Robb denies charges
LAS VEGAS (UPI)—Marine Maj. Charles Robb, former President Lyndon B. Johnson's son-in-law, Thursday denied charges that men under his command in Vietnam committed atrocities similar to those said to have occurred at Song My.
"Our policy, orders and deeds preclude such activity." Robb told a news conference. "We did not participate in any type of activity that has been asserted. Our actions were quite to the contrary. In fact we bent over backwards to avoid inflicting casualties to innocent civilians."
Robb, here to attend a 12th Marine District conference, saw reporters to respond to charges made by Anthony R. Martin-Trigona, 24, a real estate and investment broker from Champaign, Ill.
Martin-Trigona, who visited Robb's unit while serving as a correspondent for the University of Illinois' daily paper, the Daily Illini, made his charges in a letter to Sen. Charles H. Percy, R-Ill.
Percy forwarded the letter to, Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird, urging "full attention to and investigation of" Martin-Trigona's claims.
Robb, who was a captain when Martin-Trigona visited his unit, said he recalled seeing Martin-Trigona and said he had admired him for going along with the unit on some minor military operations.
"I am disappointed that he did not let us know right then" if he had seen any atrocities, Robb said.
Robb, now a recruiter for the Corps, said he did not mean that he knew absolutely that there had been no incidents, but "I observed or learned nothing to lead me to believe any atrocities occurred in that area."
Dec. 5
1969 KANSAN 17
Robb married Lynda Bird Johnson, the former President's daughter, two years ago. Columnist Jack Anderson quoted him as denying Martin-Trigona's claims.
Martin-Trigona, who put out a press release on his letter to Percy, wrote that he had visited Robb's company southwest of Da Nang in August 1968 and had been told by Robb's men that they had been ordered, "it it moves, kill it; if it doesn't, burn it."
In following these instructions, said Martin-Trigona, the Marines had murdered South Vietnamese civilians while conducting military operations.
Governor criticizes Nixon effort
OKLAHOMA CITY (UPI) — Gov. Robert B. Docking said Thursday night "it requires no great imagination to see that the Democrats shall soon again be called upon to give direction to our government, to resume leadership of America."
The governor's remarks were in a speech prepared for a dinner honoring four Democratic congressmen from Oklahoma.
Docking said the Nixon administration should not be content to be a "do-as-little-as-possible" government.
"It should offer more than rhetoric of resolution, devoid of any solid actions which are the real stuff of leadership," said Docking. "The war in Vietnam shows few signs of abatement. The cost of living continues to rise. At the same time, government spending is not significantly reduced."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson
Senate votes on benefits
WASHINGTON (UPI)—The Senate was offered a chance Thursday to rush a 15 per cent increase in Social Security benefits into law before the end of the year. It seemed likely that the Senate would seize the opportunity.
In an unexpected move, Sen. Russell B. Long, D-La., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, proposed that the Senate tack the Social Security benefit increase onto its tax reform bill, which is expected to be approved by the Senate before the year ends.
The amendment offered by Long was comparable to a bill approved Wednesday on the other side of the Capitol by the House Ways and Means Committee. The House is expected to vote on that bill soon, possibly next week.
'Breadbasket' head to talk on nonviolence
The Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference will speak here at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the Kansas Union Ballroom.
Mr. Jackson, who was named national director of Operation Breadbasket by the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., will speak on "Nonviolence: Is it Still Possible?"
Tuesday magazine of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote of Mr. Jackson that he is "a man of deep but practical religion and an intellectual who believes violence represents little more than wasted energy."
Referring to America's 24 million blacks Mr. Jackson said, "We live under colonialism because people who don't live in our community own everything in it. Black people must participate in the control of their community."
Speaking of the time prior to Operation Breadbasket Mr. Jackson said "I noticed a weakness in our approach of just getting jobs. All we were doing with our power leverage was to make more consumers. What was needed was to find a way to create black capitol."
Mr. Jackson is the associate minister at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church and the former
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