“It is the silence of a dying nation.”
Senior Defense Department officials say they expect the North Vietnamese to try to isolate Saigon by mounting offensives into the Mekong Delta land toward Vũng Tàu on the coast. In private, Pentagon officials are more pessimistic about the Saigon Government’s chances of survival than in their public statements. Resistance is being measured in terms of days, not weeks, in high‐level appreciations of the military situation. The officials reported that one Communist division, which has been operating in the Tây Ninh area, northwest of Saigon, has moved into the delta. Another division has arrived in the Saigon sector, the sources said, to maintain strength there at five divisions plus independent tank and antiaircraft units, or about 52,000 men.
The‐seriousness of a Communist drive into the delta was emphasized. Saigon as an enclave cut off from the delta is not militarily viable, the sources said. Consequently they did not believe that government troops should be diverted from the delta to assist in the defense of the Saigon area. A Communist move toward Vũng Tàu on the coast would be equally menacing, in their view. By installing long‐range artillery at Vũng Tàu, Communists would control the sea passage to and from Saigon. This development, coupled with a drive into the delta, could create what one source called a “Phnom Penh” situation, in which Saigon would be cut off from outside military help except by airlift.
The two most likely axes for an offensive against Saigon are expected to be Route 13, from the north, and Route 1, from the northeast. Communist tanks and infantry were described as being able to move at will over these highways. Yesterday the most powerful Communist threat appeared to be near Xuân Lộc, 40 miles east of Saigon on Route 1. The government forces in that sector have been divided. One force, estimated at 2,500, is fighting to hold Route 1 near Xuân Lộc. The other force, of about the same size, has apparently edged south toward the coast to cope with a Communist move toward Vũng Tàu. North of Saigon, the Communists are reported to have taken Chơn Thành, 45 miles from the capital and moved closer.
The defenders face forces with superior manpower, heavy weapons and armor deployed in two major groups within 40 to 50 miles of Saigon. The government’s ability to deal with these forces, it was said, is reduced by the infiltration of small Communist units into the suburbs. These units apparently have the objectives of interrupting supply, lines, pinning down government reserves needed at the front and spreading alarm among civilians. As far as they can learn, American officials believe that the morale of the government units in the Saigon, sector is still “reasonably good.”
Morale is likely to be strained when government forces realize that they cannot expect reinforcement from the delta or from the remains of the six divisions that dissolved during the retreat from the Central Highlands and along the seacoast. These six divisions were described by one United States officer as the best divisions in the government forces. But, he noted, they no longer exist as divisions, only as scattered soldiers making their way toward Saigon.
Another factor that is expected to affect morale is the relative inactivity of the government air force, Although there have been reports of bombing strikes around Định Quán in Long Khánh province, American sources know of effective air support on behalf of the defenders of Saigon. With these factors in mind, many sources believe that the future, morale of the Saigon garrison must be regarded as questionable at best. Pentagon officials say that it will be some time before the causes for the debacle in the north can be fixed.
Even at this early point, there is a conviction that the Congressional decision in August, 1973, to forbid the use of United States air power, was the go‐ahead signal for the buildup for the Communist offensive. “We eliminated the threat of American retaliation by air, which was a critical factor in Hanoi’s calculations,” one senior official said, “and immediately the Communists realized that the penalties for offensive Operations had been drastically reduced. This isn’t criticism of Congress, but that’s the way things are, the way the world works.”
Most sources believe that the Communists now are committed to end the war before the monsoon comes in June. Their strategy in the final phase is regarded as uncertain. An offensive toward Saigon and into the delta is regarded as a certainty. What the Communists will do when they have completed their present operations is less evident. One senior official said that, politically, the Communists prefer the surrender of a new Saigon Government to the capture of the capital. A final attack, he said, is sure to cause casualties for the attackers and a good deal of destruction in the city. Surrender, on the other hand, would be heralded as evidence of the Communists’ political appeal and of their ability to make peace with a government free of American influence.
The leaderless remaining members of six South Vietnamese divisions from the northern two-thirds of the country straggled ashore at the small port of Vũng Tàu, 37 miles from Saigon, and with them panic, disorder and demoralization was brought closer to the capital city. There were not many of them. Only a few had rifles, most did not have complete uniforms—only a helmet or a fatigue jacket with patches from the First, Second, Third, 22d 23rd and Marine Divisions to show what they had once been.
They brought the virus of panic, disorder and demoralization closer to Saigon, 37 miles away. It has been this panic rather than Communist attacks that has led to the Saigon Government forces’ collapse along the entire coastline and in the Central Highlands. The arrival of the soldiers, many of whom had rioted in Đà Nẵng, Nha Trang or Cam Ranh Bay before escaping, is significant because Vũng Tàu lies at the mouth of the Saigon River. If it collapses and is seized by the Communists, withdrawal from the capital will be difficult if not impossible. In the last few days thousands of civilian refugees have also been put ashore at this resort town from an armada of fishing boats, rusting tramp steamers and South Vietnamese Navy craft. A few are still struggling ashore. There has been no major disorder, but there is no real order either. Sporadic rifle fire can be heard. Last night the Government announced that it had arrested a dozen men dressed as marines who were said to be Communist infiltrators bent on sabotage.
Despite the experience of the last two weeks the government appeared to be doing little to regroup the renegade soldiers or feed and house the refugees. There were no officials at the crowded port. Many refugees, exhausted from days without food or water in small open boats, simply lay on the quay. “Where can we go now? What can we do?” asked a sunburned woman as she lay on a pile of possessions a few feet from the water. The eight other members of her family who had fled with her from Bảo Lộc, a town in the Central Highlands, lay nearby. “We spent all our money,” she said in a lifeless voice. “We have no cash. Now there is no one to help us.” The family had been on the run for over a week, having fled by bus from their home to Đà Lạt, then by bus to the coast at Nha Trang and finally by fishing boat to Vũng Tàu, a total of 300 miles.
Soldiers wandered aimlessly along the tree‐shaded harbor, past the whitewashed villas of well‐to‐do Saigon residents who used to come here for weekends. Under the French, Vũng Tàu was known as Cap‐St.Jacques. A few stragglers managed to make it to the army’s local headquarters at the now largely empty Vũng Tàu air base. It was the place for them to report, a sergeant said, but the only officer on duty, a captain, was reading a novel in his office And paid them no attention. A small group of soldiers, some with the insignia of the First Division from Huế and some with shoulder patches showing they belonged to an artillery unit from Quảng Trị, in the northern part of the country, stood forlornly waiting for a truck to take them to a base near Saigon.
The government has tried to keep the stragglers and refugees out of Saigon to prevent them from spreading disorder there. The military governor of the Saigon‐Giã Định district, Lieutenant General Huỳnh Văn Minh, prohibited anyone from “staying illegally” if they are not resident there. He also closed the bridge over the Biên Hòa River on the road that leads from Vũng Tàu to Saigon. One woman had come to Vũng Tàu from Vĩnh Long Province, in the Mekong Delta, on the other side of Saigon, to see if she could find her son, a 20‐year‐old marine stationed in Quảng Trị. He had escaped by ship from Huế to Đà Nẵng; when Đà Nẵng fell he was evacuated by ship to Vũng Tàu.
On the other hand, a sergeant in a new uniform who strode, briskly along the harbor road, his new knapsack stuffed with fresh bread, told a story as poignant as that of the most exhausted refugees. He had been stationed at Buôn Ma Thuột, the Montagnard city in the highlands whose capture by the North Vietnamese on March 13 touched off the government’s rout. He said he fought for five days on the edge of the city until his unit was decimated and then escaped through the jungle, as he had been trained to do when he served in the United States Special Forces. Eventually he arrived at Nha Trang, the port on the central coast 95 miles away, and then went to Saigon by ship. He thought he would find his wife and children in the capital, since Saigon is his family home, but he discovered that his wife had taken the children and gone to look for him in Nha Trang. Now that Nha Trang has fallen to the Communists, the sergeant came to Vũng Tàu hoping to find his family among the refugees. Before leaving home he put on the new uniform, his wife had made and bought the bread in case his family managed somehow to escape.
With tension increasing in Saigon over the fate of the remaining territory in government hands, the Interior Ministry announced early today that a new coup plot had been uncovered and a number of people arrested. This announcement, the second of its kind in a week, came as little military action was reported from the fighting fronts. Earlier, military authorities, acting to prevent disorder and panic in the capital, had changed the start of the curfew to 9 PM from 10 o’clock. The new deadline began last night. In addition, loudspeakers announced that anyone resisting orders of security forces or attempting to flee would be shot. The gravity of the reported plot against the government could not immediately be gauged. Western intelligence officials said that they had heard of no such anti‐government activity and were surprised by the announcement.
As Vietnamese crowded consulates yesterday hoping for a visa, one of the Vietnamese staff members of The New York Times bureau posed as a former American employee who feared for his life and wished to obtain an American visa. “I waited in line for nearly one hour before reaching the Vietnamese girl clerk at the visa section,” he reported. “There were 40 or 50 people in line ahead of me, mostly Vietnamese wives of Americans.”
“But among them were some prominent people — a leading, physician, a former member of the 1966 Constituent Assembly, a lawyer who had served in the advisory council created by former Premier Nguyễn Cao Kỳ in 1965. “The doctor nodded at me as he passed, but did not say a word. The lawyer, looking very tense, said he was trying to get a visa for his wife to visit their children in the United States. “There was an old man who works in a Senate office, and a popular Vietnamese nightclub singer. Finally, I reached the clerk and asked about getting an immigration visa. She handed me a stack of forms and told me to return tomorrow.
“Then I asked to see the chief of the visa section. The girl told me he was very busy, but after I insisted, she agreed. He was American, and he was very kindly, but I got nowhere. I told him I had been an employe of various American Government offices in Vietnam, hinting that I had also worked for Special Forces on undercover assignments. He told me that no matter what work I had been doing, that I would be eligible for an American visa only if I had worked for 15 years or more in American Government service. He added that there had been 100,000 Vietnamese working for the Americans, and it didn’t matter whether they had worked for the C.I.A. or any other organization, they had to have 15 years.”
In other crises over the years, the night skies near Saigon have been lighted by flares, tracer bullets, and the flashes of bursting bombs and shells. But these nights, there is neither sound nor sight of combat.
“You hear the silence?” a Vietnamese soldier asked. “It is the silence of a dying nation.”
The first South Vietnamese children to be evacuated in the current crisis and flown to the United States for adoption by American families arrived in San Francisco. There were 52 of them, and their papers identified them as “orphan boy” or “orphan girl.” They were on their way to various states and their adoptive parents.
General Frederick C. Weyand, the United States Army Chief of Staff said today that he as confident the South Vietnamese army “still has the spirit and the capability to defeat the North Vietnamese.” General Weyand, who was the last commander of United States forces in Vietnam before the withdrawal two years ago, left here this morning after a seven‐day tour made at the request of President Ford. Aides said that the general would fly directly to the President’s California retreat at Palm Springs, to report. Speaking to newsmen at Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base shortly belore departing, the general declined to criticize the perform ance of Saigon’s armed forces during the last three weeks, in which they have abandoned large areas of the country with little fighting.
Saigon’s observers at the United Nations said today that even though, as they put it, the American people had closed their eyes, ears and consciences to the plight of South Vietnam, they should help Vietnamese refugees. A bitterly worded statement circulated at United Nations Headquarters, entitled “Appeal by Ambassador Nguyễn Hữu Chi and Ambassador Phạm Huy Ty to the American people to help refugees in Vietnam,” said:
“While you close your mind to the external causes of our military setbacks, while you close your conscience to collective responsibility, while you close your eyes to facts and reality, while you close your ears to cries for help from those who fought with you, for our common ideals, please, for God’s sake, don’t close your heart to the human tragedy of Vietnam. As human beings, please help, please.”
President Ford declared today in a nationally televised news conference in San Diego that neither friends nor adversaries of the United States should interpret the military losses in South Vietnam as a sign that American commitments will not be honored anywhere in the world. He said he did not expect the fall of the Saigon government. He made a series of appearances in the conservative city of San Diego to show that he was doing all he could both to save the government of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and provide assistance for the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the advancing Communist forces.
Japanese officials said that they were disturbed and divided by the failure of the United States to help South Vietnam and Cambodia in their crises. They said that Foreign Minister Kiichi Miyazawa would seek a reaffirmation of the United States commitment to defend Japan, including a pledge to maintain the “nuclear umbrella,” when he confers with Secretary of State Kissinger in Washington next week. Little military action was reported in South Vietnam, but with tension increasing over the fate of the remaining territory in government hands, the Interior Ministry in Saigon said a new coup plot had been uncovered and that a number of people were arrested.
The Cambodian command has started moving reinforcements to the southern flank of this beseiged capital in preparation for an increase in pressure by the Communist-led insurgents expected in a matter of days.The moves were a reaction to the defeat suffered this week when the Mekong River outposts of Neak Luong and Banam, which had been defended by 4,000 troops, were overwhelmed by the insurgents. A substantial portion of the insurgent force is now expected to move north along Route 1 to join in the attack on Phnom Penh. The evacuation of the town of Kompong Seila, 70 miles southwest of here, began a couple of days ago. The garrison, believed to consist of 1,500 men, is being airlifted to Phnom Penh to take up positions along Route 1.
In itself, Kompong Seila had little strategic significance but the decision to abandon it was a painful one for the command because the garrison there successfully withstood an eightmonth siege last year, probably the longest such assault any town has suffered in this war. The civilian population of Kompong Seila was airlifted to Phnom Penh in the past month. Two days ago, when the fate of Neak Luong was sealed, C‐123 transport planes. using Route 4 as their runway, started landing to pick up the troops.
The new arrivals shouted and waved at passers‐by as they were carried in open trucks from Pochentong Airport to a staging area south of the city. Their demeanor almost seemed to indicate that the generally demoralized army had just won a great victory; but their uniforms were tattered, their weapons were rusty and many of them were barefoot. Also in preparation for the expected onslaught, the government was reported to be withdrawing from lightly manned forward outposts along the Bassac River, south of the city, in hopes of consolidating its forces and establishing a defense perimeter it can hold. In a related move, the 48th Infantry Brigade, said to be one of the better units, was ordered back to its base southeast of the city. Last week, as an emergency measure, it was shifted to positions northwest of the capital to shore up the crumbling defenses of Pochentong Airport.
The shift of the brigade indicated just how worried the government was about the possibility of an attack from the south, for the situation northwest of the airport is still precarious. On Wednesday, insurgent inflitrators penetrated government lines along an embankment known as the Northern Dike. This put them within four and one half miles of the airport, which has been under daily rocket attack for three months. Government forces later retook the ground but failed to make Contact with the enemy. It was a typical case of the inchmeal process of attrition by which the insurgents are wearing down the capital’s defenses.
Meanwhile, at the airport, rocket’s scored direct hits on two T‐28 fighter‐bombers, setting them both ablaze and destroying them. A total of 34 rockets fell on the airport yesterday. Seven more fell in and around Phnom Penh and four persons were wounded.
The abandonment of Kompong Seila may be followed by similar efforts to draw the government’s, forces back to the capital. According to unconfirmed reports, preparation were under way to withdraw four battalions from Siem Reap. near the temples at Angkor. Although the insurgents control an overwhelming proportion of Cambodia’s land area, the government continues to hold on to most of the provincial capitals. In nearly every case, these are under siege and being sustained by airlifts. The government is reluctant to abandon the provincial capitals, for they are the basis of whatever claim it still has to being a national government. But to preserve Phnom Penh, it may have no other choice.
The fate of the capital now appears to rest on two factors — the use the insurgents make of the reinforcements from Neak Luong and the outcome of the Congressional debate on President Ford’s request for supplemental aid to the Phnom Penh Government. Many observers regard it as a waiting game on both sides. Congress, they say, is waiting to see whether the rebels can take Phnom Penh before committing itself to a vote Similarly, the insurgents may wait to see how Congress acts before committing its forces.
Saukam Khoy, who became Acting President on Tuesday when President Lon Nol was eased out of Cambodia; made his first radio address to the nation this afternoon and called on the insurgents to join in negotiations to end the civil war. The speech contained no new proposals and Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the nominal head of the insurgents, has already said that its leadership has no interest in negotiating with anyone in Phnom Penh.
The private relief agencies, reviewing their operations in Phnom Penh, have begun efforts to carry on if a government is formed by the Communisted insurgents. However, the biggest international agency here, Catholic Relief Services, does not expect to be able to continue if the Communists take over, and its leaders subscribe to the theory that there will be bloody reprisals.
About 40 members of the United States Embassy staff and other official personnel left for Bangkok on a chartered plane: Among the passengers were foreign employes of the embassy and relief agencies and the 3‐year‐old adopted Cambodian son of an embassy official.
At the request of John Gunther Dean, the American ambassador to Cambodia, U.S. President Ford ordered the evacuation of all Americans from Phnom Penh. About 40 members of the United States Embassy staff and other official personnel left for Bangkok on a chartered plane. Among the passengers were foreign employes of the embassy and relief agencies and the 3‐year‐old adopted Cambodian son of an embassy official.
Four Atlantic alliance countries planning a joint purchase of 350 jet fighters said here today that the new F‐16 of the United States had some “undeniable advantages” but that they had not made a final decision. This announcement came after a meeting of the Defense, Ministers of Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. Discussing the F‐16, the French Mirage F‐1 and the Swedish Viggen, they said the American plane had advantages in cost and technical capability. But they said a final decision had to wait because Belgium and the Netherlands were still studying political and work-creating aspects of the three offers.
Portugal’s main political parties met to consider a military plan that would establish the armed forces as the country’s guiding force for the next three to five years. The minister of information said the plan provided for the military and the political parties to move along “parallel lines.” But he said the military would maintain the upper hand. The 12 parties taking part in the April 25 elections for a constituent assembly were given 48 hours to accept or reject the military proposals, although the armed forces promised no sanctions would be taken against any party that turned them down.
Violence in British schools has become so widespread that 6-year-olds are mugging other students and running extortion rackets to get pocket money, a London headmaster has charged. The headmaster, George Kabanagh, told the National Association of Schoolmasters that lax parental discipline was partly to blame for students joining in gangs to bully weaker children.
The Russians hail it as the construction feat of the decade if not the century—a railroad to be carved through 2,000 miles of Siberian wilderness from the Lena River to the Amur River. Building has barely gotten under way, but the BaikalAmur line has already stirred national pride, with more than a little help from articles, poems and popular songs. The aim is to establish a more direct route from European Russia to the Pacific and to open an untapped part of Siberia that is rich in natural resources. Not incidentally, the line will run several hundred miles farther from China than the existing Trans‐Siberian Railroad, to the south.
Eighteen Soviet Jews staged a silent demonstration in downtown Moscow to protest sentences of five years exile passed on two other Jews, Mark Nashpits, a dentist, and Boris Tsitlyonok, a plumber. The two were chosen for trial from among nine Jews who took part in a public protest February 24 against imprisonment of Jews, allegedly for seeking to leave the country.
Ten persons are suing Trans World Airlines for $10 million in damages for injury and death stemming from a 1973 terrorist attack on Hellenikon Airport in Athens, Greece. A federal judge in New York says TWA is liable. A New Jersey widow, whose husband was among three persons killed in the Arab attack, and nine other plaintiffs filed the suit in U.S. District Court, Manhattan. Judge Charles L. Brieant Jr. ruled the airline liable under rules of the Warsaw Convention.
A member of Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s family joined the nationwide protests today against the lack of political freedom in Spain. Nicolas Franco, a nephew of the chief of state and an elected member of the National Council, said that he was “against fascism and in favor of a peaceful egalitarian democratic coexistence, without privileges for any class.” Mr. Franco, 37 years old, also said in an interview with the news magazine Cambio 16 that “to sing the praises of public order while, under this pretext, denying to a whole people the dignity of the full exercise of its citizenhood is a fake.”
Israel and South Africa signed SECMENT, a secret mutual defense agreement, following a meeting in Jerusalem between the defense ministers, P. W. Botha of South Africa and Shimon Peres of Israel.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat declared he had conclusive evidence Israel has at least three nuclear weapons in its armory. Arafat told a gathering of several hundred Palestinians in Doha, Qatar, that Israel not only had atomic bombs but rockets capable of carrying nuclear warheads. “Sooner or later Israel will resort to war,” Arafat said.
Saudi Arabia has decided to set up a national deliberative body, called the Consultative Council, to plant the seeds of a parliamentary system in the kingdom, senior officials said this week.
Thousands of rock-throwing students clashed with police during anti-government demonstrations at two of Seoul’s major universities. More than 120 National University students were detained after they held a rally to denounce the alleged torture of dissidents and suppression of press and academic freedom. At Tonsei University, a private institution, students protested the government’s refusal to reinstate two professors and 14 students released from prison in a clemency measure in mid-February.
China’s former chief of state, Tung Pi-wu, a founder of the Chinese Communist party whose revolutionary career spanned more than six decades, has died in Peking at the age of 89.
Chile is willing to release most of its 1,107 political prisoners provided they leave the country, according to President Agusto Pinchet. Earlier this year Chile released 122 political prisoners and flew them to Mexico and Venezuela.
Four guerrillas were killed and about 50 were detained across Argentina in the past two days following wide sweeps against alleged foreign and Argentine extremists, police sources reported. Police said 20 Tupamaro urban guerrillas, mostly Uruguayans, were taken into custody after a suburban raid. At least two guerrillas were shot to death in a gunfight, they said.
Attorney General Edward H. Levi indicated today that the existence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s secret files on Presidents and members of Congress was not made known to the Justice Department until shortly before he took office last February 7. About a week before he was sworn in, Mr. Levi recalled at a news conference, he asked his predecessor, William B. Saxbe, about the persistent rumors that J. Edgar Hoover, the late F.B.I. director, had maintained such files in his office. Mr. Levi said that he was told that the Hoover files “perhaps once did exist, but they’re gone. We can’t find them.” Immediately after his swearing‐in on February 7, he said, he put the same question to Deputy Attorney General Laurence, H. Silberman and was told that the FBI did possess such files. Mr. Levi told a House subcommittee later that month that at least 164 files, marked “OC” for “official and confidential,” had included 48 folders containing information, some of it derogatory, on “’Presidents, executive branch employees and 17 individuals who were members of Congress.”
One government official who has examined the files described some of their contents as scurrilous and vowed that what he had seen would “go with me to my grave.” Asked how and when the files had been discovered by the bureau, Mr. Levi replied, “I don’t know the answer to that.” “The question,” he went on, “is when [FBI] Director [Clarence M.] Kelley knew of them and when other people knew of them.” The Attorney General’s remarks raised for the first time questions about whether the FBI had withheld knowledge of the existence of the longrumored files from a succession of Attorneys General. Both Mr. Saxbe and his predecessor, Elliot L. Richardson, have said publicly that they were given assurances by the bureau that the “Hoover files,” if there were any, could not be found.
At his news conference in San Diego, President Ford said that he was appealing to members of Congress “to stop coming to the White House with one spending bill after another.” He warned of a possible resurgence of “double-digit inflation,” and asked Congress to put the new budget control law into effect a year early so it could impose on itself a spending ceiling in the forthcoming fiscal year.
President Ford has had a new ethical code drawn up for all White House employees and they have been asked to attend 90-minute briefing sessions to assure they understand it. The eight-page code spells out ethical concepts and legal restrictions in such areas as conflicts of interest, acceptance of gifts, political activities, and contact with regulatory agencies. Most of the staffers have already attended one of the briefings, said Jerry Jones, staff assistant to Mr. Ford. Jones said there had always been a written standard of conduct for White House staffers, but that many portions of it were vague and had to be rewritten.
The Labor Department provided another sign of abating inflation with the announcement that the government’s wholesale price index declined in March for the fourth consecutive month. The overall index, seasonally adjusted, declined six-tenths of 1 percent as agricultural prices fell sharply, more than offsetting a small rise in industrial goods.
Jake Jacobsen, a former dairy industry lawyer, testified that he gave John Connally, who was Secretary of the Treasury in the Nixon administration, a $10,000 gratuity in 1971 and later participated with him to cover up the payment. Mr. Jacobsen is the government’s principal witness in Mr. Connally’s bribery trial in Washington.
The Army Corps of Engineers is hustling Mississippi River trappers and fishermen to higher ground as it prepares to meet river crests higher than 1973 flood levels. The crest is moving rapidly toward New Orleans. Unless the corps opens one of its spillways to divert some of the water, the Mississippi will crest 19.3 feet in New Orleans on April 19, well above the 186 high mark recorded in 1973 after the spillways were opened. The 1973 floods were some of the worst on record. About 6 million acres of land, from southern Illinois down to the river’s mouth, are already under water.
The letter in which former President Dwight D. Eisenhower described Robert F. Kennedy as “shallow, vain and untrustworthy” was sold at auction in New York City for $3,500. It was the highest price ever paid for a document signed by a modern President, according to a spokesman for Charles Hamilton Galleries, the auctioneers. The March 26, 1968 letter, signed “Ike” and addressed to Robert Cutler, an old friend and special assistant in the Eisenhower administration, was sold to the Scriptorium, a Beverly Hills dealer. In the letter, written three months before Kennedy was assassinated, Eisenhower wrote, “It is difficult for me to see a single qualification that the man has for the Presidency.
Renewing a campaign of terror bombings, Puerto Rican revolutionaries set off four powerful explosives outside mid-Manhattan banks and offices during a 35-minute period during the night. One person was slightly injured. Police said no arrests were in sight in the latest series of bombings by the Puerto Rican Armed Forces of Liberation but that the department was “closer to a solution.” In a post-midnight telephone call to the Associated Press, the Puerto Rican group took responsibility for the bombings, as they had for a series last October, the December wounding of a policeman and a tavern explosion in January that killed four persons and injured 55 others. The Puerto Rican nationalists who took full responsibility for the four latest midtown (Manhattan) bombings and as well as last January’s fatal Fraunces Tavern annex explosion issued a communique that threatened continued “revolutionary violence” against corporations “at the heart of Yanki imperialism.” They demanded independence for Puerto Rico and release of five nationalists serving prison sentences.
An 18-month staff study by the Consumer Product Safety Commission concluded there was not enough evidence of danger from aerosol sprays for the agency to warn consumers to stop using them. The staff report also said there did not appear to be sufficient technology available to turn out spray cans that were less likely to explode, and it said the commission did not have authority to require manufacturers to pre-market test new products for the safety of ingredients to which users would be exposed. All those points were raised by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which had petitioned the commission for a wide range of actions against aerosols.
The number of Americans receiving regular unemployment benefits decreased in 31 states in mid-March, the Labor Department reported. The statistics showed a one-week drop of 52,100 as of March 15, leaving a total of 1,158,800. The decline was from 7.9% to 7.8%. Counting in all seven separate programs of unemployment assistance, the number of those on the benefit rolls totaled 6.5 million. The Labor Department also reported that workers quit jobs in February at a rate of 12 per 1,000-the lowest since August, 1961. But the layoff rate in February was 35 per 1,000 workers, the highest since March, 1958, and unchanged from January.
New York City police were holding three men charged with possession of 800 airline tickets potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Police said the blank tickets from Pan American World Airways and three smaller airlines could have been forged for use on any trip on the lines. The tickets are stolen from travel agencies all over the country in burglaries and stickups and heisted from shipments to different parts of the world,” a police spokesman said. They sell them on the streets, in bars, he said. “The most legitimate people in the world buy these.”
Moody’s Investors Service gave a ringing endorsement to New York City’s credit status and said it would stand by its “A” rating of city bonds — a day after its competitor, Standard & Poor’s, suspended its “A” rating on the bonds. The announcement was received joyfully by Mayor Beame and Controller Harrison Goldin. Both said they hoped the announcement would reassure the investing public.
Hydrogen gas may be the fuel with “the potential of averting future energy shortages, officials of the U.S. Postal Service announced. Experiments with a Postal Service truck fueled with liquid hydrogen determined that the quarter-ton vehicle got about nine miles per gallon on the fuel, they said. The advantage of using hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is that it is as plentiful as water and produces far less exhaust pollution than fossil fuels. Its chief disadvantage at present is excessive cost — about $1.80 a gallon. Postal officials said greater production could lower the cost considerably. The vehicle was tested in California with the assistance of UCLA’s mechanical engineering department.
Vermont Governor Thomas P. Salmon reluctantly signed into law a bill giving that state’s General Assembly final say on the construction of nuclear power plants in the state. He said the new law should not be regarded as a “moratorium” on nuclear plant construction. “It is a bill requiring a greater public presence in a critical policy area,” Salmon said. He had opposed the bill when it was considered by the legislature, arguing that the final say on plant construction should rest with the executive branch, but the bill was passed overwhelmingly.
Petitions bearing about 500,000 signatures, including 91,000 in Los Angeles County, for a nuclear safeguards initiative will be filed in California today as the first step in qualifying the measure for the June, 1976, state ballot, according to Jeanine Hull, Southern California coordinator for People For Proof, a citizens’ lobby. The secretary of state, by law, has 30 days to check the validity of the signatures. To qualify for the ballot the initiative must have 312,404 valid signatures. The initiative would afford full compensation for the public in the event of a nuclear power plant accident, and a full public review of nuclear power safety, with the burden of proof to be borne by the industry.
Bobby Fischer refused to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov in Manila, turning down a chance to receive at least $1,500,000 and becoming the first world chess champion to voluntarily give up his title. At Amsterdam, the FIDE voted to award Karpov the world chess championship title. Fischer had not defended the title since winning it in 1972, and Karpov became the new champ “without moving a pawn.”
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Born:
Koji Uehara, Japanese National Team, Nippon Professional Baseball, and MLB pitcher (Olympics, bronze medal, 2004; Central League Rookie of the Year 1999; Yomiuri Giants; MLB: World Series Champions-Red Sox, 2013; MLB All-Star, 2014; Baltimore Orioles, Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs), in Neyagawa, Japan.
Yoshinobu Takahashi, Japanese National Team and Nippon Professional Baseball outfielder (Olympics, bronze medal, 2004; Yomiuri Giants), in Chiba, Japan. (Both Uehara and Takahashi won the Mitsui Golden Glove Award multiple times while playing for the Yomiuri Giants.)
Michael Olowokandi, Nigerian NBA center (Los Angeles Clippers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Boston Celtics), in Lagos, Nigeria.
Thomas Hamilton, NBA center (Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets), in Chicago, Illinois.
Shawn Bates, NHL centre and left wing (Boston Bruins, New York Islanders), in Melrose, Massachusetts.
Leif Larsen, Norwegian NFL defensive tackle (Buffalo Bills), in Oslo, Norway.
Travis Reece, NFL running back (Detroit Lions), in Detroit, Michigan.
Viliami Maumau, Tongan NFL defensive tackle (Carolina Panthers), in in Fo’ui, Tonga.
Aries Spears, American comedian (“MadTV”), in Chicago, Illinois.
Died:
Mary Ure, 42, Scottish film actress (“Sons and Lovers”; “Windom’s Way”; “Where Eagles Dare”) and wife of actor Robert Shaw, died of an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates.
Tung Pi-wu, 89, Chinese Communist politician.
History Diaries 