News stories from Saturday June 8, 1974

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

When the Federal Bureau of Investigation was told to stop the 17 so-called "national security" wiretaps on newsmen and officials that began in 1969, that order came from Henry Kissinger's National Security Council office, according to highly reliable sources. The sources said that specific "turn-off" orders were telephoned to the F.B.I. as late as February, 1971, when the last eight wiretaps were stopped by Gen. Alexander Haig, who at that time was a deputy of Mr. Kissinger. These new allegations, which were confirmed by the New York Times with officials deeply involved in the wiretaps, contradict Mr. Kissinger's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last fall. [New York Times] The Bank of America in San Francisco, the world's largest commercial bank, announced the settlement of a class action suit brought on behalf of its women employees, which a bank official said represents "a breakthrough for women" as well as having vast personnel ramifications throughout the banking industry. The settlement will provide an estimated $10 million a year in additional wages for women (73 percent of the bank's 54,000 employees are women), and increase the overall proportion of its women officers to 40 percent by the end of 1978. The agreement contains a provision for a $3.75 million trust fund that the bank will establish for women employees for training, education, travel, sabbatical leaves and other "self-development" programs. [New York Times] The Krupp Foundation, which controls the Krupp industrial complex in West Germany, has given $2 million to Harvard University toward "the strengthening of relations between America and Europe." The gift was announced by Harvard. Half of the income from the gift will be used to establish a new chair in European studies for a senior professor. The rest will support seven or eight graduate students, for whom fellowship money has become quite scarce in recent years as the focus of American political and scholarly interest has shifted to Asia. [New York Times] A tentative settlement was announced in the week-long nationwide strike by 110,000 workers in the men's and boy's tailored clothing industry. The accord was announced in Washington following three days of intensive bargaining. [New York Times] A wide-ranging military and economic agreement, which both sides said "heralded an era of increasingly close cooperation," was signed in Washington by the United States and Saudi Arabia. The agreement establishes two joint commissions, one on economic cooperation, and the other on Saudi Arabia's military needs. It was the first agreement of its kind between the United States and an Arab country, and American officials said they hoped it would provide Saudi Arabia with incentives to increase her oil production and would serve as a model for economic cooperation between Washington and other Arab nations. The agreement was signed by Secretary of State Kissinger and Prince Fahd Ibn Abdel-Aziz, Second Deputy Premier of Saudi Arabia and a half-brother of King Faisal. [New York Times] After eight days of deliberation, the Palestine National Council voted overwhelmingly in Cairo for a policy platform enabling its leaders to take part in the Geneva peace talks on the Middle East, provided what the council describes as the national rights of the Palestinian people are recognized as an issue. The vote in the 150-member council, which serves as a parliament for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was regarded as a victory for the movement's moderate wing led by Yasser Arafat. It was taken for granted that the Geneva conference, contrary to earlier expectations, will not convene in July. Egyptian and Arab diplomatic sources now say that the more likely date will be late December, following a summit meeting of Arab heads of state. [New York Times] A new series of atmospheric nuclear tests by France in the South Pacific this summer will be her last in the atmosphere, a spokesman for President Valery Giscard d'Estaing said. After the forthcoming tests, the eighth series undertaken by France in the South Pacific, all others will be conducted underground, the spokesman said. No date was given for the new tests, but the official announcement said that a zone around Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia would be closed to air and sea traffic starting Tuesday. [New York Times]