December 30, 1972

4 Arab guerrillas who burst into Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, on Dec 28 and held 6 of its officials hostage for 19 hrs arrive in Cairo on Dec 29 amid tight security measures; are driven to undisclosed location; held hostages under threat of death for release of 36 Palestinian Arabs in Israeli jails; agreed to free hostages after being granted right to fly out of Thailand to Cairo; say they are part of Black September orgn; Thai Air Marshal Dawee Chullasapya, who accompanied guerrillas to Cairo, says he avoided violence because 'I was in Munich when the massacre there occurred,' referring to slaying of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes by Arab guerrillas in Olympic Games on Sept 5; Egyptian Thai Amb M F Eassaway says he believes guerrillas ended their occupation of Israeli Embassy 'because friendship with Southeast Asia is more important than a few hostages'; Dawee says he and Essaway spent night with guerrillas in Israeli Embassy and persuaded them to release hostages and give up their arms in return for safe conduct out of country; says guerrillas did not want to create misunderstanding between Arabs and Thailand; illus of Dawee

Deputy Interior Min B T Shumilin on Dec 29 announces that Soviet authorities are prepared to waive educ tax for pensioners who want to emigrate and to reduce taxes for others on sliding scale, depending on number of yrs worked after graduation, statement given to Novosti, Soviet feature agency; asserts that tax on persons with higher educ who want to leave USSR affects only about 10% of all applicants for emigration; defends USSR's right to impose tax; says men with working record of no less than 25, 15 and 8 yrs and women with record of no less than 20, 12 and 6 yrs are freed from refunding educ costs by, respectively, 75, 50 and 25%; maintains permission to emigrate has been given to 95.5% of Soviet Jews who applied to go to Israel during '72, figure disputed by Soviet Jewish activists and Western diplomats

J N Jenson, aide of Fed Bur of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, reveals in NYC on Dec 29 that Danish seaman J S Thomsen and C Lam of Phila have been arrested on charge of smuggling heroin from SE Asia; tells of trailing Thomsen from his ship to his girlfriend's apt in NYC on Christmas Eve where 18.7 lbs of heroin had allegedly been stored since Apr; displays heroin and shows how it was concealed in outer shells of 2 large plastic suitcases; says informants in Hong Kong and NYC supplied intelligence that broke case; illus

Eastern Air Lines L-1011 Tristar Airbus, on NYC-Miami flight with 177 persons aboard, crashes into Everglades on Dec 30 while on landing approach to Miami Internatl Airport; early repts indicate 26 passengers are survivors; crash is 1st involving L-1011 Tristar; described

US, irritated by Swedish Premier O Palme's comparison of US bombing of N Vietnam to Nazi massacres of World War II, asked Sweden not to send a new amb to US; request made to outgoing Swedish Amb H de Besche when he was called in by Under State Sec U A Johnson on Dec 24 to hear US protest on Palme statement; Swedish Embassy calls action 'unusual'; de Besche told Johnson protest was based on distorted accounts; on Dec 25 gives text of complete Palme statement to US State Dept; text; Palme has joined with leaders of 4 opposition parties in Sweden in campaign to get 2 million signatures for a petition calling on Nixon to end the bombing; Palme irritated US officials in Feb '68 when he marched in an antiwar protest with the Hanoi Amb to Moscow; Sweden's granting of sanctuary to some 400 US deserters and draft dodgers is also a source of US-Swedish friction