News stories from Sunday February 24, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- John K. Andrews Jr., a former speech writer for President Nixon, has called for his impeachment -- the first former member of the White House staff to do so. He said that impeachment "may ultimately be interpreted as a conservative action, or an action which will conserve the essence of our liberties and our democracy to bring to account a leader who has abused his trust, and I'm afraid the President has." [New York Times]
- J. Edgar Hoover, the late director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, tried to help re-elect Representative John J. Rooney, a Brooklyn Democrat, and other stanch congressional supporters, by supplying them with sensitive information about their political opponents, according to a highly qualified source. Mr. Rooney is head of the House Appropriations subcommittee that largely controls the F.B.I.'s budget. [New York Times]
- Secretary of State Kissinger will leave tomorrow on another trip to the Middle East, hoping to bring about negotiations between Israel and Syria on separation of their military forces on the Golan Heights. Some Arab diplomats have suggested recently that a Kissinger success would lead the Arabs to end their oil embargo against the United States. But American officials who had wrongly predicted that the embargo would be lifted after Mr. Kissinger helped arrange the Israeli-Egyptian disengagement accord hesitated to join such speculation. [New York Times]
- Mr. Kissinger was elated by the results of the three-day conference of Western Hemisphere foreign ministers, as documented in a communique issued yesterday, according to one of his aides. The declaration establishes an informal framework for continuing high-level discussions, and if necessary, negotiations on troublesome issues between the United States and Latin American and Caribbean countries. [New York Times]
- Vice President Ford, in his first appearance in New York City since he became Vice President, said in a speech at a meeting of Bnai Zion, an American fraternal Zionist organization, that "an era of peace is within reach for the superpowers as well as the Middle Eastern countries." His remarks, apparently calculated not to arouse criticism of the Israelis or the Arab nations, were made as he received the 1974 America-Israel Friendship Gold Medal. [New York Times]
- Ray Harris of Ponca City, Okla., has gone back to Vietnam, but not as a soldier. This time he is behind a workbench, sitting next to South Vietnamese Air Force men, repairing jet fighter engines. He is among 2,800 American civilians without whose skills South Vietnam's most sophisticated weapons would fall into disrepair. Employed by private companies under contract to the U.S. Defense Department, American civilians constitute one facet of a vast program of American military aid that continues to set the course of the continuing Vietnam war more than a year after the signing of the Paris peace agreements. [New York Times]