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News stories from Saturday December 11, 1971
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Senator Hubert Humphrey was reported to have set a mid-January date for his formal entrance into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He was said to have committed himself to primary fights in Florida, Wisconsin and other states. And he said in an interview that his strategy was to "win a few." [New York Times]
- The resignation of David Packard as deputy Secretary of Defense, the no. 2 position at the Pentagon, was announced by the White House. Mr. Packard was said to have missed ranching and to have not enjoyed Washington life. [New York Times]
- Authorities reported that an explosion in a water tunnel under construction near Port Huron, Mich., had killed 17 men. At least 22 workers escaped. [New York Times]
- India reported the seizure of five more East Pakistani towns and the capture of at least 3,000 Pakistani soldiers. It was difficult to judge what progress Indian troops were making in their drive toward Dacca, the capital of East Pakistan, but it seemed possible that the drive had slowed pending the arrival of more soldiers and equipment.
Pakistan conceded that the East Pakistan situation was "grim," with the landing of a brigade of Indian paratroops north of Dacca. But a spokesman continued to insist that the major East Pakistani towns, including Jessore and Comilla, were still controlled by Pakistani troops, despite widespread news of their fall last week. [New York Times]
- Senator William Fulbright and other Senators decided to fight Senate adoption of a resolution permitting the foreign aid program to continue unchanged until next March. The group said its planned filibuster was a protest against the procedure by which the aid resolution was formulated by the House and the administration, bypassing the Senate and its committees. [New York Times]
- In a move signalling a struggle for leadership of the section of the black community mobilized by the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson resigned as national director of Operation Breadbasket, the economic arm of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Mr. Jackson has been feuding with the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, the S.C.L.C. director. [New York Times]
- Appearances by John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono, who sang a new song dedicated to John Sinclair, and, earlier, a telephone call to Sinclair at Jackson State Prison, were the highlights of a rally in Ann Arbor, Mich., to protest the imprisonment of the radical poet, who is appealing a nine-and-a-half year marijuana possession sentence. [New York Times]
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