News stories from Saturday September 24, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The Panama Canal treaties would have "reservations or understandings" attached to them if the Senate consents to their ratification, Robert Byrd, the majority leader, predicted. Mr. Byrd wants further clarification of the right of the United States to send troops and ships to guarantee access to the canal and said he might propose a reservation or interpretation. Attaching conditions to the treaties and submitting amendments to them -- a tactic that helped kill the Senate's consent to ratification of the League of Nations treaty -- is a key strategy of the treaty opponents. [New York Times]
- The Bert Lance inquiry has led Congress to a broader examination of the ethics and soundness of the nation's banking industry. The House is considering legislation that would tighten banking laws, stiffen penalties for violations and limit insider lending and other forms of self-dealing. The Senate Banking committee will start on Monday a wide-ranging investigation of banking practices that were the focus of attention in the Lance inquiry. [New York Times]
- The Bakke case, by dividing civil rights and political action groups, threatens to break up a coalition that has pushed social and economic legislation for many years. The case, now before the Supreme Court, could determine the fate of programs that give preference to racial minorities in education and employment. Blacks and Jews who fought together against discrimination are taking opposite sides in Allan Bakke's suit against racial quotas at the medical school of the University of California at Davis. [New York Times]
- A U.S.-Soviet pact on strategic arms seems closer to the serious negotiating stage. Official statements that followed two days of talks in Washington between Secretary of State Cyrus Vance end Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko said that they were determined to achieve "within the near future" a new agreement limiting each side's strategic bomber and missile forces. These talks were by far the "best" of the three sessions Mr. Vance has had with Mr. Gromyko this year, a State Department spokesman said. Other officials agreed that the progress had been genuine. [New York Times]
- France's Communists and Socialists were explaining to their followers why the other party was to blame for the failure of their attempt to establish a joint platform at next spring's elections. The major reason for the break-up of the combined left, which commands 52 percent of the electorate, seemed to be that the Communists do not want to share power with the Socialists as junior partners. Polls give the Socialists 30 percent of the leftist vote. Another issue has been the extent to which private industry would be nationalized. [New York Times]
- More unmarried Soviet women are having children, and the leading Soviet literary weekly has suggested that this trend might boost the country's sagging birthrate and allow women who do not marry to have families. "Morality should not stand in the way of human happiness," said Literaturnaya Gazeta, an organ of the Writers Union, which may reflect, at least in part, the official view. Moscow is known to be concerned over a birthrate that is about 18 per 1,000 of population. One new mother in 10 is unmarried. [New York Times]