Senator John L. McClellan (D-Arkansas), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, served notice that his committee is likely to cut in half the Ford Administration’s latest Vietnam military aid request. In singling out the $1.3 billion request for the fiscal year beginning July 1, McClellan clearly signaled that future aid is in trouble as well as the Administration’s earlier request for $300 million in supplemental military assistance for the current fiscal year.
On the eve of Tết, the Vietnamese lunar new year, opposition deputies and religious figures gathered on the steps of the National Assembly building tonight and burned photographs of Presidegt Nguyễn Văn Thiệu. The deputies stood under flickering torches and shouted, “Down with country‐selling Thiệu!” Tết shoppers and strollers passed by and a government sound truck screeched popular music to drown out the demonstrators. Dương Văn Minh, the retired general who heads much or the opposition, put in a rare public appearance at the demonstration. The protest was prompted by Mr. Thiệu’s crackdown on the press. The government closed five opposition dailies and said it had arrested 18 journalists as “Communist infiltrators.”
Half a dozen other journalists and writers have been arrested and many others have gone into hiding, according to Vietnamese informants. But a parliamentary deputy, Hồ Ngọc Nhuận, who keeps track of such arrests, said tonight that he knew of no new wave of detentions. “I think it is just an attempt at intimidation,” said Deputy Trần Văn Tuyên, who was dressed in a purple traditional robe that he wears on important occasions. Mr. Tuyên read aloud a long denunciation of Mr. Thiệu that was signed by 27 Deputies and one Senator. The statement charged that the president had purposely allowed Phước Long Province to fall to the North Vietnamese last month “to put pressure on the United States Government to give more military aid and to have an opportunity to oppress the opposition.” Mr. Tuyên called upon Mr. Thiệu to step down ddring the lunar new year period, so that “the war shall be stopped, corruption shall be swept away and national reconciliation shall be a reality.”
The deputies declared that they would fast for a day as a protest against the Government. Tết is a time of feasting, but this one, because of the bad state of the economy, will be meager for many Vietnamese. The four‐day holiday begins tomorrow. This afternoon 12 Buddhist nuns from the Ngoc Phuong pagoda in Giã Định, on the outskirts of Saigon, began a demonstration in a park across from Mr. Thiệu’s palace. After a half an hour, they were taken away by the police and returned to their pagoda. In a Tết message to the nation Mr. Thiệu said the new Year of the Cat will bring “even greater difficulties” than those known in the outgoing year — the year of the Tiger. “We are determined not to let South Vietnam fall into the hands of the Communists,” he said. “The problem that is confronting us particularly in this new Year of the Cat is that we must defeat the Communist general offensive.”
Mr. Thiệu outlined three new goals for the new year: “Maximum support for the front line, maximum stabilization of the rear and increase of production.” “In the rear,” the message said in part, “we cannot afford to let the Communist underground agents and lackeys of the international political mongers, camouflaged under various forms, infiltrate our nationalist ranks to intoxicate people and promote solutions of surrender to the Communists.” Most military analysts are not yet calling the stepped‐up North Vietnamese and Việt Cộng attacks a “general offensive,” as Mr. Thiệu has on several occasions.
The Americans in Phnom Penh are in a sticky position. They have to make the situation sound serious in the hope of persuading Congress to come through with additional money, but at the same time they must not paint the picture so dark as to frighten people into leaving. The embassy has decided, apparently on instructions from Washington, to send all nonessential personnel out of the country this week, but this amounts to only six people — nonworking embassy wives, who will go to Bangkok or Vientiane. Embassy wives who have jobs at the embassy and other woman employes will stay. The embassy has made no suggestion about evacuation to the 200 nonofficial Americans, among them relief workers, pilots and journalists. Two days ago the United States Embassy got in touch with all other embassies to advise them of what it was doing and to suggest that it might not be a bad idea if they too sent out nonessential people. The French, Japanese and South Vietnamese Embassies had decided to do this before the United States Embassy called. For the moment at least the others are standing pat.
A gunman sprayed automatic-rifle fire into a Northern Ireland tavern crowded with Roman Catholics, killing one man and wounding four. The attack came only hours after another cease-fire by the Irish Republican Army went into effect. Police said two men burst into the bar in the village of Pomeroy and one fired about 50 shots. The men then escaped in a car. Authorities blamed the attack on Protestant assassination squads opposed to any truce. Five bombings in Belfast and the killing of a 19‐year‐old street cleaner preceded the start of the truce. The street cleaner, a 19‐year-old Roman Catholic, was killed by two gunmen in the Ormeau district of south Belfast. The gunmen fled in a hijacked car after wounding another street cleaner. Despite the continued violence, Government officials and politicians greeted the cease‐fire with cautious optimism. There was controversy, however, over its possible terms. Seven “incident centres” are established in nationalist areas to monitor the ceasefire.
London police disclosed that missing teen-age heiress Lesley Whittle was kidnapped by Britain’s most dangerous criminal, a triple killer known as “The Black Panther” and “The Hood,” because he often dresses in black and often wears a hood. Miss Whittle, 17, was kidnaped from her home in Highley on January 14. The kidnapper telephoned a demand for a $120,000 ransom but never appeared to pick it up. No trace of his victim has been found.
Arab efforts to exclude Jewish banking interests from financial deals on the international loan market have touched off a conroversy in the London financial community over whether to oppose such moves with a united front. Some of the investment banking houses identified with Jewish families are preparing to lodge a protest with the Bank of England. But a minorty took the position that the Arab’s economic power was too great to resist. The British central bank said it was keeping track of the situation. But it was not clear whether the bank had any power to intervene. Meanwhile, another instance of Arab pressure came to light today. Kleinwort, Benson, Ltd., an investment bank confirmed that it had agreed under Arab pressure to exclude certain banks from a financing now being arranged for the Japanese trading company Marubeni.
A spokesman for Aristotle Onassis said the Greek shipping magnate underwent an operation over the weekend at the American Hospital near Paris where he arrived Friday. Reports that Onassis, 69, had undergone a gall bladder operation could not be confirmed. “It was a small operation,” the spokesman said, “and now he is feeling much, much better.”
France’s university secretary of state, Jean-Pierre Soisson, has ordered Vincennes University in Paris to end a sexual group therapy course that experimented with adaptations of American techniques aimed at ending frigidity and used a hotel as main “workshop.” The minister’s decision to overrule university autonomy in the case is expected to develop into a political controversy.
A U.S. military judge in Frankfurt, West Germany, dismissed insubordination charges against Spec. 4 Babette Peyton, 22, of Chicago, who was alleged to have disobeyed an order to change her “cornrow” hairstyle to conform to military regulations. Judge Sandford W. Harvey said the prosecution had failed to make clear exactly what offense Peyton had committed.
A British inmate of a Soviet labor camp who was pardoned by Soviet authorities flew home to Scotland, Western diplomatic sources in Moscow said. Alexander Paton, 30, a Glascow bar manager, was sentenced February 11, 1974, to two years for “negligently” setting fire to his hotel room in Leningrad, where he was vacationing with his wife. Two women died as a result of the blaze.
The Council of the European Community passed the Equal Pay Directive, number75/117/EEC, requiring its member states to follow “the principle of equal pay for men and women.”
Secretary of State Kissinger began talks with Israeli leaders shortly after his arrival in Jerusalem today in an effort to reconcile differing Egyptian and Israeli views on achieving a new interim agreement in Sinai. Mr. Kissinger told reporters who accompanied him on his flight from Washington that he had not received any formal proposals from Israel or Egypt on a new agreement, but had received “ideas” from both sides. Within hours of his arrival, Mr. Kissinger and his top aides had a working dinner with Premier Yitzhak Rabin and other Israeli leaders to discuss the gap that has so far blocked a second‐stage accord between Egypt and Israel. Tonight, Mr. Kissinger and the Israeli leaders decided to talk about the over‐all strategic implications for the Middle East of the Israeli‐Egyptian negotiations — the impact a successful outcome would have on movements toward an eventual peace settlement and the risks of a possible outbreak of fighting that a failure might provoke.
The Israeli right-wing Opposition called on the Government today to hold new elections before agreeing to withdraw from the Mitla and Gidi passes and Abu Rudeis oilfields in the Sinai Peninsula as part of a new interim peace arrangement with Egypt. Menachem Begin, the leader of the Likud bloc, contended at a Tel Aviv news conference today that the government lacked a mandate to relinquish such strategic areas and therefore “has a moral duty to go to the people and seek such a mandate.” The Likud demand came a few hours before Secretary of State Kissinger’s arrival here to begin his latest Middle East mediating effort. The demand reflected a deep skepticism among many Israelis about the feasibility and desirability of concluding another interim agreement with the Egyptians. Although Premier Yitzhak Rabin’s Government is formally committed to Mr. Kissinger’s step‐by‐step approach, there are many Israelis, including some Cabinet Ministers, who doubt its wisdom.
An Israeli soldier has admitted throwing a hand grenade that killed six people and wounded 26 in a crowded nightclub in the seaside town of Natanya, police said. Ezra Avraham, 19, reportedly told police he threw the grenade on the roof of the club because he wanted to make a noise after the owner insulted him. Israel radio said Avraham told a court he had not intended to hurt anyone, but he had to be taken from the courthouse when hundreds of angry townspeople converged on the building.
A Pentagon spokesman, commenting today on a report that Americans were being recruited to train military forces in Saudi Arabia, stressed that similar services have been provided to Saudi Arabia before.
Iraq was reported today to be seeking a high‐level meeting of Arab countries bordering on the Persian Gulf to seek support against Iranian military aid to Kurdish rebels northern Iraq. The Iraqi military command said yesterday that an Iraqi soldier had been killed and two wounded by Iranian artillery fire on the border. Western diplomats see a possibility that heavy fighting might erupt between the two countries. There is said to be evidence that Iran has been using advanced weapons, sometimes from Iraqi territory, against Iraqi tanks and aircraft that have pushed the Kurdish rebels into an area near the border with Iran.
India’s strong support of the Arab nations has failed to yield substantive economic benefits, according to Indian and foreign economists. The visit of Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Petroleum, emphasized that immediate and concrete help for India had been ruled out by most of the oil producers. Sheik Zaki, who left today, after a five‐day visit, said that Saudi Arabia would not supply oil credits to India but was prepared to help finance joint industrial projects. Essentially, all but two of the oil producers have told India the same thing: Credits and immediate help are out of the question, but assistance on projects to meet India’s needs is possible. Only Iran and Iraq, among the producers, have taken concrete steps to help.
The Pakistani Government imposed a ban today on the National Awami party, in a move meant to eliminate the main opposition organization from national politics. The order dissolving the party also decreed that its properties and funds be forfeited to the Government. It said the Government was satisfied that the party was working against the solidarity and integrity of Pakistan. The formal dissolution of the party followed arrests, over the last two days, of almost all of its principal leaders, including the party president, Wali Khan. In a debate on a bill to deny immunity against detention of members of national and provincial assemblies during parliamentary sessions, the Government said that the National Awami party was responsible for the assassination of Hyat Mohammad Khan Sherpao, Home Minister of the politically troubled Northwest Frontier Province. The 37‐year‐old Mr. Sherpao, who played a key role for Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in provincial politics, was fatally wounded Saturday in a bomb explosion at Peshawar University. He had been member of Mr. Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party for eight years.
Foreign Minister Kiichi Miyazawa indicated to Parliament today that Japan, the only nation ever to experience an atomic attack, had again backed away from ratifying the treaty to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
Australian Attorney General Lionel Murphy was appointed as one of the seven judges of the High Court of Australia, where he served until his death in 1986.
A seal hunt to be held off the coast of Canada next month has stirred the International Fund for Animal Welfare to file protests with the Norwegian Embassy in Washington. Officials of the conservation group said petitions with a million signatures will be presented to the ambassador at a meeting this week. About 120,000 seals are killed for their pelts each year in a trade dominated largely by Norwegians. The group is protesting that the method used to kill the seals is inhumane.
Venezuela has agreed to accept 27 political prisoners from Chile, Ambassador Antonio Arellano Moreno of Venezuela said here today. The 27 include five leading spporters of the deposed leftwing coalition government of Gossens, he said. Dr. Allende Gossen, he said. Dr. Allende was killed and his administration toppled in an armed forces coup in September, 1973. The Venezuelan Government’s acceptance of the political prisoners was contained in a note to the Chilean Interior Minister, Cesar Raul Benavides, by the Venezuelan Ambassador.
Isabel Perón, the President of Argentina, signed “Decree 261”, giving the nation’s armed forces the authority to enter the rebellious Tucumán Province and to “annihilate subversion” of “Operativo Independencia” by any necessary means.
Heavy fighting resumed in the northern city of Asmara today between Ethiopian Government troops and Eritrean secessionist guerrillas after a lull of about three days, residents of the city reported. The Ethiopian Government has said nothing about the fighting since Saturday. Reports reaching Addis Ababa from Asmara, 670 miles to the north, say that at least four jet fighter‐bombers attacked guerrilla concentrations about 12 miles north of the city in the late afternoon. The reports said that the government aircraft were the first observed in the Asmara region since last Monday. At that time both jet and propeller-driven planes were being used against the guerrilla forces.
Black and white Rhodesian Leaders are preparing to meet again on Wednesday to try to arrange a new constitutional conference to settle the political future of this breakaway British colony.
President Ford charged those who oppose his plan to conserve energy by taxing oil imports are taking a “reckless gamble” with the American economy. He made the statement in a speech at an energy conference sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce in Houston, Texas, attended by leading oil and gas producers. Mr. Ford also renewed his attack on Congress for its response to his economic and energy policies.
Key Senate Democrats have agreed on a plan aimed at allowing a vote on a bill that would stop President Ford from imposing increased import fees on oil. Under the arrangement, which is also intended to thwart a possible filibuster, the Senate would be assured of a chance to vote on a bill that would revoke the $1-a-barrel import fee imposed by the President and keep him from making any other change in oil fees for 90 days. Democrats who oppose the fee want time to work out their own oil program.
The Rockefeller Commission questioned former CIA counterintelligence chief James J. Angleton for 2½ hours and concluded he was not “the key to our investigation” of Central Intelligence Agency activities. Angelton was forced to resign last December amid charges the CIA illegally spied on American dissenters. He declined to answer newsmen’s questions when he entered and left the closed session. Vice President Rockefeller, however, said Angleton “was one member of the organization who was in an important position, but I would not say he was the key to our investigation.” Rockefeller said, “We had a very good discussion” with Angleton and would call two of his former assistants before the commission.
Senator John C. Stennis, chairman of the Senate Armed, Services Committee, expressed concern today over the rising cost of the B-1 strategic, bomber and asked the Air Force to describe “possible alternatives” to construction of the plane. Air Force Secretary John L. McLucas and Gen. David C. Jones, Air Force chief of staff, responded in testimony before the committee that there was no other plane that would be as effective as the B‐1 bomber.
Soviet astronauts climbed today into the Apollo spacecraft that is scheduled to link up with their Soyuz craft during the joint Soviet‐American spaceflight next July, and expressed confidence in its readiness. The Russians’ inspection of the conical craft in the company of the American astronaut partners, came during the first visit of any Soviet space pilots to the Kennedy Space Center, the nation’s main facility for civilian rocket launchings. Previous invitations to the oceanside launching center had been declined, apparently because of a Soviet unwillingness to reciprocate with invitations to Baikonur, the desert launching facility in the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. But now, American astronauts are to return today’s visit by going to Baikonur in May.
Retail grocery costs had already climbed at least 38% above new government food stamp allowances by the time the allowances became effective January 1, an Agriculture Department study showed. An economy menu plan used by the department to set food stamp allocations for a needy family of four cost $159.90 in December, up from $157.20 in November. The stamp allocation, which had been $150 a month since last July 1, rose to $154 the first of the year. Under the stamp plan, a family buys a prescribed amount of stamps and then receives additional bonus coupons at federal cost to help boost its purchasing power at retail stores.
The man arrested for stealing a painting by the 18th century master Thomas Gainsborough from the Wadsworth Atheneum went into court in Hartford, Connecticut, expecting to be released without charge. Instead. he landed in jail. The suspect, Spencer Wolff, had been told by authorities a larceny charge would be dropped if he returned the painting. which was valued at $100,000. The work, damaged in the theft, was recovered Saturday. Prosecutor Cornelius Shea asked Judge Francis Quinn to drop the larceny charge but then Shea filed three other charges against Wolff. The charges, which were not related to the theft, were second-degree larceny, disorderly conduct and carrying a firearm in a motor vehicle.
One of the Shaf quintuplets born Sunday died after suffering from a lung condition. Ryan Theodore, the third of five babies born to Cheryl Shaf, had had a condition known as hyaline membrane disease, a spokesman for Chicago’s Resurrection Hospital said. The other quints, two boys and two girls, were on intravenous feeding and in incubators in the intensive care unit. They were doing fine, hospital officials reported.
National guardsmen wearing riot gear and carrying rifles and tear gas took over security at Hawaii’s state prison. Two hours after the 180 guardsmen entered the institution, corrections administrator Ray Belnap resigned. Later, officials transferred 45 prison employees, including 36 of the prison’s 108 guards. Governor George Ariyoshi ordered the National Guard to the prison after reports that several of the 210 inmates had weapons. The guardsmen began an immediate search.
A $200 million loan offered by Saudi Arabian interests to help New York City cope with its budget problems has been rejected because the interest rate was too high, officials said. In a television interview, Comptroller Harrison J. Goldin confirmed that a “Western European money broker, acting as an intermediary, approached city officials about two months ago with the offer. He said the exact identification of the prospective lenders either in terms of nationality or name wasn’t divulged to us But Goldin said the 20-year loan involved a very high rate of interest because there wouldn’t have been any amortization…”
The South, once the national pacesetter for economic growth, appears to have been hit harder than any other region by the recession. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta predicts that economic recovery, once it begins, will take longer in the South than elsewhere, and it puts a large part of the blame for the region’s decline on an unusually large construction industry.
Some 19,000 production workers have struck McDonnell Douglas plants in Missouri and California in a wage dispute. Company officials say that jet fighter production will be halted if the strike is a long one.
The New York Stock Exchange, signaling what may be a change in the financial prospects of the ailing brokerage industry, reported that most of its member firms recorded a strong profit increase during the final quarter of 1974 and finished the year solidly in the black. The surprise improvement, covering the results of 425 exchange members, was attributed largely to two increases in commission rates granted stockbrokers since September, 1973.
A slick caused by oil leaking from the damaged hull of a Cypriot tanker poses no immediate threat to the New England coastline, according to U.S. Coast Guard officials in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. An estimated 28,000 barrels of oil have been spilled since the vessel, Athenian Star, ran into trouble in rough seas over the weekend. Most of the lightweight oil was lost farther out to sea or confined to the immediate area around the tanker, the Coast Guard said. Crews were working to pump out what remained of the 130,000-barrel cargo of diesel oil.
Two U.S. ecologists, Eugene P. Odum and Howard T. Odum, received in Paris the $66,600 award of the Institute of Life. The award was given to the brothers by a jury of 53 members from 29 nations. Eugene Odum, Howard, of the University of Florida, of the University of Georgia, and were honored for their work in the field of experimental ecology.
One billion empty aluminum beverage cans were turned in to the Adolph Coors Co. for recycling in 1974 in 11 Western states, the beer company announced in Golden, Colorado. Under the “cash for cans” program, the company paid $5.9 million for the empty cans at 10 cents a pound. In 1973, 262 million fewer cans were turned in for recycling. The company recycles aluminum beer and soft drink cans under the program begun in 1970. Coors operates recycling redemption centers in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
The Special Committee on the Negro Leagues picks William “Judy” Johnson for the Hall of Fame. “When I heard about it, if you had cut off my feet, I think I would have floated right up through the roof,” said William (Judy) Johnson on hearing that he had become the sixth former player in the Negro leagues to be named to the Baseball Hall of Fame: “I felt so good I could have cried.”
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 708.39 (-3.52, -0.49%)
Born:
Amber Frey, American witness in the Scott and Laci Peterson murder case, in Los Angeles, California.
Tina Thompson, Team USA and WNBA forward (Basketball Hall of Fame, inducted 2018; Olympic gold medal, 2004, 2008; WNBA Champions-Comets, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000; WNBA All-Star, 1999-2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013; WNBA All-Star Game MVP, 2000; Houston Comets, Los Angeles Sparks, Seattle Storm), in Los Angeles, California.
Hiroki Kuroda, Japanese and MLB baseball pitcher (Hiroshima Toyo Carp; Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees); in Osaka, Japan.
Lee Soo-geun, South Korean stand-up comedian, in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.
Died:
Dave Alexander, 27, American rock bassist (The Stooges, 1967-70), dies of pneumonia exacerbated by alcoholism.
Nikos Kavvadias, 65, Greek poet and writer.
History Diaries 