U.S. continues bombing
of Ho Chi Minh trail
WASHINGTON UPI — North Vietnam has sent
of tanks and several thousand fresh troops down the
Ho Chi Minh trail in the past three weeks, and some
of these movements have been attacked by U. S.
warplanes. Defense Department officials said
Tuesday.
Part of the North Vietnamese activity appears to
have been in support of Communist fighting on the
Bolovens Plateau in the southern Laotian
panhandle, said Pentagon spokesman Jerry
Friedheim. He said this activity had been the target
of American bomber strikes.
But the bulk of the movement, including the
troops, with South Vietnam as the apparent
destination, started before the Jan. 27 cease-fire,
military sources said. They said so far there has
been no indication whether these forces would keep
going or would turn around.
Sources said there were about two thousand
North Vietnamese troops on the trail, the traditional
Communist supply route for South Vietnam,
Southern Laos and Cambodia which winds through
the mountains on the eastern side of the Laotian
panhandle.
“These were all in the supply route systemat the
time of the cease-fire,” one source said. “Since the
cease-fire we don’t see any evidence of additional
people coming into the system.”
The cease-fire prohibits North Vietnam from
adding new troops to its forces in South Vietnam
and from replacing any that are there now. For this
reason, the United States is closely watching troop
movements on the trail. But there is no way to
enforce the cease-fire terms.
Sources said the North Vietnamese also have
sent about 250 tanks and numerous supply truck
convoys, artillery pieces and armored personnel
carriers down the trail since the cease-fire.
They said the primary purpose for this
movement might be to get military hardware into
place on the South Vietnamese border so it could be
swapped for worn out or battle damaged equipment
North Vietnam now has in the South. The cease-fire
allows both sides to replace hardward on a one-for
one basis.
Asked whether any of the troops sent down the
trail already had crossed into South Vietnam,
Friedheim replied: “We don’t really know for sure.
We don’t think so.”
He refused, however, to discuss the volume or
the exact nature of movement on the trail.
Pentagon sources indicated that only a few of
the 380 air strikes U. S. B5& and fighterbombers
daily in Laos have been directed against Ho Chi
Minh trail activity. They said these few strikes were
for the most part, directed against truck convoys
bearing supplies.
Buts predicts largest retail
food price jump in 20 years
WASHINGTON UPI — The
government’s Consumer Price
Index for January will show the
biggest one-month retail food
price jump in 20 to 25 years and
some big city papers will mislead
consumers by distorting the
figures. Agriculture Secretary
Earl Butz predicted Tuesday.
Butz, speaking to his depart
ment’s annual National
Agricultural Outlook Conference
and denouncing newspapers
which “ought to know better,”
provided an unusual preview of
the January CPI report which
will be released by the Labor
Department in a few days.
He said the report would show a
“rather substantial’’ increase
over December, and “probably
is going to show an increase in
retail food prices of 2 to 3 per cent
or something like that...the
biggest monthly rise in the past
20 to 25 years.”
Agriculture Department ex
perts have already predicted that
retail food prices for 1973 as a
whole will run 6 per cent or more
above 1972, the biggest one-year
jump in 22 years. But Butz
charged some reporters would
sensationalize January’s 2 to 3
percent CPI food figure by
multiplying it by 12 and and
reporting an annual-rate food
price increase of 24 to 36 per cent.
“The use of statistics like this is
grossly unfair . . . phony,” Butz
said. He declared that seasonal
winter hikes in farm prices due to
weather and transportation
shortages had been converted in
some news stories into
“preposterous” annual increases
which ignore the fact that farm
prices fluctuate widely.
“For instance, a 4.8 per cent
rise in wholesale prices in
January was treated by the ur
ban press as if there would be a
57.6 per cent rise in wholesale'
farm prices over the next... that
is like saying that if you have a
cold this week, it is at the annual
rate of 51 colds a year,” Butz
said.
Urban newspapers, he said,
“ought to know better,” and
should “get out beyond the city
limits and leam the facts of life
about volatile farm prices.”
Unlike most retail prices, Butz
said raw farm products fluctuate
from month to month. Other
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administration officials
predicted Tuesday, for example,
that the currently record-high
prices of beef cattle and hogs
would decline as supplies rise in
1973, thus easing pressures on
retail food prices. The
economists said much of this
year’s big food price jump has
already taken place.
Butz defended current food
price levels by noting that despite
increases, the percentage of U. S.
take-home pay spent on food
continued to decline last year.
But he condeded that the ad
ministration, which has widely
publicized its efforts to hold food
prices down by stepping up farm
production is concerned about
public reaction.
UPI Roundup
HEW to appeal integration order
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration said
today botulism bacteria had been detected in a fifth lot of
mushrooms canned by an Ohio firm. Stouffer’s Food Co. of
Solon, Ohio already had recalled four frozen products which
might contain tainted mushrooms and Fabrini Family Food
Inc. of Ossineke, Mich., recalled its Poppa Fabrini brand
pizza and other frozen foods containing mushrooms.
Nader hits life insurance industry
WASHINGTON — Ralph Nader, proposing federal stan
dards, testified Tuesday the life insurance industry is duping
husbands into short changing their widows and children.
“For almost 70 years the life insurance industry has been a
smug sacred cow feeding the public a steady line of sacred
bull,” he said. Nader was the lead-off witness as Sen. Philip
Hart, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Antitrust and
Monopoly subcommittee, began four days of hearings on life
insurance. The consumer advocate said life insurance was
perhaps the last giant industry to come under legislative
examination.
Mire POWs return home
TRAVIS AFB, Calif. — Eighteen American POWs came
home 20 minutes late Tuesday because they did a little
sightseeing over the Golden Gate Bridge-their first sight of
the United States mainland in more than five years. The
returning prisoners, Navy and Air Force pilots shot down
over North Vietnam in late 1966 and early 1967, were greeted
by about 300 persons - including two sobbing wives- as their
C141 touched down at this northern California base.
FDA order8 canned food recall
W ASHINGTON — A federal court order requiring the
government to press 200 school districts in 17 states to
comply by June with desegregation provisions of the 1964
Civil Rights Act will be appealed, an administration civil
rights official indicated Tuesday. The HEW official, who
asked not to be identified, said a final decision has not been
reached, but there is a “strong likelihood’’ that the Feb. 16
ruling will be appealed. U. S. District Judge John Pratt Court
accussed HEW of “benign neglect” in enforcing the 1964 law
and set deadlines for compliance-two months for elementary
and secondary schools and four months for colleges and
universities. He acted Friday on a complaint filed by the
NAACP.
Phouma, Pathet Lao reach
cease-fire agreement
VIENTIANE, Laos UPI — A Laotian cease-fire
will go into effect at noon Thursday midnight EST
today, well informed government sources said
Tuesday.
Leaders of the Communist Pathet Lao and the
government of Prince Souvanna Phouma initialed
the cease-fire agreement Tuesday. It was scheduled
to be signed formally at 11 a.m. Wednesday, 11
p.m. EST Tuesday, an official government radio
announcement said.
In Washington, the United States said it would
stop bombing in Laos when the cease-fire goes into
SELL cYOUI^
effect. U.S. bombers and fighter-bombers have hit
targets along the Ho Chi Minh Communist supply
route daily since the Vietnam cease-fire began Jan.
28. The Pentagon said bombing was still going on
Tuesday.
A State Department press officer, Charles
Bray, was asked in Washington whether the United
States expected the Laotian cease-fire to speed
release of any American prisoners of war being held
in that country. He replied, “We certainly hope so.”
Well-informed sources said the cease-fire
agreement, initialed late Tuesday after two
government cabinet meetings, was the culmination
of a successful battle for a written agreement with
the Pathet Lao.
The Communists had insisted on an informal
I cease-fire immediately with terms written later.
The cease-fire agreement is the second such
agreement since 1962. Eleven years ago an ar
mistice was declared, but fighting broke out some
months later and has continued to the present.
In addition to the Pathet Lao troops, North
Vietnamese troops have long occupied the northern
part of Laos. A force of mercenary troops financed
by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
has fought on the government’s side and is regarded
as the best fighting force in the country.
No terms for a cease-fire were disclosed.
Premier Souvanna was reportedly under
pressure from U.S. officials to reach an agreement
before a Feb. 26 meeting in Paris on Indochina
under terms of the Vietnam peace agreement.