News stories from Saturday March 8, 1980
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The hostage transfer plan in Teheran fell through when the militants holding the United States Embassy balked at turning the Americans over to the cus-tody of Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh. The transfer was forgotten in a barrage of harsh statements. The students and the Foreign Minister accused each other of lying about whether the transfer had been approved by Ayatollah Khomeini, and the militants, who had proposed the transfer, said they would not go through with it. [New York Times]
- No apology to Iran will be made by the United States for its role in Iran under the Shah, President Carter indicated at a White House meeting with reporters, but the administration is willing to express concern over the turn American-Iranian relations have taken since the Shah was deposed. [New York Times]
- Ronald Reagan decisively defeated John Connally and George Bush in South Carolina's Republican presidential primary, possibly starting the Southern sweep he and his campaign aides are hoping for. Voters turned out in record numbers despite a heavy rain to give Mr. Reagan a margin of about 2-to-1 over Mr. Connally. Mr. Bush ran a distant third. [New York Times]
- Unemployment is expected to increase under the anti-inflation plan about to be announced by President Carter, but he believes that problem is outweighed by the need to take strong action against rising prices. Mr. Carter is also apparently convinced that the restoration of economic confidence that he hopes his plan will achieve would bring him political benefits far greater than any damage he might suffer because of a higher jobless rate. [New York Times]
- The Census Bureau is being urged, under intense pressure, to artificially adjust its statistics to account for the millions of people who will probably elude the census takers this year. The pressure is coming from big cities, where the undercount is largest, from leaders of minority groups, from business people, from some members of Congress and from many statisticians. At stake in any alteration of census figures is the possible shift of billions of dollars in federal aid and a redistribution of political power. It would also affect many marketing decisions by businesses. [New York Times]
- Chicago's firemen ended their strike, which began nearly four weeks ago and was the first by firefighters in the city's history. They accepted an interim agreement that provides partial amnesty for participants in the illegal walkout and establishes a fact-finding committee to arbitrate key issues still left unsettled. [New York Times]
- Los Angeles residents are coping with the highest inflation rate of all the nation's largest cities, and their experience, often a bellwether for the rest of the nation, might be a preview of what lies ahead. [New York Times]
- Reports of Soviet casualties in Afghanistan have spread rumors all over the Soviet Union, but the government has remained silent, and no Soviet newspaper has given details about the Soviet role in Afghanistan. The hospitals in Tashkent reportedly were full of Soviet troops wounded in Afghanistan, and coffins for those who died were said to arriving daily in Moscow, in Odessa and in Soviet Central Asia. [New York Times]