Today, under the cover of heavy rain, South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians began pulling out from Xuân Lộc, in a convoy of about 200 military vehicles. The Battle of Xuân Lộc, the last meaningful battle of the Vietnam War, is over, and with the North Vietnamese victory, the last hope of Saigon is gone. President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu has lost much of his support and now makes plans to resign and flee into exile.
Communist divisions were reported maneuvering rapidly near Saigon with the obvious intention of sealing off the capital from all approaches. The Communists refrained from attacks on Saigon’s immediate vicinity, however, as part of a change in tactics that became evident Saturday when the deputy chief of the Việt Cộng military delegation in the South Vietnamese capital hinted that the Communists might delay a military onslaught on the capital to allow time for a possible peaceful conclusion of the war. Until this development, the Communists had advanced through South Vietnam swiftly.
Two North Vietnamese divisions are known to have moved out of the Tây Ninh area, neat the Cambodian border. One of them, the Ninth Division, is said to be moving into Long An Province south of Saigon, presumably to cut Route 4, which leads to the riceproducing Mekong River delta. Despite the threat to the highway, fighting near Route 4 yesterday in the vicinity of Bến Tranh, 26 miles from Saigon, was said to be moderate. Last night, however, Communist forces reportedly sent eight rounds of heavy 122 mm rockets into Tân An, the capital of Long An Province, wounding several soldiers. The heaviest fighting of the day, according to the Saigon military spokesmen, appeared to have been in the vicinity of Hàm Tân, the capital of coastal Bình Tuy Province, 63 miles east of Saigon.
The Saigon spokesman said that early today a full‐scale Communist attack, supported by tanks, had been launched against Hàm Tân and that a battle was in progress. Enemy forces in that area were said to greatly outnumber Saigon’s troops. The Communist units moving against Hàm Tân were presumably the same ones that overran Phan Thiết, a province capital farther up the coast, on Saturday. If Hàm Tân falls, the next apparent target will be Vũng Tàu — should Vũng Tàu be taken, Saigon will have lost its last access to any port on the South China Sea. Communist control of Vũng Tàu would also choke off the waterway system, including the Lòng Tàu River, that provides direct sea access for Saigon. Northeast of Saigon, the fighting along Route 1 in the vicinity of Xuân Lộc reportedly continued with no significant change. Xuân Lộc, which by now has been leveled, was reportedly under nearly constant shelling but still in government hands.
Closer to Saigon, the Biên Hòa air base was struck by 15 shells yesterday. However, since air combat operations there have virtually halted, the shelling made little difference. Along the northwest approach to Saigon, despite the depletion of major North Vietnamese strength around Tây Ninh because of movement toward Saigon, regional Việt Cộng troops were said to be keeping up the pressure. Two hamlets along Route 22 in an area 11 miles southeast of Tây Ninh were reported heavily attacked by two Việt Cộng regional battalions yesterday morning. One of these towns, Bàu Màu, was said to have been bombarded by 100 rockets and by noon Communist troops reportedly had foothold in the town. The other town, Trà Vỏ, was also heavily attacked and may have been overrun. Air support was sent to the government defenders, but one of the air force’s rapidly dwindling number of Northrop F-5E fighters was said to have been shot down by a heat‐seeking missile.
Twenty‐five miles south of Tây Ninh, about 5,000 more Vietnamese became refugees when a string of hamlets along Route 22 was bombarded by 107 mm rockets yesterday. Reports from the area said that 40 rockets had struck and many houses destroyed. While the fighting continued to exact a high cost to both sides in troops and material, there was growing speculation that the final military showdown was still weeks away. Given the momentum they have maintained during the last month, North Vietnamese and Việt Cộng forces, now about 10 divisions strong within striking distance of Saigon, are believed capable of assaulting the capital at any moment. But reports from Moscow and other Communist sources, including the Việt Cộng, strongly suggest that if President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu resigned soon, and if most of the Americans, including Ambassador Graham A. Martin, were to leave, the Communists would negotiate an end of the war.
The Việt Cộng today denied United States charges that they were taking reprisals against former South Vietnamese Government workers in areas under their control, the North Vietnamese press agency reported. The agency also said that North Vietnam had denied a Laotian charge that its troops were operating inside Laos.
The flow of people leaving South Vietnam — which started with a trickle two weeks ago — has developed into what appears to be the major airlift sought by President Ford. Nearly 500 Americans and Vietnamese arrived at Clark Air Base in the Philippines from Saigon’s Tân Sơn Nhứt airfield and 217 others who arrived at the Philippine airport during the last two weeks have already left for California.
In Cambodia, customary news channels have been silenced, and confused reports have filtered out through refugees and clandestine radios. A radio station in Cambodia broadcast revolutionary music and heroic exhortations yesterday, but provided no news of developments in the war‐torn nation. Virtually no other sources of substantive information were available. Customary news channels have been silenced since the surrender of Phnom Penh, the capital, to Communist forces on Thursday. Confused, unconfirmed and often conflicting reports have filtered out through refugees and from clandestine radios.
But doubts remained about the fate of former Cambodian government leaders and foreigners and about the possibility of continued fighting in isolated outlying provinces. A Thai Government intelligence report and a French news correspondent in Phnom Penh reported through channels that were not explained that former Premier Long Boret had been captured by the Communists and was still alive. The Phnom Penh radio was silent yesterday, and efforts to communicate with the capital by telephone or Telex machine from neighboring countries were unsuccessful. One broadcast attributed to a Communist radio station in Cambodia was believed to be from Kratie, a provincial capital 95 miles northeast of Phnom Penh.
Marshal Lon Nol, the former Cambodian President, plans to buy a $103,000 house in a Honolulu subdivision, a realtor says. An agent for Mike McCormack Realtors here said that the former President last week visited the home in the Hawaii Kai subdivision, situated in a mountain‐ringed valley. He and his wife liked the house, the agent said, and decided to buy it. Marshall Lon Nol, his family and about 20 other Cambodians in his entourage are staying in special quarters at Hickam Air Force Base, near Honolulu. The two‐story, four‐bedroom house is situated in the Mariner’s Cove section of the subdivision originally developed by Henry Kaiser.
New Premier Suleyman Demirel said Turkey will review its military commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if the United States does not lift its arms embargo against Turkey within a reasonable time. “How long we can wait depends on what develops in the U.S. Congress in the next two weeks,” he said in Ankara.
More than 1,000 Greek and Greek Cypriot women dressed in black and carrying candles and flags gathered in New York to protest the displacement of 200,000 refugees from their homes in northern Cyprus. Similar marches were held In Cyprus, Athens, London, Toronto and Paris. Some 20,000 women marched in Athens and 20,000 in Cyprus. “In this International Wornen’s Year, we hope that women an do more than men to help implement the United Nations resolution of last November calling for the safe return of Cyprus refugees to their homes,” said Dr. Admantia Pollis, professor at the New School for Social Research, who spoke on behalf of the International League for the Rights of Man.
At various times in the last month, Greeks have done without bus drivers, bank clerks, air traffic controllers, garbage collectors, teachers, newspaper reporters, doctors, postmen and even the croupiers at the Mount Parnis Casino. All these groups‐have participated in a growing wave of strikes, and the Government seems increasingly concerned. Premier Konstantine Karamanlis has called some of the walkouts “inopportune and unjustified,” and said they threatened the “mild political climate” necessary for the smooth functioning of democracy. With the country caught in a severe recession, the government is afraid that the economy cannot afford to meet rising union demands. Moreover, it fears that large wage settlements would refuel inflation, which topped 30 percent year ago and is now running at about 13 percent.
Thousands of Italians marched in the streets to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the fall of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. The celebrations lent an air of carnival to most major cities although in the preceding four days clashes between left-wing extremists and police left three dead and more than 200 injured.
A wave of political violence throughout Italy during the last few days has suddenly heightened tension, while party leaders and newspapers are accusing Premier Aldo Moro’s Government of weakness and the police of incompetence.
The state prosecutor’s office in Cologne, West Germany, took over investigation of a fire that swept through the Dutch excursion boat Princess Irene killing at least 19 elderly and disabled passengers while the boat was moored at a Rhine River pier. The passengers and crew were asleep when the fire broke out. The exact death toll will not be known until cranes have raised the boat from the bottom of the river.
Amnesty International, the London-based rights groups, said it has found there are 252 women being held as political prisoners in 25 countries of the world and that some of them had been subjected to sexual brutality by male interrogators. Amnesty said that since it is U.N. International Women’s Year, “it seems particularly important to note the plight of women imprisoned throughout the world.”
Government officials in Jerusalem say that Israel has no intention of softening her negotiating position on a new Sinai accord or even considering a new negotiating strategy with the United States until the Ford administration agrees to resume talks on pending arms requests. The Israeli leaders see no purpose in offering Egypt new proposals until there are “practical signs” that the present chill in Israeli-United States relations has passed.
King Hassan of Morocco, chairman of the Arab League, canceled an official visit to Washington that was to have begun Tuesday. A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Rabat said the trip was “postponed” at the king’s request. Moroccan sources gave three major reasons for the king’s decision: the failure of Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s latest Middle East peace efforts; the assassination of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and the military collapse of U.S. allies in Indochina.
A long-term arrangement for the United States to receive oil from Saudi Arabia at a fixed price in return for industrial expertise is a possibility. Saudi Arabia’s petroleum minister said. In an interview on the CBS television program Face the Nation, Sheik Ahmad Zaki Yamani declined to say at what level the price of the oil might be set, but indicated that the agreement would cover all the oil needed by the United States.
Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, a 250-acre cultural theme park that was envisioned by First Lady Ibu Tien as “Indonesia on a miniature scale”, was opened at East Jakarta, to illustrate the many cultures of the nation of more than 200,000,000 people.
Krishna Balaram Mandir, the main temple for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), was opened in Vrindavan, in the Uttar Pradesh State of India, by ISKCON founder Srila Prabhupada.
More than 1,000 separatist Muslim rebels have mounted an offensive against government forces in the towns of Luuk and Patikul on Jolo Island in the southern Philippines, unofficial sources said in Manila. Reports of renewed fighting on the island 600 miles south of the capital came as 200 leaders of moderate Muslim rebel factions agreed to a ceasefire after talks with government representatives.
Latin America has become the major source of hard drugs entering the United States. Much of this is supplied by rings controlled by businessmen and professionals so politically and economically powerful that they operate with virtual immunity from arrest and prosecution, according to a two-month investigation by The New York Times. All of the cocaine sold in the New York City metropolitan area now comes from Latin America and the demand has sent the price of coca leaves, from which the drug is extracted, soaring from $4 to $60 a bale in some Latin countries in the last two years. And Mexico has supplanted France as the main supplier of heroin, increasing its share of the illegal heroin market here from 20 to 60 percent in the last five years.
When Secretary of State Kissinger comes to Rio de Janeiro Friday as part of a tour of Latin America, the Brazilians will undoubtedly want to talk primarily about United States trade policy, which the Brazilians see as a threat to their industrial progress.
The chief of staff of the Nigerian Army was recently quoted as having called Nigerian journalists politically and financially “corrupt.” The allegation by Major General David Ejoor set off one of the loudest and most sustained battles in this country’s war between the press and the Government. Journalists’ and editors’ groups issued a variety of protests and held a demonstration. But Nigeria’s head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, warned that news conferences would be stopped if reporters “continued” to misrepresent the views of Nigerian leaders.
President Kenneth D. Kaunda of Zambia, in Washington for a state visit, said he found President Ford to be a “very honest and sincere man” but that he, Kaunda, had no reason to apologize for remarks critical of U.S. policies in Africa which he made in a toast to Mr. Ford at a White House dinner Saturday night. During the toast Kaunda referred to U.S. abstentions during U.N. votes denouncing South Africa and Rhodesia for not moving quickly enough toward black majority rule.
President Ford has selected Daniel Patrick Moynihan, recently American Ambassador to India, as the new United States representative to the United Nations. The appointment will go to the Senate for confirmation before Mr. Moynihan, who is 48 years old, replaces John Scali, who has represented the United States at the United Nations since 1973. Mr. Moynihan left India last January, returning to his professorship in government at Harvard University.
In the less than three years since the United States Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment as practiced in America was unconstitutional, 31 states have reenacted the death penalty and the trend is continuing. Whether the new death penalty laws are constitutional is in serious dispute. In the case of a convicted murderer from North Carolina, now before the Supreme Court may provide an answer.
President Richard M. Nixon’s White House office was bugged with a laser beam transmitting device for several months in 1970, “apparently controlled by one of the intelligence agencies, according to an article to appear in Penthouse magazine. Reporter Tad Szulc wrote that the device was embedded in a wall. The article quotes “highly reliable sources” as saying that senior officials of the Secret Service and the Central Intelligence Agency were “familiar with the bug. But a spokesman for the Secret Service said the agency “was never informed of the installation” and “we do not believe such a system could have been installed.” The CIA refused to comment.
Homicide detectives said an inmate found hanged at the Washington, D.C.. jail after a jailbreak and a tense 17-hour prisoners’ revolt had once testified for the government in a trial of inmates in connection with a takeover at the jail in 1972. Still at large were the two men whose Saturday morning break set off the revolt, during which inmates held 12 persons hostage until they got an agreement for a study of their complaints. Jail officials said the dead inmate, identified as Robert Seegers, 25, had been beaten and hanged by a bedsheet in the maximum security cellblock.
A drive to ban handgun bullets — and in effect outlaw handguns themselves — picked up a major endorsement from the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, DC. The mayors told the Consumer Product Safety Commission it should approve a petition asking for the ban because of “mounting evidence of handgun injury and death. combined with the impulsive nature of handgun violence.” The Chicago-based Committee for Handgun Control originally asked the commission last year to ban pistol bullets except for police, military and registered sporting club use. A ruling is expected sometime next month.
United Auto Workers President Leonard Woodcock is urging Democrats to unite behind a single candidate to make sure President Ford is replaced next year. Woodcock strongly criticized the Administration’s Vietnam and economic policies in a Democratic Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner speech in Detroit and called for the party to avoid the kind of divisiveness in next year’s primaries that might have cost it the White House in 1972.
Hospitals in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and in surrounding Broward County increased their regular schedule of operations over the weekend in preparation for a walkout by anesthesiologists today that will halt all but emergency surgery. The strike, expected to involve about 50 anesthesiologists in the county’s 18 hospitals, was called to protest sharp increases in the cost of malpractice insurance and the threatened cancellation of the insurance by Argonaut Insurance Co. of Menlo Park, California. The firm provides about 90% of the malpractice coverage in Florida.
Relatively high unemployment has become the new hallmark of an affluent United States — a phenomenon that many experts believe may persist beyond the depths of the current recession and through the remaining years of this decade. A recent Gallup poll showed Americans still view inflation as the country’s No. 1 menace, although worries about unemployment have increased.
Two years after Congress authorized the use of billions of dollars of federal highway funds for mass transit projects, the results have proved bitterly disappointing to the advocates who hailed the congressional action as a great victory. Although the program made available over three years nearly $2.4 billion, no more than $34.6 million has been awarded so far — and that to only two places, New York City and East St. Louis, Illinois — and only a handful of other communities have even applied for money.
More suicide attempts are preceded by a serious argument with a spouse than by any other stress situation, according to a medical study of persons who have tried to kill themselves. Also high on the list are serious personal illness or family illness, moving to a new house, a new person in the home and a court appearance for an offense. Far down the list are job and financial difficulties. The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, said the striking feature among those who attempt suicide, as compared to control groups, was that a combination of these problems had occurred just before the suicide attempt.
The lack of general public attention to Earth Week — which began with little or no fanfare Sunday — does not mean the environmental crusade is weakening, according to Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin), who helped found the annual event five years ago. Speaking in Milwaukee, Nelson said the environmental movement may have become more routine, but it is “several times stronger” than it was on the first Earth Day — April 22, 1970. “The most significant thing that has happened is that for the first time in the history of the country, environmental protection became part of the normal, regular political dialogue,” he added.
Even a very minute amount of lead in the body can cause nerve damage, according to a report published in the April issue of Archives of Environmental Health, a publication of the American Medical Association. The report said the effects of lead on nerves was discovered by a group of Finnish scientists using highly sensitive methods capable of detecting nerve damage at a very early stage. As a result of their tests, the research team from the Institute of Occupational Health at Helsinki said, “present concepts of safe and unsafe lead levels in the blood must be reconsidered.”
29th Tony Awards: “Equus” (play) & “The Wiz” (musical) win.
Major League Baseball:
In Cincinnati, Pete Rose belts a 2–run homer with 2 outs in the 9th to give the Reds a 5–3 win over the Astros. The Astros come back to edge the Reds in game 2, 7–6.
Darrell Evan’s fourth homer of the season, following a leadoff double by Marty Perez in the ninth, provided the Braves with a 4–3 triumph over the Padres. Successive homers by Dave Winfield and Mike Ivie in the fourth gave San Diego a 3‐1 lead. Ivie, an Atlanta native, had eight hits during the three‐game series.
Al Fitzmorris’s pitching and Fred Patek’s two‐run triple led the Royals to their ninth victory in 11 games and their fifth in a row as they down the Rangers, 2–0. The Royals are off to their best start in the club’s history.
San Diego Padres 3, Atlanta Braves 4
Baltimore Orioles 2, Boston Red Sox 10
California Angels 8, Chicago White Sox 4
Houston Astros 3, Cincinnati Reds 5
Houston Astros 7, Cincinnati Reds 6
Milwaukee Brewers 4, Cleveland Indians 7
New York Yankees 7, Detroit Tigers 1
San Francisco Giants 6, Los Angeles Dodgers 3
Chicago Cubs 6, New York Mets 8
Chicago Cubs 3, New York Mets 4
Minnesota Twins 1, Oakland Athletics 4
Minnesota Twins 1, Oakland Athletics 5
Pittsburgh Pirates 5, St. Louis Cardinals 0
Kansas City Royals 2, Texas Rangers 0
Born:
Atifete Jahjaga, first female President of Kosovo (2011-2016), in Gjakovë, SR Serbia, Yugoslavia.
Killer Mike [Michael Santiago Render], American rapper, singer and activist, in Atlanta, Georgia.
History Diaries 