News stories from Saturday April 4, 1970

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

The White House released a brief telegram of support sent to Judge G. Harrold Carswell from 57 federal district judges in the South. The judges, including one mentioned as a possible successor to Carswell on the Court of Appeals, said Judge Carswell was "well qualified" to be a Supreme Court Justice. At least eight judges in the Eastern District of Louisiana did not sign it. [New York Times] Advocates of "victory in Vietnam" gathered in Washington for a mass rally. The police-estimated total of 50,000 marchers was sharply lower than the more than 250,000 who demonstrated in November for an immediate and total withdrawal from Vietnam. [New York Times] Federal farm subsidies and other programs of the Department of Agriculture are widening the gap between rich and poor farmers, interviews and documents have shown. The records showed that the government spends more on middle-class and wealthy farmers than it does on hunger, housing, urban transportation or air and water pollution programs. [New York Times] Clashes along Vietnam's demilitarized zone involving American troops were the heaviest in nearly five months, the allied command reported in Saigon. New clashes near the Cambodian border were also reported. South Vietnamese forces have been hit harder by the nationwide enemy attacks of the past four days than American forces, it was also disclosed. [New York Times] The United States First Infantry Division is moving back to Fort Riley, Kansas, but it has left its emblem -- the "Big Red One" -- emblazoned in the Vietnamese countryside as a mile-wide swath of cleared jungle. Top military officials, said to be embarrassed by the bulldozing of the jungle, will not talk about the operation, during which three soldiers were reportedly wounded. [New York Times] Air America appears to be a charter flight company with operations ranging from Korea to Indonesia and concentrated in Southeast Asia. But the airline is widely considered to be the servant of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and its operations in Laos are, in many ways, the story of the secret war in Laos. [New York Times]