News stories from Saturday September 23, 1972

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

For the first time, fertility in the United States has dropped to the replacement level -- the threshold of zero-population growth. According to findings by two federal agencies -- the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics -- the current total fertility rate has reached the milestone level of 2.1 children per young women of childbearing age. If that level continued for 70 years, it would mean births would exactly offset deaths and the nation would at last have reached the goal of the zero-population movement. [New York Times] The General Assembly of the United Nations tonight inscribed on its agenda an amended version of the item on terrorism that had been proposed by Secretary General Waldheim. The amended item called for "measures to prevent international terror which endangers or takes innocent human lives or jeopardizes fundamental freedoms and study of the underlying causes of those forms of terrorism and acts of violence and despair which cause some people to sacrifice human lives, including their own, in an attempt to effect radical change." [New York Times] President Ferdinand Marcos has followed up his declaration of martial law in the Philippines by announcing the mass arrest of what he said were Communist conspirators plotting to overthrow the government. He announced plans for economic reforms, and also imposed a curfew from midnight to 4 A.M. daily, and put controls on newspapers, radio stations and foreign correspondents. [New York Times] Most of the guerrilla force of Uganda exiles that invaded the country a week ago have retreated into Tanzania, or have been killed or captured, according to well-informed East African sources. If the reports are true, it would mean that the fighting in Uganda is near an end. Tanzania formally denied a Uganda government assertion that Uganda troops had penetrated shallowly into Tanzania in pursuit of the guerrillas. [New York Times] A leading North Vietnamese editor told a group of visiting Americans that his country was preparing for four more years of war if President Nixon was re-elected. Hoang Tung, editor of the Communist party newspaper, Nhan Dan, who said he expected Mr. Nixon to be re-elected, told the Americans -- four antiwar activists and a reporter -- that North Vietnam believed it had thwarted the American air and naval blockade aimed at cutting off armaments and fuel for front-line troops and that "we can accomplish our objectives." [New York Times]