Oregon daily emerald., January 13, 1970, Page 8, Image 8

World/national news
Biafra surrenders
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Biafra
surrendered Monday, ending a
30-month war of secession that
wiped out nearly a generation of
Ibo tribe children—perhaps two
million lives over-all—and shat
tered Black Africa’s most prom
ising nation.
Effiong Capitulates
Maj. Gen. Philip Effiong, a mi
nority Efik tribesmen left in
charge when Biafra’s leader,
Gen. C. Odumegwu Ojukwu,
caught one of the last flights
out, capitulated in a broadcast at
4:40 p.m.-10:40 a.m., EST. He
agreed to discuss terms in t h e
framework of a united Nigeria.
He ordered his troops disengag
ed and appealed to the federal
leader, Maj. Gen. Yakubu Gow
on, the cease fire while a settle
ment was negotiated.
A top-level federal military
spokesman had no immediate
comment on the surrender, ex -
cept to say “That’s what we ex
pected, in any case. He had no
choice.”
When Ojukwu seceded May 30,
The Agnews in Asia
DEN PASAR Bali (AP)—Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, golfer,
tennis player and professional football enthusiast, spent Super Bowl
Sunday resting on this lush, Indonesian isle—out of radio and tele
vision touch with the pro-football championship game.
Missed Bowl Games
For Agnew, it was the latest in a series of athletic frustrations on
his three-week trip to Asia, on which he has missed all of the year-end
football games, found time for just two nine-hole golf games and
failed to get in any tennis.
His two golf rounds, in Malaysia and Singapore, showed his lack
of recent practice. Scores weren’t disclosed, but after the round with
Deputy Prime Minister Hun Abdull Razak at Kuala Lumpur, Agnew
moaned: “I’m afraid I have embarrassed the United States.”
Loses on Browns
Last week, Agnew took a minor financial beating when the Vikings
flattened the Cleveland Browns 27-7 for the NFL title. There was some
question at the time whether Agnew was keeping up with the scores
but Thompson said: “He must be getting the scores because he paid
Dr. Voss $85 a while back.” Agnew himself later conceded he lost
his bet.
“I had Cleveland and 15,” he said.
Mrs. Agnew ‘Thrilled’
Mrs. Spiro T. Agnew is “just thrilled” about her tour of Asia with
her husband and is looking forward to more foreign travels during
his term as vice president.
“I have truly enjoyed myself,” she said in an interview.
Chiang ‘Highlight’ of Trip
Of the foreign dignitaries she has met in the nine Asian countries
the Agnews have visited so far on their 37,000-mile tour, Mrs. Agnew
said the most interesting was President Chiang Kai-shek of Nationalist
China.
“Since I was a little girl, I’ve heard about him,” she said. “To finally
meet a man like this was one of the highlights of my trip.”
“My youngest one, Kimerly, 14, was very thrilled that I got her a
ruby and opal ring,” Mrs. Agnew said, adding that she has called
home four times during the trip.
Mrs. Agnew said she has had some difficulties getting her hair
done during the hectic tour.
“Fortunately I have a wig,” she added.
McCarthy hints at new party
PARIS (AP) — Sen. Eugene McCarthy, D-Minn., said Monday
night he might help to form a new political party to contest the
1972 presidential election but he would not lead it.
Addressing a meeting of American students in Paris, the former
presidential aspirant said if the American people are not given an
adequate political choice in the next presidential campaign “there
may be an obligation on those concerned with political life” to offer
such an alternative.
He told a questioner: “I did not say I would lead it, but I might
be prepared to work with it.” He said if Alabama Gov. George Wallace
remained in national politics, any new party “would have to be
considered a fourth rather than a third party.”
Asked whether he would run for the presidency, McCarthy de
clined to give a direct answer, but said with a laugh, “It is much
harder to stop running for the presidency than to get started."
arr,i rm
tur.-sr f
Uneasy Kider"
1967 to safeguard Ibo security,
Biafra was the entire Eastern Re
gion-30,000 square miles. At the
end, it was sliced to less than
1,000 square miles.
Last outpost destroyed
The last link to the world—Uli
airstrip—was pounded to rubble
by Soviet-built bombers and
fighters. Heavy casualties were
suffered by both sides as Biaf
rans resisted futilely to the end.
Effiong’s broadcast on Radio
Biafra, a mobile station playing
Beethoven and funeral music all
day, was brief.
The 45-year-old chief of the
general staff said: “I am con
vinced now a stop must be put
to the bloodshed that is going on
as a result of the war. I am also
convinced that the suffering of
our people must be brought to an
end.”
Relief Begins
A massive international effort
took shape to care for perhaps
four million hungry Ibos expect
ed to emerge from within Bia
fra’s dwindled boundaries.
President Nixon announced
Monday he is making another $10
million available to help the ref
ugees in Biafra which now is be
ing occupied by Nigerian feder
al troops.
The White House said the
funds will be distributed
through various international re
lief agencies, including the Red
Cross, under direction of the Ni
gerian government.
The United States refused to
supply either side with arms.
Others were less restrained. Brit
ain and the Soviet Union gave
military hardware to the federal
government and France to Biafra.
Ibo Future Grim
Despite repeated assurances by
the federal government there is
an uneasy feeling in Washington
about the future of the Ibos, the
leading tribe of Biafra.
The persecution of Easterners,
mostly Ibos, during and after
the second 1966 military coup in
Nigeria, still is well remembered,
especially how the Ibos were
slaughtered in the North during
this time.
Supreme Court to decide on
Communists in law and politics
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court
agreed Monday to decide whether the states may
keep “subversives” from practicing law or bar
Communist party candidates from running for
public office.
The court took on these civil liberties issues as
it returned from a four-week holiday recess.
CASES FORM N.Y., MINNESOTA
The first case, from New York, challenges the
right of fitness committees to ask prospective
lawyers whether they belong to subversive or
ganizations or support the Constitution.
The second case, from Minnesota, challenges the
right of the state to keep Communist party candi
dates off the ballot. Additionally, it is a test
of the 1954 Communist Control Act—a finding by
Congress that the party is a menace to the Uni
ted States.
Three bar groups and six prospective lawyers are
attacking the right of New York or any state to
look into the political association of lawyers seek
ing permission to practice.
‘SCREENING’ HIT
They say the screening, conducted by the character
and fitness committee of the State Supreme Court,
threatens the independence of the bar by inhibit
ing lawyers from representing unpopular causes or
groups.
The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile,
is attacking the right of any state to prevent the
Communist party from running candidates for of
fice and to prevent citizens from voting for them.
“Official action designed to restrain operation of
these and related rights has a ‘chilling effect’ on
speech, and on the entire electoral process itself,”
the ACLU’s appeal said.
Ft. Lewis Gl coffee house
to be off limits' Army says
By PETER OSNOS
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON—Military authorities, in what is
said to be the first action of its kind, are moving to
place off-limits a coffee house in Tacoma, Wash,
that is a gathering place for anti-war GIs.
The Armed Forces Disciplinary Control Board
for that area has set Jan. 22 for a hearing on charg
es against the Shelter Half, a two-room storefront
run by Barbara Garson, author of the satirical play
“MacBird.”
Located near Ft. Lewis, an army training center
with 28,000 men, the Coffee House is one of a
half-dozen or so establishments, manned by veter
ans and young activists, that have cropped up
around bases across the country.
SOURCE OF DISSIDENT COUNSELLING’
The official notification to Mrs. Garson about the
Shelter Half, contends that the Coffeehouse is “a
source of dissident counselling and literature and
other activities inimical to good morale, order and
discipline within the armed services.”
In a memorandum on dissent issued to base com
manders in September, the Army said that off
limit powers should not be used to prevent sol
diers from exercising “their constitutional rights
of free speech at Coffeehouses.”
But the memorandum said that this does not
hold when “it can be shown that activities taking
place . . . include counselling soldiers to refuse to
perform duty or to desert or otherwise involve il
legal acts.”
A pentagon spokesman said Saturday that “as
far as we know, no coffee houses have been placed
off limits so far.” He stressed that the decision to
take punitive action against meeting places rests
with individual commanders.
ARMY CHARGES DENIED
The spokesman asserted that the action in Ta
coma does not mean the start of a concerted pen
tagon effort to snuff out the "GI underground” or
the servicemen’s rights movement that has appear
ed as the Vietnam war drags on.
Mrs. Garson, whose Shakespeare-based take-off
on the Kennedy-Johnson era was an off-Broadway
hit in 1967, scoffed at the pentagon disavowal. “If
our coffeehouse is put off limits,” she said, “you
can be sure they will all be.”
“We certainly carry literature in the coffee
shops that is anti-war, but if this war were just,
guys could discuss it and discuss what we’re fight
ing for. If this war is unjust, they’ll have to prevent
guys from thinking about it and reading about it.
“This move represents their own acknowledge
ment that the war is unjust.”
Gardner, a 1963 Harvard graduate who worked
as an editor for the magazine “Scientific Ameri
can,” opened the first of the GI coffeehouses in
1967 near Ft. Jackson in Columbia, S.C.
Called the UFO, it is still operating with stand
ard fare of coffee, underground and left-wing news
papers, movies and other entertainment, all at
prices that barely meet expenses.
No formal organization has developed to run the
various GI hang-outs, but last week 50 people
turned up in Louisville, according to Gardner, “to
swap experiences.”
Gardner contended there has been harassment
of all the coffeehouses and cited such examples as
MPs standing in front of the doors telling peo
ple not to go in and “punitive reassignment” of
men who do.
SHELTER HALF BOMBED
Mrs. Garson said that the garage of the Shelter
Half had been bombed once and two staff mem
bers arrested for allowing a child to use a coin
operated machine. They are appealing the $15 fine.
She said that the action against the coffee
shop was a result of its success in reaching GIs
with the anti-war line at Ft. Lewis.
In explaining why action against the Shelter
Half was begun, a spokesman for the Armed Forc
es Disciplinary Control Board said it was likely
‘“some patriotic soldier went in there and got
some unpatriotic literature and then reported it
to his commander.”
Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Service