News stories from Wednesday May 15, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The Senate rejected a move to end the busing of schoolchildren to promote integration by a vote of 47 to 46 on a proposed amendment to the federal aid-to-education bill. After defeating the amendment, the Senate approved a much more limited anti-busing provision that would bar the busing of children between two districts, only one of which is in compliance with a court order to desegregate. [New York Times]
- Democratic members of the House voted overwhelmingly to force a yes-or-no floor vote on the immediate termination of the oil industry's 22 percent depletion allowance. The action by the Democratic caucus brought repeal of the depletion allowance closer than it has ever been. [New York Times]
- Amid charges by some members that significant portions of President Nixon's Watergate conversations had been omitted from edited White House transcripts, the House Judiciary Committee issued two new subpoenas for additional tapes and documents. The subpoenas give the President a week to provide the committee with tapes of 11 conversations and of White House diaries of the President's meetings over more than eight months in 1972 and 1973.
The subpoenaed tapes of the 11 presidential conversations could provide concrete evidence of the President's actions on three critical phases of the Watergate case -- whether the President knew of the intelligence-gathering scheme that led to the break-in; how much his aides told him immediately after the burglary, and his motives for limiting the investigation.
[New York Times] - General Alexander Haig, President Nixon's chief of staff, reportedly told the Senate Watergate Committee that he had been warned a year ago that a federal investigation of a mysterious $100,000 contribution from Howard Hughes could embarrass the President. Sources familiar with the testimony in the secret session said that General Haig had identified Secretary of the Treasury Simon, then a Deputy Treasury Secretary, as the source of the warning. [New York Times]
- President Nixon's former appointments secretary, Dwight Chapin, was sentenced to from 10 to 30 months in prison for lying to a federal grand jury about political espionage in the 1972 campaign. [New York Times]
- Sixteen Israeli high school students and three Arab guerrillas were slain when Israeli soldiers attacked a school in the northern town of Maalot where the terrorists had held about 90 students hostage, demanding the release of 20 terrorists held in Israeli jails. The Israeli attack on the school came shortly before a 6 P.M. deadline set by the guerrillas to blow up the school.
Addressing her nation over television, Premier Golda Meir pledged that Israel would do everything possible to guard against future terrorist attacks. Confirming that the government had reversed a long-standing policy against negotiating with terrorists, Mrs. Meir said a deal to release 23 prisoners in exchange for hostages had broken down because of confusion.
[New York Times] - The Maalot attack forced Secretary of State Kissinger to suspend his shuttle diplomacy, and both Israeli and American officials felt the events would probably impair Mr. Kissinger's quest for compromise on an Israeli-Syrian disengagement agreement.
The Israeli people reacted to the events at Maalot with a bitterness that some felt could be translated into political pressures that might endanger peace initiatives in the Middle East.
[New York Times] - In a demonstration of firm solidarity between West Germany's two governing coalition parties, Walter Scheel was easily elected to the largely ceremonial office of President by the presidential electoral college. [New York Times]
- General Antonio de Spinola took office as President of Portugal and named a left-leaning government pledged to establishing democratic rule. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 846.06 (-1.79, -0.21%)
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* |
| May 14, 1974 | 847.85 | 90.69 | 10.88 |
| May 13, 1974 | 845.59 | 90.66 | 11.29 |
| May 10, 1974 | 850.44 | 91.47 | 15.27 |
| May 9, 1974 | 865.77 | 92.96 | 14.71 |
| May 8, 1974 | 850.99 | 91.64 | 11.85 |
| May 7, 1974 | 847.15 | 91.46 | 10.71 |
| May 6, 1974 | 844.88 | 91.12 | 9.45 |
| May 3, 1974 | 845.90 | 91.29 | 11.08 |
| May 2, 1974 | 851.06 | 92.09 | 13.62 |
| May 1, 1974 | 853.88 | 92.22 | 15.12 |