News stories from Thursday March 9, 1972
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Columnist Jack Anderson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his disclosure of the Justice Department-ITT settlement. Anderson and his associate, Brit Hume, appeared with the memo from ITT lobbyist Dita Beard which set off the controversy. It alleges that Attorney General John Mitchell was helping with the settlement, and it advised secrecy about ITT's pledge to contribute to the Republican national convention.
Anderson claimed again today that Attorney General nominee Richard Kleindienst lied about having no involvement with the ITT case, and therefore he is unfit to be Attorney General. Republican Senators Roman Hruska, Hiram Fong and Marlow Cook, and Democrats James Eastland and Sam Ervin objected. Hume reported on conversations with Mrs. Beard in which she stated that Mitchell had told her of pressure from President Nixon to settle the ITT case "reasonably". Mitchell is scheduled to testify tomorrow; he denied statements attributed to him which involve the President with the ITT case.
[CBS] - TWA continued to hunt for bombs on its planes, and other airlines are reporting bomb threats and extortion attempts. President Nixon has vowed to stop airline extortion, even though his sky marshal program failed to stop hijackings.
Nixon demanded the tightening of aircraft security measures and he called on Transportation Secretary John Volpe to meet with top airline executives. Volpe and General Benjamin Davis, who heads the anti-hijacking program, will order airlines to keep weapons, explosives and unauthorized persons off of aircraft and tighten baggage checks and the security of aircraft servicing. Davis said that the new procedures are designed to halt hijacking and extortion threats. A FAA spokesman discouraged airlines from paying ransom demands. At O'Hare Airport today, a bomb threat was made regarding a Delta Airlines plane.
[CBS] - In New York City, federal and county grand juries indicted author Clifford Irving and his wife Edith for their roles in the discredited autobiography of Howard Hughes. The county grand jury also indicted researcher Richard Suskind. Charges against the Irvings and Suskind range from mail fraud to conspiracy.
The government revealed its version of how the book was written. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Morvillo said that tapes were made in Ibiza, Spain, with Irving and Suskind alternating Hughes' role. Information for the book came from the New York City public library, the files of the Los Angeles Times, Time and Life magazines, transcripts from the Library of Congress, and some of it was just made up. Pleas of guilty or innocent will be made on Monday.
[CBS] - U.S. jets attacked targets in North Vietnam for the eighth straight day, the latest in retaliation for North Vietnamese anti-aircraft fire on U.S. reconnaissance planes. An American jet was shot down over Laos two days ago; two crewmen are missing. [CBS]
- Eight Americans were injured by a booby trap today, and five Americans were killed in Vietnam last week; altogether 38 were injured. South Vietnamese soldiers are still dying in dozens of rarely-reported small clashes, at a rate of 40 per day. Funeral processions are endless. [CBS]
- Three people were killed and four injured in a Catholic neighborhood of Belfast, Northern Ireland, from a bomb explosion. Residents claim that a bomb was thrown from a passing truck, but officials say that an accident occurred while IRA members were manufacturing a bomb. [CBS]
- Three members of a special police squad broke up a card game in Detroit in which five of the six players were off-duty sheriff's deputies. A misunderstanding prompted a gun battle which resulted in the death of one deputy and the wounding of three others. [CBS]
- Senator Edward Kennedy has been entered in the Oregon Democratic presidential primary, and he apparently will not be able to withdraw his name from the ballot. [CBS]
- The Florida presidential campaign is warming up, with candidates taking aim at Alabama Governor George Wallace. Edmund Muskie urged former Kennedy supporters to turn away from Wallace. John Lindsay chided Wallace for not talking about gun control and crime.
George McGovern attacked Wallace at a campaign stop. McGovern, fresh from his "moral victory" in New Hampshire, was greeted by 1,500 students at the University of Florida. McGovern said that many political myths died in the New Hampshire primary and, speaking before Florida legislators, he discussed issues which are being ignored by Wallace in his frenzied anti-busing campaign.
[CBS]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 942.81 (-2.78, -0.29%)
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* |
| March 8, 1972 | 945.59 | 108.96 | 21.29 |
| March 7, 1972 | 946.87 | 108.87 | 22.64 |
| March 6, 1972 | 950.18 | 108.77 | 21.00 |
| March 3, 1972 | 942.43 | 107.94 | 20.42 |
| March 2, 1972 | 933.77 | 107.32 | 22.20 |
| March 1, 1972 | 935.43 | 107.35 | 23.67 |
| February 29, 1972 | 928.13 | 106.57 | 20.32 |
| February 28, 1972 | 924.29 | 106.19 | 18.20 |
| February 25, 1972 | 922.79 | 106.18 | 18.18 |
| February 24, 1972 | 912.70 | 105.45 | 15.86 |