News stories from Thursday February 18, 1971

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

Three U.S. helicopters and one bomber were shot down over Laos; U.S. helicopters are flying support, supply and recovery missions and ferrying South Vietnamese troops into Laos. South Vietnam's forces are approaching Tchepone, and reinforcements reached a U.S. outpost near Khe Sanh. [CBS] Communist negotiators at the Paris Peace Talks charged that President Nixon plans to extend the war into North Vietnam and warned of a greater threat to Red China. Senator George McGovern stated that extending the air war dares Red China to join the fighting. [CBS] There is much speculation about Red China's role in the expanding Indochina War. China claims that the Laos operation threatens them, but China doesn't want to be involved in the war and North Vietnam doesn't want China in North Vietnam. South Vietnam's goal of military victory and the belief that China would intervene in the event of an attack on North Vietnam is a long-term concern. The Laos operation is the most critical action of the war up to now. [CBS] In the second day of Senate testimony regarding corruption in U.S. military clubs and post exchanges, the vice president of Jim Beam Distillers said that he condoned the establishment of a villa in South Vietnam by William Crum for post exchange officers only because he had no choice, since he was informed of it after the fact. Furthermore, it was not made clear that such practices would not be condoned in the future. The committee is deciding whether to call military witnesses. [CBS] Defense Secretary Laird announced that all domestic military surveillance is now under civilian control. [CBS] Kent State University president Robert White will step down to become a professor of education. [CBS] Black Panther Huey Newton is living in a $700 a month apartment in Oakland, California, as a security precaution against police raids. [CBS] Air pollution has reached emergency levels in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Local burning is stopped and factories have cut back on production. [CBS] President Nixon and Senator Edward Kennedy presented competing national health plans. The President proposed a plan to expand private insurance coverage; the Kennedy plan is for cradle-to-grave coverage. The administration's plan is estimated to cover less than half of patients' health expenses; the Kennedy plan is estimated to cover 70% of expenses, but it costs more. The administration plan attempts to repair the present system; the Kennedy plan represents a new federal system. [CBS] A Senate committee report stated that federal government housing policies have destroyed more low income housing than they have provided. [CBS] Undersecretary of the Interior Fred Russell resigned. He reportedly was pressured to do so for assigning unqualified people to the coal mine Safety Advisory Committee. [CBS] Senate reformers were unable to get a two-thirds majority to end the filibuster on a bill to change the two-thirds requirement to three-fifths. [CBS] Adolf A. Berle, one of the shapers of President Roosevelt's New Deal, died yesterday in New York City at the age of 76. [CBS] In an interview, former prisoner of war Col. Norris Overly described being wired to a 50-gallon fuel drum in a North Vietnamese truck heading north and being placed in a bamboo cage in a hut with his feet in wooden stocks for 29 days. Overly said that he was not beaten, but considered his treatment as torture. [CBS]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 885.06 (-2.81, -0.32%)
S&P Composite: 97.56 (-0.64, -0.65%)
Arms Index: 1.15

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	457	4.35
Declines	940	10.26
Unchanged	288	2.04
Total Volume		16.65

* in millions of shares

Arms Index is the ratio of volume per declining issue to volume per advancing issue; a figure below 1.0 is bullish.

Market Index Trends
Date	DJIA	S&P	Volume*
February 17, 1971	887.87	98.20	18.72
February 16, 1971	890.06	98.66	21.35
February 12, 1971	888.83	98.43	18.47
February 11, 1971	885.34	97.91	19.26
February 10, 1971	881.09	97.39	19.04
February 9, 1971	879.79	97.51	28.25
February 8, 1971	882.12	97.45	25.59
February 5, 1971	876.57	96.93	20.48
February 4, 1971	874.79	96.62	20.86
February 3, 1971	876.23	96.63	21.68