News stories from Saturday November 18, 1972
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Nixon interrupted his stay at Camp David in the Maryland mountains to return to the White House for final consultations with Henry Kissinger, who will leave tomorrow for Paris and the resumption of the Vietnam peace talks. The presidential press secretary said Mr. Nixon planned to return to Camp David, presumably after Mr. Kissinger's departure, where he has been concentrating on the reorganization of his administration. [New York Times]
- United States air strikes against North Vietnam fell off sharply, and ground fighting in South Vietnam continued the decline begun two weeks ago, according to allied military spokesmen. United States Air Force and Navy jets made only 30 strikes against the North yesterday, the American command reported, compared with a daily average of 200 for the rest of the week. [New York Times]
- Dr. Leon Netterville, the 65-year-old embattled president of Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., came out of seclusion to denounce his accusers and assert his intention to stay on as president. Some of the activist student leaders at the predominantly black college charged that Dr. Netterville, who is black, had conspired with the white authorities to "set up" the killing of two black youths in a confrontation with police on Thursday. [New York Times]
- Senator John Tower, Republican of Texas, reported campaign spending of more than $2.5 million in his successful re-election effort, making his Senate seat apparently the most expensive non-presidential office of the 1972 election. By all estimates, when the final official campaign contribution and expenditure figures are published on Jan. 31, the 1972 elections at all levels will prove to have been a $400 million enterprise, up $100 million from the record estimated to have been spent in 1968. [New York Times]
- Several thousand followers of Juan Peron, mostly young men and women, crowded into the street outside his new home in a well-to-do suburb of Buenos Aires -- a $93,000 house bought for him by his political backers -- after the government relented and lifted a ban on demonstrations in his honor. When Mr. Peron returned to Argentina on Friday after a 17-year exile, government tanks, troops and armored cars kept his followers from welcoming him. His aides later charged that Mr. Peron was, in effect, a prisoner of the government. [New York Times]
- Chancellor Willy Brandt of West Germany, stressing in an interview that it is impossible to solve the problem of divided Germany except within a European framework, has pledged himself to continue working slowly "to make life easier for the German people and hope that conditions will improve with change." He seemed confident of victory in tomorrow's federal election, where he will meet conservative opposition. He also said that to ask East Germany at this time to remove the Berlin Wall would lead to nothing "except the inflaming of emotions." [New York Times]