General Alexander M. Haig Jr. has begun to alter the deployment of United States forces on the central European front to correct a long-standing strategic weakness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The objective, the Supreme Allied Commander said in an interview, is to strengthen forces on the northern sector of a front that runs from Denmark to Switzerland. The most powerful Soviet armored forces, being equipped with the latest tanks, are concentrated on the North German plain in East Germany. One of the two American infantry brigades being added to the NATO forces will be assigned to the Northern Army Group area, held at present by West German, British, Belgian, Dutch and Canadian forces.
What General Haig termed the maldeployment of forces, especially those of the United States Seventh Army, has been sharply criticized in the United States and other alliance countries on the ground that the best force, the Seventh Army, is too far south to share in the defense of the North German plain, across which Soviet tanks would be expected to attack. West German military leaders, the only dissenters, would prefer a stronger concentration facing Czechoslovakia, where the Russians have maintained five divisions since 1968.
White House Press Secretary Ron Nessen said that President Tito of Yugoslavia was mistranslated when he apparently said his views on the Middle East were identical with those of President Ford. Nessen told reporters that President Tito in fact had said, “The President views the situation in the Middle East as very dangerous. In that, our views are identical.” The interpreter failed to translate the words “in that,” implying that Ford shared Tito’s strong pro-Arab sentiments, Nessen said.
A five-day siege of the Communist party headquarters in the Portuguese textile town of Vila Nova de Famalicao ended when thousands of townspeople broke through an encircling cordon of troops, who withheld their fire, and sacked the premises. Residents, angered by the accidental killing of two men by the troops Sunday night, said they were determined to show the people’s hostility to a Communist dictatorship. An engineer said that if the soldiers had fired today it would have led to the start of a civil war.
One year after Turkish troops invaded Cyprus and occupied 40 per cent of its territory, Ankara shows little willingness, or ability, to negotiate a political solution for the island’s future. The Congressional decision to continue the American arms embargo against Turkey is only one of many reasons why the Ankara Government is taking such a stand. The embargo was aimed at putting pressure on Turkey to make concessions on Cyprus but it has not succeeded. At the Vienna talks on Cyprus, negotiators agreed to allow several thousand ethnic Turks to move to the Turkish sector in northern Cyprus, and about 800 ethnic Greeks to return to their homes in the same area. But the two sides remain far apart on the key issues: the powers of the central government and the amount of territory allocated to each ethnic community.
The British government, battling the worst unemployment in 35 years, announced a $22 a week per worker subsidy to help private firms save threatened jobs. The subsidy would be paid for each deferred dismissal of a full-time worker. The plan, due to start August 18, would cover all employment in the private sector of industry and commerce in government-designated areas, such as the hard-hit west and northeast of England, and Scotland.
Gunmen wounded a policeman in Valencia and suspected right-wing extremists bombed a bookstore in Zaragoza as political violence spread from Spain’s big cities to the provinces. The Valencia attack followed the pattern of three shootings in Madrid that killed two policemen and injured two others. Police have blamed them on Marxist guerrillas. Right-wing extremists have answered left-wing violence by ransacking homes of suspected foes of the regime and by bombing bookstores featuring Marxist literature.
A giant hydrogen balloon carrying a ton of scientific equipment was launched from Trapani, Sicily, at the start of a flight scheduled to end in Texas. The aim of the mission is to study certain aspects of cosmic-originated gamma ray and X-ray phenomena, which cannot be observed from the earth because of the filtering effect of the atmosphere. The balloon is expected to take a week to reach its destination, about 6,250 miles away.
A pre-dawn Israeli commando raid accompanied by artillery fire, and a mid-day fighter‐bomber attack on Palestinian refugee areas near Tyre, took 16 lives today, according to reports from the southern Lebanese city. Twenty‐eight persons were wounded. In a day of violent cross‐border exchanges, which have become almost commonplace, Palestinian guerrillas also attacked the Israeli town of Qiryat Shemona. Premier Rashid Karami, who is a fairly outspoken‐defender of the Palestinian movement, denounced the Israeli attacks in Parliament and said that Lebanon was singled out for reprisals even when the commandos mounted operations within Israel. A Lebanese communiqué said that four army lieutenants were killed and a fifth was wounded in the early morning Israeli raid against the Tyre garrison and the refugee camp of Al Buss, near the city. The four officers were apparently hit by naval gunfire that struck the officers’ club. A child was also reported killed.
Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz said that Israel was not getting everything in military hardware it wants from the United States, but he insisted there was no U.S. embargo on such deliveries. “We are, of course, never satisfied, but you can’t talk about an embargo or stoppage,” Dinitz told reporters after a 90-minute meeting with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger on Egypt’s latest proposals for a new interim settlement in the Sinai Desert.
The State Department said today that some progress has been made but that “substantial differences” remained between Egypt and Israel on the terms for a new agreement on the Sinar Peninsula. Robert Anderson, the depart ment spokesman, made the comment before a late‐afternoon meeting at the State Department between Secretary of State Kissinger and Ambassador Simcha Dinitz of Israel. Mr. Kissinger turned over to Mr. Dinitz the latest Egyptian response on the terms for the Sinai accord. After the 90‐minute meeting, Mr. Dinitz was asked whether he was satisfied with the new Egyptian ideas. He replied that while he could not go into details, “the course of negotiations is going on and this very fact is a good sign.” Negotiations for a new limited accord have now gone on intensively for two Months. Israeli and Egyptian proposals and counterproposals are conveyed, to Washington where they are passed on to the other side, often with the American suggestions for breaking a deadlock.
The lower house of Parliament, voting by acclamation, today approved legislation designed to end Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s entanglement with the courts by changing the law under which she was convicted eight weeks ago. Then, the house went a step farther and voted to remove from the law the section under which Mrs. Gandhi would have been disqualified from holding office for six years if her conviction had been upheld on appeal. “This bill seeks to remove loopholes in the act,” explained Law Minister K. R. Gokhale, as members of the ruling Congress party seated behind him in the chamber thunderously slapped their desks, the traditional sign of approval.
An armored car of the Hang Seng Bank was robbed of 75 million Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to USD $10,000,000.
President Ferdinand E. Marcos told touring U.S. congressmen that the United States can use its huge military bases in the Philippines as long as the installations are under Philippine government control. “The Filipino people voluntarily give to the American people the facilities to maintain their position in the sea lanes and air lanes of the western Pacific and thus keep the present balance and equilibrium among the world powers.” Marcos said.
Drought has destroyed as much as 80% of the corn crop in Honduras, which lost most of its 1974 crop because of Hurricane Fifi, and up to 700,000 people face possible famine, the Miami Herald reported.
The rural guerrillas of Nicaragua appear to be gaining strength slowly despite a determined effort by the 40-yearold Somoza family regime to flush them out of the mountains and cut them off from their peasant supporters. Although the government has announced that seven guerrillas were killed by the National Guard on Thursday, reports reaching the northern city of Matagalpa from nearby mountain villages say that at least 15 soldiers have died in recent clashes with the so‐called Sandinist Naitonal Liberation Front. The reported death of the rebels, however, is the first official confirmation of continuing guerrilla activites since the Sandinists seized 12 prominent Nicaraguans at a Christmas party in Managua December 27 last year and exchanged them for 14 political prisoners, who were flown to Cuba. Since then, the country has been under martial law, with all constitutional guarantees suspended and strict censorship of newspapers and radio stations. All references to guerrilla activities are also eliminated from dispatches sent by the local correspondents of foreign news agencies.
A new Supreme Military Council, the highest ruling body in Nigeria, was sworn in today, one week after the country’s apparently bloodless coup d’état. Made up primarily of young army officers — the highest are brigadiers and the lowest captains — the 22‐man council also contains two police officials and three naval officers. During swearing‐in ceremonies, Nigeria’s new head of state, Brigadier Muritala Rufai Mohammed, repeated a theme adopted by the new leaders that “by the timely intervention of the armed forces, the people of Nigeria have another opportunity to start again the task of rebuilding the nation.” In a brief address, Brigadier Mohammed said the council “has an urgent task before it” and would have to “get down to business at once.”
An Angolan liberation movement that had remained aloof from the fighting between two other nationalist forces mobilized its troops and ordered them to shoot back if provoked. After an emergency meeting, the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola put its forces on alert and ordered them to return fire in “self-defense, in any case of provocation, and to actively engage in the protection of civilians without distinction for color, if the need arises.”
South African troops drove ten miles into Angola, resulting in a decision by Cuba to increase its presence in the African nation.
U.S. President Ford signed into law a U.S. Senate resolution posthumously restoring the American citizenship of Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee, restoring his American citizenship. Lee had died in 1870, but had signed an oath of allegiance in 1865 as part of being granted amnesty. “Although more than a century late,” President Ford said, “I am delighted to sign this resolution and to complete the full restoration of General Lee’s citizenship.”
President Ford, who returned late last night from a five-nation trip to Europe, will visit a Vietnamese refugee camp in Arkansas on his way to a working vacation in Vail, Colorado, Sunday, the White House announced today.
Charles O’Brien, foster son and former bodyguard of the missing James Hoffa, emerged as a potentially important figure in efforts to find the former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, missing since last Wednesday. According to informed sources, investigators were trying to locate Mr. O’Brien, now an organizer with the union, as a prime witness in the case. He has been known as a close associate of Anthony Giacolone, named in 1963 Senate hearings as a top Mafia figure, who has been identified by the Hoffa family as one of three men Mr. Hoffa was to have seen the day he disappeared.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation opened and photographed foreign and domestic mail, chiefly addressed to Soviet-bloc missions in New York City and in Washington, from 1958 until possibly 1970, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operation. The F.B.I. acknowledged doing this to thwart espionage efforts until former Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered the activity stopped in 1966. It said nothing of this sort was undertaken after 1966.
A federal plan for improving the health of the nation proposes restrictions on liquor advertising and on the sale of cigarettes with high tar and nicotine contents as a way to cut the amount of death and disease. The staff proposal from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare is now being studied by outgoing Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger. HEW health experts said factors such as diet, consumption of alcohol, smoking habits, environmental pollution and occupational hazards play as great a part in the health of the nation as such traditional areas of medicine as the availability of doctors and hospitals.
The federal government presented Philadelphia’s redevelopment authority with an audit challenging nearly $14 million in authority spending as either unjustified or questionable. The audit, the joint effort of federal, state and city agencies, reviewed 31⁄2 years and involved about $520 million in federal money and $13 million in state and city money spent on neighborhood improvement and urban redevelopment projects. The audit was one of the routine checks of federally funded projects carried out by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The reinstatement of Alger Hiss as a member of the Massachusetts bar was ordered by the state’s highest court. He had been disbarred in 1952, two years after his conviction for perjury in denying delivery of State Department documents to Whittaker Chambers, a confessed Soviet spy courier. The court unanimously said he had demonstrated moral and intellectual fitness. It did not consider his guilt or innocence of the perjury conviction.
Nearly two-thirds of the American public is in favor of building more nuclear power plants in the United States, according to a survey conducted by Louis Harris & Associates. The study also determined that the general public endorses nuclear plants more strongly than their political business and environmental leaders believe they do. The Harris Poll indicated that 63% endorse building more nuclear plants, 19% are opposed and 18% are not sure. By contrast, only 42% of the political leaders think the public wants more nuclear power; 36% of business leaders think so — and 38% of the environmentalists believe the public wants them.
A desert site about 70 miles northeast of Las Vegas will be used by the federal government to study the feasibility of constructing regional nuclear generating plants that could serve all of California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Officials of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission stressed there is no guarantee any such nuclear plants would be located there.
Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-Tennessee), a member of the Senate Select Committee investigating the CIA, said burglars who broke into his Washington home apparently left empty-handed. “There was neither money nor classified files there,” Baker said at his home in Huntsville, Tennessee. “Whatever they were after, obviously I did not have.” He said Washington police called the break-in “a professional job” and said the burglars left no fingerprints. The burglars left behind a diamond ring, fur coats, silver and other valuables. “They searched the house from attic to basement. Everything was turned out of drawers and bedside tables,” Baker said, but “not a damn thing is missing.”
Eleven men were indicted by a federal grand jury in New Orleans on charges they tried to dodge income taxes of $251,000 on $714,000 they allegedly received from sale of stolen grain. Nine worked at grain elevators and two worked at barging grain. Indictments had been issued earlier against 29 others in the widespread investigation of the grain industry. A source close to the investigation said a tugboat with a string of 15 barges might deliver only 13 of them to the buyer and divert the other two and cover the theft with false records. Other methods allegedly involved shortweighting and the delivery of poorer grade grain.
Jurors under orders to keep trying for unanimous verdicts on all charges deliberated for a ninth day in Tampa without success on the fate of former Senator Edward J. Gurney (R-Florida) and three other defendants. Shortly before the six men and six women jurors adjourned, defense attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman for a progress report in a closed session with prosecutors but it was denied. The jury has so far deliberated 53 hours in the bribery-conspiracy case that went to trial 24 weeks ago. The judge has refused to accept a jury report that its unanimous agreement on all charges was impossible.
Thousands of workers were idled for the second straight day as a strike by pilots grounded Northwest Airlines, the nation’s seventh largest air carrier. W. J. Usery, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and a special presidential assistant for labor-management relations, returned to Washington and no further talks were scheduled between management and the Air Line Pilots Assn. The 1,500 pilots struck Monday, claiming that the company had backed away from what the union thought had been an agreement on a contract July 19. Northwest said 250 daily flights had been canceled. meaning an average loss of operating revenue of $2.3 million a day, but part of that will be made up by other airlines.
The Armco Steel Corporation said it planned to raise prices of rolled and sheet steel an average of 9 percent next Sunday. This would mean substantial increases in prices of cars, refrigerators and other household and industrial products. The administration, expecting other steelmakers to follow suit, urged restraint. Armco said its costs had risen.
Vandals have deliberately destroyed a prehistoric Indian intaglio — a series of large geometric designs carved in the desert floor — in the Yuba Desert near El Centro, California, the Bureau of Land Management reported. BLM ranger Berry Ashworth said the vandals tore down part of a wire fence around the intaglio, believed to be as old as 5,000 years, and then rode their motorcycles in circles over the designs. The intaglio was one of only three in the Yuba Desert.
The Mississippi sandhill crane, an endangered species living in a swampy marshland of Jackson County, Miss., will soon be sharing its habitat with a portion of Interstate 10. A federal judge refused to ban construction of the highway over the protests of conservationists. In rejecting a suit filed by the National and Mississippi wildlife federations, U.S. Dist. Judge Walter Nixon said testimony failed to show that construction of the highway through the home of the 40 remaining cranes would pose a serious threat to the species. Conservationists had asked that construction of a 5.7-mile portion of I-10 be halted until appropriate measures were taken to locate and design the highway to minimize harm to the cranes.
Prospects for a complex $1 billion package for New York City brightened with the report that State Controller Arthur Levitt, who had previously ruled out the investment of state pension funds in the Municipal Assistance Corporation, was considering such a move. He was said to have made the shift at a luncheon meeting attended by Governor Carey, William Ellinghaus, chairman of M.A.C., Felix Rohatyn, chairman of the corporation’s finance committee, and David Rockefeller, chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank.
Stevie Wonder signs a 7-year, 7 album, with $13 million advance contract with Motown Records.
Major League Baseball:
Allowing only two hits, Jim Palmer became a 16-game winner by pitching the Orioles to a 3–0 victory over the Red Sox. The Orioles, who collected 11 hits, nicked Luis Tiant for a run in the third inning on a double by Mark Belanger and single by Bobby Grich. Singles by Jim Northrup, Don Baylor and Brooks Robinson added another in the fourth before the final tally counted in the fifth on a double by Al Bumbry and an error. Denny Doyle, who had hit safely in 22 straight games for the Red Sox, was stopped on his streak by Palmer.
A homer by Bobby Bonds in the ninth inning for his fourth hit of the game enabled the Yankees to defeat the Brewers, 4–3, for Catfish Hunter’s 15th victory of the season. Circuit clouts by Don Money and George Scott gave the Brewers a 3–2 lead before the Yankees tied the score in the seventh with a solo swat by Chris Chambliss and run-scoring single by Bonds.
Going from feast to famine, the Angels collected 17 hits and won the first game of a twi-night doubleheader, 10–4, before being held to four hits while losing the second game to the White Sox, 4–1. Mickey Rivers rapped four hits and Dave Chalk and Bobby Valentine had three apiece in the opener. Jerry Remy drove in four runs with a pair of singles. In the nightcap, the White Sox erupted for all their runs in the sixth inning after loading the bases on passes to Carlos May and Bill Melton around a double by Deron Johnson. Jerry Hairston walked to force in the first run. Bucky Dent hit a sacrifice fly for another tally and Pete Varney then capped the inning with a two-run double.
John Mayberry hit his third homer in the last three games, connecting with a man on base in the fourth inning, to pace the Royals to a 6–1 victory over the Twins. Fred Patek singled in the fourth, stole second and scored on a single by Amos Otis before Mayberry hit for the circuit. The Royals added another run in that same stanza on two walks and an error. Al Fitzmorris held the Twins to two hits, but they produced a run in the fifth when Johnny Briggs doubled and Eric Soderholm singled.
Scoring five runs in the first two innings, the Indians went on to defeat the Tigers, 8–4. Rico Carty drove in one run with a sacrifice fly in the first and batted in two more with a bases-loaded single in the second. The Indians’ designated hitter accounted for his fourth RBI with a single in the eighth. Ron LeFlore and Billy Baldwin homered for the Tigers, who lost their ninth straight.
The Rangers, after collecting only two hits off Dick Bosman and losing the first game, 3–2, came slugging back in the second game of a twi-night doubleheader to wallop the Athletics, 15–2. The Rangers took a 2–1 lead in the opener when Toby Harrah hit a two-run homer in the second inning, but the A’s came back to win with a pair in the fifth on a single by Sal Bando, double by Phil Garner, grounder by Bert Campaneris and sacrifice fly by Jim Holt. The Rangers piled up 17 hits in the nightcap, including two homers by Roy Howell. In the sixth inning, when the Rangers exploded for eight runs, Howell hit the first grand slam of his major league career.
Richie Zisk, Duffy Dyer and Bill Robinson batted in two runs apiece to account for the Pirates’ scoring in a 6–1 victory over the Cardinals. Zisk drove in his runs with a double in the second and homer in the fifth. Dyer tripled to score two runs in the fourth and Robinson produced the last pair with another triple in the ninth.
Don Carrithers pitched a five-hitter in the first game and the Expos followed with a combined five-hitter by Dennis Blair and Woodie Fryman in the second game to shut out the Mets in both ends of a twi-night doubleheader by identical scores of 7–0. The Expos backed Carrithers with an 11-hit attack, including homers by Bob Bailey and Barry Foote. Blair worked 6 ⅓ innings in the nightcap before yielding the mound to Fryman, who retired the last eight batters in succession. Tim Foli and Pete Mackanin each had three of the Expos’ 14 hits.
Sending 16 men to bat, the Phillies exploded for 10 runs in the first inning and crushed the Cubs, 13–5. The first eight Phils hit safely to open the game before Dick Ruthven sacrificed for the first out, setting a major league record. Dave Cash walked and Larry Bowa popped up, but two more hits and two walks followed to prolong the inning until Mike Schmidt struck out. Garry Maddox drove in four runs during the outburst with a homer and single. Schmidt hit for the circuit with a man on base and then homered again for two more runs in the fifth.
Don Sutton became the National League’s first 15-game winner of the season, pitching the Dodgers to a 5–0 victory over the Braves. The shutout was his fourth of the season and 40th of his career. Jim Wynn scored the 1,000th run of his career, hitting a homer in the sixth inning.
Bobby Tolan raced home from second base on an error in the 10th inning to bring the Padres a 6–5 victory over the Astros. The game was forced into overtime when the Astros tied the score in the ninth with a single by Milt May and double by Ken Boswell that drove in pinch-runner Skip Jutze. In the 10th, Tolan singled and moved to second on a balk by Wayne Granger. After an intentional pass to Hector Torres, Fred Kendall batted for Bob Davis and hit a grounder to shortstop Jerry DaVanon, who threw wildly to first base, allowing Tolan to cross the plate.
With Cesar Geronimo providing three key hits, the Reds broke away in the last four innings to defeat the Giants, 6–3. Geronimo doubled in the sixth to spark a two-run rally that tied the score at 3–3. Then in the seventh, Dan Driessen walked, took second on a throwing error by Ed Halicki and scored the tie-breaking tally on a single by Geronimo. The Reds iced their victory in the ninth, scoring two runs with hits that included a single by Geronimo.
Baltimore Orioles 3, Boston Red Sox 0
California Angels 10, Chicago White Sox 4
California Angels 1, Chicago White Sox 4
Detroit Tigers 4, Cleveland Indians 8
Minnesota Twins 1, Kansas City Royals 6
Atlanta Braves 0, Los Angeles Dodgers 5
New York Yankees 4, Milwaukee Brewers 3
Montreal Expos 7, New York Mets 0
Montreal Expos 7, New York Mets 0
Chicago Cubs 5, Philadelphia Phillies 13
Houston Astros 5, San Diego Padres 6
Cincinnati Reds 6, San Francisco Giants 3
Pittsburgh Pirates 6, St. Louis Cardinals 1
Oakland Athletics 3, Texas Rangers 2
Oakland Athletics 2, Texas Rangers 15
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 810.15 (-7.90, -0.97%)
Born:
Antony Cotton, English actor (“Coronation Street”), in Bury, England, United Kingdom.
Kajol (Kajol Devgan), Indian film actress and five-time winner of Filmfare Award for Best Actress; as Kajol Mukherjee in Mumbai.
History Diaries 