General Alexander M. Haig Jr., commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Europe, rejected a study by a Belgian general suggesting that an attack by the Soviet bloc could advance across Germany to the Rhine River in 48 hours. However, Haig did express “apprehension over the increasing Soviet capability to conduct a surprise attack” and said NATO must improve its early warning system.
The Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army, brushing aside a mothers’ rally for peace by more than 10,000 Catholics and Protestants, said that the struggle to end British rule in Northern Ireland will continue. The warning from the militant Provisionals came as Belfast enjoyed its quietest 12-hour period in a week.
Turkey’s oil survey ship, Sismik 1, which provoked a controversy between Greece and Turkey over oil rights in the Aegean Sea, dropped anchor at Izmir, Turkey, before enthusiastic throngs lining the waterfront. The ship was to remain until Wednesday to take on provisions and then leave for an undisclosed destination.
Christian artillery bombarded Palestinian and leftist positions in mountains east of Beirut. The shelling was concentrated around Mt. Sannin and the town of Ain Tura and Matein in the upper Matein district, where large-scale fighting had been predicted following the fall of Tell Zaatar. A radio station controlled by President Suleiman Franjieh, head of the right-wing Lebanese front, announced that the “offensive for liberating the mountainside from the Palestinians has begun.” There were doubts, however, that a full‐scale offensive had been launched as the rightwing forces were thought to need more time to prepare following the 52‐day battle for Tell Zaatar. Artillery exchanges in the area of Sannin, Ain Tura and Matein have been going on for several months and are believed to have intensified in the last 24 hours as a result of the general military step‐up on all fronts since the fall of Tell. Zaatar. Fighting was also reported continuing in the hills adjacent to Tell Zaatar on the southeastern outskirts of Beirut. The radio station of the Christian Phalangist Party, the country’s largest right‐wing organization, said that right‐wing forces were continuing to chase Palestinian fighters who escaped from the camp.
Libya called today for an urgent meeting of the Arab League council to discuss an Egyptian troop buildup on its border, and President Anwas el-Sadat of Egypt threatened retaliation for a series of bombing incidents he ascribes to the Libyans. Contacts are being made to arrange the meeting, a League official said, but it will have to be delayed because many Arab ministers are attending a conference of leaders of the nonaligned nations in Sri Lanka. Mr. Sadat made his threats during a stopover in Oman on his way to Sri Lanka. He spoke a day after a bomb planted on a train in Alexandria killed 8 Egyptians and wounded 51. Mr. Sadat blamed the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar el‐Qaddafi, for the killings and for earlier bomb attacks.
The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, granted amnesty to 307 prisoners who had been convicted in courts-martial of civilians and military personnel. The occasion was the celebration of the fiftieth year of the Pahlavi dynasty founded by the Shah’s father, Reza Shah, on December 15, 1925.
India, whose 600 million people have gone through a year of drastic political change, observed in a subdued atmosphere today the 29th anniversary of independence from the British. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi addressed an Independence Day gathering on the vast polo field adjacent to the Red Fort in the Old City. In a 30‐minute speech in Hindi broadcast nationwide, she declared that India was “never so strong” as it is today. Last August, this occasion was marked by tension, not only because of the state of emergency that she imposed two months earlier to quiet political opposition, but also because of the coup in Bangladesh in which the Prime Minister, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, Mrs. Gandhi’s ally was killed and a regime hostile to India took over. Critics of Mrs. Gandhi’s emergency measures, under which several thousand opposition leaders and workers had been jailed, saw in the events in Bangladesh a grim omen for India’s future. For the last year events have gone Mrs. Gandhi’s way, and today she appeared more firmly in power. The opposition is muted, and severe curbs on civil liberties and the press seem to be working.
Leaders of the more than 80 non-aligned nations gathered over the weekend in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for the opening Monday of a four-day conference. Many of the hundreds of delegates said that this was a time of transition for the 20-year-old movement. A chief topic will be “a new international economic order” that would seek to narrow the gap between poor and rich nations. Among the heads of state attending the conference are President Tito of Yugoslavia and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim of the United Nations has been invited as a special guest.
Chinese seismologists and government officials have lifted an earthquake alert enforced in Peking for 16 days. The 6 million residents of Peking had been camping out in the streets since July 30-two days after the earthquake that devastated part of Hopei province and heavily damaged the capital. Meanwhile, a Peking broadcast reported that two nurses buried under rubble of a Tangshan hospital that collapsed in the earthquake were rescued eight days later by an army unit.
The demilitarized zone in Korea is many things, but being demilitarized is not one of them. Thousands of soldiers with machine guns, grenades, pistols, knives and infrared sniperscopes patrol virtually all of the strip of land along the border between North and South Korea. Land mines take care of the rest. Artillery and missiles have their sights locked on zonal targets. Trenches honeycomb the hills. Military helicopters clatter overhead. Boobytrapped barbed wire lines the length of the 151‐mile‐long zone. “It’s really nerve‐racking,” said Ken Harper, one of the 160 6‐foot‐tall American soldiers as signed to this area around the truce site. Every so often tensions snap and burst into gunfire, as they did August 5. There are numerous other little‐noticed incidents — club‐swinging melees, kicking, spitting and punching, and exchanges of epithets.
Four members of a television film crew were saved from a flooded cave at Itoigawa, Japan, but rescuers were unable to make contact with seven others trapped by a deluge of rainwater. Police said the four rescued members of the film exploration group had taken shelter on a shelf about 240 feet from the mouth of the cave. Rescue efforts continued for the other seven, who had gone farther, as water still flowed into the 1,710-foot-deep Byakureno cave.
The condition of a woman admitted to a Toronto hospital with symptoms of Lassa fever continued to improve but she was still listed as critical, the Ontario Health Ministry said. Four more staff members of Etobicoke General Hospital have been admitted because they showed temperature changes, bringing to seven the number of staff currently isolated. Eleven others have been released.
President Luis Echeverria and other Mexican leaders have rejected a reported accusation by 76 U.S. congressmen that Mexico is going Communist and will create a “cactus curtain” along the Rio Grande. “There is no curtain which in any way hides our reality, either from within or from without,” Echeverria said in reaction to the letter he said had been sent to President Ford. No copies of the letter could be located in Washington, but three weeks ago a letter having to do with the increase of communism in Mexico was circulated on the floor of the House.
Mexico’s Campeón de Campeones (Champion of Champions) game was played between Club América of Mexico City (the Mexican League champions) and the Copa México winners, Tigres UANL of Monterrey. Club América, nicknamed Las Aguilas, defeated Los Tigres, 2 to 0.
The government of France ordered the mass evacuation of 72,000 people living in seven communities on Basse-Terre Island, part of France’s overseas department of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean Sea, because of their proximity to the island’s active volcano, La Grande Soufrière. The volcano exploded on August 30, but there were no casualties except for two scientists who received minor injuries.
All 59 people aboard SAETA Flight 232 were killed in Ecuador when the Vickers Viscount 785D disappeared while flying from Quito to Cuenca, 193 miles (311 km) to the south. The last radio contact from Flight 232 came 21 minutes after its takeoff at 8:06 in the morning; at 8:27, the pilot reported being over Ambato at an altitude of 18,000 feet (5,500 m). The four-engine Viscount airplane, along with its 55 passengers and four crew, would remain missing in the Andes for more than 26 years until October 17, 2002, when a group of mountain climbers came across its wreckage while attempting to scale the Chimborazo volcano.
Argentina’s leading Roman Catholic publication called upon the military Government today to prohibit the circulation of Nazi publications that are flourishing here with attacks on both Jews and the Vatican. Criterio, a monthly magazine edited by the Rev. Jorge Mejia, a liberal Jesuit priest, said it was unacceptable that the nation, which has banned the distribution or subversive materials of the political left, should permit unhindered subversion by the right. The statement was made in a Criteria editorial ‐prompted by the widespread. distribution of Nazi materials, including Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti‐Semitic tract. These and other Nazi materials are being produced in Spanish by Editorial Milicia, a publication center directed by Federico Ribaneira Carlesi, an Argentine admirer of the Third Reich.
Mozambique troops attacked a border post 120 miles northeast of Salisbury with mortars and rockets today, killing two Rhodesian policemen, security forces said. The attack on the police post at Nyamapanda, a few hundred yards from the Mozambican frontier, was the latest in a series of assaults from across the border reported in the last month. Rhodesian troops raided across the border into Mozambique last Tuesday, reportedly killing at least 300 black nationalist guerrillas. Mozambique is providing training and sanctuary for guerrillas fighting a four‐year‐old struggle to topple the white minority regime in Salisbury.
President Ford won an important procedural victory on the eve of the Republican National Convention. Voting 59 to 44, the President’s supporters on the convention Rules Committee defeated an attempt of Ronald Reagan’s supporters to force an early announcement of Mr. Ford’s running mate. John P. Sears, Mr. Reagan’s campaign director, dismissed the setback as temporary and predicted that it would be reversed Tuesday on the floor of the convention. Both the President and Mr. Reagan gained delegates as a few of the small group of uncommitted delegates shed their neutrality. Both Mr. Ford and Mr. Reagan inched upward in the delegate count as a few of the small band of uncommitted delegates shed their neutrality. But both remained short of the 1,130 votes needed for nomination, with Mr. Ford 10 votes shy of the mark.
Ronald Reagan said on his arrival in Kansas City, Missouri, that no decision had been reached on his strategy for the opening days of the convention. He said that the debate in the Rules Committee over the vice-presidential rule change was important enough to be decided by all the delegates. The committee had earlier defeated a proposal that would have forced President Ford to disclose his choice of a running mate before he was assured of the nomination. Mr. Reagan was confident that he could win the nomination on the first ballot and that a second-ballot nomination was possible, too.
On his arrival in Kansas City, President Ford was exuberant and predicted victory, but it appeared that he was not quite sure of it. He broke tradition by arriving for the convention well before the balloting for the presidential nomination, which will be held Wednesday night. Despite repeated disavowals by his staff, many observers believed Mr. Ford arrived early because he still must persuade more delegates to vote for him.
Starting last June, the staff of the Republican Platform Committee began putting the first words on paper with the aim of trying to write a party document that could satisfy both President Ford and Ronald Reagan. When the weary, 106‐member committee completed work Friday night after laboring for nearly 100 hours under hot television lights, the 21,000-word result came somewhat close to meeting that objective. But it was achieved only after maneuvering that caught strategists for both Presidential candidates by surprise, parliamentary miscalculations, mistrust by some Reagan delegates who feared that a deal had been struck on the platform without their knowledge, hostility toward the elected officials who dominated some of the sessions, and a concerted effort by monitors of Mr. Ford, linked by a walkie‐talkie network, to defuse any emotional issue that might embarrass the President’s policies.
Any talk of “dump Schweiker” plans, either on the Reagan-for-President team or back home in Pennsylvania, should be discounted, Senator Richard S. Schweiker said today as he joined Ronald Reagan at a cheerful series of preconvention rallies. Pennsylvania Republican leaders, who were unpleasantly, surprised when their liberal Senator agreed to run with the conservative former governor of California, played host to both men at a delegation rally this afternoon. The candidates and their wives had to push past well-drilled demonstrators chanting “We want Ford” in the lobby of the Hilton Airport Plaza Inn. But the delegates listened politely to both. They applauded Mr. Reagan longer and louder.
Officers of large corporations and financial institutions dominate the governing boards of the 12 Federal Reserve System banks and their branches, a House Banking, Currency and Housing Committee report said. The report rejected testimony by Arthur F. Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, that the 269 directors were “drawn from many walks of life” and included merchants, farmers, attorneys, university presidents and professors. “The study raises a substantial question about the Federal Reserve’s oft-repeated claim of independence,” Chairman Henry S. Reuss (D-Wisconsin) said.
A significant number of career armed forces personnel shop around for “home states” in which they can avoid paying state income taxes, Pentagon statistics show. The figures show that a disproportionate number of higher paid servicemen claimed 10 states as their homes for tax purposes in 1974, Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wisconsin) said in releasing the figures. “We should not condemn the men taking advantage of this loophole when big business enjoys its tax havens, too,” Aspin said. “But we should plug the loophole.” The 10 popular states are Connecticut, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.
Dr. Albert Sabin, developer of the oral polio vaccine, is drafting a letter to President Ford asking that a nationwide inoculation program against swine flu be delayed until it could be determined whether a threat of an epidemic actually existed. Sabin told the Associated Press that there was a greater threat from another flu strain, A-Victoria 75, which he said had killed thousands in southern hemisphere countries, where it is now midwinter. These countries, he said, have been free of swine flu.
Well-placed sources at the Federal Bureau of Investigation said the bureau intends to continue its investigation, begun 38 years ago, of the Socialist Workers Party. The investigation will proceed, it was said, under classified Justice Department guidelines applying to radical organizations with foreign political connections. The sources said that the F.B.I. recently submitted to Attorney General Edward H. Levi a statement of its intention, to treat its 38‐year‐long investigation of the party as a counterintelligence case rather than a domestic security investigation. The bureau’s decision in the case was reached despite testimony by past and present F.B.I. officials in recent months that party members have never been involved in espionage, have not advocated the illegal overthrow of the Federal Government, and were, in the words of one former bureau official, “homegrown tomatoes.” The extent of the investigation has been disclosed to a considerable degree through the party’s outstanding lawsuit against the bureau, and the disclosures have raised questions in Congress and elsewhere over whether such attention was warranted by the group’s activities and philosophy.
The explosion in a Tenneco Oil Company refining tower that killed 12 men Thursday resulted from a human error, according to the head of the union to which 10 of the men belonged. Albert Catyb, business agent for Local 37 of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, said in an interview: “It was, just a mistake on a man’s part. It was human error.” The boilermakers union has been conducting an inquiry into the cause of the blast, which occurred about 7:30 PM Thursday at the top of a 30‐story fractionating tower at the Tenneco refinery at Chalmette. about 20 miles southeast of here on the Mississippi River.
The claim that women can prevent breast cancer by taking estrogen pills regularly is challenged in a study prepared by the Harvard School of Public Health, the National Cancer Institute and the University of Louisville School of Medicine. Moreover, the report warns, the drug may cause the disease. While the results of the study do not by themselves establish a cause-effect connection, they do make it a “definite possibility,” the authors say. It is estimated that 15 million to 16 million women in the United States take estrogens.
A proposal that cars be equipped with meters to record their rate of gasoline consumption has been dropped by the federal Department of Transportation. In a report to the President and Congress, the department said the device would not measurably affect fuel consumption. The report was based on tests conducted by the Automobile Club of Southern California on 400,000 miles of travel by mid-size cars.
The world’s biggest oak tree — 33 feet, 10 inches in circumference, 72 feet tall and about 97 feet at the widest point of foliage — is growing at an undisclosed spot near the Palomar Observatory on Palomar Mountain, according to the US Forest Service. The Canyon live oak was listed almost a decade ago in the “Social Register of Big Trees” maintained by the American Society of Forestry Association of Washington, D.C., after an old photograph of it was discovered. The tree, estimated at 205 years old, replaces as the biggest of the species a tree 32 feet, 5 inches in circumference in Stanislaus National Forest in Northern California.
Major League Baseball:
The Atlanta Braves, who had lost to the St. Louis Cardinals five straight times in games at home, averted being the victims of a season sweep when Phil Niekro (13–8) pitched a six-hitter and posted a 3–2 victory. The Braves’ veteran knuckleballer also batted in his seventh run in his last seven games with a sacrifice fly. In the second inning, singles by Dave May and Rob Belloir, a pass to Vic Correll, Niekro’s sacrifice fly and a safe bunt by Darrel Chaney produced the Braves’ first two runs. The deciding tally followed in the eighth when Rod Gilbreath tripled and Tom Paciorek hit a sacrifice fly. Joe Ferguson homered for the Cardinals in the ninth.
Homers by Bobby Grich and Lee May accounted for the Orioles’ runs in support of Wayne Garland (14–3), who shut out the White Sox, 3–0, for his 14th victory. Grich hit a solo swat in the first inning and walked ahead of a smash by May in the third.
Robin Yount batted in two runs and scored one to lead the Brewers to a 5-3 victory over the Angels. After Von Joshua and George Scott singled and Darrell Porter doubled for a Brewer run in the first inning, Mike Hegan homered in the fourth. Yount singled, stole second and scored on a single by Don Money in the sixth. Yount drove in a run with a single in the seventh to make it 4-0 before the Angels chased Bill Travers while scoring three times in the home half of the seventh. Bill Castro relieved and safeguarded Travers’ 14th victory. Yount made the decision secure by driving in the final run with a grounder in the ninth.
A balk by Bill Bonham proved the key factor when the Dodgers scored three runs in the fourth inning to defeat the Cubs, 3-2. Rick Monday homered for the Cubs in the first. Bonham began the fourth by walking Bill Buckner and Steve Garvey. Ron Cey singled, driving in Buckner and sending Garvey to third. Bonham then committed his balk, allowing Garvey to score and moving Cey to second. Bill Russell followed with a single to drive in what proved to be the winning run. The Cubs fell short with a run in the fifth on a single by Monday and double by Jose Cardenal.
Larvell Blanks and John Lowenstein drove in two runs apiece in the first game and Buddy Bell knocked in a pair to support the pitching of Jim Bibby in the second game as the Indians defeated the Rangers in a doubleheader, 6-4 and 3-0. In the opener, the Indians jumped on Bert Blyleven (9–13) for three runs in the first inning, loading the bases and scoring on a sacrifice fly by George Hendrick, single by Lowenstein and an error. Blanks batted in two runs with a single in the seventh and Lowenstein accounted for the Indians’ final tally with a single in the eighth. Toby Harrah and Jeff Burroughs homered for the Rangers. Bibby was the winner of the nightcap in a four-hit duel with Steve Hargan. Bell slapped a two-run single in the seventh inning after the Indians filled the sacks on a double by Rick Manning and passes to Boog Powell and Hendrick.
Doc Medich (6–11) gained his first victory since June 16 and Jerry Reuss (11–7) followed with a shutout as the Pirates defeated the Astros in a doubleheader, 8-6 and 3-0. In the opener, the Pirates erupted for four runs in the ninth inning to take an 8-2 lead and seemingly had an easy victory in hand, but the Astros rallied for four runs in their half of the ninth, chasing Medich, before Kent Tekulve put out the fire. In the nightcap, the Pirates scored all their runs in the first inning on five singles off Joe Sambito, who was the loser in his first major league start for the Astros.
Amos Otis hit a two-run homer and Frank White drove in two runs with a pair of singles to pace the Royals to a 7-3 victory over the Tigers. Otis rapped his round-tripper after a single by Jim Wohlford in the first inning. Before the stanza ended, the Royals added a tally on a single by George Brett, a stolen base, infield out and sacrifice fly by John Mayberry. White hit his run-scoring singles in the second and sixth innings.
The Twins rallied to wipe out a four-run deficit and gain a 9-8 victory over the Yankees, who were stopped on their five-game winning streak. Chris Chambliss homered with two men on base in the fifth inning when the Yankees scored five times to take an 8-4 lead. The Twins began their comeback in the seventh when Rod Carew tripled to drive in one run and scored himself. With two out in the eighth, Dan Ford singled, Bob Randall walked and Craig Kusick beat out an infield hit to load the bases. Roy Smalley singled, driving in two runs to tie the score, and Carew followed with another single to bat in the Twins’ winning marker.
After two bunts helped load the bases, the Padres erupted for five runs in the sixth inning to defeat the Expos, 6-1. Fred Kendall walked to open the stanza and when Tom Griffin bunted, Don Carrithers threw late to second and both runners were safe. Johnny Grubb also bunted and reached base on an error by Larry Parrish. Willie Davis singled, driving in two runs. Dave Winfield singled to add the third tally. After an intentional pass to Mike Ivie reloaded the sacks, Ted Kubiak singled to drive in two runs.
On Buddy Harrelson’s wedding day, he scores the only run as the Mets nip the Reds 1–0. He gets married a few hours after the game. Jerry Koosman (15-7) helped set up a run with a sacrifice bunt in the fifth inning and pitched the Mets to victory over the Reds. Koosman, who brought his record to 15-7, scattered five hits, struck out 11 and did not issue a pass. In the fifth, Roy Staiger singled off Gary Nolan and was forced by Harrelson. Koosman then laid down his successful bunt to pave the way for a run on a single by Bruce Boisclair.
After trailing by six runs, the Athletics rallied to defeat the Red Sox, 8-7, for their ninth straight victory. Dwight Evans and Fred Lynn homered for the Red Sox, Evans’ blow coming with two men on base. The A’s, who had a circuit clout by Sal Bando, counted twice in the fifth and added two more runs in the sixth before the Red Sox made it 7-4 in the seventh. After another two-run burst in the eighth, the A’s put over the tying and winning tallies with two out in the ninth when Bill North doubled, Bert Campaneris singled and Don Baylor doubled.
Darrell Evans hit two homers, smashing his second blow with two men on base in the ninth inning when the Giants scored five runs to defeat the Phillies, 9-5. Evans’ first homer put the Giants ahead, 4-3, in the sixth, but Greg Luzinski sent the Phillies in front with a two-run smash in the eighth. Chris Speier led off the Giants’ ninth with a pinch-double. Larry Herndon beat out an infield hit and Marty Perez doubled to drive in Speier with the tying run. After an infield hit by Gary Matthews loaded the bases, Ken Reitz hit a sacrifice fly for the go-ahead tally and Evans followed with his three-run homer to ice the decision.
St. Louis Cardinals 2, Atlanta Braves 3
Chicago White Sox 0, Baltimore Orioles 3
Milwaukee Brewers 5, California Angels 3
Los Angeles Dodgers 3, Chicago Cubs 2
Texas Rangers 4, Cleveland Indians 6
Texas Rangers 0, Cleveland Indians 3
Pittsburgh Pirates 8, Houston Astros 6
Pittsburgh Pirates 3, Houston Astros 0
Detroit Tigers 3, Kansas City Royals 7
New York Yankees 8, Minnesota Twins 9
San Diego Padres 6, Montreal Expos 1
Cincinnati Reds 0, New York Mets 1
Boston Red Sox 7, Oakland Athletics 8
San Francisco Giants 9, Philadelphia Phillies 5
Born:
Abiy Ahmed Ali, Prime Minister of Ethiopia (2018–); in Beshasha, Ethiopia.
Melvin Bradley, NFL linebacker (Arizona Cardinals), in Barton, Arkansas.
Robert Macfarlane, English nature writer, in Halam, England, United Kingdom.
Died:
F. G. Miles, 73, British inventor and aircraft designer.
U.S. Army Major General Harry C. Ingles, 88, commander of the United States Army Signal Corps during World War II, later President of RCA Global Communications.
History Diaries 