhana and took several men prisoners. A British Army patrol today found the blindfolded bodies of an old man and woman in a bus just inside the British base area of Dhekelia, a British spokesman said.
Two new British right‐wing groups, organized to “save Britain” during any breakdown of law and order, have touched off a controvesy that has left the nation uncertain whether to smile or worry. The organizations, given prominent play in several newspapers and dismissed by others, say they represent serious movements determined to come to the aid of the country in the event of a breakdown of authority. They are trying to recruit volunteers to maintain essential services dtiring nationwide disputes involving key workers. Those who sympathize with them recall with bitterness the coal miners’ strike of last winter, when the nation, was plunged into darkness and cold, industry slowed to a three‐day week, and the Conservative Government ultimately went down to defeat. The groups’ supporters fear that other crises lie ahead, given the country’s inflation and the militancy of some trade‐union leaders.
In any event, a day has hardly passed recently without some new article in the newspapers or report on television about the two former military officers who are organizing volunteers. Although acknowledging similar goals, they said they were operating separately and planned no uniforms, no weepons, no paramilitary squads, just groups of men who could operate power stations and take on other jobs if members of the unions stop working. One leader is Colonel David Stirling, a 58‐year‐old descendant of Scottish aristocrats, who commanded a special air force unit that operated behind enemy lines in World War II. He calls his organization “GB 75” and says that his recruits would be patriots who “simply do not wish to see a few left‐wing activists holding the country to ransom” and who would act only at the request of the government. The other former officer is General Sir Walter Walker, a 61‐year‐old former North Atltantic Treaty Organization commander in Northern Europe, who heads a group called the Unison Committee for Action. Sir Walter, who served with NATO until two years ago, is preparing for the “total breakdown of law and order,” stemming, he said, largely from the power pf left‐wingers in trade unions.
[Ed: If you knnow the history of the Long Range Desert Group and the SAS, you know who David Stirling is…]
Nobel Prize-winning author Mikhail Sholokov stole most of his best-known book, “And Quiet Flows the Don,” from a writer who died during the Russian Revolution, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the exiled Russian writer, reportedly says in a forthcoming book. According to a report in the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten, Sholokov edited a nearly finished manuscript of the book, which was written by Fyodor Kryukov, a prominent Cossack political leader and writer. The story was reported by the paper’s Moscow correspondent, who said that Solzhenitsyn would report on the alleged plagiarism in a book to be published soon in Paris.
Pirate Radio Veronica moves into Scheveningen, Neteherlands harbor.
Saudi Arabia and Algeria have agreed not to lower oil prices, the official Algerian news agency announced. The agency said the decision was made following “recent contacts” between the two countries and that it “consolidated the front of the producer countries” against those who believe prices should be sharply reduced. The announcement was made 12 days before the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is to meet in Vienna to consider new price proposals.
Ethiopia’s armed forces committee accused members of the emperor’s royal family and the aristocracy of channeling their money abroad instead of investing in Ethiopia. The chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Aman Andom, said that the committee, which has been steadily stripping Haile Selassie of power, would strive to achieve a fair distribution of wealth, taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
B. D. Jatti (Basappa Danappa Jatti) was sworn in as the fifth Vice President of India, with the oath administered by President Ahmed. Jatti would serve as the Acting President of India for five months in 1977 after Ahmed’s sudden death.
Heavy fighting was reported today near South Vietnam’s central coastline, where government troops have been trying to secure two vital areas. Official figures from the Saigon command showed about 3,500 military casualties throughout the country this week. The command listed more than 1,600 Communist troops killed, with government casualties of 313 killed, 1,409 wounded and 150 missing. One clash on the central coast erupted yesterday as more than 3,000 troops took part in an operation to clear a section of crucial Route 1 in Bình Định Province; about 280 miles northeast of Saigon, military sources said.
Government troops repulsed an amphibious rebel assault today 12 miles northeast of Phnom Penh in some of the heaviest fighting of the Cambodian war, reports from the field said. The reports said more than 200 rebels had been killed in the attack on Prek Tameak, on the east bank of the Mekong River. Nine of the dead, including two North Vietnamese, were found inside the garrison, the reports said. Government casualties were not immediately known.
A bipartisan congressional delegation headed by Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Arkansas) left Washington for a 12-day visit to China designed to emphasize continuity in the U.S. policy of détente. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minnesota) said Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger briefed the group on China Friday at the State Department. The delegation was seen off at Andrews Air Force Base by Ambassador Huang Chen, head of the liaison office of the People’s Republic of China in Washington.
Tokyo’s response to the mysterious and deadly bombing at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries home office yesterday was to ask a nervous question: was the midday explosion a one‐time act or was it the beginning of a rash of terror? Press editorials, television comment and private conversations centered on that point as residents here asked themselves whether unknown terrorists would endanger their lives, as has happened in Northern Ireland. That fear was compounded by the threat that mere telephone calls warning of bombs could cripple Japanese business, since many of Japan’s major companies have their headquarters in a downtown Tokyo rectangle, 15 blocks long and five blocks wide. Such calls have already started.
Prime Minister Norman Kirk of New Zealand, a former railroad engineer who had headed the Labor government since November, 1972, died of a heart seizure in a Wellington hospital at the age of 51. Mr. Kirk, who was also Foreign Minister, announced Wednesday that he was taking six weeks of complete rest on the advice of physicians. Deputy Premier Hugh Watt will head the government until the Labor caucus in Parliament elects a new leader.
With 85 m.p.h. winds, hurricane Carmen swept across Jamaica, the Caymans and Swan Island and appeared to be headed across the Caribbean for Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Carmen, the season’s second hurricane, posed no immediate threat to the United States. They said the storm was moving west at about 20 m.p.h. and gaining in intensity. Jamaica was struck by gales and heavy rains that threatened to cause flash flooding.
Several bombs exploded in Argentina, which has been plagued by political terrorism for more than two years. One bomb in Buenos Aires damaged the home of leftist Peronist lawyer Silvio Frondizi less than 24 hours after his office was hit by a bomb. No one was injured in either explosion. Two other blasts were reported in Buenos Aires and bombs also exploded in La Plata and Bahia Blanca.
Rhodesia’s white leaders should not count indefinitely on the unwavering support of South Africa, according to Arthur Grobbelaar, general secretary of the South African Trades Union Congress. He said that once Mozambique has its own black government, it would be more advantageous for South Africa to cultivate good relations with it than with white-ruled Rhodesia. He portrayed Rhodesia as increasingly isolated economically and politically.
The White House said that President Ford “has some ideas of his own” about the terms of amnesty for military deserters and draft evaders that would change the recommendations he received today from Attorney General William Saxbe and Defense Secretary James Schlesinger. Their report recommended that deserters and draft evaders earn amnesty by serving up to 18 months in public service and make a “reaffirmation of allegiance to the United States.” However, they were asked to provide additional information before the President announced a definite plan. Jerry terHorst, the White House press secretary, said that Mr. Saxbe and Mr. Schlesinger made “some joint proposals,” but that they had “proceeded in a two-track way,” and that each had made some separate recommendations of his own.
President Ford, appealing to “all Americans without exception to make sacrifices in order to hold down wages and prices,” proposed in a message to Congress a three-month deferral of the pay increases scheduled to take effect Oct. 1 for all 3.6 million federal employees. The deferral would cut $700 million from the budget for the current fiscal year. Congress has a 30-day period in which it can reject the proposal. Mr. Ford also said he was ordering the elimination of 40,000 of the 1.4 million civilian jobs in the government. This would reduce the current budget by $300 million.
In a pre-Labor Day interview, George Meany warned of a possible depression and called for a change in policies that have restricted credit, brought high interest rates and raised the possibility of increasing unemployment. The president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, in a gloomy assessment of the economic outlook was especially critical of the tight-money policies of Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He said that if there was one person in the economic area he would like to get rid of, it was Dr. Burns.
In the early morning hours on Interstate 10 in California, a sniper in a car pulled up alongside other drivers at random and fired at them, killing 3 people and wounding 6. A suspect was arrested shortly after 6 AM. A sniper terrorized motorists on a lonely stretch of desert for nearly six hours before dawn today, killing three persons, injuring six others and riddling several cars. A car matching the description provided by witnesses was stopped about 25 miles west of Blythe, California, a city on the California‐Arizona state line, and the driver was arrested without a struggle, Under Sheriff Robert Presley of Riverside County said. He identified the man as Richard Harold Hicks, 34 years old, of Tucson, Arizona. He was booked for investigation of murder and assault with intent to commit murder. Sheriff’s Captain Cois Byrd said a 22‐caliber sawed‐off rifle and some expended cartridges were found in Mr. Hicks’s car.
All of those killed had been shot in the head while driving along a desolate stretch of the interstate highway, which is the main artery between Los Angeles and Phoenix. Most of the injured also had been driving, officers said indicating that the sniper fired out the passenger’s window while speeding past the victim’s car to his right. They said four of the six injured had been shot and the two others had been cut with glass that shattered when bullets struck their car windows.
A 30-day freeze on all business financial transactions if inflation does not ebb in the next six months was proposed by Teamsters President Frank Fitzsimmons. In a pre-Labor Day statement, he said the Cost of Living Council should be given the authority under the contingency plan to roll back prices where profits had been exorbitant during the freeze. Fitzsimmons called also for a cut in the federal budget but added that wage and price controls might be the only way “to avoid economic shipwreck.”
Murder charges were brought against a fifth man accused of helping to smuggle three pistols to Fred Gomez Carrasco and two other inmates who attempted to break out of the state prison at Huntsville, Texas. Benito Gonzales Alonzo, 39, was arrested in San Antonio and charged with capital murder, which carries a death penalty in Texas. The pistols were used to hold more than a dozen persons hostage for 11 days in the prison. Two of the hostages, Carrasco and another convict were subsequently killed in a shootout with prison guards and state policemen.
Housing discrimination against women will be investigated at a series of public hearings to be conducted this fall under a $250,000 grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. A recent study in Hartford, Conn., concluded that women had an even harder time getting home mortgages than did blacks or Hispanics. Hearings will be conducted by the National Council of Negro Women in Atlanta, St. Louis, San Antonio, San Francisco and New York City to determine if there is a national pattern of mortgage discrimination against women.
A 21‐year‐old bioengineering graduate this fall will become the first woman since 1889 to study for a degree from Columbia College, the men’s undergraduate division of Columbia University. She is taking this step through an apparent loophole in the long‐standing coeducation agreement between the university and Barnard College, the women’s school across Broadway from the Morningside Heights campus. The student, Anna Kornbrot of Flushing, who graduated from the university’s undergraduate engineering school last May, will study a fifth year in Columbia College and receive a bachelor of arts degree.
Two Philadelphia men have been arrested in connection with the August 22 abduction of a business executive who was held for 36 hours, the FBI said. Joseph J. Baxter and Emmett V. Ware, each 37, were charged in the kidnapping of Edward B. Patterson, vice president of a scientific equipment firm. Several ransom demands were made and a final ransom of $250,000 was agreed on but was never picked up. Patterson, 45, of Haddonfield, New Jersey, was released unharmed.
A faulty diabetes diagnostic machine may have failed to detect the disease in some patients, the Food and Drug Administration reported. The agency said Abbott Laboratories had begun recalling 870 of its bichromatic analyzers, used to measure sugar in the blood and urine, two months ago from hospitals and laboratories in the United States and foreign countries. After the machines are repaired, Abbott will supply new instruction manuals for them. An FDA spokesman said disclosure had been delayed two months under a new policy, giving Abbott time to contact its customers.
A coalition of women’s organizations has announced here that it has filed a petition with the California Department of Health asking for stringent new regulations governing intrauterine contraceptive devices. Patsy Fulcher, chairman of the Coalition of Medical Rights for Women, told a news conference, “Women are tired of being used as guinea pigs for untested medical devices sold at enormous profit by large drug companies.” The petition requests the adoption of regulations that would require the manufacturer to take all steps necessary to inform women of the potential dangers in continued use of intrauterine devices, which came into wider use in 1970 after United States Senate hearings on the dangers of oral contraceptives.
Former Beatle John Lennon filed another appeal of a government order to leave the United States by September 10. “I’ll be here making music, one way or another,” Lennon said after a court appearance in New York. His attorney charged that the singer, whose visitor’s visa expired Feb. 29, 1972, had been ordered deported because of rumors he would lead an antiwar rally that year at the Republican National Convention. Officials cited a 1968 marijuana conviction in Britain in ordering him to leave.
Portland Mavericks manager Frank Peters rotates his players so that each man plays one inning at each position, each playing all 9 positions. It works: Portland beats Tri–Cities (Northwest League) 8–7.
The New York Yankees rack up 25 hits against the Chicago White Sox en route to an 18–6 victory. Roy White has 5 hits, while Thurman Munson and Gene Michael have 4 apiece. Munson has 5 RBI; one of his hits was his 13th home run. Doc Medich got his 16th win against 12 defeats this year. The White Sox got 11 hits of their own, and scored six runs, all charged to Medich, in the sixth inning to pull within 10–6. But ace reliever Sparky Lyle came in and shut the Sox out the rest of the way. The Yankees moved within three games of the East Division lead.
Home runs by Tony Oliva and Steve Braun helped the Minnesota Twins to a 6–2 victory over the Boston Red Sox today in a nationally televised game. Dave Goltz, with a 7–7 won‐lost record, scattered six hits over the first eight innings, but needed relief help from Tom Burgmeier in the. ninth as the Twins handed the American League East leaders their fifth loss in the last seven games. Eric Soderholm’s seventh hit in his last eight times at bat, a two‐out single in the first inning, drove in Minnesota’s first run and Oliva’s 369‐foot homer made it 2–0 in the third. Minnesota knocked out Boston’s starter, Dick Drago (6–8), in the sixth. Soderholm led off with a walk and Braun followed with his home run. Drago retired the next two batters, but after Glenn Borgmann singled, Drago was lifted for Diego Segui, who got Steve Brye to ground out on his first pitch.
John Briggs’s ninth inning run‐scoring single capped a three-run Brewer rally today and gave Milwaukee a 6–5 victory over the California Angels. The Brewers were trailing 5–3, when Bob Coluccio opened the ninth with a single off Andy Hassler, who had allowed only four hits. With one out, Pedro Garcia singled Coluccio to second and Horacio Pina relieved Hassler. Don Money singled to score Coluccio and send Garcia to second. Luis Quintana replaced Pina. Bob Mitchell, a pinch-hitter, singled Money to second and Briggs followed with a single down the left‐field line to score Money.
Gates Brown hit a two‐run single to key a six‐run Detroit uprising in the sixth tonight that led the Tigers to a 7–3 victory over the Oakland A’s. The Tigers entered the inning trailing, 3–1, against Vida Blue, who was working on a three‐hitter. When it ended, Blue, had been chased and eventually lost his fourth straight game., Joe Coleman was the winner despite seven walks.
Ferguson Jenkins pitched a two‐hitter and became a 20‐game winner for the seventh time in his baseball career tonight, leading the Texas Rangers to a 2–0 triumph over the Cleveland Indians. Jenkins, who won 20 games six times with the Chicago Cubs, yielded singles to John Ellis and Leron Lee in the second. After Lee’s hit, Jenkins retired the next 23 batters. He struck out nine and did not walk a man.
Bobby Grich’s two‐run double highlighted a three‐run seventh that carried the Baltimore Orioles to a 3–2 victory over the Kansas City Royals tonight. Jim Palmer got the victory, with help from Grant Jackson in the eighth. Paul Splittorff took the loss.
Johnny Bench drives in 7 runs with a bases loaded double and the third grand slam of his career to lead the Cincinnati Reds to a 10–3 win over the Montreal Expos. Jack Billingham became the National League’s first 17‐game winner. Bench paced an 11‐hit attack with a three‐run double in the second and the slam in the sixth, raising his runs‐batted‐in total to 105. Before Bench’s homer, an Expo rookie, Dale Murray, walked four consecutive batters.
The Mets squandered a 4–0 lead over the. Atlanta Braves, but delighted a crowd of 31,211 by rallying for two runs in the eighth inning to post a 6–5 triumph, the sixth in their, last seven games. New York’s third triumph in 11 games with the Braves seemed likely to be a routine one until Atlanta overcame a four‐run deficit with three runs in the sixth and two in the seventh off Jerry Koosman, the Met starter. The Mets, however, got Koosman off the hook and rewarded Bob Apodaca with his fifth triumph with the pair of tallies in the eighth.
Mike Tyson’s error on Bruce Miller’s two‐out grounder in the fourth inning today allowed the San Francisco Giants to break a 1–1 tie with a pair of unearned runs and beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3–2.
Jay Johnstone and Willie Montanez drove in three runs each tonight to lead the Philadelphia Phillies to a 10–6 victory over the Houston Astros. Johnstone connected for his sixth home run with two on in the second. Montanez hit a bases‐loaded double to highlight a seven‐run fourth that broke the game open.
Richie Zisk’s three‐run homer capped a four‐run sixth tonight that gave the Pittsburgh Pirates, a 4–3 triumph, over the Los Angeles Dodgers for their eighth victory in nine games. Larry Demery, a Los Angeles product, went the first seven innings, giving up eight hits, to post his sixth triumph in a row. The 21‐year‐old righthander had lost his first four decisions. Dave Giusti pitched the last two innings for his ninth save.
Born:
Andrei Medvedev, Ukrainian tennis player (won four Masters), in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union.
Marc Webb, American music video, TV, and film director (“500 Days of Summer”; “The Amazing Spider-Man” {2012-14 reboot}), in Bloomington, Indiana.
Died:
Norman Kirk PC, 51, Prime Minister of New Zealand since 1972, died unexpectedly of a pulmonary embolism five days after taking a leave of absence from work and three days after entering hospital.
Ali bin Abdullah Al Thani, 79, the former Emir of Qatar from 1949 to 1960, died in exile in Lebanon. He had abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Ahmad bin Ali Al Thani.
William Pershing Benedict, 56, American World War II fighter pilot in both the RCAF and U.S. Army Air Forces, killed in a plane crash while firefighting in California.
History Diaries 