Generalissimo Francisco Franco has taken another turn for the worse and his doctors called his condition “extraordinarily grave.” So much improvement had been reported earlier that government officials were said to have decided to wait until Friday in the hope that Spain’s 82-year-old Chief of State would be lucid enough to sign a document handing over power to his designated successor, Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon. The urgency of filling the power vacuum was underlined by the resumption of high-level talks with Morocco over Spanish Sahara.
President Nicolae Ceaușescu of Rumania arrived here today for four days of talks. He is the first Communist chief of state to visit Portugal. The visit was also the first official one by a European president since the ouster of the Portuguese rightist regime in April, 1974. Mr. Ceaușescu began talks with President Francisco da Costa Gomes in the afternoon. An official dinner was scheduled for the evening. The visit seems to have particular significance because it comes at a time when Portugal’s leadership appears torn over how far to the left it is desirable to move.
The Soviet press campaign against Andrei D. Sakharov continued today. The trade union newspaper Trud said the physicist and civil rights advocate had won his Nobel Peace Prize as a reward for virtually traitorous activities against the Soviet Union. Trud called the Nobel award “political pornography.” It mocked the Physicist, who Iplayed a key role in the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, as a Judas. The press campaign, set off by the award on October 9, accelerated on Saturday when a statement attacking Mr. Sakhairov was signed by 72 fellow members of the Academy of Sciences. Today’s attack by Trud outdid previous criticism in its stridency. It began by assailing Sakharov’s wife, Yelena Bonner, calling her’Gospozha,” which in Russian means “Mrs.” but is generally applied only to foreigners. It tends to be derogatory when used for Soviet citizens.
The United States remains vulnerable to another foreign oil embargo despite presidential exhortations and congressional debates, with the goal of “energy independence” still distant. Government analysts believe that as the American economy climbs out of recession, energy consumption and oil imports will resume their long-term upward trend. Because Canada has cut back on exports to the United States, the Arab countries now provide an even larger share of this country’s oil than in 1973.
President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt urged President Ford today to end the United States’ diplomatic boycott of the Palestine Liberation Organization and begin a “dialogue” with the group to facilitate an eventual Middle East peace. But Mr. Sadat’s effarts on behalf of the Palestinian organization seethed to receive little positive response from the United States, which has refused repeatedly to deal with The group until it has accepted United Nations resolutions affirming the right of Israel to exist as a sovereign state. After the hour‐long meeting between Mr. Ford and Mr. Sadat at the White House this morning, Ron Nessen, the press secretary, said: “The views of the United States on the Palestinians are quite well known.”
Armed men in Beirut’s Parliament Square denounced Lebanon’s political leaders, then shot up the Chamber of Deputies, killing a member’s bodyguard and wounding a gendarme. A communiqué issued by the national gendarmerie said one of the gunmen was killed and two were wounded in an exchange with security forces outside the Parliament building. Some sources said the gunmen were leftists. The attack followed the announcement of a new initiative by Premier Rashid Karami to end the factional fighting between the Christian right and the Muslim left that has brought the capital to the edge of chaos. Mr. Karami declared that a 10‐man committee of major political and factional leaders would sit continously in his office, at the Grand Palace, not far from the Chamber of Deputies, until peace was restored. By the evening, only three committee members had joined Mr. Karami at the office.
The fiercest front in the city was the seaside hotel district, where gunmen of the rightwing Phalangists and the National Liberal party exchanged mortar, rocket recoilless rifle and machine‐gun fire with leftist bands. About 150 people were reported huddling in the basement of the towering Holiday Inn, whose windows have been shattered in the fighting. Among them were James Bremer, an American military attaché, and Joseph Lynch, the first secretary of the Irish Embassy. Two Dutch diplomats were among a score of people trapped in the Saint Georges Hotel, which is held by the rightists. Marine guards at the United States Embassy, which is situated less than a half mile from the hotels, donned battle fatigues after mortars and rockets shook the mission’s windows. Leftists are firmly entrenched in the Ain El Mreisse section abutting the embassy, though there were no signs of fire directed at the American Embassy itself.
The court of King Hassan II has succeeded in rousing the rural and humble population of this nation of 17 million to a fever pitch of fervor for the march that is intended to incorporate Spanish Sahara into Morocco. In response to the ruler’s appeal for 350,000 volunteers to march into Spanish Sahara. they rushed to join up until lists were oversubscribed. Those who have already departed for the barren southern corner are traveling in a spirit that makes them accept the rigors of days spent crowded into trucks or railroad freight cars and in staging areas in the desert as though they had won a free trip to a luxury hotel on the beach. Those who are still waiting for the signal to set out for the staging area at Tarfaya near the border are lining the streets of their towns to shower enthusiasm on those who are passing through on their way.
India condemned construction of a U.S. military base on the island of Diego Garcia, saying there should be no presence of superpowers in the Indian Ocean. Mauritius joined India in the criticism during the opening session of the 21st Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in New Delhi. About 300 delegates from 26 Commonwealth nations are attending.
A Cambodian delegation headed by Deputy Premier Ieng Sary, the most senior Communist delegation to visit a non-Communist Southeast Asian country since the takeover of Indochina, arrived in Bangkok today. Both sides have expressed hope that the five‐day state visit will lead to the resumption of diplomatic relations between Thailand and her eastern neighbor, Cambodia as well as to the resolution of a host of other issues that have arisen between the two countries in the six months that all official contacts have ceased.
Lightning struck a Greek oil tanker and caused a series of explosions that broke the 61,000-ton ship in two off Singapore. Shipping officials said four people were seriously injured and eight others had minor injuries. Rescue boats picked up crew members as the broken ship settled in the water at Ayer Chawan Island, a tanker berth five miles off Singapore.
Rescuers found three crewmen “in very poor condition” in a lifeboat in the South China Sea, the only known survivors of two ships believed sunk in heavy weather a week ago. The men, two Filipinos and a Hong Kong Chinese, were from the Liberian freighter Kinabalu Satu, which carried a crew of 30. The other missing ship is the Panamanian Ming Shing.
Tokyo police arrested 1,510 suspected racketeers in a nationwide crackdown on organized crime, the Japanese national police agency said. The agency said 371 suspected gangland bosses were included in the mass arrest. It was the third major crackdown on underground organizations in two months.
The Canadian postal strike is causing scores of business firms to mail important letters and packages at the Buffalo post office in New York, the postmaster there reported. He estimated the number of Canadian firms that have rented boxes at 100. Meanwhile in Ottawa, Postmaster General Bryce MacKasey led a negotiating team in efforts to settle the strike. The 22,000-member postal union is demanding raises that exceed the government’s anti-inflation guidelines.
The crash of a Bolivian air force transport plane into an Andes mountain, which took 67 lives, could have been because of an excess of passengers on board, Bolivian air force officials said. Initial reports on the crash of the propjet placed the number of dead at 55. But an air force spokesman said rescue groups at the scene about 100 miles from La Paz found the extra bodies, persons whose names were not on the registered flight list.
Venezuela and foreign oil companies agree on nationalization as of January 1, 1976.
Combined forces of two nationalist movements in Angola seized the port city of Mocamedes, 770 miles south of Luanda. Troops of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) took control of the city as soldiers of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) fled. Meanwhile, a UNITA leader charged that up to 3,000 Cuban mercenaries are fighting with MPLA.
First results of Tanzania’s general election indicated that President Julius Nyerere would be reelected to another five-year term. Returns from Sunday’s general election also indicated that all but one cabinet minister, Education Minister Simon Chi wanga, would be returned to their posts. A record number of Tanzanians, estimated at 5.5 million, turned out to elect 96 delegates from 192 candidates for parliament and to decide whether Nyerere should remain in power. Final presidential election results will be announced Friday.
The Ford Administration is increasing pressure to keep the hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence behind closed doors, the committee’s chairman said today. The chairman, Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho, said “pressures are mounting on a broadening front” that indicated the intelligence community and the Ford Administration were “more and more opposed to public hearings on anything.” The Senator made his comments after a two‐hour closed briefing on covert activity by the Central Intelligence Agency. Intelligence community officials have said on several occasions that they are against disclosure of details of present and past covert operations.
In a private meeting with U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller agreed that he would announce a decision not to be Ford’s running mate in 1976. Ford had been in favor of selecting Rockefeller, but was persuaded by aides Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney that Rockefeller’s presence could give Ronald Reagan an edge in getting the Republican nomination.
Third-quarter profit reports showed that the upturn in the economy had aided some companies but not others, The General Motors Corporation’s earnings rose from $16 million a year earlier to $243 million. The Consolidated Edison Company of New York raised profits by more than 17 percent. Other major corporations, including the United States Steel Corporation, the Gulf Oil Corporation, the Atlantic Richfield Company and the Cities Service Company, reported substantial declines.
Senator William Proxmire, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Senator Adlai Stevenson III agreed to a compromise expected to assure the committee’s narrow approval of the New York City loan guarantee bill. The measure as revised would place the city in a virtual receivership, under the total fiscal control of a federal board headed by Treasury Secretary William Simon.
President Ford reportedly will propose legislation to assure the continuance of police and fire protection and other vital services if New York City defaults. Administration officials said his suddenly scheduled speech to the National Press Club tomorrow would outline a plan which one of them called a mechanism to manage default. The announcement caused the Senate Banking Committee to defer until Thursday its vote on a $4 billion bill to guarantee loans for New York.
A House subcommittee has sent the Federal Trade Commission documents that the panel’s chairman said “may raise the issue of possible antitrust violations by the American Medical Association.” The investigations subcommittee of the House Commerce Committee made public a letter from Chairman John E. Moss (D-California) that cited documents said to suggest an effort by the AMA to eliminate the chiropractic profession.
The Interior Department proposed a federal regulation that would allow it to order deliveries of natural gas for essential defense activities during anticipated gas shortages this winter. The proposal indicated that the department would step in only where necessary and after the Defense Department or the Energy Research and Development Administration had exhausted all other relief. Shortages of natural gas are expected this winter, mainly in the Eastern states. The gas deliveries ordered by the Interior Department would be those needed for the production of essential equipment and supplies needed by the military or the defense industry. The department invited comments on the proposal.
Leah Leshefsky, 63, became the last of ten elderly women believed to have been raped and murdered by the “Westside Rapist”, who terrorized Los Angeles for almost a year. Beginning on November 7, 1974, women ranging in age from 63 to 92 years old were killed in their homes. In 2011, DNA evidence linked the crimes to John Floyd Thomas, who confessed to the murders.
A decline in scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test will be investigated by a special advisory panel, said Sidney P. Marland, president of the College Entrance Examination Board. The board has reported that the average scores among 1975 high school graduates had declined 10 points for verbal skills and 8 points for mathematical skills. It was the largest drop in any year since a general decline began 12 years ago. Marland said the examination would range from the nature of the test itself to broad social conditions affecting education.
An 83-year-old widow allegedly imprisoned in her French Quarter home in New Orleans said that she had never been a prisoner. Aggravated kidnaping charges have been filed against two men who were accused of having kept the woman, Edna Halbedel, locked in her bedroom under heavy sedation for two years. “You-all put such things in the paper, I’m disgusted with you,” she told a television reporter as she emerged in her wheelchair from a grand jury hearing. The grand jury apparently took no action Tuesday.
Chrysler Corp. said it would modify tailpipes on 6,037 of its 1974 model cars, most of them used by police departments, after four reported carbon monoxide poisonings, including two deaths. A company spokesman said exhaust pipes that now protrude straight from under the trunk compartments would be bent down. The spokesman said that the original tailpipes were safe but that if they were not repaired after a collision, there could be a hazard. Involved are fourdoor Plymouth Satellites and Dodge Coronets with 360, 400 and 440-cubic-inch engines that were sold to fleet operators.
A juvenile court judge ordered six children removed “by force if necessary” from a house in Grannis, Arkansas, where about 40 persons have been waiting nearly a month for the second coming of Jesus Christ and the end of the world. The order was issued after the parents failed to appear at a hearing on the children’s absence from school. Grannis residents said adults in the group had quit their jobs and had refused to talk with outsiders.
The Washington Post filed a $15 million damage suit against the striking pressman’s union, charging it with a “planned, systematic and calculated attempt to destroy the newspaper’s capacity to publish.” The union struck October 1 after incidents of arson, sabotage and beatings in the pressroom.
Residents and Interns at Cook County Hospital in Chicago refused to obey a temporary injunction against a strike, leaving officials of the House Staff Association with the possibility of being fined or sentenced to jail terms for refusing to obey the court order. The 500-member association, which represents doctors at one of the country’s largest medical complexes, struck Tuesday in a dispute over salaries, fringe benefits, union security and patient care.
A New York real estate group was indicted and charged with a $200 million swindle in the public sale of what United States Attorney Paul Curran called “undeveloped semi-arid desert lots” in a New Mexico area called Rio Rancho Estates. The indictment charged that more than 45,000 people from 37 states had been defrauded.
Governor Carey said he was considering a request for a $300 million corporate tax increase at a special legislative session to help close the deficit in the state budget. He also said he would seek additional tax increases to help New York City if the federal government made that a requirement for extending national assistance to avoid default by the city.
Excessive cost estimates caused the Delmarva Power & Light Co. to cancel construction of its Summit nuclear generating station in Delaware, a spokesman for the firm announced. Jim Fineran, a D.P.&L. executive, said contractual agreements with the General Atomic Co. of San Diego were terminated after a meeting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. General Atomic was to have built two 770,000-kilowatt generators on the site. Fineran said his company still plans to build a generating station at Summit, but now is considering “all options” with regard to fuel.
Calvin Murphy (Houston) begins NBA free throw streak of 58 games.
Major League Baseball:
New Cubs GM Salty Saltwell trades veteran shortstop Don Kessinger to the Cards for reliever Mike Garman and a minor leaguer.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 851.46 (+12.98, +1.55%)
Born:
Scott Dragos, NFL fullback and tight end (Chicago Bears), in Old Rochester, Massachusetts.
Died:
Georges Carpentier, 81, French boxer, world light heavyweight champion 1920–1922, of a hear attack.
Oliver Nelson, 43, American saxophonist, jazz and soundtrack composer, arranger, bandleader, and record producer (“The Blues and the Abstract Truth”; “The Six Million Dollar Man”), of a heart attack.
History Diaries 