News-Press from Fort Myers, Florida • Page 1

Fort Myers Iews-Pre Thomas A. Edison Said mi mlHlM Miri ar goim to find It Vi Year Fort Myers, Florida, Tuesday, November 12, 1968 10c Daily, 15c Sunday r4 ifvH rxf- rams Published Every Morning Munb Alum Burtw ClrcotatiMt AP hw and WirwtoM N. V. Tlmt Struct Organizational Session Opened By Legislators wTsr-T iffasa Friday Expected To Head Powerful Rules Committee TALLAHASSEE UP) Democratic leaders, firmly in control of a more powerful legislature, prepared Monday to organize the new lawmaking body which will make historic changes in Florida government. Gov.

Claude Kirk announced Monday that he will not expand the organizational meeting into a special session and scuttle elaborate plans for preparation leading up to the April regular session. "President John Matthews and Speaker Fred Schultz have advised me that such a session is unwise at this time," Kirk said, noting that he had discussed calling a special session for revision of the auto inspection law. On the eve of the formalities of the one-day organizational session Tues Miami and not in the house when it was de stroyed Monday. Neighbors pick over the wreckage of De Ren-zo home in North Naples which was blasted apart by tornado. De Renzo family was in Wlfim: 0 fa (r-'J VT; I if a-v 1 "7 i i m-n-mTmn tii iwtt rwwmrm mn 1-1 rat Wf Naples Area Flailed By Vicious Tornado day for a conference with the outgoing Democratic chief executive.

(AP Wirephoto) President Johnson gives a warm handclasp to Richard M. Nixon as the Republican president-elect arrives at the White House Mon Foreign Policies Shaped for New Administration WASHINGTON -President-elect Richard M. Nixon assured President Johnson Monday there will be no "lame duck presidency" during the transition of government. He said the White House can speak with the full authority of the nation and the incoming administration in dealing with Vietnam and other foreign problems. For an hour and 23 minutes, Nixon conferred with Johnson and his top Cabinet members.

The president-elect said later in a statement that in times of overseas crisis there are matters facing the nation which cannot await decisions until the new Republican administration takes office Jan. 20. Nixon said "if there is to be progress in foreign affairs it can come only if the Communist world realizes that Johnson is fixing policies which will be carried on by the new administration. Extremely Candid "For that reason, our discussion was extremely candid and forthright with regard to the policy decisions and the negotiations and discussions that will go on with regard to Vietnam and other matters," Nixon said. "I gave assurance in each instance to the secretary of state and of course to the President that they could speak not just for this administration but for the nation, and that meant for the next administration as well." The president-elect said there may be significant action and progress toward peace in the weeks remaining before Johnson leaves office.

Johnson and Nixon met in the cabinet room with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Clark M. Clifford, Gen. Earle G. Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard J. Helms, director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Johnson and Nixon emerged from the White House at dusk to report on their conference. Each, in turn, made a statement. They answered no questions. "I realize and the president-elect realizes that the American people expect and have a right to expect their government to efficiently function at all times," Johnson said. "Both he and I are going to do everything that we possibly can to see that the wheels of government operate at maximum efficiency, not only (Continvttf tn Peg A) May Differ With Pope U.S.

Bishops Study Birth Control Issue Mrs. George Burdine stands in devastated bedroom of the home in North Naples hit by tornado as Mr. and Mrs. Burdine were entering Monday. (News-Press photos by Fred Winter) lit Tornadoes also were reported at Indian Rocks Beach near Clearwater and the Weather Bureau said winds of 50 miles per hour or more were reported in the areas of Tallahassee, Orlando, Naples and Cape Kennedy.

A strong cold front followed the squall line into Florida, with frost and freezing temperatures in some sections predicted for early Tuesday. The frost warning service at Lakeland predicted frost in northern districts and scattered frost in some central regions and in colder locations in the Everglades Wednesday. "Gradual clearing and colder" was the forecast with temperatures in the northern part of the peninsula ranging from 32 to 37, in the central (CMtiiNMd Pag 1-A) fit TTfi Roofs Ripped, Trailers Flipped High Winds Hop Over State With Cold, Frost to Follow U.N. Launches Annual Debate On Red China UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. The U.N.

General Assembly opened its annual China debate Monday with all signs pointing to another rejection of bids to expel the Chinese Nationalists and seat the Peking regime in the world organization. The vote is expected Friday. Nationalist China's Foreign Minister Wei Tao-ming told the 125-nation assembly that Red China was unfit for U.N. membership and that its seating would "bring in its train a multitude of new problems which may well undermine the very existence of the United Nations." Cam bodian Ambassador Huot Sambath had led off the debate with an appeal for the seating of Peking as "the lawful representative" of China. He blamed the United States and other "imperialists" for keeping Red China out of the United Nations.

Delegates Walk Out Although the Cambodian delegation and the Communist bloc walked out of the blue and gold chamber as a gesture of scorn during Wei's speech, it appeared Peking would be given its worst defeat in four years. Nationalist China's supporters, who have usually made accurate forecasts, predicted the vote would be 60 against seating Peking and 44 in favor. A year ago the vote was 53-45. Wei called the Peking government a bogus regime which he said had "committed untold crimes against the Chinese people, and flouted, and continues to flout, the basic principles and purposes of the United ban. And Bishop James P.

Shannon of St. Paul, press spokesman for the conference, said in a news briefing that the American draft goes in the same direction. Other bishops refused comment on the wording of the pastoral letter and would say only that it does deal with the question of conscience. Bishop John J. Wright of Pittsburgh, who helped prepare the pastoral letter, said it explores also the question of selective conscientious objection to the morality of specific wars, including the Vietnam conflict.

The pastoral letter will take a definite position on the issue of conscientious objection toward a single war, said Bishop John J. Dougherty of Newark, N.J., who shaped that portion of the pastoral letter. But he would not disclose what it would be. Bishop Joseph L. Bernadin, secretary of the conference, told reporters the request of the 40 Washington priests for a moratorium on their penalties has been turned down by Cardinal O'Boyle.

And he added that arbitration by a panel of bishops is improbable. The priests are seeking such arbitration. A crowd estimated at 3,000 to 5,000 backed the priests Sunday at a protest rally that drew Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, D-Minn as one of the main speakers.

But Bishop Gerald V. McDevitt of Philadelphia told a news conference that the nation's bishops have no authority to intervene in a local church dispute. About a dozen pickets, evenly divided between those against the war and those against birth control, marched outside the Washington Hotel where the American day, the Democratic leaders consulted with key legislators and took another look at im-portant committee assignments. Friday Favored Veteran Sen. Elmer Friday of Fort Myers and former Speaker E.

C. Rowell of Wildwood were reported to be the choices of the leaders to head the powerful Senate and House rules committees. Schultz, the House Speaker-designate, completed a list of committee assignments for all House members but Mathews, Senate President-designate, said he had been "shuffling names since last Tuesday" and did not have the membership selected for any committee except rules. Schultz and Mathews are both Jacksonville Democrats. Annual Sessions The Legislature, first ever to be authorized to hold annual sessions, also faces the problems of completely reorganizing the executive department and implementing other provisions of the recently adopted constitutional revision.

Rep. Richard Pettigrew, D- Miami, who favors a maximum of 15 state agencies, is scheduled to head reorganization efforts in the House and there were reports Mathews would select a Dade Democrat for the job in the Senate. With regular committee sessions scheduled before the general session and a wide variety of tasks ahead, the Legislature could be the first to abandon the pretense of a part-time body. Schultz said members would have to be given a raise in the $300-a-month expense allowance because of the tremendous work load which (Ctfitinutd Pont 1-A) Mac in Moscow MOSCOW (fl Premier Alexei N. Kosygin and Robert S.i McNamara, World Bank president and former U.

S. secretary of defense, met at the Kremlin Monday. A brief official announcement reporting this gave no details of the hour and 45 minute meeting. to take over the defense. In an emergency meeting held at the courthouse in Memphis between Hanes, Trial Judge W.

Preston Battle and Prosecutor P. M. Canale, the judge did not commit himself on whether he would allow the Texans to enter the case or grant a postponement. However, the judge was expected to grant Foreman's request for the postponement since Hanes has refused to turn over his files on the case to Ray or Foreman. The Birmingham lawyer told Foreman that he had not yet received his complete fee for the trial and that he would keep his file until he was paid.

Home Explodes And Three People Co to Hospital By FRED WINTER NAPLES A tornado with a wind speed above 170 miles an hour, according to one observer exploded one house, did major damage to at feast three others and sent three people to a hospital for emergency treatment Monday. The funnel cloud struck the De Renzo home, tightly closed while the family was in Miami, and exploded the small frame house over hundreds of square yards of brush land around it. The largest section left of the house on 102nd Ave. N. in Naples Park, was a 10 by 12-foot piece of the roof which landed on the pavement nearly 300 feet east of the concrete slab, all that was left in its normal location.

Three blocks north and a little east of the De Renzo home, two adjoining houses, the K. L. Luxton and the George Burdine homes, both on the north side of 105th Avenue, were caught by the twister which tore down telephone and power lines, took all the metal shingles off the west side of Home's Restaurant on the Tamiami Trail and damaged signs, poles and several other houses. Loses Two Toes Mr. and Mrs.

Luxton were taken to Naples Hospital where they were both given emergency room treatment and released. Luxton was reported to have lost two toes, when part of the bedroom in which he was caught by the storm collapsed on his legs. Also treated and released at the hospital was Charles Martin, a News-Press carrier in the North Naples area, whose house on Lagoon Avenue was damaged severely. The Monday tornado or tornadoes, since no one is sure whether one or more struck came for the second time in three days in Collier. Weather predictions of high pressure fronts bringing severely colder weather for Monday night and Tuesday indicate the low pressure Soviet Spaceship On Way to Moon Moscow HI A new unmanned Soviet spaceship was on its way to the moon Monday In a mission possibly paving the way to a race with America to send a man around the moon next month.

An announcement about Zond 6, launched Sunday, said only that it would "conduct scientific explorations along the route of the flight and in near-lunar space" and test unidentified "system and units" aboard it. The launching stirred speculation that the new craft would carry out even more complex maneuvers than those of the unmanned Zond 5, which seven weeks ago achieved history's first flight around the moon and recovery on earth. WASHINGTON (fl -The nation's Roman Catholic bishops moved Monday toward making birth control and possibly the war in Vietnam a question of individual conscience. Such a stand on birth control would place the bishops in disagreement with Pope Paul VI, whose recent encyclical on this subject stirred widespread dissent by reaffirming the church's traditional ban on artifical contraception. But it would place them in agreement with the bishops of some other countries.

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops, meeting in a closed session, studied the preliminary version of a pastoral letter which a spokesman said embraces the issue of conscience in regard to birth control. But the bishops said they have no plans to intervene in the controversy over 40 priests disciplined by Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle of Washington for asserting that married couples should decide their course on birth control on the basis of their individual consciences. The 220 bishops and five cardinals were to begin full debate on the final form of the pastoral letter Wednesday. Their votes will determine its final form. Bishops in France, Belgium and Canada have left to conscience the question of whether to accept the church Attorney Ray Trial The drama of Ray's request to switch attorneys at the 11th hour was heightened by a Look Magazine article quoting Ray as saying, "I suppose I became involved in some sort of plot to kill King" in Canada in August of 1967.

The Look article was written by William Bradford Huie, Alabama author, from notes that Ray made In jail in Memphis and sent to Huie through Hanes. Huie had contracted with Ray to buy the rights to Ray's life story. He has said he paid Ray (30,000. Dr. King was shot dead in Memphis last April 4.

Ray was arrested on June 8 in London. First Big Snow Falls on Dixie ATLANTA (JPI The first heavy snow of winter struck parts of the Deep South Monday. A steady rain turned to snow in Atlanta by mid-day, as temperatures dropped. Freeze warnings were out for Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and Georgia, with snow and ice expected in most mountain areas, including heavy snow in portions of Virginia, the weath er man said. MIAMI ID South Florida was under a tornado watch late Monday from Naples to Melbourne and high winds skipped about the state, overturning trailers, felling trees, downing power lines and ripping off roofs in at least four counties.

The winds reached 50 miles per hour in the Miami area but no damage was reported, and the severe squall line moved off the extreme southeast Florida coast shortly before 5:30 p.m. In Lee County high tides washed over the roadway on Captiva Island. Two houses at Englewood Beach in Charlotte County had the roofs ripped off but no injuries were reported. Hail at Titusville Hail the size of golf balls fell during a storm at Titusville, knocking out power in most of the city. A small tornado overturned a 30-foot shrimp boat in the Intercoastal Waterway east of Panama City, in northwest Florida.

The Coast Guard said the vessel was shrimping in East Bay near Piney Point when the twister struck, turning it upside down. Richard Kay, operator of the boat, and an unidentified crewman were tossed into the bay. They were picked up by other boats. Neither man was hurt. 2 Mobile Homes Bashed at Beach Two new mobile homes that had Just been pulled Into Port Carlos Mobile Colony on Main Street, Fort Myers Beach, were demolished about 1 p.m.

Monday by strong gusts of wind. The mobile homes, valued at $14,500, arrived at the park late last week and workmen had not had time to strap them down to parking pads. There was no other damage in the park. Foreman Starts Preparing Defense Selection of New Expected to Delay bishops are meeting in a closely guarded ballroom. Weather, Dancers On the Inside RaW in Manhattan the House Wilbur D.

Mills Committee and the Senate vrtr.tr r. Gravy Committee are dealt with by columnist Russell Baker NEW YORK ill Proclaim- ta Course to Congress Page Ing that "anatomic explosions are better than atomic explo- Veterans Day observances held In neighboring area, sions," a female Japanese art- Page 1-C. 1st doubed polka downtown Manhattan Monday, not far flaeX iVeainCf from City Hall. "My end is to end war," Amusements IA Fair and cold today and to-said a statement by the artist, Bridge 8A Not so cold Wednesday. Yayoi Kusama, who kept her nm'l aB.0o High near 70.

Small craft own clothes on. uassmeo io-a warningJ ta efect for nortn. About 150 looked on during comics 4B wcstery winds 23 miles per 15-minute paint-out in raw Crossword 4B hour gradually diminishing. weather. Police were not in Deaths 2A East Gulf marine forecast: evidence.

Editorial 4A Small craft warnings in ef- The strippers danced and Hollywood 9A fest for northwesterly winds embraced as Miss Kusama Society 7A-8A 25 knots gradually dimlnlsh- painted their bodies. Then Sports 2B-3B ing. they dressed and left. TV IA (Full weather details P. 2-A) (Copyright Y.

Tim Mrviet) MEMPHIS The trial of James Earl Ray apparently will be delayed at least two months to give Ray's new attorney, Percy Foreman, of Houston, time to prepare a defense against the charge that Ray assassinated the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Although permission has not been granted by the court for Foreman to enter the trial, the famed Texas attorney was busy Monday preparing motions to be offered Tuesday when Ray's trial is scheduled to begin. Ray fired his lawyer of five months, Arthur J.

Hanes, the former mayor of Birmingham, and asked Foreman.