News stories from Saturday January 3, 1970

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

The U.S. military command in Vietnam said that seven American soldiers were killed and 11 wounded seriously during a North Vietnamese attack on a night field camp near Duc Pho, south of Quang Nai. It was the third such attack in six days. Other American soldiers were wounded by the first enemy shelling attack from the demilitarized zone in more than two months. [New York Times] Vice President Agnew said in Bangkok that America's allies in Asia want to hear the Nixon doctrine of regional self-reliance repeated because they are "frightened" of Communist China. Mr. Agnew added that before he met with leaders of the Philippines, South Vietnam and Nationalist China, he would have expected them to be more concerned about wars of insurrection than attack from other countries. Instead, he said, they are concerned with "total attack." [New York Times] Culminating a six-month legal struggle, the body of Pvt. Bill Terry was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham, Ala., within sight of the soldier's boyhood home. Pvt. Terry, who was killed in Vietnam, was originally denied burial in the cemetery because he was black. [New York Times] In a telegram to Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel, W.A. (Tony) Boyle, president of the United Mine Workers of America, called on the government to convene a national conference on the tough new federal mine health and safety regulations. Mr. Boyle had been accused during his recent re-election campaign of neglecting miners' safety. An Interior Department spokesman said plans for such a conference were already underway. [New York Times] The call by Senator Fred Harris, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, for a national conference on crime early this year to be sponsored by his party was seen as more evidence that crime is going to be the major issue of the 1970 congressional campaign and that the Democrats are worried about it. In a new wrinkle, the "ins" this year, the Republicans, appear most likely to benefit from rising crime. [New York Times] A number of statisticians and politicians have challenged the new draft lottery on the ground that the selection did not produce a truly random result. The critics, some of whom have filed a federal suit, say men with birthdays in the first half of the year are less likely to be drafted than men with birthdays later in the year. [New York Times]