Early in the morning of April 13, 1975, outside the Church of Notre Dame de la Delivrance at the predominantly Maronite inhabited district of Ain el-Rammaneh in East Beirut, an altercation occurred between half a dozen armed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas on a passing vehicle performing the customary wavering and firing their automatic rifles into the air and a squad of uniformed militiamen belonging to the Phalangist Party’s Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF) militia,who were diverting the traffic at the front of the newly consecrated church where a family baptism was taking place. As the rowdy Palestinians refused to be diverted from their route, the nervous Phalangists tried to halt their progress by force and a scuffle quickly ensued, in which they shot the PLO driver of the vehicle.
At 10:30 a.m. when the congregation was concentrated outside the front door of the church upon the conclusion of the ceremony, a gang of unidentified gunmen approached in two civilian cars – rigged with posters and bumper stickers belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a PLO faction – and suddenly opened fire on the church and at the individuals present, killing four people.
Among the dead in the drive-by shooting were Joseph Abu Assi, an off-duty Phalange militant and father of the baptised child, and three bodyguards — Antoine Husseini, Dib Assaf and Selman Ibrahim Abou, shot while attempting to return fire on the assailants — of the personal entourage of the Maronite za’im (political boss) Pierre Gemayel, the powerful leader of the right-wing Phalangist Party, who escaped unscathed. The attackers fled the scene under fire by the surviving bodyguards and KRF militiamen.
In the commotion that followed, armed Phalangist KRF and NLP Tigers militiamen took to the streets, and began to set up roadblocks at Ain el-Rammaneh and other Christian-populated eastern districts of the Lebanese Capital, stopping vehicles and checking identities, while in the mainly Muslim western sectors the Palestinian factions did likewise.
Believing that the perpetrators were Palestinian guerrillas who carried the attack in retaliation for the earlier killing of the driver, and outraged by the audacity of the attempt on the life of their historical leader, the Phalangists planned an immediate response. Shortly after mid-day, a PLO bus carrying unsuspecting Palestinian Arab Liberation Front (ALF) supporters and Lebanese sympathizers (returning from a political rally at Tel el-Zaatar held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command (PFLP-GC) passed through Ain el-Rammaneh on its way to Sabra refugee camp. As the bus drove through the narrow street alleys, it fell into an ambush by a squad of Phalange KRF militiamen. The Phalangists promptly fired upon the vehicle, killing 27 and wounding 19 of its passengers, including the driver. According to sociologist Samir Khalaf all 28 passengers were killed, although other sources stated that 22 PLO members were shot dead by the Phalangists.
The Bus Massacre incited long-standing sectarian hatred and mistrust. It sparked heavy fighting throughout the country between Kataeb Regulatory Forces militiamen and the Palestinian Fedaiyyin and their leftist allies of the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) alliance, resulting in over 300 dead in just three days.
The recently appointed Lebanese prime-minister, the Sunni Muslim Rashid al-Sulh, tried vainly to defuse the situation as quickly as possible by sending in the evening of the day following the massacre a Gendarmerie detachment from the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) to Ain el-Rammaneh, which detained a number of suspects. In addition, Prime-Minister Sulh tried to pressure Phalangist Party President Pierre Gemayel to hand over to the authorities the Phalangist KRF militiamen responsible for the death of the Palestinian driver. Gemayel publicly refused however, hinting that he and his Party would no longer abide by the authority of the government. He later sent a Phalangist delegation on a mission to secure the release of the previously detained suspects held in custody by the Lebanese authorities, stating that the individuals involved in the incident were just defending themselves and that no charges could be pressed against them.
As news of the murders spread, armed clashes between PLO guerrilla factions and other Christian militias erupted throughout the Lebanese Capital. Soon Lebanese National Movement (LNM) militias entered the fray alongside the Palestinians. Numerous ceasefires and political talks held through international mediation proved fruitless. Sporadic violence escalated into a full-fledged civil war over the next two years, known as the 1975–77 phase of the Lebanese Civil War, in which 60,000 people lost their lives and split Lebanon along factional and sectarian lines for another 15 years.
Communist forces renewed their assault on Xuân Lộc, a key provincial capital east of Saigon, today while others shelled the Mekong Delta city of Cần Thơ in the heaviest fighting since the North Vietnamese offensive of 1972. The battle for Xuân Lộc is regarded as critical because a breakthrough by the Communists on Route 1 there would leave little between them and Biên Hòa, a virtual suburb of Saigon and the site of the country’s largest air base. The Communists have committed three divisions to the battle for Xuân Lộc, the Sixth, the Seventh and the 341st, an indication, Western officials said, of the importance they attach to it. The 341st Division was reported to have crossed into South Vietnam from the North only last month.”
At the same time, the Communists appeared to be making a major effort to score gains in the populous Mekong Delta, most of which has remained under some form of government control despite Saigon’s loss of the northern two‐thirds of the country over the last month. Western officials said the Việt Cộng proclaimed a “general uprising” Saturday in Cần Thơ, the economic and political center of the delta. The only immediate result, as far as could be learned, was the shelling of Cần Thơ by Communist troops. Nine persons were killed and 42 wounded in the shelling, which also left 50 hornes destroyed.
The Việt Cộng delegation in Saigon warned Saturday that an “uprising” would take place in the capital unless President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu resigned immediately. They were presumably referring to a drive like that during their Lunar New Year offensive of 1968, in which large numbers of Communist troops, including commandos inside the city, took over parts of Saigon.
In what may have been an attempt to carry out an attack in Cần Thơ, North Vietnamese troops launched a series of assaults in Phong Dinh Province around the city on Saturday. A Saigon military spokesman said that 173 members of the Communist force had been killed in the clashes, with five of Saigon’s soldiers killed and 10 wounded. Western military specialists said that the Communist thrusts in Phong Dinh Province were the largest close to Cần Thơ since the 1968 offensive. They were carried out by the North Vietnamese Fourth Division, which usually operates much farther south and in less populated parts of the delta.
Elsewhere in the delta, the Government continued to claim a heavy toll of North Vietnamese troops trying to cut Route 4. The Saigon command said its troops had beaten off at least seven more Communist assaults in northern Phong Dinh and southern Long An provinces astride the critical two‐lane highway, which links the capital to the delta. More than 150 of the attacking force were reported killed, with Government casualties put at less than 10. As has always been the case in the Vietnam war, there was no way to verify the casualty figures, and it seemed likely they were exaggerated. But Western officials said there was no doubt that the fighting was extremely heavy and that unlike what happened last month in the Central Highlands and along the northern coast, Saigon’s troops were standing their ground.
The officials also said it appeared that the North Vietnamese would continue to try to cut Route 4, which brings Saigon most of its food. At least one North Vietnamese division has moved through the Parrot’s Beak section of Cambodia in the last week and into the southern Long An‐northern Định Tường area to carry out such a drive, analysts reported. So far, the Communists have cut Route 4 for only part of one day last week.
On the battlefront northeast of Saigon; at Xuân Lộc, the biggest clash came before dawn when North Vietnamese artillery, tanks and infantry opened an assault on the now devastated city. A Saigon spokesman said the Communists did not penetrate the city and were driven off with the loss of 285 killed. Other clashes occurred in the rubber plantations and scrub jungle around Xuân Lộc. While the Communists have not been able to take the city, they have managed to penetrate the government lines and now occupy positions along Route 1 from eight to 10 miles west of the city. As a result all reinforcements and supplies must be taken into Xuân Lộc by helicopter. Against the three North Vietnamese divisions at Xuân Lộc the government has the 18th Division and several thousand paratroopers. Western sources say it is the biggest single battle since the fighting for Quảng Trị and An Lộc in 1972. Saigon claims its forces have knocked out 31 North Vietnamese tanks around Xuân Lộc since the battle there began Wednesday.
On another battlefront, the Saigon Command said Communist troops had shelled Phan Thiết city and attacked nearby government infantry positions all day yesterday. Communist losses were put at 375 killed. Phan Thiết, 95 miles northeast of Saigon, is one of two ports on the South China Sea north of Saigon still in government control, and it appeared the North Vietnamese were beginning a drive to seize it.
Saigon itself looked normal yesterday. Families strolled along the city’s crowded downtown streets on a hot, sunny Sunday, teenage girls jammed movie theaters, and the capital’s few swimming pools were full. Unlike earlier years of the war, when the Americans were here and reminded Saigon’s residents of the war by noisy B‐52 or artillery strikes nearby, the city was quiet. At night, because of the cutback in United States aid, there are no longer even the red flares that used to illuminate the sky as protection against commandos.
*
After four days of fighting, South Vietnamese troops appear to have turned back a major North Vietnamese attempt to cut Route 4 and isolate Saigon from its food supplies in the Mekong Delta. “We have wiped out a North Vietnamese regiment,” Colonel Đặng Phương Thanh, commander of the 12th Regiment, Seventh Infantry Division, said jubilantly today. Colonel Thanh said his men had killed 500 North Vietnamese and captured 30. He said they were from the E‐1 Regiment of the North Vietnamese Fifth Division. South Vietnamese officers said they believed that the regiment had moved to the delta recently from around Tây Ninh, 55 miles northwest of Saigon, and that its troops were unfamiliar with the terrain here.
A reporter saw only 20 bodies lying on the roadside and in the paddy fields around this hamlet 30 miles southwest of Saigon, which has been the focus of much of the delta fighting in the last few days. But villagers said dead North Vietnamese soldiers were lying in the ruins of their houses when they returned after the fighting ended. “We buried many of them, five to a grave in the fields, because the smell was so bad,” one woman said. The colonel said his, unit had lost 37 Men killed and 90 wounded in the battle, about two miles off Route 4.
*
For the first time in nearly four weeks of fighting, United States military sources noted yesterday, the pace of the North Vietnamese offensive has definitely been slowed by South Vietnamese resistance in the Mekong Delta and around Xuân Lộc, to the northeast of Saigon. Analysts of the fighting in these two areas carefully avoid any use of the word “victory.” But they emphasize that the South Vietnamese troops are generally holding their own.
In war it is always tempting, especially after a series of reverses, to exaggerate success. But Americans, reviewing reports of the fighting, believe that the stand by the defenders has added a new element to the campaign. It is now evident, they said, that the troops defending Saigon and those fighting in the delta are not going to run when shells and rockets begin to hit their positions. Operational reports of the last week also show that field commanders have not forgotten all the lessons taught them by the Americans in the “Vietnamization” program. Helicopters and fighter‐bombers have been employed to increase mobility and fire power. Elite units, like the paratroop brigade taken from Saigon to Xuân Lộc, have been moved from point to point to blunt Communist attacks.
Some skepticism exists about the Saigon forces’ counts of Communist dead. These invariably put the invaders’ losses far higher than seems reasonable in relation to the numbers of troops engaged. But tangible proof of the stubbornness of the Xuân Lộc defense exists in the burned‐out hulls of T‐54 tanks destroyed in the first five of the six Communist attacks on the position.
The battle, the sources cautioned, is by no means over and certainly not won. The main South Vietnamese positions around the town are accessible only by helicopter because the invaders have been able to cut Route 1 west of the battlefield. But for the moment the situation is considered stable, a condition that represents a vast improvement over the events in the northern provinces and the Central Highlands soon after the start of the campaign. South Vietnam’s position on both the delta and Xuân Lộc fronts will depend in future, American analysts emphasized, as much on evidence of political firmness and support in Saigon as on adequate supplies.
The initial Communist operations around Xuân Lộc reflected, they believe, an understandable overconfidence after the easy triumphs in the north, which encouraged headlong attacks that proved costly against steady troops. Henceforth, the Communists are expected to be more deliberate in planning their attacks and more flexible in their tactics.
[Ed: Too often, Americans dismiss ARVN as a paper tiger, their view distorted by the ugly chaos of the March, 1975 rout of MR II in the north.
But at Xuân Lộc, they fought.
They fought despite crippling shortages. Despite an impossible strategic situation after the collapse up north. Despite being encircled and cut off. Despite American abandonment. Despite their insipid political leaders.
They fought.
They deserved better.
And it breaks my heart to write the next two weeks, knowing how it ends.
But history is a cruel, evil bitch sometimes.
Damn it.]
The Cambodian Khmer Rouge insurgents, in a sudden large-scale attack, drove to the edge of the capital of Phnom Penh, sending thousands of frightened refugees fleeing from the outskirts into the city. It appeared that the final battle for Phnom Penh had begun. The Communist‐led insurgents, despite heavy bombing by the Government air force, pushed to within less than a mile from the airport, which was closed to civilian traffic. The new military government in Cambodia vowed that despite the “very grave” military situation and the closing of the United States Embassy in Phnom Penh it would refuse to surrender to the insurgents surrounding the capital.
The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that Cambodian insurgents entered the western sector of Phnom Penh. A report telexed from Phnom Penh by the agency’s Cambodian staff said: “The situation in Cambodia is now becoming critical.”
The Premier said that while continuing the military struggle, the government would “make every effort” to persuade the other side to “accept our offer of a cease‐fire followed, by negotiations and national reconciliation.” Asked what the government’s conditions for such negotiations were, he said there were only two — that there be no surrender and that the Cambodian people themselves be allowed to decide, by democratic means such as referendum or plebiscite, the future form of their leadership and government. The Communist‐led Cambodian insurgents have consistently refused all suggestions of peace talks.
Suleyman Demirel, Turkey’s durable “peasant politician,” was once again premier, four years after he was unceremoniously fired by the military. The 49-year-old Demirel received a vote of confidence for his four-party coalition government from the 450-seat National Assembly, ending Turkey’s seven-month government crisis.
An estimated 100,000 demonstrators cheered in front of the United Nations as three U.S. senators pledged all-out support for efforts to win permission for Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minnesota) said, “The Soviet Union must abide by international covenants so that a people can emigrate if they want to.” Senator Henry M. Jackson (D-Washington) attacked President Ford’s criticism of a congressional amendment linking trade concessions for Russia with increased emigration of Soviet Jews. Senator William Brock (R-Tennessee) also backed the congressional amendment.
International jeweler and jet-setter Gianni Bulgari, who was kidnaped last month in downtown Rome, was freed early today, police reported. Bulgari, dubbed the “Golden Bachelor, “was considered the biggest catch of the Italian “kidnap industry” since the abduction in 1973 of J. Paul Getty III.
Three people, including two young boys, were murdered in the southern Italian town of Cittanova in a feud between two families which has claimed 12 lives in four years. Police said five men in a minibus and armed with machine guns and sawed-off shotguns first shot dead Giuseppe Facchineri, 34, then drove to another area of the town and killed two of his nephews, Domenico, 11, and Michele, 9. The 12-year-old feud between the Facchineri and Albanesi-Raso families was sparked by a dispute over grazing land.
The worldwide arms buildup, particularly in the Middle East, has brought boom times for United States exporters of arms. Military exports by American companies have reached a high of more than $8 billion a year, and deliveries of weapons to foreign customers are growing at the fastest rate in the nation’s history. The surge in business has caused the manufacturers some problems. Congressional criticism is one of them.
The Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim, between India and Chinese-ruled Tibet, will hold a referendum today on whether to dissolve the monarchy and merge with India. The National Assembly voted in favor of both moves last Thursday after Indian troops disarmed the monarch’s palace guard. India has controlled Sikkim’s defense, communications and external affairs since a 1950 treaty.
The Laotian coalition, headed by 73-year-old Premier Souvanna Phouma, is marking its first anniversary this month, and suffering some strain, uncertainty and bickering. But the unusual alliance of neutralists, rightists and pro-Communists is holding together, mostly because the United States, the Soviet Union, China and North Vietnam seem content to keep the current government intact.
Conservative candidates for governor swept to victory in 14 of 17 Japanese provinces, buttressing the conservative stance of Prime Minister Takeo Miki’s administration. Of election results confirmed in 14 races, two were official candidates of Miki’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, 10 were independent conservatives and two were backed jointly by the Liberal Democrats and opposition parties.
An Argentine army officer and two guerrillas were reported killed when an estimated 40-wing guerrillas attacked an army barracks and arsenal near Rosario, military and police sources said. The attackers, some of them dressed in military uniforms. assaulted the arsenal and barracks of the 121st Army Battalion and fought an hour-long battle with troops before withdrawing.
François (Ngarta) Tombalbaye, 56, who had been President of Chad since 1960, was assassinated in a coup d’état by soldiers led by General Félix Malloum.
Security force headquarters in Salisbury, Rhodesia, confirmed reports that African nationalist guerrillas had killed three white civilians near the country’s western border with Zambia last Friday. No details were officially released, but some sources said one of the victims was the former Rhodesian racing champion, Peter Parnell.
Senator Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine) predicted that Congress’ efforts to cut taxes and set a spending ceiling would help bring the unemployment rate below 7.5% and the inflation rate under 7% by the end of 1976. Chairman Muskie, whose new Budget Committee this week will recommend a spending ceiling of $365 billion in fiscal 1976, admitted also that he was “curious” to see whether Congress held to such a limit. He noted the House and Senate had yet to determine how the money would be spent within that ceiling. He said on NBC’s Meet the Press that the Senate committee recommendation was about 2.6% higher than the ceiling President Ford had requested.
Donald Rumsfeld, White House chief of staff, said there was “normal tension” between President Ford and Congress and he saw no great confrontation in the offing. Rumsfeld, who has served in Congress and both the Nixon and Ford White Houses, predicted in an interview that despite the built-in constitutional rivalry and current partisan differences, “you will find this same Congress eventually moving toward solutions proposed by the President.
Supporting Soviet Jews, a crowd estimated by the police at 100,000 paraded down Fifth Avenue over to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in front of the United Nations. In the vanguard were nuns and priests, ministers and rabbis. The demonstrators were given encouragement in addresses by Senators Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson and Governor Carey, among others.
The biggest erasure of congressional incumbents in several decades took place in the 1974 election, and almost half the 103 Congressmen who were not returned to Congress are still in Washington, lobbying, practicing law and working for the government. “It’s a case of how are you going to keep them down on the farm,” said Jed Johnson, a former member of Congress from Oklahoma who specializes in keeping track of former Congressmen.
The Internal Revenue Service operated a secret school for undercover agents in which it tested them with liquor and women to see if they could resist disclosing their identities. Periodic classes were conducted at two naval bases and at several private motels. The liquor was paid for by the government, according to former agents, and the women were federal employees. The program was called “stress seminars” in some I.R.S. circles.
The first victim of the Trash Bag Murders was found in California near San Juan Capistrano, and identified as 21-year-old Albert Rivera. The murders would continue until March 13, 1977, when a 17-year-old boy disappeared after meeting a friend identified as David Hill. Hill and his roommate, Patrick Kearney, would turn themselves into the Riverside County Sheriff on July 1, 1977. Kearney would confess to 28 murders, dating back to 1968, while Hill would plead guilty to three.
A gunman toting a knapsack of ammunition went on a strolling shooting rampage in Wheaton, Maryland, that left two dead and four wounded before police shot and killed him. A police spokesman in the Washington, D.C. suburb noted that the gunman was white and all six victims were black and said the shootings might have been racially motivated. The gunman was identified as Michael Edward Pearch, 29, an unemployed carpenter. Police said he fired first at an automobile leaving a shopping center, killing John L. Sligh of Rockville, Maryland, and wounding Sligh’s wife. He reportedly shot at three other autos in the vicinity, killing Connie L. Stanley of Washington, D.C. and wounding two motorists and a pedestrian. Two policemen arrived and yelled at the gunman to stop. When he continued shooting, they gunned him down.
Florida’s Choctawhatchee River, swollen by torrential rains that pelted neighboring south Alabama last week, crested just short of its 46-year-old record and slowly began to recede. Some flooded roadways were opened to traffic, but officials, wary of more rain, proceeded with the evacuation of scores of Washington County residents. An estimated 1,500 persons, mostly residents of the Florida panhandle, already have been taken from their homes. The river’s normal width is 100 yards but at the weekend it was a two-mile-wide torrent.
Fire killed four elderly persons as it swept through an old five-story hotel in Great Falls, Montana, that had been converted to an apartment building for the aged. Twenty-two persons were hospitalized. The short-lived blaze might have been touched off by a cigarette dropped into an overstuffed lounge chair on the second floor, officials said.
39th U.S. Masters Tournament, Augusta National Golf Club: Jack Nicklaus wins his 5th Masters title, 1 stroke ahead of Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf; Lee Elder becomes the first African-American to compete in the tournament.
Major League Baseball:
In San Diego, the Reds roll over the Padres 10–0 behind Don Gullett’s 2–hitter.
The Astros retire Don Wilson’s number 40 posthumously in tribute to the right-hander, who was found dead of asphyxiation by carbon monoxide in the garage of his family’s home in January. The 29 year-old fireballer, the author of an 18 strikeout game that tied a major league record, spent nine seasons with Houston, compiling a record of 104-92 along with an ERA of 3.15.
Boston Red Sox 3, Baltimore Orioles 11
Chicago White Sox 7, California Angels 5
Chicago White Sox 5, California Angels 4
Montreal Expos 0, Chicago Cubs 7
Los Angeles Dodgers 7, Houston Astros 4
Minnesota Twins 3, Kansas City Royals 5
Cleveland Indians 3, Milwaukee Brewers 1
Detroit Tigers 0, New York Yankees 6
Detroit Tigers 5, New York Yankees 2
St. Louis Cardinals 0, Philadelphia Phillies 2
New York Mets 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 5
Cincinnati Reds 10, San Diego Padres 0
Atlanta Braves 0, San Francisco Giants 5
Atlanta Braves 2, San Francisco Giants 4
Born:
Lou Bega, German mambo musician (“Mambo No. 5”), and artist, in Munich, Germany
Bruce Dyer, English footballer who became the first “£1 million-teenager” in 1994, for Crystal Palace; in Ilford.
Angus MacLane, American animator, screenwriter, and film director (Pixar; Lightyear), born in Riverside County, California.
Died:
François Tombalbaye, 56, Dictator and 1st President of Chad (1960-75).
Larry Parks, 60, American actor nominated for an Oscar in 1946, and blacklisted in 1951 (“The Jolson Story”, “Love Is Better Than Ever”), of a heart attack.
History Diaries 