The White House said last week that the United States and the Soviet Union had agreed on a memorandum of the Vladivostok arms agreement. Today, the Administration acknowledged that the exact language of that document was still being discussed with the Russians. The Admission came in response to questions after it was learned, that the United States had raised questions with the Soviet Union about the wording of the memorandum that is supposed to stand as this record of what the two sides agreed upon in Vladivostok. Both White House and State Department officials said the questions under discussion did not deal with matters of great substance. They said the key elements of the accord — a ceiling of 2,400 long‐range missiles and bombers on both sides, of which 1,320 missiles can contain multiple warheads — remained unchallenged.
Ten European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced plans here today for arms increases next year to improve the military capacity of the alliance. The announcement followed a meeting of defense ministers of Britain, West Germany and eight other members of the European grouping of the alliance. The grouping, formed in 1968, seeks to increase the European commitment to the alliance and at the same time to advertise the extent of that commitment. The defense ministers announced that improvements during 1975 would include the addition of 563 main battle tanks and 238 combat and patrol planes. The total tank forces of the alliance in Europe would thus be increased to 10,500, and the fighter-bomber force to 1,400.
A teenage girl, a woman and four men were charged with murder in the Guildford, England, pub bombings in October that killed five persons and wounded 60. Five other men were charged with possessing explosives or conspiring to set off bombs. One of the women, Ann Rita McGuire, 37, collapsed in tears on being charged and screamed: “I don’t want to stay here. I want my mother. I love everybody.” The 11 were ordered held without bail.
[Ed: They’ve got the wrong people. The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were two groups of people, mostly Northern Irish, who were wrongly convicted in English courts in 1975 and 1976 of the Guildford pub bombings of 5 October 1974 and the Woolwich pub bombing of 7 November 1974. All the convictions were eventually overturned in 1989 (for the Guildford Four) and 1991 (for the Maguire Seven) after long campaigns for justice, and the cases, along with those of the Birmingham Six, diminished public confidence in the English criminal justice system. In the wake of the scandal, in October 1989 the UK Government appointed Appeal Court Justice Sir John May to undertake a judicial inquiry into the suspect convictions of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. The inquiry’s findings criticised the trial judge, Lord Donaldson of Lymington. It unearthed improprieties in the handling of scientific evidence that were relevant to the other cases and declared the convictions unsound and recommended referral back to the Court of Appeal, but no action was taken. No one else has been charged with the Guildford and Woolwich bombings, or with supplying the material. Three police officers were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the wake of the inquiry, but found not guilty in 1993. Over 700 documents, including secret testimony, were collected by the inquiry and were due to be unsealed for public access in The National Archives on 1 January 2020, but on 31 December 2019 the Home Office removed all the documents from the National Archive and took them back into government control. The files remain sealed for now.]
The British government announced a broadly-based mandatory energy-saving program, including lower speed limits on many highways and a maximum temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit in most buildings except homes and hospitals. The government is seeking to reduce energy consumption by 10 percent, and to reduce Britain’s expenditures for imported oil, which have been totaling more than $8 billion annually.
Archbishop Makarios, in his first move since his return from exile on Saturday, came to this southern town today to visit some of the camps for the Greek refugees from the Turkish invasion of last summer. The Archbishop, who was deposed from the Cyprus Presidency just before the invasion, received an emotional welcome from crowds made up largely of women and children and listened sympathetically, but impassively, to their accounts of hardship of losing house and home and their apprehensions about the future. Archbishop Makarios returned to Nicosia, the capital, without having made speeches and with no assurances that much can be done to restore the refugees to a normal life.
East Germany and the United States opened embassies for the first time in each other’s capital, capping a diplomatic exchange worked out earlier this year. It is the first time that the United States is officially represented in East Berlin, with Ambassador-designate John Sherman Cooper in charge. East Germany will be represented in Washington by Ambassador-designate Rolf Sieber.
Leaders of the member nations of the European Communities opened a summit in Paris, and approved plans for the creation of the European Council and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The Paris Summit also approved the direct election of members of the European Parliament by citizens.
Alpine rescuers dug a mountain guard out alive from the snow of an avalanche near Mittenwald, Germany. He had been buried for 20 hours. Eight hours later they uncovered the body of his companion. Both were teenage youths. It was the biggest rescue operation of the winter in the Bavarian Alps, involving 300 border guards, Alpine troops and mountain rescue teams who searched through the night with dogs and sounding gear.
Final steps were taken by Pope Paul VI that clear the way for the formal announcement Thursday of the first American-born saint, Blessed Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, who was born in 1774 to a prominent New York family that was Episcopalian. The canonization procedure was completed when the Vatican officially approved the legitimacy of a miracle attributed to Mother Seton.
The Israel Committee for UNESCO announced in Jerusalem that it is halting all cooperation with the UN. body until anti-Israel resolutions passed by its recent general conference are withdrawn. The committee is a public group of representatives from Israel’s intellectual and artistic community.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal Allon had seven hours of talks with President Ford and Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and said he would return to Washington in January to discuss the next move toward peace in the Middle East. He was reported to have told Mr. Ford and Kissinger that Israel would return part of the Sinai Peninsula if Egypt made some political concessions.
The head of the Greek Catholic Church in Jerusalem was sentenced to 12 years in prison today after being convicted of smuggling arms into the Israelioccupied West Bank for Palestinian guerrillas. The Most Rev. Marion Capucci, Archbishop of East Jerusalem, had contended that he was the victim of a “frame‐up.” But the three‐judge civilian court rejected this as “daring and unfounded argument.” The Archbishop could have received a maximum sentence of 35 years. The Archbishop has spiritual jurisdiction over 4,500 Greek Catholics, most of them Arab, living in Jerusalem, the West Bank and central Israel. He is the highest ranking Christian clergyman ever accused of anti‐Israeli sabotage. He was convicted on three counts involving arms smuggling and making contact with foreign agents.
A breath of liberty and exciting hopes of a democratic future that were felt briefly in Ethiopia earlier this year have nearly disappeared as an almost anonymous and hard-fisted military junta has replaced centuries of absolute monarchy. “The chance we had is probably gone for good,” an Ethiopian said, “even if we do get a civilian government now, it will probably be an extreme left-wing and authoritarian one.”
Congressional conferees agreed on a $3 billion military construction authorization bill providing only about half the sum the Pentagon sought for improving its military facility on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Language was inserted to require presidential certification that the authorized $18.1 million in improvements are necessary for national interests.
Scattered fighting on a wide scale was reported again today in the southern part of South Vietnam, with infantry attacks and shelling in provinces around Saigon. The Saigon command said that Communist forces had committed 319 violations of the cease‐fire in the previous 24 hours. It was said to be the second highest number of “incidents” recorded since the Paris peace agreements. The reported Communist attacks did not yet appear to reflect a major move. As they have throughout much of this year, the Communists seemed to be relying on purportedly vast stores of ammunition in the south to inflict casualties on government outposts.
Western diplomatic sources say the North Vietnamese have brought enough ammunition south to last them through 18 months of heavy fighting in southern Vietnam and eight months in northern provinces. Some of the incidents the command reported were in the north. The command said that Tây Ninh city, 65 miles northwest of here, was struck by six artillery shells, and that two civilians were wounded. A military convoy of 20 trucks was ambushed eight miles outside the province capital in the rubber‐plantation country that lines Route 22, the command said. Four soldiers were reported killed and 15 wounded. In the last three days the Saigon side has reported persistent fighting around Tây Ninh city and especially sharp attacks on a government electronic‐surveillance facility on a mountain near the town.
In Kiến Tường Province, south of Tây Ninh, the command reported a large clash four miles northwest of the town of Mộc Hóa. It said crewmen of Government armored personnel carriers—apparently trying to check Communist penetration into the province from neighboring Cambodia — had killed 116 Communist soldiers at a cost to themselves of two killed and seven wounded. In Chương Thiện Province, in the lower Mekong Delta, a Government relief column marching toward the besieged town of Hùng Long reported that 150 Communist soldiers had been killed, apparently by air strikes.
Throughout the nation, the government reported 34 of its soldiers or civilians killed, 147 wounded end 3 missing for day. Communist losses in the 24‐hour period were put at 517 killed. Government military sources said that South Vietnamese ighter‐bombers flew 132 missions in the 24 hours, 44 in Tây Ninh, 22 in the delta and the rest in the northern provinces. The command reported what seemed to be probing attacks in various parts of Biên Hòa Province, just east of Saigon. Intense but brief fighting was reported around the town of Tân Uyên. Attacks were also reported in Bình Dương, Long An, Hậu Nghĩa and Phước Tuy Provinces.
The United States called upon North Vietnam today to end operations in South Vietnam that violate the Paris peace agreement and to return to the negotiating table. “The United States is following the situation closely and is hopeful that North Vietnam will recognize the futility of broadening their attacks and will end actions which are in violation of the Paris agreement,” Ron Nessen, the White House press secretary, told newsmen. He was commenting on reports of the heaviest fighting in South Vietnam in nearly two years.
The U.N. political committee voted 61 to 42 for a Western-backed proposal to leave 40,000 U.S. troops in South Korea and forwarded the resolution to the General Assembly. In a cliff-hanging climax, however, the committee also voted on a Communist-backed proposal demanding a U.S. pullout. This vote ended in a tie and the committee chairman ruled that the proposal had failed.
Takeo Miki formed a government as the new Prime Minister of Japan, after Kakuei Tanaka had announced his resignation on November 26. Miki, Japan’s new Premier, selected a cabinet today that appeared to be a mixture of old-time factional balancing with an attempt to bring in new talent to meet Japan’s pressing economic and political problems.
At least nine persons, including a policeman, were injured in a bomb explosion in the Ginza shopping district of downtown Tokyo after a telephoned warning, police said. Police said the Taisei Construction Co. received two phone calls from a young man who identified himself as a member of “East Asia… Imperialism.” The blast was the third such incident in the city since August.
The national government of Mexico published its declaration that the identification of the alcoholic beverage of tequila was limited to the blue agave liquor distilled within the Mexican state of Jalisco, and that the term “tequila” (named for the town of Tequila, Jalisco) was the intellectual property of Mexico. The statement was published in the Official Journal of the Federation (Mexico).
The Ayacucho Declaration was signed in the Peruvian city of Ayacucho by representatives of the South American nations of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, along with Panama. The eight nations made a statement agreeing to place limits on the acquisition of armaments for military purposes other than defense.
Government officials said that President Ford, concerned about the rapidly growing unemployment rate, had agreed to abandon his proposal for a public service employment program and accept a broader, more accelerated congressional program. The President was said to be willing to go along with a House bill that would authorize $2 billion for public service jobs right away and would scrap the “trigger” system proposed by Mr. Ford, which would create public service employment only after unemployment reached a high level in a specific area over a prolonged period.
Henry Ford II, chairman of the Ford Motor Company, said that President Ford must quickly develop a decisive, “substantive” program of action to avert a prolonged and deepening national economic crisis. He gave a gloomy, impatient assessment of the national economic climate in a speech to a group of newspaper executives, and among his suggestions was a temporary loosening of the federal monetary policy.
John Ehrlichman began to give in his own words his defense to the charges at the Watergate cover-up trial — a defense that sought to shift the blame to former President Richard Nixon. Mr. Ehrlichman was interrupted after less than two hours of testimony, however, by a heated legal argument in which the chief prosecutor, James F. Neal, accused him of participating in a “charade” with Mr. Nixon. Mr. Neal charged that Mr. Ehrlichman had written a “phony report” on Watergate for Mr. Nixon to use in April, 1973, in explaining Watergate to the public. He said that the report, which Mr. Ehrlichman contends was written on April 13, 1973, contained only a fraction of the information that Mr. Nixon received three weeks earlier, on March 21, from another Nixon aide, John W. Dean 3d.
The Senate began its formal debate on the confirmation of Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President, taking less than the time allotted for debate before the line vote, which is scheduled tomorrow afternoon. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a conservative Republican, informed President Ford in a letter that he would not vote to confirm Mr. Rockefeller. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Senate majority whip, said he believed that the former New York Governor would be confirmed by an overwhelming margin.
A bill requiring the federal government to take possession of former President Richard M. Nixon’s papers and tapes was passed by the House and sent to the White House. The unanimous vote came only hours after the Senate amended the measure and returned it to the House for final passage. President Ford has given no indication as to whether he will sign the bili. The legislation was introduced by Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin) after Mr. Nixon had negotiated an agreement with the White House under which he would donate the tapes to the federal government by 1979.
A $33 billion bill to finance programs for the Department of Labor and for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was signed by President Ford. He also signed two measures which he had vetoed earlier — one to expand protection for migrant farm workers and the other providing funds for rehabilitation and vocational training of handicapped persons.
Efforts to short-cut procedures and to speed passage of a bill to regulate strip mining of coal were rejected in the House but the margin of the vote indicated that chances were good for passage of the bill later this week. However, it appeared unlikely that the bill would be able to muster enough votes to override a veto threatened by the White House. The bill will be sent to the Rules Committee and back to the floor under a system requiring only a simple majority for passage. The short-cut maneuver would have required a two-third vote.
Final passage of a bill by Senator John V. Tunney (D-California) to step up antitrust enforcement came a step closer. On a voice vote, the Senate agreed to changes made by the House to raise the maximum penalties for antitrust violators to $1 million in fines and three years in prison. The original Senate version provided for a $500,000 ceiling on corporate fines and left the jail term at one year, the maximum under current law. Still to be resolved is the procedure for appealing antitrust cases to the Supreme Court.
Most of the nation’s coal production resumed after a month-long shutdown but picketing by mine construction workers idled companies employing about 24,000 of the United Mine Workers’ 120,000 soft coal workers. The construction workers, who are also UMW members, are trying to exert pressure on contract negotiations in Washington with the Association of Bituminous Contractors. The UMW has asked the construction workers to refrain from picketing the mines.
Robert (Sonny) Carson, whose autobiography inspired the motion picture “The Education of Sonny Carson,” was convicted of kidnapping in Mineola, New York. Carson and six co-defendants were accused of abducting and shooting two Brooklyn men on May 23, 1973. One of the men died. All seven are to go on trial January 13 on murder charges. Sentencing on the kidnapping charge will take place February 3. Carson, 39, a former youth gang leader, headed the Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality until he split with the group because he believed it was not militant enough.
Oregon Governor Tom McCall ordered all state agencies to reduce energy consumption in their offices by 15%. He also ordered many state agencies to cut their consumption of gasoline by as much as 25%. The reductions, he said, are to be from levels established in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1973. Governor McCall’s order, which went into effect Monday, also requires recycling of waste paper and reduction of automobile mileage through car pooling.
The Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in San Francisco announced it had curtailed natural gas delivery to 230 of its interruptible customers in Northern California. These customers, mostly industries and other large institutions, pay less for natural gas service than do other customers because their service can be interrupted when demand by regular customers is above normal. The curtailment was made necessary, a PG&E spokesman explained, because temperatures in much of Northern California were in the 30s and 40s, causing more use of gas for heating.
The administration, concerned that some oil-rich countries might try to take over financial control of critical defense industries, has begun a study into whether present security safeguards are adequate to detect and prevent foreign financial infiltration of defense contractors.
Johnson Grigsby freed after 66 years in jail in Indiana. He had been convicted after stabbing a man in 1907 during a poker game/bar fight.
The romantic comedy “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” starring Ellen Burstyn in the title role as Alice Hyatt, premiered in Los Angeles before going into release to U.S. theaters on January 29, 1975. It would later be adapted to a TV situation comedy, Alice, with one of the film’s cast members, Vic Tayback, reprising his role as Mel Sharples, owner of the diner where Alice worked.
Jack Brisco beats Giant Baba in Tokyo, to become NWA wrestling champ.
Bobby Tolan, traded by the Cincinnati Reds for pitcher Clay Kirby on November 9, 1973, finally signs a 1974 contract with the San Diego Padres, leading to a withdrawal of the grievance initiated by the Players’ Association on his behalf.
NFL Monday Night Football:
Washington Redskins 23, Los Angeles Rams 17
Aided by an incomprehensible gamble by the Los Angeles Rams early in the second period, the Washington Redskins went on to 23–17 victory tonight that earned them the eighth and final berth in the National Football League playoffs. By beating the Rams, who had already clinched their own place as champions of the Western Division, the Redskins eliminated Dallas and Detroit as wild‐card possibilities, and tied the St. Louis Cardinals for first place in the Eastern Division of the National Conference. Both will be in the playoffs, although which will face the Rams and which will play Minnesota must be determined by the outcome of their final games on Sunday: St. Louis against the New York Giants and Washington against the Chicago Bears. The Redskins outplayed the Rams after the first 13 minutes, during which Los Angeles took a 10–0 lead; they scored 20 points in the second quarter, the most any team has accumulated in one period against the Rams, and held off a couple of challenges in the second half. James Harris, knocked woozy late in the second period, did not play at all after intermission and the Ram quarterbacking was done by Ron Jaworski. But the flow of the game changed dramatically, in Washington’s favor, after the Rams unaccountably tried a pass from punt formation on fourth down with 10 yards to go on their 23‐yard line, while leading, 10–6, in the second minute of the second quarter. Such a play would be risky enough under the most desperate circumstances; it seemed entirely unnecessary at that time. Mike Burke’s pass was knocked down, the Redskins took over in position to get a gift touchdown, and a couple of minutes later they had it and a 13–10 lead. They never trailed again.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 579.94 (+2.34, +0.41%).
Born:
David Akers, NFL kicker (Pro Bowl, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2009–2011; Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions), in Lexington, Kentucky.
Canibus [Germaine Williams], American rapper, in Kingston, Jamaica.
Pippa Bacca (stage name for Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo), Italian performance artist; in Milan, Italy (murdered 2008).
Died:
Walter Guyton Cady, 99, American physicist and electrical engineer, died the day before his 100th birthday.
Dame Kathleen Courtney, DBE, 96, English suffragist, former United Nations Association chair.
John Gordon, 84, Scottish newspaper editor (Sunday Express).
History Diaries 