News stories from Saturday March 3, 1973
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Federal officials said that one of their armored personnel carriers took "20 rounds of fire" from the militant Indians entrenched in the historic hamlet of Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Six lawyers requested by the Indians were passed through federal roadblocks sealing off the town, apparently to continue negotiations. Meanwhile, federal authorities appeared to be tightening their ring around Wounded Knee with patrols and roadblocks, moving up and down dirt side road and cow paths. [New York Times]
- Richard Nixon, in what he achieved in his first term and what he has undertaken in his second, is attempting an expansion of presidential powers that could have more impact on the national government than that of any President since Franklin D. Roosevelt. This is the opinion of historians, political scientists and other students of the presidency who were interviewed in recent weeks. [New York Times]
- The Black September commandos who killed three diplomats in Khartoum, the Sudan, on Friday refused to give up the bodies and rejected a request for permission to enter the Saudi Arabian Embassy to view the dead. It was confirmed today that one of the diplomats, Guy Eid, Charge d'Affaires for Belgium, had been killed by the guerrillas. There had been reports that he had been spared. The guerrillas on Thursday seized five hostages, including the new American Ambassador to the Sudan, Cleo A. Noel, Jr., and George C. Moore, the outgoing American Charge d'Affaires, who were also killed.
The Black September organization said the murders of the American and Belgian diplomats were meant to demonstrate to the world that it should "take us seriously." An anonymous telephone caller to the pro-guerrilla newspaper Al Moharrer in Beirut, Lebanon, saying that he was speaking for Black September, said: "We shall teach the world to respect our word. We shall not be double-crossed again or allow our demands to be subject to bargaining."
A State Department task force kept in steady touch with the developments in the Sudan following the killing of the two Americans, but there seemed little that could be done to capture the commandos without endangering the remaining hostages in the Saudi Arabia Embassy in Khartoum. Washington officials said that the American Embassy in Khartoum was not working with the Sudanese in dealing with the commandos and their demands, noting that the American position in the Sudan had not been very influential since the resumption of diplomatic relations last year after they were broken during the Arab-Israeli War.
[New York Times] - The second phase of American prisoner of war repatriations will begin tomorrow with United States medical planes flying to Hanoi to pick up 106 American military prisoners and two Thais to be released by the North Vietnamese. The freed prisoners will be flown to Clark Air Base in the Philippines. The Viet Cong will release an additional 34 prisoners, including 30 Americans, on Monday. [New York Times]
- Repatriated prisoners of the Vietnam war refuse to discuss their imprisonment because they are afraid to jeopardize the return home of comrades still in prison. But in news conferences and talks with their families, the former prisoners have sketched some details of life in North Vietnamese prison camps, where most of them were held. Other details came from the 12 men released in previous years. [New York Times]
- France will vote for a new Assembly tomorrow in the most unpredictable and probably closest election she has had in years. The vote will be the first half of a two-round election to be completed next Sunday. The intense campaign has already marked a turning point in the life of the Fifth Republic. There are 3,051 candidates running in the 473 metropolitan election districts. Seventeen other seats are to be filled from overseas departments and territories. The race is essentially between the Gaullist-dominated government coalition and the Socialist-Communist alliance on the left. [New York Times]
- Authoritative Japanese government officals said that Japan's Self-Defense Agency had drafted its first military doctrine setting forth fundamental plans for defending the country from possible attack by the Soviet Union or China. The doctrine's basic theme points up the vulnerability of the island nation to military attack and the declining confidence of the Japanese in the American commitment under the United States-Japan Mutual Security Treaty. [New York Times]