South Vietnamese forces were reported holding off the Communists at Xuân Lộc, a key provincial capital 36 miles northeast of Saigon, under continuing bombardment and attacks. Military sources in Saigon said that fresh Communist units were moving into the battle and that all or most of three North Vietnamese divisions, the Sixth, Seventh and 341st, were in action. Saigon spokesmen were hopeful that the government’s airborne, ranger and regular infantry units could inflict such heavy casualties that the siege of the city, 38 miles northwest of here, would be lifted, but there were no illusions in the Saigon command that this would be easy. Asked it he felt the tide of battle had turned, the army spokesman replied: “Not by a long shot. It is still very, very, very serious.”
President Nguyen Van Thieu announced a new Cabinet yesterday, but there was mounting evidence that his government was virtually paralyzed. He described the new Cabinet as a “war government of unity,” but it did not include any members of the opposition to the President.
Last night, the explosion of an ammunition dump at the Biên Hòa air base, South Vietnam’s biggest military airport, rattled windows throughout Saigon, more than 12 miles away, and startled the city’s residents. A military spokesman said this morning that the explosion had been caused by the detonation of aerial bombs at the air base and that 39 people had been wounded. Another explosion rocked the capital before dawn as more bombs at the depot exploded, and a third blast occurred in mid‐morning.
Government military forces are facing serious difficulties east of Biên Hòa along Route 1, the road that runs from Xuân Lộc through Biên Hòa and thence to Saigon. At least six miles of Route 1 have been controlled by Communist forces since the fighting at Xuân Lộc began last week, and government troops have been trying to force through so as to reopen the overland supply link with Xuân Lộc. There was an unconfirmed report last night that this had been party accomplished. A major problem, however, is the thinness of the government force on the highway, along the flanks of which the Communists have penetrated deeply toward Saigon.
Moving easily in the concealment of scrub jungle and untended rubber plantations, the North Vietnamese have, been maneuvering tanks and infantry units dangerously close to the approaches of Saigon, harried here and there by air strikes. But from the government’s standpoint, the most encouraging aspect of the battle is that army troops are fighting hard and effectively, with no sign of the kind of spontaneous collapse that caused the loss of central Vietnam in a matter of days. The gloom in the capital that followed that debacle seems to have abated somewhat in the last day or so, although most nongovernmental people here continue to speak as if they considered ultimate defeat inevitable.
Yesterday morning, a momentary panic was touched off in part of Saigon when a man in the downtown park facing the Caravelle Hotel plunged a knife into his stomach. Nearby policemen, apparently lacking other communication, signaled for a mobile unit that could call for an ambulance by firing carbines repeatedly in the air. The volley of shots alarmed hundreds of pedestrians and drivers around Lam Sơn Square, and some rushed for cover.
The series of bomb explosions at the Biên Hòa air base last night and this morning also shook many of the capital’s residents. The military spokesman said that the explosions had all occured at the same place and that an investigation was under way to determine whether they had been caused by sabotage or by Communist artillery fire. Other informants said that a large quantity of ammunition had been lost in the explosions and said they were believed to have been caused by carelessness by government military men.
The Communists’ siege of Tây Ninh, a provincial capital near the Cambodian frontier northwest of here, was partly lifted recently, presumably because the big Communist units around the city were moved either toward the Xuân Lộc fighting or south of Saigon into Long An Province. Accordingly, the Saigon command shifted some of its own strength away from Tây Ninh, moving a number of units to Xuân Lộc.
The Communists, however, are now apparently seeking to draw Government troops back to Tây Ninh. Yesterday enemy gunners were reported to have fired 66 rounds of artillery fire, from both 105‐mm. howitzers and heavy 155‐mm. guns of American manufacture, into the city, killing six civilians, and destroying 34 houses.
Other points at which Communist troops are maintaining heavy pressure — possibly diversionary in intent — are in the southwesternmost province of Kiên Giang, adjoining the Cambodian border, and several other border provinces. Shelling, mostly by 82‐mm. mortars, was reported at towns in all of these provinces today.
In Long An Province near Route 4, about 25 miles southwest of Saigon, government officers said again yesterday their troops had killed several scores of enemy soldiers and had improved the situation along the highway. Last week, Communist troops shelled the provincial capital, Tân An, followed with a heavy infantry and tank attack, and cut the road. Route 4 is Saigon’s only overland link with the rice‐supplying region in the Mekong Delta. But the Saigon forces succeeded in reopening the road and pushing the Communists back with considerable losses.
There was also some encouraging news for the Government from Phan Thiết, one of the last remaining government-held towns on the South China Sea east of here. The government reported that in air and artillery bombardments outside the town. on Sunday, 375 Communists were killed and 18 weapons captured. It put its own losses at three killed and 22 wounded.
Meanwhile, many South Vietnamese military men were expressing anxiety in conversations with newsmen about the expected imminent end of American aid. “We can fight as hard as anyone on earth,” one said. “But when the valve is closed on April 19, it won’t last more than a couple of weeks. We just cannot go on without bullets and gasoline.” A source familiar with the situation of the air force said yesterday that critical shortages of parts, and supplies for the Northrop F‐5 fighter planes flown by the South Vietnamese had already developed.
“Unless more comes soon, the F‐5’s won’t be flying for more than a couple of weeks longer,” he said. “Of course we will still have A‐37’s and the old, propeller‐driven A‐1’s, but we’re beginning to see the bottom of the barrel, particularly since the huge losses of airplanes during the collapse of Central Vietnam.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee balked at the Ford administration’s request for broad presidential authority to use American troops to protect the evacuation of both American and South Vietnamese citizens from South Vietnam. After an executive session, the committee, at its request, met with President Ford at the White House to present its objections to the use of American troops in the evacuation of anyone other than American citizens. Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, meanwhile, promised “expeditious consideration” of Mr. Ford’s requests, made last Thursday in a speech before a joint session of Congress, for additional military and humanitarian aid for South Vietnam as well as the authority to use American forces in an evacuation effort.
Congress appeared prepared to give the President authority to use troops for the evacuation of Americans still in South Vietnam. But there was growing Congressional concern, as reflected by the discussions within the Foreign Relations Committee, that the Administration’s proposal for evacuation of tens of thousands of South Vietnamese could lead to new military involvement.
The End is now very near in Phnom Penh.
The Cambodian Communist insurgents were within three miles of the western edge of Phnom Penh, and to the north of the capital, one report said. The insurgents raised their flags over factories less than five miles from the city’s edge. The insurgents’ objective seemed to be to cut off the city from Pochentong airport, which is its last supply link with the outside world, and then move into the city.
At 4 PM, a battle was reported going on 500 yards from the Pochentong market. Cambodian reporters returning from the scene said the fighting was heavy. A correspondent and others driving along the road to the airport, watched as single‐engine bombers tried to stop the insurgent advance only a half mile or so north of the road. The planes dived low, trying to drop their bombs exactly on target. The explosion and black clouds of smoke were a backdrop for a steady stream of refugees flowing out of side roads and jamming the main road into the city. While the battle was raging, one pilot turned against the government, veering his fighter‐bomber toward the city and dropping two 250‐pound bombs on command headquarters in the city center before flying off, presumably to land in insurgent territory.
The bombs fell on a military transport office inside the compound, killing at least seven persons and wounding many. Six ambulances were seen driving to and from the scene. No high‐ranking commanders were reported hurt. The pilot was later identified as Lieutenant Khiev Yos Savath. It was difficult to get a coherent picture of the over‐all situation. About the only thing that could be said definitely by late afternoon yesterday was that the insurgents had not entered the city in force. The seriousness of the situation was suggested by jeeps carrying officers into and out of command headquarters, the radio antenna that the International Red Cross hurriedly set up on the roof of the Hotel Le Phnom to communicate with Geneva, and the crowd of Frenchmen and Cambodians who gathered at the French Embassy for sanctuary.
As darkness descended, the battlefields fell surprisingly quiet. The insurgents were still close to the city’s edges but the noises of fighting, as heard from the center of the capital, subsided. It was as if both sides were resting for the next round. The government imposed a 24‐hour curfew starting at noon, and, in radio broadcasts, appealed to the city’s two million people to remain calm. Telegraph and telephone communications to the outside world were still open, but one of the transmission stations at Kambol, west of the city, went dead, after it had come under attack and its staff had fled. When the curfew began, people were still walking and riding in apparent calm along the boulevards in contrast to the scenes of flight on the airport roadways a few miles west of the city.
Not only were villagers and refugees marching on the city in a caravan of fear, but a number of soldiers were also leaving their posts and fleeing with them, fully armed, carrying everything from their rifles to radios. Most refugees said they had not seen the insurgents and had fled as the shelling and bombing came closer. There were unconfirmed reports that insurgent infiltrators, some in uniform, had actually entered the city. The Minister of Information, Thong Lim Huong, called a French newsman to his office to tell him that the military situation had improved. The Minister said there was more harassment than in preceding days. Mr. Huong, who is sleeping in his office these days, also said there had been no insurgent infiltration into the city.
The attack seemed to be coming mainly from the west and northwest. Military planes were still flying, and two internal domestic planes coming from some province capitals were seen landing in the midst of the battle. But the gates of the airport were locked and barricaded with barbed wire. Only a few soldiers could be seen inside, and the immediate perimeter of the airport seemed poorly defended. Apparently all available troops had been rushed to the front lines to the north.
The armed forces commander, Lieutenant General Saksut Sakhan, was in the headquarters at the time of the bombing. He came on the radio two hours later to report the bombing and identify the perpetrators. Until then the radio had been broadcasting patriotic music and messages as well as programs in honor of the threeday Cambodian New Year, which began today. The broadcast was the first acknowledgment of anything unusual. General Saksut Sakhan, who heads the military junta formed three days ago when the Americans withdrew, mentioned only the headquarters bombing and said nothing about how close the insurgents were to the city.
He said that he and the other leaders of the country were “continuing to direct the Government until there is peace.” General Saksut Sakhan said the Americans “are continuing to aid us even though they have temporarily withdrawn their embassy.” He said the Americans could not land supplies because the airport was being shelled, but said United States planes would drop ammunition, fuel and food by parachute on Phnom Penh and isolated province capitals such as Prey Veng, Takeo and Kampot. No airdrops have been observed over Phnom Penh.
General Saksut Sakhan said, “We are also asking other countries and humanitarian organizations to help us with food supplies.” He concluded his brief speech by saying the 24‐hour curfew was being imposed at noon, which was five minutes after he finished speaking. The normal curfew was from 9 PM to 5 AM, but three days ago it was moved back to 7 PM. There was no panic as the curfew began, but the number of worried faces increased as the news of the close fighting on the western outskirts began to filter into town.
When communications lines went down because of the attack on the Kambol transmission station, the four telephone operators handling international calls at the Post Office sat knitting peacefully before their silent switchboard. When an American came in to try to make a call, one of the operators looked up from her needles and said, “If you are leaving the country and you ask me to come with you, I will come right now with all my family.”
Government clerks with strained looks huddled in corridors nervously discussing the news. Efforts by foreigners to cheer them up were useless. The Cambodians are known for their charming smiles, but there were no such faces here, today. Yet it was the refugees streaming down the road from the airport who were really in distress. Some came from new refugee settlements and have spent the entire war fleeing from one battle or another.
“Some of my children are lost,” Men Seung toad newsmen who had stopped to talk with him. “I lost them as we ran. We got separated.” His wife and six of their children were gathered around the 44‐year‐old peasant. Four children were missing. “I have nowhere to go,” he said. “I have fled so many times.”
The refugees came down the road in a hurry, but not in a stampede. It was a crowd scene, but not a mob scene. Cambodians have grown accustomed to such hardships. They came on bullock carts and bicycles with pigs, chickens, mattresses, pots and pans and bundles of firewood. There were monks and children and soldiers. One soldier was pushing his family along in a two-wheeled hand cart. One girl, riding on top of her family’s belongings on a bullock cart, put her fingers in her ears to keep out the thunder of the nearby bombing.
It is difficult to tell whether the government has a chance of holding the city. If the insurgents cut the roads between the city and the airport, they would cut off the government from its main ammunition supplies, which are stored beyond the airport. One unconfirmed report, passed on by a Cambodian journalist who said he got it from government soldiers, said the insurgents at the Pochentong market had told soldiers they found there: “Don’t worry. We will not harm Cambodians. We have come to kill all the Americans.”
It is unknown exactly how many Americans are left in the city, but only six are known to this correspondent, almost all of them newsmen or freelance photographers. Other foreigners include 15 officials of the International Red Cross, six United Nations officials, about a dozen Western European journalists and about 150 French citizens. Except for the French, nearly all the foreigners are staying at the Hotel Le Phnom. The Red Cross representatives are asking their Geneva headquarters to try to get approval from Prince Norodom Sihanouk in Peking to declare the hotel protected neutral zone. Prince Sihanouk is the nominal leader of the insurgents.
The Red Cross contingent includes a Scottish medical team that was still performing surgery as the insurgents approached. The surgeon, Dr. Michael Daley, and the anesthetist, Dr. Murray Carmichael, at Preah Keth Mealea Hospital, treated some of the wounded from the bombing of military headquarters. “I will keep on operating to the end,” the bearded Dr. Daley said, as he scrubbed his hands for his next case, a soldier lying on a blood‐soaked stretcher on the tiled floor of the operating room.
It is uncertain how long communications to the outside world will last. With the transmission station at Kambol abandoned, today’s dispatch was written inside the Post Office in downtown Phnom Penh and was sent out on an emergency transmitter that telegraph employes said had never been used before.
The new military government, in the midst of all its troubles, was sending out cablegrams to its embassies, informing them of the formation of the junta and telling them of the steps it had taken “to mobilize all the energies of the nation and to adopt draconian martial law measures to assure order and security.” The cablegrams ended by saying: “We are counting on all of you to convince the country to which you are accredited of the justness of our struggle and our cause, which seeks only to achieve peace through negotiations and reconciliation between Khmers.”
The insurgents’ successes and the absence of American support elicited a message from an American to the Cambodian military leaders. It read: “I apologizes for my country’s total lack of consideration for the Khmer people who fight so courageously for their freedom. My shame is deep.” It was from Lieutenant Colonel Mark Berent. a former assistant air attaché at the embassy in Phnom Penh, who is retired and living in Metairie, Louisiana.
Merlyn Rees, Britain’s top official in strife-torn Northern Ireland, revealed that he had recently released a man who had tried to assassinate him last May. Offering no details, Rees identified the man as a “loyalist,” indicating that the would-be assassin was a member of the Protestant majority that opposes the efforts of the Roman Catholic minority to push the British out of Northern Ireland. Rees, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, rebuked the top British military man in the province today for criticizing his program of releasing detainees.
A recent decision by the United States to delay its imports and exports of enriched uranium has drawn criticism from energy officials in Western Europe’s Common Market, which is heavily dependent on the United States for nuclear fuel.
A major spokesman for Portugal’s ruling High Council of the Revolution made it clear today that the country was heading toward socialism regardless of the outcome of the election April 25.
A Paris court refused a U.S. request to extradite two Americans who hijacked a plane to Algeria three years ago. It said the pair had acted from political motives, “a sentiment of revolt against the war in Vietnam and against the American policy.” Willy Holder, 25, and Catherine Kerkow, 24, came to France last year and were arrested in January, 1975, on charges of using false identity papers to live in France.
A treaty to protect the Mediterranean from further pollution should be ready for signing early next year, the U.N. Environment Agency said. Legal experts from 13 Mediterranean coastal states and five U.N. organizations now have revised three draft texts that together with further proposals are being sent to foreign ministries for consideration. It is hoped a final treaty will be signed at a conference in Barcelona next February, the agency said.
The World Health Organization said in Geneva that malaria, a major cause of death and debilitation in the world, was raging last year in several countries where eradication seemed just around the corner a few years ago. It warned that a further spread is likely.
Senator Henry M. Jackson (D-Washington) launched a new attack on Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, accusing him of staging a press campaign and charade to blame Israel for the failure of his Middle East diplomacy. Jackson, in a speech at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee dinner in Washington, said: “In public, the Administration urges the view that no useful purpose is served by assessing the blame for the negotiations… In private, Israel is held to be responsible.”
Soviet Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin warned the Arab nations today that they must be “more unified” or risk being at a disadvantage in dealing with Israel and the United States at the Geneva conference on the Middle East.
A new Israeli-designed and manufactured jet fighter, comparable to the French Mirage and the Soviet MiG-21, was displayed at a ceremony in Israel attended by Premier Yitzhak Rabin and most other members of the government. The Kfir is the latest version of the supersonic Mirage family of aircraft produced in Israel. An earlier, less sophisticated model was used successfully against the Arab air forces in the October, 1973 war. This was the first time that Israel had displayed any of the planes in public.
Street fighting between Palestinian guerrillas and armed militiamen of a right‐wing Lebanese party paralyzed Beirut today as machine‐gun fire and exploding rockets caused many casualties. Meanwhile, the Government of Premier Rashid al‐Solh announced the arrest of 14 persons as a result of an investigation of a machine‐gun ambush yesterday of a bus carrying Palestinians from a rally. According to the Palestinian press agency, members of the Phalangist party of Pierre Gemayel, a conservative Christian leader, killed 27 persons aboard the bus and wounded 19. The Phalangist, or Kataeb, party is a nationalistic group made up mostly of Maronite Christians and Greek Catholics. It is opposed to the Palestinian guerrilla presence in Lebanon.
Under cover of darkness early today, Palestinians or their sympathizers attacked several local offices of the Phalangist party, blew up some shops, a filling station and a small factory owned by a Phalangist, and fired rockets into neighborhoods identified as Phalangist strongholds. These sectors, such as the big Ashrafiya residential and commercial sector near the port, were sealed off by roadblocks manned by Phalangist militiamen carrying submachine guns. In the vicinity of the French market in the center of the Old City, four attackers were killed when Phalangists protecting a party office fired a rocket that demolished an automobile as it approached the area. The Palestinians also set up fortified positions around their camps, but a unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization ordered commandos to remain in the camps.
Voters in the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim overwhelmingly approved abolishing that nation’s monarchy and merging with neighboring India. The final result was 59,637 in favor and only 1,496 against.
Ten prisoners released by China after serving prison terms as “war criminals” arrived in Hong Kong on their way to Taiwan. Tuan Ke-wen, a former major general in the Nationalist army who had been held for 26 years, said he had been well-treated. The 10, including 2 lieutenant generals, 4 major generals, and 4 colonels, were among 293 war prisoners released March 19 under a special amnesty decreed by Chairman Mao Tsetung.
Nearly complete returns from Japan’s local elections pointed to a moderate swing back toward the political right today after a steady drift to the left in recent years.
A Filipino chess official said that former world chess champion Bobby Fischer had reconsidered and now wanted to play Anatoly Karpov of the Soviet Union for the world title he gave up to the Russian by default. Florencio Campomanes, a vice president of the International Chess Federation, said in Manila that Fischer had called him from South Pasadena and asked him to send a cable to Karpov through the Soviet Chess Federation for the purpose of arranging talks on holding a match.
A powerful bomb blast rocked Argentine navy headquarters in Buenos Aires, and guerrillas’ tried to take over a town in east-central Santa Fe province as political violence in Argentina continued. The explosion wrecked several offices but there were no casualties, a navy spokesman said. In Santa Fe, left-wing guerrillas tried to take over San Jeronimo Norte, 290 miles north of Buenos Aires, but met strong resistance.
Argentine President Isabel Martinez de Perón emerged with a sorely needed political boost from elections yesterday in the small northeastern Argentine province of Misiones.
The Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, the African nationalist leader released from jail by Rhodesia and flown to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for a meeting of African governments, will not return home to face possible reimprisonment, a spokesman said. Mr. Sithole was arrested March 4 and accused of planning the assassination of three rival leaders in the African National Council and of failing to order a cease-fire in the guerrilla campaign against Rhodesia’s white minority regime.
John Connally, Secretary of the Treasury in the Nixon administration and a former Governor of Texas, testified in his trial on bribery charges in Washington that he had not sought or accepted $10,000 in payoffs for helping dairy farmers to obtain increased federal price supports in 1971. He took the witness stand after Lady Bird Johnson, the Rev. Billy Graham and Representative Barbara Jordan of Texas gave testimony as character witnesses in his defense.
Under a bill passed by the House of Representatives, federal loans would be made to the unemployed to help them meet mortgage payments on their homes if foreclosure was imminent. The bill passed by a vote of 321 to 21. Unemployed homeowners would be eligible for loans of up to $250 a month for up to two years. It is estimated that 300,000 families could be helped.
E. Howard Hunt Jr., scheduled to resume his interrupted Watergate prison sentence on April 25, asked U.S. District Judge John J. Sirica in Washington, DC, to reduce the time he has left to serve. Hunt spent less than a year of his 2½ to 8-year sentence in prison when he was released on appeal. He lost the appeal and last week was ordered to report to the prison farm at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Hunt, 57, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping after the Watergate break-in. He later tried to withdraw his plea and unsuccessfully appealed when Sirica would not permit him to do so.
President Ford participated in the swearing-in of the six members of the new federal election commission and told them they have a major responsibility to assure that the nation has clean elections and fair elections.” The commission, established in the wake of the Watergate scandals, is to administer the Campaign Reform Act of 1974. Members are Chairman Thomas Curtis, Vice Chairman Neil Staebler, Vernon Thomson, Robert Tiernan, Joan D. Aikens and Thomas E. Harris.
The executive director of the presidential commission investigating the Central Intelligence Agency said so far there had been no evidence to support allegations it was involved in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. David W. Belin, who was also a member of the Warren Commission that found that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for Kennedy’s death, made his remark after the 13th closed meeting of the commission headed by Vice President Rockefeller. Thus far we have not found any credible evidence that the CIA was involved as a party in the assassination,” he said.
Charles E. Goodell, chairman of the Presidential Clemency Board, told a House judiciary subcommittee that President Ford did not extend the program because any more applications would push the board beyond September 16, 1975, the date when the President’s authority to maintain the board without congressional approval ends. Only 65 cases have been disposed of by the President, with about 18,700 remaining to be resolved. Goodell said 20 of the cases Mr. Ford has dealt with ended with full and immediate pardons. He added that more than 200 applications were filed after the March 31 deadline and were thus ineligible.
The president of an Oak Ridge, Tennessee, nuclear fuel fabricating firm that shipped enriched uranium to South Africa said it would be virtually impossible to make an atomic weapon from the material. Sam Weaver, head of U.S. Nuclear Corp., said his firm shipped the 24½ pounds of highly enriched uranium under an export license approved by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wisconsin) had charged that the shipment provided enough uranium to make a bomb. Weaver said, however, “there are international safeguards to prevent this.”
Oregon health officials said nine persons involved with the Trojan nuclear power plant were in positions to have been exposed to radioactive Iridium 192 during a two-day period last week and one of them might have been exposed to one-third of a fatal dose. Officials said all of them had been examined for radiation effects on white blood cells and were awaiting the results of the tests. The investigation began when a radioactive pellet was discovered loose in the bed of a pickup truck two days after it had last been logged into its lead container. Officials said the iridium was used to make X rays of welds and pipe joints.
The United States Commission on Civil Rights stated in a formal report its opposition to a constitutional amendment or legislation restricting the freedom of women to obtain abortions. The commission’s unanimous report said that a constitutional amendment restricting access to abortion would “undermine the First, Ninth and 14th Amendments.” Cardinal Cooke of New York said the report was “shocking.”
The nation’s businesses succeeded in reducing top-heavy inventories by a record $1.5 billion in February, mainly because car dealers reduced their bulging stocks, principally through a temporary rebate offer. Inventory changes for most other lines of business were small, both up and down. In January, unsold automobiles represented a substantial inventory problem. The decline in automobile inventories suggests that the inventory liquidation is well underway, a Commerce Department official said. A reduction of inventories is generally regarded by economists as a condition for economic recovery.
“No-frills service” began for airline passengers in the United States, as National Airlines began offering a 35 percent discount off the air fare for passengers who were willing to give up airline food and drink service. Four other airlines– American, Continental, Eastern and Delta began offering discount service the same day. All five had obtained permission from the Civil Aeronautics Board.
The Federal Election Commission, created on October 15, 1974, began operations with the swearing in of six commissioners by U.S. President Ford.
Fredric March, who appeared on the stage and in motion pictures over a span of 50 years, died of cancer yesterday at Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Mr. March, who was 77 years old, had been hospitalized since April 5.
“A Chorus Line,” which would go on to become a long running Broadway musical, was first performed, at the New York Shakespeare Festival.
Major League Baseball:
Oakland Athletics 3, Kansas City Royals 2
Cincinnati Reds 2, Los Angeles Dodgers 5
New York Mets 3, Philadelphia Phillies 4
Chicago Cubs 4, Pittsburgh Pirates 2
San Diego Padres 3, San Francisco Giants 1
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 806.95 (+17.45, +2.21%)
Born:
Kevin O’Neill, NFL linebacker (Detroit Lions), in Twinsburg, Ohio.
Frank Banham, Canadian NHL right wing (Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Phoenix Coyotes), in Calahoo, Alberta, Canada.
Amy Dumas, American professional wrestler, billed as “Lita”, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Anderson Silva, Brazilian UFC fighter and boxer, World Middleweight Champion since 2006, in São Paulo.
Avner Dorman, Israeli composer (“Variations Without A Theme”; “Dialogues of Love”), conductor, and educator, in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.
Stefano Miceli, Italian conductor and pianist, in Brindisi.
Died:
Fredric March, 77, American film actor (“Death of a Salesman”, “Inherit the Wind”), Academy Award winner for Best Actor in 1931 (“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”) and 1946 (“The Best Years of Our Lives”), of prostate cancer.
Clyde Tolson, 74, associate director of the FBI, second only to J. Edgar Hoover.
History Diaries 