Oregon daily emerald., February 13, 1973, Page 12, Image 12

UPI Roundup
Rand security head testifies
LOS ANGELES — Daniel Ellsberg signed a statement
stating he knew he might be punished under federal law if he
revealed top-secret information, a government witness
testified Monday at the Pentagon Papers trial. Richard Best,
head of security for the Rand Crap., where Ellsberg worked
when the secret documents allegedly were removed in 1969,
identified a form that the 41-year-old defendant signed before
taking employment.
French poll shows left leading
PARIS—A public opinion poll released on the opening day of
the French national election campaign Monday showed a
Socialist-Communist alliance leading the present Gaullist
government by a wide margin. Hie official campaigning fra*
the general elections March 4 and ll began with an average
of six candidates for each of the 490 legislative seats,
representing four major political parties and more than a
hundred small groups. A poll published in the newspaper
I’Aurore timed to coincide with the official campaign opening
Monday showed the Gaullist majority dropping farther
behind in popularity. The poll showed 47 per cent of those
questioned backed the Socialist-Communist alliance, 35 per
cent the Gaullists and 17 per cent the centrist reformers.
Irish Protestants ready for war
BELFAST- Extremist Ulster Protestants put their
organizations on a war footing Monday by ordering members
to go underground and select alternate leaders in
preparation for confrontations with the British army and
Catholics. The moves by the Protestants were designed to
thwart an expected crackdown by the army following a
weekend strategy conference among the militant groups.
Sources said the group’s more militant elements were
demanding violent measures unless the army released 12
Protestant extremists arrested over the weekend.
ITT lobbyist suffers seizure
DENVER - The FBI said Monday that Dita Beard, the for
mer International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. Washington
Lobbyist, suffered a heart seizure last Tuesday during
questioning about a memo linking ITT to an alleged $400,000
donation to the Republican Party. "We were attempting to
interview her again on the instructions of the government.”
James Newpher, the agent in charge of the Denver FBI office
said. “She became ill during the questioning,” he said. "We
haven’t attempted to contact her since.”
Airports forced to
have gate guards
WASHINGTON (UPI) — A federal judge lifted a court order
Monday barring the government from farcing airports to post armed
guards at airport boarding gates to help prevent airliner hijackings.
U.S. District Judge John Lewis Smith Jr. lifted a week-old tem
porary restraining order against the Federal Aviation Ad
ministration’s antihijacking security program.
The Airport Operators Council International (AOCI) won the
restraining order Feb. 5, but Monday the court denied the airport
operators request for a preliminary injunction that would continue the
order.
Judge Smith said, “The public interest lies in protecting the safety
of air commerce from the threat of a now more sophisticated type of
hijacker — the armed and fleeing felon.”
The FAA had argued that the guards were needed at the 531 air
ports served by scheduled U.S. airlines to act as a deterrent to
hijackers.
The armed guards were part of a three-step program ordered into
effect, starting Jan. 5, when the airlines were required to elec
tronically screen all passengers boarding airlines and to search carry
on luggage.
On Feb. 5, the airports were required to port armed guards, but
the proposal was blocked by the court order.
The Airport operators argued in vain that the government failed to
provide enough time to hire and train the 4,500 guards needed to
protect the boarding gates. But the government claimed “an
emergency situation” existed in the industry.
Transportation Secretary John Volpe told the industry the 157
million a year cost of the program could be defrayed by boosting the
cast of the airline ticket by $1.
As yet, however, the Civil Aeronautics Board has filed to approve
the increase, which the airlines would pass on to the airport operators.
Opponents of the government program have argued that the
airports should not be saddled with the armed guard program. They
contend that a federal police force is necessary to do the job ef
fectively. The FAA argued, however, that the guards were a local
responsibility, and should be carried out by local police, or private
airport guards.
First POWs released
CLARK AFB, Philippines (UPI) — The first
American prisoners of war released from Vietnam
walked across a red carpet to freedom Monday in a
low-key but intensely emotional welcome at this
huge Anerican air base.
Appearing pallid but militarily erect and ob
viously elated, 142 POWs who had been held for up
to eight years in Communist prison camps flew
from Hanoi and South Vietnam in four military
hospital planes.
“Wei-come-home! Wel-come-home!” chanted
the crowd at Clark, where the prisoners will be
examined and debriefed before their return to the
United States, which could come as soon as Thur
sday.
Some of the men were permitted to make free
15-minute overseas telephone calls to their loved
United States within hours after their arrival. The
rest were told to get a good night’s sleep first.
Three medical flights flew 115 of the released
prisoners from Hanoi, and 26 others, held in jungle
camps in South Vietnam, arrived seven hours later
at 10 a.m. EST. One jungle camp prisoner, a 25
year-old civilian student, was hospitalizaed in
Saigon.
The first man off the first plane from Hanoi,
Navy Capt. Jeremiah Denton Jr., who had been a
POW since July 18, 1965, saluted and tearfully
stepped to a microphone:
“We are honored to have the opportunity to serve
our country under difficult circumstances. We are
profoundly grateful to our Commander in Chief and
to our nation for this day.”
He paused, then said emotionally, “God Bless
America.”
Some of the POWs appeared somber as they
emerged from the planes but broke into smiles as
they walked down the ramp and sharply saluted
welcoming military officials and a color guard with
a flowing American Flag.
Then they walked along a red carpet which had
been unrolled on the runway, boarded buses and
went to the Clark base hospital.
The Hanoi flights orginally called for the return
of 115 men but North Vietnamese officials granted
the wish of a Coronado, California father that his
son be hurried home because his mother was
critically ill. The extra man was Navy Cmdr. Brian
Woods, 40, held since Sept. 18, 1988. His mother,
Anita, was in a Coronado hospital intensive care
unit.
“I hope he can pull her through,” said Wood’s
father, W.R.D. Woods, 70, a retired admiral.
President Nixon, at the Western White House in
San Clemente, Calif., praised the POWs as men who
“made peace with honor passible.” He appealed to
newsmen and the nation to let them come home to
their families in privacy and quiet.”
Navy Lt. Cmdr, Milton Baker, a member of the
crew of the second C141 Stariifter that flew to Hanoi
to get the prisoners, said the men appeared solemn
while boarding the plane.
But “once inside the plane they really became
elated,” he said. “The reaction on takeoff was
shouts, cheers, thumbs<up, that sort of thing."
During the flight to Clark,Baker said, the men
asked “hundreds of questions. They asked about
news, they asked about fashions, they asked about
woman’s lib, they asked questions about their own
military ranks. They asked questions about
everything.”
In contrast to the generally healthy appearance
of the Hanoi POWs, the Americans released at
Communist-held Loc Ninh in South Vietnam looked
haggardand weak. They waited in the hot jungle sun
12 hours while the details of their release were
haggled over and obviously were tired when they
arrived at Clark.
A State Department spokesman said one of the
civilian jungle prisoners, Richard Waldhaus. 25. a
student from Pittsburg, Calif., captured Aug. 4,1970
while traveling in South Vietnam, decided to stay in
Saigon for “personal reasons.” The spokesman did
not elaborate, but said Waldhaus was taken to the
U.S. military Third Field hospital.
Bulletin
U.S. dollar devalued 10%
WASHINGTON (UPI) — The United States
government said Monday night that it would
devalue the dollar by 10 per emit as a means toward
ending the current world currency crisis.
Treasury Secretary George Shultz called a
surprise news conference one hour before midnight
to announce the devaluation, which he said would
“mean a better deal for the American working man
and the American businessman.”
Shultz said the major trading partners of the
United States were in full agreement with the
decision.
Japan announced at the same time that it was
freeing the yen from its fixed parity rate and
allowing it to float and find its own value in world
currency markets.
West Germany and France were expected to
announce similar revaluations. The British pound,
Canadian dollar and Swiss franc are already
floating.
Shultz said President Nixon agreed to the
devaluation Monday morning at the Western White
House at San Clemente, Calif. Nixon returned to
Washington Monday night.
Technically, the devaluation will not occur until
Congress agrees to raise the price of gold. If it goes
along, the “official” world monetary price of gold
would rise from the present $38 to $42.22 per ounce.
Shultz said the devaluation would be coupled
with a new trade bill and the lifting of restraints on
the flow of capital.
The immediate effect of the devaluation will be
to make foreign-made goods more expensive for
American consumers while making U.S. products
cheaper in foreign markets.
In reality, the new currency rates will be ap
parent as soon as exchange markets open Tuesday
morning.
Shultz admitted that the higher cost of imparts
would add to the cost of living and said “the in
flation side of this picture is one we have to be
aware of.”
But the Treasury Secretary stressed that the
administration’8 overall strategy was “how to use
this crisis as an opportunity.”
“I think we have,” he said. Shultz coupled the
announcement with criticism of international
monetary negotiators
Pentagon sets up new Southeast
Asia headquarters in Thailand
WASHINGTON (UPI) — The
Pentagon announced Monday it
has begun to set up a new
Southeast Asia headquarters at a
remote base in Thailand to
control teams searching for
missing U.S. servicemen and to
direct any air activity the United
States carries out there after
March 28.
The dual-purpose headquarters
will be located at Nakhon
Phanom, Thailand, the base
which has served as headquar
ters in the past for the remote
sensors dropped along the Ho Chi
Minh Trail to detect Communist
supply troop movements, a
Defense Department spokesman
said.
“We re looking down the road
to a time when MACV (the U.S.
high command in Saigon) and the
7th Air Force headquarters (also
in Saigon) will be gone from
where they are now,” the
spokesman said. The Vietnam
cease-fire requires both these
headquarters to be disbanded by
the end of March, when all U.S.
troops will have been withdrawn
from Vietnam.
The Pentagon said ap
proximately 1,000 persons would
be attached to the headquarters
_ roughly 200 are working with
the Joint Casualty Resolution
Center (JCRC) and the rest
assigned to the air operations
headquarters.
“The JCRC will attempt to
locate or otherwise resolve the
status of U.S. personnel still
carried as missing in Southeast
Asia,” the spokesman said. “It
will use all available means to
locate crash and gravesites or
otherwise determine the fate of
such missing persons.”
He said the air operations
headquarters would “control
such supporting air activities as
may be required,” including
flights in connection with JCRC
activities.
Pentagon sources said the air
operations headquarters would
also direct air strikes in Laos or
Cambodia if those strikes are still
going on after March 28. At
present, the United States is
flying about 280 strikes a day
against Communist positions in
Laos and “a few tens” of strikes a
day against Communist forces in
Cambodia, as requested by the
Cambodian government.
The Pentagon said the new
headquarters would be com
manded by Air Force Gen. John
Vogt Jr., presently in charge of
the 7th Air Force and all U.S. air
operations in Southeast Asia.