Many of the U.S. Army’s tank units in Europe are not ready for combat, according to a government report released by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minnesota). “According to the GAO (Government Accounting Office), there are serious personnel shortages in some frontline units as well as a lack of experience and combat skills among a portion of the existing personnel,” Humphrey said. The report also found that some units were short of ammunition and that they would have difficulty getting ammunition if fighting broke out suddenly.
A U.S. official said West Berlin’s justice authorities received a 10-hour warning on this week’s prison break by four women anarchists. A Justice Department spokesman quoted a telephone voice as saying: “This is the June the Second Movement. We shall free the prisoners.” He said the warning was transmitted immediately to appropriate German security officials. The women overpowered two guards at gunpoint, slid down the prison wall on knotted bedclothes and departed in waiting cars, spreading spikes on the road to delay pursuers.
U.N. Secretary General Kuril Waldheim called on the world community in a statement today to act urgently against the “increasingly pervasive and pernicious practice of terrorism.” The Security Council at the demands of African members, will meet tomorrow to take up their charge that Israel’s rescue of hijacked hostages at Entebbe airport in Uganda was a case. of “wanton aggression.” Western countries, meanwhile, were working to expand the Council debate to a broader consideration of curbing hijacking and terrorism. Mr. Waldheim’s statement was issued because he had been criticized in Israel, the United States and elsewhere for his earlier comments that the Israeli commando raid was a “serious violation of the sovereignty” of Uganda. in one news agency report from Cairo he was quoted incorrectly as describing the Israeli action as a “flagrant aggression.”
The Israeli Army units that rescued the hijacked hostages and crew at Entebbe Airport in Uganda last weekend carried out a full-dress rehearsal of the operation the night before in Israel. The actual rescue of the hostages, the army disclosed, took 53 minutes — two minutes less than the practice exercise the night before. “It was almost incredible,” Lieutenant General Mordechai Gur, the Israeli Chief of Staff, said at news conference in Tel Aviv tonight. Breaking a week of official silence on the operational details of the rescue, General Gur gave a comprehensive picture of the planning and execution of the operation. He held back certain details for security reasons. The Israelis carried with them 33 doctors and two complete field surgery units to tend the wounded. General Gur said that the Israeli units “imposed themselves” on the Kenyans in landing at Nairobi Airport on the way home. He contended that neither Kenya nor any other foreign country had any advance word of the operation. Strict secrecy was necessary, he said, to prevent disclosure.
The British High Commissioner in Uganda, James Hennessy returned to his post today and began trying to trace Dora Bloch an elderly hostage who was left behind in a hospital after the Israeli rescue mission at Entebbe airport. The High Commission, or embassy, in Kampala said Mr. Hennessy, who broke off home leave to return, had asked to see the head of the Uganda Foreign Ministry to check the whereabouts of the 73‐year‐old woman, who has dual British and Israeli citizenship. Mr. Hennessy has been reported to be on good terms with President Idi Amin. But a member of the President’s staff said by telephone that no request had been received for the High Commissioner to meet the Uganda leader. Earlier, when questioned about. Mrs. Bloch, an aide told reporters: “Don’t ask us, ask Israel.”
[Ed: Dora Bloch was murdered on the explicit orders of Idi Amin.]
Mahmoud Riad, the head of the Arab League’s mediation effort in Lebanon, returned to Cairo from a fruitless talk and said the Arab peacekeeping force in the Beirut area was powerless to act. He and the two other members of the mission, the foreign ministers of Tunisia and Bahrain, will attend a meeting of the 20 Arab League countries on Monday to consider further steps in the mediation attempt. In Beirut it was believed that the situation was too heated and bitter for effective mediation now, and the pessimism was increased by a report from Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, that Syrian troops were about to attack Beirut.
Both sides claimed victories today in continued heavy fighting in northern Lebanon, but there were indications that the Lebanese leftists and their Palestinian allies remained on the defensive. A Western reporter in the north said Christian militiamen were attacking the leftist town of Enfeh, 10 miles south of Tripoli. Christian sources said they were determined to take the town to insure the defense of Chekka, two miles to the south. Chekka commands a bay that the informants said would be the best site for a port if Lebanon was partitioned and a separate Christian state was set up. Striking earlier this week from the north, predominantly Muslim leftist militiamen and Palestinian guerrillas invaded an 800‐square‐mile area of Christian territory between Tripoli and Beirut in an attempt to force an end to the Christian siege of a Palestinian camp here. The attackers penetrated about 20 miles into Christian territory and stormed Chekka, but a Christian counterattack forced them back.
Japanese authorities investigating the Lockheed payoff scandal made their seventh arrest today, taking into custody the head of Japan’s largest airline, and more arrests were expected later. Sixty-one-year-old Tokuji Wakasa, president of All Nippon Airways, was by far the most prominent person to be arrested so far in the continuing investigations into Lockheed’s payment of $12. 6 million in commissions, fees and bribes to promote the sale of its aircraft in Japan. He was accused of having violated the foreign exchange law and of having committed perjury in testimony on the Lockheed affair before a committee of Parliament.
More than 9,000 people died in the earthquake and subsequent landslides on the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea on June 26. The Indonesian government’s official estimate of the number of people killed is 9,011, and it may increase. The Social Welfare Minister said 15,000 survivors were waiting to be taken out of the earthquake area.
A bomb dropped by a U.S. Navy plane during a bombing exercise killed four Filipino fishermen last month, the government’s Philippine News Agency reported. A Navy spokesman said, however, that he could find no official report of such an incident. The Philippine News Agency quoted the police chief of the coastal town of San Antonio as the source of its information.
The editor and senior staff members of Mexico’s most liberal and independent newspaper, Excelsior, were tonight ousted by a group of conservative employees apparently supported and encouraged by the Government.
One member of a bomb disposal crew was killed and six others, including a policewoman, were injured when a bomb they were attempting to defuse went off in downtown Buenos Aires. The explosion took place only about 100 yards from the federal police superintendent’s office where another bomb went off last week, killing 19 persons and injuring 65. In another incident, the Argentine army reported that two leftwing guerrillas were killed in a clash with troops in northern Tucuman province.
Mohamed Nour Saeed, named as a leader of last week’s abortive coup against Sudanese President Jaafar Numeiri, was arrested, the Sunda News Agency reported. The former army brigadier had been sought since the attempted coup last Friday in which at least 300 people are reported to have died. He had been named as leader of the coup attempt along with former army Capt. Bushra Abdalla, who was captured a few days ago.
Black nationalist guerrillas operating from bases in Angola killed five persons and abducted 11 in a raid into Namibia (South-West Africa), officials reported. The raid followed an announcement by South African defense forces that they had killed 29 guerrillas last month. Namibia is ruled by South Africa under a mandate no longer recognized by the United Nations.
Rhodesian guerrilla leaders in Mozambique have told a visiting member of the United States Congress that they will reject any proposals for a negotiated settlement of the Rhodesian conflict that do not provide for an immediate and unconditional transfer of power by the ruling white minority.
Palapa-A1, the first satellite built in Indonesia, was launched from Cape Canaveral in the United States at 6:31 pm local time (6:31 am on July 9 Indonesian time) as a communications satellite for the Indonesian corporation Indosat.
A small rocket engine aboard Viking I burned for less than a minute today to change the spacecraft’s course slightly so that it could look for a safe spot on Mars for its landing module.
Two Soviet cosmonauts aboard an orbiting space laboratory set to work for what is likely to be a marathon mission. After their first night on the Salyut, Boris Volynov, flight commander, and Vitaly Zholobov, engineer, radioed that they “feel fine.” The two, after docking their Soyuz 21 spacecraft with the orbiting station, checked their pulse rates and collected other medical data in their quarters on the three-room, 20-ton laboratory. They are expected by Western space experts to try to break the American record of 84 days in space set in 1974.
With more support from uncommitted delegates, President Ford’s prospects of winning the Republican presidential nomination have improved substantially. He has received in recent days expressions of qualified support from 22 delegates who told the New York Times in a second canvass of uncommitted delegates that they were strongly inclined to vote for Mr. Ford on the first ballot in Kansas City next month. The President also won 12 of the 18 North Dakota delegates chosen at the Republican State Convention in Fargo. Ronald Reagan won four, leaving two others uncommitted. It was a better showing for Mr. Ford than expected. Mr. Reagan had hoped for as many as 10 delegates in North Dakota, and the Ford forces had expressed willingness last week to take a 9‐to‐9 split. The victory assured Mr. Ford of control of the crucial convention committees at Kansas City. And the President has gained commitments from nine previously uncommitted delegates, while 11 delegates previously credited to him were moving to the uncommitted column although they may well ultimately support Mr. Ford.
Suggestions that Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota was too liberal to run for Vice President on the Carter ticket were dismissed as unfounded by Jimmy Carter, who has been meeting with possible vice-presidential candidates at his home in Plains, Georgia. Senator Mondale had a discussion that lasted for several hours with Mr. Carter, who afterward began talks with Senator John Glenn of Ohio.
Former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, who had resigned from office on August 9, 1974, in the wake of accusations of interfering with investigation of the Watergate scandal, became the first former president to be disbarred from the practice of law. The 4 to 1 opinion of the New York state court’s appellate division concluded that Nixon had obstructed “the due administration of justice”, a violation of the state Code of Professional Responsibility for lawyers. The findings on the charges, brought by the New York City bar association, marked the first time that Nixon had ever “been found guilty by an official body of charges relating to Watergate.”
Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis said Jack Ruby met in Havana with Fidel Castro 10 weeks before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and discussed “removal of the President” along with arms purchases for Cuba and smuggling of illicit drugs into the United States. Sturgis, now living in Miami, said he “and other agents” passed that information on to various government agencies early in 1964, before the Warren Commission completed its hearings, but he was uncertain whether his information reached the commission. He said his information indicated that Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Ruby, who killed Oswald, “were involved in the same conspiracy, along with other people.”
A growing number of past and present executives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including two aides close to its director, Clarence Kelley, have come under the scrutiny of the Justice Department’s inquiry into the bureau, sources close to the inquiry said. The investigation of the F.B.I., the first in the bureau’s history, is considering allegations of financial corruption among high bureau officials and the commission of illegal burglaries by agents within the last five years, long after that practice was believed to have been halted. One federal official, asked how many bureau agents and executives have been touched by either of the two inquiries, replied that a list of their names would take up “a lot of space. ” According to a variety of reliable sources in and out of the Government, the twin investigations have badly damaged the bureau’s morale and the efficiency of some of its operations. F.B.I. agents and headquarters officials, one ‘source said, have approached prosecutors through their lawyers about the possibility of testifying against one another in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Queen Elizabeth II, who has been entertained by her hosts for the last few days, returned the compliment tonight with a dinner for 84 and a reception for 1,600 at the British Embassy. The main events of the third day of the Queen’s six‐day tour were a dedication service, with President Ford, of the nave of the National Cathedral and lunch in the Statuary Hall of the Capitol, the first room put to the torch by the British in 1812. Tonight’s embassy‐dinner guests included, besides President and Mrs. Ford, British and commonwealth diplomats and the usual sampling of Washington officialdom.
After more than a decade of intense resistance by the legislature, New Jersey tonight became the 43rd state to adopt an income tax. A graduated income tax was enacted into law in New Jersey under pressure of an educational financing crisis that closed the state’s public school system for eight days. Governor Brendan T. Byrne signed the law an hour after the Senate passed it by a 22-18 vote. The state will begin collecting the tax in September, with payments retroactive to July 1. The rate will be 2% below $20,000 and 2.5% on all additional income. The state Supreme Court is expected to lift an injunction against education spending today, which means that 2,403 schools may resume summer operations at once.
A new government report shows that the tranquilizer Valium is associated with 10% of drug abuse crises, a higher level than reported for any other drug. Alcohol in combination with other unspecified drugs ranked second, heroin third, marijuana fourth and aspirin fifth. Morphine ranked first among the drugs associated with death. Heroin and morphine together accounted for 15% of the drug abuse deaths. Alcohol in combination with other drugs was linked to 13% of the deaths, the report said, and Valium was associated with 4%. Dr. Robert DuPont, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, released the report.
Selection of the 12-member jury that will decide the state’s case against William and Emily Harris, accused with Patricia Hearst of assault, robbery and kidnapping, was completed today, nine days after jury selection began, and after 76 prospects had been questioned. The seven women and five men selected to serve all said they had heard of the Harrises, members of the self‐styled Symbionese Liberation Army, a revolutionary group, and Miss Hearst, their underground traveling companion. Miss Hearst, of the publishing family, was kidnapped by the S.L.A. and was convicted of committing a bank robbery with some of its members. She is not on trial with the Harrises, whom she has renounced, because she is undergoing psychiatric testing prior to her final sentencing in San Francisco.
Charles O’Brien, the foster son of James R. Hoffa, a key target of a grand jury investigation of Mr. Hoffa’s disappearance, has been arrested on an indictment charging that he accepted gifts from a Detroit automobile dealership. The indictment, charging Mr. O’Brien with two violations of the Taft‐Hartley Act, is another move, Federal investigators say, to put pressure on key persons who they believe were involved in the disappearance of Mr. Hoffa, former head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Investigators have said that they have pieced together who kidnapped and murdered Mr. Hoffa last July 30 and why, but that they do not have strong enough evidence to go to court.
In a deposition made public today, Neal Roberts, a former Assistant Arizona Attorney General, asserted that a close associate of a prominent Arizona landowner spoke of “old-style Western justice” before the slaying of Don Bolles, a reporter for The Arizona Republic. Mr. Bolles died June 13, days after a bomb exploded in his car shortly after he had been lured to a downtown hotel by an informant, supposedly with a tip about a land fraud scandal involving prominent Arizona politicians. John H: Adamson, a 32‐year-old racing dog owner, has been charged with the murder and is scheduled to stand trial September 2.
Patricia Nixon, wife of former President Richard M. Nixon, was in serious condition at the Long Beach Memorial Hospital tonight as a result of a stroke suffered yesterday. Doctors said that she was resting comfortably, and that her condition was “stable. ” However, they added that it would not be apparent for 36 to 48 hours whether her condition would worsen. She was described as having “a moderate to severe paralysis” on the left side of her body, affecting her left arm and left leg and the side of her face. She was reported to have a “slight speech impediment.”
Retired Army Major General Edwin A. Walker, onetime fiery voice of rightwing America, was arrested June 23 on a charge of public lewdness in a restroom at a city park, Dallas police said. Walker, 66, was arrested by a plainclothes park police officer late in the evening, a police information officer said. He was charged with a misdemeanor and released the next day after posting $200 bond. No trial date was set.
Richard L. McVeigh, former United States Attorney for Alaska, and eight other persons were indicted by a Federal grand jury here today. They were accused of conspiring to set up a large-scale prostitution and gambling operation for Alaskan pipeline workers. The seven‐count indictment, a result of two years of undercover work by Federal and state law enforcement officers, also alleges that at least two women had been recruited from the northern California area and transported to Alaska for purposes of prostitution.
An 800-foot glass fiber cable, as fine as a human hair, that carries pulses of light from a fixed source, replaced the standard three-quarter-inch copper coaxial cable in the transmission equipment of a commercial cable television concern. Engineers said it was the biggest advance in electronics since the introduction of the transistor in the early 1950’s. The fiber was not expected to be ready for wide use in television until the end of the century.
The United States is falling behind in its efforts to dispose of its garbage and other solid waste because of a “throw-away mentality,” according to a House government operations subcommittee report. The study said the generation of waste in this country is growing at nearly 8% a year and it recommends that Congress consider legislation for minimum national standards of waste disposal and encourage efforts to recover useful materials and energy.
Plans by Dow Chemical Co. for a $500 million styrene plant near Collinsville in the Sacramento River Delta were rejected by the Bay Area Air Pollution Control District in San Francisco. The turndown was based on staff findings that the plant would jeopardize air purity. The district last May refused to grant Arco Chemical Co. permission to build a $1 billion petrochemical complex on property adjacent to Dow’s Solano County plant site.
Major League Baseball:
After being held to one hit by Frank LaCorte in the first four innings, the New York Mets broke loose for four runs in the fifth and defeated the Atlanta Braves, 5–2, behind the pitching of Tom Seaver (9–5). In the fifth, Ed Kranepool and Bruce Boisclair singled. When Ron Hodges bunted, LaCorte threw the ball past third base trying for a force-out, and Kranepool scored. Boisclair took third and Hodges went to second on the error. Wayne Garrett then drove them home with a single and scored himself on a triple by Mike Phillips.
Carlton Fisk, who had not driven in a run since June 17, accounted for two RBIs with a double to break a 4–4 tie and sent the Red Sox on their way to an 8–4 victory over the Twins. Carl Yastrzemski knocked in three runs with a single and homer. Fred Lynn was safe on an error in the fifth inning, Yastrzemski walked and Fisk then sent them home with his two-bagger. The crowd of 25,970 sent the Red Sox home attendance over one million for the 10th straight year.. It’s the earliest date in club history they’ve topped the million mark.
Randy Jones wins his 16th game of the year for the Padres, an National League record for wins at the All-Star break. He beats the Cubs 6–3, to salvage a win in the 4-game series at Wrigley. The Padres clinched the decision for Jones with four runs in the third inning, the first three tallies coming on singles by Johnny Grubb, Tito Fuentes, Dave Winfield and Mike Ivie. Ivie then stole second, reached third on a balk and crossed the plate on a wild pitch. Jones’ win ends a three-game streak of shutouts by Cubs’ pitchers. In the 2nd half of the season, the Padres lefty will lose 7 games by one run, 2 of them by 1–0 scores.
A single by Jose Cruz with the bases loaded in the ninth inning scored Enos Cabell with the Astros’ winning run in a 7–6 victory over the Expos. Bombo Rivera drove in three runs for the Expos with a double and homer before Andre Thornton hit for the circuit in the top half of the ninth to tie the score at 6–6. In the Astros’ half, Cabell walked, stole his third base of the game and continued to third on a wild throw by catcher Barry Foote. After intentional passes to Bob Watson and Leon Roberts, Cruz rapped his game-winning single.
After falling behind in 13th inning, 4–2, the Brewers came back with a three-run rally to defeat the Rangers, 5–4. Bernie Carbo opened the Brewers’ half with a double, stopped at third on a single by George Scott and scored on a safe bunt by Bill Sharp. An intentional walk to Art Kusnyer then loaded the bases and Gorman Thomas doubled to drive in the tying and winning runs.
Ken Holtzman (7–6) pitched a shutout and Roy White and Oscar Gamble hit homers as the Yankees defeated the White Sox, 6–0. White’s clout came after singles by Jim Mason and Mickey Rivers in the seventh.
The hitting of Ken Singleton and Bobby Grich led the Orioles to a 9–6 victory over the Athletics and enabled Wayne Garland to boost his pitching record to 10–1. Garland, although winning, was lifted after 6 ⅔ innings and Dyar Miller went the rest of the way to get credit for the save. Singleton knocked in four runs with a bases-loaded double and sacrifice fly. Grich hit three doubles, drove in one run and scored three times. Sal Bando hit his league-leading 19th homer of the season for the Athletics.
New York Mets 5, Atlanta Braves 2
Minnesota Twins 4, Boston Red Sox 8
San Diego Padres 6, Chicago Cubs 3
Montreal Expos 6, Houston Astros 7
Texas Rangers 4, Milwaukee Brewers 5
Chicago White Sox 0, New York Yankees 6
Baltimore Orioles 9, Oakland Athletics 6
Lower‐price stocks continued to attract buying interest yesterday as basic‐industry issues took a back seat on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average rose only slightly although volume picked up substantially.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 991.98 (+0.82, +0.08%)
Born:
David Kennedy, American guitarist (Angels & Airwaves), and beverage entrepreneur (James Coffee Co,), in San Diego, California.
Staci Wilson, American soccer defender (Olympic gold medal, 1996), in Livingston, New Jersey.
Ellen MacArthur, English yacht sailor who broke the world record for fastest solo sailing trip around the world with a 71-day voyage in 2005; in Whatstandwell, Derbyshire, England, United Kingdome.
History Diaries 