The government of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu of South Vietnam closed down five opposition newspapers and continued the arrests of journalists that began quietly over the weekend. On Sunday, the government confiscated the editions of those five papers and four others after they published a new “indictment” of Mr. Thiệu by the Catholic-led People’s Anticorruption Movement, headed by the Rev. Trần Hữu Thành, saying Mr. Thiệu should be “charged with high treason” for political crimes. The Information Ministry said in a statement today: “The government has just arrested a number of Communist underground agents who had infiltrated into the staff of a number of newspapers in the capital to carry out sabotage activities.”
The statement expressed the government’s “respect for the right to free speech of every citizen,” but said the government was “determined to smash all attempts by the Communists to sabotage the press in order to protect national security and maintain public order.” Lý Chánh Trung, an editor of the opposition daily Diện Tin, one of the papers closed, responded: “They can say whatever they want — but that’s a lie.”
The challenge to Mr. Thiệu by the press and Father Thành’s movement, which have collaborated in the past, comes at a particularly awkward moment for the government. The Ford Administration has put forward a request for $300‐million aid for Saigon, and Mr. Thiệu and his government have been at pains to appear in a good light. Last week, for the first time in years, Mr. Thiệu granted a series of interviews to foreign journalists to appeal for the extra aid.
Mr. Thiệu ritually terms many of his opponents “lackeys” of the Communists. In an interview, Mr. Thiệu said: “I have warned all of them that everything you do against me, against the government, I don’t care about. But look inside your movement to see if there is any Communist infiltration.” On September 8, Father Thành, a 59‐year‐old Redemptorist priest with a conservative political background, issued a six‐count “indictment” of Mr. Thiệu, accusing him and members of his family of various forms of corruption. This became the catalyst of a revitalized opposition and, for the first time since Mr. Thiệu’s one‐man presidential race in 1971, Saigon saw a series of small but occasionally violent clashes between demonstrators and the police.
But then, mixing concessions with tough police tactics in the streets, Mr. Thiệu managed to subdue the opposition. In the interval, the North Vietnamese and the Việt Cộng have stepped up their attacks in the southern part of the country, giving the President a reason to appeal for a “calm rear area,” as he has put it. A list compiled by the Free Press Struggle Committee gave the names of 11 journalists who, it said, have been arrested. Some are well known and one is the editor of the mildly oppositionist daily Doc Lap. Several publishers said that a number of their employees — reporters and printers — were absent from work today and that they suspected that the absentees had either been arrested or intimidated by the police from coming at work.
Lawyers from a committee set up last fall to defend the press toured the Saigon jails today and this evening, looking for journalists or others involved in the newspaper business who might have been arrested. The newspapers that received orders of temporary suspension from the Interior Ministry are Diện Tin, Sóng Thần, Bút Thép, Đông Phương and Tia Sáng. Diện Tin and Sóng Thần are outspoken in their opposition. The three others shifted gradually to an opposition stance after Father Thành issued his first “indictment.”
Article 19 of Press Law 007 — which is in the process of being softened by the National Assembly, in part at Mr. Thiệu’s behest — permits the government to close any newspaper that has been confiscated twice for violations of “national security.” Father Thành’s latest “indictment” charges among other things that “the nationalist cause and the constitutionality of the regime have been destroyed because Mr. Thiệu has used the anti‐Communist cause to build up powers for himself and to serve the interests of his own family and group.”
Secretary of State Kissinger disclosed an American plan that he said would aid the development of new sources of energy in the West. Under the plan, the cost of imported oil would be kept high enough to encourage oil companies to continue to invest in searches for other forms of energy, and it would also assure them that once they had found an energy alternative challenging the supremacy of oil, they would not be confronted with a sudden drop in the price of oil, which would make their alternative noncompetitive. The proposal, along with others made public by Mr. Kissinger, will be presented to the governing board of the newly formed International Energy Agency, which convenes on Wednesday in Paris.
Mr. Kissinger said that the floor‐price plan might also serve as an inducement to oil producers to agree on a long‐term, lower‐cost arrangement with oil consumers. The oil producers would be confronted with a choice, he said. “They can accept a significant price reduction now in return for stability over a longer period,” he said, “or they can run the risk of a dramatic break in prices when the program of alternative sources begins to pay off.” Crucial to the American plan, he said, is the fact that new sources of energy will cost more than Middle East oil used to cost. Once new energy sources began to be developed, the oil producers might reduce their prices to the old levels and make the alternatives uncompetitive. “Thus paradoxically, in order to protect the major investments in the industrialized countries that are needed to bring the international oil prices down, we must insure that the price for oil on the domestic market does not fall below certain level,” he said.
The Ford Administration announced today an increase of more than $600-million in foreign food aid for the fiscal year ending June 30 over the total provided the previous year.
Italian Premier Aldo Moro announced sweeping plans to replace oil with other energy sources, build more housing and reduce food imports to offset Italy’s worst economic crisis since World War II. Recent figures show the cost of living in Italy went up 25.3% in 1974, and about 800,000 workers are unemployed. Moro, warning that Italy could not hope to overcome her deep recession before late in 1976, announced today a new energy program to cut Italy’s oil imports $500‐million to $600‐million annually. Italy spent a staggering $7‐billion last year for crude oil, mainly from the Middle East. Addressing the leadership of his Christain Democratic party, the Premier said that his government would take action to substitute methane gas and coal for oil in electric power plants, reduce the over‐all consumption of petroleum products 7 percent and build 20 new nuclear power plants. Italy has only three functioning nuclear power plants and depends on oil imports more than any other West European nation.
The Greek military dictatorship’s regent for King Constantine, General George Zoitakis, was ordered held for trial on charges of high treason and insurrection for his part in the 1967 military coup, Athens judicial sources said. He was appointed regent in 1968 after the king fled to Italy when a countercoup failed. Zoitakis, 61, is the seventh junta leader jailed on charges of treason and insurrection, for which death is the maximum penalty.
Two Irish Republican Army supporters, accused of involvement in “doomsday” plans for burning down large areas of Belfast, were sentenced to 15 years in prison. Brendan Hughes, 26, and Denis Louglin, 34, had been convicted in Belfast on charges of possessing arms, ammunition and explosives.
Four priests in Pamplona, Spain, have been jailed for refusing to pay fines imposed for preaching in support of striking workers, church sources said. The four are among 19 priests fined a total of $65,700 for allegedly attacking the state. In their sermons, the 19 clerics denounced what they called economic and social injustices and demanded that workers be allowed to organize outside the official trade unions.
A black U.S. Army major, Herbert Turner, claimed that racism led to his removal as a post chaplain in Wuerzburg, Germany, and that he was being threatened with a transfer to a military mental hospital at Landstuhl. An Army spokesman acknowledged that he had been told he would be transferred, but added, “No transfer is imminent.” The major was removed as chaplain and placed in an administrative job because of “an accumulation of unethical activities,” the spokesman said. He alleged that Turner disobeyed orders involving used-car sales among soldiers and efforts to arrange adoptions of illegitimate German children fathered by American GIs. Turner said he had been the object of a smear campaign.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, warned tonight that relations between Israel and the non‐Jewish world were fast deteriorating, and he predicted that Jews everywhere might soon confront a crisis of double loyalty involving their support for Israel and their identification with the policies of the countries in which they live. “We are facing a very serious period,” Dr. Goldmann said at the opening session of the assembly of the congress here. “The honeymoon between Israel and the non‐Jewish world has come to an end.” Arguing that time was working in favor of the Arabs, not Israel, the 79‐year‐old leader continued. “In the past, when we Jews supported Israel to the full, we did so in an atmosphere of world sympathy for Israel, of respect and admiration for it and in conformity with the policies of most of the democratic countries. With the fortunate exception for the time being of the United States, all this has changed radically. We may have to face open conflicts with the Middle East policies of many countries in the near future, and we must be prepared for it.”
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has asked Yosef Almogi, mayor of the port city of Haifa, to join his cabinet as minister without portfolio. If the 65-year-old Almogi accepts he will replace Aharon Yariv, who resigned last week as information minister. Almogi served as labor minister in the cabinet of former Prime Minister Golda Meir.
Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko of the Soviet Union and Ismail Fahmy, his Egyptian counterpart, hinted today at deep-seated differences between the two countries in surprisingly frank public statements following three hours of talks. The statements, made at dinner given by Mr. Fahmy, were made public in part by the official Middle East News Agency. Mr. Gromyko, who arrived in the afternoon after a two‐day, stay in Damascus, Syria, said the Soviet and Egyptian Governments had many points of view in common, but he added that “the practical measures that must be taken cannot be adequately dealt with in one meeting.” He was thought to mean the attitudes taken by the two governments regarding the step‐by-step mediation efforts made by Secretary of State Kissinger, who is due to come the Middle East later this month. The Soviet Union as well as Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization are suspicious of Mr. Kissinger’s intentions and fear that he may be trying to split Egypt from the other Arabs.
Bishop Antoine Khoreich of Saida, southern Lebanon, was elected Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and All the East by the 14 bishops of the Roman Catholic Maronite rite. The bishops had come to Bkerke, Lebanon, from Syria, Egypt, the United States, Canada, and Venezuela, as well as from Lebanon itself.
A small explosion started a lavatory fire aboard a Pan American 747 jet, forcing it to return to Bangkok International Airport, where an hour earlier it had taken off for New Delhi. Thai police said they were holding an Indian citizen while they completed investigation of the cause of the fire. There were 79 people aboard and only the Indian was injured.
Future immigration policy must favor French-speaking immigrants over others if Canada is to remain a bilingual country, according to a report submitted to Parliament today.
Panama’s Chief of Government has expressed confidence that the United States and Panama are moving toward agreement on a new treaty to govern the operation and defense of the Panama Canal. “It doesn’t matter whether the negotiations take one day, two days or a couple of months so long as everyone is working toward agreement,” Brigadier General Omar Torrijos Herrera said in an interview here. “I’ve got no complaints because we’re working hard. I’m optimistic within the existing reality, although we can’t know whether the negotiations have been productive until the treaty is completed.” But the 46‐year‐old general, who has successfully directed an international campaign to support Panama’s demand for new accord to replace the 1903 Canal Treaty, recognized that the United States’ attitude toward the negotiations had changed during the last year.
Ethiopian planes bombed Eritrean secessionist positions north of the provincial capital of Asmara yesterday for the second day, reportedly striking as well at Moslem guerrillas retreating to their hideouts, Reports from Asmara quoting Western displomats said the bombing Sunday resulted in the leveling of two villages, Waki Debra and Adi Sodgo. The diplomats said they did not know if the 1,200 inhabitants had left in time. Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s military rulers announced that they were nationalizing or taking a controlling interest in sugar, textile, oil and other key concerns as part of their effort to turn Ethiopia into a modern socialist country.
Rep. Charles C. Diggs Jr. (D-Michigan) left Lusaka for Botswana after meeting privately with Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda over the weekend. Diggs, chairman of the House foreign affairs subcommittee on Africa, reportedly discussed Rhodesia and South Africa with Kaunda. Diggs also had talks with leaders of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola and Rhodesia’s African National Council.
President Ford forecast that the nation’s unemployment rate would be about 8 percent of the labor force for the rest of this year and next year as he submitted a budget of $349.4 billion to Congress. The new budget will have the largest peacetime deficit in history, $51.9 billion for the fiscal year starting July 1. The deficit will be much bigger if, as expected, Congress rejects most of an unpopular $17 billion package of spending cuts President Ford has proposed.
“It must mean that he’s going to be a two-year president,” said Representative Sam Gibbons, Democrat of Florida. His remark reflected the shock and indignation professed by leading Democrats in Congress that President Ford’s budget anticipated high unemployment for the rest of the decade. Senator Hubert Humphrey, chairman of the congressional Joint Economic Committee, declared in a Senate speech that it was “unbelievable” that the President could propose record federal deficits and “not put America back to work.”
Businessmen, traditional foes of deficit spending, seemed to be accepting with resignation the $51.9 billion deficit projected in President Ford’s budget for fiscal 1976, but some expressed support. “My conservatism causes me to blink several times,” Joseph McFarland, chairman of General Mills, Inc., said, “but I don’t see what else you can do.”
The House Ways and Means Committee approved an $8.4 billion reduction in taxes on 1975 income for persons with low and moderate incomes. The tax relief this year would involve an increase in the minimum standard deduction and a special tax credit for the working poor and would be in addition to a rebate of a portion of 1974 income taxes that the committee is expected to adopt later this week.
The General Motors Corporation reported that its profits for the final quarter of 1974 fell 2 percent from the same period a year earlier, and that its 1974 earnings were down 60 percent. The company, no longer the world’s largest industrial corporation — its earnings are now exceeded by those of the Exxon Corporation and other oil companies — said its fourth-quarter earnings totaled $508 million, or $1.76 a share, compared with $517 million, or $1.80 a share, a year earlier. Its dividend this year was reduced to 60 cents a share to conserve capital, the chairman said.
General Electric Co. joined a growing list of companies attempting to boost sales through cash incentives by announcing rebates of $2 to $5 on 39 small appliances during an eight-week period. A spokesman said the rebates would be available within four weeks of being requested by sending the model number and a sales receipt showing date of purchase to the GE housewares business division in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The rebates apply to certain coffee makers, irons, hair dryers and other items made between March 21 and May 18. An official said a price cut would not generate the same urgency among the dealers as would a rebate that is accompanied by promotions in newspapers, television and other media. “We need to do something dramatic to accentuate the program,” he said.
A band of about 45 armed Indians was evacuated late at night from a monastery near Gresham, Wisconsin, which they had occupied for 34 days and were immediately taken to a nearby jail. The evacuation came two days after agreement was reached under which the 64-room building would be turned over to the local Menominee tribe as a social center in return for what has been called a fair reimbursement by the Indians and their supporters. The Indians were driven by police in a yellow school bus to the police station at Shawano, eight miles away. No charges have yet been announced against them. Among those who came out of the monastery was actor Marlon Brando. He said he would seek to raise bail for the Indians if necessary.
A federal judge in Washington issued a temporary restraining order until a hearing Friday against the Army’s plan to kill about 13 million blackbirds at bases in Kentucky and Tennessee, a spokesman for the plaintiffs’ lawyer said. The order prevented the Pentagon, the Interior Department, the City of Paducah, Kentucky, and Robertson and Giles counties in Tennessee from starting “the mass killing of birds at either Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, or the Milan Army ammunition plant in Milan, Tennessee.” The Army has called the birds a health hazard. The method would be to spray them with a detergent that would strip protective oil from their feathers and cause them to die from exposure.
Four persons were injured in Denver when what police said was a dynamite bomb ripped through a restroom on the sixth floor of a downtown bank building. The restroom was located between the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission regional office and offices of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. Police would not speculate on a motive. Most seriously injured was janitor Dave Priest, who was listed in “serious but satisfactory” condition. The other three persons, all unidentified, were listed as satisfactory.
Ashland Oil Co., which has admitted making illegal contributions to politicians in both parties, has postponed election of its directors until completion of an internal investigation into “all aspects of the gifts. The Investigation is being conducted by a special committee of the board of directors, none of whom are officers of the company. Ashland’s campaign contributions, from 1967 to 1972, totaled $553,000, Board Chairman Orin E. Atkins disclosed at the company’s annual meeting last week in Ashland, Kentucky. That figure does not include $100,000 returned to the company by the 1972 Nixon campaign committee.
Eli M. Black, the 53-year-old CEO of United Brands, was driven to his office at the Pan Am Building in Manhattan, rode to the 44th floor, locked the door inside his private office, broke a window, and jumped to his death. Subsequent investigations revealed that Black had paid a $1,250,000 bribe to the Economics Minister of Honduras, Abraham Bennaton Ramos, in order to prevent that nation from placing a tax on the bananas from United Brands’ farms.
Some of the toxic metals found in animal tissue may come from underwater volcanic activity and not pollution, two scientists said. David E Robertson and Dr. Louis A. Rancitelli, scientists at Batelle’s Pacific North-west Laboratories in Richland, Wash, said high concentrations of toxic metals may have been accumulating in the seas for centuries. The scientists said they found Atlantic Ocean mercury levels in concentrations hundreds of times higher than could be caused by currently understood pollution processes.
Presidential hopeful Rep. Morris K. Udall (D-Arizona) said he favored development of potential oil fields off the New England coast. He said the government should make test drillings for offshore oil and then determine how to recover it without harming the environment. The congressman said he opposed President Ford’s energy program but favored a proposal by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) to gradually decrease the supply of oil without increasing oil prices.
The Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California, which covers parts of San Diego and Riverside counties, will be expanded by 15,167 acres, according to the state Public Works Board, which is purchasing the land from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for $250 per acre or about $38,000. The park now encompasses about 620,000 acres. This is the second expansion of the park in recent years. In 1973, 6,500 acres were added to the park.
Billy Herman, Earl Averill, and Bucky Harris are selected for the Hall of Fame by the Special Veterans Committee.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 711.44 (+7.75, +1.10%)
Born:
Steve McLaren, Canadian NHL defenseman (St. Louis Blues), in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada.
Jannon Roland, WNBA forward (Orlando Miracle), in Springfield, Ohio.
Died:
William D. Coolidge, 101, American physicist and inventor (modern x-ray tube).
Robert Evett, 52, American composer, writer, editor, and music critic.
Umm Kulthum, 76, Egyptian actress and singer.
History Diaries 