News stories from Saturday April 3, 1971
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- South Vietnam repulsed a North Vietnamese attack on Fire Base No. 6. North Vietnam captured the base earlier in the week and used South Vietnamese artillery to shell another South Vietnamese base; they destroyed the guns and then withdrew. South Vietnam claims that 1,200 North Vietnamese soldiers were killed around Fire Base No. 6. [CBS]
- Elections tomorrow in Chile will test the strength of new Marxist President Salvador Allende. The U.S. still provides economic aid to Chile despite the socialist government, so Allende is taking care not to confront the United States, although Chile is in the process of nationalizing American-owned copper facilities. [CBS]
- The Republican National Committee accused Common Cause chairman John Gardner of being a purveyor of the radical Democratic party line. [CBS]
- Underworld informer Joseph Valachi died at age 67 of a heart attack. [CBS]
- The Soviet Union defeated Sweden 6-3 for the world amateur hockey championship; Canada withdrew from the tournament in a quarrel over amateurism. [CBS]
- Advertisers met at Yale University to discuss how to "unsell" the Vietnam war. Director Ira Nerken said that advertisers know how to get to people better than students and professors to combat the government's public relations job on the Vietnam war. Advertising executive David McCall said that he feels responsible to do whatever he can to end the war sooner. The best ads will be chosen by Yale president Kingman Brewster and a panel, then submitted to TV and newspapers. [CBS]
- President Nixon will ultimately personally review and decide the case of Lieut. William Calley, the White House announced. John Ehrlichman, the President's chief domestic adviser, said Mr. Nixon believed that the case, "having captured the attention of the American people to the degree that it has," required "more than the technical review" that the military would give it. [New York Times]
- One of the Green Berets charged but never tried in the Special Forces murder case two years ago admitted in an interview that he killed the South Vietnamese victim on "oblique yet very, very clear orders" from the Central Intelligence Agency. Robert F. Marasco said that the man was a triple agent whose real loyalties were to a group led by Gen. Duong Van Minh that was striving for a coalition government. [New York Times]
- Hundreds of East Pakistani refugees were said to be crossing the border into India for the first time since serious fighting broke out in East Pakistan. Some of the refugees said they had feared that West Pakistani planes would bomb their sanctuaries in rural villages. It appeared that West Pakistani troops were having difficulty maintaining their supply system. [New York Times]
- Medicare should be expanded to cover partial payment of prescription drugs for the nonhospitalized elderly, a federal advisory council proposed. The 12-member council also proposed that employers, employees and the government also share in financing Medicare. The proposals come at a time when the Nixon administration is pushing for legislation to curb Medicare, not expand it. [New York Times]