Funds:
House fails
By STEVE OSTROSKY
Collegian Staff Writer
The State House of Representatives
yesterday refused to pass a Senate bill
giving Penn State, the University of
Pittsburgh and Temple University a six
per cent increase in appropriations over
last year.
The vote on Penn State funds was 97 in
favor and 88 against. One hundred and
thirty-four votes were needed to approve
the bill.
At the same time, the House approved
$l.B million in funds for Lincoln
University.
The vote sends the appropriation bills
to a joint House-Senate conference
committee which will be chosen later
this week.
House Republican leaders had urged
rejection of the Senate’s bills, and most
of the votes against the bills came from
Republicans.
In July the House approved giving the
universities a five per cent increase in
funding over last year. But the Senate, in
a move which House Appropriations
Committee Chairman H. Jack Seltzer,
R-101, labeled as “gamesmanship,” last
month approved a six per cent increase
Israelis hit
in convoy
TEL AVIV (AP) Israeli ground troops struck across
the Suez Canal early Thursday for the first time in the
fourth Arab-Israeli war and attacked Egyptian convoys,
the Israeli military command said at dawn.
Israeli commandos crossed the 200-foot-wide canal in
its southern sector and returned without casualties after
attacking “convoys and rear echelons of the enemy,” the
command said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli navy shelled Syrian oil
installations on the Mediterranean coast more than 300
miles from the Egyptian canal front, a communique said.
Israeli gunboats hit oil tanks and other installations at
Latakia, Banias and Tartous, the communique said.
“Large flames could be seen,” it said.
Earlier in the night Israel said there was “very little
activity” on both the Suez front and along the Golan
Heights, which Premier Golda Meir said in a telecast
Wednesday night had been recaptured from the Syrians
by Israeli troops.
“Today I can say the heights are in.our hands...” Meir
said. “...Our forces are standing very.close to the canal
and here, too, we are pushing back the enemy.”
In other developments:
Baghdad radio said Iraq had thrown its troops and air
force into the five-day-old war;
Israeli jets carried, the air war into Syria for the
second consecutive day; and
King Hussein said Jordan had mobilized its reserves.
Jordan fought with Syria and Egypt against Israel in the
1967 war; but so far has not committed forces to the
current fighting.
Regarding the Soviet arms, Meir said the Soviet Union
had beep “incessantly” arming the Arab states since 1967,
and “even at this moment we have reason forsaying that
the
dail
No contest...
to pass PSU appropriation
fo? the three universities. payments. It has been estimated this
/ Sen. Joseph S. Ammerman, D- system would save Penn State about
i Clearfield, told The Daily Collegian there $400,000 a year in interest payments
’ was some indication “the vote against
the bills was to save face for Seltzer.”
Rep. Galen E. Drcubelbis, D-State
College, said on big stumbliftg block in
the House is an amendment passed by
the Senate allowing the universities to
transfer any amount of state money
between line items in their budgets.
Last year’s bill allowed the
universities to transfer money between if the House and the Senate agree to
different line items included in their W the same version of the bill, it would be
budget as long as the variance was not sent to Gov. Shapp for his signature
more than 10 per cent.
“I think the House would accept a six
per cent increase if the conference
committee wanted one, if the variance
level is returned to the 10 per cent,”
Dreibelbis said
The Senate bill contained two other
amendments. One would require the
universities to submit studies on how
many hours a week each faculty
member works.
Wpathpr
The other amendment would have VVOUUJOI
allowed monthly payments of state Considerable sunshine today and
funds to Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Friday. High both days 74. Mostly clear
Lincoln instead of the present quarterly and cool tonight, low 49.
.Collegian
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT Spiro T. Agnew talks to
newsmen outside the Federal Courthouse in Baltimore
yesterday. Agnew told newsmen Justice Department officials
have not been fully prosecuting those involved in the case.
the weapons, to jSyria especially, are flowing all the
time.”
President Nixon said the United States was “trying its
best” to mediate the “very dangerous situation” in the
Middle East.
A pentagon spokesman declined comment when asked
about U.S. aid to Israel, but there was no indication that'
the United States was cutting back its arms sales to Tel
Aviv. '
Syria and Egypt countered the Israeli claims of victory
in the skies and reported shooting down 24 Israeli war
planes. Israel claimed it shot down 20 Syrian and Egyp
tian fighter planes.
Neither side gave its own losses.
Israel had claimed once before that its forces had
pushed the Egyptians back to the canal and had cleared
the Golan Heights of Syrian forces, but Tuesday an Israeli
general said this was not so.
“We have moved to the offensive almost everywhere,”
Meir said yesterday in a televised address. “There is ab
solutely no doubt about the result of the war. We will win
it.”
In part of her speech, Meir indicated Israel’s goal may
be to, advance beyond the cease-fire lines that existed
before the war broke out Saturday. *
“We want to hit them, force them back across the lines,
and push them beyond the lines” to prevent aiiy renewed
Arab attack, she said without elaboration.
“The war could be a long one,” said Maj. Gen. Shmuel
Gonen, Israeli commander on the Sinai front.
Tel Aviv and Damascus reported savage air clashes
over the Golan Heights battleground and during the
Israeli raids on targets in the Syrian heartland. Each side
Dreibelbis said the House probably
would accept these two provisions if they
were included in the conference
committee’s bill. -
Dreibelbis told the Collegian the House
could receive the conference
committee’s bill .for a vote Monday or
Tuesday.
Penn State already has borrow.J $7
million to pay last month’s salaries. A
University spokesman said Penn State
would have to continue- borrowing at a
fairly steady rate until the
appropriations are passed and the
University starts receiving state
payments.
Suez
attack
Agnew resigns,
fined $lO,OOO
for tax evasion
WASHINGTON (AP) Vice
President Spiro T. Agnew yesterday
resigned abruptly from office and
pleaded no contest to a charge of
Federal income tax evasion. A judge
sentenced him to a $lO,OOO fine and three
years’ probation.
President Nixon, expressing “a sense
of deep personal loss” over the stunning
development, met with Democratic
congressional leaders at the White
House to discuss “procedural questions”
on the selection of a successor.
Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana, the
Senate majority leader, and House
Speaker Carl Albert of Oklahoma, who is
the President’s immediate successor in
the absence of a vice president,- left the
White House without meeting newsmen.
Agnew’s resignation was part of an
agreement struck by his attorneys with
the Justice 'Department that* allowed
him to plead no contest to a 1967 tax
fraud charge and have all other
allegations facing him dropped.
Atty. Gen. Elliot L. Richardson,
appearing with Agnew in the federal
court in Baltimore, declared the
corruption investigation involving the
vice president had “established a'
pattern of substantial cash payments” to
him by contractors when he was
Baltimore county executive, governor
and as vice president.
These payments continued from the
early 1960 s into 1971, and one engineer
doing business with the state made
payoffs up to and including last
December, Richardson said.
Although the Justice .Department
agreed to drop the charges of bribery,
extortion and conspiracy that Agnew
also faced, these were detailed in a 40-
pdge document released through the
court. Agnew, while not contesting the
tax evasion charge, denied all others.
The thunderbolt disclosure of the
resignation, the second by a vice
president in U.S. history, was almost
casually revealed by a staff secretary
here as Agnew himself was making a
surprise appearance in the Baltimore
court.
Reading from a paper held in
trembling hands, the 55-year-old vice
president told U.S. District Court Judge
Walter E. Hoffman that his decision to
quit and plead no contest to the felony
charge “rests on my firm belief that the
public interest requires swift disposition
of the problems which' are facing me.”
He said his lawyers.had advised him
that a legal battle over the allegations
against him could last for years and the
attending publicity would divert public
attention from other problems, “to the
country’s detriment.”
Agnew’s decision came unexpectedly
after he had sought through public
statements for the last several weeks
to end widespread press speculation that
he would quit.
claimed the other suffered heavy losses.
President Nixon met with congressional leaders in
Washington and won their support for his efforts to halt
the war. Nixon’s peacemaking proposal to the U.N.
Security Council remained stalled, however, over con
ditions for a possible ceasefire.
Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana
said after the White House session that the question of
U.S. arms for Israel is “always under advisement” but
that it did not arise in his talk with Nixon.
U;S. officials said the Soviety Union was delivering
“very large tonnages” of military equipment to resupply
Egypt and Syria. They declined to say what amounts were
involved.
The Iraqi announcement that its air and land forces
were fighting on both fronts made it the third major Arab
country to enter the fight against the Israelis in the fourth
broad Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948.
Other Arab countries have pledged support to Egypt
and Syria and some have sent token contingents.
The Beirut newspaper An Nahar reported Iraq has com
mitted 18,000 troops and 100 tanks along with an un
disclosed amount of air power to back Syria on the Golan
front and Egypt in the Sinai battle.
The Israeli military command claimed its raiding jets
inflicted “considerable damage” on the Freifch-built
Damascus airport and also blasted Syrian naval
headquarters on the Mediterranean and other strategic
targets in Syria and Egypt. /
But Syria claimed its air defenses rose to meet the four
jets attacking over Damascus and blasted three of them
out of the sky before they could get near the airport. The
fourth Israeli jet fled with Syrian MIGs in hot pursuit and
was downed before it could reach safety in Israeli skies,
Damascus said.
The attack was the second reported on Syria’s capital
since the new round of hostilities erupted Saturday.
Israeli jets bombed the Defense Ministry and the
ment radio station on the city’s eastern edges Tuesday,
with reports of heavy civilian casualties and damage to
diplomatic installations including a Soviet cultural center.
The Syrians yesterday claimed attacks also caused
civilian casualties at Homs, an industrial city 85 miles
north of Damasucs; at Minat al-Bayda, the naval center;
and at the main Syrian Mediterranean ports of Tartus and
Latakia.
iINDiNG DEPT.
attee LIBRARY
IAttPUS
12 COPIES
Thursday, October 11, 1973
Vol. 74, No. 46 10 pages University Park; Pennsylvania
Published by Students of The Pennsylvania State University
Agnew yesterday admitted to
receiving payments in 1967 which were
not reported on his income tax and also
that he was aware of payments made to
others. But he denied that any payments
had ever influenced his execution of the
public trust as Baltimore county
executive, governor or as vice president.
The actual charge against him
contained in an information .filed by the
Justice Department, was that he failed
to account for some $13,551.47 in federal
taxes for the year 1967.
In that year, the information said, he
reported income of $26,099 and taxes of
$6,416 when in fact his income had been
$55,599 owing $19,967 in taxes.
The resignation was effective at 2:05
p.m. yesterday and it was about 20
minutes later when it first became
publicly known. A staff secretary, Lisa
Brown, responding to an Associated
Press reporter’s question about the
Baltimore court appearance, said
simply, “the vice president has
resigned. The Agnew staff aides have
just come from a meeting at which they
were informed he has resigned ...”
As Agnew appeared in court, a
resignation letter was delivered to
Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger,
who under the law receives formal
resignations of national elected officials.
Similar letters were dispatched to
President Nixon, and Democratic and
Republican leaders of the House and
Senate.
The news of the resignation reached
the House floor during a roll call and
created five minutes of confusion. House
Speaker Carl Albert, D-Okla., who in the
absence of a vice president is next in line
to succeed as president, walked quickly
to the floor, declining comment to
reporters. :
Within minutes, extra capitol
policemen and Secret Service agents
were stationed outside Albert’s office
door.
Since Agnew’s involvement in the
federal probe was first disclosed in early
August there have been persistent
reports that Ni*on wanted him to quit
and had tried to force him out with
pressure applied by White House aides
through the news media.
The White House has denied this,
however, and a spokesman yesterday
said Nixon “played no direct role in the
decision.” It was, a spokesman said, “a
personal decision that only the vice
president could make.”
In the Baltimore courtroom,
Richardson stated that the investigation
of kickbacks “establishes a pattern of
substantial cash payments to the
defendant during the period when he
served as governor of Maryland in
return for engineering contracts with the
state of Maryland.”
He said payments by a leading
unidentified figure in one large company
The Tel Aviv command called its targets in Syria and
Egypt “military and strategic.”
It said the attacking Israeli jets hit Egyptian air bases
at Khusna and Abu Harhmad on an arc in the Nile Delta
only 27 miles from Cairo in addition to a radar station on
Egypt’s Mediterranean coast about 60 miles east of
Alexandria.
The Egyptians said their Soviet-supplied jets shot down
six of the attacking Israeli planes. The Cairo command
claimed it retaliated by dispatching Egyptian warplanes
in attacks against Israeli posts on the northern coast of the
Sinai, occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.
On the ground, a communique broadcast by Cairo radio
said, the Egyptian forces “are improving their advance
positions east of the Suez Canal under air cover while the
enemy forces continue to retreat eastward.”
The Egyptians, who crossed the 103-mile-long waterway
in force Saturday for the first time since 1967, reiterated
their claims of holding the entire eastern bank. Reports
said they have advanced as far as 10 miles into the Sinai at
one point east of Ismalia.
The Israelis acknowledged Tuesday that they have
abandoned their main, defense lines along the canal
designed to prevent an Eyptian advance.
Mai. Gen. Aharon Yariv'told a news conference the
Israelis pulled back to new lines two to three miles from
the original Suez defense installations, known as the Bar-
Lev line after former Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev.
Foreign correspondents were barred from both fronts
and unable to make independent checks on the conflicting
claims.
“This is the most difficult battle we have faced since our
war of independence in 1948,” Gonen said. “We are.faced
by any enemy enjoying numerical superiority. The Egyp
tian forces are armed with the most up-to-date Soviet
equipment.”
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt said in a message
delivered in his name at a Moscow meeting that he and
President Hafez Assad of Syria are fighting “a war of
liberation with the objective of establishing a just peace.”
He said Arab goals were to get Israel out of the
territories occupied in 1967 and restoration of the national
and legal rights of the Palestinian people, who consider
the territory of Israel rightfully theirs.
U_S. PORTAGE
STATE COLLEGE
PA. 16801
PERMIT NO.IO
started in the early 1960 s and continued
into 1971.
Richardson, who two weeks ago
ordered the evidence against Agnew to
be submitted to the Baltimore grand
jury, outlined the plea bargaining which
took place between the Justice
Department and Agnew’s own lawyers,
and therrsaid he felt leniency in Agnew’s
case was justified.
He asked Hoffman, in passing
sentence, to consider Agnew’s service as
vice president.
Agnew, his face drawn and hands
unsteady, read his own statement before
Hoffman and stood flanked by his
attorneys as one of them, Jay H. Topkis,
formally entered the plea of nolo
contendere no contest.
Hoffman read a statement in which he
said he considered Agnew’s plea as “the
full equivalent of a plea of guilty,” and
noted that such pleas often are accepted
in tax cases.
Terming it “a most serious charge,"
he said it has been his practice in cases
involving lawyers, tax accountants or
businessmen, to impose fines and two to
five months of actual imprisonment as a
deterrent.
“But for the strong recommendation
of the attorney general in this case I
would be inclined to follow the same
procedure,” Hoffman said. “However, I
am persuaded thafthe national interests
in this case are so great and so
compelling ... that the ends of justice
would be better served by making an
exception to the general rule.”
He then passed the sentence of a
$lO,OOO fine and three years of
unsupervised probation.
Agnew left the courthouse
immediately after the 30-minute
hearing.
In a brief statement to newsmen, he
said the Justice Department had not
been fully prosecuting witnesses in his
case and that some had received either
partial or total immunity, a fact which
had been widely reported in the press.
Waving to bystanders outside the
downtown courthouse, Agnew drove to
join other members of his family at ‘a
Baltimore funeral home where his half
brother, W. Roy Pollard, 65, who died on
Monday was lying in state.
Agnew’s resignation was the first such
occurrence since John C. Calhoun .quit
on Dec. 28, 1832, to become a South
Carolina senator. Seven vice presidents
have died in office. ,
It was not immediately certain jwhat
effect the stunning development would
have on the Baltimore investigation.
It apparently cut short a court test on
whether a sitting vice president could be
indicted without first being impeached,
but it was not clear whether it also
terminated another test of t-he'Tigfrt-qf
newsmen to protect their confidential,
source. i