The South Vietnamese and Cambodian governments will not be able to survive without at least $3 billion in U.S. aid over the next three years, Senator Strom Thurmond (R-South Carolina) said in a report to the Senate Armed Services Committee concerning his recent Southeast Asian tour. Thurmond urged President Ford to make further detente with the Soviet Union and China contingent on their sharp reduction of military aid to insurgents in North Vietnam and Cambodia. Senators Thurmond and William Lloyd Scott of Virginia, both Republicans, estimated that Saigon, with new income from oil finds and rice exports, could begin to purchase new weapons from the United States, rather than receive them as grants, within the next few years. But they appealed for new spending this year. saying that at present military‐aid levels “the South Vietnamese will lose control of additional land and people within their boundaries.”
Eight civilians were killed yesterday and 33 injured by a hand grenade tossed into a market place near Phú Mỹ, a district town 285 miles northeast of Saigon, the Saigon command said today. The command reported another low total of 62 armed incidents in the 24 hours before dawn today. Military sources said the continuing lull in military activity seas apparently prompted by the Communists’ political considerations — particularly on the future of American aid and support for the Government of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu.
There is a growing heroin addiction problem throughout the South Vietnamese armed forces and among some well‐to‐do young people, especially in Saigon. According to military Investigators in the dusty Central Highlands garrison city of Pleiku, about 30 percent of the airmen and combat soldiers stationed here now use heroin in some form. At least part of this heroin is said to be sold by South Vietnamese officers. There have been no known instances of plane crashes or avoidance of combat because of this use of narcotics. But there have been several cases reported here recently of deaths among pilots and soldiers because of overdoses.
The drug problem began, Vietnamese familiar with it say, with the national mood of despair that accompanied the Communists’ offensive in 1972 and then the ineffective Paris peace agreement in 1973. The problem is most acute in isolated garrisons such as Pleiku where there has been little actual fighting recently and boredom is almost as big an enemy the North Vietnamese. In the view of investigators, the heroin problem is also a direct legacy of the American presence in Vietnam. “We always had some opium smoking, but we didn’t know what heroin was until the GI’s brought it,” a South Vietnamese official remarked. He was referring to the epidemic of heroin use that spread rapidly among American soldiers here in 1970 and 1971 as United States participation in the war was phased out.
The former chief South Vietnamese Government spokesman in London has abandoned his embassy post there and taken $50,000 with him, an embassy spokesman said today. Bùi Sáo Trúc, who had been transferred from Saigon to the embassy in London in August, 1974, left “earlier this month,” the spokesman said today. A spokesman at the North Vietnamese Embassy said that he could not confirm a rumor in Saigon that Mr. Trúc had sought asylum at his embassy. “We confirm he has left this embassy, but we do not know his whereabouts,” the South Vietnamese spokesman said. “There is no political motive associated with his departure. The only reason we can think of is his misappropriation of public funds.”
The Soviet Union challenged China today to propose “really constructive steps” toward a settlement of their lingering border dispute. The challenge was made in a long editorial in Pravda, the Communist party newspaper. The 3,000‐word editorial, which upbraided the Peking leadership of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, denied any Soviet blame for the dispute, which began nearly six years ago with armed clashes along the border.
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktaş rejected an offer to disband the Greek national guard if all Turkish invasion forces were withdrawn from Cyprus. He said that the proposals could not be taken seriously and that he would not even study them. The proposals were made in the U.N. Security Council by the speaker of the Cypriot House of Representatives, Glafkos Clerides.
A French baroness and her daughter who barricaded themselves inside their chateau for two years before it was stormed by police were released from a psychiatric hospital in Toulouse, France. They will now await a special inquiry into their case ordered this week by French Justice Minister Jean Lecanuet. Baroness Anne-Marie Portal, her daughter Marie-Agnes and son Jean-Louis retreated to the chateau when it was sold by court order to pay debts after the death of Baron Portal. Jean-Louis was killed in last month’s police raid.
Angry fishermen blockaded nearly every French port on the Mediterranean despite the government’s decision to help the ailing fishing industry and to stop fish imports from countries outside the Common Market. The protest movement, which started last week in ports along the Atlantic Coast and the English Channel, extended to the southern ports because fishermen feared they would not benefit from the government’s $6.3 million subsidy. Meanwhile, the situation gradually returned to normal in most northern and western ports.
Former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt urged Europe’s leaders to help bring permanent peace to the Mideast. Chairman of the West German Social Democratic Party, Brandt made the point at a news conference at a one-day conference of Socialist International in West Berlin.
Twenty-seven people, most of them skiers on vacation, were killed in Norway when two express trains collided between Oslo and Trondheim. The train from Oslo was running late, and failed to yield to the train from Trondheim at the station at Tretten. Among the dead was Toennes Andenaes.
Egypt has reportedly informed Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, than an Israeli withdrawal in Sinai can be expected in March, to be followed by an Israeli pullback on the Golan Heights.
A desert flood swept through the northern Sinai peninsula today leaving hundreds homeless and at least two persons dead, the state radio reported.
At least 15 persons were killed and more than 12,000 people were made homeless by floods that devastated more than 20 Nile River villages between Cairo and Aswan in Egypt during the last two days, officials said today. Most of the dead were children and old people in the Minya and Assyut regions. where more than 2,500 homes and six mosques were destroyed.
King Hassan II is preparing to celebrate the 14th anniversary of his accession to a throne that has rarely seemed as solid as it is now. With Morocco making more money abroad than ever an unusual political harmony prevailing at home, Throne Day on Monday will have fewer dark clouds hanging over it than most Moroccans can remember for a long time. The biggest phosphate exporter in the world, Morocco is taking advantage of a product that is in short supply. She has managed to raise the price by 350 percent in little more than a year — from $14 a ton in December, 1973, to $63 last year — earning about $1‐billion from it alone. Political harmony has been established by an aggressively nationalist compaign to wrest from Spain what is considered to be Moroccan territory — the Sahara area to the south, which is also rich in phosphates, and the northern coastal enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and a few other small points that have been under Spanish control for centuries.
Senator Edward Kennedy proposed legislation today that would provide a six-month moratorium on arms sales to Persian Gulf states while the administration and Congress reassess Americans arms policy in the region. In remarks inserted in the record at a brief Senate session in which he introduced the bill, Mr. Kennedy expressed “deep concern over the massive and apparently indiscriminate arms sales we have been making to countries of the Persian Gulf.” His proposal, according to congressional aides, reflects growing restiveness on Capitol Hill about the magnitude of sales of arms and military services to Persian Gulf states.
A delay in the arrival of the new United States Ambassador to India, William B. Saxbe, has surprised and baffled diplomats and political observers in New Delhi. Mr. Saxbe, a former United States Attorney General. was scheduled to arrive from Bangkok early today and present his credentials Monday to President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. But the American Embassy here, received word yesterday that he would be delayed. Both the Indian Government and embassy spokesmen maintained later that they had no information about the precise reason for postponement nor when he would get here. Indian officials said that they were neither surprised nor intrigued. But speculation spread that the postponement might be linked to a reported decision by Washington to resume arms deliveries to Pakistan.
U.S. Ambassador William R. Kintner, target of Thailand protests over his links to the Central Intelligence Agency, is being recalled to Washington to head a high-level study on U.S. policy in the Pacific area, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Bangkok said. Shortly after Kintner’s arrival in Bangkok 16 months ago, it was revealed that a CIA agent had sent a phony letter to the Thai premier purporting to be a surrender offer from a Communist insurgent. Kintner, who denied any responsibility for the letter, will be leaving March 15.
Seven thousand Japanese spent the night in snowbound trains and railway stations, a spokesman for Japan. National Railways said in Tokyo. A blizzard in the northern part of the main Japanese island of Honshu halted many long-distance express trains. Most were parked overnight in large towns and cities. In the station at Fukushima city, 150 miles north of Tokyo, the railroad handed out bread and milk to about 3,200 stranded passengers.
Canadian police are searching for four cartons of krugerrand gold coins valued at $400,000 that vanished during a flight from London to Toronto. The coins were part of a 10-carton shipment from a Rand refinery at Marshalltown, South Africa, to the Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto. The plane, held in London overnight, made a 60-minute stop in Montreal where the consignment, in a sealed steel “igloo,” remained on board under guard. When the jet reached Toronto, four of the cartons were missing but the “igloo” seals appeared intact.
A hijacker commandeered a Brazilian airliner with 80 persons aboard for eight hours today before the police slipped aboard and shot him to death. The pilot was slightly wounded in the left hand by the bearded hijacker, who wielded a pistol through the episode, the police said. A flight steward, Eduardo Guarneri, said four policemen slipped aboard the Boeing 737 during the confusion created when the hijacker allowed all 28 women and three children to leave the aircraft. The hijacker was shot once in the head and once in the chest.
The Ford administration plans this week to complete its review of a request by the military government of Ethiopia for $30 million in munitions and will probably decide to send some supplies, a United States official said. The request was made early this month to Secretary of State Kissinger and repeated several times with some urgency, the official said. The administration has been reluctant to comply.
Ethiopia’s ruling military junta announced that government troops had killed 2,321 Eritrean guerrillas and that 83 government soldiers had been killed in three weeks of fighting in Eritrea, the northernmost province of Ethiopia. Civilian deaths totaled 124 and 324 guerrillas had been captured by government troops, the announcement said. It was the first official announcement of casualties by either side.
Black majority rule in Rhodesia in five years is acceptable to the white minority government of Prime Minister Ian D. Smith, a black negotiator said in a report made public today. The report, marked confidential, was dated last December 17 and written by Robert Mugabe, a former detainee and now member of the executive committee of the African National Council, which is the African nationalist movement in Rhodesia. The document tells of a reported clandestine visit to Rhodesia by Prime Minister John Vorster of South Africa to promote détente with black Africa and seek a settlement in Rhodesia. Mr. Smith announced a ceasefire with African guerrillas in Rhodesia last December 11 and said constitutional talks with Africans on the nation’s political future would be held.
White House economic officials view as basically acceptable the $21.3 billion tax-cut bill approved by the House Ways and Means Committee last week. President Ford, despite a few reservations, is likely to sign the bill if It is enacted. The White House and Capitol Hill are also moving closer toward common ground on a basic energy policy, although serious differences remain to be resolved, administration officials said. Thus, despite indications of confrontation, the President and Congress may be struggling toward an accommodation that would permit quicker than expected action comprehensive and economic and energy programs.
After a slow and ponderous transition over the past six months, the shape and character of the Ford administration finally has emerged. The way in which the executive branch operates has changed drastically. Mr. Ford appears to have gone 180 degrees from the highly centralized, tightly controlled system that existed at the height of President Nixon’s power to the more traditional one of dispersed authority, under which cabinet members are permitted to identify with and speak for their constituencies.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. issued a detailed study criticizing the way the Occupational Safety and Health Act had been implemented and calling for congressional action to strengthen the law and ensure its full enforcement. The federation’s Executive Council said that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had not received sufficient funds to administer the law properly, that its staff had been inadequate and that safety standards had not been properly established or enforced.
Most middle-income taxpayers will save any income tax rebates they get this year, according to a survey of more than 100 Philadelphia area families by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Researchers said 54% of the families questioned indicated they would save their rebates; 22% said they would use them to pay bills; and 18% said they would spend the rebates on merchandise they would not normally purchase. Four percent said they would pay off debts or loans and 2% did not respond to the survey. The families surveyed had incomes between $10,000 and $20,000. Only two of five who responded said they believed the rebates would help business. President Ford has proposed rebates of 12% on 1974 taxes.
Efforts by women’s groups to have the state’s ratification of the Federal Equal Rights Amendment rescinded have developed into a controversial and emotional issue in the New Mexico Legislature. Many legislators had not expected such heavy opposition since the Federal amendment was ratified in 1973 by 44‐to‐20 and 33‐to‐8 margins in the state House of Representatives and state Senate respectively, and in 1972 voters heavily endorsed an Equal Rights Amendment to the state’s Constitution by vote of 155,633 to 64,423. When the House Ways and Means Committee convened here Tuesday to hold hearings on the proposed repeal bill sponsored by one of its members, it was greeted by about 500 women from all parts of the state who swarmed into the chamber room to present their pros and cons on the issue.
Rabbi Meir Kahane, former head of the militant Jewish Defense League, was sentenced in New York to one year in prison for twice violating terms of his probation, a charge he readily admitted. U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein, who had placed Kahane on probation in July, 1971. after he had pleaded guilty to conspiring to manufacture a fire bomb, imposed the sentence. He was given until Wednesday to appeal.
The Central Intelligence Agency said one of its agents in Switzerland, working undercover as a US Embassy staff member, had checked in 1971 to see if financier Robert L. Vesco was in a Swiss jail. He acted at the request of then Attorney General John N. Mitchell. The agent told the chief of Swiss intelligence of “high government interest” in Vesco and asked that he be released on his own recognizance, according to a CIA memo. But a CIA spokesman said the agent had acted in his cover role as an embassy official, not as a CIA agent. Vesco, now a fugitive in Costa Rica, spent one night in a Swiss jail on a securities charge, then was released Von $125,000 bail
Eunice Kennedy Shriver says her family is “perfectly satisfied with the Warren Report, which delved into the assassination of her brother, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Texas) has suggested that the investigation be reopened. “As far as we are concerned, it’s finished,” she said at a news conference in San Antonio, Texas. Gonzalez has said he is dissatisfied with the findings of the Warren Commission and with investigations into the shootings of Senator Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Alabama Governor George C. Wallace.
About 33,600 imported butane gas cigarette lighters made in Japan have been recalled from 700 stores across the country and ordered destroyed on the ground they are a potential fire hazard. An official of McCrory Stores said the recall was ordered after incidents in four stores in which a lighter “flamed up.” He said the lighters sold for about $1 under the name “Modern Match Disposable Lighters.” In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Fire Chief Donald Lane said, “We put one in water for several hours and when we took it out the liquid was gone and the thing still lit. Apparently they just light by themselves. McCrory Stores has 1,150 outlets operating in 46 states under six different names ê McCrory’s, JJ. Newbury, McLellan, Green, Hested, and Lee stores.
With a second pipeline to the Alaskan oil fields, the United States could be getting as much as 5 million barrels of oil a day from Alaska in five years, former Interior Secretary Walter Hickel predicted. “We have the technology. It’s just a matter of doing it right, Hickel, former governor of Alaska, told a Rotary Club luncheon audience in Los Angeles. He said he also favors resuming offshore oil drilling as a further step in gaining energy independence from other oil nations, adding he believed such drilling now can be done safely.
Navy control of vast petroleum reserves in California and Alaska is “a luxury” the nation can no longer afford, Rep. Alphonzo Bell (R-California) told the House Public Lands Subcommittee in Washington. Specifically, he called for decontrol of the Elk Hills reserve in Kern County and an Alaskan oil field on the North Slope. He said the Navy “incompetently” administered the reserves and recommended control be shifted to the Department of the Interior and the fields developed to minimize United States dependence on foreign oil. Development of just the Elk Hills reserve, Bell said, could “offset our balance of payments deficit to the tune of more than $1 billion a year.”
A 14‐year‐old Queens, New York boy who had been beaten last night by his stepfather went to his bedroom, grabbed a .22‐caliber rifle he kept there, and shot his stepfather to death. The victim, James D. Stone, 40 years old, was shot four times by the youth and fell dead on the living‐room floor of the family home. The boy’s mother, four younger children and some relatives witnessed the shooting, which, detectives said, happened so quickly that the family members were unable to prevent it.
Born:
Drew Barrymore, American film actress (“E.T.”, “Firestarter”), in Culver City, California.
Lee Nailon, NBA small forward and power forward (Charlotte-New Orleans Hornets, New York Knicks, Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers, Philadelphia 76ers), in South Bend, Indiana.
Charles O’Bannon, NBA shooting guard (Detroit Pistons), in Bellflower, California.
Jeff Ogden, NFL wide receiver (Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins, Baltimore Ravens), in Snohomish, Washington.
Patrick Boileau, Canadian NHL defenseman (Washington Capitals, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins), in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Died:
Oskar Perron, 94, German mathematician and authority on non-Euclidean geometry.
Lionel Tertis, 98, British musician who composed the first works for the viola.
History Diaries 