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Trying to get out
SAIGON—An American Marine points his rifle at a South Vietnamese trying to climb over
the wall at the American Embassy to Join evacuation flights. Thousands of South
Vietnamese tried to flee the country when it became known that the Americans were
evacuating. (UPI)
Cong forces
crush pockets
By United Press International
Triumphant North Viet
namese and Viet Cong forces
reported crushing the last
pockets of anti-Communist re
sistance in South Vietnam
today and vowed to smash any
new outbreaks of opposition.
The Communists, in a state
ment broadcast by Radio
Saigon, said the victorious
army defeated diehard South
Vietnamese defenders in the
Mekong Delta, the last strong
hold of the fallen government.
“All provinces of the Mekong
Delta have been liberated,” the
Viet Cong said.
Georgians
seeking
business
ATLANTA (UPI) - Three
officials of the Georgia Ports
Authority have gone to the
Middle East to seek business
for the state.
Robert H. Tharpe, chairman
of the ports authority, executive
director J. D. Holt and Fred
Whelan, director of trade
development, will visit Lebanon
May 3, then go on to Egypt,
Kuwait and Iran.
Tharpe said there had been a
“tremendous increase” in the
purchase of U. S. goods,
including Georgia products, and
the mission hoped to channel
more of that traffic through
state ports as well as bring
business into Georgia.
“We also hope to influence
new steamship services into our
ports, by meeting with the
owners and operators at then
headquarters in the Middle
East,” he said.
California doctors let malpractice insurance drop
By JOHN LESAR
United Press International
Northern California doctors,
rebelling against increased
malpractice insurance rates, let
their insurance lapse today and
hospitals put emergency health
care plans into effect im
mediately.
Argonaut Insurance Co. of
Menlo Park, Calif., cancelled
the group malpractice coverage
of San Francisco area doctors
effective today and offered, in
its place, individual coverage at
sharply higher rates.
The new regime, in a
broadcast monitored in Bang
kok, also confiscated all “indus
trial, agricultural and
commercial establishments” —
the first step in setting up a
Communist society in South
Vietnam.
The Viet Cong, in a com
munique relayed by the New
China news agency in Peking,
vowed to “resolutely smash all
acts of resistance against the
liberation army.”
But the communique warned
Communist soldiers against
touching “even a needle or
thread of the people” and
promised to protect “the lives
and property” of foreigners.
International communicatio
ns with Saigon were erratic in
the wake of the Communist
takeover of the city. The flight
of trained civil servants from
South Vietnam heightened the
problem.
Communications between Sai
gon and the rest of the world
broke down for 3Vz hours soon
after the capture of the city.
Service went out again just
before 8 p.m. Wednesday (8
a.m. EDT) and remained down.
UPI correspondent Alan Daw
son, in his last reports from
Saigon, said the Communist
army rode victoriously into the
city Wednesday, raised the Viet
Cong flag over the presidential
palace and renamed the capital
.“Ho Chi Minh City.”
The occupation of Saigon
came hours after the South
Vietnamese government surren
dered unconditionally to the
Communists and the United
States completed the final
evacuation of Americans.
Dawson, one of a handful of
Americans who stayed behind,
Hardest hit are anesthesi
ologists, who vow they won’t
pay 330 per cent higher rates
for insurance and who, by law,
cannot practice without in
surance.
About 3,500 other doctors
faced with skyrocketing rates
threatened to follow suit and
many of them quit and went
home following surgery Wed
nesday.
Hospitals in the area restrict
ed surgery schedules and
warned of possible substantial
layoffs of hospital employes.
said the first day under
Communist rule was compara
tively calm, but there seemed
little joy among the populace.
Some of Saigon’s residents
waved to the smiling North
Vietnamese and Viet Cong
troops. Others just stared and
wondered about their fate
under Communist rule.
A huge Viet Cong flag —red
on top, blue on the bottom, a
gold star in the center —
flapped in triumph from a
flagpole atop the presidential
palace.
Desperate refugees fled South
Vietnam in overcrowded gun
boats, sampans, fishing boats,
cargo ships, spotter planes, jet
fighters and transport aircraft
as well as the American airlift.
In Paris, the Viet Cong’s
Provisional Revolutionary Gov
ernment said it would adopt a
policy of “peace and nonalign
ment” in world affairs, accept
ing foreign aid only if
“accompanied by no political
ties.”
The Viet Cong offered “to
establish relations with all
countries, irrespective of then
political and social regime, on
the basis of mutual respect of
independence and sovereignty.”
Communist officials said pri
vately the statement indicated
the possibility of future di
plomatic ties between the new
Viet Cong government and the
United States.
China said the Communist
victory “ushers in a new era”
and the Soviet Union said the
fall of Saigon proved “a regime
that rests only on foreign
bayonets is utterly unviable.”
The California legislature is
debating new legislation that
would ease the malpractice
problem by requiring arbitra
tion of many malpractice
claims and limiting lawyers’
fees.
Los Angeles anesthesiologists
planned a one-day walkout next
Tuesday to protest a possible
100 per cent boost in their
malpractice insurance.
The California malpractice
problem is the latest in a series
of crises threatening to force
doctors to leave or limit their
GRIFFIN
Vol. 103 No. 103
Errors in wording
5-member commission
measure in jeopardy
A bill passed by the General
Assembly this year permitting
a referendum on whether to
increase the Spalding County
Board of Commissioners from
three to five members may be
declared invalid due to errors in
the wording of the descriptions
of the districts from which the
commissioners would serve.
Probate Judge George Imes
had set the referendum date for
Nov. 4, during the general
election.
The measure would pass if
more than one-half of the voters
approve.
The bill calls for Spalding
County to be divided into four
districts with a commissioner
residing in each district and one
from the county at large. They
would serve four-year terms.
A question on the bill’s
validity arose when it was
discovered yesterday that the
descriptions of the boundary
lines of one district were in
error.
The boundary lines for the
four quadrants begin at the
intersection of Hill and Solomon
streets and extend in four direc
tions to the Spalding County
line.
The boundaries of one of the
quadrants were incorrectly
written as proceeding “in an
easterly direction along East
Solomon to Taylor street;
thence southerly on Taylor
street to Ga. 16; thence in an
easterly direction along Ga. 16
to the Coweta County line.”
It should have read “in a
westerly direction. . . along
West Solomon. . . thence in a
westerly direction. . .”
Rep. John Mostiler, who co
authored the bill along with
Rep. John Carlisle, said he was
unaware of the errors but he
would get a ruling on the matter
from the General Assembly’s
legislative council. The bill was
worded by that council, he
explained.
Slaton says
‘gun law’
wiped out
ATLANTA (UPI) — Fulton
County officials said that a
federal appeals court ruling
had made enforcement of a law
against carrying a gun without
a license “impractical.”
“This wipes us out from
prosecuting the law in prac
ticality,” Fulton County Dist.
Atty. Lewis Slaton said Wednes
day. He said the decision would
be appealed.
Slaton said his office had
been advised that a three-judge
panel of the sth U. S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in New
Orleans held defendants’ rights
were being violated when
Georgia judges instructed ju
ries that the accused had to
prove they had licenses for
guns.
“It has the effect of it being
impractical now to convict for
carrying an unlicensed pistol,”
he said.
practices, boosting hospital
rates and putting some clinics
on the brink of closing.
Darling Memorial Center of
Detroit’s Grace Hospital, the
largest cancer treatment center
in Michigan, may be forced to
close at the end of June. The
reason—Shelby Mutual Insur
ance Co., of Shelby, Ohio, has
canceled the center’s insurance.
“Unless the Michigan law of
malpractice is changed, we will
be unable to see patients as of
July 1,” said Dr. Vainutis K.
Vaitkenvicius, chief of medicine
Griffin, Ga., 30223, Thursday Afternoon, May 1,1975
Graduation
plans made
in Griffin
Graduation activities picked
up steam at Griffin High this
week.
School officials announced
seniors could pick up their in
vitations at their homerooms or
from Mrs. Juanita Morris in
Room E-104.
Seniors may pay for their
caps; gowns and diplomas in
the school office. Mrs. Jackie
Newby will handle this.
Graduation rehearsals will be
on the mornings of May 28, 29
and 30.
Graduation exercises will be
May 30 and baccalaureate
service will be May 28.
★★★★★★★★
Rain
delays
crops
ATHENS, Ga. (UPI) - The
Georgia Crop Reporting Service
said Wednesday persistent rain
has delayed the planting of
most major Georgia crops this
spring more than any year
since records were first kept in
1956.
However, the service said
farmers in most areas of the
'state had five good planting
days last week.
Soybeans were only one per
cent planted, a record low for
the past 18 years, the service
said. At this time last year, two
per cent had been put in the .
ground.
Corn was only about half
planted, compared with 65 per
cent at this time last year. The
cotton crop was only 16 per
cent planted against 28 per cent
a year ago.
About 15 per cent of the
peanut crop had been planted
against 26 per cent in 1974, and
of those sprouts coming up,
color was off and growth slow.
The service said tobacco
transplanting was about 95 per
cent completed, compared to 99
per cent a year ago. Tobacco
condition was rated fair to
good.
>U
“Failure, in some cases,
could be the nicest thing that
could happen to you.”
at Grace Hospital.
Los Angeles County may soon
have to pay $1.6 million to
Lloyds of London for malprac
tice insurance to cover doctors
working at county hospitals or
in other county medical pro
grams. Argonaut, which had
insured the county for premi
ums of $500,000 a year, has
refused to renew its policy
because its losses tripled during
the past year. The company’s
loss under the policy was
estimated at more than $3.6
million.
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Bi-Centennial play
Yankee Doodle boys Matt Story, David Barrett and Clay Huckaby (1-r) will be among the
students featured tomorrow night in a Bi-Centennial play at Third Ward. (Other pictures
page 13.)
Dr. Jackson gets
federal assignment
Dr. Curtis Jackson, director
of the Georgia Experiment
Station, will begin a six-month
assignment in Washington,
D.C., Monday, as national
programs coordinator for a U.
S. government research effort.
He will work with the
UNESCO Man and the
Biosphere (SAB) program, a
joint effort by the cooperatives
state research service and the
U. S. State Department, in
volving areas of science which
have agriculture and forestry
components.
The work will involve
establishing directorates in
eight of the 16 MAB program
areas in which the United States
has interest.
“The MAB effort is consider
ed indispensable to achieving a
real effort by other countries
who are apparently waiting to
o
Be
rill
Dr. Curtis Jackson
follow the U. S. lead in this
research,” Jackson said.
Jackson said that although
Argonaut also has raised
insurance rates for smaller
hospitals across the nation by
300 to 1,000 per cent. The rate
for Northwestern Hospitals in
Minneapolis, Minn., has been
upped from $55,000 to $550,000
by Argonaut. The hospital
hopes to pass on the increased
rates through raising room
rates for patients.
Argonaut, which also handles
much of the malpractice
insurance in New York state,
has announced it is doubling
Daily Since 1872
the assignment will involve his
complete attention, he will
return to Griffin at least weekly
to “stay abreast of the station
affairs and to advise the acting
resident directors.”
Professor M. E. McCullough,
head of the animal science
department, will serve as
acting director from May 5
through July.
From Aug. 1 through October,
the acting director will be Dr. A.
L. Shewfelt, who heads the food
science department.
Weather
ESTIMATED HIGH TODAY
78, low today 63, high yesterday
79, low yesterday 60, high
tomorrow in upper 70s, low
tonight near 60, total rainfall
yesterday .25 of an inch, sunrise
tomorrow 7:09, sunset
tomorrow 8:14.
rates there on July 1.
The New York State Medical
Society Sunday approved a
resolution calling on doctors to
treat only emergency cases
beginning July 1 if the state
does not draw up an acceptable
program for handling malprac
tice insurance.
Malpractice rates for doctors
and hospitals have increased
sharply in less than a year,
cutting deeply into physicians’
earnings and boosting patients’
bills.