Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia since 1930, was overthrown by officers of the Derg, members of the Ethiopian Army and police, bringing an end to the Solomonic dynasty that had ruled since 1270. He was taken from his palace in Addis Ababa to army headquarters and later reportedly to a palace outside the capital for his “personal safety,” He had been progressively stripped of his absolute powers amid charges of corruption against his government.
Selassie, who took power as regent in 1916 and the throne as Emperor in 1930, left his almost deserted main palace in a blue police Volkswagen. The Emperor, who is 82 years old, was taken to army headquarters and later reportedly to a palace 19 miles outside the capital for his “personal safety.” “As from today, September 12, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie has been deposed from office,” a military decree declared.
But the Armed Forces Coordinating Committee, which since February had progressively stripped him of his absolute powers amid charges of corruption against his government, did not declare an end to the monarchy. It asked instead that the Emperor’s only son, 60‐year‐old Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, return from Geneva and be crowned as a figurehead king with no powers. The prince, who suffered a stroke two years ago, is partly paralyzed. Prince Asfaw, who was in Switzerland for medical treatment, wisely declined to accept the invitation, and avoided imprisonment and execution that was meted out to other members of the former royal family.
A statement broadcast over the Addis Ababa radio said that Ethiopia would continue her foreign policy of nonalignment and would seek peaceful relations with her neighbors, including Somalia, with which Ethiopia has had a territorial dispute. The Armed Forces Committee, which had previously pledged to bring this feudal nation into the 20th century, announced a domestic policy announced a domestic policy pledging equality for all Ethiopians workers, farmers, civil servants and others. It also pledged the abolition of ethnic, religious and age harriers and a reduction of differences in the standard of living for all inhabitants. Land reform will be given priority, the statement said, adding that the slogan of the program would be “Land to the people.”
The Pentagon said 12,000 U.S. troops will be flown to Europe early in October for the sixth annual NATO training maneuver, Exercise Reforger 74. Troops and equipment from various U.S. bases are to be airlifted to West Germany in Lockheed C-5 and C-141 cargo jets on Oct. 1 for the 11-day maneuvers, to begin Oct. 10. The major U.S. units to go will be the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, Ft. Riley, Kan. and the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Armored Division, Ft. Hood, Tex.
The Defense Department confirmed that it plans to make the first airborne test launch of an ICBM during the coming Geneva arms limitation talks. Sources have described the project as an effort to strengthen the hand of U.S. negotiators at the SALT session opening Wednesday.
America’s record-breaking SR-71 Blackbird spy plane took off from England in an attempt to set a new London-to-Los Angeles speed record but was forced to turn back after 10 minutes in the air because of engine trouble. The Air Force said a hydraulic leak was expected to delay the flight for 24 hours. The Blackbird, which set a New York-to-London speed record of 1 hour, 56 minutes, on September 1, will attempt to fly the 5,645 miles from London to Los Angeles in under 4½ hours.
A U.S. Army spokesman said that East German border guards have illegally detained a uniformed American soldier at Checkpoint Charlie along the Berlin Wall. He said Spec. 4 William S. Medley, 24, was picked up as he tried to drive back into West Berlin in his private car and was turned over to Soviet authorities. East Germany is not permitted to detain Allied military personnel under agreements with the Russians. West Berlin papers reported that an East German refugee was in Medley’s car and was trying to reach West Berlin.
The Cypriot government said it has documented evidence that the Turkish invasion force executed a total of 179 Greek Cypriots, including women, children and elderly persons. The statement, which did not give details of the evidence, said the killings took place between the time of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on July 20 and Aug. 21. An earlier government statement said 130 Greek Cypriots had been slain by Turkish forces during the same period. The Turks have said that Greek Cypriot national guardsmen committed mass executions at several villages and towns during the recent fighting.
Roman Catholic and Protestant women stormed troops at the main gate of a Belfast jail housing political prisoners in a protest over prison conditions. Beaten back, the two religious groups-usually bitter enemies through years of internecine warfare in Northern Ireland-banded together to block main streets throughout the city.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had a second round of talks with President Ford about the next step in the Mideast peace moves and his country’s need for modern American weaponry. A White House spokesman said the meeting “involved a general discussion and included the ongoing U.S. military relationship with Israel. The President reaffirmed the continuation of this ongoing military relationship.” Rabin will meet with Mr. Ford again today.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and he advisers have come under increasingly bitter criticism as a result of the intensifying food crisis in India. Economists, agricultural specialists, politicians and journalists maintain that the Indian Government has bungled the situation by failing to develop coherent policies, concentrating on heavy industry and relying on food imports. As a result of the policies, the critics say, the production of wheat and rice, the basis of the diet of the 580 million people has faltered. At the same time they say, insufficient attention has been paid to increasing the output of the fertilizer vital to improved yields. According to the critics, the government, by failing to focus on the crucial role of agriculture, has distorted the priorities of a nation in which 80 percent of the people live on farms. They say it must accept a sizable share of the blame for the food problems.
Clearly indicating that he intended to maintain the sort of support of previous administrations for the Saigon government, President Ford appealed personally to congressional leaders to restore the hundreds of millions of dollars cut from the administration’s foreign aid budget for South Vietnam and the rest of Indochina. In a special message to Congress on foreign aid priorities, Mr. Ford also said that he was “concerned” that restrictive amendments to the bill approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would “severely limit” his ability to “conduct United States foreign policy.” Initial reaction on Capitol Hill to the President’s request for the restored funds was unenthusiastic.
Japanese construction worker Etsuo Ono was arrested as the chief suspect in the murders of nine women in and around Tokyo over the previous 20 months. Although he was convicted of murder in 1986 and sentenced to life imprisonment, based on a confession made under duress, Ono’s conviction was reversed and he would be acquitted on retrial in 1991. He would later be arrested for the murder of another person in 1996.
Foreign Minister Kim Dong Jo of South Korea and Ambassador Torao Ushiroku of Japan are nearly at an impasse in their negotiations over Japan’s position on the attempted assassination of President Park Chung Hee of South Korea on August 15, authoritative Korean sources said tonight. The South Korean Government wants an apology from Japan for the incident, during which Mrs. Park was killed. The Koreans are angry because the assassin, although a Korean, lived in Japan, came to Korea on a forged Japanese passport, shot at Mr. Park with a pistol stolen from Japanese policeman and allegedly had Japanese and North Korean accomplices in Japan. President Park’s Government also wants a pledge from the Japanese Government that Tokyo will control the activities of an association of North Koreans in Japan, which the Government here considers a base for subversion and espionage.
The Japanese, however, are reluctant to apologize for an incident for which they do not feel responsible. They are also unwilling, according to the authoritative sources, to commit themselves to any suppression of the North Korean association. Its educational, political and social activities, say the Japanese, are legal under Japanese law. The South Korean sources said Mr. Kim told Mr. Ushiroku this morning that the Japanese position was “not satisfactory.” He warned that the Seoul Government was prepared to withdraw Korean diplomats from Tokyo. South Korean anger increased after the Japanese Foreign Minister, Toshio Kimura, said recently that North Korea posed no immediate military threat to South Korea. Mr. Kimura has also said that the Government in Seoul is not the only legitimate government on the Korean peninsula.
The new Portuguese High Commissioner, who was appointed to oversee the dissolution of Portuguese imperialism in eastern Africa, conferred today with officials of the local colonial administration in Mozambique. Under an agreement signed in neighboring Zambia last Saturday, High Commissioner Vitor Crespo, is to cooperate with an interim nine‐man cabinet to be dominated by the Front for Liberation of Mozambique, or Frelimo, the black insurgent movement that waged a long guerrilla war against the Portuguese.
A White House spokesman said that President Ford does not intend to pardon any of the Watergate defendants before trial, as he did former President Nixon. James Hushen, deputy White House press secretary, gave his assessment of Mr. Ford’s intentions shortly before the Senate adopted by a vote of 55 to 24, a resolution urging the President to refrain from using his pardoning power until after the judicial process has been completed in each case. The resolution only expresses the wish of the Senate and does not have the force of law.
Federal Judge John Sirica denied requests by three of the six defendants in the Watergate cover-up case that charges against them be dropped on the ground that the pardoning of former President Nixon had created the public impression that they were guilty. He agreed, however, to delay by one day the starting date of the trial to permit the assembling of a new panel of prospective jurors.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that wholesale prices in August recorded their biggest gain in a year as food prices rose sharply for the second consecutive month and industrial commodities generally continued upward. The Wholesale Price Index rose 3.9 percent in August, after allowing for normal seasonal changes, bringing the index to 167.4 percent of its 1967 base of 100.
At another of the preliminary meetings on inflation scheduled by President Ford, a coalition of industry groups affected by the severe depression in home building presented to skeptical government officials a nine-point rescue program.
U.S. Attorney General William B. Saxbe said he had authorized 15 subpoenas directed at newsmen during his eight months in office. He disclosed the figure as he discussed Justice Department regulations requiring the attorney general’s specific approval before federal prosecutors may subpoena newsmen. “In most of those instances, the newsmen were willing to cooperate but requested the subpoena first be served,” he said. Officials said they could provide no further information. Saxbe, in remarks prepared for the Radio-Television News Directors Association in Montreal, Canada, noted that regulations require that a newsmen be subpoenaed only “after all other attempts by the department have failed to obtain the desired evidence from other sources.”
In the U.S. state of Massachusetts, court-ordered desegregation busing began on the first day of school in Boston. While busing was successful in 79 of Boston’s 80 schools, demonstrations and violence accompanied the beginning of school in the largely white South Boston neighborhood. On the first day, only 124 of the 1,000 students enrolled at South Boston High School attended, and white demonstrators stoned buses carrying African-American students home from the school. Kevin White, Mayor of Boston, banned gatherings of three or more people in the vicinity of public schools. Rock-throwing, jeering crowds in South Boston marred the start of a busing program designed to integrate Boston’s public schools, and tonight Mayor Kevin White banned any gatherings in South Boston streets. Other parts of the city were calm as the busing program began.
American serial murderer Calvin Jackson, who would confess to nine murders committed on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, was arrested. Jackson was picked up by police hours after the discovery of the body of 69-year-old widow Pauline Spanierman at her apartment at 40 West 77th Street. The NYPD had not previously connected the women’s deaths, nor even realized that some of the victims had been murdered.
Superintendent Kenneth Underwood closed the 121 schools of West Virginia’s Kanawha County (Charleston) and ordered 44,000 students home because of a “lack of law enforcement and probability of violence” brought about by the escalating dispute of angry parents over “anti-Christian, anti-American, Communist, filthy language” textbooks. Forty sheriff’s deputies in riot gear were called out after intensification of the week-long dispute. Shut down by the parents were the school bus service, a construction site, coal mines employing 5,000 miners, two trucking lines and a store warehouse. The Board of Education and other officials were at a loss about what to do after a Wednesday night compromise agreement to remove the books for 30 days fell apart.
Honoring its half of a plea-bargain promise, the Justice Department declined to prosecute Texas lawyer Jake Jacobsen on charges of misapplying savings and loan funds. The department said it would ignore those charges because Jacobsen had entered a guilty plea in a milk co-op bribery case and had agreed to testify against former Treasury Secretary John D. Connally, also charged in the bribery case. Formal notice of the department’s intention was filed in Dallas with U.S. District Judge Robert M. Hill, who refused two weeks ago to dismiss the loan funds case at the department’s request.
A bill to create a nationwide network of health agencies to stop billions of dollars of unneeded hospital building was overwhelmingly passed by the powerful House Commerce Committee. Though full House and Senate action lie ahead, the action was believed to be the highest hurdle for the bill, which is intended to take over health planning from weaker state agencies.
Two reporters for the Indianapolis Star were named in indictments handed down by the Marion County grand jury investigating alleged corruption in the city’s police department. Named were William E. Anderson and Richard E. Cady, who had worked on a series of articles early this year on alleged police corruption. They were indicted for conspiracy to commit a felony, “to wit, a bribe.” The reporters were accused of offering an unspecified amount of money on March 12 to Police Lieutenant Larry Turner to refrain from prosecuting Larry Wayne Keen in connection with a burglary. Assistant Publisher Eugene S. Pulliam said both reporters were innocent and the charge was absurd.
The country music and comedy show “Funny Farm,” hosted by singer Blake Emmons, premiered on the CTV Television Network as a Canadian-produced program “advertised as a slick rural comedy, a cross between ‘Hee Haw’ and ‘Laugh-In’”. The show was poorly received by critics, with one commenting, “in all my years of TV viewing I can’t remember a worse show than ‘Funny Farm.’ It’s ugly and crude from every point of view; the concept is a straight steal from ‘Hee Haw,’ but the writing, performances and production are straight out of the garbage dump.”
Jeff “Skunk” Baxter joins the Doobie Brothers.
The longest game in Major League Baseball history to be played to a conclusion came to an end in the 25th inning, 7 hours and 4 minutes after it had started last night, as baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals defeated the host New York Mets, 4 to 3, in the 25th inning, a little after 3 AM. The game had been tied, 3 to 3, after nine innings and then went 15 additional scoreless innings before two Mets errors gave the Cardinals’ Bake McBride the opportunity to run from first base to home plate.
The California Angels sold Frank Robinson, the only man ever to win the most valuable player award in both leagues, to the Cleveland Indians today for the $20,000 waiver price.
Storming the field as if they had just swept to a World Series victory, the Yankees swatted one another on the back tonight in celebrating a 3–0 decision over the Orioles. It was their second straight clutch series, and again they came out on top. They began their trip last Monday at Boston, tied with the Red Sox atop the American League’s Eastern Division. They took two games after failing to win at Fenway Park in their previous seven starts this campaign. Then they came into Memorial Stadium, where they had lost four of six— and they won two of three. So now they head for Detroit sporting a 2½‐game edge over Boston and a three‐game lead over the Orioles. An unlikely hero was on the mound for the once and future Bronx Bombers — his name was Mike Wallace. Wallace came from Philadelphia earlier this season. He now has a 6.0 wonlost record with New York, but this was his first start. He hurled until the eighth inning, when Dick Tidrow replaced him. The Yanks, meanwhile, got their runs off last year’s Cy Young Award winner, Jim Palmer, who is recuperating from nerve trouble in his forearm.
The Boston Red Sox halted their three‐game losing streak by beating Cleveland, 3–2, to move into second place in the American League’s East Division, 2½ games back of the New York Yankees. Carl Yastrzemskl opened the eighth inning with a double and scored the winning run on Dick McAuliffe’s sacrifice fly. Bill Lee, who had given up only eight earned runs in his last 46⅔ innings, pitched the complete game for Boston in posting his 16th victory against 12 defeats. Perry lost his 11th. He has won 15.
Sal Bando drove in both Oakland A’s runs with a single in the first inning and a sacrifice fly in the eighth to carry the A’s to a 2‐1 triumph over the Minnesota Twins at Bloomington.
With three scoreless innings Detroit Tigers’ pitcher John Hiller picks up his 17th win in relief, an American League record, as he beats the Milwaukee Brewers, 9–7, on Tom Veryzer’s 10th–inning 2–run homer. Hiller will lose his next 4 decisions, but his 17 wins will lead the Tigers in victories. He is the first reliever to lead his team in wins: Bill Campbell will match it in two years (as noted by Lyle Spatz).
The Chicago White Sox-Texas Rangers game was halted by rain in the sixth inning with the socre tied at 2–2.
The St. Louis Cardinals, proving that they don’t need a lot of rest to win games, came back tonight after 7‐hour‐4‐minute, 25‐inning 4–3 victory over the Mets Wednesday night, produced their biggest run output of the season in a 12–5 victory at Shea Stadium and swept the two‐game series. The Cards also crept within 1½ games of first‐place Pittsburgh in National League East. “We didn’t get very much sleep before Wednesday night’s game, either,” said Bob Gibson, the winning pitcher last night, his 10th victory of the season against 12 defeats. Gibson pulled a groin muscle in the fifth inning last night while rushing over to cover first base on a grounder by Ron Hodges. He finished the inning, but came out for a pinch hitter in the Cardinals’ six‐run sixth inning, when they took a 6–4 lead. Then Gibson watched as Al Hrabosky allowed no hits during the last four innings to pick up his eighth save of the season, the club high. Reggie Smith started the Cardinal rally in the sixth, clouting a Jon Matlack slider for his 22nd home run and two runs after Ted Sizemore had led off with a single to left.
In San Francisco, Al Downing, given a rare start, pitched a two‐hit shutout in his first complete game in more than a year as the Dodgers posted an 11–0 victory over the Giants. It kept Los Angeles 3½ games in front of the Reds.
The Cincinnati Reds sweep a pair from the Atlanta Braves and the 2 teams combine for a Major League record 3 grand slams. Cesar Geronimo hits one in the 2nd inning of game 1, as does the Braves’ Darrell Evans, who gets thumbed in his next at bat for disputing a third strike call. The Reds hang on for a 9–6 win, then take game 2 by a 6–2 score. Johnny Bench hits the 3rd grand slam of the day in game 2 and drives in all 6 runs. Bench will finish the year with 129 RBIs to top the National League, and his 315 total bases will lead the league. He is the only catcher in Major League history to lead a league in total bases [Bench caught 137 games; played third base in 36 games; and first base in 5].
Mike Schmidt hits an eighth inning three-run bomb, his 36th home run and final one this season, off Jerry Reuss in Philadelphia’s 6-4 comeback victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Veterans Stadium. The 24 year-old third baseman becomes the first Phillies player to lead the league in home runs since Chuck Klein hit 28 round-trippers in 1933. Del Unser smashed a two‐run homer to cap the six‐run eighth.
In other Natonal League games, the Montreal Expos edged the Chicago Cubs, 2–1, and the San Diego Padres defeated the Houston Astros, 4–1.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 641.74 (-12.98, -1.98%).
Born:
Caroline Aigle, French first woman fighter pilot in the French Air Force aged 25, in Montauban, France (d. 2007).
Jennifer Nettles, American country singer (Sugarland), in Douglas, Georgia.
Rayya Makarim, U.S.-born Indonesian actress, film screenwriter and producer; in Boston.
Died:
Bert R. J. Hassell, 80, American aviation pioneer known for his 1928 establishment, with Parker D. Cramer, of the use of the Great Circle Route over the Atlantic Ocean for the minimum distance between two points on a globe, the route most commercial airliners would later employ.
Ernest Cadman Colwell, 73, American biblical scholar known for “Colwell’s Rule” concerning translation of texts, died of leukemia.
Miriam Young, 61, American writer known for “Mother Wore Tights,” a vaudeville memoir, died of cancer.
Robert M. Danford, 95, United States Army major general.
Prince Nikita Alexandrovich of Russia, 74.
History Diaries 