News stories from Sunday April 13, 1975

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

Ties between Jews and blacks in the United States have been strengthened by the declining economy and continued tensions in the Middle East, according to community leaders. Since January there have been a number of conferences and joint statements by established black and Jewish leaders aimed at increasing cooperation between the two groups. [New York Times] Seeing support for Soviet Jews, a crowd estimated by the police at 100,000 paraded down Fifth Avenue over to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in front of the United Nations. In the vanguard were nuns and priests, ministers and rabbis. The demonstrators were given encouragement in addresses by Senators Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson and Governor Carey, among others. [New York Times] The biggest erasure of congressional incumbents in several decades took place in the 1974 election, and almost half the 103 Congressmen who were not returned to Congress are still in Washington, lobbying, practicing law and working for the government. "It's a case of how are you going to keep them down on the farm," said Jed Johnson, a former member of Congress from Oklahoma who specializes in keeping track of former Congressmen. [New York Times] The Internal Revenue Service operated a secret school for undercover agents in which it tested them with liquor and women to see if they could resist disclosing their identities. Periodic classes were conducted at two naval bases and at several private motels. The liquor was paid for by the government, according to former agents, and the women were federal employees. The program was called "stress seminars" in some I.R.S. circles. [New York Times] The Cambodian insurgents, in a sudden large-scale attack, drove to the edge of the capital, sending thousands of frightened refugees fleeing from the outskirts into the city. It appeared that the final battle for Phnom Penh had begun. The new military government in Cambodia vowed that despite the "very grave" military situation and the closing of the United States Embassy in Phnom Penh it would refuse to surrender to the insurgents surrounding the capital. [New York Times] Communist forces renewed their assault on Xuan Loc, a key provincial capital east of Saigon, today while others shelled the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho in the heaviest fighting since the North Vietnamese offensive of 1972. The battle for Xuan Loc is regarded as critical because a breakthrough by the Communists on Route 1 there would leave little between them and Bien Hoa, a virtual suburb of Saigon and the site of the country's largest air base. The Communists have committed three divisions to the battle for Xuan Loc, an indication, Western officials said, of the importance they attach to it. [New York Times] The Laotian coalition, headed by 73-year-old Premier Souvanna Phouma, is marking its first anniversary this month, and suffering some strain, uncertainty and bickering. But the unusual alliance of neutralists, rightists and pro-Communists is holding together, mostly because the United States, the Soviet Union, China and North Vietnam seem content to keep the current government intact. [New York Times] The worldwide arms buildup, particularly in the Middle East, has brought boom times for United States exporters of arms. Military exports by American companies have reached a high of more than $8 billion a year, and deliveries of weapons to foreign customers are growing at the fastest rate in the nation's history. The surge in business has caused the manufacturers some problems. Congressional criticism is one of them. [New York Times] Gunmen of a right-wing Lebanese party opened fire in Beirut on a bus filled with Palestinian militants, killing 22 of them, according to an official Lebanese communique. The Palestinians were coming from a celebration of the first anniversary of the guerrilla attack on the Israeli border town of Qiryat Shemona. [New York Times]