The United States and West Germany have agreed to build their main battle tanks with interchangeable parts. Army Secretary Martin R. Hoffmann said a key element in the agreement was a compromise to focus on a German-designed 120-mm. gun and a U.S.-designed turbine engine for both the U.S. XM-1 tank and the West German Leopard II. The advanced NATO tanks were termed urgent “to offset the sizable effort the Warsaw Pact nations have been devoting” to modernizing their tank forces in Europe. Before the United States XM-1 tank goes into production, its turret will be redesigned to handle either a 105-millimeter gun or the 120-millimeter guns developed in West Germany and under development in Britain.
The State Department said today that the Soviet Union and its East European allies had taken “some concrete steps” to implement the Helsinki accord but that there was little change in policies on human rights. Assessing the agreement shortly after the first anniversary of its signing the department acknowledged “we did not expect fundamental changes in Soviet and Eastern European policy and practice to take place overnight.” “We knew that it would take long and patient effort to achieve progress in human rights and the exchange of information,” a spokesman said. The Helsinki agreement, signed August 1, 1975, by President Ford and the heads of 34 other states, was designed to improve “human contacts” between East and West and to ease tensions through such “confidence‐building measures” as giving notice of troop maneuver.
Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger arrived in London from Washington. He will hold breakfast talks with Prime Minister James Callaghan before leaving this afternoon on official visit to Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kissinger is expected to conclude a contract with the Shah of Iran to provide nuclear reactors generating up to 8,000 megawatts of power. Iran is also negotiating to purchase hundreds of U.S. fighter aircraft.
The U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee approved a resolution authorizing $1.22 billion in military grants and credits to Spain as part of a five-year treaty of friendship and cooperation. Already ratified by the Senate, the treaty gives the United States continued use of the Rota naval base on the Mediterranean until a phased pullout starts January 1, 1979, and aircraft facilities at Torrejon, Saragossa and Moron.
Three Spanish Communist leaders and six Basque nationalists were freed from prison today, the first effective day of King Juan Carlos’ amnesty for political prisoners. Simon Sanchez Montero and Santiago Alvarez, both members of the Communist Party’s Executive Committee, and Jose Unanue Ruiz, Communist leader in the Basque region of Spain, walked out of Madrid’s Carabanchel prison late in the evening. They were greeted by applause from a small crowd waiting outside. All were jailed for illegal association and propaganda, Mr. Sanchez Montero in May, Mr. Alvarez in February and Mr. Unanue Ruiz last October. The nine were the first of 350 political prisoners expected to be freed by the royal amnesty. The order was announced last week and became legal today with publication of the decree in the Government’s Official Gazette.
French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who refused last week to save one man from the guillotine. commuted another man’s death sentence to life imprisonment. Saved was Algerian-born Moussa Benzhara, 44, who was sentenced to die for cutting the throat of Marguerite Jerome, 83, in April, 1974, when she caught him rifling her apartment in Dijon. Benzhara said he had been drinking. Last week Christian Ranucci, 22, was guillotined in Marseilles for kidnapping and killing Maria Dolores Rambla, 8, in 1974.
A disclosure that Israeli Army liaison officers have been meeting with rebel Lebanese Muslims allied to the Palestine Liberation Organization has stirred controversy in Tel Aviv. A high official in Jerusalem confirmed in private last night that Israelis held three meetings in the last two months with officers representing the Lebanese Arab Army, a deserter force, headed by Lieutenant Ahmed al‐Khatib. The meetings were in the pattern of border talks held regularly between representatives of Israel and Lebanon in accordance with the armistice agreement that ended the 1948 war. Lieutenant Khatib’s force of 5,000 to 7,000 men was formed early this year when the Lebanese Army disintegrated into Christian and Moslem elements. The force was parr of the Leftist‐Muslim‐Palestinian coalition that has been fighting Christians and the Syrian Army. Haim Landau, an opposition member of Parliament, said in an interview today that the Israeli meetings with the breakaway group were “a political blunder.”
The Red Cross evacuated 243 more wounded civilians from the beleaguered Palestinian camp of Tell Zaatar today. A Red Cross car was pierced by two bullets when it was caught in a crossfire of automatic weapons on a former soccer field just outside the lines held by the camp’s defenders as the wounded were being loaded on 15 trucks. No one was injured. In Damascus, potentially crucial cease‐fire talks took place as the Syrian Foreign Minister, Abdel Halim Khaddam, conferred separately with a Palestinian and Lebanese right‐wing Christian delegation. The talks dealt with putting into effect a Syrian‐Palestinian cease‐fire agreement reached in Damascus last week. The agreement set no date for the ceasefire but called for creation of a truce supervision commission consisting of Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian officers under the auspices of the Arab League.
President Anwar el‐Sadat, a long‐time union member, has told the Egyptians that strikes are not permissible. “I advise you to give up spite and make love prevail,” he said. The President, in two nationally broadcast speeches last month, declared in general terms that labor peace and social harmony were needed for progress. Knowledgeable informants said the Government was worried about recent unannounced wildcat strikes. The informants said the strikes did not have the blessings of leaders of the labor movement, which has acquired a new chief, Saad Mohammed Ahmed, who is said to support. President Sadat’s policies.
Slight earth tremors were felt in Peking as first-aid teams patrolled crowded city streets where millions of Chinese were staying in the open to minimize dangers from further earthquakes. Chinese authorities said that a fresh quake measuring more than 6 on the Richter scale, while still possible, was unlikely. But there were signs in Peking that the quake alert would continue for a long time, although reports reaching Japan said it would be possible to ease the alert around August 8. Meanwhile, China’s newest and potentially largest oil field, the Takang field in the earthquake region, suffered some damage, but production was not seriously disrupted, Peking radio reported. Some of Peking’s noted structures, including the Great Hall of the People, were damaged, Chinese reports in Japan said.
Prime Minister Hua Kuofeng is visiting the earthquake‐stricken city of Tangshan, the Hsinhua press agency reported last night. He expressed sympathy to the victims and urged them to restore industrial production and rebuild their homes. Making his first public appearance since the earthquake struck, Mr. Hua arrived in Tangshan at the head of a delegation that included senior army officers. Sonic delegation members were assigned to visit Tientsin and Peking. The report said that Mr. Hua had toured the Kailan coal mines and the Tangshan iron and steel plant, the two most important industries in the Tangshan area.
Roman Catholic Bishop Enrique Angelelli, of the diocese of La Rioja in Argentina, was assassinated by a group of people in two trucks. As he was returning from a Mass in the city of Chamical with another priest, Father Arturo Pinto, Angelelli’s truck was forced off the road at the town of Punta de los Llanos. Pinto survived, but after recovering consciousness, he saw that Bishop Angelelli had been beaten to death. Local police described the death as an accident and closed the case. After the restoration of democracy in Argentina, a new investigation would conclude in 1986 that Angelelli had been murdered on orders from an Argentine Army officer.
A military investigation of academic “subversion” has led to the arrest of 17 professors and a major purge at the national university at Bahia Blanca. General Adel Vilas, deputy commander of the Fifth Army Corps, announced the arrests and issued a list of 31 other persons, including three foreigners, who were wanted. The corps is based at Bahia Blanca, a major port city southeast of here. “Until we can cleanse the teaching area, and professors are all of Christian thought and ideology, we will not achieve the triumph we seek in our struggle against the revolutionary left,” General Vilas said. The arrests of faculty members at the University of the South as the institution at Bahia Blanca is called, were considered the most important antisubversive action in the academic area since the Argentine military took power in March. Ricardo Bruera, Minister of Education and one of two civilian in the Cabinet, said in an interview that about 3,000 academics, administrators and teaching assistants in national secondary schools had been dismissed since March.
The government of Sudan executed 81 people who had been summarily tried and convicted of participation in a July 2 attempt to overthrow the government of Jaafar Nimeiry. The next day, an additional 17 people were executed including former Sudanese Brigadier General Mohammed Nur Saeed, who had led the effort involving more than 1,000 troops who had been trained in Libyan camps. Both Mr. Nimeiry and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt have accused Libya of helping in the coup attempt. Libyan officials have denied the charge against their country.
Ugandan troops shot and killed five students at Kampala’s Makerere University after President Idi Amin’s son complained to his father that he was being snubbed by his classmates, a Kenyan newspaper said. The report coincided with the opening of formal talks between Kenya and Uganda aimed at ending their growing rift which diplomatic sources said could determine Amin’s fate. The Kenyan newspaper said that dozens of students had been wounded and several hundred others arrested during a major clash between army troops and the students. The reports were not confirmed.
South African police opened fire at least twice when Soweto students challenged a security cordon as they headed for Johannesburg to protest the detention of students arrested seven weeks ago. A Johannesburg newspaper said police bullets caused at least three deaths, but the police commissioner, acknowledging 13 casualties, said the only known fatality was a black man with a broken neck. The students succeeded in barring most of the black suburb’s commuters to Johannesburg.
Gold, a metal that has fascinated man since the pursuit of riches began, has a different allure for the black laborers who scratch its ore by the ton from the hard rock of the High Veld of South Africa, perhaps the richest gold‐bearing region in the world. For the 350,000 laborers there is none of the adventure associated with gold in folklore. instead, there is backbreaking toil in conditions of appalling discomfort and danger, for wages that run as low as 35 cents an hour. The money, though only 10 percent of the minimum paid to white miners, is enough to attract a flood of migrants from thatched villages hundreds of miles away, where the prospect of a cash income has the magnetic effect that gold had on California’s Forty‐Niners.
The USSR conducts a nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan.
Pennsylvania public health pressed their laboratory search for an unidentified organism whose death toll rose to 22 persons who attended a Philadelphia convention in July. Noting no evidence of “secondary transference” to members of the victims’ families, they doubted that the killer was swine influenza. An Allentown physician reported successful treatment of three cases under his care with the antibiotic tetracycline on the premise that the disease was ornithosis, a viral malady transmitted through droppings and discarded feathers of birds.
Missouri Democratic politics were in confusion following the death of Representative Jerry Litton who had won the party primary for the Senate nomination but was killed with his family in a plane crash on his way to the victory celebration. He had defeated ex-Governor Warren Hearnes and Representative James Symington who had been the favorite to succeed to his father’s Senate seat. The Democratic State Committee is empowered to make the new choice of a candidate.
The Senate deleted from the tax bill tonight a proposed new tax benefit, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, for those who buy used materials and recycle them. The action constituted one of the few victories that tax reformers have won in the months that the Senate has been working on the bill. As the Senate headed toward what it hoped would be final passage of the bill on Friday, it took a number of other significant votes. Among them were the following:
- It made the investment tax credit permanent at a rate of 10 percent. The rate for this tax incentive for business purchase of new machinery and equipment had been 7 percent, until last year, when it was raised temporarily to 10 percent as an antirecession measure.
- It defeated attempts to eliminate from the bill the favorite provision of the Senate Finance Committee chairman, Russell B. Long of Louisiana. This was the addition of an extra 2 percentage points on the investment tax credit for businesses that use the money they gain thereby to provide stock for their employees.
- lt adopted a proposal sponsored by Senator Jacob K. Javits, Republican of New York, giving a tax credit to artists who donate their own works to tax exempt institutions such as museums and universities. The credit would amount to 30 percent of the value of the art, and would apply to gifts valued at up to $35,000 a year.
Jimmy Carter, the Democratic presidential candidate, said in a New York Times interview that he expected the Republicans to nominate President Ford but not John Connally as his running mate. Mr. Carter said that on the issue of public trust, maybe only Governor George Wallace stood lower in the polls than Mr. Connally.
All federal programs would be renewed every five years or die under a bill approved by the Senate Government Operations Committee. Nicknamed the “sunset” bill, the measure also would apply the same review to tax law provisions, such as the investment tax credit and deductions for mortgage interest payments and medical expenses. Senator Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine), a sponsor of the bill, said federal programs no longer would be able “to slide by from year to year on the assumption that once they have been created, they have a right to exist forever.”
The House gave President Ford his 10th veto setback to day by overriding his action to kill legislation on reform of coal leasing. The vote, along with similar action in the Senate yesterday, was a major victory for environmentalists who had been trying for several years to update the 1920 leasing law. The measure, which now becomes law, primarily affects Western states where large reserves of coal lie beneath public lands. In vetoing the bill, Mr. Ford said that it would hinder domestic coal production by providing “administrative roadblocks.”
Sometimes, the first few days after a flood are worse than the disaster itself. Today was one of anguish for Mike Watson, of foreboding for Dencey Lloyd, relief for Robert E. Lindsay, and grief for others. As baking sunlight dried out the muddy wreckage in Big Thompson Canyon, rescue workers continued to discover new victims of the flash flood Saturday night. The county sheriff said at midday that the death toll had reached 100. Some rescue teams were using dogs in the search for bodies. Survivors kept a vigil, often tearfully, at the old Loveland Hospital, now serving as the morgue, while homeowners began salvaging what they could of their property. Hospital officials estimated that some 800 people were still missing.
The jury in the trial of William and Emily Harris, grappling with 22 possible verdicts on assault, robbery and kidnapping charges, began a fifth day of deliberations today without sending any word on its progress. By day’s end the jurors had completed more than 30 hours of work since they received the case last Friday. At 5 PM they returned to the hotel where they have been sequestered. Earlier, the two defendants sent word from their jail cells across the street from the courthouse that they were “encouraged” by the length of the deliberations. Leonard Weinglass, the chief defense attorney, elaborated in an interview. “When we started this case, most people thought it was an open‐and‐shut case,” he said. “But now we feel the jury must be paying close attention to the evidence.”
Demands for job security triggered a strike by 18,000 New York City hospital workers against 16 city-run hospitals. The walkout was in defiance of state law and a court order, and some strikers were arrested. The strike affected about 10,000 patients, some of whom were discharged hastily last week in an effort to clear the hospitals of non-emergency patients. State law bars public employee strikes.
John Roselli, who told the Senate Intelligence Committee he took part in six CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, has been missing since July 28, the FBI disclosed. The agency said it was investigating. Roselli has not been seen since he left his sister’s house in a Miami suburb for a round of golf. The car he was driving was found in the parking garage at Miami International Airport. Roselli reputedly was a former associate of slain Chicago underworld leader Sam Giancana.
The FBI lied when it said it received information on the Socialist Workers Party without resorting to burglaries, a federal judge said in New York. Judge Thomas P. Griesa told lawyers for the government and the party that the government had been guilty of intentionally omitting information to protect itself. The party is suing the government for $37 million and is seeking government files before the trial.
The Department of Justice has instructed the U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City to seek dismissal of draft evasion charges against Fritz Efaw, the exile who returned to make a plea for universal amnesty at the Democratic National Convention. The motion will be based on the ground that Efaw’s draft board had not outlined the reasons it had denied him conscientious objector status, said U.S. Atty. David Russell. “We must abide by law,” Russell said. “If we don’t, then we would be governed by men, and that would be anarchy. And anarchy is probably worse than a two-bitter like Fritz Efaw.”
The Teamsters pension fund filed a $14 million damage suit in a Chicago federal court charging that five firms had tried to defraud it of more than $7 million in life insurance premiums. The suit alleges that Old Security Insurance Co. of Kansas City invested more than $7 million illegally in a complex series of financial dealings involving three other companies and a trust fund to purchase the dormant Family Provider Life Insurance Co. of Phoenix. One of the other companies named was National Pacific Corp. of Los Angeles. The pension fund itself is under investigation by the Justice and Labor departments.
Concerned that she and her sick, blind son were a burden to their family, a 58-year-old Denver woman shot and killed him, then fatally shot herself, police said. The woman, Jewell A. Alley, had confided to her daughter-in-law that she was despondent over her health and that of her son. Lyle B. Gill, 36, who had been on a kidney dialysis machine for more than a year, officials said. Mrs. Alley had a heart disorder and diabetes.
American serial killer and teenager Montie Rissell murdered the first of five female victims in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. After having sex with Aura Gabor, a 26-year-old prostitute who lived in the same apartment complex where he lived, he drowned her in a nearby ravine. In a period of nine months, he would rape 12 women and kill five of them before being arrested on May 18, 1977.
The Central Intelligence Agency in 1953 discussed purchasing 10 kilograms of LSD, enough for 100 million doses and worth $240,000, for use in its drug experimentation with animals and human beings, according to newly released agency documents.
The Sun Belt Conference, a group of college basketball in the southeastern United States, was formed by six universities. Only one of the original members, the University of South Alabama, remains in the now 12-member conference.
Lord Thomson of Fleet, who rose from poverty in Canada to build a vast publishing empire, crowned by ownership of both the Times of London and the Sunday Times, died in London at the age of 82.
Major League Baseball:
Left without scoring support, Randy Jones suffered his second straight defeat when the Atlanta Braves counted in the ninth inning on a single by Rod Gilbreath and double by Jim Wynn to edge the San Diego Padres, 1–0. Jones had lost to the Reds, 5–4, in his previous outing. While the lefthander’s record dropped to 18–6, Dick Ruthven raised his mark to 12–9 with his shutout performance for the Braves.
Paul Mitchell posted his first major league shutout, pitching the Athletics to a 5–0 victory over the White Sox, who were whitewashed for the 15th time this season. Bill North singled and scored in the first inning and drove in a run with a double in the fifth before the A’s wrapped up their verdict with three runs in the seventh on a single by Gene Tenace, an error, double by Ken McMullen, intentional pass to North and single by Bert Campaneris.
Mike Schmidt smacked his 28th and 29th homers of the season, connecting for the second time with a man on base in the seventh inning to break a 5–5 tie and give the Phillies a 7–5 victory over the Cubs. The Cubs took a 4–0 lead before Schmidt sparked the score-tying rally by the Phillies with his first homer of the game in the fourth. Larry Bowa drove in two runs with a double and Ron Schueler laid down a sacrifice bunt for the fourth tally. The Cubs regained the lead at 5–4 in the fifth, but Tim McCarver hit his first homer of the season in the sixth to knot the count again. Schmidt’s game-winning homer in the seventh followed a single by Garry Maddox.
Duane Kuiper, batting at a .440 clip since the All-Star break, lashed four hits and Rick Waits pitched shutout ball as the Indians defeated the Orioles, 3–0. The Indians settled Jim Palmer’s fate with two runs in the first inning on a single by Kuiper, pass to Rick Manning, single by Rico Carty, a throwing error and sacrifice fly by Boog Powell.
Homers by Fred Lynn and Cecil Cooper enabled Fergie Jenkins to pitch the Red Sox to a 4–1 victory over the Tigers. Jason Thompson homered for the Tigers in the fourth inning to tie the score at 1–1, but Lynn broke the deadlock with his circuit clout in the fifth. Then in the sixth, after Jim Rice singled, Cooper clinched the verdict with his round-tripper.
Batting in two runs with a double and single, Buck Martinez accounted for the Royals’ winning margin in a 4–2 victory over the Twins. The Royals got off to a fast start with three runs in the first inning. After the first two tallies counted on singles by Tom Poquette, Amos Otis, George Brett and Al Cowens, Martinez doubled for the third run. The Royals’ catcher then added their final marker with a single in the sixth.
Greg Gross tripled in the sixth inning and scored on a single by Enos Cabell to enable J.R. Richard (13–11) to pitch the Houston Astros to a 1–0 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Doug Rau (10–8) takes the tough loss.
Tagging Catfish Hunter for all their runs in the third inning, the Brewers won the first game of a twi-night doubleheader, 4–3, but the Yankees came back to gain a split with a 7–2 victory in the second game. Starting the Brewers’ outburst in the opener, Von Joshua singled and scored when Robin Yount doubled. Yount took third on the throw to the plate and counted on a sacrifice fly by George Scott. Mike Hegan followed with a single and Sixto Lezcano capped the inning with a two-run homer. The Yankees’ tallies off Bill Travers all came on a homer by Thurman Munson in sixth. In the nightcap, Munson accounted for two more RBIs with a single and infield out.
Posting his first shutout of the season, Jerry Koosman pitched the New York Mets to a 4–0 victory over the Montreal Expos. Jerry Grote backed Koosman by hitting his first triple of the year to drive in two of the Mets’ three runs in the first inning.
With a flash of speed, Rennie Stennett beat the throw home on a grounder by Dave Parker in the 12th inning to bring the Pirates a 2–1 victory over the Cardinals. Bob Forsch, who started on the mound for the Redbirds, produced their run with a homer in the third inning. Al Hrabosky relieved Forsch in the eighth and put down a Pirates’ threat but then gave up the tying run in the ninth on singles by Bill Robinson and Bob Robertson around a sacrifice. In the 12th, Dave Giusti walked and was forced on Stennett’s attempted sacrifice. Stennett promptly stole second, stopped at third on a single by Tommy Helms and scored on Parker’s grounder.
The Reds, who had won seven straight games, were stopped by the Giants, who posted a 4–1 victory to end their own four-game losing streak. The Giants decided the outcome against Gary Nolan with two runs in the first inning on a single by Larry Herndon and homer by Gary Matthews. The Reds’ tally off John Montefusco counted in the third when Joe Morgan singled and Dan Driessen doubled, but the Giants added a run in their half on singles by Herndon and Gary Thomasson around a stolen base before concluding their scoring in the eighth on a double by Matthews and single by Darrell Evans.
Bruce Bochte rapped four hits, including a double and triple, and Tony Solaita smashed a two-run homer to lead the Angels’ attack in a 9–6 victory over the Rangers. Nolan Ryan struck out five before departing in the ninth inning and raised his career total to 1,957, moving ahead of Whitey Ford into 31st place on the major leagues’ list of all-time strikeout kings. The Angels, after taking a 4–1 lead, decided the final outcome with three runs in the fifth on a single by Bobby Bonds, Solaita’s homer, Bochte’s triple and a single by Dan Briggs.
San Diego Padres 0, Atlanta Braves 1
Oakland Athletics 5, Chicago White Sox 0
Philadelphia Phillies 7, Chicago Cubs 5
Baltimore Orioles 0, Cleveland Indians 3
Boston Red Sox 4, Detroit Tigers 1
Minnesota Twins 2, Kansas City Royals 4
Houston Astros 1, Los Angeles Dodgers 0
New York Yankees 3, Milwaukee Brewers 4
New York Yankees 7, Milwaukee Brewers 2
Montreal Expos 0, New York Mets 4
St. Louis Cardinals 1, Pittsburgh Pirates 2
Cincinnati Reds 1, San Francisco Giants 4
California Angels 9, Texas Rangers 6
The stock market registered a modest gain yesterday in accelerated trading. Although there was little economic news to account for the market’s second consecutive advance, the Dow Jones industrial average closed ahead 1.95 points to 992.28. Analysts said that the small upswing may have been spurred by the rally on Tuesday, which saw the Dow finish up 8.07, its best advance since July 20, when it rose by 8.81.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 992.28 (+1.95, +0.20%)
Born:
Scott Linebrink, MLB pitcher (San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago White Sox, Atlanta Braves), in Austin, Texas.
Kazuo Fukumori, Japanese NPB and MLB pitcher (Texas Rangers), in Miyakonojo, Japan.
James Jackson, NFL running back (Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, Arizona Cardinals), in Belle Glade, Florida.
Jock Zonfrillo, Scottish chef (Masterchef Australia judge), in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom (d. 2023).
Died:
Lord Thomson of Fleet, Canadian-born British publishing mogul who built the Thomson Organization that owned The Times of London.
History Diaries 