cZ1 e irl ig n :4) ttil Vol. LXXXII, No. 40-S Ann Arbor, Michigan-Thursody, July 13, 1972 Ten Cents Eight Pages C v tures it all; Choice narrowing on VP Sen.gets1728 votes for first ballot win MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (N - George McGovern won the Democratic presidential nomination last night climaxing an incredible campaign that carried him from the back row of the Senate to the pinnacle of party power. And the Democratic National Convention, his from the opening gavel, erupted into bedlam. The roll call ended with the McGovern vote of 1,728.35. Jackson had 525. Wallace had 381.7. Rep. Shirley Chisholm had 147.5. These were the figures before delegations began the traditional switches of votes after the outcome was -Associated Press CALIFORNIA'S DEMOCRATIC leaders cluser around their standard on the convention floor and cheer the Illinois vote that gave Sen. George McGovern the party's presidential nomination. NIXON BLASTED: enocida flooding in N. Vietnam predicted assured. After 119 delegate votes from Illinois assured his nomination. McGovern telephoned Kennedy in Hyannis Port, Mass., to offer the vice presidency. Richard Dougherty, a McGov- ern spokesman, said Kennedy declined "for very real per- sonal reasons." Dougherty said the two men talked for about 15 minutes. Earlier in the day, Florida Gov. Reubin Askew also notified McGovern that he would not al- low his name to be placed in nomination for vice president. Ironically, -the delegate vote needed to put McGovern over the 1,509 needed to clinch the party nomination was the highly dis- puted Illinois delegation, one time possession of Mayor Rich- ard Daley. However, no sooner than Mc- Govern was assured of the nomi- nation, the unity moves began. H u b e r t Humphrey telephoned McGovern within mintues after the nomination was settled. Shirley Chisholm told the con- vention she would work across the nation for the McGovern ticket. Most surprisingly, at the time the Illinois delegation vote was announced, Clyde ,Choate, one of the few remaining members of Mayor Daley's contingent, said the Illinois Democratic party would be "instrumental in work- ing for the Democratic nominee." Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Ark) took himself out of the race for the presidential nomina- tion before the roll call, but remained in contention for the number two spot, saying "I'm not seeking the job but you never rule out anything." And so the only question left for the Democratic convention was the selection of a No. 2 man to run with McGovern. The delegates were sure to ratify whomever McGovern chooses at the closing session Thursday night. Platform- pased by Democrats MIAMI BEACH, Fla. tIP) - The Democratic party has given Sen. George McGovern a plat- form. liberal enough to embrace most of the nation's deprived minorities and too liberal to suit many businessmen. . The final version, adopted at dawn yesterday by the national convention, promises immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, fed- eral income payments to replace the welfare system and support of school busing. McGovern also had vetoed all the other minority planks which were rejected, including those to legalize abortion, remove dis- crimination against homosexuals, provide a federally guaranteed annual income of $6,500 for each family of four, and roll back rents - as well as Wallace planks to preserve capital pun- ishment and allow prayer in pub- lic schools. But as if to confirm the stock market's visible anxiety o v e r the South Dakota's populist's emergence as the Democratic nominee, it also calls for: -Antiinflation controls over profits, dididents, interest, earn- ings and executive salaries as well as wages and prices; -A graduated corporate in- come tax to steepen the rates of big businesses; -Stronger antimonopoly laws to "break up large conglomer- ates found to violate the anti- trust laws," and: -Action to "deconcentrate shared monopolies such as auto, steel and tire industries which See DEMOCRATS, Page 8 By DAN BIDDLE A leading Far East specialist warns that the next step in the U.S. air war will be the "geno- cidal bombing" of flood dikes in North Vietnam. Speaking in Detroit recently, 41-year old Eqbal Ahmed warn- ed that the Nixon administra- tion will embark on a "quiet policy of snb ilation" by trigger- ing massive flooding of the Red River on North Vietnam's dense- ly po ulated coastal plain in the next two months. Ahmed, formerly a defendant in the "Harrisburg Seven con- spiracy trial, stated, in a later interview that such flooding would cause "anywhere from half a million to a million deaths and create up to 6 million re- fugees." Ahmed described President Ni- xon's statement at the June 29 press conference which den- ied reports that dikes had been bombed in the Hanoi area as "a clear falsehood" in view of an eyewitness report the next day from Agence France Presse re- porter Jean Thoraval. Thoraval's account, published July 1 in the London T i m e s, described a demolished dike at the town of Phu Ly, some 40 miles south of Hanoi. Thoraval said three days of U.S. bombing runs had destroyed all the dam's sluice gates, creating the dang- er of "major flooding in the ten districts of the Nam Ha pro- vince," which is directly below Hanoi. Ahmed, who is a fellow at the Adlai Stevenson Institute of In- ternational Affairs, said tacti- cal bombing of the dikes would be "the next logical escalation' of the air war. Referring to foreign correspondent Anthony Lewis' article in the July 3 is- sue of The New York T i m e s. Ahmed claimed that the only other "escalation option" open to President Nixon would be the use of tactical nuclear weapons. He agreed with Lewis' con- clusion that strategic bombing to trigger floods would give the President an opportunity to bring about massive destruction of North Vietnam while pointing to natural flooding and "mistakes" as the cause rather than making a major policy decision. Both Lewis and Ahmed blast- ed a State Department explana- tion that accidental bombing of the dikes "could not be ruled out' and might occur due to at- tacks from anti-aircraft guns at or near the dikes, or when U.S. fighter-bombers engaged in aer- ial combat released their bombs to gain speed. "What we are seeing," con- tinued Ahmed, "is a systematic softening of the entire dike sys- tem in the Red River Delta of North Vietnam through a series of so-called accidents and mis- takes. These accidents are lead- ing up to the monsoon season of July and August. "At that point, all it will take will be a single bombing acci- dent to trigger flooding all over the delta plain and hence an un- believable amount of death and destruction." Ahmed dismissed a State De- partment prediction of h e a v y flooding in North Vietnam (ee to naturally weakened dikes as "absolutely untrue." "These dikes have been up for seven centuries," he explained. "The only previous disaster was due to the French bombing in 1953 and 54. If there is a new flooding disaster in July and Au- gust, it, too, will be triggerud by bombs." Is MCOveru weakening? See sisry, Page :t