Pages of history: From The News Journal archives, week of April 24

"Pages of history" features excerpts from The News Journal archives including The Morning News and the Evening Journal.

April 24, 1975, The Morning News

Senate OKs aid, troops to help evacuation from Vietnam

The Senate yesterday overwhelmingly approved $250 million in humanitarian aid and funds to evacuate endangered Americans and Vietnamese from South Vietnam, with authority for the president to use the armed forces if necessary to take people out….

In the House, a corresponding $327 million measure was in fierce dispute and was debated late into the night. Both bills reached the floor exactly 13 days after President Gerald Ford’s urgent request for $250 million in humanitarian aid and $722 million in emergency military aid to shore up the crumbling South Vietnamese army….

The Senate bill…also permits the president to use U.S. armed forces if necessary to take the people out, but they can only be used for evacuation of endangered South Vietnamese incidentally to rescue operations for Americans….

President Ford declared last night that the Indochina war was over for the United States, and he called on Americans to “write a new agenda for the future.”

He told an audience of Tulane University students that he was saddened by the events in Indochina, but “they do not portend the end of the world nor the end of America’s leadership in the world.”

In a prepared speech that a White House spokesman billed as the first of the post-Vietnam era, the president said that “America can again regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam.”

“But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished – as far as America is concerned,” he said….

STORY ABOUT VIETNAM WAR VETERAN: She thought her late husband's hat was gone forever, but Laurel police officers stepped up

April 25, 1980, Evening Journal

Hostage rescue bid fails; 8 dead in Iran

U.S. military forces undertook a desperate raid to rescue American hostages in Tehran, Iran, but the mission collapsed in “equipment failures” on a remote desert airstrip far from its target, President Jimmy Carter said today.

Eight U.S. servicemen died in a collision of retreating aircraft.

Carter, on television, somberly told an awakening nation that there was no clash with Iranian forces and no evidence Iran knew of the mission until after it was over and U.S. forces were withdrawn.

Defense Secretary Harold Brown said the mission was called off when three of the eight rescue helicopters had difficulties….

The secretary said that, in the withdrawal, a helicopter and a transport plane collided, killing the eight servicemen and burning four others….

Iranian radio said the militants holding 50 Americans hostage in Tehran were meeting to discuss their response to the rescue mission….

State Department officer Mark Johnson said nothing had been heard from the militants occupying the U.S. Embassy who have repeatedly threatened to kill the American hostages if “even the smallest military action were taken.”

In his remarks, Carter emphasized that “the rescue effort was a humanitarian mission. It was not directed against Iran.”

April 29, 1986, The Morning News

Soviet nuclear reactor leaks; radiation spreads

The Soviet Union said Monday that a nuclear accident damaged an atomic reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine. Radiation reported up to 10 times above normal swept across Finland, Denmark and Sweden, more than 750 miles away.

Budapest Radio in Hungary reported early today that there were injuries from the accident, and noted that the power plant was at the conjunction of two rivers, near the reservoir that supplies Kiev, a city of 2.4 million people and the capital of the Ukraine.

The official Soviet new agency, Tass, said only that people “affected” were being aided, but did not say whether there were injuries or deaths, when the accident happened, nor the exact location of the plant….

CATCH UP ON HISTORY: From The News Journal archives, week of March 27

April 30, 1992, The News Journal

L.A. officers acquitted in Rodney King beating

Four white Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of all but one assault charge Wednesday in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King.

Violence, including looting and fires, broke out on the largely black south side of Los Angeles a few hours after the verdict. As the violence spread across the residential and business areas, Mayor Tom Bradley asked Gov. Pete Wilson to send in the National Guard….

A state of emergency was declared by Bradley at 9 p.m., ABC News reported.

The verdict, in the seventh day of deliberations, came after a year of political uproar sparked by the graphic videotape of a black man being beaten by white officers, denounced in many quarters as brutality. The backlash brought down the Los Angeles police chief.

“My client and I are just outraged,” said King’s lawyer, Steve Lerman. “It sends a bad message. It says it’s OK to go ahead and beat somebody when they’re down and kick the crap out of them.”

Bradley blasted the jury’s decision….

Several hours after the verdicts were announced, several hundred demonstrators rushed the main doors at the police department’s Parker Center headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. They backed off as helmeted officers blocked the doors. One man was arrested. Objects were thrown at officers….

Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: News Journal archives Vietnam War hostages in Iran Chernobyl disaster