Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 1

WEATHER Forecast for Tucson: Little i in temperature. Temperatures Yesterday: HIGH 61 LOW 28 Year Ago: HIGH 67 LOW 49 U. S. Weather Bureau Entered VOL. 118 NO.

2 Post Berlin Solution Imperative, Ike Tells Russians GETTYSBURG, Jan. 1 (P) President Eisenhower told the leaders of Russia Thursday "it seems to us critically important" that the Soviets work toward a peaceful solution of the Berlin situation. The President, who is spending the holidays at his country home here, made the statement in a cabled reply to two top Soviets who voiced hope in a New Year's message that decisive action would be taken in 1959 toward removing "the dangers of new war." The exchange of messages was with Soviet Premier Khrushchev and U.S.S.R. President Voroshilov, who sent Eisenhower an expression of hope that the East-West cold war could be ended and the arms race slowed "with the aim of reducing dangerous tensions." Eisenhower expressed thanks for the message but at the same time voiced hope that the Russians would act according to their expressed sentiments. He went on to say: "As of this moment it seems to us critically important to apply the sentiments expressed in your message to the Berlin situation.

In this connection, I cannot fail to recall your government's declaration intentions toward the people of Berlin. In my view, they are not in accord with your expressed aspirations and hopes for peaceful coexistence." The Berlin situation has been tense since Khrushchev on Nov. 10 demanded an end to fourpower occupation the city. He hinted that Russia, would no longer guarantee Western access to the city which is located within Communist East Germany. Eisenhower added in his message Thursday: "The United States government repeats that, in an atmosphere devoid of any kind of coercion and threat, it would welcome discussion on the question of Berlin in the wider framework of the whole German problem and European security.

"Positive progress in this specific problem would, I deeply believe, give real substance to the hope that 1959 would witness great advances toward the goal of a just and lasting peace." Nightmare Cal. Fires Burn Out 10,650 Acres Scorched, 83 Homes Razed In Blazes Believed Set By Arsonist LOS ANGELES, Jan. 1 (P Two wild brush fires that made New Year's Eve a nightmare for thousands in the scenic hills ringing Los Angeles died down Thursday. One, a blaze that burned 81 homes as it swept Topanga Canyon from the San Fernando Valley to the sea, subsided unexpectedly as winds dropped to nearly a standstill. Fifteen hundred men controlled much of its perimeter and expect to have it completely in hand by Friday.

The other, a 650-acre fire on the outskirts of elite Beverly Hills, was in the mop-up stage. It burned two homes, one a total loss. Both are believed the work of an arsonist. In the first 15 hours after it started Wednesday morning, the Topanga blaze raced madly down the nine-mile canyon and its tributaries, fanned by 60-mph. winds.

Thursday morning the weather was calmer and the fire slowed to a crawl, burning a 25-mile perimeter. The estimated 4,000 who evacuated the area were allowed to return. Eight bombing planes dropped fire-retarding borate solution on the two hot spots--Tuna Canyon to the west and Las Flores Canyon to the east. Destroyed were 60 homes in the canyon's Fernwood section, 7 at Glenview, 4 at Grandview, 1 in New Topanga, and 8 elsewhere. An estimated 250 are homeless.

The Red Cross cared for some but most are with friends. The second blaze, 12 miles east in the Beverly Glen-Benedict Canyon area near Beverly Hills, broke out Wednesday night. In the general area live such celebrities as Elizabeth Taylor, Merle Oberon, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Jack Warner, Harold Lloyd, William Lundigan, Chico Marx, Doris Duke, Buddy Ebsen, Cameron Mitchell and Corrine Calvet. The only home destroyed was the $70,000 residence of aircraft executive W. C.

Whitehead. Another house nearby was partly burned. Many residents packed a few things in their cars and fled. Some didn't learn of the disaster until they returned from party revelry to find the hills ablaze. Bowl Game Scores ROSE BOWL Iowa 38, California 12 COTTON BOWL AF Academy 0, Tex.

Christian 0 SUGAR BOWL LSU 7, Clemson 0 ORANGE BOWL Oklahoma 21, Syracuse 0 PRAIRIE VIEW BOWL Prairie View 24, Langston, Okla. 8 See sports pages for details The second class matter, Office, Tucson, Arizona Castro Is 'Darling' Of Reds Batista Condemned In Russ Propaganda By THOMAS P. WHITNEY AP Foreign News Analyst Rebel leader Fidel Castro, whose star is on the rise in Cuba, is the darling of the Communists' world -wide propaganda. The Communists condemn in tones sometimes almost prophetic the ex-Cuban strongman and Castro's archenemy, President Fulgencio Batista, who chose New Year's Day to flee the country. Typical of the tone is the headline from a recent issue of Komsomol Pravda in Moscow: "The death agony of the assassin Batista." The article portrays Castro as a national hero.

It calls the latest government offensive against the rebels in central Cuba "simply the death agony. The bloody puppet is in his mortal pangs before being finished off." Similarly, a Moscow radio broadcast in Spanish a few days ago portrayed Batista as supported by the United States. It demanded that Washington "keep its hands off Cuba" so as not to prolong the life of the Batista regime. A headline in Pravda a week ago similarly trumpeted "against the interference of the United States in 1 Cuban affairs." Always ready to attack the United States, Peiping Radio has followed the Soviet lead with an expression of strong support 1 for Fidel Castro. Batista has pointed to this Communist line as support for his charge that the Castro forces are Communist-dominated.

Castro aides have denied that his movement is Communist-run or that he has been getting material support from Communist countries. Communist propaganda support for Castro does not mean the Communists are necessarily counting on gaining power through success of Castro's rebellion or that they hope even to have any substantial influence over a Castro-led government, if he establishes one. For the Communists, propaganda support for a rebellion against a Latin American dictatorship is standard operating procedure. The Communists favor anything that causes disruption and destruction in the non-Communist world. Such disruption is viewed by the Communists as causing harm to the United States and creating fertile ground for the spread of pro-Communist and anti-American feeling.

The Communists also know from experience in Latin American affairs that the demise of dictatorships often leaves unstable new regimes with very difficult. economic and political problems. Here in the atmosphere of reborn democracy there are more opportunities for the Communist movement. Not least important in this picture is the fact that Communists know dictatorships usually are unpopular. The Communists try to gain popularity themselves by espousing popular movements against dictatorships while accusing the United States of supporting them.

Happy New Year TAIPEI, Jan. 1 (P The Chinese Nationalists and the Communists withheld their fire on the Quemoy offshore island front under a tacit New Year's day truce. Death Strikes 4 Times On Arizona Roads By ASSOCIATED PRESS Death quickly followed the new year as four more lives were claimed in Arizona traffic accidents in the first hours of 1959. An unidentified man was struck and killed by a car as he crossed Highway 80, about three miles west of Buckeye. The driver, Tripp Gum, 53, Gila Bend, told the Highway Patrol he was unable to stop in time.

He was not cited. Joe Maldonado, 22, Saginaw, was killed when his car overturned on a curve one mile north of Naco. Earlier, two men died when a speeding missed a curve in Sacaton overturned four card times. Three passengers were injured. Dead were A.2.C.

Grover Widener, 22, of 2442 E. 10th Tucson, assigned to Davis Air Force Base, and Justin 18, of Little Tucson Village. Injured were John P. Ochoa, 16, of Sacaton; Lois Kinsley, 18, of Tucson, and Widener's wife, Helen, 19. Ochoa was taken to a Phoenix hospital while the two women are in the Sacaton Indian Hospital.

Widener, a multilith operator, with the Headquarters 803rd Combat Support Group, is survived by his wife, two sons, Henry Michael, 2, and Ronald Clay, 6 months, and his mother, Mrs. Anna Mae Widener of Connellsville, Pa. Today's News Index an Little Linda Collis wins annual Stork Derby, 1B. UA Advanced in many areas during past year, 8C. Highlights of Rose Bowl Parade, 1B.

Don't burn Christmas tree, Tucson Fire Dept. will do it for you, 3B. Tucsonan nearly asphyxiated in house fire, 1B. Davis Monthan airmen LINDA spent most of 1958 on alert, 4C. Italian newsman claims he took picture of famed abominable snowman, 4D.

Ask Andy Movies Sports Comics .........8, 9D Obituaries Uncle Ray Crossword 2A Pub. Rec. Weather Editorial Radio-TV Women Arizona Daily An Independent NEWSpaper Printing The News Impartially TUCSON, ARIZONA, FRIDAY MORNING, JANUARY 2, 1959 Revolution In Cuba Batista Flies As Castro To Havana Celebrates After Dictator Riotous demonstrators in flight of Dictator Fulgencio Batista auto through streets of the capital. and 20 more wounded as police Dictatorship Business Is Precarious VENIN By ASSOCIATED PRESS Seven Latin American dictators have lost their jobs or their lives within five years. This is the list: June 30, 1954-Pro-Communist Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala, overthrown after a 12-day civil war.

Sept. 19, 1955 Juan D. Peron, ousted as president of Argentina. Sept. 29, 1956-Gen.

Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua assassinated; his son is now president. Dec. 12, 1956-President Paul E. Magliore of Haiti went into exile after an unsuccessful effort to perpetuate his rule. May 10, 1957-President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla of Colombia forced out of office by revolt.

Jan. 23, 1958-President Marcos Perez Jimenez of Venezuela fled after resisting revolt. Jan. 1, 1959-President Fulgencio Batista of Cuba fled at height of two-year rebellion against his regime. Pisa Holds Own Against Attempt At Straightening PISA, Italy, Jan.

1 (P) This New Year's Day will be remembered in Pisa as the day they tried to straighten up the leaning tower. It all happened early in the morning after a night of revelry. A group of unidentified foreign tourists (some said they were Americans) ran a long steel cable around the tower's base and fastened it to the rear bumper of automobile. With a roar, the automobile moved forward. With a crash, the rear bumper came ripping off the car.

The tower soberly held its ground, Havana Thursday celebrate in by riding in flag-draped be Thirteen persons were slain fired on looters and rioters the city. Rebel leaders joined in handled harshly and toward appeared to be on the wane. Parking their coins. (AP Wirephoto) Highway Toll Takes Spurt The New York sharply Thursday The National was alarming and At midnight, was: 126 traffic, 22 cellaneous. Total 179.

Hazardous weather many parts of the blamed for the quick death rate. "The weather is toll is bad," said the "The toll is proceeding alarming rate. It is ahead of the toll in By ASSOCIATED PRESS holiday traffic death toll spurted night. Safety Council said the fatality rate pleaded for motorists to slow down. Eastern Standard Time, the death log fires, 31 mis- conditions in country were rise in the bad and the council.

at an running way the four-day New Year holiday of 1956-57 and ahead of our estimates. "We appeal to every driver to realize that he must hold his speed down and be doubly careful." Snow, ice and rain slicked roads in most of the eastern half of the country and a fresh storm hit the north and central plains and the northern Rockies. Dynamite Celebration Kills Two, Wounds 8 SAN CARLOS, Jan. 1 (P--A celebrate the New Year tore a day, killing two persons and sending Killed in the explosion on the Deb Hinton, 27, a miner, and his Mike Windham, criminal investigator for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, said Hinton had obtained the dynamite from the mine where he worked.

The group of 10 jammed into Hinton's small house for the party. Shortly after midnight, they began lighting sticks of dynamite, throwing them out the door. Five of the 24 sticks in the case were successfully tossed out. The sixth stick accidentally dropped back into the box, touching off the remainder. "There was nothing left of the house but splinters," Windham said.

The officer said five of the incase of dynamite being used to one-room house to shreds early Thurseight others to the hospital. San Carlos Indian Reservation were sister, Nona, 17. jured are in critical condition. Several had limbs blown off or so badly mangled they had to be amputated. All were blinded, at least temporarily.

Rushed to the Phoenix Indian Hospital were Sam Hinton, brother of the dead man, and Emerson Peaches, age unavailable, a Whiteriver Apache Indian and newly wed husband of the dead girl. In the Gila General Hospital at Globe were the dead man's wife, Gloria, 26; another sister, Manuelita, 19; Norbert Dennis, about 30, a Hopi; McGillis Mallow, 25; Sam Hinton's wife, Freida, and their infant child, age and sex unknown. More Than Score Perish In Holiday Fires By ASSOCIATED PRESS More than a score of persons -nearly half of them childrenperished in fires and explosions that blighted the New Year's holiday. The worst tragedies were in homes. The largest blaze, however, was the 10,000 acre brush fire in the hills around Los Angeles.

It sent thousands fleeing and destroyed dozens of houses but killed no one. A. ship's collision with oil barges near New Orleans rocked Star Into Rebels Government Flees warning the looters would nightfall the demonstrations meters were wrecked for Rebels Too Powerful: Batista Castro's Guerrilla Tactics Paid Off CIUDAD TRUJILLO, Jan. 1 (P)- Fulgencio Batista said Thursday Fidel Castro's guerrilla warfare and superior armament, as Batista called it, had forced him to give up the fight in Cuba. The overthrown Cuban president reached exile in this Dominican Republic capital with 40 other persons, including high officials of the Batista regime and army.

This country is the province of Batista's good friend, Dictator Rafael Trujillo. A reporter asked Batista how it had been possible for a comparative handful of rebels to grow in two years into a force of sufficient size to topple the entrenched Batista regime. Batista said Castro got the jump on the government by restricting his activities to guerrilla warfare against rural soldiers not trained for that type of fighting By the time the rebels moved into the open in eastern Cuba, he said, they had attracted many more adherents and had superior armament to that which Batista's army possessed. The rebels received a continuous flow of arms while government troops could not be supplied, the ousted president said. (U.

S. arms aid had been cut off to Batista in recent months, but he had obtained supplies elsewhere. Batista did not mention in the interview that his forces, heavily outnumbering the actual Castro soldiers, were backed by planes and tanks, which the rebels lacked). Batista asserted he had put up a hard fight against the rebels but came to the conclusion that continuing the battle would be too costly for Cuba in loss of life and property. In Indian Head, 30 miles south of Washington, a missile propellant plant exploded and burst into flames.

Two workmen died. Baltimore had a scare when fire swept a storage building at a state mental hospital. It was checked quickly. In Beaumont, a gas heater exploded, touching off a fire that swept the second floor of a frame apartment house. A 3- month-old boy died.

His mother and two other tots escaped. TEN CENTS -FOUR PAGES Exile Move Orgy Of Sweeps Ex-Dictator Takes Refuge Republic; Americans HAVANA, Jan. 1 (P)-The Batista collapsed Thursday and Fidel Castro immediately moved in government. President Batista fled to exile in public before dawn and by nightfall virtual control of this capital. The Cuba announced his forces had Cuba, the nation's second city, far Reports were current here that at any hour.

Some of Castro's followers embarked on a wild orgy of celebration, looting, burning and killing in Havana. They killed at least three policemen and wounded 20. Police shot down at least 10 looters, then other Castro partisans took a hand in restoring order and the violence began to wane. For the moment, Cuba was without an established government. Justices of the Supreme Court refused to accept the oath of a provisional president, Justice Carlos Piedra, unless Castro approved.

And Castro held out for recognition of Manuel Urrutia, longtime Cuban judge and Castro supporter, as head of government. In the wake of Batista's flight with hordes of his supporters, Castro's men were racking up victory after victory in the island republic. See Pages 7A, 9A, 4D for additional stories on Cuba. The rebel radio confidently broadcast pronouncements which virtually set up a provisional government. Castro named Col.

Ramon Barquin, just released from a politi- FULGENCIO BATISTA cal prison, as chief of the armed forces as soon as the revolutionary movement takes over officially. He also named rebel leaders to various other commands inside or near Havana. Barquin, a former Cuban military attache in Washington, had been imprisoned Isle of Pines. He was reported Thursday night to be at Camp Columbia, the army headquarters in Havana, talking with Castro by radio about a nationwide cease-fire. By nightfall there was no other government in Cuba except Castro's.

A general strike ordered by the rebels after Batista's flight seemed 100 per cent effective throughout the island. In Havana all except the most vital essential activities ground to a halt. There was still electricity, telephone and telegraph service but the walkout was so complete is was impossible to get through from a hotel switchboard to any guest room. Castro ordered the strike 1 to underscore his rejection of any move to torm a provisional government other than his own. The rioting mobs smashed fashionable gambling casinos and Looting Havana In Dominican Unharmed So Far dictatorship of Fulgencio partisans of rebel leader to seize the reins of the Dominican ReCastro's men held rebel radio in eastern entered Santiago de to the east.

Castro would arrive FIDEL CASTRO shops in downtown Havana and surged into the fashionable suburbs, looting the homes of relatives and supporters of Batista before they could be halted. The population in Havana began quieting down Thursday night, however, as it became aware of the watchful eyes of Castro's men. Among his appointments, Castro broadcast that his police chief would be Vincente Leon Leon. As chief of the army he named Enrique Creso Bordonet, a former army major. Andres lez was named chief of the navy.

Lines had directed Cuba's naval academy until he was removed by Batista. In Havana, the U.S. Embassy said it has received requests from large numbers of American tourists and students for help in getting out of the country. International Airport is closed and all air and sea travel has been pended, at least temporarily. No reported harm has befallen any Americans.

The dramatic developments climaxed the long fight of Castro, 32, to rid Cuba of the dictatorship of Batista, 57-year-old former army sergeant who had dominated Cuban political affairs for a quarter century. He turned the trick when Batista and his top aides fled to the Batista's friend, Gen. Rafael Trujillo. After attending a Havana New Year's party, Batista took off at 3:30 a.m. in the presidential plane Guaimaro.

Batista said he wanted to prevent further bloodshed. the area with explosions and set both afire. Fatalities: None. But in a Rochester, N. apartment, a quiet New Year's party ended in a fire that trapped six persons, including two 5-months-old infants and a 2-year-old girl.

All six died. The nation's second worst fire of the holiday, in Vincennes, killed four more--a mother and three daughters, aged 13, 10, and 2. The father and four other children, their clothing smouldering, watched in the yard, too dazed to tell what had caused the blaze. In Texas, separate fires in Houston and Marshall each killed a mother and daughter, for a total of four more victims. Three children, the oldest 7 and the youngest 4, burned to death in a frame house 30 miles northwest of Seattle, Wash.

A man and woman perished in a Cambridge, rooming house fire Before leaving Havana, Batista turned over his powers to a military junta headed by Gen. Eulogio Cantillo, 47. This career officer had lately commanded government forces in the Santiago district, one of the hottest spots of the Castro rebellion. It appeared that Batista had feared the army, his main prop, might rebel against further casualties. Thousands of men have fallen on both sides in apparently inconclusive fighting recently in central Las Villas Province.

Whatever the reasons, scores of officials of his regime, his family and many wealthy sympathizers fled Havana to escape the possible wrath of Batista's foes in the weeks ahead. Most of Batista's eight children sped to the United States, where Daytona Beach, is one of their prospective havens..