Scuffles broke out between the Saigon police and a group of Buddhist nuns today after a convention held by political opponents of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu. Opposition leaders had urged the United States to end military aid to the Thiệu Government and called for the President’s ouster. Twenty nuns left the convention at the Ấn Quang Pagoda in Saigon and marched down the street chanting anti‐government slogans. Witnesses said they were confronted by a group of uniformed and secret policemen and that in the melee four nuns were injured, one seriously. The leader of the nuns, Huỳnh Liên, asserted that policemen threw rocks at the group and struck several of them with sticks and a metal object. The seriously injured nun was struck on the head, but was able to walk with assistance. The nuns have demonstrated several times in Saigon since September, touching off occasional clashes with the police. Since October, the pagoda has been surrounded by the police, but they have used various, ruses to leave and conduct demonstrations. About 300 persons attended the political convention, called to mark the second anniversary of the Paris peace agreement, which was supposed to end the war in Vietnam.
Trần Ngọc Liễng, leader of the Popular Front for the Implementation of the Paris Agreement, called on the United States to “terminate its military involvement and interference in the internal affairs of South Vietnam.” He appealed to the American people to do everything possible to stop the United States Government from furthering military aid” to the Thiệu Government. Mr. Liễng and other politicians called for President Thiệu to resign and be replaced by a “government of national reconciliation and concord.”
Rockets that Việt Cộng Communists fired into Tây Ninh city killed 8 people and wounded 9 today, the Saigon command reported. The command said that 26 rockets, in two salvos, struck the provincial capital 55 miles northwest of Saigon.
South Vietnamese Government forces clashed near the Cambodian frontier with North Vietnamese troops today, the Saigon command said. Two South Vietnamese A‐37 bombers supporting the infantry men were shot down by antiaircraft missiles, a spokesman said, with one pilot killed and the other rescued.
On the second anniversary of the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam, the United States appears to be nearing a crossroads in its Indochina policy. In both South Vietnam and Cambodia, Communist-led forces are pressing military advantages. In both countries there is a chance for deepening American involvement, or continued disengagement and a search for political solutions to war. But, as options force themselves on American policymakers, Congressional restrictions imposed in Washington — on American personnel committed, on money spent, on military initiatives — have seriously limited room for maneuver by the executive branch. A little more than two years ago, President Richard M. Nixon personally ordered one of the heaviest bombing campaigns in history, over North Vietnam, to reassure President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu of continued support and to obtain alterations in the draft of the Paris peace agreements that, in retrospect, were insignificant.
Earlier this month, for the first time since their 1972 spring offensive, the North Vietnamese seized a province capital that had been controlled by the Saigon Government. The State Department fired off an angry protest; President Ford and Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger hypothetically discussed the idea of renewed American bombing; according to one account, Secretary of State Kissinger privately expressed regret that an American aircraft carrier had not steamed into Vietnamese waters, as had been erroneously reported by a news agency. Mr. Kissinger later denied having said this. To many Vietnamese, the Americans seem reduced to a form of gunboat diplomacy without guns.
Senator Henry M. Jackson, Democrat of Washington, said today that he would vote against a request for $300‐million in military aid to South Vietnam this year. “There has to be a limit,” he said. “There has to be a ceiling. There has to be an end.” Mr. Jackson spoke at a fundraising dinner as he prepared to announce that he would run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1976. “The problems of Southeast Asia are not going to be solved by $300‐million more in ammunition,” declared the Senator, formerly a strong supporter of assistance to South Vietnam.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, after a three-day meeting of its Oil, Finance and Foreign Ministers in Algiers, adopted a political and economic strategy to counteract what the organization’s 13-nation members regarded as a United States policy of confrontation and military threats against oil producers. A communique by the ministers also contained an offer to meet with representatives of oil-consuming countries in an international conference on energy, raw-material supplies and the development of the world economy.
The United States, which has attacked recent United Nations decisions and warned of eroding American support, has begun a high-level review of its policies toward the world organization and all its affiliates, according to a high-ranking American official.
An IRA booby trap bomb, left at the Air Training Corps premises in Belfast, Northern Ireland, killed a sixteen-year-old cadet, Edward Wilson. The 16-year-old air force cadet was killed and five others were injured when a bomb exploded in their training hut in northern Belfast, the British army reported. Police said the terrorist attack on the hut was carefully planned and that “everybody knew” the boys, aged 13 to 17, went there on the weekends. The youth was the fifth fatality in Northern Ireland since the Irish Republican Army Provisional wing ended its 25-day cease-fire January 16.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson is expected to tell President Ford this week that he plans to urge the British to vote to remain in the Common Market when they cast their ballots in a referendum this summer. Britain’s prospects for remaining in the nine‐nation European Economic Community will be among the subjects covered in the first meetings between the two heads of Government on Thursday and Friday. American officials have said they would like to see Britain continue in the community and play a crucial role in the development of Europe. Publicly, Mr. Wilson has said only that his Government’s recommendation to the nation before the referendum will hinge on the outcome of talks with European partners on easier terms of membership for the British. But in his meetings with President Ford, he is expected to go further and report that the chances are indeed bright that a majority of his Cabinet will urge that Britain stay in.
Portugal’s moderate forces sought to stem the surging power of the far left following Saturday night’s disruption of a political convention in Lisbon by rioters. The Socialist party, which had been on the point of resigning from the coalition cabinet, reportedly decided to remain as its only means of checking the Communists. The Popular Democratic party, the coalition’s centrist member, was expected to do the same. Portuguese paratroopers in armored cars freed about 700 delegates to a right-wing party congress who spent the night besieged in their conference hall by about 3,000 leftists chanting, “Death to the fascists.” Organizers of the Center Democratic Party congress canceled the second day of their conference in Oporto, 175 miles north of Lisbon, after clashes with leftists. Officials said 17 people were hurt.
President Makarios has vowed that Greek Cypriots will never accept the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus. Reporting to a cheering church crowd in Nicosia on the so-far unsuccessful talks between leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, the archbishop asked, “What is the use of having talks? So that we accept and put our signature on the current situation? No, we shall never do that.”
The people of the Turkish‐held north of Cyprus were confined to their houses all day today while the Autonomous Turkish Administration tabulated the spoils of last summer’s war. “The basic objective of the survey is to provide a data base,” explained Alper Orhon, an American‐educated economist who in his position as Minister of Planning and Coordination of the administration of the Turkish region ordered the day‐long counting of the people and buildings in the two‐fifths of the island held by the Turkish Army,
An Israeli oil exploration team reported the possibility of a major oil strike near Ramallah on the occupied West Bank of Jordan, north of Jerusalem. Stressing that findings were still preliminary, one team geologist said that oil had been discovered in similar geological conditions and that the team recommended more drilling in the Ramallah district as well as other Israel sites. This is the first time a possible major oil strike has been located in Israeli-occupied areas.
Reports that Egyptian armored columns have been advancing toward the Suez Canal in the last few days have reached military headquarters in Tel Aviv. Defense Minister Shimon Peres reported today on the movement at the weekly meeting of the Cabinet in Jerusalem. Some Israelis speculated that the Egyptians might be bolstering their positions in the canal zone as a psychological factor in expected negotiations for another interim troop disengagement in the Sinai Peninsula. Secretary of State Kissinger, who negotiated the agreement for the separation of forces last year, is to come to the Middle East early next month. The troop movement was described as “limited.” It was confined to one sector of the Suez Canal.
President Hafez al‐Assad of Syria has told the United States Ambassador, Richard W. Murphy, and a group of visiting Americans that his Government might accept a demilitarized zone on the Syrian‐Israeli border, Time magazine reports in its current issue. We may agree to rciprocal measures on either side of the border for any length of time,” the magazine quoted Mr. Assad as having said at the meeting, which was held under the auspices of Time. “If they agree to 10 kilometers on either side, so do we.” At the same time, the Syrian President declared that, with modern weaponry, there was no such thing as secure borders. According to Time, the group of American correspondents and businessmen also met with President Anwar el‐Sadat of Egypt, who told them that he did not expect the United States to end its special relationship with Israel. “Keep your special relations with Israel, but treat me as a friend also,” Mr. Sadat was quoted as having said.
The prosecution concluded its case in Cairo in the trial of 92 Egyptians charged with subversion and requested the death sentence for 74 defendants. They are charged with murder, plotting to overthrow President Anwar Sadat and criminal conspiracy. The charges carry the death penalty. The defendants are alleged to have attacked Cairo’s Technical Military Academy last April.
Sheik Mujibur Rahman, newly installed as Bangladesh’s all-powerful president, selected a trusted aide, Mohammed Mansoor Ali, as his prime minister. Saturday, parliament approved a constitutional amendment giving Mujibur the power to outlaw all political parties except his Awami League, in effect allowing him to jettison the parliamentary government and concentrate power in his own hands.
Thailand appeared headed for a conservative coalition government as voting ended in the country’s first general election in six years. With no government party running for reelection, there was no indication that any single party had gained enough support for a majority government. But four basically conservative groups out of 42 political parties have good chances of winning enough of the 269 seats in the National Assembly to influence formation of a coalition.
In what The New York Times described as “Thailand’s freest and fairest national election in history”, the winners were divided among 22 political parties for the 269 seat House of Representatives. The people of Thailand voted to choose a new government in an election unusually free from official constraint not only for Thailand, but for much of the rest of Asia. Early returns indicated that moderate, middle-of-the road Democrats were leading in Bangkok, the party’s traditional stronghold. A total of 2,193 candidates from 42 different parties were contesting 269 seats in the new House of Representatives. A new premier will be chosen by the House. The Democrat Party won 72 of the available seats, or roughly 27%, and Seni Pramoj formed a coalition government that would last only two weeks, before he was replaced by his brother.
One-fourth of Bolivia’s tin industry is paralyzed by a strike that is costing the country over $1.5 million a day in exports, according to government officials. Tin is Bolivia’s No. 1 export. The strike began two weeks ago when 5,000 workers at the large government mines of Catavi and Siglo XX in central Bolivia walked off their jobs to protest the closing of four radio stations and the arrests of labor leaders by the government.
Vice President Rockefeller said he believed that the presidential commission he heads would find that the Central Intelligence Agency had violated its charter by undertaking activities within the United States. Mr. Rockefeller, chairman of the eight-member commission, said in a television interview: Now the question is, to our commission, has there been violations or abuses of the statutes relating to the activities of the C.I.A. in the United States? “I think we are going to find the answer is yes,” he said.
Eight Northeastern states agreed to challenge President Ford’s increase in oil tariffs in a suit expected to be filed today in federal court in Washington. The agreement followed a 2½-hour meeting at the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston called by state Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti and attended by high-ranking officials of nine other states. Representatives of New York, New Jersey and. Pennsylvania agreed to join in the suit with Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont and Massachusetts. Governors of the last five states had voted last week to file such a suit. Representatives of New Hampshire and Delaware also attended the meeting but did not agree to join in the suit.
Two Democratic senators said they planned to introduce legislation giving the Council on Wage and Price Stability power to delay for up to 60 days any wage or price increases that would significantly increase inflation. William Proxmire of Wisconsin and Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, the chairman and a member respectively of the Senate Banking Committee, said they would offer their proposal today. It would permit the council to require prenotification of inflationary wage or price increases and would give it subpoena power to help determine if increases were justified.
The chairman of the House Communications subcommittee announced today that he planned to hold hearings on the American Telephone and Telegraph Company’s proposed rate increase.
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is expected to begin executive sessions hearings tomorrow on the operations of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the controversy surrounding Vincent Promuto, the agency’s $29,000-a-year director of public affairs.
Senator Howard H. Baker Jr. said today that the Senate Watergate committee had obtained evidence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation used electronic listening devices against the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
President and Mrs. Ford went to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts tonight where they watched the premier of a national bicentennial film called “City Out of Wilderness: Washington.” After the performance Mr. Ford told a laughing audience, “We may be out of the wilderness but we’re not yet out of the woods.”
The Greater Boston Young Republicans Club raised nearly $25,000 in connection with last fall’s election campaigns, but not one penny of it went to any of the candidates, records show. Statements on file indicate the money went to those who raised the money and to pay bills connected with the fund-raising effort. Most of the contributions listed were in the $25 to $50 range, although $100 also was a popular figure. According to sources, the club was provided access to campaign contributor lists developed by other Republican organizations with the understanding that money raised would be turned over to GOP candidates. Sources said the club had been called on the carpet by the Republican State Committee as a result of its action and that its charter might be lifted.
A federal report warns 35,000 persons living on the island of Hawaii that they are in the path of an awakening volcano that has an awful potential. It warns of hazards that include lava flows, falling rock, drifting gases, volcanic ash, violent ground ruptures and tidal waves. The report was prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey in response to a request from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which was seeking assistance in determining a formula for financing homes “in areas subject to volcanic activity.” More than 70,000 persons live on the state’s big island and the report says more than half reside on the flanks of Mauna Loa, which has shown recent signs of awakening.
The nation’s car makers cannot lower their prices because it would mean losing money, Leonard Woodcock, the president of the United Automobile Workers, said in a television interview. The auto companies’ profit margins, he said, have been “paper thin” for more than a year, and “you can’t cut prices if you’re losing money on every car that is sold.”
Farmers in the corn belt hope to drive up corn prices by planting less in 1975. “Car manufacturers are cutting production to save themselves, and farmers should do the same thing,” says farmer Les Mitchell of Akron, Iowa. “We can’t afford a surplus to glut the market.” The National Corn Growers Association, with headquarters in Boone, Iowa, has started a campaign to cut corn production by 20% this year. The group said it would advocate normal production if the government raised the guaranteed corn price level to match production costs of $2.40 a bushel, according to Chairman Walter Goeppinger. Costly pesticides and fertilizers, casualties of the petroleum shortage, are one of the reasons for higher production costs.
A sniper killed two police officers as they drove up to the town hall in Summit, Wisconsin. Police said a boy, 16, confessed to both killings and to the slaying of another man on January 11. Waukesha County Sheriff Edward O’Conner said the youth confessed to four area burglaries also. O’Connor said the two patrolmen — Robert Atkins, 28, and Wayne Olson, 52 — were ambushed by the sniper firing a rifle through the driver and passenger sides of the windshield.
A self-taught Fundamentalist minister who has helped to lead a stormy six-month protest against the use of certain books in local classrooms denied yesterday that he was involved in the bombing of a school in Charleston, West Virginia last year.
Five persons were wounded late last night, one critically, by a gunman who fired from balcony area at a professional wrestling match in Chicago’s International Amphitheatre. Witnesses told the police that after firing in the direction of the ring, the man placed the pistol in his coat pocket and calmly walked out of the arena.
Nursing-home administrators in Connecticut have been licensed, contrary to law, by a state board dominated by the nursing-home industry, according to a report by state auditors made public today.
Boat owners won’t have to install sewage holding tanks on small craft, federal Environmental Protection Agency officials said: The expected requirement apparently was dropped because of complaints from boat owners contending there are not enough facilities into which the tank contents could be pumped. Instead of holding tanks, federal regulations about to be published will require boatmen to install devices to chop up and chlorinate waste.
Environmental groups accused U.S. Steel of failing to comply with a 1972 consent decree to reduce air pollution at its Clairton Coke Works along the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania. Company officials protested that the project goals are impossible to meet and asked a court to alter terms of the agreement. Meanwhile, a grand jury has issued subpoenas for 16 company officials in an investigation of the delays in the program. The inquiry was initiated by the Justice Department on behalf of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
In a continuing series of time-to-altitude records, Major David W. Peterson, U.S. Air Force, a test pilot assigned to the F-15 Joint Test Force at Edwards AFB, California, ran the engines of the McDonnell Douglas F-15A-6-MC, 72-0119, Streak Eagle to full afterburner while it was attached to a hold-back device on the runway at Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota. The fighter was released and 161.025 seconds later it climbed through 82,020.997 feet (25,000 meters), setting another Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) world record. This was the seventh time-to-altitude record set by the modified F-15 in just ten days.
Edward Albee’s play “Seascape” premieres in NYC.
Immaculata University defeated the University of Maryland 80–48 in the first nationally televised women’s basketball game in the United States.
Gene Littler, whose flawless swing and unflappable temperament explain why they call him Gene the Machine, calmly fended off stiff winds and a couple of dangerous bogeys today to shoot a one-over-par 73 and win the 34th annual Bing Crosby National Pro-Amateur tournament.
Born:
John Tait, NFL tackle (Kansas City Chiefs, Chicago Bears), in Phoenix, Arizona.
Died:
Lubov Orlova, 74, Russian actress (Moscow Laughs; Man of Music; Tanya).
1975 Miners Strike, Coal Miners Pickets clash with NCB Office Workers outside the Coal Board Office in Tondu, Mid Glamorgan, Wales, 26th January 1972. (Photo by Ron Harding/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
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