The Kokomo Tribune from Kokomo, Indiana • Page 1

THE KOKOMO TRIBUNE VOL 119L-NO. 193 SUNDAY EDITION KOKOMO, SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 1969 ASSOCIATED PRESS NEWS ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS NEWSSTAND PRICE FIFTEEN CENTS Exchange Protest Notes Russ, Chinese Clash Again Enemy Defies Nixon, Rockets Hit Saigon Czechs Support Tito Led by youths carrying the Czech and Yugoslav flags, these young Czechs march through the streets of Prague to demonstrate support for President Tito and the Yugoslav Communist party congress. The congress, now being held in Belgrade, is being boycotted by the Soviet Union and most other East European nations with the exception of Romania. (AP Wirephoto). N.

Viet Buildup Near DMZ Puts Pressure On Nixon WASHINGTON (AP) Reports of a sizable North Vietnamese buildup in and around the DMZ mounted pressure on President Nixon Saturday to retaliate against enemy disregard of terms under which the United States halted bombing of North Vietnam. Nixon met with the National Security Council during the morning with Vietnam a listed topic, along with disarmament. The White House remained silent on the deliberations dealing with the war and the peace effort. Some of the intelligence reaching the administration estimated that the North Vietnamese have increased their forces in the area of the DMZ-- demilitarized zone--from around nine to some 13 regiments over the past ten days or so. Nixon Sends Aide To Geneva Talks WASHINGTON A President Nixon dispatched his disarmament negotiator to the Geneva disarmament parley Saturday with moderate hopes for progress and instructions to present some new U.S.

proposals. The disarmament envoy, Gerard C. Smith, met with the President and the National Security Council during the morning and arranged to leave Saturday night for the 18-nation Geneva conference opening its annual spring meeting Tuesday. Smith, head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, declined to spell out after the White House session the "new features" Nixon wants him to present to the parley. Secretary of State William P.

Rogers and Henry A. Kissinger, presidential adviser on security affairs, were among those at the security council session. Other U.S. officials listed a comprehensive nuclear test ban, a cutoff in production of atomic weapons fuels, chemical and germ weapons control and an atom-free seabed as items the United States is prepared to discuss at Geneva. Weather (Kokmno in 4) Temperature: high 39; low 26.

At 6 p.m. 30; Humidity BO per cent. Wind: 20 mph. Barometer: 30.31, steady. Sunset: Sunrise: 6:56.

3-4-5-6-7: a a i i cool night and mild days through Monday. High Sunday 42 to SO. Low Sunday night 20 to 27. High Monday 48 to 56. Precipitation probabilities near zero per cent through Sunday night.

Today's Chuckle Egotism is that certain something which enables a man who's in a nit to think he's in thr groove. Whereas earlier reports of infiltration through the supposedly neutral zone dividing the two Viethams has seemed inconclusive here, the more recent dispatches gave growing evidence of Hanoi troops crossing into the southern half of the buffer strip and beyond. This evidence includes accounts from prisoners from elements of at least two North Vietnamese, regiments, U.S. sources said. The prisoners, captured south of the DMZ were said to have acknowledged they came through the zone.

The U.S. command in Saigon has reported a North Vietnamese assault Thursday on a South Vietnamese outpost two miles south of the DMZ, attacks on U.S. Marines Thursday and Friday also about two miles south of the line and rocketings Saturday against the northern South Vietnamese city of Hue. In stopping the bombing of North Vietnam last Nov. 1, President Lyndon B.

Johnson said North Vietnam understood that "a total bombing halt must not risk the lives of our men." Johnson said it had been made clear to Hanoi also that productive peace talks in Paris would be impossible during shelling of South Vietnamese cities and abuse of the DMZ. Hanoi has said there was no agreement on such conditions. Nixon has taken the position since the enemy offensive opened three weeks ago that last fall's bomb halt understanding remains in force, but that any response to violations must be weighed Wallace Seeks Funds, Opens Headquarters MONTGOMERY, Ala. A If there were any doubts that George C. Wallace would keep himself in national politics, he dispelled them this week.

Claiming most Americans still support his conservative philosophy, even though they didn't vote for him, he sent out a newsletter asking for funds and talking politics. His return address was changed from P.O. Box 1968 to 1972. The first issue of the newsletter, which will be the continuing forum for Wallace, asserted that already, because of his third-party presidential campaign last fall, the trend in government has moved "toward the middle ground." Stand watch, the newsletter said. "See that campaign commitments are carried out--that the change in direction becomes national policy." Since November he has made only occasional public appearances.

In recent days he has opened a new headquarters with a full-time staff and aides say he is going to become increasingly more active. against the possibility of upsetting the Paris peace discussions. Nixon has also linked his consideration of U.S. retaliation to whether the U.S, casualty rate remaines high. GI deaths in Vietnam are now running more than double the level before the enemy offensive, though last week showed some drop.

MOSCOW (AP)--The'second bloody clash in two weeks between Soviet and Red Chinese troops flared Saturday on a disputed little island along their border, sparking a flurry of charges, counter charges and warnings of worse to come. Moscow and Peking accused each other of starting what both called "armed provocation," and Moscow radio said there was an unspecified number of dead and wounded. The Chinese declared the latest round was "continuing and expanding." The new incident touched off an exchange of protest notes between the two governments, while Moscow and Peking radio swapped charges. Bone of contention was an island in the Ussuri River along the Manchurian border about 200 miles north of Vladivostok. The Russians call it Damansky Island and the Chinese refer to it as Chenpao.

Both nations claim the island, and they clashed over it March 2 in a skirmish which the Russians said left 31 of their soldiers dead. Both warned that the latest incident could have grave consequences, but they gave highly conflicting versions of what happened, as they did two weeks ago. For example, Moscow said Chinese troops invaded the Soviet frontier post on the island Friday and that a Chinese detachment attacked Soviet guards Saturday. The Chinese protest referred only to a clash on Saturday and made no reference to the casualties reported by Moscow radio. The Soviet protest to Peking, distributed by the Soviet news agency Tass, said that on Saturday a "big detachment of Chinese soldiers, supported by artillery and mortar fire, attacked Soviet guards who were protecting the island." "Through measures adopted, the provocateurs were expelled from the island," Tass added.

Moscow accused the Chinese of provoking "fresh incidents" and warned: "If further attempts are made to violate the inviolability Soviet territory, the Soviet Union and all its peoples will resolutely defend it and give a crushing blow to such violations." Peking radio, in turn, said Russian soldiers supported by a big convoy of armored cars and tanks intruded into Chinese territory near the island Saturday. The broadcast said the Russians attacked and Chinese border patrols were "compelled to shoot back in self defense. New China News Agency (NCNA) said Chinese guards on the island are beefing up their preparedness against "new provocations by the Soviet revisionists." Pope Raps Priests Who Leave Church By DENNIS RED'MONT Associated Press Wrter VATICAN CITY (AP) Apparently stung by the case of a senior papal household member who quit the priesthood to marry, Pope Paul VI struck out Saturday at the growing number of priests who are drifting away from the church. "In the present crisis which shakes the world, in the change which undermines the best-established institutions, there is a sort of giddiness which takes to the safest souls in the very lap of the Church," the Pope declared during an audience for the Council of the Laity. In an oblique reference to priestly defections and challengers of the celibacy rule, Pope Paul said the "giddiness" had overpowered "even those who had vowed themselves to the Church's exclusive service." This was the first comment of any kind by the Vatican on the case of Msgr.

Giovanni Musante, a member of the papal household who has quit the priesthood to marry a well-off 38-year- old widow. Msgr. Musante, 50, is the closest man to the Pope to leave the priesthood to marry in the current celibacy contro- versy. Roman prelates had privately claimed Musante was mentally unbalanced. Musante rejected the assertions in an interview at the Rome apartment of his fiancee, Giovanna Carlevaro.

"For eight years I was tortured by a deep spiritual crisis, which has culminated now with this choice," Musante said. "It is a healthy, honest and absolutely normal situation for the normal man 1 believe I am." Musante refused to divulge when and where he would marry, but said it would be "very soon." Pope Paul had granted the monsignor a permit to marry in the hope the case would pass unnoticed, but it leaked to Rome newspapers and created an explosion of headlines. As a result, some Rome churches are organizing prayers for the press to stop capitalizing on "human weakness." Until a month ago, Msgr. Musante was the llth ranked cleric in the 24-member papal household. An average of 1,000 priests ask for papal permission to marry each year, according to Vatican sources.

Many hundreds more just turn their back on their Church by not asking for authorization. In the United States, 463 priests resigned in 1968, most of them to marry. Automakers Mount Campaign To Meet Import Challenge DETROIT A Like Trojans lighting to defend their city after the wooden horse was wheeled inside the gates, the nation's automakers are tooling up for a massive assault against the import invasion of foreign cars. At least six new smaller cars --four of them direct challengers to imported compacts selling for about be put into the lines within Ihe next two years by Ford Motor American Motors General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp.

Two of the six are sporty cars. An AMC entry planned for the fall of 1970 is described by insiders as radically different from any production car in U.S. auto history, with its engine centered between the axles--not in front, not in back. On the home front, the automakers are performing widespread styling changes in their current intermediate- sized and sports-luxury models for 1970 and 1971. Ford is giving its Mustang its first major revamping since it launched the "personal sporty car" craze in spring 1964.

The chief worry of U.S. firms for the next two years is lo recaplure the market by Volkswagen and other foreign cars. The imports many of them selling near or under $2,000 topped one million in sales in 1968 for the first time. on t'npr 7) SAIGON (AP) Despite a warning from President Nixon, the enemy sent seven rockets slamming into Saigon and its environs early Sunday but they caused relatively little damage. First reports could account for only one wounded, a guard at a warehouse, despite the fact authorities said some of the rockets struck in populated areas.

Three of the rockets hit a Shell petroleum dump at Nah Be, five miles from downtown Saigon and caused a big fire. The flames were brought under control within an hour. It was the fifth rocket attack on Saigon since the enemy offensive began Feb. 23, but the others killed a total of 52 South Vietnamese and wounded 148. Only Friday Nixon recalled at a news conference that he had said March 4 there would be "an appropriate response" for enemy shellings of Saigon and other civilian centers.

"It will be my policy as president to issue a warning only once, and I will not repeat it now," he said. "Anything in the future that is done will be done. There will be no additional warning." Edgy Saigon had expected a rocket attack, and a ranking U.S. officer said: "We all knew it was coming tonight. Now we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

A military spokesman said: "It was just a miracle these things didn't cause more damage tonight. They don't have any real control over those things. If just one had landed a few yards one way or the other the results could have been tragic." That was because one hit in the shantytown 9th Precinct across the river from downtown Saigon and two others struck the teeming 4th Precinct on the south side, which took heavy casualties Copter Down After Fighting In Korea DMZ SEOUL (AP) A U.S. medical evacuation helicopter carrying soldiers wounded in a clash with North Korean troops crashed along the western sector of the demilitarized zone Saturday, killing seven persons. A U.S.

8th Army spokesman said most of the dead were Americans. Three of the men aboard the chopper were casualties from an earlier snoot- ing exchange along the buffer zone. A U.N. Command spokesman said the North Koreans started the clash by firing on a 10-man work detail putting up demarcation markers in the zone. Their presence had been reported to the North Koreans three days earlier in accord with armistice agreements, the spokesman said.

He said soldiers at a North Korean guard post opened up on the work crew at about 3:30 p.m. and that the fire was returned. North Korea's official Central News Afiency said in a broadcast that "heavily armed" U.S. troops attacked its guard posts in the area and were "completely wiped out on the spot." It was the third shooting clash reported along the demilitarized zone in the past five days. in the previous attacks.

The other rocket landed harmlessly in the Saigon River. "Despite the low casualty figure," an, officer said, "it goes into our records as another indiscriminate attack on a population center." When the first blast rocked the city at 2:32 a.m. untold numbers of people were awakened and took what shelter they could-- some in home bunkers and others in concrete buildings. Most people could only sit and wait. The rockets were fired from the marshy wastelands and paddy fields east of Saigon.

Only Saturday the enemy had launched the most intense shelling of the current offensive, firing rocket or mortar barrages at 70 bases and towns throughout South Vietnam. They followed this up with two ground attacks on the approaches to Saigon. Enemy forces tried to overrun two bases manned by the U.S. 25th Infantry Division and South Vietnamese paratroopers 37 and 45 miles northwest of Saigon on one of the main invasion routes to the capital. Supported by artillery and fighter- bombers, the allies beat off both attacks.

U.S. spokesman said 40 enemy soldiers were killed in the two engagements, four prisoners were captured and 28 weapons, including a flame thrower, were seized. One U.S. soldier was wounded, and the South Vietnamese reported one killed and several wounded. To conserve manpower, the enemy so far has relied largely on the shellings to inflict a maximum number of casualties on Americans and has avoided large- scale ground attacks.

Superior firepower from allied artillery, fighter-bombers and helicopter gunships make ground attacks costly. With this weekend, however, U.S. officers expect something bigger, for the moon is dark and that allows the enemy command to move its troops and launch attacks without feeling the full fury of allied firepower. The main enemy effort is still expected to be directed at Saigon, although the capital has been hit so far only by rockets fired from a distance. In belated reports, the U.S.

Command said GO enemy soldiers were killed late Friday in Mekong Delta areas south of Saigon by ground troops supported by helicopter gunships. U.S. 9th Infantry Division troops reported 24 were killed about 30 miles south of the capital. U.S. casualties were three wounded.

Deeper in the delta, South Vietnamese ground forces aided by U.S. Army helicopters reported they killed 3G. Spokesmen said no South Vietnamese casualties were reported and U.S. casualties again were three wounded. While allied forces pushed operations in efforts to counter the new offensive, U.S.

Air Force B52 bombers carried out eight more strikes. Most of them centered in provinces around Saigon with targets again listed as troop concentrations, base camps, bunkers, weapons positions, storage and staging areas. The closest strike to Saigon was 22 miles northwest of the capital. U.S. headquarters reported the loss of (Continued on I 1 7) House Unit To Move On WASHINGTON (AP) Spurred by testimony that conglomerate mergers are reshaping the U.S.

economy, House tax writers are polishing up legislation for a possible vote next month. The Ways and Means Committee, its leaders have decided, will not wait to deal with the tax aspects of mergers as part of a general reform package that could not be enacted earlier than 11170. Instead, a separate measure will be drafted. The target date for committee action is the week of April 14--just after the Easter recess--which would permit House consideration during April, and give a good chance of final congressional action this year. The committee has been told that conglomerate merging--the acquisition of businesses by others in unrelated fields--has hit new heights during the past year, At least 192 large corporations with combined assets of more than $12.6 billion were acquired during 1968 more than during the entire 20 preceding year--- the Federal Trade Commission told ihe committee.

The Justice Department antitrust division called attention to a statement attributed to the head of one conglomerate--that in 10 years, there will be only 200 major industrial firms in the United Slates. The Ways and Means Committee's official concern is mainly in the tax aspect of merger operations--the current wave has been described by some as "tax-propelled." When companies combine by an exchange of stock, the tax consequences are minor. But an increasing number of the mergers are being accomplished by Ihe acquiring company giving stockholders in the acquired company debentures or some other evidence of debt, not stock. This has a double effect. The stockholder who gives up his stock can take a capital gains advantage on especially favorable terms, since the exchange for a long-term debt security is often thrented as an installment sale.

And the acquiring company, to the extent it has converted stock into debentures, will be paying interest instead of dividends to the holders Interest is deductible from profits for tax purposes; dividends are not, so half the payout is in effect saved..