Efforts toward detente between the West and the Soviet Union have not brought the hoped-for kind of East-West accommodation that would open up Soviet society, bringing reform and liberalization in many walks of life. It is apparent that the Soviet leadership has found a formula for achieving the foreign policy and economic dividends of accommodation with the West without paying the price of relaxing controls.
The Soviet Union renewed its objection to the U.S. trade bill which ties trade concessions to freer emigration for Soviet Jews. The Communist Party newspaper Pravda repeated that Russia rejects any attempt at interference in its internal affairs. Reports from Washington have said the Kremlin, while publicly denying any deal linking U.S. trade to emigration, has given private assurances that there will be an end to harassment of those seeking to emigrate.
The Soviet Union’s leading dissident, nuclear physicist Andrei D. Sakharov, said his daughter and son-in-law were being kept in the Soviet Union as hostages for his silence on human rights and emigration issues. He said his son-in-law has been refused permission to study in the United States and had received a letter containing what he construed to be a death threat. Meanwhile, Jewish physicist Viktor Polsky, one of the first to be refused a visa for Israel by the Kremlin, finally left Moscow for Israel after trying since 1971.
Senator John Sparkman (D-Alabama), incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that although he is pleased with the Vladivostok nuclear arms agreement with the Soviet Union, the United States should seek even lower arms ceilings. He called it a good agreement. Meanwhile, noted nuclear physicist Edward Teller, a foe of past arms agreements, said he favored the Vladivostok plan.
Turkish officials say they are ready to begin serious negotiations over Cyprus, but they have set down two conditions that could hinder progress toward a settlement. They do not want Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus, to control the negotiating position of the Greek side. They know it is unrealistic to expect the Archbishop to resign, but they hope he will delegate full negotiating authority to Glafkos Clerides, the President of the House of Representatives. The Turks also want the Greeks to acknowledge the principle that any settlement must be based on a “geographical federation.” By that, they mean that Cyprus should be divided into two zones, linked by a federal government but administered separately. One zone would be controlled by the ethnic Turks, who make up 18 percent of the population, and the other by the ethnic Greeks, who account for 80 percent.
Turkish officials have expressed guarded optimism following the recent meetings in Brussels between Secretary of State Kissinger and the Greek and Turkish Foreign Ministers. As a member of the Turkish delegation put it, We found out that Greece is willing to have negotiations — and vice versa.” The Turks urged Mr. Kissinger and the Greek delegation to put pressure on the Archbishop to withdraw from the negotiating process. President Makarios has been making conciliatory statements lately, but analysts have long considered him masterful at ambiguity. If all goes according to the plan sketched out in Brussels, the next step would be for Mr. Clerides and Rauf Denktaş, the Turkish Cypriote leader, to start preliminary discussions on political subjects. The two men, who are old friends, have already been discussing humanitarian issues raised by the Turkish invasion of the island last July. There was wide agreement in Brussels that these talks should now become “much more meaningful,” according to Turkish official. However, he added, any final settlement would have to be negotiated between Athens and Ankara.
Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb the home of former UK Prime Minister, Edward Heath, just before announcing Christmas ceasefire. No one was injured in the bombing, which followed by a day an explosion at Harrods, a fashionable London department store. On Thursday a bomb exploded in Oxford Street near Selfridge’s, another large store. Mr. Heath, the leader of the Conservative party, which lost two elections this year to the Labor party, was returning to London from Broadstairs, Kent, where he had conducted a concert of Christmas carols. His housekeeper and her daughter were alone in the eight‐room rented Georgian house at 17 Wilton Street, in Belgravia, when the explosion occurred. Scotland Yard said that the bomb, which was described as relatively small, was tossed from a passing car to a second‐floor balcony of the three‐story house, shattering windows and knocking off one corner of the balcony. Mr. Heath arrived 10 minutes later, surveyed the damage and left in a car.
The second cease-fire between IRA & British begins; it lasts until approximately April 1975.
Ten thousand people took part in a march for peace through Dublin today. It was the largest demonstration held in the city for several years. Among the marchers were three Irish Government Ministers, members of most political parties and relatives of those who died in Irish Republican Army bomb attacks in Britain, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Clergymen of all denominations led prayers for peace. At one point during the march there was a scuffle when supporters of the Irish Republican Army Provisionals, carrying banners saying “peace with justice,” tried to join the demonstration. They abandoned the attempt when marchers objected on the ground that an 11‐day cease‐fire, which begins tonight, scarcely justified the participation of the Provisionals in a rally devoted, among other things, to mourning the victims of guerrilla violence.
France’s new Mirage F1 M-53 jet fighter took to the air for the first time at Istres, reaching a speed of mach 1.32 at about 38,000 feet, the builders, the Marcel Dassault firm, announced. Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Holland are scheduled to decide in January whether to award a $3 billion contract for 350 planes to the Mirage, the Swedish Saab Viggen, or one of two American fighters, the General Dynamics YF-16 or the Northrop Cobra YF-17.
The first International Gay Rights Congress ended a five-day session in Edinburgh, Scotland, after adopting a motion calling for better understanding of homosexuals by the world’s churches. The congress gave approving recognition to sympathetic pastoral work of Dutch churches, the establishment of an Anglican church working party on homosexuality and a World Council of Churches scholarship for study in sexual minorities.
A 16-year-old American girl on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Dejean Replogle, of Jacksonville, Florida, was injured when a grenade struck the bus in which she was riding. In Beirut, a Palestinian guerrilla group took responsibility for the attack and warned Christmas visitors “not to go to occupied Palestine as we are not responsible if they get hurt during the escalation of the commando activity against the Israeli enemy.” The scene of the attack was Al Ayzariyah, an Arab village on the site of Bethany. Israeli forces quickly encircled the community, imposed a curfew and detained about 20 persons for questioning. The grenade was apparently hurled from the roof of a courtyard alongside the Jerusalem‐Jericho road Miss Replogle and 17 fellow parishioners of the Main Street Baptist Church of Jacksonville were on their way from Jerusalem to Jericho and had stopped off in Al Ayzariyah. There, they visited the Biblical site of the tomb of Lazarus. Some purchased souvenirs. They had gotten back on the bus and the driver, Zadok Tamar, had just started the engine when the grenade was thrown.
The finance and petroleum minister of Qatar announced that his nation would start talks immediately with foreign oil companies about taking over their remaining 40% share in Qatar operations. Two production combines involved are Qatar Petroleum Co. — with remaining foreign holdings split between British Petroleum, Compagnie Francaise des Petroles, Royal Dutch Shell, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Mobil Oil and Partex — and Shell Co. of Qatar with holdings by Royal Dutch Shell.
Iraq announces plans to increase its oil production capacity.
The Việt Cộng have taken over the Chính Tâm village where South Vietnamese government police killed two people during a demonstration last month, military sources in Saigon said. The village, about 70 miles east of Saigon, became a focal point of an anti-government campaign after riot police broke up an anti-corruption meeting November 2 by spraying gunfire into the crowd.
Voters on almost all of the Comoros islands approved independence from France, voting 95% in favor. The exception was the island of Mayotte, where 63% of the voters elected to remain an overseas department of France.
All 75 people aboard Avensa Flight 358 were killed when the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 jet crashed in Venezuela, five minutes after taking off from Maturín on a flight to Caracas. Five minutes after takeoff the pilots declared an emergency to the control tower. The pilots lost control of the aircraft and crashed 32 km (20 mi; 17 nmi) from the city of Maturín. Venezuelan authorities and the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the accident. The cause of the accident was not determined, though an elevator malfunction was considered.
Senator William Proxmire said he would demand a full investigation by the Justice Department of alleged domestic spying operations of the Central Intelligence Agency and called for the resignation of Richard Helms, the American Ambassador to Iran, and the former director of Central Intelligence. The Wisconsin Democrat reacted to a report in the New York Times that Mr. Helms had established intelligence files on 10,000 American citizens.
President Ford said that he had informed the Central Intelligence Agency that he would not tolerate its conducting any intelligence operation within the United States in violation of its charter, He said he had had some “partial information” about an extensive illegal intelligence operation by the C.I.A. under the Nixon administration. The President said he had informed the agency that “this Administration would not tolerate it.” He said that after reading a report of alleged domestic operations by the C.I.A. in The New York Times this morning, he received a call aboard the plane from William E. Colby, the Director of Central Intelligence, who assured him that “nothing comparable” to what was described in the article was going on now. “I told him under no circumstances would I tolerate any such activities under this Administration,” he said.
A $13 billion stimulus for the economy through a one-time 10 percent reduction in the federal income tax due in April has been proposed by Andrew Brimmer, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board, to President Ford and congressional leaders. Government officials have privately expressed interest in his idea. Big tax cuts were also proposed by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and Walter Heller, who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
A “militant anti-busing faction” has attempted to extort money from Boston businessmen by threatening them with violence and financial ruin, a police spokesman said. Stephen Dunleavy, an aide to Police Commissioner Robert diGrazia, said the group was the same one that police had said conspired to blow up bridges in east and south Boston to dramatize opposition to court-ordered school integration.
Rep. Al Ullman (D-Oregon), the new chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, promised to act early next year on a tax cut for persons with low and moderate incomes. Ullman, who inherited the influential chairmanship from Rep. Wilbur D. Mills (D-Arkansas), said also that reforms were needed in the way the Internal Revenue Service dealt with taxpayers. The chairman said national health insurance and welfare reform would be the next most important issues.
The 4500 striking mine construction workers ratified a new three-year contract, paving the way for immediate resumption of full-scale coal production across the nation. A United Mine Workers spokesman said the contract had been approved by a 2-1 ratio and “work will resume immediately.” The five-week walkout had prevented a full resumption of coal production after the settlement reached earlier between mine operators and the 120,000 soft-coal miners. An estimated 20,000 miners had refused to cross the construction workers’ picket lines.
Forty-two senators said the Ford Administration’s plan to increase the cost of food stamps during a time of economic decline made no sense at all. In a letter, the senators urged the Agriculture Department to withdraw the proposed increases which are to take effect March 1. If not, said Senator George S. McGovern (D-South Dakota), spokesman for the group, Congress may intervene. The plan to cut $325 million from the program, they said, would force recipients to pay 30% of their incomes for stamps. The poorest now pay as little as 5%. The average is 23%. Seventy-two members of the House have made a similar complaint.
The staffs of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Press were back at work, ending the city’s six-week-old newspaper blackout. The Plain Dealer printed a 64-page Sunday edition and employees of the afternoon Press prepared for publication today. Members of the Newspaper Guild approved a three-year contract calling for a $362-a-week top minimum for reporters in the final year.
Seattle’s Expo ’74 world’s fair stirred international environmental concern, but local businessmen will have to pay the bills. Expo was described as an apparent break-even, $85 million fair before it closed November 3. Now it is heading for a $500,000 deficit, says general manager Peter Spurney, The 300 businessmen who guaranteed a $1.3 million bankroll to back the fair have been notified to cover their pledges. But the fair was expected to pump $700 million into the city’s economy over a 10-year period and, said Mayor David Rodgers, “we never spent a better half-million dollars than the apparent Expo deficit.”
A 24-year-old woman was fatally wounded early today in the East New York section of Brooklyn when she was caught in the crossfire between a Housing Authority officer and a Correction Department officer who were exchanging shots in a dual case of mistaken identity. Both officers were wearing street clothes, and each one thought the other was a robber. The dead woman was identified as Maria Pellet of 749 Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive.
A year after the proclamation of Project Independence, the project to make the country self-sufficient in energy, the projected contribution of nuclear energy in the next years has fallen drastically. This development is said by backers of nuclear power to foreshadow additional pressure on a hard-pressed coal industry, and a delay in converting electric power stations from costly imported petroleum. It has also increased the danger of power shortages in some areas, and, possibly of a delayed recovery from the recession.
A South El Monte firm will remove almost 4 million tons of sand, gravel and silt from behind the San Antonio Dam north of Upland and, furthermore, will pay for the privilege, the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers announced. The F. and M. Co. will pay the government $187,000 for the material, which it will use in the construction industry, it was reported.
March Air Force Base near Riverside announced it will spend $375,000 to build a system to collect and burn vapors that now escape from 40 jet fuel tanks on the base. Abatement of the discharges by next July 31 had been ordered by the Riverside County Air Pollution Control District.
At 17, she gets an allowance of $7 a week and she occasionally takes a baby-sitting job to help out. But it’s somehow different now that her father has this new job. Now the Secret Service goes along. Susan Elizabeth Ford says she hates politics, didn’t follow the Watergate scandal, hasn’t the least interest in the coverup trial and agrees with her father’s decision to pardon Richard M. Nixon. “They were going to stab him in the back. It’s a nasty game, and I don’t like it.” Susan hasn’t been much affected by the women’s liberation movement. “I mean, I believe in equal rights, but that’s it.” She finds she is much more interested in getting married and having six children than a career. And as soon as she finishes her education — “I’m not much of a student unless I really want to be. Get in, get out. That’s all as far as I’m concerned” — what she really wants is to go live in the country. “I’ll have horses and dogs and cats. I’ll be set.”
Phil Esposito, Boston, became the 6th NHL player to score 500 goals.
AFC Divisional Playoffs:
Buffalo Bills 14, Pittsburgh Steelers 32
The Pittsburgh Steelers, exploding for 26 points in the second quarter, defeated the Buffalo Bills, 32–14 to advance to the AFC Championship Game against Oakland. Running back Franco Harris led the Steelers to the victory by scoring 3 touchdowns in the second quarter. Pittsburgh outgained the Bills in total yards, 438–264, and first downs, 29–14. Pittsburgh scored on their first possession with Roy Gerela’s 21-yard field goal, but later on, a poor punt from Bobby Walden gave the Bills a first down on their own 44, where they proceeded to drive 56 yards to a 7–3 lead on Joe Ferguson’s 27-yard touchdown pass to tight end Paul Seymour. The Steelers took over the game in the second quarter, scoring 26 unanswered points with an NFL playoff single quarter record 4 touchdowns. Early in the period, Pittsburgh quarterback Terry Bradshaw rushed for 8 yards on 3rd and 7 and later picked another 12 yards on a scramble before finishing the drive with a 27-yard scoring pass to running back Rocky Bleier, giving the team a 9–7 lead after Gerela’s extra point was blocked. Following a Bills punt, the team increased their lead to 16–7 with a 66-yard drive that concluded with a 1-yard touchdown run by Harris. Then Buffalo running back Jim Braxton lost a fumble on a combined tackle by Mel Blount and Mike Wagner, which linebacker Jack Ham recovered for Pittsburgh on their 42. Bradshaw subsequently completed a 19-yard pass to Bleier and 35-yard pass to Lynn Swann as the team drove to a 22–7 lead (due to another blocked extra point) on Harris’ 4-yard score. With 16 seconds left before halftime, Harris scored his 3rd rushing touchdown to cap a 56-yard drive, upping his team’s lead to 29–7.
Buffalo cut the score to 29–14 in the third quarter with Ferguson’s 3-yard touchdown pass to running back O. J. Simpson, but Gerela’s 22-yard field goal in the final period would be the only other score of the game. In the only playoff game of his 11-season Hall of Fame career, Simpson was held to 49 rushing yards, 3 receptions for 37 yards, and a touchdown. Ferguson threw for 164 yards, 2 touchdowns, and no interceptions, but completed just 11 of 26 passes. Bradshaw completed 12 of 19 passes for 201 yards and a touchdown, while also rushing for 48 yards on five carries. This was the first postseason meeting between the Bills and Steelers.
NFC Divisional Playoffs:
Washington Redskins 10, Los Angeles Rams 19
The Los Angeles Rams scored 12 unanswered points in the second half to beat the Washington Redskins, 19–10, and move on to the NFC title game against Minnesota. Linebacker Isiah Robertson returned an interception 59 yards in the fourth quarter, the last of six Washington turnovers, to clinch the Rams victory in a brutal defensive battle in which both teams combined for just 444 total yards. The two teams had met on the same field thirteen days earlier on Monday night, won by Washington 23–17, which was the sole home loss of the season for the Rams. Los Angeles scored on the opening drive, moving the ball 72 yards in eight plays, with quarterback James Harris’ two completions to Harold Jackson for 35 total yards setting up his 10-yard touchdown pass to tight end Bob Klein. The Redskins then scored ten unanswered points before halftime. Billy Kilmer’s 41-yard completion to Charley Taylor got the team moving on the way to a 35-yard Mike Bragg field goal, making the score 7–3. In the second quarter, the Rams forced and recovered a fumble from Kilmer on the Washington 38, but the Redskins defense made a stand to prevent the Rams from scoring. Later on, Washington cornerback Pat Fischer intercepted a pass from Harris and returned it 40 yards to the Rams 23, setting up Moses Denson’s 1-yard rushing touchdown to give Washington their first lead at 10–7.
In the third quarter, Rams defensive tackle Merlin Olsen forced a fumble from running back Larry Brown that linebacker Jack Reynolds recovered on the LA 44-yard line, leading to David Ray’s 37-yard field goal. Then returner Doug Cunningham lost a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, resulting Ray’s 26-yard field goal to give LA a 13–10 lead. In the fourth quarter, coach George Allen replaced Kilmer with Sonny Jurgensen. With the Redskins driving for the possible tying field goal, defensive tackle Merlin Olsen pressured Jurgensen into throwing the game clinching interception to Robertson, who weaved his way back and forth across the field as he ran 59 yards to the end zone. The extra point kick failed, but Olsen then recorded two more sacks, forcing a punt and enabling LA to hold the ball until 3:23 remained in the game. On Washington’s next drive, Reynolds intercepted a pass from Jurgensen to put the game away. Third-string quarterback Joe Theismann was returning punts for the Redskins at this time. This was the last game in hall of famer Jurgensen’s career. This was the second postseason meeting between the franchises; the Rams also won the 1945 NFL Championship Game, their final game as the Cleveland Rams.
Born:
Heather Donahue, American writer and actress (“The Blair Witch Project”), in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.
Trevor Enders, MLB pitcher (Tampa Bay Devil Rays), in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Died:
Irene Mott Bose, 75, American-born social worker active in Nagpur, India.
Warren Finnerty, 49, American actor, of a heart attack.
Fosco Giachetti, 74, Italian actor and film star during Italy’s Fascist era.
Robert B. Harvey, 66, business manager of Harvey Comic Group, Inc., of a heart attack.
John C. Persons, 86, U.S. Army officer, commanding general of 31st Infantry Division in World War II, of a stroke.
History Diaries 