The Soviet leadership, buoyed by a bumper grain harvest, today announced production goals for 1977. that it hoped would help significant. ly narrow the Soviet Union’s economic gap with the United States by the end of the current decade. Nikolai K. Baibakov, the economic planning chief, cited statistics to show. that if the 1976‐80 plan was fulfilled, the Soviet Union could by 1980 exceed 1975 American industrial production and match 1975 American farm output. Since he was comparing potential Soviet figures in 1980 with American performance last year, it seemed doubtful that the Soviet Union actually expected to overtake the United States by 1980. But the goal highlighted a long‐standing Soviet competitiveness that has been whetted by the recession in the West. The 1977 plan emphasizes greater exploitation of natural resources as well as increased industrial production. But it also includes one of the most modest increases yet in national income. The projected rise of only 4.1 percent appeared to reflect not only the lingering impact of the 1975 harvest failure but also the current campaign to wind up unfinished projects before embarking on new ones. A token reduction equivalent to $267 million was announced in the military budget, in a gesture apparently linked to the Kremlin’s latest calls for disarmament. Finance Minister Vasily F. Garhuzov said the 1977 military budget would be 17.2 billion rubles ($23 billion). This figure does not reflect total Soviet military spending, since the cost of some military research and development programs and procurement is hidden under budget categories other than defense. Western analysts regard the published defense item more as a barometer of the Kremlin’s mood than as an indicator of actual military expenditures.
Reacting to a buildup in Soviet military airpower, the Defense Department announced today a major increase in United States fighter strength in Western Europe, including the first overseas deployment of the new supersonic F-15. Starting early next year, the Air Force will raise its strength in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization area by 84 fighters, sending F‐15’s to West Germany and swing‐wing F‐111’s to Britain. This will be the first significant increase in United States air power in Europe in almost nine years. The Air Force withdrew four squadrons totaling 96 F‐4 Phantom jets back to the United States in the spring of 1968. The announcement said the deployments of F‐15’s and additional F‐111’s were particularly important in light of recent improvements in the Soviet‐bloc Warsaw Pact units opposing the NATO forces. The reinforcements will bring United States fighter strength in Europe to nearly 550 aircraft. According to Pentagon calculations, this will still leave the total of Atlantic alliance tactical airpower at half the strength of the roughly 5,000 warplanes deployed by the Soviet Union and its Communist allies in Central and Eastern Europe.
Assailants opened fire with submachine guns and set off bombs in an attack that heavily damaged the Moroccan Embassy in Madrid and injured several persons. A spokesman said the embassy had received no threat or warning and refused to speculate on motives or identities of the attackers. The ambassador was not in at the time. Police sources said privately that the attack could have been carried out by Sahara’s independence-minded Polisario guerrillas. The group has been fighting Morocco and Mauritania since those countries took control of Spain’s former Sahara territory.
The French National Assembly created a special committee to investigate charges that airplane builder Marcel Dassault cheated the government out of $300 million but the Socialist opposition quickly branded the inquiry a maneuver to whitewash the affair. The charge came after the assembly’s legal committee, which established the 15-member investigative panel, broadened its mandate to extend beyond Dassault to the use of public funds by all aircraft manufacturers in France.
A suggestion by Harold Macmillan, a former Conservative Prime Minister, that Britain should have a “government of national unity” to get it out of its economic mess, has been rejected out of hand by both major political parties. Nevertheless, the 82‐year‐old Tory, who led the government from 1957 to 1963, drew praise from many ordinary Britons who said that they deplored party political bickering while the country was foundering. Mr. Macmillan’s suggestion, made in a television interview here last week, was prominently reported in the press, allthough virtually all the newspapers dismissed the idea in their editorials. Mr. Macmillan was in office when Britain was relatively prosperous. Curiously, his Edwardian style was appreciated by the masses. The speed with which his opponents publicly contradicted him suggested to some observers that they feared he might have struck a popular chord. Only the Liberal Party, with 13 members in the House of Commons, came out strongly for an emergency coalition. The Liberals’ only chance of sharing power at present seems to be in such a coalition. Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister James Callaghan saw no merit in the idea of a coalition. The last coalition came during World War II, when Britain was at the brink of defeat in 1940. Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain and brought the Labor Party into the government.
Ireland will hold an election November 24 to replace President Cearbhall O Dalaigh, who resigned after his defense minister, Patrick Lonegan, called him a “thundering disgrace” because of his opposition to the government’s new antiterrorist laws. Fianna Fail, the opposition party, is expected to put up Maj. Vivion De Valera, son of former President Eamon De Valera. Leaders of the two government parties, Fine Gael and Labor, have yet to select their candidates.
Bad weather thwarted an attempt to raise an F-14 fighter that plunged off the U.S. carrier John F. Kennedy and sank 1,900 feet to the Atlantic seabed about 75 miles northwest of Scapa Flow, Scotland, the U.S. Navy reported. The plane’s secret Phoenix missile reportedly still had not been located. “A lift line, which had been secured to the F-14 Tuesday, failed in high seas and the aircraft sank to the bottom,” a spokesman said.
The Bank of America has turned down two Arab requests for information related to the Arab boycott against Israel, U.S. Commerce Department documents have shown. The San Francisco-based bank refused to honor requests from the National Bank of Kuwait and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International in Saudi Arabia. Since the department began making public reports of boycott demands, only the Bank of America and Security Pacific National Bank have refused to comply with Arab requests for assurances that no goods were of Israeli origin or from firms not participating in the boycott.
Syria is authoritatively reported to have at least 30,000 soldiers in Lebanon now and is in a position to carry out singlehandedly the decisions made last night by Arab kings and presidents at their conference in Cairo. The Arab leaders decided that the present multinational Arab force of about 2,500 men should be increased to 30,000 but failed to agree on whose troops should be added. Syria was thus apparently left with a mandate to enforce the current cease‐fire, now a week old, to bring about the withdrawal of rival Lebanese and Palestinian fighting forces and to establish a degree of public safety under the official direction of Lebanon’s President, Elias Sarkis. Until recently the best estimate of the number of Syrian troops in Lebanon had been 20,000. The 30,000 figure, according to authoritative sources, was given 10 days ago by Syria’s President Hafez al-Assad, at the Arab meeting on Lebanon that he attended with five other Arab leaders at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Amid reports of an increasing accommodation between Syrians and Palestinians in Lebanon, Defense Minister Shimon Peres today reminded both parties that Israel would not tolerate their moving close to the Israeli border. Speaking at a convention of farmers here, Mr. Peres said silence by Israel lately on its so‐called red‐line policy did not mean the line had been erased. The policy has never been spelled out but it has been taken to mean that Israel would act if the Syrians in Lebanon moved close to the border. Mr. Peres credited the Israeli warnings with having deterred the Syrians from advancing south of the Litani River.
Iran ordered 160 F-16 fighters and took an option on 140 more (Peace Zebra). The order was cancelled in 1979 with the fall of the Shah.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi disclosed today that some people had been killed in clashes with the police growing out of India’s campaign of mass sterilization. In a speech in Parliament, the Prime Minister confirmed recurring rumors of rioting by people protesting the sterilization program, which many say is the most vigorous in the country’s history. But she gave no details. “Some deaths have taken place, due to firing,” she said, in the course of a speech defending a set of far‐reaching constitutional amendments that her Government has proposed. “On the other hand, several policemen and other citizens were killed by violent groups even though they were not connected with the family planning campaign.”
Mao Zedong’s widow, Chiang Ching, and three associates accused of attempting a coup, are still alive and presently undergoing intensive questioning for what is alleged to be their “anti-party” activities, according to big posters that appeared the last few days in Shanghai and Wuhan. Travelers arriving in Peking said the posters reported the four — Chiang Ching, Wang Hung-weh, Chang Chun-chiao and Yao Wenyuan — were being detained in “isolation and closely watched.”
The new authorities in China intend to begin the fifth five‐year plan, which was originally scheduled to start last January, in early 1977, diplomatic sources in Peking report. The delay in the plan, it is said, has largely been caused by the campaign against so‐called rightists that began last winter and now appears ended. The new starting date was disclosed by the Minister of Foreign Trade, Li Chiang, and his deputies in meetings over the last two weeks with Western diplomats and businessmen in Peking, the sources say. Mr. Li is said to have told the visitors that China would resume large‐scale foreign trade, particularly purchases of entire plants, in 1978. Chinese foreign trade is expected to show only a small increase this year over last year’s total of $14 billion it too has been adversely affected by the anti-rightist campaign.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators will visit China for two weeks starting November 8, the White House announced. Senator Carl T. Curtis (R-Nebraska) will head the delegation, whose trip is at the invitation of the Chinese People’s Institution of Foreign Affairs. Other members of the group are Democratic Senators Birch Bayh of Indiana, Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina and J. Bennett Johnston Jr. of Louisiana and Republican Senators Milton R. Young of North Dakota and Ted Stevens of Alaska.
South Korean political influence in Washington is under sweeping investigation focusing on the possible involvement of 90 members of Congress, and the inquiry could develop into a major expose of political corruption according to senior government sources. Although persons seeking re-election are involved, neither indictments nor statements clearing individuals are expected in the near future. The State Department said it had made clear to the South Korean government that alleged illegal actions by its emissaries to the United States “must be fully investigated regardless of who might be involved.” The Washington Star, meanwhile, reported that Tongsun Park, a wealthy Korean businessman considered a key figure in the Justice Department’s inquiry into the allegations, has left the country. The Star and the Washington Post have reported that Park was involved in efforts to buy influence in Washington by channeling millions of dollars in cash and gifts to about 20 members of Congress. South Korea has denied any effort to buy influence in Congress and denied that Park was its agent in any capacity.
The South Korean government has condoned collusive bidding among Korean contractors, costing the United States military units stationed there about $20 million a year, according to Army investigators. Their reports show that at least until 1973, the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency controlled all such bidding by South Korean concerns. The agency’s control over bidding was ended but the Army found that the government still has a role in these practices.
Albert Muwalo, Chairman of the ruling Congress Party and a Minister without Portfolio in the southern African nation of Malawi, was arrested on charges of corruption on orders of Malawi’s President Hastings Banda.
Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger has ordered his principal African adviser to fly to Geneva to do whatever he can to help the British prevent a breakdown in the negotiations between black and white Rhodesians for a new government in Rhodesia. Administration officials said Mr. Kissinger had told William E. Schaufele Jr., an Assistant Secretary for African affairs, who has been closely involved in the mediation effort, to go to Geneva next week when the British‐sponsored conference is expected to be in full swing. The talks begin formally tomorrow. The move represents something of policy change since the United States had planned to maintain a low‐level presence in Geneva and allow the British complete control of the mediation efforts that Mr. Kissinger had helped bring about through his African mission last month.
President Ford, who described himself here today as a long‐distance runner, has begun trying to sprint vigorously away from the lingering specter of Richard M. Nixon and the Watergate scandals. At a rally in the Villanova University field house this afternoon, a brief news conference in Atlantic City this morning and a television appearance last night in Chicago, Mr. Ford sought to distinguish his Administration from that of his predecessor, who resigned on August 9, 1974, rather than face impeachment proceedings for his role in the Watergate affair, and was pardoned by Mr. Ford a month later. “Personal integrity is not too much to ask from a public official,” Mr. Ford told 2,500 students at the Roman Catholic university. “We should expect nothing less.” He reminded his audience that he had described Watergate as a “long national nightmare” when he assumed office 26 months ago and contended that, in terms I’m going to win,” he told the cheering students.
A plan against spreading nuclear weapons is scheduled for announcement tomorrow by President Ford. It is based on a memorandum warning that the spread of facilities to extract plutonium from used reactor fuel even to responsible nations was undesirable, and its spread to unnamed “sensitive” countries was intolerable. Jimmy Carter and Democrats in Congress have made a political issue of their call for American action in this field.
Jimmy Carter told a large and generally enthusiastic audience in Manhattan’s garment district that New York City has a great life and a great future. He pledged he would “do everything I can for you when I’m elected.” He said election day was a chance to affirm the principle that residents of the nation’s large cities are Americans and should never he “beneath the concern of the President.”
Former U.S. Senator Edward Gurney of Florida was acquitted by a jury on all charges of having lied to a grand jury about his knowledge of a scheme by his employees to collect $400,000 of donations from construction companies in return for favors from the Federal Housing Administration. Senator Gurney, who had resigned at the end of 1974 after being identified in the scandal, had been acquitted in 1975 on charges of perjury and conspiracy.
The Justice Department disclosed it has investigated travel reimbursement claims of 10 House members in all and said some of them have made restitutions to the government “where appropriate.” Rep. William Clay (D-Missouri) has agreed through his attorney to repay $1,754.24 and the department has asked a federal court in Washington to dismiss a civil suit it had filed, it was announced. The investigation of Clay’s claims was made public some time ago, but not of the nine others. Some of the nine were found not to owe anything, according to Justice spokesman John K. Russell. But he said the department would not disclose which of the nine had made restitution and which owed nothing.
The Postal Rate Commission, which is assigned to look after the public interest in establishing mail rates and guarding service quality, needs clearer powers to keep the huge deficit-ridden United States Postal Service in check, according to the General Accounting Office. The commission acts on requests by the; Postal Service to change rates and alter practices of the service, but it has suffered because of ambiguities in its authority, the accounting office said in an unpublished report. The agency is the investigative arm of Congress.
Democratic leaders in California feel Carter will lose the state, despite polls showing the election a dead heat there. But recent Ford gains in the nation’s largest state are not reflected in most other big states, and, as a result, California may not prove to be the bellwether it has been in the past. Ford has cut Carter’s once-enormous lead in many other states, but not enough so far to win the election.
New York State ballots will carry the name of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic candidate for the United States Senate, on the line of the Liberal Party as well, but the name of Eugene McCarthy, independent candidate for President, will not appear. Both issues were decided by the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.
The Central States Pension Fund of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters lent money to associates of organized crime figures as recently as 1975, despite a new federal law, government controls and an impression from union officials that such practices have stopped. Various transactions, including one to a man who has been linked to Meyer Lansky, financial expert of organized crime, are under investigation by the Departments of Labor and Justice. A reputed Lansky associate stands to collect millions in Las Vegas from Caesar’s Palace.
Three alleged burglars, thinking they were on the way to an $80 million caper, walked into the arms of waiting police early in the morning at a cargo terminal at Kennedy Airport in New York City. But at least three more men got away when police sprang their trap early for fear that delay might cost the lives of two undercover agents. Police had been aware of the plot for three months. The target, the vault at the Swissair cargo office, also had not really contained $80 million. “It could have,” said a Swissair spokesman, adding that cash, gold and jewelry stored for shipment sometimes reached that level. “Over $10 million would be in the ballpark,” said a source in the prosecutor’s office.
Three young men from the San Francisco area, accused of kidnapping 26 children and their driver from a school bus, fought today to get their trial moved out of the rural county where the children live. Defense attorneys brought in scores of newspapers, radio and television scripts, tapes and films in an effort to show that the people of Madera County were so heavily bombarded with publicity in the case that a fair jury could not be chosen here.
The United Auto Workers said it would strike the Chrysler Corp. if there were no agreement on a new contract for the firm’s 118,000 U.S. and Canadian auto workers by November 5. “There will be no extension,” UAW Vice President Douglas A. Fraser said. “We will either have a strike or a settlement.” Chrysler is the second company picked by the union to come to terms. The industry’s basic pact was reached during a 28-day strike against the Ford Motor Co.
Another car price increase is unwarranted, according to the federal government’s Council on Wage and Price Stability. It found that auto manufacturing costs had risen less than some companies have announced and that the 7.7 percent cost increase projected by the companies for 1977 models appeared to be on the high side.
General Motors set a record in third-quarter earnings with a record net income of $397 million, or $1.37 a share, on sales for the quarter of 1.79 million cars for $10.16 billion. Corporation officials predicted a sustainable upward course for the economy, depending on the outcome of contract talks with the United Automobile Workers.
Risks associated with proposed nuclear power plants that would float offshore are “comparable to or less than those at a land-based plant,” according to a report submitted to a federal nuclear safety hearing in Los Angeles. The hearing, which continues today, is being held by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s advisory committee on reactor safeguards to compare the risks of accidents at floating plants with those at land plants. The first application for a floating nuclear plant is for one off the New Jersey coast.
A rare intestinal disease that hit 50 persons in the Holland Patent area of New York recently probably was caused by a “batch of locally processed chocolate milk,” a state Health Department spokesman said. About a dozen youngsters had their appendixes removed because the disease, known as yersiniosis, mimics appendicitis. Most of those affected were children in the Holland Patent Central School District.
Government scientists said they were unable to decide whether a drug that is effective in treating a severe skin ailment should be approved despite its potential of killing four out of every 1,000 patients. The drug. Triazure, was taken off the market last August after two patients being treated for psoriasis died of blood clots and a third suffered an amputation. Dr. J. Richard Crout, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Bureau of Drugs, said the problem was a classic example of a “public health dilemma” where a drug can be valuable even though risky.
Carnegie-Mellon University (C.M.U.) of Pittsburgh announced that an alumnus of the institution, who requested to remain anonymous, had made a donation of $35,000,000 to be payable upon his death and the death of his wife. In addition to being the largest donation ever to C.M.U., the gift was the second largest by an individual to any university, exceeded only by a $50,000,000 donation made to the University of Virginia.
Two scientific teams reported today experiments in which they each switched on a chemical process in living cells by giving the cells an artificial genetic message prepared in the laboratory. Each team accomplished the feat by splicing the artificial message into natural cellular components called plasmids and then inserting the plasmids into living bacteria that were the subjects of the experiments. Scientists of both groups said a major significance of their achievement was in the flexibility of the methods used and the prospect for using the method for revolutionary practical applications — for example, inducing bacteria to grow scarce substances such as insulin. “We’ve gone out of the area of basic science into the area of practical application,” said Dr. Herbert Boyer of the University of California, San Francisco, in a statement released by the university. In an interview by telephone, Dr. Boyer said he could foresee, within a few years, development of bacterial “factories” for the production of substances like insulin and pituitary hormone using much the same method as that employed in the experiments reported today.
Stock prices continued their brisk advance. Dow industrials gained 7.98 points to close at the day’s high of 956.12. Bond prices moved up in both the corporate and government sectors. This recovery, which started from sharply depressed levels in the stock market, was touched off mainly by hopes that Middle East oil‐producing nations would announce only a moderate increase in oil prices in December. Such a move, Wall Street analysts said, would tend to dampen the inflationary pressure of large price increase.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 956.12 (+7.98, +0.84%)
Born:
Peerless Price, NFL wide receiver (Buffalo Bills, Atlanta Falcons, Dallas Cowboys, Buffalo Bills), in Dayton, Ohio.
Arturo Freeman, NFL safety (Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots), in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Simon Pond, Canadian MLB outfielder and designated hitter (Toronto Blue Jays), in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Died:
Deryck Victor Cooke, 57, composer, of a cerebral hemorrhage.
