This Day In 1970's History: Friday February 11, 1977
- President Carter signaled his intention to pursue normal diplomatic relations with Vietnam with the announcement that he plans to send an American delegation there to discuss missing American military personnel and other issues. His plans were disclosed in an aide's report of his conversations with officials of the National League of Families, a group representing families of military men still listed as missing in action or presumed dead. According to sources in the White House and the State Department, it appeared that the President's proposal has received preliminary favor in Hanoi. [New York Times]
- The President flew home to Plains, Ga., for the weekend in a huge military aircraft that would be the nation's airborne command post in time of war. It was the first time that a President had flown in the plane, a military version of the Boeing 747. Mr. Carter had requested the demonstration flight. He was accompanied by a 15-member multi-service battle staff. [New York Times]
- President Carter made public details of a trust agreement that removes him, while he is President, from any control over the farmland and peanut warehouse business owned by him and his family in Georgia. The agreement specifically instructs Charles Kirbo, an Atlanta lawyer named as the trustee, to arrange the assets so that the trust's income will not be substantially affected by federal legislation, such as price supports for peanuts or other agricultural products. [New York Times]
- Government economic indicators gave a somewhat reassuring view of the nation's prospects following the recent spell of unusually cold weather. The Commerce Department said that consumer buying, with emphasis on automobiles and auto accessories, rose in the first week of February following a decline in January. Wholesale prices, according to the Labor Department, rose by an annual rate of 6 percent in January, roughly the same rate in the previous half year. [New York Times]
- Attorney General Griffin Bell ordered a federal grand jury inquiry into the 1975 shotgun slaying of 26-year-old Richard Morales by the former police chief of Castroville, Tex., a town near San Antonio. In issuing the order, Mr. Bell imposed stricter guidelines than did a Justice Department ruling, made in 1959, that had the affect of limiting the prosecution of persons who had been tried earlier for the same offense in state or local courts. A federal grand jury inquiry into the Morales case was merited, Mr. Bell said, by the serious allegations of abuse of authority by a law enforcement officer. [New York Times]
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