A bomb placed by the Irish Republican Army killed Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British Ambassador to Ireland, as well as his secretary, Judith Cooke. Ewart-Biggs had been picked up at the British ambassador’s official residence on the south outskirts of Dublin and was 150 yards (140 m) from home when the vehicle ran over the mine packed with at least 50 pounds (23 kg) of explosives at 9:32 in the morning. The Ambassador and Britain’s Under Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Brian Cubbon, were on their way to a meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Garret FitzGerald. The bomb itself had been placed in a culvert beneath the road and was detonated from 200 yards (180 m) away by three men. Cubban and the chauffeur of the Jaguar limousine, Brian O’Driscoll, were injured. Ewart-Biggs had become the Ambassador only two weeks earlier and was only 54 years old at the time of his assassination. The Irish government offered a £20,000 reward for information leading to arrest of the killers. Police assumed they were either linked to the Irish Republican Army or part of a breakaway group.
The addition of the Soviet Union’s first aircraft carrier, the 40,000‐ton Kiev, to the naval squadron in the Mediterranean Sea will mean a significant strengthening of that Squadron’s capabilities, according to United States Navy sources. The YAK‐36 fighters aboard the carrier are designed for very short takeoff and landing, and are expected to provide seaborne air cover for the squadron for the first time. Intelligence estimates from abroad are that the carrier accommodates 35 of the single-seat, subsonic fighters, whose Code name in the North Atlantic alliance is Freehand. In war, these fighters would engage the attack aircraft aboard the two American carriers that are normally part of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Until now the presence of the American aircraft has given that fleet an edge over the numerically superior Soviet squadron.
The Civil Aeronautics Board, in what officials called its potentially most important air-route decision in years, recommended that 11 additional United States metropolitan areas be permitted direct airline service to Europe. It also proposed that Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines be given their first trans-Atlantic routes.
Acting on a tipoff, West Berlin police recaptured a woman anarchist who escaped with three companions from Lehrerstrasse Prison there two weeks ago. A police spokesman said Monika Berberich, 34, was picked up in the city’s fashionable shopping area. The other three escapees are still being sought. They include Inge Viett, whose release was demanded by hijackers of an Air France Airbus in Entebbe, Uganda, last month.
Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, acknowledging that the United Nations was not employing as many qualified women as it should in professional posts, said he had issued personal instructions that every effort must be made to redress the imbalance. Special provisions must be made “for individuals who find themselves at a disadvantage in life,” Waldheim said.
Saudi Arabian soldiers of the Arab League’s peacekeeping force, despite almost constant sniper fire from the Christian side, took up positions today at the Museum, the only crossing point between Muslim‐controlled west Beirut and the Christian‐held eastern part of the city. They were deployed on the Muslim side of the line. A delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization left for Damascus this morning for the first political talks between the Palestinians and the Government of President Hafez al-Assad since the first. Syrian troops moved into Lebanon in April. A new attempt by the International Red Cross to send a relief column of 15 trucks into the beleaguered Palestinian ramp of Tell Zaatar was canceled because of heavy shelling in the area. A reconnaissance mission consisting of a Red Cross delegate and a physician was able to go into the camp in preparation for another attempt by the relief column tomorrow. The deployment of Saudi soldiers on the frontline in the middle of Beirut is regarded as a milestone in the 15 month‐old civil war.
Egypt and Sudan declared that their armed forces would move jointly to repulse any aggression against either country, the official Middle East News Agency reported. The mutual defense pact appeared to represent a front against Libya, which has been accused by both countries of attempting to overthrow their governments. The pact would run for 25 years and be renewed automatically every five years.
India has built a second reprocessing plant capable of making atomic bomb material from U.S.-supplied nuclear fuel, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was told. A top State Department official said the United States would not approve reprocessing of the fuel for the purpose of making bombs. However, it was clear at the commission hearing that the United States is considering letting India reprocess the fuel for nonexplosive uses. India has pledged to the United States not to use the material for military purposes.
With the exchange of Ambassadors and the resumption of passenger flights, India and Pakistan formally re‐established normal relations today. The Indian Ambassador to Pakistan, K. S. Bajpai, flew to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, on the inaugural flight by Indian Airlines. Similarly the Pakistani Ambassador, Syed Fida Hassan, arrived in New Delhi on the first Pakistan International Airlines flight. The lines will operate five flights a week linking New Delhi, Bombay, Lahore and Karachi. Today’s flights marked the resumption of air links between the two countries. They were cut off during the 1965 war over Kashmir. Diplomatic relations were severed during the 1971 war over establishment of Bangladesh, which was formerly East Pakistan. The two embassies will begin normal functions Saturday.
Vietnam has agreed to allow all Americans stranded in that country since the end of the war to leave, beginning Aug. 1, and to take Vietnamese members of their families with them, it was disclosed today. Senator Edward. M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator George McGovern, Democrat of South Dakota, made public similar telegrams received from the Vietnamese Ambassador in Paris, Vo Van Sung, announcing that the Government had authorized the departure of all the Americans, their wives and their children. The announcement came as State Department and Congressional officials accused Vietnamese Government officials of not having fulfilled promises that the stranded Americans would be allowed to leave. There was no exact figure on the number of Americans remaining in Vietnam or the number of wives and children.
Mexican sailors using helicopters, amphibian vehicles and boats searched in and around Tampico on the Gulf Coast for hundreds of victims believed still stranded in the area’s worst flooding in two decades. Dozens were believed drowned in and around Tampico, and at least 50,000 were evacuated. In the city, the Panuco and Tamesi rivers showed no sign of receding, and in places were 24 feet above normal levels. The Mexican navy anchored seven ships in Tampico harbor, took on survivors and administered medical care.
A squad of anti-kidnap police in Mexico City freed the teen-aged daughter of a wealthy Mexican real estate executive and killed one of her kidnapers in a gunfight in the gang’s hideout, police said. Two suspects were captured, but a fourth escaped, officers said. The $400,000 ransom paid by the family was recovered. The abduction of Maritza Basurto, 16, was committed by a criminal gang without political motives, police said.
A regional communications conference in Costa Rica adopted a resolution calling for creation and strengthening of national news agencies to pave the way for a Latin American-Caribbean news service. The conference, sponsored by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, approved the measure on its ninth and final day. The resolution claimed that most regional news was circulated by foreign agencies “not greatly concerned or interested in reflecting the real motivations, whole truth or background of regional events.”
Brazilian scientists have learned more about the vast Amazon jungle region in the last five years of detailed mapping than earlier explorers had achieved in four centuries. The findings include a 400-mile river and scores of geological anomalies suggesting mineral deposits. Exploding the myth of the Amazon as a basically flat rain forest, they found in radar-assisted air surveys that about 80 percent of the region is hilly or mountainous.
President Idi Amin of Uganda informed France today he would release the Air France jetliner hijacked to his country last month. He also sent a telegram to President Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya asking him to “forget our differences,” the Uganda radio reported. Mr. Amin impounded the airbus after an Israeli raid on Entebbe Airport on July 4 freed more than 100 hostages held by the pro‐Palestinian group that had hijacked the plane. The Uganda leader had demanded payment for the plane’s release, but today he told the French Ambassador. Pierre Renard, to arrange for it he flown out of the country “without conditions.” according to the Uganda radio broadcast monitored here.
The government acceded to pressure from the black community today and agreed to the immediate reopening of schools in the black townships near Johannesburg and Pretoria. They have been closed since the outbreak of anti-government rioting last month. Justice Minister James I. Kruger announced the decision after meeting in Pretoria with a group calling itself the Committee of 30, representing community leaders, school‐board members and principals from Soweto and other townships involved in the rioting. The decision, affecting more than 350,000 students, reversed the position the government took only five days ago when it announced that schools in the worst‐hit riot areas would remain closed indefinitely to frustrate attempts by agitators to provoke fresh trouble among students.
The first ever color photographs of Mars (as opposed to the black and white pictures sent the day before) were transmitted from the Viking 1 lander the day after its arrival on the planet, and confirmed that the soil and rocks were a reddish color, similar to rust. The more surprising discovery was that the sky on Mars was light blue, which American scientists believed was from a high amount of dust and water vapor in the thin Martian atmosphere. Along with the discovery of 3 percent nitrogen in its atmosphere, this encouraged the idea of possible life on Mars. Because of Viking 1’s safe landing, Viking 2 is to be aimed at a more rugged but intriguing area.
The American Legion opened its annual three-day convention at The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More than 2,000 Legionnaires, mostly men, attended the convention. The date and city were chosen to coincide with America’s celebration of the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776. On July 27, three days after the convention ended, Legionnaire Ray Brennan, a 61-year-old retired US Air Force captain employed as a Legion bookkeeper, died at his home of an apparent heart attack. Brennan had returned home from the convention on the evening of July 24 complaining of feeling tired. On July 30, another Legionnaire, Frank Aveni, aged 60, also died of an apparent heart attack, as did three other Legionnaires. All of them had been convention attendees. Twenty-four hours later, on August 1, six more Legionnaires died. They ranged in age from 39 to 82, and, like the five previous victims, all had complained of tiredness, chest pains, lung congestion, and fever.
While the Center for Disease Control (as it was called in that era) responded rapidly, as did the Pennsylvania Health Department, it took six months for the CDC microbiologist Joseph McDade to discover the cause of the outbreak. He initially thought the cause was viral because blood and tissues from the patients failed to grow bacteria when incubated in culture medium. His subsequent attempts to isolate the viral agent in eggs included antibiotics to kill off “contaminating” bacteria. It was only when he omitted the antibiotics that the bacteria grew in eggs. Attempts to reproduce the disease in mice, the standard laboratory animal model, also failed. The disease was finally produced in guinea pigs. The CDC announced the discovery at a press conference on January 18, 1977. The bacterium was later named Legionella pneumophila.
The Senate, which sustained President Ford’s veto of a public works job bill last February, voted 73 to 24 to override his veto of a scaled-down measure aimed at stimulating employment in the construction industry. Although Congress had reduced the cost of the new version to $3.95 billion, Mr. Ford called it inflationary and an unproductive way to create jobs. The House votes today, and Democratic leaders were hopeful it would complete passage. Congress scaled down the eost of the measure to $3.95 billion, but Mr. Ford vetoed it an July 6 on the ground that it was inflationary and would be an unproductive way to. create jobs. He said that Con. gress, just before a national election, was “enacting empty promises and giveaway programs.” Meanwhile, the Ford Administration moved today to increase the military budget by $1 billion, while the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to defer production of the B‐1 bomber.
The Ford Administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress collided on defense policy today as the White House moved to increase the military budget by about $l billion while the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to defer production of the B-1 bomber. By a 15‐to‐14 vote, largely along party lines, the Senate committee ordered that a production decision on the B‐1 strategic bomber, which the Ford Administration had planned to make in November, should be deferred until next February and perhaps a new administration. Meanwhile, at a hastily called news conference at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced that the Administration would ask Congress, probably tomorrow, to restore some of the cuts it has made in the military budget, and to rescind some military programs it has added to the Administration’s budget.
Advocates of taxing the wealthy more heavily and the middle- and lower-income groups less heavily won victories on both sides of the Capitol today. The House Ways and Means Committee, in an unexpected move, voted to require the heirs of property that rose in value while the deceased person owned it to pay a capital gains tax on the increase when they sold the property. The Senate voted more generous tax treatment of expenses of working parents for child care and of the income received by certain retired persons not fully covered by Social Security.
The Mississippi delegation to the Republican National Convention, with 25 of its 30 members until recently expected to support Ronald Reagan, is said to be on the verge of a decisive shift to President Ford. The state chairman said it was conceivable that a majority would ultimately endorse Mr. Ford. A Ford aide said he was confident this move would crystallize within a week, perhaps by Sunday.
The Labor Department reported a moderate five-tenths of 1 percent increase in consumer prices in June, with energy replacing food as the main factor pushing prices up. For the second quarter of the year, the increase was at an annual rate of 6.1 percent. The June increase in food prices was only two-tenths of 1 percent, while the normal spring increase in gasoline prices was an important factor in pushing energy prices higher.
President Ford nominated Guyford Stever, director of the National Science Foundation, to head the recently recreated White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Stever, 59, will advise the President on all aspects of research and development, including energy, agriculture, medicine, the economy, the environment and use of resources. He also will advise the National Security Council on military research and development. The new position will give scientists their first direct access to the Oval Office since former President Richard M. Nixon eased them out three years ago.
Under pressure from complaining farmers, Agriculture Secretary Earl L. Butz announced that the government would begin buying ground beef for school cafeterias early this year to help bolster sagging cattle prices. A spokesman said the purchases “probably will have little or no effect” on consumer beef prices since the annual hamburger buying campaign absorbs relatively little of the total supply. The department during the last school year bought 98.4 million pounds at a cost of $71.3 million, about 72 cents a pound. If purchases for the coming school year total around 100 million pounds, they would be equal only to little more than one day’s processing of beef. Last week’s output, for example, was 471.5 million pounds.
Eight House members and seven other persons were selected to review the House’s handling of its funds and other administrative matters and recommend improvements. Speaker Carl Albert of Oklahoma, after consultation with leaders of both parties, made the appointments to the Commission on Administrative Review. The panel was created as part of reforms adopted by the House in the wake of sex and payroll scandals. The chairman will be Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wisconsin), who headed a task force that developed the reform recommendations. The commission is mandated to report back by Dec. 31. 1977.
The Transportation Department awarded seven major cities $340 million in mass transportation grants. Secretary William T. Coleman Jr. said the move was to show his department was “committed to revitalizing transportation in major cities. The city that is not accessible cannot serve its people,” he said. Baltimore received the largest grant-$100 million for further construction of a rapid transit system. New York City got $66.2 million, Boston got $58.4 million, Seattle was awarded $50 million and San Francisco got $11 million to assist operating its transit system and $16.7 million for improvements. The District of Columbia got $15.7 million and Detroit got $10.1 million for buses and shelters.
Eight more former Washington Post pressmen were indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., on charges of rioting and destruction of property in connection. with the pressmen’s strike against the newspaper that began last October. It came a week after seven other pressmen had been charged with causing $13,000 worth of damage to printing equipment and engaging in violence on a picket line. Last month two other pressmen were allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges in exchange for their grand jury testimony.
Warrants were issued in Madera, California, for the arrest of at least three San Mateo County residents in connection with the kidnapping of 26 Chowchilla summer school pupils and their bus driver. The names are not released but the three are said to be sons of prominent families in Portola Valley west of Palo Alto. At one point, officers said that arrests would be made at two places but they later said all would be made at one large estate. In Redwood City, United Press International reported that heavily armed policemen moved onto a 100‐acre estate in Atherton late tonight. The estate is owned by Fred Newhall Woods 3d, the President of the California Rock and Gravel Company, which owns the quarry near Livermore where the kidnap victims were entombed for 16 hours before they dug their way to safety.
Sheriff’s investigators will begin administering polygraph tests tomorrow in an effort to discover who smuggled a 1974 newspaper, containing an article with a banner headline on the Patricia Hearst kidnapping, into a heavily guarded courtroom where Miss Hearst’s former companions, Emily and William Harris, are on trial. Capt. Robert Hart of the Sheriff’s Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, which has been assigned by Superior Court Judge Mark Brandler to conduct the inquiry, said today that three investigators had begun questioning anyone who might have had access to a trash can in a bathroom in the jury room where the newspaper was found by a woman juror on Monday. The trial was recessed today to give lawyers time to prepare scientific . tests on a tape recording sent to a Los Angeles radio station by the underground in June 1974. On it, Mr. Harris allegedly comments about some of the crimes with which he has been charged in this trial. The prosecution wants the tape admitted as evidence so the jury can hear it. The defense plans to fight that move when the trial resumes tomorrow.
Signs of a modest economic upturn in New York City, the metropolitan region and state are being discerned by economists and public officials who have been gloomy for several years about New York’s prospects. The signs include a small increase in manufacturing employment in the state, a lessening in the severity of unemployment, a narrowing of the gap between national and regional growth rates, an increase in the region’s price competitiveness and declines in the city’s birth rate.
Inmates at Wisconsin State Prison in Waupun took 14 persons hostage and hurled firebombs from windows while prison officials attempted to conduct negotiations, although they said the demonstrators’ demands were unclear. Sheriff Edwin Nehls said about 75 inmates were involved. The hostages were guards and prison supervisors except for three civilians who had been making deliveries in the prison’s three-story industrial building. One of the hostages, a sign shop supervisor, was released later and treated for head injuries. There were no other reports of injury and officials said none of the inmates had conventional weapons. Conditions elsewhere in the prison, containing about 1,170 inmates, were described as normal.
“Guys & Dolls” opens at Broadway Theater NYC for 239 performances.
9th San Diego Comic-Con International opens at El Cortez Hotel.
Major League Baseball:
Montreal trades Jim Dwyer and Pepe Mangual to the New York Mets for Del Unser and Wayne Garrett.
Chris Knapp pitched a four-hitter for the rookie’s first major league victory and Bart Johnson followed with a six-hit shutout as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Detrooit Tigers in a twi-night doubleheader, 4–1 and 3–0. Lamar Johnson backed Knapp’s hurling in the opener by driving in two runs with a sacrifice fly and single, but Jorge Orta was stopped on his 17-game hitting streak, drawing the collar in four trips. In the nightcap, the White Sox scored all their runs in the fourth inning on a single by Orta, a stolen base, singles by Bill Stein and Kevin Bell and a triple by Bucky Dent.
Fred Norman, who is almost invincible in Reds’ home games, brought his Riverfront Stadium record to 30–7 by shutting out the Mets on four hits, 4–0. The lefthander’s complete game was the Reds’ 22nd of the season, equaling the club’s total for the entire 1975 campaign. Joe Morgan was the Reds’ leader on offense, hitting a single and double, driving in one run, scoring one and stealing three bases.
Charlie Spikes drove in three runs with a pair of singles in support of Rick Waits, who pitched the Indians to a 6–2 victory over the Angels. After the Angels scored their runs in the third inning, the Indians picked up one in their half and went ahead to stay when Boog Powell walked, Buddy Bell doubled and Spikes drove them both home with a single in the fourth inning. Spikes accounted for his third RBI of the game with a single in the eighth.
The Royals committed six errors and failed to take advantage of Bill Travers’ wildness while losing to the Brewers, 5–0. The Royals’ first four errors resulted in three unearned runs. The Brewers added their other tallies in the sixth inning on a walk, double by Robin Yount and single by Tim Johnson. Travers allowed only four hits but walked six, hit two batters and uncorked two wild pitches before being lifted with two out in the seventh inning.
Playing third base for the first time in his major league career, Ted Simmons committed an error in the 10th inning that enabled the Dodgers to defeat the Cardinals, 7–6. Simmons fielded a grounder by Bill Russell and threw wildly to first, allowing the batter to take an extra base. After Dusty Baker, trying to bunt, popped up, the Cards walked pinch-hitter Manny Mota intentionally, but another pinch-hitter, Ted Sizemore, singled to drive in the winning run. Reggie Smith hit two homers for the Dodgers.
Breaking his personal five-game losing streak, Dave Goltz pitched seven innings and gained his first victory since June 17 when the Twins defeated the Red Sox, 5–1. After the Red Sox picked up their run in the second, the Twins took command with three in the third, two scoring on a double by Bob Randall.
A loser of eight previous decisions, reliever Dale Murray gained credit for his first victory of the season when the Expos pushed the tie-breaking run across the plate in the seventh inning to defeat the Braves, 4–3. With one out, Del Unser, newly acquired from the Mets, walked and Mike Jorgensen singed. Mike Marshall came to the mound and passed Andre Thornton to load the bases. Larry Parrish then forced Thornton at second and Unser scored what proved to be the winning run.
The Yankee battery of Catfish Hunter (12–8) and Thurman Munson proved to be too much for the Athletics, who absorbed a 10–1 beating. Hunter scattered nine hits and racked up his 12th victory while pitching his 13th complete game of the season. Munson rapped four hits.
Larry Demery, making only his fourth start of the season, allowed just two hits in 8 ⅔ innings as the Pirates defeated the Astros, 4–1, for a sweep of a twi-night doubleheader. The Pirates won the first game, 5–1, behind the pitching of Jerry Reuss, who racked up his 10th victory. Bob Watson, who collected four of the Astros’ hits, doubled and scored in the second inning, but Bill Robinson put Reuss on the winning road by smashing a homer with a man on base in the fourth. The Pirates’ attack in the nightcap included a homer by Richie Zisk. After Demery gave up the Astros’ run in the ninth, Dave Giusti took over and issued one pass before striking out the last batter.
With help from Gene Garber in the ninth inning, Jim Kaat gained his 10th victory of the season when the Phillies defeated the Padres, 5–1. Jay Johnstone drove in the Phils’ first two runs with a single in the first inning and Tommy Hutton accounted for three others with his first homer of the season in the third. The Padres’ run was unearned.
Intending to sacrifice, Bobby Murcer laid down a bunt that rolled through the infield for a double to help the Giants defeat the Cubs, 2–1. The game was scoreless until the ninth inning when Joe Wallis homered off John Montefusco for the Cubs’ run. Marty Perez and Gary Matthews opened the Giants’ half with singles. Murcer followed with his bunt double through the Cubs’ moving infield, scoring Perez, After an intentional pass to Darrell Evans, Ken Reitz fouled out, but Chris Speier hit a sacrifice fly and Matthews came home with the Giants’ winning run.
A homer by Paul Blair in the 12th inning, following a pass to Bobby Grich, carried the Orioles to a 6–4 victory over the Rangers. The Orioles also scored their first two runs of the game on a homer, getting it from Reggie Jackson in the first inning.
Detroit Tigers 1, Chicago White Sox 4
Detroit Tigers 0, Chicago White Sox 3
New York Mets 0, Cincinnati Reds 4
California Angels 2, Cleveland Indians 6
Milwaukee Brewers 5, Kansas City Royals 0
St. Louis Cardinals 6, Los Angeles Dodgers 7
Boston Red Sox 1, Minnesota Twins 5
Atlanta Braves 3, Montreal Expos 4
Oakland Athletics 1, New York Yankees 10
Houston Astros 1, Pittsburgh Pirates 5
Houston Astros 1, Pittsburgh Pirates 4
Philadelphia Phillies 5, San Diego Padres 1
Chicago Cubs 1, San Francisco Giants 2
Baltimore Orioles 6, Texas Rangers 4
The stock market plodded sluggishly along yesterday to post its first general advance in the last seven sessions. The Dow Jones industrial average closed with a gain of 1.15 at 989.44 after running ahead as much as 5.49 points earlier in the afternoon.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 989.44 (+1.15, +0.12%)
Born:
Cori Bush, American politician, nurse, pastor, and Black Lives Matter activist (Rep.-Missouri, 2021-2025), in St. Louis, Missouri.
Jaime Murray, English TV actress (“Hustle”, “Defiance”); in Hammersmith, London, England, United Kingdom.
Kang Sung-yeon, South Korean film and TV actress, in Seoul, South Korea.
Luis Saturria, Dominican MLB putfielder (St. Louis Cardinals), in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic.
Died:
Christopher Ewart-Biggs, 54, British ambassador to Ireland, assassinated by the IRA.
Earle Combs, 77, American Hall of Fame Major league baseball outfielder (World Series 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936–1939, 1941, 1943; New York Yankees).
Colonel Frédéric Geille, 79, French Air Force officer who developed the first French paratrooper unit.
Lieutenant Colonel Abu Taher, 37, Bangladesh Army officer, was hanged for treason for attempting a coup d’état in November.
History Diaries 