This Day In 1970's History: Tuesday December 5, 1978
- The dismissal of two F.B.I. supervisors is planned by William Webster, Director of the bureau. The two were involved in a series of allegedly illegal break-ins, wiretaps and mail openings during a search for fugitive radicals in the 1970's. Mr. Webster said he would not discipline 59 other Bureau employees, most of them street agents involved in the search, because they believed they were carrying out orders that were legal and proper. [New York Times]
- American Airlines' planned move of its headquarters and 1,300 jobs from New York to Dallas-Fort Worth is viewed in the Texas region as a vivid symbol of a long shift of money, business, industry and people to the Sun Belt from what Texans call the Frost Belt. [New York Times]
- The federal budget debate heated. Douglas Fraser, president of the United Automobile Workers, the nation's second biggest union, and Mayor Coleman Young of Detroit, one of President Carter's firmest allies among blacks, warned that a budget that curbed or cut domestic programs while raising military spending would damage the country and the Democratic Party. [New York Times]
- Police searches were broadened under a 5 to 4 decision by the Supreme Court. It ruled that a car passenger has no legal right to challenge the constitutionality of a search of the car, even if the search turns up evidence later used to convict him of a crime. The ruling narrows the scope of the prohibition against introducing illegally seized evidence at a trial. [New York Times]
- A consular official in Guyana responsible for United States dealings with the People's Temple commune in Jonestown was strongly defended by the State Department. It said the official, Richard McCoy, had had regular contact with the Guyanese police for a year and had reported to them his suspicions about the group. [New York Times]
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