Rapidly advancing Communist forces in South Vietnam captured two more district capitals and a provincial capital, increased pressure on the city of Huế and appeared to be preparing an offensive against Saigon. A Saigon government spokesman said that after a heavy bombardment by North Vietnamese artillery, radio contact was lost with the defenders of Gia Nghĩa, capital of Quảng Đức Province, 105 miles northeast of Saigon. The town presumably was overrun.
At the northern end of the country, it was apparent that North Vietnamese forces were preparing for their final move against Huế. The road southeast of Huế to the sanctuary of the port of Đà Nẵng is still jammed with thousands of refugees, sampans, fishing boats and other vessels were also ferrying people away from the coast near Hue down to Đà Nẵng. Huế and its airport were lightly shelled again, although no major engagements were fought. Air traffic was reportedly limited to brief helicopter landings in the heart of the city.
Both the refugees and authorities, however, fear that the Communists have flanked the overland escape route from Huế by moving their forces far to the south of the city, threatening the road, Route 1. Mortar, artillery and rocket attacks are occurring regularly against posts all around Huế, especially at Phú Lộc, 12 miles south of the city. The headquarters of the First Infantry Division is also being shelled. So far there have been no attacks against the refugees streaming out of Huế, but military sources believe that the road could be closed in a matter of hours if the Communists decide to choke off the flow.
Many of the troops normally posted in the defense of Huế, including 1,000 paratroopers, have already been moved to the Saigon area in anticipation of a quick thrust against tbe capital. Enemy forces, in the opinion of military authorities here are pressing closer in a wide arc extending west and north or Saigon, being reinforced daily by units moving in from Cambodia.
A seasoned Western observer of rural communities in the Mekong delta south of Saigon said today that despite the relative lack of fighting, the delta situation had deteriorated sharply, with many provincial roads cut and major towns surrounded by Việt Cộng forces. “I think you can look to see real trouble very soon in An Giang Province,” he said. The province capital, Long Xuyên, about 80 miles southwest of Saigon, is a traditional stronghold of the quasireligious military sect known as the Hòa Hảo, who have long kept the area free of Việt Cộng. “The whole Mekong delta at the moment reminds me of the terrible shape it was in the mid nineteen‐sixties. The difference is that these days local authorities are not reporting the seriousness of the situation.”
The military situation in the Saigon area is likely to deteriorate further, according to United States military sources, who emphasize that the delay in mounting counterattacks allows the Communists to reinforce columns advancing on the capital area while retaining the initiative. A solid counterstroke against either the North Vietnamese forces advancing from the north or those coming from the northwest, these sources contend, could check the momentum of the offensive and raise the morale of an army living on a diet of defeat and withdrawal.
The Saigon Government’s ban on news of troop movements may indicate that the concentrations necessary for a counterattack are under way, the American military sources suggested. Reports from the battlefield reaching Washington indicate that there have been no major counterattacks against the Communists since the two main threats developed in the Tây Ninh and Xuân Lộc sectors in Wednesday. Saigon’s strategy has been to fight rear‐guard actions and then to withdraw toward the divisions deployed in the capital area. The air force has flown what was described as “a high number” of sorties against the northern troops but air power alone cannot halt an advance of this magnitude. Americans who are both perplexed and concerned over the situation emphasize that the doctrine that they taught the South Vietnamese during the Vietnamization of the forces stressed counterattack by all arms: infantry, tanks, artillery and aircraft. Such operations are virtually ruled out in the north. But the consensus is that Saigon has the resources to launch countermeasures of this type in the south.
“Whatever they do, they must do it soon,” said one officer who was involved in the Vietnamization program. “A little more delay and they may lose control of the situation around Saigon. Then — blooey!” He and other sources warned against expecting countermeasures comparable to those employed against the Communist offensives of 1968 and 1972. In both of those counteroffensives, the defenders could call on a large number of helicopters — up to 3,500, including American aircraft — for use in mounting mobile strikes behind and on the flanks of enemy forces. At the start of the present campaign South Vietnam had approximately 625 helicopters in its inventory. About one third of these, some sources estimate, are grounded because of a lack of spare parts.
Ground forces in previous counteroffensives had the support of the American tactical air force as well as the South Vietnamese air force. Another important element was the offensive carried out by American B‐52 bombers against Communist supply lines. The Vietnamization program, while it provided for a strong tactical air force, did not give the south fighter‐bombers with enough range to strike northern supply routes from the bases around Saigon which they now must use. The military picture assembled in Washington from reports from the battlefield was one of steady, unspectacular progress by the North Vietnamese on all three fronts, southern, central and northern.
The absence of any major counterstroke, it was pointed out, has allowed the invaders to carry out harassing actions with small forces near Saigon. One of these raids took place only six miles north of the capital. The intent of the raids, the military sources said, is to keep the defending forces off balance. Meanwhile the Communist forces moving south from the Central Highlands made progress, taking Gia Nghĩa, capital of Quảng Đức Province, 105 miles northeast of Saigon, and Khánh Dương, 180 miles northeast of the capital. In the center, between the Central Highlands and the coast, the Communist forces are reported moving in strength past Khánh Dương on Route 21, 25 miles from the coast. Some resistance is reported being offered by remnants of the garrisons in the highlands but the arrival of strong North Vietnamese forces on the coast north and south of Tuy Hòa is expected.
The attempt to hold Huế in the north has not done well. Two South Vietnamese positions have been overrun and heavy artillery is shelling the city and the Phú Bài airport. Communist forces have reached Route 1 south of Huế. The most effective resistance offered by the South Vietnamese, American sources believe, has developed on the Mỹ Chánh River 14 miles northwest of Huế on Route 1. There a sizable force, estimated at a depleted marine brigade of perhaps 2,000 men, some 200 militiamen and a few tanks have been holding off North Vietnamese attacks with some success.
The South Vietnamese Government announced rules today prohibiting foreign and domestic news organizations, because of the “current situation,” from reporting tactical troop movements until those movements have been announced officially. The rule was instituted in 1971 but had been largely ignored for some time, even in the censored Saigon press. South Vietnamese who violate it face fines and prison, and foreign newsmen can be punished by withdrawal of their accreditation and expulsion from the country.
Tens of thousands of South Vietnamese refugees are stranded without water or food and many are facing starvation in their panicky exodus from the Central Highlands. Nearly 100,000 refugees were expected in Tuy Hòa, a coastal city where the refugees are flocking, over the weekend, but only several thousand frightened and shaky peasants, civil servants and children had arrived by this afternoon. Most of the refugees were stranded beyond the Đà Rằng River (Sông Ba), about 10 miles from Tuy Hòa, because an emergency pontoon bridge had not been completed. Hundreds of refugees have waded across the river, and hundreds of others, mostly the wounded, have been picked up by helicopters and brought to Tuy Hòa. But most of the refugees, who have made a perilous trek through dense jungles along Route 7B from Kon Tum and Pleiku, have run out of food and are unable to make the river crossing.
Alarmed Roman Catholic priests, military officers and refugees made it plain that the delay in building the bridge — the lone gateway to Tuy Hòa — was a result of North Vietnamese and Vietcong pressures as well as a lagging South Vietnamese engineering effort and, perhaps most significant, the traumatic impact on the army and civilians of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu’s move to abandon the northern two–thirds of the country. Officers here are stunned, and say they were wholly unprepared for a mass exodus from the Central Highlands. At a landing pad where helicopters were taking off carrying American field rations, rice and dried milk to the refugees, a Catholic priest from Kon Tum said: “The lack of water is the main cause of death for many of the people there. I have seen people dying, I have seen people starving in the last two days.”
An army sergeant, Nguyễn Dân, of the 22d Division, said in a refugee camp near the. center of the city: “Children are dying, people are burying the babies. We left Pleiku with three days of food and it is gone. People can wade across the river, but because of the babies and because of the vehicles, the situation is desperate.” Nearby, Võ Văn Cửu a civil servant from Pleiku, said quietly: “There are thousands who are exhausted and weak. There is nothing to eat, nothing to drink. They are dying because they can’t get across the river.” Nguyễn Thị Miền, the wife of an army officer, said excitedly: “Send helicopters in there or more people will die. Why don’t they do that?”
Brigadier General Trần Văn Cẩm, assistant to the commander of Military Region II, the Central Highlands area said that it would take another week for the bridge to be completed and declined to discuss the food problem beyond the river along Route 7B. Colonel Vụ Quốc Gia, the chief of Phú Yên Province, also brushed aside questions about the food situation. But Catholic priests have expressed anxiety about the deteriorating food situation to the two high officers, and the church is supplying food to the army for helicopter drops. Estimates of the number of people stranded, runs into the tens of thousands. “People are very weak, very exhausted; some of them can barely climb onto helicopters,” said the Rev. Nguyễn Hữu Nghị, the top‐ranking priest of Kon Tum Province, who rode three days in a crowded police car with the refugee convoy and was evacuated by helicopter at Sơn Hòa, a district capital about 30 miles northwest of here.
“I suppose if the Saigon troops continue to pull back at this rate we shall be in Huế very soon,” a North Vietnamese army officer said today. The officer, Senior Captain Trang Tố, is a member of Hanoi’s military delegation in Saigon. He said that he and his colleagues were uncertain about the situation in the northern part of this country, but that events seemed to be moving rapidly. He and his colleagues implied in conversations that the Communist side had been surprised by the Saigon’s Government’s precipitate withdrawal, and that Communist forces had not been prepared to exploit the situation swiftly.
In the Central Highlands provinces of Đắk Lắk, Pleiku and Kon Tum, all now fallen to the Communists, it was another matter, they said. Communist administration was installed in the city of Buôn Ma Thuột immediately, and Montagnard tribesmen serving as Việt Cộng officers were appointed the new province chiefs of Kon Tum and Pleiku. The North Vietnamese officers made themselves available for questions during a recess of today’s weekly Việt Cộng news conference at Saigon’s Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base.
South Vietnamese jets were roaring a few hundred yards away, on their way to attack missions as the Communist officials served tea to newmen. One official complained that the Americans and Saigon authorities seemed to be applying “tap‐tightening diplomacy” to the compound, that every time Saigon suffered a military reverse, water supplies in the compound suddenly became scarce.
The main Việt Cộng speaker today was Võ Đông Giang, deputy leader of the delegation. He charged that after Communist troops took Buôn Ma Thuột last week, Saigon planes attacked it, killing or wounding 200 persons including former Saigon soldiers and officials who had chosen to remain. In response to a question, Mr. Giang heatedly denied that his side and the Saigon Government had reached an agreement that resulted in the sweeping Saigon withdrawals.
The Việt Cộng’s Provisional Revolutionary Government said today that it would return to the suspended Paris peace talks if South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu were ousted. It released a statement here saying: “Once Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and his group have been overthrown and a new administration has been set up in Saigon that agrees to apply seriously the Paris agreements on Vietnam, the negotiations between the two South Vietnamese sides can usefully resume.”
The American supply airlift into Pochentong Airport, the last lifeline to the isolated Cambodian capital, was suspended all day today — and tentatively tomorrow as well — after insurgent rockets scored the first direct hits on airlift planes. A huge stretch DC‐8 jet belonging to Trans International Airways and a Bird Air C‐130 were hit. American Embassy officials said 14 Cambodian cargo handlers were injured by a rocket that blew a hole in the DC‐8’s right wing. The other rocket damaged the landing gear and hydraulic system of the C‐130, used to carry petroleum from Thailand. A civilian DC‐4 passenger plane was also slightly damaged by a rocket.
In all, 14 rockets hit the airport. Only three struck after the airlift had been suspended, giving some airport officials the impression that the insurgents felt they had accomplished their objective, for the the moment at least. Work crews sought to repair the planes so that they could be removed from the military side of the airfield, allowing the airlift to resume, but it was not known how long the repairs might take. Some American officials responsible for the supply airlift are worried about the long‐range effects todays attack may have on the entire supply operation, particularly with respect to fears among the pilots and ground crews and the companies that own and operate the expensive aircraft.
The pilots, mostly former Air Force men flying under contract for the private companies, have in the past expressed concern about flying into the airport, which has been the scene of some heavy rocket attacks. In some cases 60 or more shells fall in a day. Most of the Cambodian ground crews have not even been issued helmets or flak jackets. They unload the rice, petroleum and ammunition from the planes with little or no protection from the rockets, and it may be difficult to, persuade them to continue their work.
The companies — World Airways, Airlift International, Trans International and Flying Tiger, which operate the rice airlift from Saigon, and Bird Air, which flies in ammunition from U Taphoa air base in Thailand — are all contract carriers. Bird Air’s planes are all Air Force cargo carriers on loan. But the other cargo airlines own their own planes and may not want to subject them to more extensive damage loss. One airport official noted that only fast action by fire crews prevented the rocket that hit the DC‐8 from igniting the entire plane because the wing tank contained highly volatile jet fuel.
Brief interruptions of the airlift are bearable because the capital has substantial stockpiles of all the commodities the planes are carrying, possibly enough for the two weeks or more. Longer interruptions, however, could cause further hardships because Phnom Penh’s residents are already on tight rations even with the “humanitarian aid program,” hunger is spreading, and the black market in rice and petroleum is extensive.
Two days ago, the White House announced that the airlift contracts were being extended through April 30. However, if the airlift interruptions continue or if an indefinite suspension is required, the Administration would have to decide whether to send in Air Force planes and Air Force flight and ground crews. It was to prevent such an involvement originally that the civilian companies were contracted for the airlift, although in the case of Bird Air, it was a thin screen. “Surplus” Air Force planes with insignias painted out were turned over to the company under a loan arrangement.
Today’s attacks also indicated that the insurgents, launching their 107‐mm rockets from entrenched positions some five miles from the airport, were beginning to find the range of the airlift area. Several weeks ago, the military here said that they had arrested two infiltrators who had been “spotting” for the gunners. But no proof has been given that such spotting is takmg place.
The new Thai government will no longer allow Thailand to be used as a base for the United States airlift of ammunition and other war matériel to Cambodia, senior officials said here today. They indicated that a formal request to stop the flights from Thailand would be made to the United States Embassy in the next few days. The decision was reached at a meeting of the Thai National Security Council yesterday. The meeting, the first since the Government of Premier Kukrit Pramoj was sworn in on March, 18, was held specifically to discuss the situation in Cambodia. Thai officials made it clear that they would not object to the continued American airlift of “humanitarian” assistance to Cambodia.
The new Thai Government has also said that it will press for the withdrawal of American forces from Thailand within twelve months “through friendly negotiations, taking into account the security situation in the region.” There are 25,000 American military personnel and about 350 planes in Thailand.
Marshal Lon Nol, the President of Cambodia, has packed his valuable belongings and obtained passports for himself and his entire family, reliable sources at the presidential palace in Phnom Penh said. His removal has been urged in Cambodia and in Washington as a step toward ending the war. The palace sources said that Marshal Lon Nol has told his aides that his departure “will depend on the situation.” Despite the deteriorating military situation and the possibility of an arms cutoff from the United States, he has apparently made no final decision, though he has evidently prepared for any eventuality.
The Americans have tried unsuccessfully in the past to ease the marshal aside, and it has been assumed that he will not leave voluntarily. The questions being asked now are who will give Lon Nol the necessary push, and whether it will be too late to make any difference. Most observers, including the Americans, regard the Phnom Penh Government’s position as virtually hopeless, and believe that the best possible result that can be arranged is to negotiate an orderly and humane surrender to the Communist-led insurgents.
Marshal Lon Nol, who took power five years ago as a result of the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, is regarded as an obstacle to contacts with the insurgents. The insurgents, who are nominally led by Prince Sihanouk from his exile headquarters in Peking, have branded the marshal and six other Phnom Penh leaders as traitors and marked them for execution. The 61‐year‐old marshal has been partly paralyzed on his left side since suffering a stroke in 1971, a year after he took power.
Sources here, including the Americans, say they believe the Marshal and his retinue have grown wealthy on the war — largely financed by American aid — and there have long been reports of huge sums being sent out of the country, possibly to Swiss bank accounts. It is virtually impossible to find anyone in Phnom Penh these days who supports the marshal personally or his Government. The popular enthusiasm witnessed in the early months of his rule has turned into sour opposition after five years of corruption, soaring prices, a military draft that took only the poor, and a casualty toll that has killed or wounded perhaps one million of Cambodia’s seven million people.
Communist and politically moderate youths fought with rocks and metal bars in the streets of Porto in northern Portugal and at least eight persons were injured, according to diplomatic sources. The moderates, members of the Popular Democratic Party, surrounded Communist Party headquarters following the street clashes and the Communist youths fired shotguns in the air. However, no one was injured by the gunfire, the sources reported. It was the first open trouble between the two factions, both of which are represented in the nation’s new leftist and military-dominated government.
British security officials are increasingly reluctant to turn over confidential material to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency following publication of books on the CIA by former agents, the Times of London said. A report in the newspaper said the confidence question was one of two points of friction between the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service. The other was described as “unavoidable” personality differences.
An additional 400 troops were brought into Glasgow, Scotland, to clear away huge mounds of rat-infested garbage that has accumulated during a 10-week strike by sanitation workers. The army plans to increase its force to 1,100 men, equipped with 280 vehicles.
An Italian magazine editor was fined $238 and given a suspended nine-month jail sentence for publishing what he said were topless photographs of 18-year-old Princess Caroline of Monaco. A Milan court convicted Cesare Vacchelli, of the magazine Pop, of insulting a foreign chief of state, a crime under Italian law. Lawyers for Prince Rainier of Monaco said the pictures were faked.
Janos Kadar was reelected first secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party after he pledged there would be no return to a hard-line dictatorship. He told the 11th congress of the party in Budapest that the present proletarian dictatorship, which “is not a bad kind of dictatorship,” would continue. Kadar, 62, was put in power 19 years ago after the Russians used tanks and troops to crush the 1956 uprising.
Pope Paul VI spoke of the “anguishing tragedy” of the populations of Vietnam and Cambodia and expressed “fears raised by the situation which is coming about in Portugal” in a Vatican City address on the eve of Holy Week. He made no other mention of the rise of leftists in Portugal, but also referred to guerrilla warfare in Ethiopia and tense situations in the Middle East and Cyprus.
Norwegian commercial diver A. L. Alvestad died of hypothermia and hypoxia due to overwork while conducting a bell dive from the drillship ‘Borgny’ Dolphin in the North Sea.
Secretary of State Kissinger announced tonight in Jerusalem that he was suspending his current efforts to achieve a new Egyptian-Israeli agreement on Sinai because of “irreconcilable” differences between the two sides. He said he would return to Washington today. The announcement followed a final series of meetings between Mr. Kissinger and Israeli leaders in which he failed to get from them a compromise to keep the talks going. Earlier, Egypt also refused to ease her position on crucial questions.
Negotiations for a new Egyptian-Israeli agreement on Sinai appeared to have narrowed to the crucial question of how much territory Israel would agree to give up in return for Egyptian political assurances that fall short of Israel’s original demand. The Israeli cabinet held an extraordinary sabbath session to discuss the latest Egyptian “modifications” and demands brought back by Secretary of State Kissinger, who made an overnight trip to Aswan for consultations with President Anwar Sadat.
A senior official of the Palestine Liberation Organization said early today that the failure of Mr. Kissinger’s mission should inspire the Arabs with “the logic of October” — the 1973 war with Israel. “The enemy only understands this logic, which proved to be effective.” the official said. He called on the Arabs to make use of “all their oil and military capabilities in order to take a decisive stand for the Palestine and Arab cause.”
Egyptian Interior Ministry sources said today that police have arrested 40 to 50 persons in connection with anti‐government rioting at the Middle East’s largest spinning and weaving plant in which one person was killed and several others injured. Security forces rushed to the industrial complex of Mahalla el Kubra, in the Nile Delta 80 miles north of Cairo, yesterday to put down a workers’ demonstration against the high, cost of living. The sources said the police here were questioning 40 to 50, persons, including two agricultural engineers suspected of instigating the riots at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company, largest and oldest in the Middle East. Sources close to the government said the engineers may not have been the ringleaders but allegedly had incited the workers to demonstrate against living costs.
General Mustafa Barzani, the 72-year-old leader of the Iraqi Kurdish rebellion, said that the “fighting is over,” that his revolt has no foreign support and that he is considering taking refuge in the United States. Iran has withdrawn much of the support it had been giving the rebels. The general’s statements were relayed by newsmen who arrived in Teheran, where it was also reported that Iraqi Kurds, including some members of the general’s armed forces, were fleeing to Iran.
The Indian state of Nagaland was placed under President’s rule for two years, with the national government assuming control of state affairs. Presidential rulership would also be imposed in 1988, 1992 and 2008.[citation needed]
A joint statement signed in Mexico City by Presidents Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela and Luis Echeverria of Mexico condemned the 1974 U.S. foreign trade law as a “coercive instrument” and called for “profound and radical reforms in the interAmerican system.” The officials also said they fully back the “undeniable right” of Panama to control the Panama Canal and announced establishment of a new Latin American coffee-selling enterprise known as Cafe Suaves Centrales.
Brazil’s President, Ernesto Geisel is facing a major test of his policy of gradual liberalization over the issue of human rights. In recent weeks there have been almost daily denunciations of illegal arrests, prisoners who have been tortured and people who have disappeared under detention. These practices have been disavowed by the Geisel Government and their continuation lends credence to assertions that certain powerful elements oppose any relaxation by the regime. The Brazilian Democratic Movement, the only legal Opposition party, has taken the question of the violation of human rights to Congress and formally summoned the Minister of Justice to render accounts on the treatment of political prisoners.
Eight more persons were killed today, apparently by right‐wing terrorists, in the worse upsurge of political violence in Argentina since the beginning of the year. The victims, who included a city councilman allied with the Perónist left wing, had been kidnapped earlier. Their bodies were found early today on the streets of La Plata, about 30 miles south of the capital, after the police had received an anonymous call. They had been shot to death. The killings raised the death toll during the last three days to 24. More than 300 people have been killed in political violence between leftist and rightist factions since President Isabel Martinez de Perón took office last July after the death of her husband, Juan D. Perón.
Meanwhile, in the industrial zone just north of Buenos Aires, several thousand workers remained on strike, paralyzing production at two major steel plants and other factories. The workers were protesting the arrest of fellow employes and union leaders during a police raid in the area. The raid began on Thursday after the government denounced an alleged plot by leftists to halt production in the industrial belt and to assassinate workers who refused to join the work stoppage. The violence and police raids have taken place in the midst of rumors that the government’s hold on power was slipping because of waning political support and economic problems, including inflation, shortages and production declines. In an attempt to slow the political deterioration, the government has called for a meeting with leaders of Opposition parties.
Zambia buried Rhodesian guerrilla leader Herbert Chitepo with full military honors and President Kenneth Kaunda was in attendance at the funeral in Lusaka. Rhodesia refused to permit Chitepo’s body to be returned for home burial on the grounds that he was responsible for the deaths “of a considerable number of black and white Rhodesians.” Chitepo was killed Tuesday in an explosion outside his Lusaka residence.
House Democrats predicted that Congress will have a new tax bill, providing some relief for nearly every American taxpayer, ready for the President’s signature this week. “We will have a compromise,” Carl Albert, the House Speaker, said after a rare Saturday session in which the House voted 281 to 18 to send to a joint Senate-House conference committee differing tax proposals passed by the House and Senate.
Urban policy makers in the Ford administration have concluded, despite vigorous objections from many local and political leaders and experts, that the “urban crisis” of the 1960’s is over. Even with the emergence in recent months of the fiscal squeeze between reduced tax revenue because of the recession and rising costs resulting from inflation, Washington still tends to give the troubles of the cities low priority.
President Ford has a relatively low popularity rating, 39%, but it is significantly higher than the rating the public now accords Congress, indicating that Mr. Ford’s policy of attacking the Democratic-controlled Congress for inaction is paying off, a Gallup poll showed. In the survey, only 32% said they approved of the way Congress was doing its job, 50% disapproved and 18% were undecided.
The Democrats will favor cities in states that have approved the Equal Rights Amendment in picking their 1976 national convention site, the National Committee has decided. In a spirit of compromise, the committee rejected a proposal that would have forbidden holding the convention in any state that had not approved the constitutional amendment banning sex discrimination. (California has approved the amendment.) In other action, the panel formally opposed further military aid to Indochina in this fiscal year.
Support for the CIA is being rallied by the former chief of its Latin American operations who has taken early retirement to help the agency. David A. Phillips. 52. a veteran CIA station chief in the Dominican Republic, Brazil and Venezuela, said he hoped to organize retired intelligence officers from all American services to take on such chores as speaking “to Rotary groups” about CIA accomplishments. Phillips said he had sent a letter of invitation to 250 former CIA officers. The response has been quite good,” he said.
The burglary of a congressional candidate’s office by two Internal Revenue Service undercover agents was dismissed by IRS officials as “a lark’ carried out without permission, the Miami prosecutor’s office said. The burglary was disclosed by Nelson Vega, one of the agents, during testimony on Operation Leprechaun, an IRS spy network that allegedly monitored sex lives and drinking habits of 30 prominent Miami residents, including Dade County State Atty. Richard Gerstein. Vega said he and another agent, Roberto Novoa, had broken into the office of Evelio Estrella, a defeated Republican congressional candidate, in 1972. Gerstein called for a federal grand jury investigation.
From 10,000 to 15,000 students would be bused under a Boston public school desegregation plan presented to a federal judge by four court-appointed masters. Busing under a partial desegregation plan that went into effect in September affected 18000. The new plan calls for realignment of school districts and provides that 17 colleges and universities in the area would help specific schools by developing curriculums, overseeing instruction and offering special programs. The Boston School Committee would retain such administrative powers as hiring and firing. John J. McDonough, chairman of the School Committee, urged rejection of the new plan and adoption of a voluntary desegregation plan submitted by the committee.
Intelligence agents of the Chicago police have dossiers on hundreds of persons, including the president of the University of Notre Dame and the Republican state’s attorney of Cook County, the Chicago Daily News reported. Their opposition at one time or another to the policies of Mayor Richard J. Daley or to those of the police department was the only common thread connecting them, the newspaper said in a copyrighted story. Daley was not available for comment.
The Central Intelligence Agency did not recover two nuclear torpedo warheads from a Soviet submarine that sank in the Pacific Ocean. The Los Angeles Times reported today. The Times quoted unnamed sources as denying published reports that the nuclear warheads had been recovered in a clandestine salvage operation. The salvage operation, which was financed by the C.I.A., used the Glomar Explorer, a sophisticated ship built by Howard Hughes’s Summa Corporation for the project. “From the remains of what was recovered, there is clear evidence that two nuclear‐tipped torpedos were aboard,” The Times quoted an official source as saying. “But the warheads were not recovered.” The existence of the nuclear torpedoes was established through an analysis of residue on the recovered fragments, The Times said.
A worker, testing for leaks, accidentally caused a fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama, at the time the largest nuclear power plant in the world. After detecting a persistent leak in a concrete wall and attempting to plug it with polyurethane sheets the worker tested it for signs of airflow with the instrument available to him — a candle. The highly flammable polyurethane was ignited, the fire spread into the other side of the wall where it could not be reached, and after seven hours, caused ten million dollars worth of damage.
Establishment of an underwater sanctuary to halt destruction of coral reefs off the coast of the upper Florida Keys is being considered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration. The 100-square-mile area includes a large portion of the only living coral reefs in U.S. continental waters. State officials say federal protection is needed to protect the reefs from destruction by collectors and souvenir hunters.
Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village opens at Walt Disney World Resort.
Buster Davis and Luther Henderson’s musical “Doctor Jazz” closes at the Winter Garden Theatre, NYC, after 5 performances.
Robert Wilson and Alan Lloyd’s musical theatre work “A Letter for Queen Victoria” opens at ANTA Theater. NYC; runs for 18 performances.
“Ding-a-dong” by Teach-In (music by Dick Bakker, lyrics by Will Luikinga and Eddy Ouwens) won the 20th Eurovision Song Contest 1975 (staged in Stockholm) for the Netherlands.
The Indiana University Hoosiers, unbeaten (31-0) and the #1 ranked men’s college basketball team, was upset, 92-90, by the #5 ranked University of Kentucky Wildcats, in the Mideast Regional Final of the NCAA basketball tournament at Dayton, Ohio. At the time, the NCAA held tournaments only for the men’s teams and the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was the athletic organization for women’s college sports.
The Delta State University Lady Statesmen of Cleveland, Mississippi, denied a fourth consecutive U.S. women’s college basketball championship to the Immaculata University Mighty Macs of West Chester, Pennsylvania, winning the AIAW women’s basketball tournament by a score of 90 to 81 at the competition, hosted by Madison College in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Born:
Cole Hauser, American actor (“Yellowstone”), in Santa Barbara, California.
Jiri Novak, Czech tennis player, in Zlin, Czechoslovakia.
Jeremy Brigham, NFL tight end (Oakland Raidres), in Boston, Massachusetts.
Chris Bayne, NFL defensive back (Atlanta Falcons), in Riverside, California.
Died:
Cass Daley, 59, American comedian and film actress (“Star Spangled Rhythm”, “Red Garters”), after falling on a glass table at her home.
Asa Smith Bushnell III, 75, American sports executive (Secretary U.S. Olympic Committee, 1945-1965).
History Diaries 