News stories from Sunday May 25, 1975

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

Nine months after taking office, President Ford, who did not have time to develop a national platform, has begun defining the goals he would like the nation to endorse. As described in the White House, they are essentially conservative goals, including two high-priority programs. The first will deal with crime control and will call for mandatory imprisonment of repeating offenders. The second contains a series of proposals that curb the rapid growth of federal spending on social programs, including food stamps, veterans' benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and government pensions. [New York Times] A 31-year-old Air Force sergeant, a self-declared homosexual, has decided to challenge the ban against homosexuality in the military forces. Sgt. Leonard Matlovich joined the Air Force in 1963 and has served with distinction, receiving a medal, including the Purple Heart, for each of his three tours in Vietnam. He recently delivered a letter to his supervising officer at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va., stating that he was a homosexual, knowing that this would likely bring a discharge. He was notified that a discharge had been initiated -- a "general" one, less than fully honorable. Sergeant Matlovich's letter was, to lawyers, the opening round of a classic test case -- a clear-cut challenge by a ''perfect" challenger. [New York Times] Facing solid opposition from Moslems and parliamentary forces, Lebanon's military cabinet was near collapse. A severe clash in southern Lebanon with Israeli troops in which seven Lebanese soldiers were killed and two seriously wounded barely distracted attention from the political crisis caused by weeks of street fighting and the appointment Friday' night of a cabinet of military officers. President Suleiman Franjieh was under heavy pressure from other Arab governments to restore a parliamentary cabinet. [New York Times] A midnight border encounter between Israeli and Lebanese soldiers, described by the Israeli military headquarters spokesman as "accidental and unintentional," developed into an occasionally fierce battle that lasted 12 hours, with an Israeli air strike and artillery and mortar exchanges. The Israelis said that two of their soldiers were killed, and estimated that Lebanese losses were much heavier. [New York Times] At separate meetings in France and Austria, two groups of leading European Socialists took contradictory stands on working with Communists, and appeared to be drifting into rival factions. Socialist leaders from southern Europe ended their weekend meeting in southwestern France with a plan to call a formal conference of their parties later this year. The prime purpose seemed to be support for Mario Soares, the Portuguese Socialist leader. [New York Times] Customs officials have uncovered an international smuggling operation using German and Mexican connections that supplies cancer sufferers in the United States and Canada with large quantities of a drug, generally known as laetrile, but also sold under other names, that has been outlawed in both countries as a worthless nostrum. Quantities coming from Mexico are said to exceed in volume the Mexican brown heroin reaching addicts in this country. [New York Times]