Senior United States officials said today that they were giving serious attention to a new, unexpected Soviet proposal that could open, the way to negotiations for a total ban on underground nuclear explosions. The new proposal, made by Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko in a memorandum filed at the United Nations last week, said the Soviet Union was ready to discuss on‐site inspection to insure that a treaty prohibiting all underground nuclear weapons tests was being complied with. This was the first time since the early 1960’s that the Russians have agreed in principle to American insistence that there could be no total ban without adequate verification. On‐site inspection is needed, the United States contends, to distinguish between earthquakes and suspected clandestine testing. United States officials said they were intrigued by the apparent shift in position, for which they had no firm explanation. One line of speculation is that Moscow is determined to show further progress in nuclear arms control. Having agreed earlier this year to the principle of on‐site inspection in connection with peaceful engineering explosions, the Russians may have decided to extend it to weapons tests. Such a ban would slow further weapons development. The new Soviet proposal is the latest move in a series of negotiations dealing with underground nuclear explosions. Explosions in the air, under water and in space have been banned since 1963.
President Ford is expected to propose within the next 10 days a plan to tighten control of the worldwide use of certain kinds of nuclear power equipment and material that can also be used to make atomic bombs. At least in part, the plan appears intended as a response to criticism by environmental groups, members of Congress and Jimmy Carter, the Democratic candidate, that the United States has failed to come to grips with the spread of nuclear weapons‐making potential. According to Administration sources, the new program will be announced sometime next week and will include a number of aspects, including the following:
• The announcement of a halt in United States plans to use plutonium — the raw material of atomic bombs — as a supplemental nuclear fuel until this use has been shown to have value.
• The start of a project, costing at least $1 billion, to determine whether plutonium can be safely and economically extracted from the uranium that has been burned in a conventional power reactor.
• A declaration that the United States will halt the export of uranium reactor fuel to any country that violates agreements to control plutonium.
A group of three gunmen from the Basque terrorist organization ETA carried out the assassination of Juan María de Araluce Villar, his chauffeur, and three policemen in an escort vehicle, as he was departing his home in San Sebastián. Araluce, a 59-year-old Basque economist and one of the 17 “Counselors of the Realm”, was killed along with the others by submachine gun fire.
With a shaky majority of only eight seats in Parliament, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany moved to firm up his coalition with the small Free Democratic Party, whose leader pledged to continue the partnership. Mr. Schmidt must now attempt to solve his country’s troublesome economic problems. The re‐election of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s Socialist-liberal coalition was welcomed throughout Europe today, East and West, because governments almost always prefer the prospect of continued dealings with teams they know to dealing with new ones. Whether the reaction stressed Mr. Schmidt’s sharply reduced majority or that he would remain in charge depended on domestic politics. A Briton watching the returns last night declared happily that they were a good omen for the Conservatives because they showed that European voters were swinging away from the left and cutting its powers of experiment. At the same time the French Socialist leader, François Mitterrand, hailed the results because, he said, they showed that voters found satisfaction and competent government by sticking with Socialists. The inwardness of the reactions did not stem from indifference to West German affairs. On the contrary, the keen focus of Europeans on Bonn as a bellwether reflected the acknowledgment that West Germany is the foremost Western European power.
Right-wing leader Enoch Powell called on the British government to pay a million Asian and African immigrants $1,700 each to leave Britain. The former member of parliament said widespread violence could be avoided only “by removing its root cause.” In a speech to the right-wing Conservative Club at Croydon, Powell said paying the immigrants would represent, over five years, “no more than 200 million pounds ($340 million) a year.”
Portugal’s No. 2 political party, the Popular Democrats, changed its name to the Social Democrat Party. The purpose: to move the party to the left with the hope of forming a coalition with the ruling Socialist Party after local elections December 12. The local elections are expected to turn into a plebiscite on the minority Socialist government on the national level.
Norway is planning to extend its fishing limits to 200 miles on January 1, informed sources in Oslo said. The decision would mean that foreign trawlers would be banned from fishing grounds off Norway unless there were agreements for reciprocal fishing rights. This could prove to be a problem for West Germany, France, East Germany and Poland, because they have comparatively little to offer in return.
The InterCity 125 high-speed train, so-called because it had an average speed of 125 miles per hour (201 km/h), was introduced in the United Kingdom as the fastest railroad service in the UK up to that time. The inaugural high-speed trip from London’s Paddington station departed at 8:05 in the morning to Bristol.
Israel’s military establishment has been revamped and refurbished since the 1973 war to such an extent that Defense Minister Shimon Peres is talking about manufacturing arms rather than buying them. Mr. Peres also said in an interview that the army had remedied the mistakes and misapprehensions that arose during and before the war in much less time than expected.
Muslim demonstrations erupted anew in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River. The rioting came as Jews throughout Israel observed Yom Kippur. Hebron was put under curfew after riot troops Sunday broke up a Muslim raid on a synagogue, injuring about 60 Arabs. The trouble developed following a report that Jews had desecrated a Koran, the Muslim holy book, at the Tomb of Abraham, which is hallowed to both Jews and Muslims. An Israeli spokesman, denying the report, said, “At most, a Koran was found on the floor, but it was not damaged.” Israeli officials said about 100 Muslims broke into the synagogue at the Tomb of Abraham and tore up prayer books and sacred Torah scrolls.
Officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization have begun a round of crucial talks with Syrian and Lebanese authorities on the status of Palestinian forces in Lebanon. The impression in Beirut is that the Palestinian leaders, having their backs against the wall militarily, are anxious to get a cease-fire and a political accommodation, but that the talks will be extremely difficult. Hassan Sabry al-Kholy, the Egyptian envoy of the Arab League here, said at a news conference today that two sets of talks were involved-between Palestinian and Syrian officials and between Palestinians and aides to President Elias Sarkis of Lebanon.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat said that France may be invited to join an Arab peacekeeping force in Lebanon. He also said that French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing was favorably inclined toward attending a hoped-for Arab-sponsored summit meeting on the Lebanese war.
Plans for a takeover by Saudi Arabia of the producing assets and concessions of the Arabian American Oil Company are expected to be completed at a meeting next Monday in Europe. Saudi Arabia now controls 60 percent of Aramco, the world’s most highly valued oil operation, with the remaining 40 percent controlled by four American oil companies.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Government, locked in a battle with India’s largest newspaper chain, sent armed policemen to the offices of The Indian Express today and padlocked its presses. The padlocking came just two days after The Express got a court order to restore its electricity after a two‐day blackout that The Express charged was part of a Government campaign against one of India’s last independent voices. There was virtually no chance that the Tuesday New Delhi edition of 80,000 copies could be published, though The Express publishing centers in seven other cities across India would go to press on schedule, officials said.
China denounced a Soviet proposal that the U.N. General Assembly draft a treaty against the use of force in international relations, calling it shopworn trash, a clumsy fraud and a mockery of common sense. Chinese Ambassador Lai Ya-li argued in the U.N. steering committee that the proposal was “the same old stuff, which it (the Soviet Union) does not even believe itself.”
A Chinese Communist Party official who defected to Taiwan alleged in a newspaper article published there that Chinese Premier Hua Kuofeng is the son of the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Wang Hun, who served for 12 years as a political commissar in the People’s Liberation Army before defecting in 1974, said Hua’s original name was Mao Yen-lung and he was youngest of the late chairman’s three sons by a former marriage. He has reportedly been missing since childhood. According to Wang, Mao’s former wife was arrested and executed by the Nationalist Chinese early in the Communist revolution. One son was known to have been killed in the Korean war. The second son is alive but suffering from a neurotic ailment. And Hua, who reportedly bears a striking resemblance to Mao, is supposed to be the third son.
[Ed: None of this was true. Hua would be paramount leader for a short time, arresting the Gang of Four later this month, before Deng Xiaoping outmaneuvered him and assumed control of the People’s Republic.]
Uruguay’s military leaders have reacted with indignation to the recent ban by the United States Congress on further military aid to their Government, which is accused of systematic violations of human rights. The ban was approved Sept. 15 as an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Appropriations Act for 1977 by a Senate and House of Representatives conference committee. It was denounced yesterday at a session of the Uruguayan Council of State, an appointed body that provides advice on legislative decrees. The controlled press in Montevideo gave the Uruguayan public its first news of the United States action today. The amendment had been submitted by Representative Edward I. Koch, Democrat of Manhattan, to protest what he described as the Uruguayan violation of human rights in carrying out antisubversive policies. The suspension of United States military aid ends a program that involved about $3 million in arms credits and financing of training for Uruguayan officers and enlisted men in specialized schools at United States military installations.
The Argentine Army today confirmed an apparent attack over the weekend on the life of President Jorge Rafael Videla. On Saturday, a bomb ripped through a reviewing stand at a military ceremony five minutes after General Videla had left. The explosion occurred at Campo de Mayo, the biggest and most important military installation in Argentina, 20 miles northwest of Buenos Aires. A 50‐word army statement today, which did not name General Videla, said that a “low‐power explosive device went off, causing slight damage to the stand.” Other sources said that the stand had been virtually destroyed and that two military men had been injured.
The principal black nationalist movement that is fighting for South‐West African independence is “shopping” for weapons in Cuba, according to the organization’s spokesman at the United Nations. But no attempt is being made to get the aid of Cuban troops now in Angola. Theo‐Ben Guribab, the representative of the South‐West African People’s Organization, said. He said that both antiaircraft artillery and planes were needed by his organization to combat what he described as an accelerated military involvement by South Africa in the territory, which it holds in defiance of United Nations resolutions that it give up this “illegal control.” Sam Nujoma, the organization’s leader, who is reported to be in Havana, has said several times in recent weeks that his movement needs more sophisticated weapons to combat stepped‐up South African intervention in the territory, which black African nationalists call Namibia. He has charged that South African authorities are using the territory as a springboard for attacks on Angola and Zambia.
Assistant Secretary of State William E. Schaufele Jr. and Edward Rowlands, Minister of State at the British Foreign Office, conferred in Salisbury today with Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian D. Smith on arrangements for the planned conference on the formation of an interim biracial government for the transition to black majority rule. The envoys arrived here from Pretoria, South Africa, after several days of discussions in interested African countries, and returned there tonight. An informed source suggested that the day of talks had been encouraging but failed to provide any hint of what encouraged them. He balanced this optimism by pointing out that success could not be guaranteed. While they met behind closed doors with Mr. Smith, and later with representatives of various black and white Rhodesian groupings, a problem emerged that is not within their scope and that endangers the future of the plan mediated by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. The problem is the deep division among the black nationalist factions and their inability so far to designate those who would negotiate with Mr. Smith under British chairmanship on the functions and composition of the interim government.
Resigning as Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz apologized for the “gross indiscretion” of his remarks about blacks and said that he wanted to remove “even the appearance of racism” from the campaign. President Ford, after a meeting with Mr. Butz, said he would accept the resignation of “this decent and good man,” whom he described as a personal friend. Butz resigned as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture after both Democrat and Republican politicians called for his departure over racist remarks that he had made.
U.S. President Gerald Ford signed the Tax Reform Act of 1976, a bipartisan bill that lowered taxes on corporations and extended payroll tax reductions that had already been in place. The Act reduced the overall tax burden in the U.S. by $18 billion. In addition, it made assignment of social security number mandatory for U.S. citizens for identification for state and federal services.
The U.S. Supreme Court voted not to reconsider its July 2 decision in Gregg v. Georgia, clearing the way for individual states to carry out death sentences imposed since the original ruling. A stay on death penalties was lifted by the Supreme Court as it decided not to reconsider its decision of last July upholding the penalty for murder. The high court also agreed to hear arguments on whether capital punishment may be imposed on persons convicted of rape.
The court, in other actions, refused to hear a wide range of civil rights cases.
Charging the Ford administration with being insensitive to human suffering, Jimmy Carter criticized its approach to inflation and unemployment. Mr. Carter, prompted by private surveys showing that economic issues were becoming decisive factors in the campaign, said that the Republicans were isolated from the human realities behind the economic figures.
A draft report of a Senate subcommittee has concluded that President Ford’s former campaign director, Howard H. (Bo) Callaway, used undue pressure while secretary of the Army to influence the Forest Service’s favorable decision on expansion of his Colorado ski resort. Callaway was forced to resign as Ford campaign chairman earlier this year when details were published about his efforts to obtain use of additional federal land for the resort. Early in 1975, the Forest Service recommended that expansion of the resort operated by Callaway and his brother-in-law be limited. But late in the year the service agreed to make 2,000 acres on Snodgrass Mountain available for the resort.
An agreement in principle has been reached on all the major issues in the strike against the Ford Motor Company, according to authoritative sources. The United Automobile Workers summoned delegates from locals at Ford plants and installations to Detroit on Thursday. Union leaders said they hoped to be able to present the delegates with an agreement by then.
Despite the clamor over welds that failed inspection and despite a House committee report that predicted a year’s delay, the Alaska pipeline appears likely to open on, or near, schedule in July 1977. This tentative conclusion was reached after interviews with officials responsible for the construction of the 800-mile project.
The New York State Board of Elections is reviewing a staff report that questions enough of Eugene McCarthy’s petitions to deny him a place on the state ballot as a presidential candidate. The report was prepared after a challenge to the petitions by the Democratic Party that was seen as being prompted by fears that Mr. McCarthy might take votes away from Jimmy Carter in a crucial state.
A balance of payments deficit of about $50 billion will be faced by the world’s oil-importing countries next year because of increased surpluses in the oil-exporting nations, according to Treasury Secretary William Simon. Speaking at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Simon said that countries with deficits would find it hard to borrow to cover the deficits because many countries could not afford to take on more debt.
The auto industry expects the next Congress to relax strict clean air standards on 1978 models despite a Senate filibuster last week that killed one such move. Detroit auto makers already have begun the process of certifying their 1978‐model cars under the current clean air requirements. Their only alternatives if the law is not changed are to close their plants or break the law. The industry builds nearly 10 million cars in a good year and could face a fine of $10,000 a car if it does not meet clean air laws — a total of $100 billion. No one expects that to happen. The automakers based all plans for the next model year (1978) on the assumption that the law would be relaxed. “They [the Federal Government] can close the plants, put someone in jail — maybe me — but we’re going to make [1978] cars to 1977 standards,” said the president of General Motors, E. M. Estes following the defeat of the amendments to the Clean Air Act of 1970.
Richard A. Sprague, who led the investigation that finally brought the arrest and murder conviction of W.A. Boyle, the deposed head of the United Mine Workers Union, has agreed to head a new Congressional examination of the assassinations of President Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Eighteen reporters from 15 newspapers have begun an unusual experiment in group journalism a joint investigation of crime and corruption in Arizona, the nation’s fastest-growing state. Motivated by the fatal car‐bombing on June 3 of Don Bolles, a reporter for The Arizona Republic, the 17 men and one woman will spend periods ranging from one week to three months investigating what other reporters have earlier defined as a pervasive pattern of white‐collar crime that in many cases appears to be aided and abetted by people of wealth, political power and influence.
The Food and Drug Administration closed the door on the seven-year-old cyclamate controversy, formally ruling that the artificial sweetener is too dangerous to be allowed back on the market. But Abbott Laboratories, the company that developed and marketed cyclamate, said it would ask the FDA to conduct a “full hearing” on the matter. It also said it remained convinced that cyclamate, once a $1 billion part of the American diet, was not a cancer causing agent but was “safe and should be returned to the market.”
The National Organization for Women said the Internal Revenue Service should investigate use of Roman Catholic Church premises for what it alleged was anti-abortion lobbying. “The Catholic hierarchy has undertaken a blatant political campaign against our woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, which, conducted within the walls of the churches is illegal….” said NOW President Karen DeCrow. Catholics heard antiabortion sermons last Sunday and in some parishes, NOW said, members were asked to sign pledges to work actively for an anti-abortion amendment.
A man who ordained a black to the Mormon priesthood earlier this year in defiance of church doctrine was barred from the church’s semi-annual conference under a court order. A deputy sheriff served the order on Douglas A. Wallace, 46, of Vancouver, Wash., at Temple Square in Salt Lake City prior to the concluding session of the world conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Wallace was ejected from a conference last April when he tried to force his way to the podium.
About 1,000 workers fled M & T Plaza, a 20-story office tower in downtown Buffalo, after an electrical fire broke out on an upper floor. At least 15 firemen were treated for smoke inhalation. Officials said the blaze started on the 15th floor and spread to the 18th. A spokesman for New York Telephone Co., which occupies the 16th and 17th floors, said service was restored to downtown phones after a two-hour disruption.
Educational and marital status have an influence on cigarette smoking, the National Center for Disease Control said. The greater the education the more likely the person will be a smoker, the center said in a new summary of its report last June on smoking habits of adult Americans. Smoking rates are lowest for those who never went to high school. Divorced or separated persons are far more likely to smoke than those married and living with their spouses, the summary said.
[Ed: Wow, how much is this going to change over the next 50 years?]
Barbara Walters began work as the first evening national news anchor in the U.S., working with Harry Reasoner as the co-anchor of ABC World News Tonight, still referred to at the time as ABC Evening News.
NFL Monday Night Football:
The Minnesota Vikings defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers, 17–6. Minnesota defensive back Nate Allen took the ball from the Steelers and Chuck Foreman took it across the goal line to give the defending Super Bowl champions their third loss in three games. Foreman, who gained a career high 148 yards, scored in the second quarter after Allen intercepted a Terry Bradshaw pass. Allen’s fourth period fumble recovery of a punt snap set up Foreman’s four-yard TD burst. Allen had another interception and blocked a conversion attempt.
Pittsburgh Steelers 6, Minnesota Vikings 17
Stock prices fell slightly in the slowest trading in more than a month, The Dow Jones industrial average lost 1.91 points to close at 977.98. Credit markets reflected the economic slowdown with rising prices and falling rates for fixed-income securities.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 977.98 (-1.91, -0.19%)
Born:
Alicia Silverstone, American film and TV actress (“Clueless”, “Batman Forever”); in San Francisco, Calfornia.
Ueli Steck, Swiss mountain climber; in Langnau im Emmental, Switzerland (killed in accident, 2017).
Clarisse Machanguana, Mozambican WNBA center and forward (Los Angeles Sparks, Charlotte Sting, Orlando Miracle), in Maputo, Mozambique.
Died:
Alexander Gray, 85, American actor (Sally, This is Music).
