The Michigan Daily
Vol. XC, No. 16-S Ann Arbor, Michigan-Friday, May 30, 1980 Ten Cents Sixteen Pages
Jordan off critical list
Black
leader
survives
shooting
By JULIE ENGEBRECHT
Specialto the Daily
With wire service reports
FORT WAYNE, Ind..- National Urban
League President Vernon Jordan Jr.
was shot and seriously wounded by a
sniper early yesterday as he returned
to his motel in a car driven by a female
civil rights worker.
Surgeons operated on Jordan for four
and one-half hours. Dr. Jeffery Towles,
the surgeon at Parkview Hospital who
operated on the 44-year-old civil rights
activist, said that eight hours after the
operation Jordan's vital signs - pulse,
breathing, and blood pressure - were
holding steady.
"WE HAVE downgraded his con-
dition from critical to very serious. This
does not mean he is out of danger. But it
means he is weathering the post-
operative period very well," Towles
said.
Jordan was shot in the back by an
unidentified rifleman about 2 a.m. EST
in the parking lot of the Marriott Inn.
Hours earlier he delivered a speech at
the motel critical of what he called the
nation's shift to the political right. .
The attack was the first on a
prominent leader of the civil rights
movement since the assassination of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Mem-
phis, Tenn., April 4,1968.
POLICE INITIALLY suggested that
the ambush by a gunman lying in wait
might have resulted from a "domestic-
type thing," said police spokesman Dan
Gibson, but he later ruled that out.
"The domestic situation has been
completely ruled out," he said last
night. "Now we're going with the idea
that it was an individual, possibly in-
volved alone, as an isolated type -in-
cident."
Gibson said police in this industrial
city of 175,000 were not ruling out the
possibility it was a racially-motivated
assassination attempt, but the Justice
Department said the initial evidence
indicated it was not.
JORDAN CAME off the critical list
Thursday evening, but doctors said the
black civil rights leader is "not out of
the woods yet."
Police Chief Leon Wolfe said a gun-
man fired two or three shots from a
grassy area near the intersection of
three roads about 125 feet from the spot
where Jordan fell in the hotel parking
lot.
Wolfe said two policemen spokewith
Jordan at about 5:30 p.m. EST but that
See JORDAN, Page 14
NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE President Vernon Jordan (inset) was gunned down and critically wounded early yesterday
shortly after stepping out from this 1970 Grand Prix in front of his motel room at the Marriott Inn at Fort Wayne, Ind.
U.S. clears agreement .
to aid hin' m ar
WASHINGTON (AP)-In a historic move, the Carter
administration yesterday cleared the way for the first sales
of military-related equipment and technology to the com-
munist government of China.
Defense Secretary Harold Brown made the announ-
cement after extensive talks with Chinese Vice Premier
Geng Biao. Brown said the U.S. government had approved
export license applications for a wide range of equipment
such as air defense radar, helicopters and communications
gear, and the sale of computers.
BROWN AND GENG stressed that the actions are
significant in what they described as a "step-by-step
relationship" between the two superpowers, which once were
enemies on the Korean battlefield.
Brown emphasized the moves did not represent the begin-
nings of a formal alliance between the countries, although he
said "the People's Republic of China and the United States
are friends."
He noted the landmark approvals do not involve the sale
of weapons or arms. Other defense officials, speaking
anonymously, saidsuch sales are not under consideration.
BUT GENG, SPEAKING through an interpreter, seemed
to imply China may later-ask to buy American weaponry.
"I don't think there is such a possibility at present, but I
believe there may be such a possibility in the future," Geng
said.
There was an atmosphere of warmth and cordiality as the
two defense leaders faced reporters after about two hours of
wind-up talks climaxing Geng's visit to Washington.
Geng, the highest ranking Chinese defense official to visit
the United States, has conferred with President Carter,
Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and some key members
of Congress.
The U.S. defense chief said they had "built a considerable
structure on the principles which we agreed on in my visit" to
China in January.
Brown stressed that many details still must be worked
out, "but we are considerably down the road."
He and other officials ,declined to discuss numbers or
dollars, although one senior official agreed sales to the
Chinese probably would reach into the hundreds of millions
of dollars. -
There will be no direct U.S. government sales to China.
Deals will be made between the Chinese government and
U.S. manufacturers subject to U.S. government export licen-
sing approval.