The Michigan Daily Ten Cents Twelve Pages PRESIDENT FORD and top aides laugh with relief after hearing the news of the release of the Mayaguez crewmembers. Left to right: Brent Scowcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Kissinger and Ford. Regents question suggested changes in graduation rules Marine assault team airlifted from Cambodia WASHINGTON (A') - U.S. helicopters flew through darkness, evading small-arms fire yesterday and re- moved nearly 200 Marines from Koh Tang Island in the culmination of an assault which coincided with the release of an American merchant ship and its crew from Cambodia. Shortly after the Marine assault began, a Khmer Rouge radio broadcast said the ship and crew would be freed-although it made no mention of the attack or how and when the release would occur. MOREOVER, President Ford made it clear when the landing was publicly announced that the Marines would disengage upon recovery of the crew. Thus, observers are uncertain as to why the battle continued as long as it did-even after the Mayaguez had sailed. It is not clear if the Americans ever stepped ashore onto Koh Tang, target of the intense assault by more than 1511 Marines and US, fighters. WHEN FEAR that Mayaguezscrew members might still be on the island disappeared, the intensity and number of U.S. air strikes rose sharply. The planes pounded a tree line from which the Marines had been receiving fire, allowing the American troops to advance beyond a small beachhead they had established. By that time, three of the Thailand-based helicopters had been shot down and another two were disabled and were hobbling back toward their home bases. AS DARKNESS fell, U.S. military commanders poured on U.S. air power, and then ordered in heli- copters which lifted out the last of the Marines. Meanwhile, the Mayaguez had begun sailing toward Singapore. Pentagon officials said preliminary reports showed two Americans dead and 14 missing. Precise figures were unavailable on the wounded, but sources said several were seriously hurt and being treated aboard Navy ships. THE MARINES were lifted from Koh Tang to the aircraft carrier Coral Sea, which then stood 10 miles See MARINES, Page 11 By JEFF RISTINE Questions and criticism surrounding recommenda- tions from the Graduation Requirements Commission (GRC) dominated yesterday's meeting of the Univer- sity Board of Regents. While Acting Dean Billy Frye of the literary school (LSA) claimed that the GRC report's proposed changes met, as a whole, with great faculty support, several Regents were troubled by particular items in the Com- mission's suggested Faculty Code revisions. The GRC report advocates major changes in grading policies, distribution requirements and counseling procedures. ALSO AT the meeting, the Committee on Environ- mental Resources, Planning and Design released its report recommending establishment of a University- wide Council for Environmental Programs to coordi- nate environmental studies and a group of Native Americans condemned the lack of an Indian Studies Program at the University. The first strong criticism of the GRC report came from Regent Sarah Power (D-Ann Arbor), who charged that approval of the recommendations would result in "a diminution of one-to-one direct counseling." Powers said that while there exists a need to make academic programs "more diverse," the University also has a responsibility to satisfy students' counseling needs. BUT LSA Associate Dean Charles Morris said the report's intent is toward more "natural" counseling, not group counseling. "I don't perceive it as changing one-on-one counsel- ing," Morris responded, "in fact, I suspect it will make the exchange between student and counselor more significant." Morris said counselors today spend too much of their time with burdensome administrative business and that the GRC recommendations are intended to improve the quality of personal and academic counsel- ing. THE COMMISSION proposes that undergraduate See REGENTS, Page 7 Regents listen to Cobb affair critics By DAN BIDDLE The Regents yesterday heard leaders of black and women's activist groups voice anger over the literary college (LSA) deanship con- troversy and support for the Affirmative Ac- tion Committee's probe of the "Cobb affair." But the eight-member Board had nothing to say. They sat quietly and listened as Eunice Burns of the University Women's Commission and David Robinson of the Black Faculty and Staff Association (BFSA) echoed the affirma- tive action unit's harsh criticism at Vice Presi- dent for Academic Affairs Frank Rhodes, President Robben Fleming, and the Regents themselves. RHODES also said nothing. Fleming, seated Jewel Cobb directly opposite the speakers at the other end of the Regents' table, listened in tight-lipped, unblinking silence as Burns accused him of ignoring affirmative action guidelines. Non-discriminatory hiring procedures were "either not understood or not followed," Burns declared, "at almost every step" of the ad- ministration's negotiations with Jewel Cobb, the black woman educator chosen unanimously See RELATED STORY, Page S by the Regents in January to become dean of ISA. Her deanship appointment was rejected in a series of widely-criticized actions. The president remained silent as Robinson, reading a BFSA statement, branded Fleming and Rhodes' dealings with Cobb as "a sham." When the statements ended, the Regents asked no questions of Burns, Robinson, or See REGENTS, Page 10 Eunice Burns