The F-14A Phoenix weapon system, designed to defend the U.S. naval fleet against attacks by antiship missiles, can effectively counter current Soviet fighters, the General Accounting Office said. But the system’s effectiveness against future threats could be marginal, the congressional investigative agency concluded. The system consists of the Grumman F-14 fighter, armed with a Phoenix missile. The agency found that the system had an operational readiness rate of 37.2% during 1975, reporting that the low rate was caused by equipment problems and inadequate supply support.
Two managers of a chemical plant that leaked poison gas over north central Italy were released from jail temporarily to help deactivate the factory. The two men, Paolo Paoletti and Ervig Zwehl, were arrested in connection with the July 10 accident in which a poison gas cloud spread over the town of Seveso and nearby villages. The plant employees were needed by health officials to help remove poisonous cyanide and chlorine gases still in the Icmesa plant.
A Communist‐led coalition today wrested control of the Rome city government from the Christian Democrats for the first time. The Communist victory in Rome gave them control, either alone or in coalition, of all of Italy’s major cities. They already lead city governments in Turin, Milan, Venice and Bologna in the north and Naples in the south.
Spain’s Justice Ministry said that 45 political prisoners were released from jail in the first three days of King Juan Carlos’ amnesty, expected to free hundreds of political prisoners. A Barcelona Bar Association committee called the decree “limited and confused.” In Madrid, 130 attorneys who defend political prisoners denounced the decree and said that despite its billing, it “does not decree an amnesty.”
Four women burglars carried away a heavy strongbox containing about $360,000 from a businessman’s apartment in Spoleto, Italy, and then fled in a taxi they called using the victim’s telephone. They carried the strongbox downstairs and waited for the cab. The taxi driver took them to a district outside Spoleto where police later found the empty strongbox in a field.
Israeli security forces detained 13 West Bank residents after an explosion near the Aliya Hospital in Hebron that caused no casualties and little damage. At the West Bank town of Nablus, the center of protest against the imposition of a value-added tax coming into force on Wednesday, Arab youths stoned Israeli police. Arab merchants in Nablus declare the tax is illegal because it is not covered by Jordanian law under which the West Bank is administered.
A Muslim and a Christian leader met in Beirut today in an attempt to start a dialogue for ending the 16‐month‐old civil war. Saeb Salem, a former Muslim Prime Minister, crossed over to the Christian quarter of Ashrafiyah, where he met with Pierre Gemayel, the head of the Phalange Party, Christian right‐wing organization. Mr. Salam said after the meeting, which was held at Greek Orthodox church, that the intention was to insure the reunification of Lebanon. He told reporters that after many months of fighting, the country “is divided geographically, demographically and psychologically.” It is the duty of every Lebanese to bring about reunification, he said. Mr. Gemayel raised the question of the Palestinian presence, and said the basic problem was the loss of Lebanon’s sovereignty and security. “We are not opposed to the guerrilla movement, but no country in the world can tolerate seeing its sovereignty lost the way Lebanon’s was,” he said.
A new Syrian Cabinet under Prime Minister Abdel Rahman Khleifawi was announced early today, seven days after the resignation of Prime Minister Mahmoud al-Ayubi and his Cabinet. A feature of the new Cabinet was the addition of a Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. The post will be held by Abdel Karim Addi.
The feared and far‐flung Islamic extremist movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood is quietly astir again in Egypt, the land of its birth. Copies of a Muslim Brotherhood publication have appeared on newsstands here in recent weeks, Cairo intellectuals report, and in recent months Brotherhood posters have appeared at Cairo University. Informal Brotherhood‐backed get-togethers have been held here and Brotherhood‐linked guest speakers have made discreet appearances. All this is far different from 1954, when a gunman with ties to the Brotherhood emptied his revolver at Egypt’s then leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was unhurt and ordered a crackdown on the Brotherhood. About 4,000 people were arrested and six were hanged.
The United States and Iran announced that Iran planned to spend $10 billion for military purchases from the United States as part of mounting trade between the two countries that would total about $50 billion from last year through 1980. In an effort to emphasize the growing political, economic and military ties between Washington and Teheran, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Iran’s Economics Minister, Hushang Ansary, signed a communique in Teheran after a two-day meeting of the Iran-American Joint Commission. The communique set forth ambitious goals of cooperation for the rest of the decade and showed no sign of a let-up in the arms sales, which were recently criticized in Washington in a Senate staff study.
“In the depths of their souls people have been alienated, humiliated and outraged,” said a grandson of the revered Mohandas K. Gandhi, the founder of modern India. “I am, and I am sure I am not a small minority.” Rajmohan Gandhi, a 41‐yearold carefully spoken writer and editor, was discussing Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s curtailment of freedom in general. But he also has particular reason to speak out for a restoration of civil liberties. A Bombay weekly of which he is the editor and publisher has been ordered to deposit 21,000 rupees, or $2,300, with the police commissioner as a security deposit, a move that has been a first step toward ordering dissident newspapers to close.
Apsarasas Kangri, at 23,770 feet (7,250 m) the 96th highest mountain in the world, was climbed for the first time. Yoshio Inagaki, Katsuhisa Yabuta and Takamasa Miyomoto of the Osaka University Mountaineering Club of Japan made the first ascent, reaching the peak over the west ridge. Apsarasas Kangri is located within the broader Kashmir region disputed between India, Pakistan and China.
Richard Hughes, one of the last four Americans known to be in Vietnam, arrived by plane in Bangkok today from Saigon, along with 95 French and Vietnamese refugees. Mr. Hughes, 32 years old and a native of Pittsburgh, spent many years in Vietnam as head of an organization that helped Saigon’s shoeshine boys, many of whom were orphans or abandoned children. He was not immediately available for comment. A United Nations official in Bangkok said two other Americans, Teresa Ann Reed and John H. Gay. remained in Vietnam. It is believed that Mr. Gay is in jail in Hanoi. Another American, Tucker Gugelman, reportedly accused of having worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, has also been in a Hanoi jail.
One of China’s most vital railway lines, damaged in last month’s severe earthquake, was reopened last night in a ceremony that included the beating of gongs and exploding firecrackers, Hsinhua, the Chinese press agency reported today. The damaged section was between Peking and Shanhaikwan, where the Great Wall of China meets the sea. The section is part of the main line that links the heavily industrialized northeast with other parts of China.
The Republic of the North Solomons, whose residents had declared their independence from the Australian-administered Territory of Papua and New Guinea on September 1, 1975, abandoned its secession. The unrecognized republic, consisting of Bougainville Island and Buka Island, joined the now independent nation of Papua New Guinea as the “North Solomons Province”, and the republic’s president, Alexis Sarei, became the province’s premier.
Representatives of Mexican ranchers and farm owners have accused the Administration of President Luis Echeverria Alvarez of encouraging land invasions and of harassing small landholders. About 3,000 representatives from the country’s principal ranch and farming states gathered for a one‐day congress here yesterday. It was the first congress of the National Agricultural Union, an organization created 10 month ago at the height of violent clashes between peasant squatters and landholders. Some 30 people died in shootouts between police, squatters and farmers.
A private jet plane with nine persons aboard crashed and burned in the mountains as it approached Acapulco Airport, killing everyone aboard. Mexican military authorities identified the pilot as M. L. Funk of The Jet Corp., a leasing company in Houston, Texas.
President Augusto Pinochet of Chile has exiled two of his persistent critics. Jaime Castillo Velasco, former Minister of Justice, and Eugenio Velasco Letelier, a former law school dean, were reportedly seized and placed aboard an Argentine airliner. A deportation order was issued against both men, who are prominent lawyers. Since the overthrow of President Salvador Allende Gossens, whom both opposed politically, they have been among the few lawyers who have defended people charged with security crimes. The two lawyers were denounced as “miserable traitors” by government spokesmen when they presented a document to the foreign ministers, attending the General Assembly of the Organization of American States in Santiago in June. The document denounced violations of human rights and the lack of judicial control over the political police in Chile.
Former Argentine President Alejandro Lanusse has been arrested on orders of the army and given a fiveday jail term on charges of breaching army discipline by trying to defend one of his former ministers. The arrest of the 57-year-old retired army general followed an open letter he sent to authorities protesting accusations that a former culture minister was involved in a Marxist plot to subvert the education system.
The charred body of a person identified by his family as David Graiver, an Argentine banker accused of embezzlement, money laundering, and assistance to the Montoneros leftist guerrilla group, was found in the wreckage of a Dassault Falcon 888AR business jet on a hillside near Acapulco in Mexico. Mexican investigators never took fingerprints of the remains found in the crash, consisting of “three severed hands”, and Graiver was only confirmed by his relatives from “a piece of torso and a fragment of shirt”, and the remains were later cremated, leading investigators to doubt that he had actually died.
The executions this week of 98 prisoners for an attempted coup against Sudan’s President Gaafar al-Nimeiry a month ago shocked the outside world. But here, they are seen as retribution. The death verdicts came after 10‐day trials before four state security tribunals. Testimony supported the charge that the coup attempt of July 2 and 3 was more of an invasion than an uprising, with soldiers financed, equipped and trained by Libya. The repercussions of the attempted coup, even in a country that has seen four of them in the last seven years, are profound. It has furthered divisions in the Arab world. It has also speeded the evolution of the Sudan, which began turning away from the Soviet Union after a Communist‐supported coup in 1971 and into a closer relationship with the West.
President Idi Amin of Uganda and President Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya signed peace documents pledging to resume normal relations, reduce the threat of war and resume trade. The documents were signed in Kampala by President Amin, and in Mombasa by President Kenyatta.
Two black policemen and three guerrillas were killed in a clash between government forces and insurgents in northwest Rhodesia, security officials said in Salisbury. Three Rhodesian policemen were wounded, one critically, in the running gun battle. The clash was the first involving government forces in the northwest region, although two white men have been killed there in the past month. A Salisbury communique also said that Rhodesian forces had again been fired upon from Mozambique, but that the Rhodesians suffered no casualties.
Calm was restored to Soweto, the black township in South Africa where eight people were killed and at least 41 injured in four days of rioting, but police across the country remained on an alert. The objective of the demonstrators was to prevent residents of Soweto from getting to their jobs in Johannesburg. It was believed that peace was mainly due to the exhaustion of the demonstrators, who have had little sleep, and the quieting influence of parents home in greater numbers over the weekend.
White South Africa, which prides itself on one of the highest standards of living in the world, was enjoying an open-air weekend. Only on Johannesburg newspaper billboards was there any sign that dozens of black youths were lying in hospitals with police bullet wounds nine miles to the southwest. After weeks of upheaval in Soweto, the black “shadow city” sprawling beyond abandoned gold mines, the white community remains almost untouched.
New laboratory tests again failed to identify an influenza or other virus that might have caused the outbreak of the mysterious respiratory disease in Pennsylvania. State health officials expressed total bafflement about the origin of the illness that caused 25 deaths. There have been no other deaths since late last week, but some of the 135 people who apparently caught the disease at the American Legion convention in Philadelphia last month were still in critical condition.
The decomposing body of former Chicago mobster John Roselli was found by two fishermen in Florida’s Biscayne Bay, 10 days after he had disappeared. Roselli had last been seen on July 28, when he departed from his sister’s home in Plantation, Florida, to play golf. His car had been found a few days later at the Miami International Airport. According to the deputy chief medical examiner for Dade County, Roselli’s body had been packed into an oil barrel that had been chopped with holes and weighed down with chains to sink to the bottom of the sea, but “Gases formed by the decomposition and trapped inside body tissue and the barrel had brought it to the surface.” Referring to Roselli’s killers, Dr. Ronald Wright told reporters “These guys went to an incredible amount of trouble trying to make sure the body was never found.”
Judges in Washington and in nine other cities are improperly using deputy U.S. marshals as personal servants to perform such duties as washing their cars and picking up their laundry, a General Accounting Office inquiry found. Marshals are assigned to courts principally to provide security. William Russell, assistant director of the U.S. Marshals’ Service, said the service would take action against any marshal found to be providing menial service to judges. The GAO cited instances of improper use of marshals in Florida, Illinois, Kentucky and Mississippi, as well as the District of Columbia.
Richard G. Kleindienst “put together the whole package” of insurance dealings now involved in a lawsuit, an investigator studying a Teamsters insurance fund scandal was quoted as saying. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the former U.S. attorney general has been a lawyer for Teamster pension funds for a year and that he formerly was employed by two insurance firms allegedly involved in the suit. Teamster fund executives, who filed the suit last week, charge that 80% of Teamster premiums paid to a Missouri firm were diverted and that $1.8 million was funneled through two other firms to a Louisiana company. That money has disappeared.
An armed posse of Big Thompson River residents was deputized by county officials at Loveland, Colorado, to patrol the flood-raked river canyon and provide their neighbors with protection against looters. The posse was formed as more regular officers were pressed into the search for victims of the July 31 flash flood. Although there were reports all week of scattered looting, only four persons had been arrested. More than 100 bodies have been recovered.
Warrants were issued in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the arrest of eight present and former Southern Bell Telephone Co. executives charged with falsifying company records, a county magistrate said. All eight men were released without bond pending trial. The arrests stemmed from county grand jury indictments, based on an investigation by the North Carolina Justice Department into allegations that a number of company officers had diverted $152,000 in corporate funds by the use of bogus expense vouchers.
A four-day hospital strike ended in New York after the city pledged to recall 1,350 employees who had been laid off. The layoffs had been ordered because of the fiscal crisis in New York City, which operates 16 hospitals. There was no estimate of the cost of bringing back the 1,350 workers, represented by District Council 37 of the State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO.
Two clergymen swindled more than $250,000 from the federal food stamp program, they admitted in federal court. The Rev. Lucius S. Cartwright, 33, bishop of St. Phillip’s Pentecostal Church in Washington, D.C., and the Rev. Albert R. Hamrick, 40, pastor, said they had started taking the money in 1972 and had used it to pay church and personal expenses.
Two teen-age girls were arrested at a motel in Arkansas City, Kansas, after they had disappeared and it was later found that the father of one of the girls had been shot to death. They are Penny Blevins, 16, and Sheila Morrison, 17. The case was investigated initially as a murder-kidnaping. The victim, Ralph Blevins, 60, was found by Blevins son-in-law after Penny had telephoned the younger man’s wife and said she was being held at gunpoint. Police said there were no signs of a struggle at the Blevins’ rented farmhouse near Harris, Kansas, where Penny’s father, a retired farmer, was found.
The dominant mood among the thousands of people who have gone to the 41st International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia has been one of celebration. “We were long overdue for a party, and at last we’re having it,” a priest said as he entered the convention hall. He was among the participants who have been eager to sing and pray together, to meet and to get to know one another and, as a teenage usherette put it, “to feel good about being Catholic.” The high point of the congress which organizers and visitors said is an event of extraordinary significance for the Church, will come at its final session today when Pope Paul VI makes an address from Rome by satellite.
Mayor Beame and New York City Comptroller Harrison Goldin sought to obtain assurances from the Securities and Exchange Commission that neither they nor the city would be prosecuted as a result of an S.E.C. investigation into the sale of city notes and bonds, according to well-placed S.E.C. and Capitol Hill sources. The mayor and Mr. Goldin were understood to have made the request to the S.E.C. at a meeting in New York on July 22, five days before the city brought suit against the commission, charging that the S.E.C. had no authority to investigate its security sales.
The latest test of a Martian soil sample by Viking 1 has given the strongest indication yet of biological activity on the planet, according to scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. This was a radioactivity reading from the craft’s so-called pyrolytic release experiment, that matched the readings produced by algae and bacteria in the soil of a dry valley in Antarctica, long regarded as one of the closest terrestrial analogues of Martian terrain. However, the scientists cautioned that a “control” test for confirmation, involving pre-sterilization of soil from the same sample, collected July 28, would have to be done. The laboratory also announced that Viking 2 had gone into orbit around Mars. The craft is scheduled to land there September 4.
Viking 2 entered into orbit around Mars.
Major League Baseball:
An unearned run resulting from an error by Chris Speier enabled the Atlanta Braves to nip the San Francisco Giants, 4–3. The Braves tied the score at 3–3 in the seventh inning when Junior Moore, batting for Andy Messersmith, drove in a run with a single for his first major league hit. Mike Marshall then was the winner in relief when Jim Wynn reached base on Speier’s miscue in the eighth, stole second and scored on a single by Darrel Chaney.
Luis Tiant and Jim Willoughby combined on a five-hit shutout, while Denny Doyle and Cecil Cooper provided the scoring power, as the Red Sox defeated the Brewers, 3–0. Doyle tripled after Rick Burleson was safe on an error to drive in the first run in the third inning. Cooper hit a homer following a double by Jim Rice in seventh.
The White Sox fell behind in the seventh inning, 3–2, and then rallied for three runs in the eighth to defeat the Royals, 5–3, behind the five-hit hurling of Francisco Barrios. Chet Lemon led off the decisive stanza with a single and Lamar Johnson walked. Jorge Orta singled to tie the score and Jim Spencer followed with a triple to provide the winning margin
Mark Fidrych, the Tigers’ charismatic rookie, beat the Indians, 6–1, for his 12th victory in 16 decisions. The young righthander, who yielded six hits, turned in his 14th complete game in 17 starts and reduced his league-leading earned run average to 1.91. The Tigers broke a 1–1 tie and brought Fidrych his victory with three runs in the fifth inning on scoring singles by Ron LeFlore, Dan Meyer and Jason Thompson. The attendance of 35,395 boosted the Tigers’ total to 1,015,388, marking the club’s 12th consecutive year over one million.
George Foster smashed a homer with two men on base in the fifth inning to power the Reds to a 4–1 victory and increase their West Division lead over the Dodgers to 12 games. Foster, who raised his league-leading RBI total to 97, connected for his drive off Tommy John after singles by Dave Concepcion and Joe Morgan. The Reds counted their other run in the seventh when Ed Armbrister dashed home on a double steal with Foster. Pat Zachry posted his fourth straight victory over the Dodgers, whose only run came on a homer by Ron Cey.
The Expos erupted for four runs in the first inning, three scoring on a homer by Gary Carter, and won the second game of a twi-night doubleheader, 7–2, after a homer by Rick Monday with a man on base in the 11th inning had enabled the Cubs to gain a 4–3 victory in the first game. Pete LaCock also had a homer for the Cubs in the lidlifter, hitting it in the fourth inning. Bill Madlock drove in another run with a single in the fifth, but the Expos rallied to tie the score in the eighth on doubles by Wayne Garrett and Del Unser and a single by Earl Williams. After Monday’s blow broke the deadlock in the 11th, the Expos fell short with one run in their half on a sacrifice fly by Jose Morales. In the nightcap, the Expos pushed across one run in the first inning on singles by Jerry White, Garrett and Ellis Valentine before Carter capped the frame with his homer. Larry Parrish added a round-tripper for the Expos in the seventh.
At Yankee Stadium, Rudy May evens his record (8–8) as the Orioles whip the 1st-place Yankees. Bobby Grich hit a two-run homer and Doug DeCinces slashed a two-run double to pace the Orioles to a 7–4 victory over the Yankees before an “Old-Timers’ Day” crowd of 47,798. Al Bumbry walked and Grich homered to account for two of the Orioles’ three runs in the first inning. DeCinces hit his double in the fifth and scored himself on another two-bagger by Dave Duncan. The Yankees were shut out until the ninth when Chris Chambliss produced all their runs with a grand-slam homer.
After going one month without winning, Mike Torrez pitched the Athletics to a 9–1 victory over the Angels. The complete game was only the sixth in 26 starts for Torrez, who limited the Angels to eight hits. The A’s had 12 hits, including homers by Sal Bando and Bill North.
The Pirates piled up 17 hits, including four for Dave Parker in four trips, and won the opener of a twi-night doubleheader, 12–3, but the Mets salvaged a split with a 4–2 victory in the nightcap. Willie Stargell batted in four runs in the first game, as the Pirates pinned the defeat on Tom Seaver, who was lifted for a pinch-hitter after giving up five runs in the fifth inning. The Pirates added five more in the seventh and concluded their scoring with a two-run homer by Stargell in the eighth. Nino Espinosa, with help from two relievers, notched his first major league victory for the Mets in the second game. John Milner batted in three of the Mets’ runs with a sacrifice fly and homer.
Rick Sawyer, who helped himself with a safe bunt when the Padres scored all their runs in the third inning, received credit for a 3–2 victory over the Astros in the 27-year-old righthander’s second successful start in one week since coming up from Syracuse (International). Butch Metzger relieved Sawyer in the eighth and gained his 11th save. In the third, Fred Kendall walked ahead of Sawyer’s safe bunt. Jerry Turner doubled, driving in Kendall, and Willie Davis singled to score Sawyer and Turner.
Joe Ferguson, who had never hit more than one triple in a game previously in his major league career, rapped a pair of three-baggers to pace the Cardinals to a 4–1 victory over the Phillies. Ferguson hit his first triple in the second inning and scored on a sacrifice fly by Mike Anderson. Then in the fourth, Ferguson tripled again to drive in Ted Simmons, who had walked, before scoring himself on a second sacrifice fly by Anderson.
Only one out away from a no-hitter, Steve Luebber had his bid spoiled and then needed last-out help from Bill Campbell to wrap up the Twins’ 3–1 victory over the Rangers. Roy Howell wrecked the 27-year-old righthander’s hitless performance with a single and reached third when Lyman Bostock allowed the ball to get past him in center field. Mike Hargrove followed with a single to drive in the Rangers’ run before Campbell took over and struck out Jeff Burroughs to end the game. Singles by Steve Braun and Rod Carew, plus an infield out by Butch Wynegar, accounted for the Twins’ initial tally in the first. Larry Hisle provided the winning blow with a homer after a single by Mike Cubbage in the fifth.
San Francisco Giants 3, Atlanta Braves 4
Milwaukee Brewers 0, Boston Red Sox 3
Kansas City Royals 3, Chicago White Sox 5
Cleveland Indians 1, Detroit Tigers 6
Cincinnati Reds 4, Los Angeles Dodgers 1
Chicago Cubs 4, Montreal Expos 3
Chicago Cubs 2, Montreal Expos 7
Baltimore Orioles 7, New York Yankees 4
California Angels 1, Oakland Athletics 9
New York Mets 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 12
New York Mets 4, Pittsburgh Pirates 2
Houston Astros 2, San Diego Padres 3
Philadelphia Phillies 1, St. Louis Cardinals 4
Minnesota Twins 3, Texas Rangers 1
Born:
Édgar Renteria, Colombian MLB shortstop (World Series champion-Marlins, 1997, Giants, 2010; Pro Bowl, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2006; Florida Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, Atlanta Braves, Detroit Tigers, San Francisco Giants, Cincinnati Bengals), in Barranquilla, Colombia.
Shane Lechler, NFL punter (Pro Bowl, 2001, 2004, 2007–2011; Oakland Raiders, Houston Texans), in Sealy, Texas.
Cathy Park Hong, American Korean poet (“Dance Dance Revolution”), in Los Angeles, California.
Karen Olivo, American stage actress; in the South Bronx, New York City.
History Diaries 