Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 1

HOME Edition Partly cloudy, much colder through Saturday, low Friday 32, high 38, low Saturday 22. Reservoir; Northwest winds 10-20 knots. Thursday High 76, low 62, Pearl River at Jackson 6.5 feet, down 0.1 foot. Mr Mississippi's Leading Newspaper For More Than A Century Established 1837 VOL. CXXX'' NO.

292 36 PAGES PRICE 10c AP Leased Wires Wirephoto JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI, FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1969 earch Devastated Areas Mi i 'i 1 For Tornado Victims rt-. 29 Dead, 1 I At. i rt Loses 5 Family Members In Wilts I yt Millions 74 I 'A A 1 i' 5 i 5 By ELSIE MAY CHAMBERS Clarion-iLedger State Editor P'ive members of the well-to-do Smith family in the Small Sardis community in Smith county, two members of a tenant family on their large farm, and a maid in their home were among the victims of the tornado that swept over South Mississippi early Thursday morning. It happened about 7:30 a.m., but no one is really sure about the time, because it happened so quick. Jimmy Smith lost his wife, his son, his mother, and his brother, and his sister-in-law.

TOLD OF DEATH He had gone to work in Forest, and had left the plant to go on a short errand. When he returned he said his boss told him that the storm had hit and that he thought his brother had been killed. Thursday night at Ott and Lee Funeral Home in Forest where 4 -mk uWt if! (List Of Dead And Injured On Page 6) By KENNETH FAIRLY Clarion-Ledger Satff Writer Mississippians in three counties began picking themselves uT late Thursday from the impact of a tornado with the velocity of a rip saw which hop-skipped across the state, leaving at least 31 persons dead and property destruction estimated ia the millions. At Hazlehurst, the hardest hit area, Mayor Paul Kemp had requested a company of tha Mississippi National Guard to assist the Copiah County Sher iff's Department and tha Hazlehurst Police Department in securing a devastated residential area. WILLIAMS VISITS AREA Gov.

John Bell Williams flew into Hazlehurst and conferred with city officials, offering the entire services of the state, be fore departing for stricken com- munities in Simpson and Smith counties. While the death toll stood at at least 29, officials organized search parties to systematically hunt for injured or dead in tha area where the tornado roared along the ground. One source said more than 100 persons were treated at Hardy Wilson Memorial Hospital in Hazlehurst and the more critically hurt were rushed to Jackson. Officials apparently lost count of the injured and the total number hurt by the tornado was ATTENDING THE MID-SOUTH Birmingham, president of the BRIDGE TOURNAMENT continuing Mid-South Bridge Association. Approx- through Sunday here in Jackson, are imately 5,000 are expected to attend noted bridge expert Oswald Jacoby, the tourney at the Heidelberg Hotel, left, and Dr.

Martin Anderson of Photo by Claude Sutherland. Anguished Bucher Relives Bitter Hours the bodies of the five victims are resting until the joint services can be held on Saturday at 10 a.m., Jimmy Smith talked about the tragedy. "I had just talked to my brother a few minutes after 7 o'clock. We were partners in the hog business, and when I CORONADO, Calif. (AP) FROM A HILLTOP Clarion-Ledger photographer Claude Sutherland stood on top of a hill in the Hazlehurst area and took this picture to show the wide swath and extensive damage done by the early morning tornado.

might have caused the United States. And I realized they needed me alive more than anyone else in the crew for public appearances that I was afraid of and knew were coming." He said he was unable to eat or sleep for several days because he was haunted by the thought that secret information in the Pueblo had been Bucher testified standing during the morning session vVhen he broke down, but was seated during the afternoon session. He was excused at the end of the day subject to later recall. The court then said it would hold closed sessions to discuss classified secrets subjects starting Friday and extending Continued on Page 22 got through talking to him, I called my wife, because she was sick, and I wanted to find out if she was going to the doctor," he said. "My wife works in Raleigh, and she told me she had decided to go to the doctor, and that she was going to take my son, too, because he was feeling bad.

That's the reason he wasn't in school. "Well, when I found out that the storm hit our place, I start 9 'Oh Lord, Oh Lord My Child Is Gone' not available. The tornado, which boiled up out of the southwest apparently touched down in Jefferson County, east of Fayette, where it damaged some buildings. But the first fatalities occurred when it slammed into the outskirts of Hazlehurst, east of U.S. Interstate 55 and west of old U.S.

51. LUMBER MILL ed down there as fast as I could, but there were a lot of Senate Belatedly Approves Hickel other people doing the same thing. "I didn't know that my house had been hit, but about a mile from home, I looked up in a of southern outskirts Tr skipper of the Pueblo-tears streaming, his voice an anguished cry said Thursday North Koreans attempted to force a spying confession from him by pretending to shoot him as he knelt before them, so shaken he could say only: "I love you, Rose, I love you Rose." Cmdr. Lloyd M. Bucher said he finally confessed later after they threatened to shoot his crew one by one, starting with the youngest and that night he tried, vainly, to commit suicide by drowning himself in a water bucket.

WIFE SOBS Bucher's blonde wife, Rose, sobbed and dug her fists into her eyes as she heard her husband testify before a Navy board of inquiry. He finally broke down, so a recess had to be called. The board has warned him he may have violated regulations by surrendering his intelligence ship. Of the confession, he said: "Some time during the night I attempted to commit suicide by drowning myself In a bucket of water in my room, but was unable to accomplish this. ''Mentally I was quite disturbed, partly because of the embarrassment this confession WASHINGTON (AP) Alas By KENNETH FAIRLY Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer HAZLEHURST This is the aftermath of a killer tornado.

Hazlehurst Police Chief Woodrow Purser and Alderman John Wise leave city hall to tree and saw one of my porch chairs. I knew the worst had He drives to the house of one Gladys Perkins in the "quarters" by the cemetery. She is the wrong Gladys Perkins. Purser drives the police cruiser back along the mile stretch of devastation on the Hazlehurst. "Do you know a Gladys Perkins?" he inquires.

"She did live on that hill over there." The hill is now a litter of The twister demolished a large number of houses in a Negro residential area, ripped into the big Edward Hines Lumber formerly the Graves Lumber and sped eastward destroying 80 homes along tha happened. pastel colored lumber, galvan FOUND WIFE "When I got to my house, it was just cleaned off, nothing there, and they had just found my wife about a hundred yards southern city limits ol check out the report of the! death of another victim. En route to a Negro funeral! ized tin roofing welded to pine tress, twisted metal and chunks Hazlehurst INDEX of masonry. Black men and East of Hazlehurst at Shady women walk amid the derbis, 1 Grove, the tornado touched imously in rapid-fire order immediately after Nixon was inaugurated Monday. They took office Wednesday.

Sen. John Stennis, chariman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Packard's reputation for integrity and honesty was a factor in the committee's unanimous vote of approval. Meanwhile, President Nixon signaled Thursday a possible major push to get Congress to enact his own legislative program this year. home on Monticello Road Pur-1 ser is given a radio message. The son of a Gladys Perkins has died in a Jackson hospital; the mother has been treated and released.

Find her and ad ka Gov, Walter J. Hickel won delayed confirmation from the Senate Thursday after extensive senatorial criticism of his appointment as secretary of the interior in the Nixon administration. And senators approved also the appointment of California industrialist David R. Packard as deputy secretary of defense, rejecting a protest about his financial holdings. Hickel was confirmed by a vote of 73 to 16, with all opposition from Democrats.

All the other 11 new Cabinet members were confirmed unan apparently still dumfounded. ground again, destroying sever Once the hill was a cluster of al homes and othcr buildings, maybe 20 houses; now, on the skipped across the Pearl Rivetf hill in the bright sun which! and smashed Harrisville in occasionally shines through the Simpson County, killing several south of the house. I couldn't look at her. "My boy was dead, too. Jimmy Wayne was his name.

And our maid, Inez Moore, who had just come to work, was killed just like the others. "My daughter Arlene had gone to school. So I've got one little girl left," Jimmy said. Mr. Smith also lost his moth-Continued On Page 22 Amusements 26 Classified Ads 29-35 Comics 18 Editorials 14 Financial 28 Miss.

Notebook It Radio TV Logs 27 Sports 23-27 Women 19-21 persons, then slammed into grey clouds, there is nothing but vise. Purser goes to the funeral home, a white block building which was within 50 yards of the swath cut by the deathspew-ing tornado at 6:30 a.m. Thursday. It is locked. This word came from Dr.

Arthur Burns, named by Nixon to Smith County at the Sardis community, then damaged property in Scott County. Mayor Kemp at Hazlehurst, Continued on Page 2 piles of lumber, cars overturned and smashed and the foundations of what had been houses. On the hill, a huge woman Continued On Page 17 Continued on Page 22 0 c74 wMrortMmmr from the Hinds County penal farm are working feverishly in search of a baby heard crying In the area just off Highway 51. Photos by Claude Sutherland. Hazlehurst.

In the picture at the left Rudell Maymon and his son sit forlornly in the wreckage of their house. Oddly enough there were four members of his household in the home at the time and none of them received so much as a scratch. The center picture shows the damage to the old Graves Lumber Company in Hazlehurst, what was left of a reportedly million-dollar operation. At the right, men DEATH AND DESTRUCTION A part of the widespread devastation caused by the tornadoes that swept over Mississippi early Thursday morning is shown here in this sries of pictures taken around.