From Wire Service Reports HOUSTON - Howard Hughes, one-time playboy pilot who became a recluse billionaire, died yesterday in an airplane hurrying him from Acapulco to Houston for medical treatment, Methodist Hospital an- nounced. He was 70. The Hughes saga that had mys- tified the world for two decades ended in a brief announcement by a spokesperson for the hospital, which had been Hughes' destina- tion when he was overtaken in the air by death. "TODAY AT 1:27 P.M. (CST) en route from Acapulco to Houston, Mr. Howard Hughes expired." And it ended in more mystery -the hospital said it didn't know the cause of death and didn't know what to do with Hughes' body be- cause no instructions had been re- ceived. But is Los Angeles, an attorney who said he had represented Hughes for 25 years said the billionaire died of a stroke. The attorney, Greg Bautzer, re- fused to identify his source. HOSPITAL VICE PRESIDENT Larry 9hes Mathis said the hospital learned about 9 a.m. that Hughes was coming to Hous- ton for treatment. A medical team in an unmarked ambulance met the jet when it landed at Houston Intercontinental Airport about 2 a.m., but Hughes was al- ready dead, Mathis said. Shortly before the plane landed, its crew alerted airport officials to get ready "to service a bed patient in a dia- betic coma," U. S. Customs spokesman Charles Conroy said. Copilot Jeff Abrams said Hughes look- ed "like a tired, worn-out old person" when he was carried aboard the plane on a stretcher. dead PILOT ROGER SUTTON described Hughes as "very wasted" and "very, very pale." Sutton said Hughes had a thin beard and long, greyish hair. "He moved his lips a little bit when they put him on the plane, but I couldn't hear anything," said Sutton. In Beverly Hills, Calif., Hughes' sec- ond wife, actress Jean Peters, said sim- ply, "I'm sorry; I'm saddened" upon learning of Hughes' death. She divorced Hughes in 1971, after 14 years of mar- riage. HUGHES REPORTEDLY had lived at the Acapulco Princess Hotel in the Mex- ican seacoast resort since early Febru- r'- i ,. . . ary. Since 1970, he had lived in a series of tightly guarded hotel suites in North American, the Bahamas and London. Hughes was a man of many passions - for power, perfection, pretty faces and fast planes. But his greatest passion was for privacy. Since 1948, he played cat-and-mouse with the press and public, defying de- mands by the govarnment to appear in public at a cost of millions of dollars. HIS ROLE AS recluse at the end of his life was a turnabout from his early years when he was Page One news - directing film actresses and marrying them, build- See HOWARD, Page 10 atti Hughes MSA ENDORSEMENTS See Editorial Page Y Sir& iga SUNNY High-59T Low--28° See Today for details Latest Deadline in the State Vol. LXXXVI, No. 152 Ann Arbor, Michigan-Tuesday, April 6, 1976 10 Cents Ten Pages Allen slips by Rowr y, Republicans control Council; voters throw out Py Kenworthy, Belcher win; SHRP loses Council seat Daily Photo by PAULINE LUBENS Roger Bertoia (R-Third Ward) and Wendell Allen (R-First Ward) congratulate each other on their respective victories in last night's city council races. Allen is the first Republican to win a Council seat in his ward since 1960. Doily Photo by STEVE KAGAN DEMOCRATIC COUNCIL winners Jamie Kenworthy (Ward 4) and Earl Greene (Ward 2) celebrate their victory last night at the Rubaiyat. Said Kenworthy, "Well Greene, you and I have to live together." Republican Wendell Allen, cash- ing in on a miserable voter turnout in the city's heavily Democratic First Ward, slipped through to vic- tory in yesterday's City Council elections. At the same time, city voters overwhelmingly repealed the controversial preferential voting (PV) system, and brought to an apparent end the dwindling clout of its architects, the Socialist Hu- man Rights Party (SHRP). Allen, a 28-year-old black stock- broker who becomes the first Re- publican to capture the student- heavy ward since 1960, edged out Democrat Ezra Rowry by 117 votes. His victory once again hands the GOP a 6-5 margin on Council, an edge they held two years ago. IN OTHER RACES, Democrat Jamie Kenworthy retained his Fourth Ward seat against a stiff challenge from Re- publican Mary Lou Slater, hanging on by 214 votes; Democrat Earl Greene handily put away the Second Ward race against Republican James Reynolds, whose visability during this campaign was comparable to that of Judge Cra- ter' s. Incumbent Roger Bertoia, as expect- ed, trampled Third Ward Democratic hopeful Martin Black by more than 2,000 votes; and Louis Belcher, Republican incumbent from the Fifth Ward, was comfortably returned to office over Democrat Judith Hanks by nearly 1,000 votes,dwith absentee ballots yet to be counted. For SHRP, it was their bleakest elec- tion night in their four-year history. Their four Council candidates, Diane Autin (a First Ward write-in), Thomas Owen (the First ward candidate declar- ed ineligible), Diane Kohn (Second Ward), Madelyn Elder (Fourth Ward) failed to scratch up 1,000 votes between them. Completely shut out from Council for the first time since 1972, the party's future in Ann Arbor has apparently lapsed from dubious to terminal. IN THE OTHER two ballot issues, A and C, door-to-door voter registration survived by a margin of approximate- See REPUBLICANS, Page 3 SHRPfail comeback By DAVID WHITING Daily News Analysis Some said they were doomed from the start, but in 1972 the fledgling radical Human Rights Party managed to over- come the odds in their first election and seat two of their members on City Council. However, as yesterday's election re- sults came in, the odds were played out. Four years of rocky existence on City Council have come to an end for .he torn and tattered leftist organization, recently renamed the Socialist Human Rights Party (SHRP). AFTER LOSING their one remaining Council seat in the Second Ward last night, defeated SHRP First Ward can- didate Diane Autin said, "Most people in SHRPihave already decided not to participate in electoral politics. All of us are still very active. We're just into a lot of things we think are more im- portant than elections." Since SHRP's heyday in 1972-73, when they held the swing votes on a liberal See SHRP, Page 3 30,000 PROTEST RADICAL CAMPAIGN Chinese revolt quelled By AP and Reuter PEKING-Workers' militia arm- ed with wooden staves last night took control of Peking's vast Tien An Men Square after a day of vio- lent demonstrations. The square was cleared of crowds and long, orderly lines of militia were seen escorting people, appar- ently demonstrators, through the walls into the ancient Forbidden City. EARLIER, PEKING MAYOR Mu Teh broadcast through loudspeakers to the crowd, appealing to them to disperse after the most violent scenes the capital. has witnessed since the tumultuous Cul- tural Revolution a decade ago. Cars were set afire and demonstrators, estimated to number 30,000, tried unsuc- cessfully to burn down a building in a Class GPA may go on transcripts protest that clearly reflected the politi- cal power struggle in the Chinese leader- ship. Late last night, the militia appeared to have quelled any opposition. LIGHTS WERE still burning in the Great Hall of the People', a sign that a large-scale meeting might be under way. The protest appeared to have been triggered off by the removal overnight of thousands of paper wreaths laid around the Martyrs' Monument in tri- bute to the late Premier Chou En-Lai. Mayor Wu Teh's words echoed from loudspeakers lined around the square. He blamed "a small minority of ambitious, evil men" for the day-long protests that had produced the violence. HE LINKED the demonstrations to a struggle in the Chinese leadership which had developed after the death of Pre- mier Chou En-Lai last January. The mayor said the riots were aimed at Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and the Cen- tral Committee of the Communist Party. Behind the violence, he said, were men who supported the "capitalist road" - meaning Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-Ping, the main target of the anti-rightiest cam- paign. Temp hb~art hne, exnrtpdr to- !,i,red Chaos aids PY By MAUREEN NOLAN Literary school (LSA) faculty members dealt a potentially severe blow to "grade inflation" yesterday by approving a change in the Faculty Cede that calls for inclusion of class average grades on stu- dent transcripts. The proposal passed by a narrow mar- gin at the monthly faculty meeting. Chou began last Friday as part of the annual Ching Ming festival to pay re- spects to the dead. As many as 70,000 people poured into Tien An Men Square on Sunday to pile wreaths, banner and flowers dedicated to Chou before the Martyrs' Monument in the center. Japanese reports said although militia- See CHINA, Page 10 for example-might show up as nothing more than the class average. THE IMPLICATIONS of the change are speculative, but supporters hope it will lead to a more discriminate assign- ment of high grades, thus cutting down on grade inflation. "My guess is that the faculty will become more aware of the clustering of grades into the upper regions," said By JAY LEVIN and DAVID WHITING Daily News Analysis City voters reacted to the confusion of last year's mayoral election yester- day, and repealed preferential voting (PV) for mayor-a process which they had approved only 17 months ago. Casting partisan lines aside, voters who did away with the Democratic en- dorsed PV also approved the liberally- sponsored door-to-door voter registra- tion advisory ballot issue. last year's election cost the city some $80,000-twice the normal figure. Confusion, probably more than any- thing else, contributed to the voters' decision to remove PV from the books. Last year, Democratic Mayor Albert Wheeler was not seated until May-a month after the election. Adding to the chaos, election workers had bungled the handling of boxes containing the ballots and city Republicans contended the constitutionality of the voting sys- tem. repeal did not entice student voters to cast ballots against the measure or to vote at all. It appears that many voters feel that PV will be unnecessary in the future with the disappearance of SHRP, the city's only third party. LIKE THE repeal of PV, voters split from traditional party lines when de- ciding on the passage of the Democratic sponsored door-to-door voter registra- tion proposal. Voters in the staunchly- Republican Third and Fifth Wards turn-