North Vietnamese and Việt Cộng forces carried out attacks in the Mekong Delta and near Saigon today, shelling population centers; blowing up bridges and striking at a regional headquarters of the international peace‐keeping force, the Saigon command said. More than 60 persons, mostly civilians, were reported killed or wounded. The command said Việt Cộng explosive experts had infiltrated into a compound of the International Commission of Control and Supervision at Mỹ Tho, 35 miles southwest of Saigon.
Four opposition deputies and a South Vietnamese photographer said that they were beaten by plainclothes policemen today as they attempted to march to a Saigon courthouse to demand the release of 18 journalists arrested as Communist agents. Deputies who participated in the aborted march said that they were assaulted by plainclothes policemen wielding clubs and long sticks of sugar cane as they assembled near the Cầu Muối market near the Saigon River. Hồ Ngọc Nhuận, a leftist Roman Catholic doputy, said that policemen dragged away four women whose husbands are among the 18 journalists arrested, some of their children and three Buddhist nuns. Mr. Nhuận, Deputy Phan Xuân Huy, and Kiều Mộng Thu, an outspoken woman deputy, were hospitalized for cuts and bruises along with the photographer, Kỳ Nhân, who was said to have been severely beaten while lying on the street.
Insurgent forces overran a Cambodian Govenrment outpost today near the Mekong River naval base at Neak Luong, 30 miles from Phnom Penh, military sources said.
President Ford’s appeal for bipartisanship in foreign policy would mean a “return to an era of clear executive dominance in foreign affairs,” Senator Thomas F. Eagleton (D-Missouri) said in a Senate speech. Consensus “cannot be achieved by the submission of Congress,” he said. “Rather it must be the product of active consultation and open debate.” He said Congress must insist on information needed to fulfill its role, that the treaty power of the Senate not be circumvented by “executive agreements,” and that laws concerning foreign policy be faithfully executed.
The Greek Cypriot government called on the United Nations Security Council to fix a deadline for the withdrawal of the 40,000 Turkish troops from the island and for the return of Greek Cypriot refugees to their homes. Unless the Council acts firmly, Glafkos Clerides, the Speaker of the Cypriot House of Representatives, warned “neither the sovereignty, the independence, the territorial integrity can be saved nor can a solution be arrived at.”
A feud begins between the official Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army; the two groups assassinate a number of each other’s volunteers until the feud ends in June 1975.
Housewives and students took part in a mounting wave of protest in Madrid today and the police fired several warning shots to break up silent demonstrations in the center of the city. About 5,000 university students protesting against the Government’s decision to shut down the University of Valladolid until autumn gathered on the campus of the University of Madrid and tried to march downtown. Policemen carrying submachine guns on the big campus for the first time scattered the demonstrators, most of whom then headed for the Ministry of Education by different routes.
The remaining 150 protesters who had occupied the proposed nuclear power plant site in Wyhl, West Germany, were attacked and dispersed by 700 German riot police, using water cannons, dogs and armored vehicles. Three days later, the site was reoccupied by more than 20,000 protesters.
The Soviet Union indicated that it had executed a Russian identified only as V.G. Kalinin for treason and spying for a foreign intelligence organization. An official report in the government newspaper Izvestia said Kalinin had been tried for collecting and transmitting state and military secrets to foreign agents. In a formulation used normally in the Soviet press to suggest that a sentence of death has been carried out, the report said “the criminal bore the punishment he deserved.” There was no indication what foreign country was involved..
The USSR performs a nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan.
French fishermen blockaded major Atlantic and English Channel ports for the third day running and dumped 160 tons of fish on roadsides to back up their demands for aid against falling prices and runaway inflation. But they lifted the blockade on several northern ports after the government pledged emergency financial aid to the industry and agreed to halt some fish imports.
Wolf Ruediger Hess, son of Adolf Hitler’s former deputy, Rudolf Hess, said in West Berlin that the four occupation powers had refused to allow his 80-year-old father to be visited in Spandau prison by his newly appointed lawyer. The lawyer, former West German Justice Minister Ewald Bucher, requested the visit in December in a letter to Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union, who jointly administer the prison in the British sector of West Berlin, Hess said. He described the refusal as a brutal intensification of his father’s isolation.
The idea that the United States is considering proposing a security guarantee to Israel received wide official and public attention in Israel today. Asked by a student at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv how he would react to such a proposal, which was set off by Secretary of State Kissinger in talks to journalists on his recent travels, Premier Yitzhak Rabin said: “We must clearly distinguish when we discuss Israeli policy. With respect to our neighbors, we want to be able to defend ourselves with our own force, and therefore we want defensible borders and a strengthening of our military forces, which, together with such borders, will enable us to stand alone. But if it comes to the threat of intervention by another power, we expect, like the rest of the free world, that the United States will fulfill its duty and prevent military intervention by that power.”
Egypt warned Israel today that plans to build a $10-million aircraft plant in East Jerusalem was “aggression” that could blow up chances of peace in the Mideast.
The new Middle East initiative of Secretary of State Kissinger has created cracks in the Arab solidarity formed after the Arab‐Israeli war of October, 1973, in the view of Arab diplomats and the Lebanese press. Several newspapers here reported that President Anwar elSadat of Egypt had canceled a visit to Jordan because King Hussein had failed to persuade President Hafez al‐Assad of Syria to join him there for consultations on a joint plan with which to face Mr. Kissinger when he returned to the area next month. They said Mr. Sadat had been scheduled to arrive in the Jordanian capital today and was to have gone from there to Iraq. Both visits have been postponed indefinitely, the newspapers said. Arab diplomatic sources said that Syria was strongly opposed to an agreement between Egypt and Israel for an Israeli pullback in Sinai if it was not be matched by similar Israeli troop withdrawal arrangements in the Golan Heights. The sources reported that Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, had shunned a number of invitations from President Sadat to visit Cairo for talks. The P.L.O. has joined Syria in expressing concern over the possibility of an independent adcord by Egypt and Israel in Sinai, the diplomats added.
The number of Soviet military advisers and equipment experts in Libya has more than doubled in the last year, a reliable source said here today. There are now more than 480 Russians working with Libyan military units, compared with 200 a year ago, according to the source, who refused to be identified. The source has access to secret reports on Middle East activities. The increase in the Soviet contingent was said to be a result of the withdrawal of Egyptian instructors after President Anwar el‐Sadat and the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar el‐Qaddafi, had quarreled over policies.
The Omani Government has decided to deploy British-made Rapier ground-to-air missiles along the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Persian Gulf, qualified Western informants reported here this week.
Thailand’s Premier-designate Seni Pramoj’s efforts to form a government took a bizarre turn today when he suddenly canceled the presentation of his cabinet to King Phumiphol Aduldet, saying his coalition had split, only to discover it was a mistake.
Two ships equipped with sophisticated underwater detecting devices probed the depths of the Strait of Georgia north of Vancouver for four sunken rail cars filled with potentially deadly liquid chlorine. Two vessels searched the area where the cars containing 340 tons of liquid chlorine sank Wednesday when a barge carrying them overturned. Canadian Environment Department officials feared that a rupture in the tanks could be hazardous to fish and wildlife.
A consensus resolution condemning the nomination of Nathaniel Davis as the new U.S. undersecretary of state for African affairs was passed at a closed session of the Organization of African Unity Council of Ministers meeting in Addis Ababa, according to African diplomatic sources. Davis has been subjected to sharp criticism both in Congress and in Africa, primarily because of his presence and involvement in the events leading to the overthrow of Chile’s former President Salvador Allende.
Some 90 Ethiopian army officers and men are being questioned here by officials of the military Government in connection with allegations that civilians were killed and private property was looted by Ethiopian soldiers during the fighting in and around Asmara. Informed foreign and Ethiopian sources said that the soldiers were brought back here from Asmara, the capital of Eritrea Province, where the Ethiopian Army has been fighting secessionist guerrillas since the first of this month.
A leading Kenyan wildlife conservationist, Perez Olindo, strongly condemned the proposed visit to Kenya next week of the Anglo-French supersonic Concorde jetliner. He appealed to the Kenyan government to cancel the proposed visit and experiment because of the “untold expense in human life of Kenyans in the coming generations.” Olindo, director of Kenya’s national parks, said the proposed visit would constitute a health risk “mainly to young children and expectant mothers.”
The White House press secretary insisted that “there can be no compromise” on the goals of President Ford’s energy and economic proposals despite the wide margin of the Senate vote on Thursday that delayed for 90 days Mr. Ford’s increased fees on imported crude oil. Mr. Ford, who has announced his intention to veto the Democratic bill delaying the import fees, was described as hopeful that his veto would be upheld, the press secretary said.
The House Appropriations Committee recommended that President Ford’s request for cutbacks totaling nearly $830 million in appropriations be denied. Mr. Ford’s budget contemplates about $17 billion in appropriation cuts and he has warned Congress that refusal to go along would increase deficits already estimated at $349 billion for the current fiscal year and $536 billion for the one starting July 1.
In rare public testimony, William Colby, Director of Central Intelligence, warned Congress that “exaggerated” charges of improper conduct by the agency had “placed American intelligence in danger.” He said that “misrepresentations” by critics of the C.I.A. in the news media and elsewhere had jeopardized relations with intelligence agencies in other nations, raised the specter of peril to American spies abroad and lowered morale in the C.I.A.
Attorney General Edward H. Levi is expected to recommend a Treasury Department undersecretary, Edward C. Schmults, for his No. 2 man in the Justice Department, Administration and Senate sources said. Schmults, 44, an expert on securities and corporate law, would succeed. Deputy Attorney General Laurence H. Silberman, whose nomination as President Ford’s chief trade negotiator is imminent. Schmults served as Treasury general counsel for a year before being named an undersecretary last July 9.
Although the campaign reform law passed, many are finding that politics as usual is continuing. President Ford signed the bill with reservations four months ago, but supporters of the law say that the President and congressional leadership are trying to weaken the law through their appointments to the new Federal Election Commission which is the body responsible for enforcement.
Senator Mike Mansfield’s choice for the commission asked that his name be withdrawn. Senator Hugh Scott defended his choice, a Pennsylvania fashion show consultant, as being well qualified. In the House, Tip O’Neill and John Rhodes chose defeated congressmen from their respective parties. So far, the White House hasn’t announced its nominees.
Dr. Kenneth C. Edelin asked Judge James P. McGuire to overturn his abortion-manslaughter conviction because the jury verdict was based on “bias, misapprehension, or prejudice.” Edelin’s attorney, William Homas, asked the judge to void Saturday’s decision in Boston of a nine-man, three-woman jury, declare the black obstetrician not guilty or order a new trial. The case concerned the death of a fetus in an elective abortion of a woman about six months pregnant. In other developments, the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston defended the predominantly Roman Catholic jury by saying the jurors were not the villains of the piece.” The Boston chapter of the NAACP declared that the abortion-related manslaughter conviction of Dr. Edelin by a predominantly Catholic jury was motivated by racial and/or religious bias.
The superior parliamentary skill of Senator James Allen, Alabama Democrat, foiled an attempt by reformers to modify the Senate’s filibuster rule. “Jim Allen is a very good practitioner of the rules, and he found a mistake we had made,” said Senator Walter Mondale, Minnesota Democrat, a chief sponsor of a proposal that would have allowed three-fifths of voting Senators, rather than two-thirds, to close off a Senate debate and bring a bill to a vote.
The American Medical Association sued the federal government over regulations regarding how Medicare and Medicaid patients are admitted to hospitals. Ten patients and five doctors joined in the suit filed in Chicago that asks implementation of the regulations be stopped and that nonphysicians and doctors other than a patient’s physician be barred from determining whether that patient can be hospitalized. Regulations setting up a Utilization Review Committee became effective on February 1 and hospitals were given until April 1 to file their plans for putting them into effect.
Negotiators for Trans World Airlines and the machinists union reached a tentative agreement on a new contract, averting a potential strike that could have come today. The new contract is subject to ratification by more than 12,000 mechanics and ramp service personnel. Terms of the agreement between the company and the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers were not disclosed. Mechanics and other ground personnel last received a raise on January 1, 1973. Mechanics now make $6.60 an hour. On most other major airlines, mechanics make $7.60 an hour.
A group calling itself the Nixon Historical Association says it will try to raise money to buy the two Key Biscayne, Florida, homes owned by former President Richard M. Nixon and preserve them as historical sites. The group has rented headquarters space in the Key Biscayne Bank, owned by Nixon confidant C.G. (Bebe) Rebozo. John Leatherwood of Ft. Lauderdale, association executive director and a former Nixon campaigner, said Rebozo was a strong supporter of the effort and that it had Mr. Nixon’s blessings. Rebozo and industrialist Robert Abplanalp, another close Nixon friend, also own houses nearby. Leatherwood said the group planned a drive for public donations to raise an estimated $500,000. Richard and Pat Nixon are currently in Palm Desert, California, relaxing at the estate of Walter Annenberg.
Teachers ended a strike that crippled Delaware’s public school system for three days but union leaders threatened another walkout unless demands for more money and smaller classes were met. Thelma Thompson, president of the Delaware State Education Assn, said the teachers would obey for the time being a temporary restraining order issued Tuesday against the union. More than half of the state’s 6,800 teachers joined the strike, giving a holiday to 79,000 of 131,000 students. Mrs. Thompson said teachers would be waiting for Gov. Sherman W. Tribbitt to sign legislation providing an 8% pay increase.
Inflation during 1974 was worse than originally thought — the final rate was established at 14.4% for the year.
The Ford Motor Company reported today net earnings of $22-million for the fourth quarter of 1974—a drop of 61 per cent, from the $57-million earned during the same three-month period in 1973. Net income for all of 1974 was $361-million, down 60 per cent, from record earnings of $907-million the previous year.
Lee Trevino, who hadn’t planned on competing and didn’t expect to play well, shot a solid five-underpar 66 today and established a first-round lead of one stroke in the $150,000 Glen Campbell-Los Angeles open golf tournament.
The chairman of a national commission studying gambling said today that leaders of professional and amateur sports had failed to make a convincing case against legalizing gambling on team sports.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 745.38 (+8.99, +1.22%)
Born:
Liván Hernández, Cuban MLB pitcher (World Series Champions-Marlins, 1997; All-Star, 2004, 2005; Florida Marlins, San Francisco Giants, Montreal Expos-Washington Nationals, Arizona Diamondbacks, Minnesota Twins, Colorado Rockies, New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers), in Villa Clara, Cuba.
Leo Estrella, Dominican MLB pitcher (Toronto Blue Jays, Milwaukee Brewers, San Francisco Giants), in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.
Donzell McDonald, MLB outfielder and pinch hitter (New York Yankees, Kansas City Royals), in Long Beach, California.
Niclas Wallin, Swedish NHL defenseman (NHL Champions, Stanley Cup-Hurricanes, 2006; Carolina Hurricanes, San Jose Sharks), in Boden, Sweden.
Brendan Witt, NHL defenseman (Washington Capitals, Nashville Predators, New York Islanders), in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Brian Littrell, American pop singer (Backstreet Boys), in Lexington, Kentucky.
Died:
Robert Strauss, 61, American film actor (“Stalag 17”), from a stroke.
History Diaries 