News stories from Sunday March 9, 1975
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Foreign military experts in Phnom Penh believe they are watching the final phase of a military victory for the Communist-led troops that have surrounded the city. The final stage may be over quickly or it might last several months or even possibly into next year. A great deal will depend on whether the Ford administration succeeds in keeping the faltering Phnom Penh government alive for a while longer with a new infusion of military aid. But despite the short-term survival possibilities, the military situation offers nothing except pessimism about the ultimate outcome. [New York Times]
- Senator Hubert Humphrey said in a television interview that "additional military aid will merely prolong the agony" in Cambodia. He charged that the administration had no program for Cambodia after June 30, the cutoff date for its proposed additional military aid to the Phnom Penh government. He said "private reports from the Embassy and from the intelligence service tell us that the odds are dead set against the continuity or the saving of the Lon Nol government or even of any kind of military stalemate." [New York Times]
- Work has started on the Alaskan oil pipeline, the largest private construction project in the history of the United States. If work progresses on schedule, 30 months from now the first yield of crude oil from the rich Prudhoe Bay field will begin flowing at four miles an hour from the frozen Arctic tundra 789 miles south to the ice-free Alaskan port of Valdez. [New York Times]
- Adam Walkinsky and Peter Edelman, former assistants to Robert F. Kennedy when he was Attorney General and a Senator, said that Mr. Kennedy told them in 1967 that agents of the Central Intelligence Agency had contracted with the Mafia in an aborted plot to assassinate Premier Fidel Castro of Cuba before the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. They said in interviews that Mr. Kennedy privately told them that he had played an active role in stopping the assassination attempt. Their statements provided the most specific allegations to date of a link between the C.I.A. and the Mafia and assassination attempts on Mr. Castro. [New York Times]
- North Vietnamese troops began attacks around the placid Central Highlands provincial capital of Ban Me Thuot in South Vietnam, the Saigon command said. The principal targets were two airfields, an ammunition dump and other positions. The southern part of the city was being surrounded as well. If the Communists could take Ban Me Thuot, which is believed to be defended by 1,000 to 2,000 men, they would seal off Quan Duc Province. [New York Times]
- Secretary of State Kissinger arrived in Jerusalem today and presented Egypt's latest proposals on a new Sinai agreement to Israel's leaders, but he apparently failed during a stopover in Damascus to persuade President Hafez al-Assad of Syria to drop his opposition to Egyptian-Israeli negotiations. While in Jerusalem, Mr. Kissinger expects to receive Israeli proposals that he can bring back to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. [New York Times]
- Reports from Middle East sources received in Paris said that Iraq had opened an offensive against rebellious Kurds. The attack began Friday morning along Iraq's northern front, the sources said, and started soon after Iraq and Iran announced a settlement of their border differences last week in Algeria. [New York Times]