The United States offered a draft resolution in the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee of the United Nations General Assembly demanding unconditional amnesty for persons detained because of peaceful dissent with the policies of their governments. The move was viewed by many delegates as a counter to the resolution approved by the General Assembly branding Zionism as racism and appeared aimed at Communist and third-world countries that voted for it.
Congress and the Administration began today to consider possible responses to the United Nations General Assembly vote on Monday classifying Zionism as racism. No one on Capitol Hill or in the White House seemed to have a clear idea of precisely how or when to proceed in terms of punitive action either toward the United Nations as a whole or toward some of the 72 countries that supported the anti‐Zionist resolution. President Ford said through his spokesman, Ron Nessen, that he would be “reviewing the implication of the vote and considering possible courses of action” but would not alter his aid requests for Egypt and other Arab countries. Mr.. Nessen further quoted the President as having said on the question of withdrawal from the United Nations, “It is better to fight for your views from the inside than from the outside.”
Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger today again criticized the United Nations vote equating Zionism with racism but cautioned against such an “extreme” American response as ending support of the world body or sharply cutting economic ties to the third-world countries that supported the resolution. “We have to keep the American reaction in some balance,” Mr. Kissinger said at a news conference here this morning before returning to Washington. Last night, after a speech here, Mr. Kissinger said the United States would ignore the vote, “pay no attention to it.” This morning, he said the United Nations action was a form of “moral condemnation” of Israel and, alluding to Hitler’s anti‐Semitism, said the language “smacks of some practices that it would be better for mankind to forget.” Nevertheless, Mr. Kissinger seemed determined to persuade Congress and Administration officials not to take any steps in haste that might, in his view, work against the long-term interests of the United States.
Soviet authorities denied permission to Andrei Sakharov, the dissident advocate of human rights, to go to Oslo to receive his Nobel Peace Prize. They invoked a danger to national security in allowing travel to the West by Mr. Sakharov, a physicist who played a key role in the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb and was in secret research until 1968. He called the refusal damaging to détente and expressed the hope that world public opinion would speak out decisively enough to bring a reversal of the decision. An exit visa was denied him on grounds that “he possesses state secrets”. On the same day, author Vladimir I. Maximov was stripped of his citizenship by the Soviet Union; Maximov was living in France at the time.
French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing said that France was now the world’s third strongest nuclear power, far behind the United States and the Soviet Union but well ahead of Britain. He reaffirmed the old Gaullist policy of an independent French defense and discounted suggestions that France was slipping back into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military fold.
The French Communist party, which has been losing ground to the Socialists, appealed to its members today to create a “union of the French people” under Communist leadership. A party manifesto, issued today, reflected a gradual shift ever the last year to a more militant demand for all‐out class strugle. The leader of the party, Georges Marchais, said that it ought to restore a balance between a conciliatory attitude that began in 1968 and insistence that only the Communists can be “the vanguard of the working class.”
Spain’s resumed talks with Morocco and Mauritania on the future of the Spanish Sahara were deadlocked over the role of the United Nations and the way the territory’s 74,000 people are to be consulted, government sources in Madrid said. The talks resumed after Morocco’s King Hassan agreed to a Spanish demand to withdraw 350,000 “peace marchers” from the territory.
Portugal’s Labor Ministry shut down to avoid a confrontation with thousands of striking construction workers who marched through Lisbon to press demands for higher wages. In other signs of growing unrest, progovernment officers walked out of one of Portugal’s largest paratroop bases to protest increasing influence on the government by leftists, and a series of bombings were reported in the northern section of the nation.
West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former Chancellor Willy Brandt joined in warnings to a convention of their Social Democratic Party in Mannheim against moving too far to the left in seeking solutions to their nation’s current economic problems. They noted that the Free Democrats, on whose support they depend in the government, are objecting to some of the more controversial proposals for aiding the economy being suggested by the Social Democrats.
A bomb hurled through a window of one of London’s most fashionable restaurants, Scott’s, killed one man and injured at least 15 other persons. The establishment, in the Mayfair district, had about 70 customers inside at the time of the blast. Scott’s manager, Philip Lawless, said there were many titled diners in the restaurant when the bomb went off, but the dead man was not identified.
About 4 o’clock this afternoon, a group of Lebanese Muslims armed with automatic rifles set, up a barricade on a boulevard in Beirut about a half-mile from the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Young gunmen wearing the green fatigues and emblem of one of Lebanon’s “Nasserite” groups — followers of the Arab Socialist views of Egypt’s late President Gamal Abdel Nasser — began to stop cars with the evident intention of taking Christian hostages in retaliation for the kidnapping of Moslems earlier in the day in another part of the capital. Fifteen minutes later, a jeep arrived at the roadblock. Five or six Palestinian guerrillas wearing red berets, neatly ironed uniforms and carrying automatic rifles jumped from the jeep. With hundreds of pedestrians rushing in every direction to get a better look or to get out of the way, the guerrillas roughly disarmed two of the Nasserites and shoved them into the back of the jeep. The Nasserites complained. One was slapped in the face and the other was jabbed in the chest with a rifle butt. A few yards away, another Nasserite youth brandished his rifle at the jeep, but a friend advised “Don’t shoot.” The jeep, sped off. The incident was over.
The guerrillas’ action illustrated the apparent determination of the P.L.O. to make the current cease‐fire last. It also underlined the guerrilla organization’s delicate position in the midst of the fighting between Muslims and Christians. After a respite yesterday in the taking of hostages, at least 20 were reported to have been seized today. Prime Minister Rashid Karami warned at a Cabinet meeting that the cease‐fire now in its ninth day, could collapse if the Muslims and Christians did not stop the inflammatory practice of taking hostages.
Jaya Prakash Narayan, the 73‐year-old opposition leader who was imprisoned by the government nearly five months ago, has been released on parole because of his seriously declining health, official sources said tonight. The release of Mr. Narayan, who has been hospitalized for much of the time he has been a prisoner, was apparently based only on his illness, and was said to be no indication that the government was close to releasing any of the other political opponents it has rounded up since June, when it declared a state of emergency. Mr. Narayan, who is widely regarded as a symbol of the old moral values and idealism associated with the struggle for India’s independence, had been one of the country’s two most prominent political prisoners. The other is a former Deputy Prime Minister, Morarji R. Desai, who is 79.
Senate and House conferees agreed to delay until April 15 further funding of the Navy base expansion on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. The delay is intended to allow time for exploring with the Soviet Union the prospect of negotiating mutual arms restraint in the Indian Ocean area. The Senate had initially voted to delay spending of this year’s $13.8 million appropriation until July 1, 1976.
The White House is expected to announce tomorrow that President Ford will visit China from December 1 to December 4 and make one‐day stops in Indonesia and the Philippines on his way home. White House sources disclosed the date for the trip after more than a week’s postponement of the departure of a White House advance party that was to make arrangements for the visit. The advance party is now scheduled to leave on Monday.
A 14-member interim cabinet has been sworn in to take over day-to-day functions of the Australian government from fired Prime Minister Gough Whitlam amid calls for a general strike by militant labor unions. The cabinet, chosen by caretaker Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, was sworn in by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, Queen Elizabeth’s representative in Australia.
The deterioration of the Peronist movement in Argentina, which came to power with seven million votes two years ago, advanced in La Plata today with a big dissident rally against the government of President Isabel Martinez de Perón. The rally, attended by about 15,000 persons, was called by Victorio Calabro, the Governor of Buenos Aires province, a former labor leader of the Metalworkers Union who was expelled from the Justicialist (Peronist) Party for attacking Mrs. Peron’s government. Mr. Calabro said that the political and labor figures who surround Mrs. Perón were producing a critical situation of unemployment, rising prices, and sectarian killings that he called a “betrayal of Peronist doctrine.”
William O. Douglas retired from the Supreme Court because of failing health after a record 36½ years on the Court as one of the most adamant and controversial defenders of the liberal view of the Constitution. There was immediate speculation on whom President Ford would appoint as a successor. He was said to be actively considering naming a woman. His choice was expected to be far more conservative. William O. Douglas, whose 36 years as a justice of the United States Supreme Court remains the longest tenure ever, retired at the age of 77. Douglas, who had been debilitated by a stroke on December 31, said in a statement that “I have been unable to shoulder my full share of the burden.” Douglas had been on the Court since April 17, 1939.
Alabama Governor George C. Wallace became the tenth person to declare his candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination for the 1976 U.S. presidential race. Wallace had run as a third-party candidate in 1968 and had been running for the nomination in 1972 when he was paralyzed by an assassin. Wallace formally announced his candidacy for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. He said his key issue would be the “survival” of the average middle-class American in an “ultra-liberal” age. Referring to the lower trunk and leg paralysis he has suffered since the 1972 attempt on his life, he said that his health was excellent.
Overseas National Airways Flight 32 took off from Kennedy International Airport in New York on a flight to Frankfurt, and encountered a large flock of seagulls on the runway. The birds were sucked into the number 3 engine, causing a fire that spread to the rest of the jet. Remarkably, all 139 of the people on board escaped without injury, in part because they were all ONA employees who had had emergency training. The plane, a DC-10 jumbo jet that had cost forty million dollars, was destroyed. ONA would go bankrupt three years later.
The House passed legislation that would inaugurate the new congressional budget control system with a $373.89 billion federal spending limit for the present fiscal year. The resolution was sent to the Senate, which is working on its own spending ceiling. When a reconciled version is accepted by both chambers it will become binding on Congress. The House measure envisages a deficit for the year ending next June 30 of $72.09 billion, resulting from outlays Ford origin $301.80 billion. President Ford originally proposed that the deficit not exceed $60 billion.
Strip-mining control legislation failed again when the House Interior Committee refused to attach it to a bill permitting the leasing of federal land for coal production. Strip-mining controls have been vetoed previously and some advocates felt that trying to revive them could jeopardize passage of the coal-leasing bill. A federal law is sought because strip-mining states like Ohio and Pennsylvania are reluctant to enforce their own state laws, proponents said.
The authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the manufacture, sale and use of pesticides was extended two years by the U.S. Senate. By a vote of 86 to 0 the measure was sent back to the House, which had voted for a one-year extension. The differences between the two versions will have to be worked out in a conference committee.
The Senate voted 54 to 35 to reject an effort giving states the option of preventing unions from picketing an entire construction site in a dispute with only one subcontractor. A bill now pending would allow building trades unions all over the nation to engage in such picketing. Called common site picketing, it could close down an entire construction project.
The Senate Banking Committee voted to kill President Ford’s nomination of Ben Blackburn, a former Representative from Georgia, to head the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Opponents said he was too insensitive to the needs and rights of minorities to serve in a post setting federal policy on equal access to home mortgage money. The White House said Mr. Ford would look for a new nominee.
Governor Carey, saying he had the word he was awaiting of a softened White House attitude toward aiding New York City, will reconvene a special legislative session tomorrow morning and ask enactment of the mix of new taxes and debt restructuring set by President Ford as the prerequisite for federal action before a default. He said he had heard from Treasury Secretary William Simon that if the state enacted his plan the President would in turn consider support for loan guarantees.
President Ford said he was encouraged by the fiscal progress being made by New York state and city and by municipal labor unions. He told a White House meeting of magazine publishers that he attributed the progress to his tough stand. As his administration gave its first sign that it was considering short-term aid, he said he still opposed aid to avert city default.
New York state Comptroller Arthur Levitt rejected a tentatively arranged $35 million loan to Yonkers, but said other sources of funds might be available by Friday, when the city faces default. Governor Carey said banks might be encouraged to help if the legislature establishes an Emergency Financial Control Board, like New York’s, for the city of Yonkers.
The mother and aunt of a girl who died after a respirator was turned off have refused to take lie detector tests, their attorney, Sidney Siben, disclosed. He said he had advised them against it, since the tests have no legal standing, and said both women were prepared to “tell all they know” to a grand jury next week. The girl, Maryjane Dahl, 16, was in a coma in a Mineola, New York, hospital suffering from meningitis and Hodgkins’ disease when a nurse found her respirator turned off and unplugged on November 2. The mother and aunt told police they had left the room and were in a waiting room when the respirator was stopped.
A machete-wielding man who apparently had killed a young woman and hacked two motorists before barricading himself in an office with a hostage for 16 hours surrendered without resistance and released the hostage unharmed. Authorities in Indian Lakes Estates, Florida, had drugged the man with a narcotic slipped into a carton of orange juice and he was almost “out on his feet” when he walked through a door behind his woman hostage. The man, tentatively identified as Jasper Mines, reportedly seized Mrs. Janie Nelson, a real estate agent, in her office and held her hostage there until he decided to surrender. Authorities said that Mines earlier had abandoned a van on a road nearby, and attacked two motorists who stopped when he flagged them. The nude and bound body of Maria Lois Hartnoll, 20, of Satellite Beach, Florida, was found in the van.
Congress and the Ford administration reached agreement on a long-term national policy for regulating the price of crude oil produced in the United States. The measure would mandate lower prices for petroleum products over the next two years. The price of a gallon of gasoline would be cut by 3½ cents immediately and then permitted to rise gradually to be about what they are today by late 1977.
A federal court in Chicago convicted Ralph Newman, a literary appraiser and expert on the written memorabilia of Abraham Lincoln, on two charges of lying about his role in helping former President Richard Nixon claim an illegal tax deduction of $450,000. Mr. Newman, who is president of the Chicago Public Library Board, did not take the stand or call witnesses.
The abducted son of a General Motors executive was reported safe after his father paid a $150,000 ransom. Police in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills Township said the boy, Timothy Stempel, 13, walked into a hospital after being released by his kidnapers. Timothy, son of Robert C. Stempel. director of engineering at GM’s Chevrolet division, was described as being exhausted but otherwise in good shape. He was first reported missing at 5:30 PM Monday when he went out to play and failed to return. Three hours later, in the first of a series of telephone calls, a male voice told Stempel what he would have to pay. Because the caller threatened the boy’s life if the authorities were notified, they asked the media to refrain from publicizing the abduction until the boy had been released.
A fierce storm lashed the northern Midwest and upper Great Lakes, dumping heavy snows, causing a major power blackout and slowing searches for crewmen missing in gale-swept waters. Searchers all but abandoned hope of recovering the bodies of 29 seamen lost in a storm Monday night on Lake Superior that sank the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald. Heavy snow also blanketed Minnesota, the Dakotas and Nebraska and flurries were reported as far south as Missouri.
5th NASCAR Sprint Cup: Richard Petty wins his sixth Cup.
The Mets Tom Seaver wins his 3rd Cy Young Award. He led the National League with 22 wins, notched 243 strikeouts, and had a 2.38 ERA.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 852.25 (+13.70, +1.63%)
Born:
Jason Lezak, American swimmer, Olympic medallist (4 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze, 2000-2012), in Irvine, California.
Chris Wells, Canadian NHL centre and left wing (Pittsburgh Penguins, Florida Panthers), in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Andrae Patterson, NBA power forward (Minnesota Timberwolves), in in Riverside, California.
Randy Palmer, NFL tight end (Cleveland Browns), in Bexar County, Texas.
Angela Watson, American actress (“Step By Step”), in Danville, Illinois.
Nina Brosh, Israeli model, in Ramat Yishai, Israel.
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