March 28, 1975

DA NANG, South Vietnam, March 27—The deputy commander of the Saigon Government forces in the northern part of the country sat disconsolately at the airport here today, waiting with thousands of other South Vietnamese for American air transportation to the safety of the capital.

Fed Govt will help landlords of nearly 100,000 apts, mostly in NYC and NJ, by helping them seek higher rents if their bldgs are in jeopardy because of local rent controls; new policy involves apt bldgs with Fed insured mortgages; under new Fed rules, if bldg is deemed to be in financial peril, Fed Govt will seek to have local rent agency modify its restrictions on the property; if effort fails, Govt will seek to have bldg exempted from local system entirely; Fred W Pfaender, dir of office of loan management of HUD, says new rules are designed to establish Fed policy for privately owned housing that has Fed connection and is also governed by local rent laws; new rules are now in effect on interim basis and comments from public will be considered before final version is adopted; some NYC officials are bothered by possibility that rules will be interpreted too broadly; over 70,000 NYC apt bldgs and 10,000 NJ apt bldgs are estimated to have Fed-insured mortgages and to be governed by local rent laws (M)

US Defense Dept says S Vietnamese forces are not critically short of ammunition or fuel despite Cong reductions in mil aid; Pentagon officials contend Cong cutbacks have contributed to S Vietnamese setbacks; Cong cutback is becoming controversial as Ford Adm seeks to link it to mil reversals; Defense Dept figures show $430-million in mil assistance has been sent to S Vietnam in last 9 mos, including about $200-million in ammunition; of $700-million appropriated, $525-million is already committed, $94.7-million in orders are still in pipeline and remaining $175-million will be committed to cover final 3 mos of fiscal '75; figures show $67-million has gone for spare parts, $205-million for ammunition, $75-million for fuel, $31-million for supplies and $64-million for tech assistance, transportation and adm costs; figures are contrary to Sec Kissinger's assertion that Cong reductions have caused Amer aid to be limited to ammunition and fuel; indicate additional $300-million in mil aid requested by Ford is not needed; US has been shipping ammunition at rate of 12,000 tons per mo, while S Vietnamese forces have been consuming it at about 18,600 per mo; study by intelligence community, not completely accepted by Defense Dept, shows US mil aid to S Vietnam is about twice that supplied by China and USSR to N Vietnam; estimates that both countries provided N Vietnam with $400-million in mil aid in '74, including $170-million in ammunition (M)

Mar 28: Pres Ford says chances for Middle East peace would have been enhanced if Israel had shown more flexibility in recent negotiations with Egypt, Mar 24 int with William Randolph Hearst Jr and others from Hearst newspapers; stops short of actually blaming Israel for collapse of Sec Kissinger's talks; stresses importance of US policy reassessment because threat of war has increased; refuses to say if US would give Israel same kind of mil help it recd in '73 war; says Geneva peace conf is only negotiating course open now; Ford also says that he believes refusal of Cong to supply Cambodia and S Vietnam with aid 'undoubtedly had some impact' on Israeli-Egyptian negotiations; as part of US 'reassessment' Kissinger has invited group of former Govt officials to meet with him on Mar 31 (L)

US Commerce Dept repts record $917-million trade surplus for Feb; says exports were $8.79-billion, down 6.6% from Jan, and imports were $7.87-billion, down 18.2%; says imports other than oil declined 3.9% by about $250-million; Acting Sec John K Taber cites unusually mild winter and impact of recession in reducing consumption; emphasizes that oil imports in future will probably be above Feb figure; says drop in exports apparently reflects mainly recession in other indus countries and that new export expansion efforts should be concentrated on trade with Communist countries and with oil-producing countries; says greater exports will be needed to achieve trade balance in '75 or to hold deficit to modest proportions in light of probability that oil imports would resume their rise; says drop in dollar value of oil imports in Feb was accounted for entirely by decline in vol, rather than lower prices; graph depicts US trade position, Dec '72 to Feb '75 (M)

Pres Ford, in his 5th change among 11 top dept heads, shifts Interior Sec R C B Morton to Commerce Sec (M)

NY Times survey indicates number of Moslem-country students attending US univs, particularly insts in Middle West and Southwest, hat risen since '70 from 15,250 to 25,000 and that it will approach 35,000 in '75-76 acad yr; says trend is expected to intensify as oil-producing nations pour more dollars into educ development and as financially pressed Amer insts take advantage of a potentially huge new acad mkt; Arab students, in past, tended to be from ruling elite and were supported by their families, but situation has changed since US initiated scholarships for Egyptian and other Arab students and since Saudi Arabia shifted its educ focus from GB to US and, along with Kuwait, Algeria and Libya, began developing its own govt scholarship program; Ghazi Abdul-Jawad, asst cultural attache at Saudi mission in US, attributes recent influx of Arab and Iranian students to need for skilled manpower in home countries; Virgil C Crippen, pres of Amer Friends of Middle-East, non-profit orgn that runs educ exch programs with support of State Dept and Ford Foundation, believes interest in US technology is reason for sudden recent surge; problems encountered by foreign students in US noted; Arab students tend to be critical of Amer attitudes toward sex and quality of family life in US; impact of Amer culture on students' wives and children noted; students at Okla State Univ illus; charts showing numbers of Arab and Iranian students studying in US colls since '65 and distribution by country of students from Middle East studying in US (L)

NY Times survey of effect on urban and suburban areas of Fed Govt's expected tax cut and local govt's tax increase; says tax cuts may be nullified; many local officials criticize Fed plans for individual tax deductions at a time when they are faced with severe budget gaps; NYC Mayor A Beame comments; officials in Newark, Camden, Dade County, NYC, Phila noted (L)

housing indus applauds provision in tax-cut bill passed by Cong giving Fed income tax credit of up to $2,000 to purchasers of new homes

N Vietnamese forces advance southward along S Vietnam's central coastal plain; Danang is only northern city still in hands of South Vietnamese forces; Amer air evacuation is halted as thousands of refugees surge over Danang's airbase in desperate attempts to board planes; Qui Nhon, nation's 3d largest city, threatened by Communist rocket and artillery fire into dist capital of Binh Khe; tempo of Communist attacks is increasing around country; Western mil analyst says mil retreat is marked by panic; Saigon command repts Communist attacks have stepped up near Saigon; Govt forces repulse attack on Chanh Thanh, 45 miles north of capital; unrest in streets and at Danang airport mounts; World Airways jet is forced to take off with only partial load of refugees as others cling to plane's ramp; Communist troops near Danang reptdly are not responding to occasional Govt howitzer fire; US AID plans to hire jumbo jet for airlift; Tan Son Nhut airbase in Saigon has been crammed with idle S Vietnamese cargo planes; scene in Danang described; at least 19,000 Govt soldiers have fled Hue, reptdly leaving behind artillery, mortars, armored personnel carriers and rifles; Western mil analyst says N Vietnamese are sending 1,500 troops into south and total strength has risen to record 400,000; S Vietnamese armed forces total 1.1-million; over 50% are in defensive positions; Saigon command says highway from capital to Tay Ninh has been reopened; map; illus (M)

NYS Labor Dept repts state unemployment rate increased to 9.6% in Feb, representing 720,500 jobless; says NYC unemployment rate declined to 10.4%, representing 332,200 jobless, decline of 5,800; notes number of jobs in NYC dropped to 3,448,500, decline of 77,800; dept economists warn Feb figures should not be read as trend; add situation is still equivocal and that for both city and state unemployment is still worse than at any time since Great Depression; US BLS regional dir Herbert Bienstock says NY area as whole is doing as well as nation; dept repts unemployment rate in Buffalo (NY), which has been suffering worst unemployment rate in state, increased to 14.5%, representing 80,100 jobless; unemployment rates for Rochester (NY), Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Putnam Counties given; NY Times analysis of newly revised unemployment rates for Jan in labor areas centered in nation's 16 largest cities showed NY area ranked 3d, along with San Francisco and Boston in severity of its unemployment problem; notes most severely hit was Detroit area followed by St Louis (L)

NYC Rabbis in Passover sermons express concern over breakdown in Middle East peace talks (S)