The final disintegration of South Vietnam has begun. We are watching the slow Death of a Nation.
U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger has expressed regret to the Pentagon that a naval task group had not been used to signal American determination to North Vietnam earlier this week, Administration officials reported today. Mr. Kissinger, however, reportedly learned of the movement of the six-ship group too late for his views — had they been agreed to — to be translated into orders for the ships, headed by the carrier USS Enterprise, to sail toward North Vietnam in a psychological demonstration of strength by the United States. The State Department denied today a report in The St. Louis Post‐Dispatch that Mr. Kissinger had proposed that the task group be diverted toward Vietnam but was overruled by President Ford on the ground that such a move would needlessly arouse concern and controversy in the United States. According to Administration sources, Mr. Kissinger never made a specific proposal, but did express regret that the group, upon leaving Subic Bay In the Philippines, had not sailed westerly toward the Gulf of Tonkin before heading for the Indian Ocean.
South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu said in a radio‐television broadcast tonight that be would order South Vietnamese loops to recapture Phước Long Province and that he had been meeting with military planners and his National Security Council to plan the operation since the province fell Tuesday. Meanwhile, the United States Embassy announced that General David C. Jones, the American Air Force Chief of Staff, would arrive in Saigon tomorrow, as a part of the familiarization tour of Southeast Asia that he is taking. It was considered certain that he would discuss South Vietnamese military needs. The collapse came for Phước Long Province, on the Cambodian border about 75 miles north of Saigon, on Tuesday when Communist troops took Phước Bình, the provincial capital, after a protracted battle. Phước Long was the first province that Saigon had lost in nearly three years.
[Ed: No. ARVN does not have the capability to do this, at least not without support from massive U.S. air power. And the U.S. congress is busy writing off the Vietnamese. South Vietnam is doomed.]
The United States has increased its aerial supply of Phnom Penh from Thailand as a result of increased fighting in Cambodia, a United,States military spokesman said today. In response to an inquiry the spokesman said, “Yes, there has been a recent increase in flights in connection with the increased level of fighting.” He added that the supply runs were being flown by Civilian pilots manning United States Air Force planes, but could not provide details. American bombing of Cambodia ended in August, 1973, but the United States has continued to fly supply and intelligence operations into and over Cambodia. Last year the Air Force signed a contract with a civilian airline, Biard Air, to provide pilots for the supply flights using Air Force C‐130 transports. A newspaper here The Bangkok Post, said that the supply flights to Phnom Penh were now running at about 50 a day at the request of the United States Embassy in Phnom Penh.
Secretary General Waldheim plans to visit East and West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and major Arab oil‐producing nations in February, it was announced today.
During the nearly three-week‐long trip he is expected to urge the oil producers to spend more of their new wealthy aiding poor nations hardest hit by higher fuel prices. He is to leave New York on Feb. 1 and will visit the European countries before going to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Iraq, the announcement said. A spokesman said that the journey had been arranged in response to invitations from the 11 nations. The trip will be Mr. Waldheim’s first official visit to East and West Germany since they were admitted to the United Nations in 1973.
Pope Paul VI broke a 900-year-old policy by accepting a woman as an envoy from to the Vatican. Bernadette Olowo was appointed by Uganda, which had 3.5 million Roman Catholics, more than any other nation in Africa, and was also that nation’s ambassador to West Germany. A spokesman for the Vatican said, “The acceptance of a woman ambassador will be subject to the same rules as men,” including good moral behavior and compliance with Roman Catholic doctrine. The year before, the Pope had rejected an Australian nomination of a woman ambassador because she was a divorcee. Forty years earlier, Pope Pius XI had declared that women should not work at any occupation outside the home.
In an address to a Roman Catholic-Jewish liaison committee at the Vatican, Pope Paul VI called for a “true dialogue” between Judaism and Christianity and restated the Roman Catholic Church’s rejection of every form of anti-Semitism. The Pope made the speech at the end of a four-day conference of the liaison committee in which guidelines for Catholic-Jewish collaboration, issued by the Vatican last week, were discussed by representatives of the two faiths.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday that it had been “conclusively” proved that a bomb crippled the Trans World Airlines jet that plunged into the sea off Greece last September 8. All 88 persons aboard the Athens-to-Rome Boeing 707 were killed. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that TWA Flight 841 had been destroyed by a bomb hidden in the cargo hold. The detonation of the bomb destroyed the systems responsible for operating the plane’s control surfaces, causing the plane to pitch up until it stalled and dove into the sea. Suspicion immediately fell on Palestinian terrorists. Responsibility for the crash off Greece was claimed by a little known Arab guerrilla group. The claim was repudiated by the Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella group for major Arab guerrilla units, as “Zionist fiction” designed to sully the Arab cause.
Portugal began an effort in Alvor today to liquidate her last major colonial problem by opening talks with the leaders of the three rival liberation movements of Angola, the largest and richest state of the Portuguese empire in Africa. Shortly after the long‐awaited conference opened in the luxury Penina Golf Hotel of this southern Algarve resort area, it was suspended until late tonight at the request of the black leaders, who showed signs that they were not in complete agreement on how to supplant Portuguese sovereignty in their Western African homeland. The white, rambling hotel was sealed off to anyone not directly involved in the conference, and there were roadblocks as far as 25 miles away. Armed guards, with police dogs, patrolled the grounds, while a destroyer lay off shore.
[Ed: In January 2009 the Associated Press published an investigation saying that Khalid Duhham Al-Jawary, responsible for the 1973 New York City bomb plot, was linked to the bombing of TWA Flight 841.]
The French Government said today that it intended to invite about a dozen countries to a preparatory meeting on oil problems in Paris in March. It said oil producers and oil consumers, both developed and developing, would be represented.
Danes have emerged from the Parliamentary elections that were held yesterday generally agreed that the balloting in which the voters split their support among 10 parties, seemed to solve nothing. There is a widespread belief that the small and rich country of five million now faces a period of new political and economic troubles, perhaps including a rare outburst of strikes.
Another Swedish royal prerogative faded into history today when Parliament opened the 1975 session in its own chambers for the first time. King Carl XVI Gustaf, reduced to a figurehead role under a new Constitution, wore a plain dark suit as he rode up an escalator to the ultramodern parliamentary chamber. He was then invited by the Speaker to declare the session open. The simple ceremony marked the demise of a 400-year tradition in which Parliament used to assemble at Stockholm Palace at the government’s bidding. The sovereign, seated on an ermine-covered throne and with the Premier on a stool before him, would declare the session open and read the government’s speech. This time Premier Olof Palme, a Social Democrat, read the speech as Carl Gustaf, who is 28 years old and succeeded his father in 1973. listened attentively.
Influenza is sweeping across Europe and reaching epidemic proportions in some countries, he World Health Organization said today. The illness has been spreading in Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and parts of the Soviet Union.
The government of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos has begun negotiations through friendly Islamic countries toward ending the rebellion among Muslim Filipinos of Mindanao Island. Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Adam Malik, has just concluded an official visit here during which he discussed with President Marcos and other government officials matters related to Muslim problem. Earlier, the secretary general of the Conference of Islamic States, Mohammed Hassan Tohamy, held two‐day discussions with the government and rebel representatives, after which he announced that formal peace talks would be held in 10 days. Negotiations to end the protracted dissidence in the 2.8 million Muslim community in this mostly Christian country of 40 million population coincided with new fighting.
A major rescue operation was under way today following reports that the crew of a British tanker had abandoned ship 180 miles west of Iwo Jima in the Pacific. But British Petroleum, owner of the 44,951‐ton British Ambassador, said in London that their latest understanding was that most of the 18 British and 31 Indian crew members and two British wives aboard were being transferred to the 12,000-ton American tanker Fort Fetterman. The company said that a few crew members were to remain aboard the vessel — her engine room flooded from a leaking salt water inlet valve.
Fifteen Philippine Government soldiers were reported killed in the last 10 days in combat with guerrillas in the southern province of Sulu, Cotabato and Zamboanga. At least five rebels are known dead, and the military announced that some 500 civilians were rescued from Zamboanga del Sur where they had been held hostage. In a statement in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after visiting the Philippines, Mr. Tohamy said that mediation efforts had been productive. He said he expected to preside over peace talks between Philippine Government and rebel representatives within 10 days either in Cairo or Jidda, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Tohamy indicated that the Mindanao rebels’ original campaign to secede from the Philippines had softened to demand for full provincial autonomy. Manila has made clear that it would oppose any solution separating Muslim‐occupied areas administratively from the rest of Mindanao.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, said tonight that he had asked Yugoslav leaders to sponsor at least observer status for Australia at future meetings of nonaligned nations. Mr. Whitlam said that his country “is not a nonaligned nation, but that many of its positions coincided with those of the so‐called nonaligned bloc.
Chile’s military Government announced tonight that it would free and deport to Rumania five political prisoners, including two former Cabinet ministers of the late Dr. Salvador Allende Gossens. The decision was announced in a radio broadcast by the Interior Minister, General Raul Benavides. He identified the men to be deported as the former Foreign Minister, Clodomiro Almeyda Medina; the former Education Minister, Jorge Tapia, and three lesser-known prisoners. They were to leave Chile sometime tomorrow, presumably by commerical jetliner under the auspices of the Rumanian Embassy. “Chile is giving proof to the world of its good spirit regarding the problem of human rights,” General Benavides said. Since it overthrew Dr. Allenide’s Marxist Government in September, 1973, the military leadership of General Augusto Pinochet has been accused of repression and torture of Allende supporters. Government officials said last week that some 3,500 people who were jailed still remained behind bars.
Although difficulties have clouded the progress made suddenly last month toward a solution of the Rhodesian problem, British officials still think that chances of success have not been better for years. Foreign Secretary James Callaghan has ended talks with African leaders — including a sudden and unexpected visit to Prime Minister John Vorster of South Africa — and will return, to London tomorrow. In public statements and news conferences, Mr. Callaghan has stressed a need to keep up the momentum begun last month. At that time, talks in Lusaka, Zambia, produced a dramatic if only partial breakthrough toward settling the differences between Rhodesia’s white‐settler government and the leaders of the country’s black majority. Mr. Callaghan announced that Britain would now take “active steps” to promote the holding of a constitutional conference for Rhodesia.
The Queen Elizabeth 2 began its first round-the-world cruise, departing New York City under tight security with 1,200 passengers.
There was a strong hint from White House sources that President Ford would propose soon, perhaps this weekend, a sweeping anti-recession program that would include a rebate of 10 percent on taxes paid on 1974 individual incomes and a reduction in personal and corporate taxes in 1975. The 1974 rebate would be a one‐time, across‐the‐board refund of 10 percent of personal income tax payable by taxpayers next April 15 — a total of $15‐billion. According to the White House sources, the President is considering a plan whereby the rebate would be made in the form of a check to each taxpayer. The purpose of the tax refund would be to give a quick, meaningful stimulus to the economy, which is in a prolonged, accelerating slump. The idea would be to put more cash in the pockets of consumers in the near future that, when spent, would generate sales, production and employment and thus bring the economy out of its tailspin.
If Mr. Ford does propose the tax rebate for 1974 and a tax cut and corporate tax credit for 1975, it would be a sharp reversal of his previously announced policies. Only a month ago he said he would make no “180 degree turn” from inflation fighting to antirecessionary pump priming. Mr. Ford has also said repeatedly that he would offer no “quick fixes for the economy.” The one‐time 10 percent tax reduction was proposed to Mr. Ford last month by Andrew F. Brimmer, an economist who resigned as a member of the Federal Reserve Board last year and who is now teaching at Harvard University.
President Ford has been given a negative job rating by a majority of those questioned in a Harris poll for the‐first time since he assumed office, Louis Harris said yesterday. Results of a survey taken between December 13 and 17 among 1,466 adults nationwide showed 46 percent positive, 52 percent negative and 2 percent not sure on the question of rating Ford’s performance in office, The Associated Press reported. More serious for Mr. Ford, said Mr. Harris, was that on the question of inspiring confidence he got a 61 to 34 percent negative rating, down from a 48 to 45 percent positive standing a month earlier. Mr. Harris said the confidence rating was generally “a more sensitive insight into the extent to which a President is trusted to run the affairs of the Federal Government.”
The Justice Department has recommended that Congress renew the Voting Rights Act of 1965 without expanding it to cover more Northern cities. The department’s recommendation has been sent to the White House, according to James P. Turner, deputy assistant attorney general. Without Congressional action, the law would expire in August. While there had been some suggestion, mostly from Southerners, that the bill be changed to bring more Northern communities under its provisions, most civil rights groups support renewal without changes, Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., Washington lobbyist for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said.
The White House said that the government spent about $367,000 to support Richard M. Nixon in the first three months after he resigned as President last August 9. The White House press secretary, Ron Nessen, said that much of the money had been spent for purposes not covered by the transition appropriation of $200,000, which did not become law until December 27. That appropriation was intended for a six-month period ending February 9. A substantial part of the $367,000 went for salaries and living expenses of employees temporarily assigned to Mr. Nixon at his estate in San Clemente, California.
A former Army domestic intelligence agent said today that he gave a secret briefing on radical activities to the Central Intelligence Agency in late 1967 and realized that the agency had been involved extensively in collecting intelligence inside the United States. Ralph Stein of New York, who served as a military counterintelligence analyst from, 1965 to 1968, said in a telephone interview that the briefing “convinced me that they [the CIA] had extensive information on domestic personalities and organizations.” At the time of the briefing, students and other groups were increasingly vocal in their opnasition to the Vietnam war policies of the Johnson Administration, and the Army had already mounted its own domestic intelligence operation. The military’s spying program, was ended in 1970 after Congressional protests.
The Army announced today that it still had some files on civilians that it had earlier told Congress had been destroyed. The Army said that the microfilm file in Washington was screened in 1971, and that fact was reported to Congress. A more recent check, however, disclosed that not all the forbidden information on civilians had been purged. The Army spied on civilians in the late nineteen‐sixties as part of a program begun under the Johnson Administration to keep track of militants. Such surveillance was banned in 1971, and existing records were to be destroyed.
Because of declining sales and large numbers of unsold cars, the Ford Motor Company said that it would close for a week beginning Monday 10 of its 14 automobile assembly plants, seven of its nine truck plants and five of its 43 manufacturing plants throughout the country. The closings will lay off 85,175 employees, 55 per cent of Ford’s hourly-paid 155,000 employees.
The seizure of a vacant Roman Catholic novitiate by armed Menominee Indians entered its 10th day today with clergymen, Indian tribal officials. National Guard officers, and others still seeking a solution that would permit the Indians to leave the facility without violence. The delicate negotiations focused today on the Indian demand that novitiate, the property of the Roman Catholic Order of the Alexian Brothers, be turned over to the Indians as a hospital and health care facility. Meanwhile, there was growing indignation. on the part of local whites over the way the National Guard has handled the situation since it took charge Tuesday morning. The guard, under the command of Colonel Hugh Simonson, has taken a conciliatory approach, which, in the Indians view, has eased a good deal of the tension that existed when local officials were in authority.
Several persons were bruised and cut in Atlanta early today when 3,000 unemployed men and women, most of them young blacks, surged into the Atlanta Civic Center to apply for 225 newly created public service jobs. Extra policemen and Mayor Maynard Jackson were summoned to help restore calm. Some people in the crowd had been standing in a chill rain all night in hopes of finding work at a city that is in the full squeeze of the recession. “What’s happening here,” the Mayor said as order was restored, “is what’s happening all over the country — a desperation for jobs.” Over‐all unemployment in the Atlanta area has risen to 7.5 percent. But unemployment among blacks, who make up more than half the downown population, now stands it 9.2 percent. Among Atlanta’s black teenagers, one of every four is unemployed.
James R. Hoffa, former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said today that he wobuld not accept a nomination for president of Detroit Teamsters Local 299 because it would mean his return to a federal prison. Mr. Hoffa had been hoping to regain the office and use it as a base from which to try to recapture the presidency of the international union, a post he held before his conviction in 1967 on Federal charges of jury tampering and mail fraud. President Nixon commuted Mr. Hoffa’s 13‐year sentence in late 1971, but imposed the condition that he not take part, directly or indirectly, in union activities until 1980, the year his prison term was to have expired.
The oil workers union approved a wage settlement with the Gulf Oil Corporation today, raising wages 26.8 percent over two years. The agreement, which apparently averted a threatened strike by the union, set a pattern for wage and benefit bargaining between the union and the nation’s other oil companies.
Ivellies Serrano, an 8‐year‐old girl undergoing treatment for malignant brain tumors, left for a visit to Walt Disney World, fulfilling a dream she casually mentioned last month to the technicians who were administering her cobalt treatment. The technicians, doctors and other staff members at Christ Hospital in Jersey City began a campaign to send the girl to the Florida amusement park, and in less than 30 days had raised more than 36,000 — enough for her whole family to take the trip. Donations came from more than 450 individuals and organizations, and were still pouring in today as Ivellies waited at Newark International Airport for her flight. “I thought maybe they would raise $100,” said Eva Serrano, the girl’s mother. “I never dreamed this would happen.” Mrs. Serrano said that doctors who performed three operations to remove brain tumors had declared that the case was terminal and that the girl did not have much longer to live. New tumors were discovered last month, Mrs. Serrano said, but the doctors decided not to operate and instead had been using cobalt therapy and chemotherapy to stabilize the tumors.
[Ed: Ivellies beat the odds for a while. She lived another three years, before she passed away in January 1978.]
A tornado ripped a two‐mile swath through McComb, Mississippi today, leveling businesses and homes, shredding trees and injuring, mnre than 100 persons. Officials said four persons died in McComb and three others in a nearby rural area. The storm was the most fierce of a series of tornadoes that lashed the state between 8 and 10 AM. Three persons were reported dead on arrival at a local medical center, and another at a McComb funeral home. Officials said an elderly man and a mother and her daughter were killed near the small community of Ruth north of McComb.
A blizzard poured across the Middle West yesterday, stranding thousands of travelers and slowing activities to a crawl in dozens of cities, United Press International reported. Blizzard snows swept from Kansas to Minnesota, blocking several interstate highways and scores of other major highways. Snowplows pulled off the roads in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa as 50 mile‐an‐hour winds piled up 7‐foot drifts.
Johnny Miller all but destroyed the hopes of any challengers with a stunning 10-under-par 61 today that gave him a six-stroke lead in the second round of the $150,000 Phoenix open golf tournament.
The Pittsburgh Steelers announced today the probable loss of the services of a key player, Dwight White, for Sunday’s Super Bowl game in New Orleans against Minnesota. The Vikings are fit and ready, Coach Bud Grant said. White, the regular defensive right end, returned to the hospital this morning after his viral infection worsened during the night. His status is doubtful, which in NFL terminology means there is only a 25 percent chance that he can play.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 658.79 (+13.53, +2.10%)
Born:
Jake Delhomme, NFL quarterback (Pro Bowl, 2005; New Orleans Saints, Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans; in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Shannon Kavanaugh, American rocker (Ivory Soul), in Boston, Massachusetts.
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