Shortly before midnight, Moscow time, the crew of the Soviet frigate Storozhevoy mutinied, as second-in-command Valery Sablin locked up Captain Anatoly Putorny, then seized control of the vessel. The mutiny, which would fail, would inspire the best-selling Tom Clancy novel, and later a film, “The Hunt for Red October.” Captain 3rd Rank Sablin would be convicted of treason and be executed on August 3, 1976.
In a move praised by Jewish leaders, Christian spokesmen across the United States have stepped up attacks on the pending United Nations resolution that equates Zionism with racism. The range of Christian response, from restrained sorrow to bitter outrage, shows unusual interfaith consensus on support for Israel and dangers posed by the resolution. Among other things, the reactions have decried the resolution as false on historical grounds. They affirm the right of Israel to exist within safe borders, uphold Zionism as a legitimate religious belief by Jews and urge their followers to recognize the integral ties between the two faiths.
A group of black American scholars, educators and other intellectual leaders appealed to the General Assembly today to set aside the draft resolution that would condemn Zionism as “a form of racism and racial discrimination.” A vote on the highly controv. ersial text is scheduled in the Assembly for Monday afternoon. Delegates of various countries were continuing today to discuss ways of avoiding or postponing a decision on the divisive issue. The President of the Assembly, Prime Minister Gaston Thorn of Luxembourg, warned yesterday that approval of the draft on Zionism would mean “trouble for the United Nations.” Mr, Thorn, talking to group of newsmen at a luncheon, said he was speaking as Prime Minister of Luxembourg rather than in his capacity as the presiding officer of the Assembly. The United States, Britain and France have protested to the Soviet Union over the presence of two East German soldiers at a Russian wreathlaying ceremony at the Soviet war memorial in the British sector of West Berlin, according to informed sources in West Berlin. The three Western Allies saw the incident as a violation of the demilitarized status of the city, the sources said.
Portugal’s military security forces ordered all armed forces in the country on standby alert today to deter any violent reactions to the government‐ordered destruction of the transmitter of a radio station controlled by the extreme left. Hours earlier, unidentified persons hurled five grenades from speeding cars at police stations in the capital and sprayed automatic weapons fire at one of the stations. Police officials said that one officer was wounded in the stomach by shrapnel and several station houses were damaged. A spokesman for the military security forces announced the alert, which he termed precautionary. He said security also had been strengthened at Portugal’s radio and television stations. Under orders from the military’s ruling Revolutionary Council, 60 paratroopers stormed the leftists’ station yesterday, cleared out its occupiers and blew up its transmitter. The action was seen as test of the government’s ability to assert its authority against the lack of civil and military discipline.
The death toll in an explosion that wrecked a chemical plant in Beek, Holland, rose to 14 as firemen recovered two more bodies from the smouldering ruins. A spokesman said all the bodies had been recovered. About 110 workers were injured in the blast. The Dutch government is preparing a full-scale inquiry into the cause of the explosion.
Greek Communist leader Antonios Ambatielos told a court-martial in Athens that he was tortured during his detention at the Boyati military prison for opposing the military regime. Ambatielos, 63, was giving evidence for the prosecution at the trial of 36 officers and men charged with torturing political prisoners during the seven-year dictatorship which collapsed in July, 1974.
A 78-member elected Northern Ireland assembly, set up six months ago to make recommendations on a viable form of government, failed to unite Protestants and Roman Catholics on a power-sharing formula. Its final report, submitted to the British government, called for a virtual revival of the old Protestant majority government, assigning representatives of the one-third Catholic minority to co-leadership of parliamentary committees with no legislative power.
French explorer Jacques Cousteau is “not convinced that such a glorified citadel” as the legendary city of Atlantis ever existed. He does believe, however, that “there was some kind of civilization there where the myth originated.” And he is about to spend one year and $2 million in an attempt to learn the facts. Saying that “to search for it is every civilized man’s dream,” the 65-year-old Cousteau, famed for his films of undersea explorations, arrived in Athens to begin the search. He said that the effort, which will employ the electronically equipped ship Calypso, will be concentrated around the island of Santorini and its sunken volcano crater.
Israel is reportedly pressing the United States for weapons — missiles or aircraft — that would give it the means of launching a pre-emptive first strike with conventional weapons against Arab states in the event of a crisis comparable with that of October 1973. United States and Israel sources emphasized that Israel was not thinking in terms of a pre‐emptive strike with nuclear weapons. To deploy such weapons, senior Israeli officers believe, would prompt the Soviet Union to supply nuclear weapons to Syria and other Arab countries. However, Prof. Robert W. Tucker, writing in the magazine Commentary suggests that “a new and hard look at the role of nuclear weapons in future Israeli military strategy is very likely.” He argues that Israel may want to limit dependence on the United States for arms and hold down defense spending. “If so,” writes Mr. Tucker, who is professor of international relations at Johns’ Hopkins University, “the change from the present policy of maintaining a ‘nuclear option’ to policy based on a known nuclear deterrent will inevitably have to be given the most serious consideration.”
The United States holds most of the cards in the Middle East peace stakes, President Anwar el‐Sadat of Egypt said today at the end of his first official Western tour. Only when the United States adopts an “even‐handed” policy toward both the Arabs and Israelis will peace be achieved, he told a London news conference. Mr. Sadat spent 10 days in the United States and three days in Britain. In the United States he came away with agreements on two nuclear reactors for Egypt and promises of economic aid. Britain reportedly agreed to sell more than $2 billion in military and industrial hardware. Mr. Sadat also described his visit as a means of maintaining momentum toward ‘a “global solution” of the Arab-Israeli conflict. “I hope for a second disengagement agreement on the Golan Heights and President Ford has already instructed the State Department to work on that,” he said.
Thousands of Beirut residents were emerging from hiding in homes and cellars today for a look at the destruction in their city in the recent weeks of street warfare between Christians and Muslims. But the street activity was not certain evidence that life here was returning to normal. Rather, people were using what they considered a respite in the war to buy supplies, to move valuables from dangerous neighborhoods and to look at the war damage. By dusk tonight, all but a few had returned home or had left for the countryside. Scores of people interviewed in recent days said they, felt the shooting would begin again after the weekend. Eleven earlier cease‐fires ended after a few days. Today, the fifth of the present cease‐fire, was relatively calm. People used the lull to buy food and clothes and to look at the charred hotels, apartment houses and office buildings in the downtown area damaged in rocket and mortar battles.
Tension is running high in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights despite the waning of the fighting in nearby Lebanon and the consequent fading of fears that Israel and Syria might somehow become involved. “It is the Israelis who try to keep the tension high,” said Nadim Khatib, an official of Syria’s ruling Baath Socialist Party at the town hall of this ruined farming center, which formerly served as the capital of the Golan Heights. In recent weeks Syrian offidais have charged that Israeli rifle shots had killed a peasant couple who were plowing near the Israeli front line, which runs through El Quneitra’s outskirts. They also charged that Israeli spokesmen were worsening tensions with “misleading” statements that Syria was massing troops near the Golan Heights front, which is watched over by a United Nations force.
Secretary General Kurt Waldheim called today for the utmost restraint in Spanish Sahara “to avoid a tragedy” and to keep open the path toward a peaceful settlement on the disputed territory. Mr. Waldheim’s appeal was contained in a report to the Security Council, the second in a week dealing with the conflict over the territory in northwest Africa. The Secretary General disclosed in today’s document that his personal representative, Andre Lewin, had been told by King Hassan II of Morocco in Agadir last Tuesday that the Moroccan march into the contested area “would have a symbolic character.”
Jubilant Congress Party lawmakers thumped their desks in Parliament in New Delhi and party workers led torchlight processions throughout India to celebrate Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s exoneration of election fraud charges. In a speech before Parliament, Mrs. Gandhi indicated that the state of emergency imposed June 12 was likely to remain in effect for some time. “We have to be vigilant every hour of the day,” she said. “The verdict has cleared the mist that gathered on the political horizon,” the party leaders declared in a formal resolution. “It is a day of rejoicing, as the leader of the nation stands vindicated.”
Elsewhere around India, there were varied reactions to the verdict, which overturned Mrs. Gandhi’s conviction of two electoral offenses last June, ending her long entanglement with the courts, and removing the threat that she would have to resign as Prime Minister. Among both her backers and her opponents, hopes were expressed that the court victory would lead to a relaxation of the state of emergency that the Government imposed last June, two weeks after a lower court had ruled against the Prime Minister. But others took a more pessimistic view, like this assessment from a New Delhi journalst who feels frustrated by the press censorship that the emergency has brought: “She’s on top again now, and she can do whatever she wants.”
The Peking government sent greetings to the Soviet Union celebrating the 58th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and at the same time called on Moscow to agree to take “practical steps” toward the resumption of friendly relations between the two quarreling Communist giants. The Chinese repeated their proposal of last year that border issues should be settled by talks to normalize relations. Last year the Chinese also called for mutual troop withdrawals.
With the unusual step of issuing a compilation of a series of statements by Americans and other non-Chinese criticizing President Ford for dismissing Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, China has emphasized its concern over Washington’s policy of detente with the Soviet Union. The thrust of the 2,000-word summary, issued Friday night by Hsinhua, the official Chinese press agency, was that Mr. Schlesinger was dismissed in a gesture of good will to the Soviet Union. It was in keeping with the Communist custom of making official views known by quoting favorably from comments made by others. It also inevitably raised questions about President Ford’s plans to visit China. But administration officials said that Mr. Ford would visit China as planned and that discussions were continuing with the Chinese on when to make the announcement.
Indonesia suspended all shipping to Australia today in protest against, the boycott of an Indonesian vessel by Australian port workers in Sydney. The Communications Minister, Emil Salim, said that no Indonesian ship would call at Australian ports until further notice. The Indonesian cargo ship Garsa Dua is being held up by Australian dock workers who are demanding more information from Jakarta on the fate of five Australian reporters missing in the Portuguese Timor town of Balibo. The town is near the border with Indonesian Timor. Latest reports from Portuguese Timor, where a civil war is raging between rival political factions, said that the bodies of five foreigners were found in Balibo, but there was no confirmation that they were the missing Australians.
Chile has told a U.N. committee that some Chilean officials may have mistreated or tortured prisoners but such offenses would be punished. Chilean delegate Sergio Diez told the General Assembly’s social committee that law enforcement authorities at times had to “muddy their hands” to keep order in the climate of political turmoil that followed the overthrow of Marxist President Salvador Allende in 1973.
The Argentine air force entered the war against leftist guerrillas in the province of Tucuman with a rocket attack using U.S.-made fighter-bombers. Air force sources said the rockets hit guerrilla hideouts in the mountain jungles. The mission was described as successful.
Partisans of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, who have been disheartened by recent reports of military reverses in the south, had their spirits raised today by news that their units had repulsed an attack from the north and had in fact advanced halfway to the stronghold of their major opposition.
The first 164 Cuban troops arrived in Angola, as two turboprop airplanes, carrying the MININT Special Forces, landed at Luanda. On the same day, a force of FNLA and Zaire troops invaded Cabinda, an Angolan enclave that was separated from the rest of the nation.
Ronald Reagan, who is expected to announce his candidacy soon, is preparing an open challenge to Gerald Ford for the Republican presidential nomination. His initial strategy is directed at undercutting quickly the psychological advantage that an incumbent president brings to any political contest. Mr. Reagan hopes to do this by defeating Mr. Ford in the three early primaries that will be held in New Hampshire, Florida and North Carolina. It was weakness in the early primaries that was fatal to the re-election prospects of President Johnson in 1968, and the presidential hopes of Senator Edmund Muskie in 1972.
By not acting, Congress sealed into law tonight a sweeping federal plan to absorb seven bankrupt Northeast railroads into a cut-down, semi-nationalized rail system embodying the largest corporate reorganization in American history. The plan provides for a federally financed Consolidated Rail Corporation, known as Conrail, and a government-created private railroad competitor to take over from the bankrupt private lines next year most of the rail freight hauling in the 17-state region. Congress had until midnight to reject the final reorganization plan submitted 60 working days ago by the United States Railway Association, the government agency charged with restructuring the bankrupt lines. The urgency of the crisis ruled out a veto of the salvage plan.
Labor Secretary John Dunlop has proposed that the Ford administration make a subtle but fundamental change in the way the government develops and enforces regulations affecting the pocketbooks, health and safety of millions of Americans. He says in a study circulated within President Ford’s Domestic Council that the key to improving the existing regulatory effort is to give the contending parties a larger role in writing regulations and deciding how they will be enforced. His proposal was said to be still under review. It is regarded with considerable hostility by some Labor Department officials and knowledgeable union members who believe that any reduction in the public health voice of the federal government would be a big backward step.
More than $1 billion has been cut from funds for the food stamp program by the House Appropriations Committee, which said equivalent savings were possible if the Agriculture Department changed its regulations and then enforced them. The cut was made in a $7.9 billion appropriations bill to supplement funding for various departments. The committee said it was apparent that most food stamp abuses were correctable. Food stamp costs are now running at about $5.2 billion a year. The panel designated $100,000 of the appropriation to revise food stamp regulation and authorized $6 million to improve enforcement.
Internal papers on how the Federal Communications Commission reached a controversial decision on equaltime rules for political candidates have been surrendered to Congress. The September 25 FCC order, which would exempt the broadcast of debates between candidates and the press conferences of the President and all other candidates for political office, reversed a 1968 ruling that those were not bona fide “news events” exempt from the equal-time provision. Critics have said the FCC overstepped its authority and usurped the prerogatives of Congress, and Chairman Torbert H. Macdonald (D-Massachusetts) of the House communications subcommittee demanded the papers to help in a review of the legality of the FCC ruling. The FCC agreed but asked for a delay. When Macdonald threatened to seek a subpoena, the commission surrendered the papers.
One hundred and eight members of the House have signed a letter to Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger, expressing their “belief that you should have continued in your present post.” The 66 Republican and 42 Democratic signers told the secretary, fired by President Ford, that they supported his position that the United States should remain strong militarily. The letter was made public by Rep. Robert E. Bauman (R-Maryland), who drafted it and circulated it for signature.
Former Teamsters President James: R. Hoffa once said his successor, Frank Fitzsimmons, “hasn’t got the guts” to have him killed, Playboy magazine reported in its December issue. In an interview at his Lake Orion, Michigan, home about a month before he disappeared on July 30, Hoffa depicted Fitzsimmons as a “power hungry” man who “has failed” as Teamsters president. Hoffa said he never used bodyguards. “The only guy who needs a bodyguard is a liar, a cheat, a guy who betrays friendship. You got a bodyguard, you become careless.” The former Teamsters boss said he “never was afraid in my life and don’t intend to start tomorrow.”
New York Governor Carey and his staff held hurried meetings with leaders of the state legislature, the municipal labor unions and the banks to work out what one participant termed a possible “compromise” with the White House to avert a New York City default in the weeks ahead. Mr. Carey said he believed there would be need for a special session of the legislature, but possibly not this week. State Senate majority leader Warren Anderson observed that the Governor seemed “somewhat more optimistic than he did a week or two ago. If he does, so do I.”
A coalition of parents and civic organizations in Forest Hills, Queens, have started a lawsuit challenging a Board of Education zoning plan that it contends is resegregating Forest Hills High School by bringing in minority-group students from other neighborhoods. The case is being watched with interest by a number of groups around New York that see it as a test of the city’s commitment to keep the middle class from leaving the city. Another observer is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Accusations that racial prejudice is the issue is vigorously denied by the parents. They maintain that bringing disadvantaged students in from other areas will lower the standards of a high school that has long been recognized as one of the best of the city’s non-specialized schools.
Civil rights lawyers filed suit in Federal District Court here this week seeking to force Mississippi to approve for state use a state history text book that gives new emphasis to the role of blacks.
The first of two nuclear power plants to be built on the Colorado River is scheduled for completion by 1988, according to Greg Cotton of San Diego Gas and Electric Co. The 7,000-acre site for the proposed Sundesert Nuclear Plant is 18 miles south of Blythe. Another facility, Southern California Edison’s Vidal Nuclear Plant, is planned for a site 10 miles west of Parker, Ariz., where formal site approvals are pending.
The National Wildlife Federation has urged the federal government to drop plans for 18 “environmentally unsound” dam and channel construction projects from Maine to the Dakotas. “By shelving these projects now,” said NWF Executive Vice President Thomas L. Kimball, “the Administration can rid the budget of some undesirable ‘fat’ while safeguarding the environment.” Most of the projects involve dams or ship channels to be constructed by the Corps of Engineers.
Regulations designed to control water pollution from livestock waste will be announced soon, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Under the new rules, drawn up in response to a court order questioning a lack of regulation for small farmers, livestock owners with more than 1,000 head would automatically fall under federal antipollution standards. Small- and medium-size farmers would only need to comply in certain circumstances or if their feed lots were known polluters. The smaller farmers are being partially exempted because of the financial burden of installing special antipollution equipment, the agency spokesman said.
Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, a 5-foot-6-inch (1.68 m), 165-pound (75 kg) senior walk-on to the Notre Dame football team, who had never gotten to take the field, was allowed to come into the lineup in the final 27 seconds of a game against Georgia Tech. Ruettiger broke through the line and sacked the Tech quarterback who, coincidentally, was also a Rudy — Rudy Allen. Ruettiger’s story of determination would later be made into the film Rudy.
NBA legend Larry Bird (18) weds high school sweetheart Janet Condra.
Born:
Tara Reid, American actress (“The Big Lebowski”, “Sharknado”), in Wyckoff, New Jersey.
Brevin Knight, NBA point guard (Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Memphis Grizzlies, Phoenix Suns, Washington Wizards, Milwaukee Bucks, Charlotte Bobcats, Los Angeles Clippers, Utah Jazz), in Livingston, New Jersey.
Shane Hnidy, Canadian NHL defenseman (NHL Champions, Stanley Cup-Bruins, 2011; Ottawa Senators, Nashville Predators, Atlanta Thrashers, Boston Bruins, Minnesota Wild), in Neepawa, Manitoba, Canada.
Ángel Corella, Spanish ballet dancer, in Madrid.
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