Emporia Gazette, The (Newspaper) - April 30, 1975, Emporia, Kansas Year No 237 THE EMPORIA GAZETTE Wednesday the Thirtieth Day of April Fiftysix Pages Saigon Government Surrenders Capital City Is Swiftly Occupied By Viet Cong North Vietnamese Thirty Years of War Ends in Relative Quiet SAIGON AP The Saigon government surrendered uncondition ally today and Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops occupied the capi tal At first the South Vietnamese stood in doorways and watched the troops pour into the city then some began cheering Many former government sol diers turned in their arms and tried to lose themselves amid the civilian population But there were periodic outbursts of gunfire some from pockets of resistance and others from celebrating Viet Cong and North Vietnamese firing into the air A police colonel shot himself in front of the National Assem bly building after walking up to an army memorial statue and saluting He died later in a hospi tal Some South Vietnamese pilots continued today to fly plan of relatives and other members of the armed forces to neighboring Thailand Sev eral thousand South Vietnam ese fled the country by this route And officials Struggled with the logistics of resettling the estimated South Viet it evacuate from the country before the surrender The end of official American presence in the coun try came late Tuesday People in Hanoi raced into the streets and embraced each other in a general explosion of the Yugoslav news agency reported Flags were raised and the North Vietnamese became the noisiest and happiest city in the At on April 30 1975 the flag of the Provisional Revolutionary Government PRG of the Republic of South Vietnam fluttered above the palace of the puppet president and on other buildings in the declared Viet nam News Agency in a broad cast monitored in Tokyo The broadcast reiterated that Saigon has been renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honor of the late North Vietnamese leader Bloodmobile Visit Scheduled Monday The Red Cross Bloodmobile will be at William Lindsay White Auditorium Monday from 10 till and Tuesday from 9 until Donors are encouraged to make appointments by calling 3423275 Walkin donors are always New gallon club members are as follows One Gallon Pat rick L Johnson Joan C Bina Charles Ei Pankratz Patrick S Kelley William C Peabody Catheryn I Weigard and Bob bie L Agler Two Gallons Raymond A Toso and Calvin S Harder Three gallons Marilee R Bathurst Robert S Thacker Robert J Seins and Robert H Brecht Four gal K Longhofer Five gallons Charles D Hollern Seven L Pyle fr Athens Cutting Greek Bases Agreement Announced After Negotiations The United States has agreed to cut back its military pres ence in Greece but the Greek government is allowing some American bases to remain The two governments an Tuesday night that the American air base adjoining the Athens airport will be closed six destroyers of the 6th Fleet will no longer use Eleusis near Athens as a home port and American bases remaining in Greece will be placed under Greek command ers But the joint announcement added that negotiations would continue and agreement is also expected on the elimina tion reduction and con servation of other United States facilities in The cutback is the result of widespread public anger with the government because of the administrations sup port of the Greek military dic and Secretary of State Henry A failure to prevent the Turkish invasion of Cyprus Welfare Automobile Policy Undergoes Change TOPEKA Kan AP A new policy has been put into ef fect by the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services concerning eligibility for welfare assistance and the value of a car the welfare recipient may own The new policy ends rules of at least 25 years duration mak ing persons ineligible for assist ance if were relative ly new or valuable At first ownership of a car less than four years old made a welfare applicant or recipient ineligible Later this was changed so that the dividing line was a vehicle worth more than We were receiving increas ing complaints from the field that the cars people could get for less than were not providing reliable trans without heavy outlays for Harder said He said the change in policy is a response to a recurring di lemma in an age when a car is almost an essential We had a conflicting policy of urging our clients to look for jobs then placing a roadblock in their paths by restricting the value of the car they used to look for Harder said Harder asserted the new ppl icy is said as far as can be told from reports from the field theres been no abuse of the new pol icy Harder said that a major fac tor in the departments errors in determining eligibility in the past has resulted from er application of the vehicle policy He said if the error rate goes too high it affects the amount of federal funds the state re for welfare Seeks New Policy For Asia WASHINGTON AP A major task for the Ford administration following the ragged end to the American role in Vietnam is development of a new realistic Asian policy while warding off possible Communist ad officials say The focus of a policy ordered by Secretary of State Henry A Kissinger will be on Japan South Korea the Philippines and Indonesia Thailand which now faces a serious Communist threat is in a special category and will be treated separately Speaking privately in the hours after the evacuation of Saigon and the subsequent surrender to the Viet Cong Tuesday night these officials said American diplomacy in Asia has been staggering for the last two years Events in Indochina in the last few weeks also have re basic weaknesses in many old ties with other na tions in the region the sources stated While many reasons are of the consensus centers on view that congres intrusion into the execu tion of foreign policy larly the removal of the military option eliminated the basis of policy in Southeast Asia The idea behind the reas therefore will be to strengthen old ties and develop new ones based on mutual eco nomic and political concerns rather than military accords BIG SQUIRT When it comes to building roads it seems that there is a machine for every purpose The contraption pictured above looks as if it would make a great garden sprinkler if the tires that are as tall as a man would not squash the lettuce Actually the giant sprinkler is used to dampen the roadbed so it can be packed down by other machines It was photographed Tuesday at work east of Emporia on the 135 link with Ottawa No Action Taken Board Receives Request From Americas Parents The Emporia Board of Educa tion heard a proposal to transfer 65 Vi sections of land from the North Lyon County School Dis to the Emporia district but took no action on it Tuesday af The proposal was made by Lloyd Brown of Americus in a meeting Tuesday af in the Emporia school board offices The board also heard reports on the search for a new high school principal athle tic programs at Lowther Middle School and the high school and a lawsuit against Superintendent Harold Hosey The board ap proved sale of the Rinker School property on Burlingame Road and agreed to take bids on mod of the boilers and boiler controls in Lowther Mid Thousands of Saigonese Sack Deserted American Embassy SAIGON AP The ry Embassy in Saigon withstood a determined Viet Cong commando attack in 1968 and five Americans died in its defense Today without its armed guards the embassy was no match for thousands of Saigo nese getting their last Ameri can handout They took everything in the kitchen sinks and a machine to shred secret docu ments The bronze plaque with names of the five American servicemen who died in the em bassy in 1968 was torn from the lobby wall It lay amid pues of documents and furniture on the back lawn We carried it back to the Associated Press office It is our embassy said a laughing young Vietnam ese soldier as he pranced glee fully along the littered hallway of the administrative building The handsome embassy building on Thong Nhut Boule vard was abandoned by a de of Marines at this morning They re mained behind after dor Graham Martin left to pre vent waiting Vietnamese from rushing the last helicopters As the Marines left they threw tear gas grenades into the elevator shaft But after their helicopter lifted off the roof the Vietnamese rushed in ignoring the tear gas as they tore hito filing cabinets and cupboards The Vietnamese had started on the embassy annex to the rear of the main building at dawn Eleven young people some of the soldiers in uniform tried to smash open a heavy safe they had turned on its face Rolls and rolls of Bank of America embassy payroll checks were strewn across a concrete parking lot Smashed typewriters and overturned filing cabinets marked with red secret and classified stickers were in many rooms A group of Vietnamese were dragging a large ter for destroying documents from a basement room Five large drums marked One each Document Destroyer drum type without igniter were in a corner of the room die School and Mary Herbert Elementary School at its next meeting Mr Brown presented a peti tion which he said sought the transfer of about threefourths of Americus township from the north school district to the Em poria school district He pre sented maps of the county which showed the outline of the tract of land included in the petition and of Americus which showed the school district preference of home and property owners in the city The initial estimate of the as sessed valuation of the property included in the request for trans fer was substantially low Mr Brown said The original esti mate was million and was one of the reasons Mr Hosey re commended that the request be denied Mr Brown said that the rural portion of the property has an assessed valuation of on the land and an estimated on personal property He said that the part of the prop erty in Americus has an asses sed value of for land and for personal property He said that the Cities Service Pipeline also is in the area and that it would add in as sessed valuation The total as sessed valuation would be more than million even before as for utilities like the Americus Gas Company and Kansas Power and Light Com pany are considered The change would bring about 259 children into the Emporia See Board page 2 Good Evening A Fifth Ward family reports it has had trouble keeping up with the neighbors but the finance com pany is finally caught up with em ft TUT Todays Forecast KANSAS A few showers southeast this evening other wise partly cloudy tonight and Thursday Cooler east tonight Low around 30 northwest to 40s southeast High Thursday upper 50s west to upper 60s southeast EMPORIA AND VICINITY Clear to partly cloudy and cool tonight light and variable winds less than 10 mph low in the mid 30s partly cloudy and cool Thursday high in the mid 60s fr fr Emporia Weather From FAA 1 61 degrees High Tuesday 71 degrees Low last night 50 degrees Barometer rising Humidity 48 per cent Wind NW 1522 Emporia Skies Wednesday April 30 Sunset today Sunrise tomorrow Moonrise tomorrow i 08 Last Quarter May 3 This year April ends with Venus mov ing toward Saturn in the evening sky and Mars moving toward Jupiter in the morning sky Venus will reach Saturn before Mars reaches Jupiter iz is Kansas Traffic Score TOPEKA Kan Kan sas highway death log For 24 hours to 9 Wednesday 0 Russia Apollo Crew Visits Base Astronauts Allowed To Tour Baikonur MOSCOW AP Weve now seen everything we need to see to fly this the American commander of the joint space flight re ported after the first American visit to the Soviets supersecret launch site Brig Gen Thomas Stafford the veteran astronaut who will command the Apollo spaceship on the July 15 flight had just returned with five other astro Tuesday from a tour of the Baikonur space base and the nearby town of built for space workers and their families in the barren desert of Kazakhs tan miles southeast of Moscow The only other Westerners known to have visited there were Presidents Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou of France More than a year ago Staf ford insisted that the astronauts be allowed to visit Baikonur just as the Soviet cosmonauts visited Cape Kennedy He said he told space officials Unless 1 see it I dont The Soviets were reluctant at first but ended up giving us a damn thorough said as Eugene Cernan He said they answered all the Americans questions and seemed to hold nothing back The Americans were shown the launching pad and trained for two hours in the Soyuz craft to be used for the flight and in the backup ship Facts Are Stipulated Appointees Suit Agreement Signed PLANT HERE David Traylor Emporia Park Department Superintendent poked wire stakes into the ground at Jones Park Tuesday morning to indicate where new trees are to be planted Last years tornado destroyed many of the trees in the park and federal disaster insurance money is being used to buy 326 new trees Mr Traylor said that the trees are being planted in a random pattern to avoid m them look like row TOPEKA Kan AP At for Contenders for a seat on the Kansas Adult Au have signed an agree ment for the state Supreme Court stipulating as to facts of the case Written briefs are to be filed with the court in late May Except for detailing some dates on documents there was little new in the stipulation Tuesday by attorneys for Mrs Carolee Leek and Franklin R Theis and the attorney gener als office Charles N Henson Topeka is attorney for Mrs Leek who brought the suit Edward G Collister Lawrence is at torney for defendant Theis and John R Martin first assistant attorney general represents the intervening attorney gener als office The Supreme Court has set June 2 to hear oral arguments The case is expected to de cide not only whether Mrs Leek or Theis is the legal hold er of a seat on the Adult Au formerly the state Par don and Parole Board but also the far bigger issue of whether the state Senate has the power to confirm or reject executive appointments under ing statutes Atty Gen Curt Schneider held in a recent opinion that the Senate has no power under the state Constitution to con firm and has taken Theis side in the controversy Gov Robert F Bennett has publicly defended the con process and by exec order is paying Mrs Leeks legal expenses Theis was appointed to the Adult Authority last January by then Gov Robert B Docking a Democrat Bennett a Republican asked that Theis and 17 other Docking appointees not be confirmed by the Senate and they were not Bennett then appointed re for the Docking people who were and the Bennett appointees were confirmed including Mrs Leek a Johnson County lawyer Theis refused to surrender his claim to the seat and Mrs Leek sued him In the stipulation dates of con and tions were agreed upon along with composition of the Adult Authority and the way the state Senate handled the con It that Theis wrote Senate President Richard D Rogers requesting a hearing on his appointment and this was not held but Theis was re on a bulk roll call in the Senate along with other Dock ing appointees An erroneous date on a Ben nett letter appointing Mrs Leek to the Adult Authority also is noted Bennett said the wrong date was a typographical error
