Việt Cộng terrorists hurled explosive charges at a Saigon police station early today, killing a policeman and wounding seven others, officials said. Outside the capital, fire from enemy guns hit two South Vietnamese helicopters and a bomber, killing 13 persons, the Saigon military command said. It said that one of the helicopters had been downed by a missile in the Mekong Delta, 45 miles southwest of Saigon, with all 12 persons aboard killed. The command said an A‐36 jet bomber had been downed while supporting a drive by Government forces near the Cambodian border 55 miles west of Saigon. The pilot was reported missing. A helicopter in the same operation was hit by antiaircraft fire, killing one person, but the craft landed safely at Mộc Hóa, a provincial capital, the comment said.
The Việt Cộng are being allowed to set up a liaison office with U.N. aid agencies in Geneva over the direct objection of Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and other State Department officials, a U.N. spokesman said. The spokesman corrected earlier U.N. statements that U.S. objections were not voiced “at the highest level.” A high State Department official said, “We are going to see that they don’t do it.”
About 5,000 Greek Cypriot youths ransacked British offices in Nicosia and burned a wing of the United States Embassy in protest against London’s decision to let 10,000 Turkish Cypriot refugees leave a British military base for Turkey. The British decision infuriated ethnic Greeks, who believe that it helps the Turks to divide Cyprus into two separate districts. The refugees eventually are expected to be transferred to the northern part of Cyprus, which is under Turkish control, and established in homes and shops abandoned by Greek Cypriots during the Turkish invasion last July. The British say they acted on humanitarian grounds.
The Greek Cypriots have been living for almost six months with the frustration of defeat by the Turkish Army, and today their emotions came spilling out when the band of about 5,000 youths broke into the British consular offices, where they dumped out a large number of files and documents and set them on fire. Then they marched on the British Council, a cultural organization financed by Parliament, and ransacked the library, burning and ripping books. The final target was the American Embassy, the scene of riots last August in which Ambassador Rodger P. Davies was shot to death. The demonstrators forced their way into one wing of the embassy, where they set fire to a health dispensary on the ground floor. Upstairs, they ransacked the offices of the economic section, tossing furniture and books through the windows to the street. Five cars in the parking lot were also burned.
United States Marine guards stationed on the roof then dispersed the crowd with tear gas. The protesters regrouped and burned two more cars in a nearby lot. Greek Cypriot policemen and soldiers made no move to stop them. Some smiled and laughed as youths hurled rocks at the burning cars. The Turkish Cypriot refugees flown out today had sought the safety of the British bases during the fighting that followed the Turkish Army’s invasion last summer. When they refused to return home, Ankara put pressure on London for permission to move them to Turkey. Earlier this week London granted the permission on the condition that those who want to stay should be allowed to.
Three senators introduced a resolution supporting the Vladivostok nuclear arms limitation agreement and calling on President Ford for negotiations to achieve further restraints. The resolution was sponsored by Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), Charles McC. Mathias (R-Maryland) and Walter F. Mondale (D-Minnesota). Kennedy, told a news conference that Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger is in general agreement with the objectives of the resolution.
The Soviet Government asserted today that the collapse of the trade agreement had damaged SovietAmerican relations, but added that Moscow is still interested in improved relations “in all spheres” between this country and the United States.
Hopes of restoring a cease‐fire in Northern Ireland rose today with strong speculation in political circles that talks had been arranged between representatives of the I.R.A. Provisionals and British Government officials in Belfast. Leading Protestant churchmen who have been acting as intermediaries were in touch today with the Provisional Sinn Fein, the Provisionals’ political voice, and the authorities in Northern Ireland to try once more to salvage the truce. British Government sources were hopeful that, direct talks would take place tomorrow. Although the Provisionals announced on Thursday that the 25‐day cease‐fire had ended, there has been no major resumption of violence and the British Army is continuing to operate at a low level. This indicates that both sides are reluctant to commit themselves to further confrontation until all chances for peace have been explored. Merlyn Rees, Britain’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, first proposed talks between the Provisional Sinn Fein and senior civil servants on Tuesday when he said the Provisionals could express their views to British officials in the same way that Protestant paramilitary organizations like the Ulster Defense Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force had done.
Portugal’s Roman Catholic bishop today declared their opposition to a plan by the armed forces and the Communist party to unite labor unions in a single confederation. The bishops said they were taking a position on the controversial issue because of increasing anxiety among the Catholic clergy and laity. They said that they had informed the Government of the church’s position. The Socialist party, the centter‐left Popular Democratic party and extreme left‐wing Maoists have also opposed unification of labor unions. The issue has also created a dispute within the Government.
The Daily Mirror in London, claiming the largest circulation of any European newspaper, said it may be forced out of business because of a labor dispute over a provision that workers who leave or retire do not necessarily have to be replaced. The tabloid’s management said that work stoppages since Wednesday had resulted in loss of $2,231,000. The paper has issued preliminary dismissal notices to 7,000 workers. Daily circulation runs more than 4 million.
New clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian guerrillas were reported today along a sector of Lebanon’s southern border to the west of the Arkub, where fighting has been concentrated for a week. A communiqué by the Palestinian general military command, issued in Damascus, said that “several fighting units of the Palestinian revolution’s special forces” had attacked an Israeli settlement at Zarit. “At 11:35 PM our revolutionaries broke into the settlement and opened fire using various weapons, including machine guns, rockets and hand grenades,” the communiqué said. “Our revolutionaries destroyed a number of enemy positions and important centers in the settlement and surrounded an enemy border guard force, killing all its members. They also destroyed the Zionist military headquarters of the border guard force based at the settlement.”
A speeding train, so overcrowded that some passengers rode on the locomotive, was derailed north of Cairo today, killing 27 persons and injuring 52 others, the police said.
Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld was deported from Lebanon after being refused entry to Syria where she planned to call for the removal of West German parliamentarian Ernst Achenbach from the Association of European-Arab Cooperation. Mrs. Klarsfeld contends that Dr. Achenbach, as a German diplomat in Paris in World War II, knew in advance about the Nazi deportation of French Jews. He denies it.
The Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative here said today that India’s decision to welcome a P.L.O. office was a major breakthrough for the organization.
More than 1,000 reserve troops in India unloaded vital food imports and petroleum from ships in Bombay and Calcutta harbors as a nationwide dockworkers strike continued. Officials said that about 20 of nearly 200 backed-up vessels in India’s eight major ports were carrying food grain for the poor.
Sheik Mohammed Abdullah, the Kashmir Muslim leader, will reportedly take control of most of his state after a lapse of 22 years under an agreement that he and representatives of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India have worked out. A third of the northern state’s territory is still controlled by Pakistan, under a 1948 United Nations arrangement. Shamim A. Shamim, a Kashmiri member of Parliament and a close asociate of the sheik’s, today confirmed reports in Indian newspapers that the sheik had accepted an offer from Mrs. Gandhi to become the leader of the ruling party in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir and assume the post of Chief Minister.
The role of Premier Chou En-lai, a political leader of China for 25 years, was solidly endorsed at China’s long-deferred National People’s Congress in Peking last week, according to a communique issued today. The meeting was the first in a decade. The Congress, which is China’s official legislative body, also approved a new national Constitution and a slate of ministers. The new governmental line-up, composed of 12 Deputy Premiers and 29 ministers, was heavily weighted in favor of senior and elderly officials who have long been close to Mr. Chou, who is 76 years old. The crucial post of Defense Minister was given to Yeh Chien-ying, 76 years old, who had been acting Defense Minister.
After six years of increasingly bitter controversy growing out of North Korea’s capture of the American spy ship Pueblo, the Navy is preparing to open a new inquiry into the behavior of the vessel’s crew during nearly a year of captivity. The investigation will include psychiatric and medical studies of the Pueblo’s officers and men who have been exchanging recriminations.
Japan and the Soviet Union again failed to come up with a formula that would enable them to put a formal end to World War II with a peace treaty. A joint statement, issued after a three-day visit to Moscow by Japanese Foreign Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, said talks would continue. Disagreement centers on Soviet occupation of four Kurile islands taken from Japan.
A Philippine military investigating commission has found evidence that torture was inflicted on some martial‐law detainees and has recommended stern measures against the personnel responsible. The military excesses were discussed at a meeting last night of the Church‐Military Liaison Committee, composed of generals and clergymen who have met regularly over the last year on problems arising from martial law. Earlier, Roman Catholic clergymen from Mindanao issued a manifesto calling for safeguards against maltreatment and abuse of prisoners. Muslim insurgents on Mindanao have been fighting against the Government, and critics of the Government have also been arrested under martial law. The Mindanao priests protested the concept of “tactical interrogation” during which, they said, prisoners were sometimes tortured.
Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos postponed until February 27 a national referendum on whether Filipinos want him to continue his martial law regime. It had been announced for January 30.
The survival of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam as Australia’s leader is increasingly in doubt. The opposition Liberal and Country parties will have two opportunities this year — in May and November — to force an election by denying the Government access to money, through their control of the Senate, the upper house of Parliament. While the opposition may let these opportunities pass rather than find itself presiding over a stagnant economy, Mr. Whitlam cannot be sure that he will not face an early election. His standing is at its lowest ebb both in his Labor party and in the public at large.
The mysterious death in jail of a long-time Communist party member has led to accusations by Mexican opposition groups that the Government is preparing a wave of repression against the left.
The South African Embassy in Washington defended its refusal to grant a visa to Rep. Charles C. Diggs Jr. (D-Michigan), a black congressman, accusing him of “direct incursions into South Africa’s internal affairs” during visits in 1971 and 1973. The embassy said visitors are expected to conduct themselves with proper regard for the rights of a sovereign state.
President Ford issued a statement strongly endorsing Treasury Secretary William Simon, whose possible departure from the cabinet has been the subject of growing speculation in Washington. The statement, read by the White House press secretary after Mr. Ford and Mr. Simon met, said, “The President has not, and has no intention of, asking him to leave.” Reports that Mr. Simon would leave his post were based on his disagreement with President Ford’s proposed tax cuts and the budget deficits.
New Democratic members of the House who stirred the sudden revolt against key committee chairmen last week, will reportedly try to purge as many as four chairmen of the important House Appropriations subcommittee this week. The four chairmen are Southern conservatives whose views on national issues have differed from most House Democrats, and whose positions have given them the opportunity, frequently exercised, to curtail spending on liberal programs enacted by the majority.
The Standard Oil Company of California has notified the Navy that it wishes to withdraw as operator of the Elk Hills naval petroleum reserve in California. Elk Hills is one of two naval petroleum reserves for which President Ford wants Congress to authorize full-scale commercial production as part of a 10-year drive toward what the President called “energy independence.” Standard Oil told the Navy that it wanted to use its drilling rigs and oil-field personnel elsewhere and that it wanted to avoid any new criticism of its role in Elk Hills. The reserve figured in the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s.
Indian women and children inside the besieged Alexian Brothers abbey near Gresham, Wisconsin, were evacuated by national guardsmen while negotiations continued to end the 18-day occupation. A Guard spokesman denied a report that the military planned to attack the building and said the evacuation was simply another promising sign that matters were being resolved. The Menominee Indians seized the abbey New Year’s Day, demanding that the unused estate be turned into an Indian health care center.
Union picket lines were set up outside five Continental Oil Co. facilities after the failure of negotiations on a new contract, an oil workers’ spokesman said. About 1,100 members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union struck Continental refineries in Billings, Montana; Denver, Lake Charles, Louisiana; Wrenshall, Minnesota, and a subsidiary, Douglas Oil Co., at Paramount, California. Earlier the union reached agreement with Ashland Oil Co. and served strike notices on refineries of Cities Service Oil Co.
Former war protesters have made hundreds of calls to the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union to find out if they are entitled to share in $12 million damages awarded to persons illegally arrested during the 1971 May Day protests. A spokesman for the ACLU, which filed the suit on behalf of 1,200 persons arrested on the steps of the Capitol at a May 5 antiwar rally, said the ACLU had all the court records of those arrested and had asked the callers to send their addresses at the time of the arrests.
A minister and five other persons active in the school textbook protest in Kanawah County, West Virginia, have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to blow up two elementary schools. The Ku Klux Klan’s support in the textbook fight was promised by Imperial Wizard James R. Venable, of Stone Mountain, Georgia, who said: This great invisible society (the KKK) will do everything it can to help you fine people fight these books of filth.” The indicted minister, the Rev. Marvin Horan, and his followers believe certain school books encourage disrespect for the law and religion. One county school was dynamited October 22.
Senate Democrats have decided to require secret ballot election of committee chairmen, a move that could weaken the body’s seniority system. The new ballot plan will apply to the next Congress and to any vacancies that might develop before that. All of the present 18 chairmen were elected on the basis of seniority and all were elected in the Democratic caucus last week by voice vote. Under the new plan a secret vote will be taken on each chairman. If 20% or more vote against him a second ballot will be taken two days later. If he loses this vote, he is ousted.
Dentists and their assistants may be absorbing dangerously high levels of mercury into their bloodstreams as a result of careless handling of the liquid metal while preparing fillings, according to a report by Maryland’s Occupational Safety and Health Program. Nearly two-thirds of a group of 111 dentists and assistants checked in the program had potentially hazardous levels of mercury in their blood.
The U.S. Army said that Pfc. Larry L. Bird, 19, Dallas, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 45 days of confinement at hard labor and reduced to the lowest enlisted grade of private. He was the last of five Berlin Brigade soldiers who refused to obey orders to cut their hair. He was not fined as were the previous four men to be found guilty and sentenced.
Sulfur dioxide pollution, mainly from industry, could be costing agriculture and forestry throughout the world millions of dollars a year by stunting plant growth. At least, that is the implication of two papers presented at a meeting of the British Ecological Society in London. Sulfur dioxide is a colorless gas produced by burning any fuel containing sulfur, including coal and most fuel oil. Sulfur pollution has not been significantly reduced by clean air legislation.
Dr. Ruth Patrick, chairman of the board of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, was named recipient of the annual $150,000 John and Alice Tyler Ecology Award. The prize, administered by Pepperdine University, will be presented at a Los Angeles banquet February 8. Dr. Patrick is a leading authority on algae and has worked to develop solutions to stream pollution.
He once sold a lot of records complaining that his girl, wasn’t “nothing but a hound dog,” and Elvis Presley still seems unimpressed by the breed. The guard at his Memphis mansion, Graceland, returned to the sender a crate marked Russian wolfhounds-and the contents, two Mississippi coeds who had themselves crated and shipped to the singer as a 40th birthday present. Areecia (Honeybee) Benson, 17, and Patsy Haynes, 19, said that what had started as a gag at Mississippi Delta Junior College ended without laughter when a Railway Express truck driver loaded the rejected package — its contents still unknown — and drove away from Graceland. “I thought they were taking us to the dog pound,” Patsy said. They were freed when the driver realized that noises coming from the crate were not the barks of a wolfhound.
She’s 40-23-36, and whatever that measures out to, it’s not a profile of Rep. Wilbur D. Mills, complained stripper Patti Wayne. Miss Wayne is suing ABC’s New York anchorman, Roger Grimsby, for $250,000 for a remark he made after she had replaced Mills’ erstwhile friend Fanne Foxe at a Manhattan nightspot — that “for my money, she looks like Congressmen Mills.” For her money, Miss Wayne’s suit said, “this was false and untrue and subjected me to ridicule and contempt.”
The first of 253 episodes of “The Jeffersons” was telecast, as Isabel Sanford, Mike Evans and Sherman Hemsley, took their recurring characters on “All in the Family” (Louise, Lionel and George Jefferson) to a spinoff TV series that would run for eleven seasons, concluding in 1985.
Tom Seaver agrees to take a 20% pay cut. He made a record $173,000 last season and he takes a $34K pay hit after winning only 11 games in 1974. He said the decision was made after a meeting with M. Donald Grant. “I wasn’t disturbed by the cut. The club has been very good and honest with me. They paid me well and I didn’t pitch up to that amount.” Seaver will bounce back with a 22 win campaign and lead the league with 243 strikeouts to win the National League Cy Young Award for the third time. The $34,000 drop removes Seaver from his perch as the highest‐salaried pitcher in baseball history, though Catfish Hunter shattered all such thinking by signing with the Yanks for $150,000 a year plus long‐range benefits that will add up to a $3‐million to $4‐million package. Dick Allen has been offered $250,000 to play first base with the Atlanta Braves and Henry Aaron will make $200,000 for hitting home runs with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Born:
Rob Morris, NFL linebacker (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 41-Colts; Indianapolis Colts), in Nampa, Idaho.
Jermaine Wiggins, NFL tight end (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 36-Patriots; New York Jets, New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings), in East Boston, Massachusetts.
Derek Smith, NFL linebacker (Washington Redskins, San Francisco 49ers, San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins), in American Fork, Utah.
Radim Bičánek, Czech NHL defenseman (Ottawa Senators, Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets), in Uherske Hradiste, Czechoslovakia.
Danielle McCulley, WNBA center and forward (Indiana Fever, Seattle Storm), in Gary, Indiana.
Died:
Álvaro Pineda, Mexican-born American horse racing jockey, was killed when his horse, “Austin Mittler”, reared inside the starting gate before a race at Santa Anita Park in California. Pineda was crushed between the horse and the iron bars of the gate.
Gertrude Olmstead, 77, American silent film actress.
History Diaries 