Portugal’s military leaders, working almost without sleep, were reported early today to be close to ousting Premier Vasco Gonçalves, but peace within the armed forces and in the country remained in doubt. President Francisco da Costa Gomes is seeking a peaceful formula for removing the Premier, who is opposed for his Communist leanings. The President met for the second night in a row with General Gonçalves, the chiefs of staff and members of the High Council, of the Revolution. The meetings began late Wednesday night, resumed after a short break yesterday morning and then went into last night. Just before what many thought was to have been the final meeting, a spokesman at the presidential palace said, “I think we are solution.” But a sudden indication that the solution might not suit either the Premier or the Communist party was given just before midnight when Alvaro Cunhal, the party’s Secretary General, summoned newsmen and appealed for an urgent meeting of all the parties to the dispute “to avert violent fratricidal confrontation.”
Premier Vasco Gonçalves of Portugal said in an interview published here today that there was no room for a “bourgeois democracy” in his country. General Gonçalves said the Portuguese revolution was in danger, “threatened by reactionary forces that find support in the army and in the leadership of certain left‐wing parties.” Portugal, he told Le Monde’s special correspondent, Dominique Pouchin, faces a choice between “marching toward socialism or returning to fascism.” “After 50 years of fascism, with its own brand of capitalism, any attempt to establish a Western democratic system in the country would inevitably lead the bourgeoisie to use greater repression against the workers,” he was quoted as saying.
Seven persons were injured by a bomb left on the sidewalk outside an insurance office in the heart of London. Police sealed off the area around Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, fearing other unexploded bombs might be in the neighborhood. A spokesman for the Sun newspaper said a man with an Irish accent had telephoned a warning to the paper, saying, “It will go off in five minutes.”
Northern Ireland guerrillas, possibly acting independently of their leaders, were believed responsible for the bombing of a bar used by soldiers in Caterham, south of London. The blast injured 33 persons. Two civilians and 10 soldiers were still hospitalized and police said two of them were in serious condition. The explosion revived fears of a new bombing campaign in England by the Irish Republican Army, but sources in Belfast and Dublin expressed surprise over the attack.
Britain’s runaway member of Parliament, John Stonehouse, has been allowed bail of $84,000. He will next appear in a London court September 17 to face 21 charges of theft, forgery, and fraud. Stonehouse vanished November 20 last year from Miami Beach, having faked his death by drowning. He later turned up in Australia and was extradited to England.
The French Government tonight dismissed the regional administrator of Corsica after separatists there had battled policemen for the second time in a week. In an apparent gesture of conciliation, the Government named a Corsican, Jean Riolacci, as its principal representative, or prefect, replacing Gabriel Gilly, a man from southern France. The change was announced after police paratroops had been sent to reinforce the security force of more than 2,000 men on the island, which is 120 miles off France’s Mediterranean coast.
Ten Jewish scientists said a prominent Jewish activist was questioned by Russian authorities for six hours amid growing signs of another crackdown on dissidents. The Jews, members of a weekly scientific seminar, said Mark Azbel, a physician in whose apartment the seminar was held, was interrogated at the Moscow prosecutor’s office. The scientists said they feared that a criminal case was being drawn up against the seminar, designed to provide up-to-date knowledge to scientists who have been refused permission to emigrate and who have lost their jobs as a result.
President Anwar Sadat said today that he had “no hesitation” about giving his approval to the initialing by Egypt of the Sinai agreement with Israel, which is in the final stages of negotiation. He made the remark at a news conference at his summer residence in Alexandria in the presence of Secretary of State Kissinger. However, reporters flying back to Israel on Mr. Kissinger’s plane were told that problems still existed between Egypt and Israel on the language of the final draft, but that any problems still remaining were, in Mr. Sadat’s opinion, caused by Israel.
Arab delegates to the conference of non-aligned countries in Peru agreed not to press demands for Israel’s expulsion from the United Nations. This was a success for Egypt, which has opposed the radical stand against Israel by Syria, Iraq, Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The decision was announced after several countries had indicated that they would not support another call to oust Israel.
About 400,000 people were struggling for their lives in the flood-devastated eastern Indian city of Patna, the chief minister of Bihar state was reported as saying by All India Radio. Army, air force and civilian authorities were working around the clock to bring relief to the city of a million people and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi flew over the area. Her plane could not land in Patna, the capital of Bihar, because the airport was still under water. Road and rail links also were cut. No deaths have been reported.
About 1,500 Soviet advisers and experts are currently aiding Laos, the country’s acting foreign minister, Phoune Sipraseuth, said in an interview with a Thai newspaper. A Communist, he said the Soviet assistance was preferred because it came “without strings attached, unlike the United States.” The last U.S. advisers to Laos, numbering 185, left by the end of June under an agreement with the Laotian government.
Six persons were arrested as an estimated 18,000 leftists demonstrated at the airport and in central Tokyo against the visit of U.S. Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger. He arrived from South Korea and is spending three days in Japan to discuss Asian security, particularly regarding the Korean Peninsula.
U.S. negotiators offered $6 million in aid to the Bahamas in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain lobster-fishing rights in Bahamian waters, a top Florida official said. “It’s apparent to me now that they didn’t want to listen to us in the first place,” Harmon Shields, the state’s natural resources director, said after the negotiations broke off. The Bahamas was expected to hear other proposals on the development of its lobster industry within its 100,000-square-mile continental shelf from Cuba, Jamaica and other Caribbean countries. It made the shelf off limits to all foreign fishermen August 1.
An Argentine military plane carrying an antiguerrilla force of 114 men was ripped apart by a bomb today as it prepared to take off from the airport in Tucuman, 750 miles northwest of Buenos Aires. At least four people died and more than a score were injured. The Montoneros, a left‐wing Peronist guerrilla group, claimed responsibility in phone calls to local newspapers. Military sources, who blamed unidentified gueтrillas, said the bomb was set off in а drainage ditch next to the runway as the plane was taxiing for takeoff. The explosion came only a few hours after General Jorge Videlа assumed the post of army commander in chief, apparently easing a confrontation between the armed forces and President Isabel Martinez de Pеrón. The army’s officer corps had forced Mrs. Perón to appoint General Videla despite his reputation as an anti‐Peronist.
Haile Selassie, the deposed Emperor of Ethiopia who died early yesterday, is already in his grave, Radio Ethiopia said today. The broadcast said a funeral was held yesterday afternoon, but gave no indication where, or if any of the former Emperor’s relatives were allowed to attend. Under the rules of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church a burial must take place within 24 hours of a death. Haile Selassie had built a tomb in Trinity Cathedral here. His wife, Empress Menen, who died in 1962, is buried there. However, there was no activity or special guard around the cathedral today and it seemed unlikely that the body could have been placed there overnight.
The United States has now received a formal Portuguese request for aid in airlifting 300,000 white settlers from Angola and will deal “urgently and expeditiously” with it, the State Department announced today. The request, in the form of letter from President Francisco da Costa Gomes to President Ford, arrived late yesterday, the department’s spokesman, Robert L. Funseth, said. The United States had previously informed Portugal, in response to an unofficial request, that it was prepared “in principle” to help airlift refugees from Angola, the West African Portuguese territory that is due to become independent November 11.
A summit meeting that fails is usually regarded as worse than none at all. But there is undeniably a euphoric sense of triumph among the leaders of southern Africa’s white minority governments following the breakdown of the Victoria Falls conference on the future of Rhodesia. As a result of this euphoria, the white politicians of South Africa’s ruling National party may now be convinced that they can achieve détente with black Africa and a new world respectability without making painful racial reforms at home. Many of them, in fact, have always believed this. As for Rhodesia’s Prime Minister, Ian D. Smith, he seems relieved that he was spared for the time being the necessity of talking with authentic black nationalist leaders, the African National Council of Rhodesia, about the long‐range settlement of Rhodesia’s problems, which implies black majority rule. Instead, Mr. Smith clearly believes he can negotiate a token reform of Rhodesia’s white supremacist constitution with docile and conservative blacks that will meet the test of domestic and international acceptability.
White House officials indicated that President Ford might claim executive privilege if the Senate intelligence committee continued to press its demand for certain documents relating to Nixon administration policy toward Chile. “We’re not going to give them documents relating to the normal day-to-day advice the President gets,” said Roderick M. Hills, deputy White House counsel. “I think I would insist on a greater showing than they’ve shown me so far,” said Philip W. Buchen, the President’s chief legal adviser. The committee is seeking documents from Nixon era files concerning CIA involvement in certain Chilean affairs.
The Senate intelligence committee does not accept White House protestations that all available White House material regarding U.S. activities in Chile in the Nixon era have been given up, a spokesman said. For a while, it appeared that the committee, headed by Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), would pressure President Ford for the tapes and documents by releasing its own transcript of what Mr. Ford’s counsel said about the material in closed session Wednesday. But the panel decided against that move, at least for the present. Press Secretary Ron Nessen told reporters earlier that “every document we can find” had been turned over.
Much of the nation’s soft coal industry was shut down today as unauthorized strikes spread in a miners’ rebellion against the companies, Federal courts and their own union. About two‐thirds of the nation’s 125,000 bituminous coal miners who are members of the United Mine Workers union were idled by picketing in the South, the Midwest and the Appalachians. U.M.W. officials continued their rounds of meetings in the coalfields, seeking a solution to the varous disputes. A Federal judge threatened the union yesterday with a $500,000 fine and harshly criticized the union for failure to control its members. Federal court hearings on restraining orders continued here and more were scheduled in Ohio. Other judges have acted in Indiana and Illinois. A judge in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, scheduled a hearing for next Tuesday.
The FBI released the first 725 of 48,000 pages of its files concerning Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, 22 years after the American couple’s execution for treason. The materials were made available following a Freedom of Information Act request by Professor Allen Weinstein of Smith College.
The Federal Trade Commission completed a two-year investigation of the nation’s $2 billion-a-year funeral industry and found “a compelling need for consumer protection,” according to J. Thomas Rosch, director of the commission’s bureau of consumer protection. The F.T.C. proposes regulations that would prohibit a number of funeral industry practices — including unnecessary embalming and bait-and-switch sales techniques — that inflict “economic and emotional injuries” on the consumer. The agency also ordered the Service International Corporation, which operates 139 funeral homes in 16 states, to refund alleged overcharges on cremations dating to January 1, 1971.
Inaccurate forecasting by the Agriculture Department led to unsound policy decisions that cost the government $1.67 billion in 1973, the General Accounting Office said. GAO, which audits government agencies for Congress, said the agriculture forecasts in recent years have been off target — sometimes by wide margins — in every area. It said estimates were wrong on how many wheat and corn acres would be harvested, on yields, on domestic demand, export demand, carry-over supplies from earlier years and on commodity prices. GAO acknowledged that forecasting was a difficult business but it noted that in some instances initial forecasts, made before a crop was planted, turned out to be closer to correct than revised forecasts, made after planting.
Government researchers at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta say it is possible that women who take the tranquilizer Valium during the first three months of pregnancy may increase their chance of giving birth to a baby with a cleft lip. A report said results of a study of 278 women in the area disclosed that “Valium use was four times more common among women who subsequently gave birth to infants with cleft lip with or without cleft palate as compared to mothers of infants with other major defects.” The scientists urged doctors to weigh the advantage of prescribing Valium until their preliminary findings were confirmed.
The Food and Drug Administration announced the recall of 183,696 cans of fruit juice for babies which, although harmless, has “an offensive smell, taste and a black color.” The product was Beech-Nut strained mixed fruit juice in 4.2-ounce cans containing numbers 5225 or 5231 followed by an A, B, C or D, the FDA said. The juice was distributed in the eastern United States and the Virgin Islands. The FDA said sulfur present in apple concentrate combined with the tin to form stannous sulfide, which caused the odor and taste.
Vice President Rockefeller said that he knew of poor conditions in some New York nursing homes as early as 1965, but that he had been powerless to prevent Medicaid abuses by nursing-home operators because of state budgetary restrictions affecting audits and inspections. In testimony before the Moreland Commission investigating nursing home abuses, Mr. Rockefeller defended his administration while he was Governor, under sharp questioning by Morris Abram, the commission’s chairman.
The Food and Drug Administration announced plans to halt the packaging of many food items — cold cuts for example — in semi-rigid or rigid polyvinyl chloride plastic because the plastic has a cancer-causing potential. The F.D.A. commissioner, Alexander Schmidt, said the action was being taken because the “F.D.A. and the scientific community agree that vinyl chloride poses certain risks to human health.” The use of the film-type polyvinyl chloride plastic widely used to wrap fresh meats and fruits would be permitted, for the time being.
Public hearings on ways to reduce airport noise will be held in four cities, including Los Angeles, in September, the Federal Aviation Administration announced. The agency also said it planned to hold hearings in as many as 10 to 20 other cities in the future. The first hearings will be in Los Angeles on September 16 and 17; San Diego, September 17; San Francisco, September 18 and 19, and Missoula, Montana, September 22.
The U.S. Forest Service suspended timber sales in nine national forests in the Middle Atlantic states pending settlement of a controversy over tree-cutting practices that environmentalists say damage the forests and contribute to soil erosion and water pollution. The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last week ordered the Forest Service to cease harvesting timber by clear-cutting methods in the states of its jurisdiction, including Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. A public hearing will be held September 11.
Exxon awarded a $5 million contract to Imodco Inc. of Los Angeles to build an offshore tanker-loading system and pipeline for the petroleum company’s proposed oil and up the gas treatment facility 25 miles coast from Santa Barbara. The project, focus of bitter opposition from environmentalists, still must be approved by the South-Central Regional Coastline Commission.
A preliminary report on the proposed Sundesert nuclear generating plant 16 miles southwest of Blythe in Riverside County indicates there is no earthquake hazard. But the report by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the plant must be built to handle a very strong earthquake — up to 8.5 on the Richter scale. San Diego Gas and Electric Co. has proposed to build the plant with construction scheduled to begin in 1978.
Major League Baseball:
Backed by four double plays, Mike Cuellar pitched the Orioles to a 2–1 victory over the White Sox. Cuellar had a shutout in his grasp until two out in the ninth inning when Pat Kelly tripled and Jorge Orta singled for his third hit of the game. The Orioles scored their first run off Wilbur Wood in the second on singles by Bobby Grich, Paul Blair and Elrod Hendricks. The deciding marker followed in the fifth on a pass to Ken Singleton, sacrifice by Tony Muser and single by Don Baylor.
Bobby Bonds belted a double and homer to account for two of the Yankees’ three hits and drove in all of their runs in a 3–2 victory over the Athletics. The A’s also were limited to three hits, but took a 2–0 lead when Billy Williams homered with a man on base in the fourth. Chris Chambliss walked and scored on Bonds’ double in the sixth. Then in the eighth, after Ed Brinkman was hit by a pitch, Bonds smashed his homer. Tippy Martinez saved the game for Pat Dobson, relieving after two A’s reached base on errors in the ninth. Reggie Jackson hit into a double play and, after a walk to Williams, Angel Mangual struck out.
After a blister forced Bob Forsch to leave the mound, Darrel Chaney greeted the arrival of Mike Garman with a homer in the fifth inning and the Reds then added three more runs off Al Hrabosky in the seventh to defeat the Cardinals, 4-0. Gullett, who pitched the shutout, beat the Redbirds for the fourth straight time this season and 13th time in 16 career decisions.
The Padres staked Randy Jones to a 7–2 lead, but their ace lefthander was knocked out in the sixth inning and lost to the Expos, 10–8. Jones went into the game with a 17-7 record and 2.09 earned run average, but yielded nine runs, seven earned, before being removed. Willie McCovey homered for the Padres, who collected 18 hits but left 13 men on base, including at least one in every inning. The Expos cut their deficit to 7–6 with four runs in the fifth on five hits. Then in the sixth, after Bob Bailey lofted a sacrifice fly to tie the score, Tim Foli and Gary Carter hit run-scoring singles to put the Expos ahead.
The Mets took advantage of an error by Bill Russell to score two runs in the fifth inning and Del Unser homered for two more in the seventh to defeat the Dodgers, 4–1. John Stearns, who singled and took second on a sacrifice, scored when Russell threw wildly on a grounder by Unser. Singles by Felix Millan and Mike Vail added second run. Stearns was on base with a single when Unser homered. A single by Lee Lacy, pass to Jim Wynn and double by Steve Garvey accounted for the Dodgers’ lone run off Jerry Koosman in the first inning.
The stellar relief work of Tom Hilgendorf, who did not a yield run in 7 ⅓ innings, enabled the Phillies to come from behind to defeat the Giants, 8–5. Hilgendorf took over after the Giants had rapped Jim Lonborg for three runs in the first inning to assume a 3–1 lead. Gary Thomasson homered for the Giants. The Phillies, who had a triple and six doubles among their 17 hits, picked up a run on three singles in the third and took a 5–3 lead in the sixth with an attack that included a triple by Garry Maddox and double by Johnny Oates. Tommy Hutton and Hilgendorf hit doubles in the seventh when the Phillies scored three more runs for their winning margin. Tug McGraw relieved Hilgendorf in the ninth and was tagged for two runs on a bases-loaded single by Bobby Murcer before retiring the side.
Chicago White Sox 1, Baltimore Orioles 2
St. Louis Cardinals 0, Cincinnati Reds 4
New York Mets 4, Los Angeles Dodgers 1
Oakland Athletics 2, New York Yankees 3
Montreal Expos 10, San Diego Padres 8
Philadelphia Phillies 8, San Francisco Giants 5
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 829.47 (+22.45, +2.78%)
Born:
Vera Jordanova, Bulgarian-Finnish actress and model, in Helsinki, Finland.
Died:
Fritz Wotruba, 68, Austrian sculptor.
History Diaries 