News stories from Thursday March 18, 1976

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

The prosecutor in Patricia Hearst's bank robbery trial told the jury in his summation that her "story" was "just too incredible to believe," but her chief defense lawyer said, "This is not a case about bank robbery -- it is a case about dying or surviving." The government's case, which holds that she acted willfully, "is riddled with doubt," the defense lawyer said. [New York Times] Senator Frank Church of Idaho officially declared himself a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in a speech before about 2,500 people from the steps of the Boise County Courthouse in Idaho City in which he attacked "a leadership of weakness and fear" in Washington. [New York Times] Alger Hiss said that newly available files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation show that F.B.I. agents knew a former maid's son had his wife's typewriter before the time his wife was supposed to have typed documents on it for a Soviet spy network. [New York Times] Soon after he became Secretary of the Army in 1973, Howard Callaway attended a meeting of the United States Forest Service in Colorado and promoted the beneficial effects on the local area of a ski resort in which he had two-thirds interest. Mr. Callaway has insisted since he left as head of President Ford's national campaign committee last week that his only contact with the Forest Service was a "peripheral" meeting last July 3 with two close friends who were long-time officials at the Department of Agriculture. [New York Times] The Senate aging subcommittee on long-term care has produced material that it says points to a growing scandal in the care of the elderly -- the "warehousing" of old, mentally ill people who have been pushed out of state mental hospitals into substandard, profit-making boarding houses supported by federal welfare funds. The report is expected to be released in New York tomorrow by Senator Frank Moss, Democrat of Utah, the subcommittee's chairman. [New York Times] Queen Elizabeth II has consulted lawyers about the rift in the marriage of her sister, Princess Margaret, and the Earl of Snowdon. A Buckingham Palace source said the couple, who have been married nearly 16 years, appeared headed for legal separation but not a divorce. It was said that there will be no divorce, for the present at least, partly because the Church of England is strongly opposed to it. [New York Times] The Bank of America, the country's largest bank, has demanded further action by Governor Carey and the New York legislature to strengthen the security of state revenues as a condition for its assistance in meeting the state's critical borrowing needs this spring. The demands have been made known to top officers at the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, which has been acting as the state's agent in negotiations with the Bank of America, long a purchaser and underwriter of state securities, an official familiar with the talks said. The Bank of America has been asked to buy $125 to $150 million in state notes. [New York Times] The New York state Transportation Commissioner, Raymond Schuler, said that the state was prepared to buy a big section of the bankrupt Erie Lackawanna Railroad between New York and Ohio to keep freight service from being downgraded under the new federal rail corporation. The cost of about 1,500 miles of the line through four states would be $12 million to $18 million, and the money could come from a $250 million transportation bond issue authorized by the voters In November 1974, Mr. Schuler said. [New York Times] The Italian government announced a series of austerity measures that it hoped would ease the economic crisis and prevent its own political collapse. Gasoline prices were raised and sales taxes on automobiles, movie tickets, alcohol and other consumer items were increased, as were interest rates on loans. The announcement was made as the Christian Democrats, who govern the country, began a general meeting, their first in three years and one of their most crucial. [New York Times] Vice Adm. Gerald Miller, retired, who was in charge of nuclear targeting until his retirement in 1974, told a House International Relations subcommittee that the Defense Department proposed to revoke the authority given the North American Air Defense commander about 20 years ago to use nuclear weapons in certain circumstances. Only the North American command, of all the military commands, has the authority to fire nuclear weapons without the specific approval of the President. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 979.85 (-6.14, -0.62%)
S&P Composite: 100.45 (-0.41, -0.41%)
Arms Index: 0.98

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	498	5.89
Declines	936	10.81
Unchanged	420	3.63
Total Volume		20.33

* in millions of shares

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 17, 1976	985.99	100.86	26.19
March 16, 1976	983.47	100.92	22.78
March 15, 1976	974.50	99.80	19.57
March 12, 1976	987.64	100.86	26.02
March 11, 1976	1003.31	101.89	27.30
March 10, 1976	995.28	100.94	25.90
March 9, 1976	993.70	100.58	31.77
March 8, 1976	988.74	100.19	25.06
March 5, 1976	972.92	99.11	23.03
March 4, 1976	970.64	98.92	24.41