President Ford told congressional leaders that his tentative agreement with the Soviet Union on arms control would let each country have 2,400 delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads, authoritative sources reported. Of these, about 1,200 could be equipped to carry the multiple warheads called MIRV’s, which could be about equally divided between land-based and sea-based long-range missiles.
Polish Communist Party leader Edward Gierek called for creation of a nuclear-free zone in northern Europe and the early convening of the final stage of the 35-nation European Security Conference. He was speaking at a dinner in Helsinki given in his honor by Finnish President Urho Kekkonen. The security conference is now in its second stage in Geneva. The final stage-at the summit level-may be held in Helsinki next summer.
The newspapers this morning carried pictures of the shattered bits of three of the pillar‐shaped red mailboxes that are one of London visual symbols. The Royal Mail Service is a national institution. Like the rest of Britain it is slower than it used to be, loses money and is vulnerable to Irish Republican Army bombs. The more fundamental British institutions will probably not be shattered by the mounting I.R.A. bomb campaign here. For one thing they are so flexible that a great deal of bending is possible; for another, they are so vague that it is hard to tell when the shattering‐point has been reached. But with Thursday night’s massacre of pub‐goers in Birmingham the Northern Ireland conflict has managed, after nearly five years of fighting, to make the first real dent on the country’s way of ordering its life.
Seventeen U.S. soldiers demanding more privileges returned to their posts in Berlin after a 24-hour strike but said they would walk out again Friday if the Army failed to satisfy their demands by then. A spokesman for the Army’s Berlin command said the inspector general planned to make recommendations but gave no deadline. The strike grew out of a protest against the Army’s prohibition of long hair and beards.
President Valery Giscard d’Estaing told the recession-worried French people his government has the will and the means to protect them against unemployment. He also announced a series of actions to fight recession, including reorganizing the automobile industry, among the most severely affected by the recession and energy crisis. He also pledged to change French society by reducing social differences between individuals, giving all equal opportunities.
More than 50,000 Danes demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Poul Hartling marched on the parliament building in Copenhagen at the climax of a nationwide protest against rising unemployment. Earlier, an estimated 15,000 engineering, construction and dock workers went on strike and resolutions were passed accusing the minority Liberal government of ineptitude in combating the country’s 8% unemployment rate.
In West Germany, teams of agents from the GSG 9 special forces made simultaneous raids targeted at arresting suspected members of the Red Army Faction terror group. West German policemen swept through scores of apartments and homes today to search for members and supporters of leftist terrorist organizations, one of which is suspected in the assassination of a West Berlin judge on November 10. At least 10 persons, including a Hamburg lawyer, Wolf‐Dieter Reinhard, were arrested. The attorney, a member of a law collective, was held under suspicion of membership in an anarchist group called “2 June,” according to Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback in Karlsruhe. The “2 June” group is accused of having killed one of its former members, Ulrich Schmücker, in Berlin last June, for talking to the police. The murder of Judge Günter von Drenkmann in his home in Berlin two weeks ago has provoked a powerful national reaction of indignation against “radicals” of all varieties.
After 22 years, the government of France lifted a ban that it had placed against the distribution of “The Watchtower,” the magazine of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious group.
The Palestine Liberation Organization will execute the four Arab hijackers of a British jetliner if they are turned over by Tunisia, as the PLO has requested, according to PLO sources in Beirut. The sources said the hijacking of the VC-10 and the killing of a passenger in Tunis were, in effect, a challenge to the authority of the PLO. The hijackers released their remaining hostages in Tunisia Monday and asked asylum there after being rejected by all other Arab nations.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a $2.67 billion foreign aid authorization bill that boosts economic assistance to Israel by $89.5 million but carries sharp restrictions on the CIA and UNESCO and outlays for Chile, South Korea and Indochina. The bill replaces a similar $2.5 billion measure that the White House helped kill October 2 on grounds it was too restrictive and too meager. Senator Hubert H. Hmphrey (D-Minnesota) said the Administration supports the new bill.
The Shell Oil Company is negotiating an agreement with Iran that could result in a major Iranian investment in the company’s Eastern seaboard gasoline stations, joint construction of a refinery in Iran, and long-term assurances of delivery of Iranian oil for Shell.
Debate opened in the United Nations General Assembly today on whether to take away. Cambodia’s seat from the Lon Nol government and recognize instead the exile government in Peking headed by Prince Norodom Sihanouk.
Secretary of State Kissinger began formal talks in Peking with Chinese officials headed by Deputy Premier Teng Hsiao-ping. Donald Rumsfeld, President Ford’s top staff man, was at the Secretary’s right. Mr. Kissinger interpreted the recent understanding with the Soviet Union on limiting strategic nuclear arms. There was no indication that the Chinese were annoyed about the Brezhnev-Ford meeting on the outskirts of Vladivostok, which is near the Chinese border.
Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, rejected any pullback of Soviet forces from the border with China as a condition for a nonaggression pact. Speaking in Ulan Bator at the anniversary celebration of the Mongolian People’s Republic, he asserted that no Soviet borders with China were disputed territory, as the Chinese contend. He underscored his satisfaction with his Vladivostok meeting with President Ford and the prospect of completing an agreement on offensive strategic weapons.
Japan’s Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka announced his resignation after an invesigative committee of Japan’s House of Representatives, the Diet, was preparing to call Aki Sato as a witness. Tanaka and Ms. Sato had been having a romantic relationship for many years. The announcement was made by Chief Cabinet Secretary (and future Prime Minister) Noboru Takeshita.
With the resignation of Premier Kakuei Tanaka, the struggle for succession that has been rumbling just beneath the surface in the governing Liberal-Democratic party broke into the open today. The public truce that had barely been maintained during the state visit of President Ford here last week collapsed as the two major contenders, Takeo Fukuda and Masayoshi Ohira, began their visible campaigns for the Premier’s office. Mr. Tanaka resigned this morning to take “moral and political responsibility” for the “Political chaos derived from an issue related to myself” —charges that he enriched himself unethically and possibly illegally while in office. Mr. Fukuda, who has held important Cabinet posts under several Premiers, was critical in his initial statement. “The first step we should take in coping with the present political situation is to recognize its seriousness,” he said. “The people’s reliance on and trust in the Government has been greatly shaken,” Mr. Fukuda said. “The nation also has strong misgivings about inflation and the economy. This is the greatest postwar crisis and it is the crisis of Japan.”
Approximately 140 die when a suspension bridge collapses in Nepal.
Mexico has broken diplomatic relations with the military regime in Chile, the Foreign Ministry announced in Mexico City. Relations between the two countries had cooled since the Chilean military coup that overthrew the late Marxist President Salvador Allende in September, 1973.
Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, announced the discovery of oil off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The company said it lacked sufficient data to evaluate exactly the production capacity of the field.
President Ford sent Congress a revised budget for the year ending next June 30 that would cut federal spending by $4.6 billion. He said steeper reductions would be unwise. Programs administered by the Health, Education and Welfare Department and the Veterans Administration would be most affected. However, congressional leaders said it was highly unlikely that any significant portion of the proposed reductions would be approved.
The United States achieved a small surplus in foreign trade in October, its first since April. A surge in exports, up 36 percent so far this year, tipped the balance. There is a deficit of $2.3 billion so far this year caused entirely by higher prices of oil imports. Average cost of a barrel of imported oil was $11.50 last month, compared with $3.50 a year earlier.
Former Attorney General John Mitchell took the witness stand in his own defense at the Watergate cover-up trial. He denied approving the Watergate break-in in advance and said that when he heard of its link later to the Committee for the Re-election of the President he withheld the information because of his belief in Mr. Nixon at that time.
The House Rules Committee, by an 8 to 6 vote, blocked the omnibus legislation to restructure the securities market from floor consideration, virtually foreclosing action at the current session. The measure to end fixed brokerage commission rates and give more authority to the Securities and Exchange Commission had been requested by the White House.
The Senate passed by voice vote and sent to the White House a vocational rehabilitation bill that would continue a program of job training for the mentally and physically handicapped. The measure, revived by Congress in the face of a dispute with the Administration, would authorize $851.5 million through June 30, 1976. President Ford had vetoed the legislation earlier, and he maintained that the action was a pocket veto-because Congress was in election recess and thus was not subject to a congressional override vote. However, a spokesman said that the President, who had opposed bureaucratic technicalities in the Legislation, would not reject the revived measure.
President Ford signed an $11.8 billion mass transit bill that is designed to foster continued operation of the nation’s subways and commuter lines and help build new ones. The six-year National Mass Transportation Assistance Act will provide funds “to meet transit needs for the rest of the decade. at a cost which is not inflationary,” Mr. Ford said. The bill marks the first time federal funds have been used to finance transit operations. A total of $3.9 billion is authorized for that purpose. The other $7.9 billion continues the present capital grant program for construction and equipment. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley said the measure would ensure $300 million in aid for the city.
Congress sent to President Ford a $33 billion appropriation bill for the Labor and the Health, Education and Welfare departments. The bill, a compromise worked out by Senate-House conferees, is $485.2 million under the budget requests submitted to Congress but Mr. Ford has told congressional leaders he would sign it. Over $1.2 billion was cut off budget estimates for public assistance for the current fiscal year and conferees said an additional amount might have to be voted later, a move that could boost the bill’s total over the budget request.
Senator Robert Taft Jr. (R-Ohio) said he had asked President Ford to fire General George F. Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Citing Brown’s remarks about alleged Jewish influence in banking, newspapers, and Congress, Taft said the general “has damaged his usefulness and ought to resign.”
Court-appointed physicians announced today that they had formulated a unanimous opinion on former President Richard M. Nixon’s ability to testify at the Watergate cover-up trial but would not disclose it until they deliver their evaluation to Federal District Judge John J. Sirica this week.
The United Mine Workers bargaining council rejected today and then approved tonight the union officers’ proposed agreement with the coal industry, opening the way for a final settlement of the national miners’ strike by the middle of next week. Arnold R. Miller, the union president, failed a second time at midafternoon today to persuade his 38‐member ratifying committee to accept his agreement with the coal operators. But he finally obtained a 22‐to15 vote tonight in favor of passing the proposed contract on to the 120,000 union members for the second ratification step. That will be a vote by the rank‐and‐file membership by secret ballot, to be held next Monday under what union aides acknowledged tonight would be less than favorable conditions. Immediately after was favorable council vote, it was learned tonight, Mr. Miller talked by telephone with President Ford, received the President’s “congratulations” on the outcome and promised Mr. Ford to “go into the field and do everything I can do to get the coal flowing again for America.”
A pathology report on Margaretta Rockefeller disclosed yesterday that several areas of her right breast, besides s the ONE that led to its renioval on Monday, contained ‘”precancerous lesions,” but that there was ‘still no reason for any further, surgery, chemotherapy or radiation treatment.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court temporarily halted certification of Republican Senator Henry Bellmon as winner of the U.S. Senate election, thus keeping Democrat Ed Edmondson’s hopes alive for overturning the race. Edmondson protested the outcome of the election in which Bellmon led by 3,800 votes on grounds. that voters in Tulsa County were not permitted to vote the straight party ticket, and for other alleged irregularities.
Another Ford nominee to the Federal Energy Administration faces a stiff test with a decision by the Senate Interior Committee to reopen hearings Monday on Melvin A. Conant, named by the President to be assistant administrator for international affairs. Conant received a $90,000 termination payment from Exxon Corp. when he left the company to join the government last winter. That, plus the controversy over Andrew E. Gibson’s nomination as federal energy administrator, has put Conant’s confirmation in jeopardy. Gibson withdrew his name after it was disclosed he had a separation agreement with a marine oil transport firm that would yield $880,000.
A rice straw baling device which will enable growers to eliminate a major source of air pollution in the state’s rice-growing areas is being built under a state contract by an engineer at Live Oak. Rice straw now is being disposed of by burning, which sometimes results in visual pollution and eye irritation, the state Food and Agriculture Department reported in Sacramento. Engineer Ben Thompson is building the baler onto a rice harvester chassis so it can operate in wet and muddy fields. State officials said they hoped the machine could be tested in fields by the end of the year.
Anneline Kriel was crowned as Miss World 1974, the second South African to hold the title after Penny Coelen in 1958, when Helen Morgan resigned four days after winning the 24th Miss World pageant. Miss Morgan resigned after extreme pressure from the British tabloid media over her unmarried mother status.
Catfish Hunter meets with Charlie Finley in the American Arbitration Association office in New York City for a hearing to determine the validity of Hunter’s breach-of-contract claim. Hunter contends that Finley failed to pay $50,000, half of Hunter’s salary, to a life insurance fund. The case will go to arbitration.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 617.26 (+5.32, +0.87%).
Born:
Jamie Jones, American singer (All 4 One), in Los Angeles, California.
Tammy Lynn Michaels, American actress (“Popular”), in Lafayette, Indiana.
Roman Šebrle, Czech decathlete (Olympics, silver medal, 2000, gold medal, 2004), in Lanškroun, Czechoslovakia.
Michael Blair, NFL running back (Cincinnati Bengals, Green Bay Packers), in Chicago, Illinois.
Died:
Cyril Connolly CBE, 71, English literary critic and writer.
Margaret Bradford Boni, 82, American music educator and folklorist.
James McGuire, 63, Scottish-born American soccer player and real estate executive, two-time president of the United States Soccer Federation.
Charles Rumford Walker, 81, American historian, political scientist, novelist and Yale University official.
History Diaries 