Cambodian Government forces, using World War II-type attack boats made landings at several points along the blockaded Mekong River today, military sources said. They reported heavy fighting, with 20 Government troops killed, 60 wounded and 40 missing in the early stages of the effort to break the hold of the Communist-led insurgents! on the waterway, a supply lifeline for Phnom Penh. The sources said that one beachhead where government troops stormed ashore was at Peain Raing, a strategic narrow point in the river 40 miles southeast of Phnom Penh that has helped the rebels to cut off supply convoys. Near Prek Phnou, nine miles north of the city, rebel gunners reportedly shelled the area with captured artillery and mortars in an effort to isolate a government division headquarters.
Thousands of Greek and Greek Cypriot students marched on American and British diplomatic offices in Athens and Salonika protesting the declaration of a Turkish Cypriot state within a Cyprus federation. In Athens, Greek Cypriot leader Glafkos Clerides said he had reached an identity of views with the Greek foreign minister in talks on handling the Cyprus issue. A Cyprus group, led by Clerides, will go to New York to sound out members of the U.N. Security Council before council debate on Cyprus opens Tuesday. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim cut short a Mideast tour to return for the Cyprus talks.
While the Cyprus issue has been attracting international attention, Greece and Turkey have been waging another battle over their respective rights in the Aegean Sea. Many anlysts in both countries think the Aegean is potentially more dangerous than Cyprus. It could involve a direct confrontation between the two traditional enemies and pose another threat to the southern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, already shaken by Greece’s withdrawal from its military command and the termination of United States aid to Turkey. The disputes grow out of the accidents of history and geography. The west coast of Turkish Anatolia is lined with Greek islands, some only a few miles from the mainland. Ankara says the situation threatens her economic and security interests. Athens worries that Ankara harbors expansionist designs against the islands, which she lost during the declining years of the Ottoman Empire.
The Republic of Ireland moved Patrick Ward, the most seriously ill of the Irish Republican Army hunger strikers, to an intensive care unit in a Dublin hospital. Officials stood by in case spokesmen for 13 other fasting IRA prisoners in Portlaoise Jail wanted to reopen talks on their demands. Justice Minister Patrick Cooney had already conceded to the main demand — that IRA prisoners be separated from other prisoners — but new demands were put forward, at which point talks were broken off.
A Protestant city official shot on the doorstep of his Belfast, Northern Ireland home last night, was in serious condition at the Royal Victoria Hospital today.
The Vatican and Portugal signed an accord today permitting Roman Catholics who married in the church to seek divorces in Portuguese state courts. The accord revised the Concordat of 1940, which outlawed divorce for Catholics who had married according to the rules of their church. Since then, the Portuguese courts were able to grant divorce decrees only to non-Catholics who had married civilly. An official Vatican commentary explained that “under the new circumstances” that had come about in Portugal the church, after consultations with the Portuguese religion hierarchy, had determined that the legal ban on divorce for Catholics could no longer be maintained.
The Spanish Supreme Court in Madrid rejected an appeal today to set aside the convictions of 10 leftist labor organizers, but, in a surprise gesture of appeasement, drastically reduced their sentences.
Naval activities of the Soviet bloc have been increasing in the western part of the Baltic Sea, arousing concern in Denmark, West Germany and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The United States and Rumania are expected to complete soon a trade agreement, accompanied by Rumanian assurances that restrictions on emigration will be eased, according to knowledgeable administration officials.
The recently appointed Communist party chief of Armenia has castigated his fellow Armenians for forsaking Communist goals to pursue private enterprise and profit in nearly every sphere of life in the Soviet republic.
Secretary of State Kissinger flew to Bonn today after discussing with King Faisal the American plan for long-term oil agreements between producers and consumers at prices lower than the current world price of $11 a barrel. Newsmen accompanying Mr. Kissinger were told that at least one major oil producer had expressed interest in such an arrangement to the United States. He met with Faisal on his arrival from Aqaba, Jordan, where he was told by King Hussein of Jordan’s support for his effort to bring about a new Egyptian-Israeli agreement on Sinai. However, King Hussein said that Jordan had no interest in returning to the Geneva peace conference so long as the Palestine Liberation Organization had responsibility for recovering the West Bank of the Jordan River from Israel.
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was reported to be seeking a meeting of the heads of state of Egypt, Syria and Jordan with Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to unify Arab views before Secretary of State Kissinger makes his next Middle East visit. Faisal was reported by Arab diplomats to have become concerned over the tensions between Egypt on the one hand and Syria and the P.L.O. on the other, concerning the next step on disengagement and political negotiations with Israel.
Iraq would restore diplomatic relations with the United States if no more American arms are shipped to Iran and Washington supports the Palestinians, a Lebanese newspaper said. An Nahar said the two conditions for resuming relations with Washington, severed after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, were spelled out by Saddam Hussein, deputy chairman of Iraq’s ruling Revolution Command Council, to David Rockefeller, chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, who recently visited Bagdad.
Representatives of 104 developing nations began a four-day debate in Algiers on how to use their control over raw materials as a springboard to industrial power. Algerian President Houari Boumedienne told the gathered ministers and ambassadors that “We find ourselves now in a situation where we can impose the rules of the game. The industrialized countries today appeal to us to solve the world economic problems.”
Algerian police announced the breakup of a major hashish smuggling ring operating from Morocco to Europe and North America. They reported the arrest of 99 foreigners, including seven Americans, and seizure of more than three tons of hashish valued at $9 million. Authorities said the Algerian government was determined to punish the traffickers severely. Asked if this could include death for some of the ringleaders, a spokesman said, “There is that possibility.” Authorities did not name those arrested.
Iran and Oman are drawing up plans to patrol the waters at the entrance to the Persian Gulf against pollution by oil tankers.
India’s pro-Soviet Communists are fac ing an ideological and political problem: Should they move closer to the dominant Congress party or abandon the policy of supporting Prime Minister Indira Gandhi?
Thailand’s King Phumiphol Aduldet today appointed a cousin, Seni Pramoj, as Thailand’s next Premier. In voting Thursday, the lower house of the assembly gave the appointee the right to form the country’s first civilian Government since 1948. Mr. Seni, 69 years old, heads the Democrat party, which took the most seats in the national election January 16 by winning 72 seats of the 269 seats in the lower house. He must form a coalition, since none of the 22 parties in the election came close to a legislative majority.
About 40 persons, including the well‐known dissident poet Kim Chi Ha, were freed from prison tonight after South Korean President Park Chung Hee announced he was releasing most of the 203 persons jailed last year for anti‐government activities. The President took the conciliatory step in the wake of the national referendum Wednesday in which South Koreans voted in support of the country’s tough constitution, imposed under martial law conditions late in 1972. The President called the referendum to seek a popular endorsement of the constitution, which gave him vast powers, after it had been under severe attack from opposition politicians, students, Christian leaders and intellectuals in a period of unrest that had continued more than a year. A total of 203 persons, about 115 of them students, were court‐martialled under emergency decrees issued by President Park early last year to crush protests against the Constitution, and to forestall an alleged plot by students and tunderground leftists to overthrow his government.
A sore on the finger of an airline caterer’s cook was the source of bacteria that caused 144 persons aboard a Japan Air Lines flight February 2 to be hospitalized for food poisoning in Copenhagen, Alaska health officials said. The cook was not identified. A spokesman for the catering firm said “necessary steps” were being taken to prevent such an incident from occurring again.
The first acquisition, in 50 years, of new territory and inhabitants by the United States, took place with the signing of the “Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States of America.” The covenant would be approved in a plebiscite by the Islands’ voters on June 17.
Argentine police arrested hundreds in a nationwide series of security operations after the worst day of violence this year in which eight persons, including a Perónist parliamentary deputy, were killed in scattered clashes. The operations included roadblocks and house-to-house searches for left-wing subversives.
Eritrean secessionists today turned back a convoy of fuel tankers heading for the provincial capital of Asmara, setting one of them on fire, reliable sources here said. The sources said that the incident occurred 12 miles outside the Red Sea port of Massawa on the road to Asmara, where sporadic light arms fire and an explosion were heard early today. Meanwhile the head of a Sudanese delegation, which arrived here last Sunday with a cease‐fire appeal from Major General Gaafar al‐Nimeiry, President of Sudan, returned home today after a series of contacts with the government here. The Sudanese official, Gamal Mohammed Ahmed, a minister of state at the Foreign Ministry, earlier this week described Ethiopia’s response to the cease‐fire initiative as encouraging.
President Ford says he needs “responsible conservative backing” to be elected in 1976 and believes the formation of a third political party on the right “would probably defeat the real objectives of a conservative movement.” He said he did not “believe in the proliferation of political parties.” Mr. Ford made it plain in an interview in the Oval Office that he was not prepared to pay the price of dropping Vice President Rockefeller to assure right-wing support in the 1976 election.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation periodically dispatches American citizens on intelligence-gathering missions outside the United States, according to a 42-year-old Florida man who said that he and others have been used for that purpose. The man, Joseph Burton, said that for more than two years, beginning in May, 1972, he posed as a Marxist in order to infiltrate revolutionary groups here and abroad. Officials of the F.B.I. confirmed that the bureau had used American citizens in its operations outside the country.
Dr. Kenneth Edelin, a Boston obstetrician, was found guilty of manslaughter in the death of a male fetus in a legal abortion that he performed at the Boston City Hospital on October 3, 1973. The jury, which had heard evidence for six weeks, reached its decision on the second day of deliberation. The jury, which sat for six weeks of trial, cited photographs of the 20- to 24-week-old fetus as a factor in the conviction, while Dr. Edelin, who was black, cited racial and religious bias from the all-white, and mostly Roman Catholic, jury. Dr. Edelin was placed on one year’s probation. The case had become the focus of medical, religious and political controversy. The verdict was regarded as a victory for anti-abortion forces. Dr. Edelin’s lawyer, William Homans, said the case would be appealed.
Spurred by investigations in New York, the nursing-home industry has become the focus of a national re-examination of the treatment accorded the aged. Dade County in Florida, in which Miami is the principal city, is among the latest regions that will undertake an investigation of nursing homes. The State Attorney in Dade County, Richard Gerstein, said he would investigate all of the approximately 40 profit-making nursing homes in and around Miami. Two of the homes, together cited for more than 200 state and local violations in the last three years, are owned in part by Bernard Bergman, a central figure in nursing-home investigations in New York. Nursing-home investigations are also under way in New Jersey and Connecticut and reported abuses have prompted inquiries in Massachusetts, Virginia, Illinois and Nebraska.
The suspect in the wounding of six police officers in two separate shootings was held under guard in Chicago’s Cook County Hospital and the six policemen remained hospitalized, two in critical condition. The suspect, Timothy Johnson, 36, shot once, was seized after he had leaped or fallen from the balcony of his girlfriend’s third-floor apartment. Investigator Terry Hillard, 31, was shot as authorities rushed the apartment. Earlier, in suburban Harvey, Patrolman Frank Maslanka was shot by the suspect when he stopped him for a traffic violation. Later, four Harvey policemen were wounded in a shooting after Johnson had holed up in his sister’s home. He escaped and was the object of an intensive manhunt until police were tipped off that he was staying with his girlfriend.
Chemical extermination of thousands of blackbirds has begun in a 20-acre roost in Robertson County, Tennessee. A spokesman said thousands of carcasses were found at the roost after it had been sprayed with a chemical that dissolves the birds’ protective oils so they will freeze to death. Meanwhile, the Army delayed the destruction of about 17 million blackbirds so that impartial scientists could consider the effects of the chemical on the water supply. If the chemical is found to be harmless, the Army still must wait for proper weather conditions — a cold spell and a half inch of rain.
Pay rates have been cut as unemployed workers desperate for jobs at any price poured into Florida’s citrus groves by the thousands, creating the largest harvest-time labor surplus in 25 years. Orange and grapefruit growers, citing spiraling production costs, have cut wages by as much as 10 cents a box, according to Clark Ghiselin, director of the Citrus Industrial Council. He estimated that pickers currently earn 35 to 40 cents a box, compared with 40 to 45 cents last season. “It’s the same kind of situation we had when people fled the dust bowls for California during the Great Depression. Diana Lyons, an organizer for the United Farm Workers, said.
A three-alarm electrical fire in New York’s 110-story World Trade Center probably would not have spread as much if the structure had had a sprinkler system, John T. O’Hagan, the city’s fire commissioner, said. The absence of such a system did not constitute a local fire code violation because the twin towers are governed by the state fire code, he said. The only possible city violation he could find was the absence of “fire stops” — nonflammable material used to plug holes used for wiring — between floors, O’Hagan said. The fire stops reportedly had not been installed because workmen were not finished wiring the building.
Passengers on Amtrak trains increased by 10% in 1974 because of the fuel shortage, spurring expansion of the nation’s passenger railroad network, according to Amtrak’s yearly report. Seven new Amtrak routes were begun in 1974 and five more are planned for 1975.
Singer Andy Williams was divorced by his French wife a week ago, court records in Los Angeles showed. Former Folies Bergere dancer Claudine Longet, 34, filed for divorce January 17 on grounds of irreconcilable differences. They were married in Los Angeles in 1961 but had been separated for the last four years. Custody arrangements for their three children, Noelle, 11, Christian, 9, and Robert, 5, have not been disclosed.
[Ed: Longet would be arrested and charged with fatally shooting her boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich, at his home in Aspen, Colorado, on 21 March 1976. The Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office and 9th Colorado Judicial district’s investigative office made two procedural errors that aided Longet’s defense: They took a blood sample from her without first obtaining a warrant, and they seized her diary without a warrant. According to prosecutors, the sample showed the presence of cocaine in her blood, and her diary reportedly contradicted her claim that her relationship with Sabich had not soured. To further muddle the prosecution’s case, the gun was mishandled by weapons non-experts. The jury only convicted her of negligent homicide — 30 days and a small fine. She proceeded to marry her attorney (who was already married). After the criminal trial, the Sabich family initiated civil proceedings to sue Longet. The case eventually was resolved out of court, with the provision that Longet never discuss or write about the killing or the settlement.]
The descendants of chewing gum magnate William Wrigley, Jr., gave most of the privately owned Santa Catalina Island to a conservancy that the family had formed in 1972 to protect the island for public use.
Snow and freezing rain from two storms battered the Midwest. The first system moved from the central plains into the upper Great Lakes and across the Mississippi Valley. A second, potentially more severe storm was following. Heavy snow warnings were out for most of New Mexico. southern Colorado, southwestern Kansas and southeastern Wisconsin. Thunderstorms increased in central Texas and along the central Gulf Coast. Rain and snow were reported in the Pacific Northwest.
Born:
Serge Aubin, Canadian NHL centre and left wing (Colorado Avalanche, Columbus Blue Jackets, Atlanta Thrashers), in Val-d’Or, Quebec, Canada.
Sébastien Bordeleau, Canadian NHL centre (Montreal Canadiens, Nashville Predators, Minnesota Wild, Phoenix Coyotes), in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Rafael Medina, Panamanian MLB pitcher (Florida Marlins), in Panama City, Panama.
Nick Gallery, NFL punter (New York Jets), in Manchester, Iowa.
Brendon Small, American comedian and animator, in Springfield, Illinois.
Died:
Elizabeth Kee, 79, the first woman U.S. representative from West Virginia in Congress, who represented West Virginia from 1951 to 1965
History Diaries 