The Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 was signed into law after narrowly passing in both the U.S. Senate (46 to 45 on December 4) and the House of Representatives (201 to 189 on December 11). The law directed that the U.S. government should “substantially reduce or terminate security assistance to any government which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights” and included the Hughes–Ryan Amendment requiring the President to report all covert operations of the CIA to Congress. The Act effectively eliminated aid and military funding for South Vietnam, which would fall to the North Vietnamese invasion four months later.
President Ford today signed the $2.7‐billion foreign military and economic aid bill, but complained that Congressional cuts in aid for Indochina threatened to undermine efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting in Cambodia and to retard efforts to bring economic stability to South Vietnam. The President said he would meet with Congressional leaders, “at the earliest possible time” to “discuss this critical issue.” “The economic and military assistance levels for Cambodia, particularly, are clearly inadequate to meet minimum basic needs,” he said in a statement issued to newsmen. “Our support is vital to help effect an early end to the fighting and a negotiated settlement.”
The U.S. Defense Department, in reference to a column written by Jack Anderson, confirmed that possible use of “limited tactical nuclear weapons” was one of the “several planning options available to the President” during the 1958 crisis over the Nationalist Chinese islands of Quemoy and Matsu. But a spokesman said the Pentagon does not have “all the pertinent messages and documents of that period” with which to answer the questions raised in Anderson’s column.
Gunmen killed a 17-year-old boy in a Protestant area five miles north of Belfast, breaking the Irish Republican Army’s holiday cease-fire at a time when government and church leaders sought to extend the truce. The boy, carrying a shotgun for duck hunting, was shot in the head after he and a companion were stopped by four gunmen. The second youth fled during the struggle for the gun.
British authorities have ruled out the more fanciful theories behind the disappearance and reappearance in Australia of John Stonehouse, the Labor member of Parliament and former cabinet member. They said a crushing burden of debt caused him to stage a drowning in Miami Beach on Nov. 20 and try to start a new life under an assumed name in Australia. Reports from Australia, meanwhile, said he tried to “launder” more than $25,000 through two Australian banks two weeks before his arrest in Melbourne.
Greek Catholic Archbishop Hilarion Capucci ended his partial hunger strike in an Israeli jail on Christmas Day, prison officials said. He began his protest. December 13, four days after being sentenced to 12 years on charges of gun-running for Palestine guerrillas. The archbishop had told two fellow churchmen that he hoped for a pardon “so that I can be useful in becoming a bridge of understanding between all the people in the Holy Land.”
Speculative buying in gold continued on the European bullion markets, pushing up its price in anticipation of the entry of American buyers in the market tomorrow. The price at the morning fixing in London was a record $197.50, but demand slackened and the price fell to $191.50 at the close.
It was officially announced in Moscow that Leonid Brezhnev had indefinitely postponed his visit to Egypt, Syria and Iraq, which he was to begin in about two weeks. No explanation was given. The indefinite postponement, tantamount in diplomatic terms to cancellation, was regarded as a setback in the Kremlin’s efforts to enhance its position in the Middle East. However, this was challenged by a Soviet-Egyptian statement issued in Moscow at the end of a three-day visit by high Egyptian officials that stressed the “firm friendship” between the two countries.
The postponement of Mr. Brezhnev’s trip was a welcome surprise to administration officials in Washington who had expected that the visit might have led to a resurgence of Soviet influence in Egypt at American expense. The State Department refused to comment on the postponement but officials there assumed that it was a setback to Moscow and opened the way to a new Egyptian-Israeli negotiation through Secretary of State Kissinger.
Eighty internationally known composers, conductors and musical performers pledged to boycott the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization until it reverses recent decisions that excluded Israel from its activities. A letter signed by the 80 was the latest in a growing outcry against anti-Israel resolutions adopted by UNESCO last month. Among the signers of the letter are Artur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz and Leonard Bernstein.
Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq claimed to have killed more than 15, 000 Iraqis and lost 2,361 of their own men in fighting since last March, according to a rebel radio broadcast monitored in eastern Turkey. The Voice of Kurdistan Radio appealed for Islamic nations “who do not want Kurdistan to be wiped out by the Iraqis to support the Kurds in their struggle for regional autonomy under the Bagdad government.
According to official estimates, the earthquake that struck northern Pakistan over the weekend killed 4,700 persons and injured 15,000 in nine towns. The toll is expected to rise as runners make contact with regions farther north that have been cut off since the quake struck Saturday night. Aftershocks continued intermittently. The only way into the disaster area at present is by helicopter over the peaks of the Karakoram Mountains. An army operation, based in Pattan, is carrying out rescue work and helicopter‐lifts of drugs, food, and clothing. The army says that 500 people died in Pattan, that 2,000 were injured and about 400 houses destroyed or badly damaged. Stone, mortar and wooden houses here lie collapsed in heaps of rubble. By day, women and children pick their way through the ruins, searching for loved ones and looking for possessions; at night, most of the village’s population of about 10,000 sleep in the open, in temperatures near zero.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi said today that affluent nations had an obligation to assist poor countries such as India. “Is it not a new form of arrogance for affluent nations to regard the poorer nations as an improvident species whose numbers are a threat to their own standard of living?” Mrs. Gandhi asked in a speech before nearly 600 delegates to the International Law Conference here. “The world’s resources must be developed to make equitable distribution possible,” she added. “An obligation rests on the haves to generate confidence among the have‐nots.” Mrs. Gandhi’s speech reflected the view of officials and newspapers that Western nations were wasteful and acquisitive and were consuming too much food at the expense of the poorer nations.
Nineteen American civilians crossed the Mekong River to safety after voluntarily spending seven days in a rebel-held Laotian town. The Americans, an Italian missionary, a Briton and nine Filipinos said they had remained voluntarily in Ban Houei Sai “because we wanted to demonstrate to the people there that we were with them. The villagers wanted us to stay.” The group were flown to Vientiane. Earlier, the US Embassy had reported that the Americans were under house arrest.
The Mongolian People’s Republic passed its Nationality Act, declaring that any person, with at least one parent who was a Mongolian citizen, was automatically a citizen of Mongolia regardless of where that person was born or lived. The law would be amended in 1995 to provide that the automatic citizenship would be revoked for any person who became the citizen of another nation.
A landslide caused by a construction crew killed 12 people in the town of Yuju in Yanchuan in the Shaanxi Province of the People’s Republic of China. The crew was digging a canal when it dislodged part of a mountain.
Archbishop Jaime L. Sin of Manila has called the attention of top military authorities to “persistent and disturbing” reports that certain persons detained under martial law had been tortured.
Australia’s port city of Darwin, pounded into rubble by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day, will be rebuilt on the same site, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam said. A Darwin reconstruction commission will plan the new city over the next five years. and decide how to make the best use of Darwin’s land and remaining buildings. Whitlam named Sir Leslie Thiess, a leading industrialist, as chairman of the commission.
A group of prominent Nicaraguan businessmen and politicians, kidnapped by leftist guerrillas at a Christmas party here Friday, were freed unharmed today minutes before their captors flew to Cuba. In exchange for the lives of the 13 hostages, who included two ministers and, three ambassadors, the Government of General Anastasio Somoza Debayle ordered the release of 14 political prisoners. These also flew to Cuba at noon today. In addition, the regime paid the guerrillas a $1‐million ransom and permitted the publication and broadcast of fiercely anti‐Government statement.
As the aircraft took off from Managua’s Las Merceeds Airport, a loud cheer went up from hundreds of young Nicaraguans inside and outside the terminal building. The guerrillas — six men and three women — were also applauded by many passers‐by as they drove in a bus with their hostages to the airport from the quiet residential district of Los Robles, where they had been besieged in bungalow for 61 hours. Almost from the beginning, it was apparent that the Somoza regime would have to meet the demands of the guerrillas. Among the hostages were some of the most important figures in Nicaraguan society, including the Ambassador to the United States, Guillermo Sevilla‐Sacase, who is related to President Somoza.
The Government of Honduras introduced, through Decree Law No. 170-74, a new agrarian reform.
The governing political party of Zaire announced today that it would nationalize industry, the building trades and distribution services and would institute other economic, educational and military measures.
Rhodesia’s white minority Government. said today that it may call off a scheduled constitutional conference with black nationalists unless guerrillas cease operations in the bush country.
President Ford pocket-vetoed two highly controversial bills. One would have required that 20 percent of the oil imported into the United States be carried on American tankers. The other would have put stringent new regulations on strip mining and coal. He explained why he had withheld his approval. On the surface mining control and reclamation bill, Mr. Ford said he was withholding) his approval because the measure would hurt domestic coal production “when the nation can ill afford significant losses from this critical energy source.” He said he could not approve the measure that would give preference to American ships because it would hurt the United States economy and its foreign relations and would create serious inflationary pressures by increasing the price of oil. He said it would also serve as a precedent for other countries to increase protection of their industries. Mr. Ford rejected both measures by means of pocket vetoes. Under the Constitution, when Congress is not in session lack of Presidential signature on a bill facing a signing deadline means the measure is dead and there is no way that Congress can override his action. The pocket veto is usually a milder form of disapproval than the outright veto.
The jury in the Watergate cover-up trial — nine women and three men — began deliberations in the case against five former White House and Nixon campaign aides. The jurors deliberated for nearly four hours in the afternoon and then recessed until tomorrow. There were signs that the verdict will not be a quick one.
E. Howard Hunt, a Watergate burglar who pleaded guilty, told the Senate Watergate Committee in December, 1973, in still unpublished testimony, that he served as the first chief of clandestine operations for the Central Intelligence Agency’s domestic operations division. He said that his domestic activities included the secret financing of a Washington news agency as well as the underwriting of the well-known Fodor’s travel guides. He gave other details of his C.I.A. activities today in an interview with the New York Times.
Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared the grounds of the Capitol “off limits” to FBI agents, prompting Soviet spies and their sources to meet there regularly because they were not watched, said a former high-ranking FBI official, who asked not to be named. The official said Hoover issued the directive in the late 1960s because of fear of criticism from congressmen, who periodically charged Hoover with tapping their telephones or compiling dossiers on their personal lives.
Accusing the government of groping in the dark on energy matters, a House subcommittee charged that federal officials have consistently shortchanged the public on oil leases and winked at possible antitrust violations by major oil companies. In a report by the House small business subcommittee on regulatory agencies, several federal agencies were accused of making major energy policy decisions without adequate information to justify them. The subcommittee, headed by Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Michigan), has held hearings on oil shale leases, offshore oil leases, propane pricing and “double dip” regulations on foreign crude oil.
Representative Wilbur Mills, the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, attributed his recent erratic behavior, mainly his well-publicized association with a strip-tease dancer, to acute alcoholism, as he announced that he would retain his seat in Congress. However, he pledged total abstinence.
A federal judge ordered three members of the Boston School Committee fined and barred from acting on school integration unless they file a new desegregation plan by January 7. U.S. District Judge W. Arthur Garrity issued the written warning as an aftermath to holding the committeemen in civil contempt of court on Friday for failing to submit the new citywide integration outline by a December 16 deadline. The judge also ordered that proceedings begin to see if two of the cited committee members who are lawyers should be suspended from practicing in federal court.
President Ford announced the appointment of a 24-member National Commission on Productivity and Work Quality to be headed by Harvard Prof. John T. Dunlop. Dunlop, chairman of the Cost of Living Council in the Nixon administration and coordinator of Mr. Ford’s labor-management advisory committee, will be chairman of the new commission to advise Congress and the President on government policy affecting productivity. One of the commission members is Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.
Veterans of World Wars I and II will get higher GI insurance dividends in 1975 and Korean-era veterans will receive dividends for the first time, the Veterans Administration announced. Almost 4.5 million veterans are affected. The payments will total $335.6 million, which is $31.8 million higher than last year and the eighth year in a row that the amount of the dividend has climbed. There are no dividends for Vietnam-era veterans, since the only government-sponsored policies for them expired shortly after they got out of service unless they converted the policies to regular civilian ones.
A high school student shot and killed three people and an unborn child and injured 11 others in Olean, New York, after firing at bystanders from a third-floor window at Olean High School. Anthony F. Barbaro, 17, an honor student and member of the high school’s rifle team, indiscriminately shot at people on the street from windows on the third floor of the school building.
Authorities at Washington’s state penitentiary in Walla Walla put down two uprisings, one in a cellblock and another in the prison hospital, and set free 13 persons taken hostage. Four of the hostages were reported injured. An unidentified nurse was badly cut by flying glass when. two knife-wielding inmates burst into the prison hospital. Three others, apparently also cut, were reported in good condition. Prison officials won release of hostages taken during the three-hour uprising after tense negotiations with the inmates. The takeovers erupted as officials were meeting with the inmates’ self-government council to iron out grievances.
Kaiser Industries Corp. of Oakland announced signing of an agreement with subsidiaries of Southern California Edison Co., San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Arizona Public Service Co. to develop a $300 million underground coal operation in southern Utah. Kaiser said the project, which would involve the mining of 10 million tons of coal a year, is contingent on federal government approval and availability of financing. The coal would be used to supply the Kaiparowits power project, which provides electricity to the Southwestern United States. The power project is owned by the three utilities.
A Menlo Park land and publishing company won a long battle for additional money from the federal government for land taken to expand Redwood National Park. Arcata National Corp. said the government has agreed to drop its appeal against a court ruling in which the company was awarded an additional $38.8 million for timber taken in 1963. The company originally was paid $57.7 million in cash and property, but sued for more money. Last July the Court of Claims awarded Arcata $38.8 million in additional payments.
A solar heating and cooling project in model houses and buildings was authorized by Congress as an effort to develop an alternative to fuel oil to power conventional systems. The $60 million project will be operated jointly by the National Aeronautical and Space Administration and the Housing and Urban Development Department. The agencies will finance demonstration projects by private builders and contractors to determine the feasibility of solar heated and cooled buildings.
A $22 million grant for a four-year study of resource development and environmental problems was made by the Ford Foundation in Washington. The foundation said the grant was the largest it has ever made for an environmental study. Resources for the Future, Inc., a Washington-based research organization, will conduct the study into such areas as public land management policy, world food supply, population growth, ocean pollution and raw material export policies.
The Beatles are legally disbanded (4 years after suit was brought).
In college football’s Gator Bowl, the #6-ranked Auburn Tigers defeated the #11 Texas Longhorns 27 to 3.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 603.25 (+1.09, +0.18%).
Born:
Chris Bordano, NFL linebacker (New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons), in San Antonio, Texas.
Irma Vitovska, Ukrainian stage, film and TV actress known for starring in the TV series “Lesya+Roma”; in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union.
S. Jithesh (aka Dr. Jitheshji), Indian speed cartoonist; in Pandalam Thekkekkara, Pathanamthitta district, Kerala.
Died:
Michel Alaux, 51, French-born American fencing master who coached U.S. Olympic fencing teams, died of cancer.
George Howard Earle III, 84, American politician and diplomat, Governor of Pennsylvania from 1935 to 1939.
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