South Vietnamese soldiers, militiamen and fighter-bombers reportedly pushed Communist troops out of Xuân Lộc, a city 38 miles northeast of Saigon. Xuân Lộc was in ruins, but the battle was not over. Communist gunners continued their rocket and artillery attacks. Government troops were reported clashing with small Communist units one mile east and southeast of the city on scrubby plains and over‐grown rubber plantations. While the fighting was described as intermittent during the day, there were predictions here that a major new North Vietnamese attack could come at any time. Some military analysts said the Communists were regrouping after three days of fighting inside Xuân Lộc, which they had first penetrated Wednesday. Saigon planes struck at unspecificed Communist targets during the day near Trảng Bom, which is 12 miles west of Xuân Lộc.
Along the south central coast, meanwhile, the port cities of Nha Trang and Cam Ranh were again reported in Communist hands. They had been reported lost last week, but then radio contact was made with some soldiers still there. A Saigon military spokesman said such contact was still occasionally made with government units outside the cities. “But inside, no,” he added. “They are gone.” Scattered but heavy fighting was reported in the Mekong Delta south of Saigon. This morning three new delta clashes were reported near Bến Tranh, which straddles Route 4, the main highway from Saigon into the delta. Some reports said that 12 government soldiers and 243 Communist troops had been killed.
In Saigon tensions were high as a growing number of foreigners bade farewell to Vietnamese friends. Stern‐faced soldiers carrying M‐16’s stood on street corners surveying traffic while a growing number of beggars and currency speculators accosted pedestrians. The bars were largely empty and bar girls stood idle until the 9 PM curfew.
Reporting on the three days of fighting in the Xuân Lộc area, the Saigon military spokesman, Colonel Lê Trung Hiền, said government troops and aircraft had killed 903 Communist soldiers, destroyed 11 T‐54 tanks, 20 trucks and one antiaircraft gun. He said four prisoners had been taken and 254 weapons seized. “The South Vietnamese got themselves a good little victory,” said one foreign military attache today, “at least for now anyway.”
[Ed: Sadly, it will be their last…]
In the delta province of Kiến Tường, a swampy, lightly settled area long used for Communist infiltration from Cambodia, government troops in armored cars reported having killed 36 Communist soldiers and lost three in a skirmish 17 miles northeast of Mộc Hóa, the province capital. In the same area, which was devastated by heavy fighting last December, government soldiers discovered an arms cache near the town of Tuyên Bình.
Far south in the delta, where fighting has not been reported recently, a battle erupted in Bạc Liêu Province. Officials said 39 Communist soldiers were killed and eight government militia men wounded. Communist gunners continued to hit numerous widely scattered communities with a few rounds of mortar, artillery or rocket fire presumably designed to tie up government troops and create fear among the populace. The delta provinces involved in such incidents, according to battle reports yesterday, were Châu Đốc on the Cambodian border, Chương Thiện, Sa Đéc, once considered among the safest provinces, Vĩnh Bình, where Communists scored major gains in December, and Kiến Hòa.
Stubborn and successful fighting, on a limited front, by South Vietnamese government troops should not be taken as an indication that Saigon is in a position to reverse the present military situation, United States military source warned today. North Vietnamese forces on the Saigon front retain the tactical initiative and have demontrated an ability to deploy stronger concentrations of artillery, armor and infantry at key points than the defenders can muster, the sources said. Neither current situation reports nor logistical and technological resources indicate that South Vietnam’s forces are capable of turning the war around, as they did in 1972 at An Lộc, Huế and Bình Định during a major North Vietnamese offensive.
South Vietnam’s forces, particularly the 18th Infantry Division and an airborne brigade, have shown aggressiveness and tactical flexibility in the fighting around Xuân Lộc. Analysts noted that in the Xuân Lộc battie the defenders had used helicopters to conduct a mobile defense and fighter ‐ bomber strikes to balance the invaders’ superiority in artillery.
The gains on this limited, if important, front should be seen, however, in the perspective of South Vietnam’s overall military power today and in 1972, the sources said. Three years ago, they emphasized, the South Vietnamese forces could still call on a wide range of United States support, no longer available. “If Thieu had as pure a democracy as Norway and troops as highly motivated as the Israelis,” one source said, “he still wouldn’t be able to do much more than hold selected points because of the supply and technological weaknesses of his forces.”
In 1972, the process of “Vietiamization” — turning the defense of the country over to the South Vietnamese — was incomplete. The United States still maintained an extensive logistics and communications network built up during the preceding seven years, although there had already been some reduction in forces and functions.
American liaison and advisory missions were working with the South Vietnamese combat units in 1972, coordinating firepower and air strikes. Reinforcements could be moved not only by helicopter but also by the Air Force’s C‐130 transports still in the country. Navy gunfire and Marine helicopter gunships were available to support South Vietnam’s marines in their fighting north of Huế. Finally, South Vietnamese deficiencies in number and weight of field guns could be compensated for by the United States Air Force’s fleet of B-52’s.
There were plenty of shells for what guns the South Vietnamese had deployed in that campaign, the sources said, enabling gunners to expend ammunition at the high rate required by the American doctrine they had been taught. Tanks and guns lost in the first weeks of the offensive of 1972 were promptly replaced.
Even the present contraction of the defenders’ front has not balanced the inferiority in military technology and materiel. Should the North Vietnamese shift the weight of their attack on Saigon from Xuân Lộc to a new point, as many analysts believe they will, the South Vistnamese will not be able to shift forces rapidly enough to thwart a new drive before it is well under way.
Nearly 300 Vietnamese children were airlifted out of Saigon today. One group of 22 children was flown to Clark Air Base in the Philippines on a World Airways DC‐8 jet. The flight continued on to Tokyo. Later two United States Air Force C‐141’s flew 267 children to the Philippines late Friday. In addition, 158 civilian evacuees were flown to Clark Air Base on two C‐141’s.
The children ferried out of Saigon today were the first allowed to leave since the airlift of children was halted early this week. About 1,400 children already in the process of adoption have been flown to the United States on an emergency basis as a result of an order by President Ford to cut through red tape. An Air Force spokesman said a Boeing 747 jet chartered from World Airways was scheduled to leave Clark at 11 A.M. Saturday for Los Angeles. Most of the passengers were expected to he children bound for adoption in the United States.
North Vietnam took control of six of the Spratly Islands which had been under the control of South Vietnam, but had also been claimed by the People’s Republic of China. The dispute between the two Communist nations over ownership of the tiny islands would be one of several factors in the war between China and Vietnam in 1979.
The Saigon Government today described President Ford’s speech to Congress as “encouraging” for South Vietnam. The speech was widely reported in the South Vietnamese press and rumors spread that United States Marines had landed along the coast. President Gerald Ford’s speech, the Government spokesman said, “was most encouraging to the people and army of the Republic of Vietnam.”
“It was a reaffirmation,” the statement continued, “of the pledges of support of the American Government in the antiCommunist struggle of the Republic of Vietnam. Once again, these pledges have demonstrated the continuity of the United States foreign policy through five Presidents. For the people and army of the Republic of Vietnam who are going through this most critical and difficult phase of their struggle,” the statement concluded, “these pledges of support would certainly contribute to their struggle for survival, and help them safeguard and build a life that is in conformance with their aspirations for peace and freedom.”
Following the broadcast here today of Mr. Ford’s speech, the black market street rate of Vietnamese piasters to dollars jumped from 1,200 to the dollar to 1,400. The Ford speech apparently was not received by most South Vietnamese as especially significant.
Congressional resistance developed against President Ford’s request for authority to use American troops, if necessary, to protect the evacuation of South Vietnamese citizens. Mike Mansfield, the Senate Majority leader, predicted that Congress would show “great reluctance” to give the President the authority. Senator Robert Byrd, the Democratic whip, said he was flatly opposed to using American troops in an evacuation. Opposition also continued to mount in Congress to the President’s request for $722 million in military aid for the Saigon government.
Counterattacking Cambodian government troops reportedly gained a two-mile stretch north of Phnom Penh, but insurgents holding a village less than three miles from the capital’s airport fought off attempts to retake it. Rebel gunners fired 46 shells and rockets into Pochentong Airport during the day. Shrapnel from one round apparently brought down a DC‐3 that was taking off with gasoline for a besieged provincial capital. Three of the plane’s four crew members, including a freelance American pilot named Vern Pickup, were killed and the fourth was seriously injured. The pilot, who was employed by a private Cambodian company, was not part of the continuing American airlift of food, fuel and ammunition. The plane, bound for Kompong Chhnang, crashed just outside the airport and burst into flames. Moments earlier, a Vietnamese mechanic was killed by shrapnel.
Rockets and shells from insurgent positions around the city continued to fall on various parts of the capital through the day. Despite the severe pressure exerted by the insurgents, the government’s army fought back more effectively over the last 24 hours than at any time in the last two weeks. Government casualties in the last two days were said to be about 100 killed and 500 wounded.
East of the city, on a peninsula between the Tonle Sap and the Mekong River, a strong government counterattack reportedly succeeded in dislodging the insurgents from positions that had given them a clear field of fire into areas northeast of the capital along Route 5. Twenty‐two insurgents were said have been killed in that operation, and a number of weapons seized. A stretch of two miles on the east bank of the Tonle Sap, between the villages of Prek Rang and Prek Takuong, was reported retaken. In a related operation nearby, on the west bank of” the Mekong, seven insurgents were said to have been killed.
A far higher toll of insurgents was reported for bombing and strafing operations yesterday at a point called Tuol Sampou, about four miles north of the airport, where government troops stumbled into an insurgent ambush. According to military sources, the insurgents massed to exploit their advantage, only to he slain in large numbers by American antipersonnel bombs dropped from Cambodian planes. The air force reported that about 2,000 insurgents had massed and 550 had been killed. The claim was regarded as highly inflated but, given the flat, open terrain, it seemed likely that the insurgents had sustained heavy losses. Despite its monopoly of the air, the government still had not managed by dusk today to retake the village of Samrong Teav, occupied by 200 infiltrators yesterday. The village is less than three miles north of the airport
Two miles farther east, bulldozers this afternoon were busy building new embankments to block an insurgent attack on the city from the northwest. Armored personnel carriers were lined up in front of the embankment. But the new defense line stretched for a distance of less than half a mile, leaving the attackers considerable room on either end for a flanking movement. No new defense line had been established to the south to block access to the airport, a more probable line of attack. Here again, the government side seemed to be relying on its T‐28 single‐engine bombers and its helicopter gunships to keep the insurgents from massing.
The United States announced tonight that because of the “seriously deteriorating military situation” it was closing its embassy in Phnom Penh and evacuating several hundred Americans and Cambodians from the encircled Cambodian capital. The State Department said the evacuation was being carried out by United States military helicopters protected by a United States Marine security force and fighter planes. The decision to pull out the last Americans underscored the belief in Washington that the Cambodian government could not hold out much longer against the attacking insurgent forces.
Six major Portuguese parties signed away almost all their power to devise a constitution for a democratic Portugal and accommodated themselves to several years of tight military rule — a necessity, the Portuguese President said, to protect the new government from its enemies. While the 28 officers of the governing High Council of the Revolution watched under the crystal chandeliers of the presidential palace, the political leaders one by one signed an agreement with the armed forces setting the essential terms of a constitution that will leave basic power in the hands of the military for at least three to five years. Two weeks from now the country is to vote for a constituent assembly, whose sovereignty has been limited and whose capacity for opposition has been largely neutralized. President Francisco da Costa Gomes said that the reasons for these limitations were the need to defend the revolution against reactionary and extreme left‐wing enemies and the lack of political preparation of the Portuguese.
An international conference on bringing the Geneva war conventions up to date has agreed to ban weapons that cause unnecessary suffering or that permanently harm the environment, a conference communique said today.
The Soviet Union signed an agreement to borrow $250 million from a group of Western banks. The loan was said to be the largest the Soviet Union has ever arranged with private Western financial institutions. Lazard Freres heads the group of lenders, which includes Morgan Guaranty, Banque National de Paris and several other West European and North American banks.
The Soviet Union’s contacts with Israeli leaders in secret discussions here last week have not moved Jerusalem from its conviction that Moscow has no productive role to play in the Middle East, The Times learned Friday. Authoritative sources here said Israel’s top leaders see no reason to turn to the Russians during the current period of coolness in relations with Washington. “I don’t believe there has been any real change in the Russian position,” a high source said. “They are not a positive element. They are not interested in the destruction of Israel but they would not shed tears if Israel were destroyed. They want to play it cool.” Three major newspapers here carried reports Friday that two Soviet representatives held talks apparently in preparation for the possible resumption of the Geneva peace talks. The Foreign Ministry declined to confirm or deny that contacts had taken place “with the Soviet Union or other countries with which Israel has no diplomatic relations.” The Russians reportedly offered to guarantee Israel’s security within her 1967 borders and to renew diplomatic relations with her following an overall peace agreement with the Arabs at Geneva.
Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres today cited the collapse of what he called American “guarantees” to South Vietnam as proof that Israel was right to make no further concessions to Egypt during the abortive Kissinger peace mission. In an evident reference to the South Vietnamese crisis, the defense minister said in a radio interview: “In a world going up in flames, with guarantees toppling like so many stacks of cards… I am convinced that our decision was the right one.” Peres told his interviewer on the armed forces radio that this was a time of crisis in Israeli-American relations. He feared that if Israel had given in to Egyptian terms for major withdrawals in Sinai, Egypt would then have pressed for further pullback and “we would have found ourselves in a headlong gallop.”
Most of the people in Skikda and in nearby Constantine, Algeria turned out today to acclaim the President of France, Valdry Giscard d’Estaing, the first French chief of state to visit Algeria since the nation won its war of independence. Here in Skikda, the site of a new gas liquefaction industry, President Giscard d’Estaing and President Houari Boumediene of Algeria walked side by side for a mile through crowds lining the Avenue of August 20, 1955. On that date, the French massacred Algerians here in reprisal for a demonstration in the early stages of the war, and the day is commemorated each year.
Communist insurgents opened fire on Thai helicopters bringing reinforcements to a battle in northern Thailand now in its third day and killed 17 more soldiers, the Defense Ministry announced today.
A draft of a constitution that would give Cuba an elected national assembly has been published by the official newspaper Granma.
Several thousand left‐wing Perónists, most of them young farmhands bussed in from the countryside, assembled in the main square of Posadas to the deep, rhythmic beating of drums and the chanting of the Perónist hymn, “Perón, Perón, how great you are.” Under the watchful eyes of scores of policemen, the demonstrators unfurled a huge banner acclainimg the Montoneros, the leading Perónist guerrilla group. Youths passed out pamphlets explaining that the political struggle must be carried out both by guns and ballots. Posadas and the rest of Misiones, a small province between Paraguay and Brazil in northeastern Argentina, have temporarily become a cease‐fire zone in the battle that elsewhere in the country has pitted various leftist and rightist factions against each other.
Ever since Isabel Martinez de Perón inherited the presidency on the death of her husband, Juan Domingo Perón last July, her supporters and detractors have bitterly debated the extent of her popular mandate. The argument has taken place against a background of political violence that has claimed more than 300 victims — most of them either left‐wing or right‐wing Perónists — and economic deterioration brought on by inflation, shortages, and agrarian and industrial discontent. In the absence of any other measuring rod, an election next Sunday for the governorship and local legislature in Misiones has come to be widely viewed as a referendum on Mrs. Perón’s government.
The Organization of African Unity today approved negotiations aimed at achieving two of black Africa’s major goals — African majority rule in Rhodesia and independence for South-West Africa. But the foreign ministers of member countries of the organization dismissed efforts by South Africa for a dialogue with her black critics while she still adhered to apartheid, the policy of racial separation.
Partly reversing some of its earlier decisions, the Senate Budget Committee gave final approval to a proposed ceiling of $365 billion on government spending for next year. The figure was $9.4 billion, or 2.6 percent, higher than the administration has proposed for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. It was also $32 billion lower than the one approved last week by the House Budget Committee. The spending ceiling adopted by the Senate committee implied a budget deficit next year of from $67.2‐billion to $69.6‐billion depending on the asumptions that are made about what action Congress will take on some pending tax matters. President Ford has said that he would not tolerate a deficit of more than $60‐billion, but his own fiscal officials concede that the deficit would be somewhat higher than that figure, even under their own programs.
Representative Thomas S. Foley, Democrat of Washington, said today that he had been told by White House officials that President Ford would veto whatever version of the emergency rural farm pricesupport legislation came out of Congress. Mr. Ford thus has apparently accepted the advice of Secretary of Agriculture Earl L. Butz even before the bill is in final form. Mr. Foley’s office issued a statement confirming what had been learned earlier in the day from Government sources. Earlier, legislative end executive branch aides confirmed reports that White House legislative aides had been calling all the conferees on the proposed legislation and informing them of Mr. Ford’s decision.
Under orders from Ron Nessen, the White House press secretary, the news summary that is prepared daily for President Ford has undergone some dramatic changes in recent days. The summary, which was begun by President Nixon and treated like a top‐secret document during his term, provides a synopsis of what is written and broadcast about the Administration. Mr. Nessen wants the summary to be more comprehensive, to include what is being said in books and magazines.
The Air Force imposed a series of restrictions today on the use of the giant C‐5 cargo transports pending results of an accident investigation. A C‐5 carrying Vietnamese orphans to the United States crashed near Saigon a week ago, killing more than 200 persons. The plane has been the center of controversy concerning alleged structural problems. The Air Force said that the restrictions were being imposed “as a precautionary measure to assure safe operation of the fleet.” Restrictions imposed on the aircraft include limiting flights in areas of air turbulence, limiting operations on rough runways, eliminating use of the aft cargo door system and prohibiting passengers aboard the C‐5.
John B. Connally’s lawyer asked today that the former Treasury Secretary’s bribery trial be halted by judicial order because he said, the government testimony on the uncorroborated testimony of a single witness who is an admitted perjurer. In a motion asking for a judgment of acquittal, the lawyer, Edward Bennett Williams, said that the government had failed to present sufficient proof in the prosecution phase, which ended yesterday. Mr Connally’s trial, on charges that he took two illegal payoffs of $5,000 each is scheduled to go into its third week Monday.
The leading candidate to be chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is Lowell W. Perry, an executive with the Chrysler Corporation in Detroit, according to sources in Washington.
President Ford announced today that he would nominate John L. Petersen, a lawyer of Aurora, Ill., to head the new National Fire Prevention and Control Administration.
A Commerce Department official said yesterday that the department would not spend any more money on Soul City pending an investigation of possible conflicts of interest in development of the North Carolina “new town.”
Mrs. Aristotle Onassis, under the will of her late husband, receives $3 million, a behest far smaller than published reports had indicated she would get, according to friends of the Onassis family. Shortly before his death, Mr. Onassis reportedly had decided to divorce his wife, and the bequest was the minimum her husband could leave her under Greek law.
The confidential report to New York Governor Carey on the alleged cover‐up by the chief Attica prosecutor, Anthony G. Simonetti, cited at least two cases in which murder charges might have been brought against law enforcement officers. The cases detailed in the report by Malcolm H. Bell, a former key Attica prosecutor, involved the suspicious deaths of two inmates, Kenneth B. Malloy and Ramon Rivera. Mr. Malloy was shot by two law enforcement officers on the Attica prison “cat‐walk” where hostages were held during the prison riot in 1971. Mr. Rivera was shot by a state trooper as the inmate crouched in a trench in the prison yard. The controversy over the cover‐up charge by Mr. Bell continued yesterday as Governor Carey considered appointing a special investigator or prosecutor to look into the allegation.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled today that longshoremen in ports along the Gulf and the South Atlantic coasts must merge their union instead of having separate locals for blacks and whites.
Three men charged with looting a pension fund of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters of $1.4-million have been found not guilty by a Federal jury.
A group of college students who met here for three days this week to discuss and examine college honor codes found that changing attitudes and academic pressures had made the codes all but outmoded on many campuses. “We found the number of violations was only a small fraction of the real problem,” said Sally Stanton of the University of Notre Dame, which has dropped its honor code because it did not work. “We found that, while most people were basically honest, they weren’t willing to judge the honesty of others.”
All 12 public schools in East Haven, Connecticut were closed indefinitely today because school funds have been exhausted, affecting 5,700 pupils and leaving 300 teachers temporarily out of work.
Fossil remains of early man discovered over the last two years in East Africa are causing a major upheaval in the study of human evolution by suggesting that man’s origins lie more than twice as far into the past as had been supposed from earlier evidence.
Major League Baseball:
In Milwaukee, 48,160 fans brave 37 degree weather to welcome home Hank Aaron to County Stadium. Hank drives in a run and the Brewers whip the Indians, 6–2.
At Wrigley Field, Ray Burris beats the Expos, 2–1, when the Cubs’ Rick Monday scores from second base on deep fly to right field.
Boston Red Sox 6, Baltimore Orioles 5
Chicago White Sox 0, California Angels 5
Montreal Expos 1, Chicago Cubs 2
Los Angeles Dodgers 7, Houston Astros 0
Minnesota Twins 3, Kansas City Royals 8
Cleveland Indians 2, Milwaukee Brewers 6
Detroit Tigers 5, New York Yankees 3
St. Louis Cardinals 6, Philadelphia Phillies 3
New York Mets 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 4
Cincinnati Reds 2, San Diego Padres 5
Atlanta Braves 4, San Francisco Giants 2
Oakland Athletics 7, Texas Rangers 5
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 789.50 (+8.21, +1.05%)
Born:
Todd Dunwoody, MLB outfielder (Florida Marlins, Kansas City Royals, Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians), in Lafayette, Indiana.
Walid Soliman, Tunisian author, in Tunis, Tunisia.
Died:
Dorothy Patten, 70, American actress.
History Diaries 