This Day In 1970's History: Monday December 2, 1974
- At his televised news conference, President Ford made pubic the details of a tentative agreement that he and Leonid Brezhnev had reached in Vladivostok. He said the accord put a "firm ceiling" on the arms race and created a "solid basis" for future arms reductions. "It's a good agreement and I think the American people will buy it," Mr. Ford said. [New York Times]
- President Ford said in his news conference that the nation now faced the triple challenges of inflation, recession and an energy crisis. It was the first time that he had not given inflation top priority when discussing the nation's economic problems. He called on Congress to act on his recommendations for $4.6 billion in budget cuts, urged that Congress not add more spending, and said he anticipated rising unemployment and asked Congress to pass emergency employment legislation before adjourning this year. [New York Times]
- House Democrats voted to divest the Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee and its chairman, Representative Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, of the authority to make committee assignments for other Democrats. The assignment authority, held by the committee's Democrats since 1911, was a major source of the vast power exercised by Mr. Mills.
Mr. Mills was the object of derision and scorn from his congressional colleagues because of his association with a strip-tease dancer. Many Democrats were openly talking of censure -- even of taking away his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee. [New York Times]
- Federal Judge John Sirica strongly suggested that he intended to let the Watergate cover-up case go to the jury without waiting to get testimony from former President Nixon. In a discussion about court hours, Judge Sirica said he was going to lengthen the court day to 6 P.M., and added that "We're going to try to finish this case by Christmas." [New York Times]
- Pioneer 11 transmitted the first pictures of Jupiter's south polar region and then continued its journey across the solar system to Saturn. Earlier it had cut its electronic eye on Callisto, second largest of the Jovian moons, and revealed what seems to be a polar cap like that on Mars. Callisto is intermediate in size between the planets Mars and Mercury. The composition of the apparent polar cap is uncertain. [New York Times]
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