Creator of 'Perry Mason'
Erle Stanley Gardner dies at age 80
TEMECULA, Calif. (UPI) — Mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner, who drew on 25 years of courtroom experience to create Perry Mason, the fictional lawyer who never lost a case, died Wednesday at his home at the age of 80.
The author of more than 100
detective and Western stories was released from Riverside Community Hospital last month where he was undergoing treatment for an undisclosed illness.
Peggy Downs, Gardner's sister-in-law, said he died at 11:05 a.m. at his ranch home in Riverside County. His wife said earlier he
Two planes hijacked in separate incidents
By United Press International
Hijackers commanded two big jetliners Wednesday—one in the United States and the other in South America—and ordered Colombian hijacking was delayed because of mechanical difficulties.
The hijackings were the fourth and fifth of the year in the Western Hemisphere.
The first hijacking happened when a single gunman forced his way into the cockpit of United Air Lines' flight 361, en route from Cleveland to West Palm Beach, with intermediate stops in Atlanta, Ga. and Tampa, Fla. There were 99 passengers on the big Boeing 727 jet and a crew of seven.
The jet touched down in Atlanta at 10:04 to refuel, then 32 minutes later took off toward Cuba. During the tense refueling, a single fuel truck drove to a remote section of runway at the busy airport and gassed the plane.
None of the passengers were allowed to leave the plane in Atlanta. FBI agents and detectives swarmed through the terminal, but a United spokesman., Jim Ramsey, said they had "strict orders" to stay away from the plane."
The plane returned to Miami at 6:37 p.m.
An Avianca airliner with 78 persons on board was hijacked
The crew exchanged only routine conversation with the control tower while the plane was on the ground. When the craft took off for Havana, all outbound traffic at the airport stopped.
was recovering from a number of minor ailments, but denied reports he was ill with cancer.
Battenfeld places first in college bowl contest
Battenfeld scholarship hall took first place in the 1970 intramural College Bowl competition held at KU Sunday. Kappa Sigma fraternity placed second and Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity finished third.
The members of the Battenfeld team were Myrl Duncan, Paola senior; John Brown, Hoisington senior; John McRoberts, Derby junior; and Jim Beckman, Concordia junior.
Twenty-seven groups were entered in the competition. Each group had four members plus one alternate.
Mar. 12
1970 KANSAN 7
Gardner, who dictated his thrillers to seven secretaries, ground out the Perry Mason mysteries so fast he never spent more than 30 minutes roughing out his plot.
while flying from Bogota, Colombia to Barranquilla. The plane landed at Cartagena, apparently only to refuel and remained on the ground only five minutes.
The plane touched down later at Barranquilla, took on still more gas, and took off again for Cuba. But minutes out of Barranquilla, Capt. Sinofoso Gutierrez, the pilot, radioed that the plane had mechanical problems."
Again the plane set down in Barranquilla, where it was confirmed there were four hijackers, apparently armed with explosives. They threatened to blow up the craft unless officials at the airport "collaborated" to repair a faulty hydraulic landing gear.
The needed part was being flown in from Cartagena.
Murphy said transportation for the demonstration would be arranged through SUA. He added the demonstration in Kansas City did not rule out the possibility of anti-war activity in Lawrence during the same week in April.
Anti-draft week war rally planned by student mobe
Fred Murphy, Fayette, Mo. sophomore, said although other area colleges are in favor of the demonstration final plans would not be made until the regional SMC meeting Sunday in Kansas City.
Plans also were outlined for an Anti-draft Week March 16-22. Murphy said actions during the week would be directed toward the Lawrence Draft Board and local Army recruiters.
At a Student Mobilization Committee meeting last night in the Kansas Union, SMC members voted in favor of staging a mass anti-war demonstration April 15 in Kansas City including antiwar groups from Kansas and Missouri.
Plans for Mar. 19 include a vigil in front of the local draft board and harassment of draft board employees and Army recruiters. Murphy said harassment would include interfering with telephone calls and personal visits.
"The purpose of the Anti-draft Week activities is to gain support for the mass demonstration in Kansas City," Murphy said.
As well as the Mason series, Gardner also wrote detective stories under the pen names of A. A. Fair, Charles J. Kenny and Carleton Kendra.
His books sold more than 100 million copies, and the Perry Mason television shows starring Raymond Burr made his name almost synonymous with courtroom theatrics.
Born July 17, 1889 in Malden, Mass., the son of a mining engineer, Gardner decided to become a lawyer after a district attorney warned him he was breaking the law by taking part in a series of unlicensed amateur boxing exhibitions.
Gardner studied law in the offices of several of the best trial lawyers he could find and was admitted to the state bar of California when he was 21.
He practiced law in Oxnard and Ventura, Calif., for 10 years before he began writing short stories at night.
gan writing full-time, pouring out 20,000 words a day and six books a year. At one time he said his books were selling "at a rate of around two thousand an hour."
He wrote the first Perry Mason book in 1932 and eventually be-
Moynihan note says Vietnam war is lost
WASHINGTON (UPI) —White House adviser Daniel P. Moynihan told President Nixon that the Vietnam War was lost, he should end the draft, and that lower class Negroes should be upgraded to a stable working class.
The text of his memorandum to Nixon, dated Jan. 3 1969, was disclosed by the Newark News and New York Times-the second such "leak" to a newspaper of a Moynihan memo in the two weeks. In the first, which the Times reported, he suggested that Nixon treat Negroes with "benign neglect," continuing to promote their progress but with less rhetoric.
In the second memo—actually
written a year before the first one that became public Moynihan said American society suffered from disunity mostly because of the Vietnam War and the "Negro revolution." But, he said, the nation had remained stable principally because of the "great prosperity of the 1960s."
For that reason, Moynihan advised, "The single most important task is to maintain the rate of economic expansion. If a serious economic recession were to come along to compound the controversies of race, Vietnam and cultural alienation, the nation could indeed approach instability."
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