News stories from Saturday August 11, 1973
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Nixon personally authorized a secret cross-border Marine Corps combat operation inside Laos two days after his inauguration in 1969, government sources said. Similar large-scale ground assaults, aimed at North Vietnamese supply lines and base camps inside Laos, had been repeatedly proposed and rejected by the Johnson administration, according to the sources. The authorized penetration into Laos, the sources said, was part of a major marine operation in enemy-controlled territory near the A Shau Valley in northern South Vietnam. [New York Times]
- Beef, pork and lamb are still readily available in stores around the country. There may be shortages of particular cuts, but there is no overall meat famine, a survey by The New York Times has found. But shoppers and sellers report that prices are climbing every day. [New York Times]
- The current 60-day price freeze ends at midnight tomorrow and government control officials concede that some prices may rise almost immediately. All businesses -- manufacturing, service, wholesale and retail -- with fewer than 60 employees will be completely free of price or wage control. They can raise prices at once, if market conditions and competition permit. [New York Times]
- The Nixon administration is considering a proposal to provide subsidized housing for America's poor that would tie housing to basic welfare reform, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The government's subsidized housing programs have been dormant since Jan. 8, when George Romney, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, ordered a freeze on applications until the government's approach to subsidized housing could be studied. H.U.D. study groups have now produced a series of major alternative approaches. [New York Times]
- Records subpoenaed by federal investigators show the employees of nine Maryland consulting engineering companies contributed $18,250 to Spiro Agnew during his 1966 campaign for Governor of Maryland. The government has told Vice President Agnew that it was investigating him on charges of possible bribery, extortion and conspiracy. One of the allegations is that while he was Governor, he received under-the-table payments from consulting engineers. Mr. Agnew has described such allegations as "damned lies" and predicted that he would be completely vindicated. [New York Times]
- Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the deposed Cambodian chief of state, has said in a message to Mike Mansfield, the Senate Democratic leader, that "peace with honor" could be attained by the United States if Washington ends the bombing of Cambodia and cuts off military supplies to Phnom Penh, diplomatic sources in Peking said. Senator Mansfield said that he had not received the cablegram. [New York Times]
- Lebanon charged Israel with "air piracy" for forcing a Lebanese commercial airliner with 81 persons aboard to land in Israel Friday night and called for international sanctions against Israel. Fahmi Shahin, the Minister of Information, said consultations had begun with permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, including the United States, to convene the council to hear the Lebanese complaint.
Moshe Dayan, Defense Minister of Israel, said in an unscheduled television interview that the aim of the diversion of the Lebanese airliner had been to seize Dr. George Habash, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. That organization, General Dayan said, was responsible for the killing of three passengers, two of the Americans, and the wounding of 55 others in the Athens airport last week. Dr. Habash, a physician trained at the American university in Beirut, and his organization were behind many of the early hijackings by Palestinian guerrillas.
[New York Times]