News stories from Friday November 24, 1972

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

Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho held the fifth meeting of the current Vietnam peace talks near Paris. The meeting was supposed to be secret, but reporters found out about it. Afterwards, Kissinger visited French Foreign Minister Maurice Schumann.Rumors are circulating that the talks are in trouble. Probably still unresolved is the question of withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from South Vietnam before any cease-fire is reached. Saigon is insisting on a total withdrawal prior to a settlement. [CBS] Communists killed General Nguyen Van Thanh, who was the leader of "Cao Dai", a two million member political-religious sect in South Vietnam. Thousands turned out today at Thanh's funeral. The Cao Dai sect forms the nucleus of the South Vietnamese army, and Thanh was very close to President Thieu's government. Members of the sect fear further assassinations if a cease-fire does not occur. [CBS] A House committee is investigating disciplinary problems aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Constellation in San Diego. The committee is giving no details of its hearings so far, but Rep Floyd Hicks confirmed that hearings are not finished yet.A group of black sailors complained that the committee is ignoring the real problem -- discrimination. Electronics fireman Leroy Templeton said that the committee is trying to prove that permissiveness exists in the Navy and wants to use that to discredit Admiral Zumwalt rather than deal with racial problems. Petty officer Michael Dawson said that the committee questions are aimed at blaming the sailors for their disobedience. [CBS] President Nixon and his family are visiting New York City for the weekend. They arrived in town with only David Eisenhower, who is away on naval duty, missing. President Nixon visited his old law office. White House press secretary Ron Ziegler said that facilities have been set up in Nixon's hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria, to keep in touch with the Paris Peace Talks. [CBS] U.S. special representative Herbert Brownell visited the Mexicali Valley of Mexico to study the question of whether U.S. irrigation practices are ruining Mexican farmland; Mexican farmers in the valley are facing destruction because of salty water. Since 1965 their crops have been ruined, but on the U.S. side of the Colorado River large American farms in the Wellton-Mohawk Valley prosper. Water leaving the valley has a very high salt content.U.S. farmers feel that the Mexicans don't know how to farm. Farmer Jim Naquin said that the U.S. needs to teach the Mexicans to use the water they have. Mexico has dug 700 fresh-water wells for irrigation, but water from Wellton-Mohawk pollutes them with salt. This, the Mexicans claim, is a violation of the 1944 treaty with America over water rights. Mexican health investigators indicated a relationship between the high salt content of the water and the high incidence of kidney stones in older adults. Any remedy will require time, and meanwhile Mexican farmers and their families wait. [CBS] The search was given up for former House majority leader Hale Boggs and Alaska Rep. Nick Begich. Their plane was lost six weeks ago between Anchorage and Juneau, Alaska. [CBS] A man boarded an Air Canada plane parked at the Frankfurt, West Germany, airport and is threatening to blow up the plane with a stewardess aboard unless West Germany frees within 24 hours a Czech citizen who was jailed for air piracy, and then allows the hijacker and the freed prisoner to fly to Prague. [CBS] The Norwegian defense ministry reported that no firm evidence exists of a trapped submarine in Sogne Fjord, Norway, but the search continues. An unconfirmed report said that the sub is Polish, not Russian. Norway recalled how the U-2 incident ruined the Eisenhower-Khrushchev summit, and doesn't want to ruin the Helsinki talks on reducing East-West military forces in Europe. [CBS] British police gave Princess Anne a written warning after stopping her two times for speeding. [CBS] Crime is a problem in London, just as in America. The East London slum of Wapping is just as bad now as when Charles Dickens wrote about it in "Oliver Twist." Henry Farris, age 20, Keith Walker, 18, and Phil Hooper, 15, are three Wapping thugs. Farris has served 3½ years in jail; Walker, one year. These three and others like them have no jobs and no entertainment. Murders in Wapping are up 31% this year and robberies have increased 18%. Farris and Walker claim that they don't really hurt anybody, and don't regret robbing people. Gambling and drinking are rampant in Wapping. [CBS]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1025.21 (+4.67, +0.46%)
S&P Composite: 117.27 (+0.37, +0.32%)
Arms Index: 0.68

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	824	9.13
Declines	608	4.60
Unchanged	360	2.03
Total Volume		15.76

* 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*
November 22, 1972	1020.54	116.90	24.51
November 21, 1972	1013.25	116.21	22.11
November 20, 1972	1005.04	115.53	16.68
November 17, 1972	1005.57	115.49	20.22
November 16, 1972	1003.69	115.13	19.58
November 15, 1972	998.42	114.50	23.27
November 14, 1972	1003.16	114.95	20.20
November 13, 1972	997.07	113.90	17.21
November 10, 1972	995.26	113.73	24.36
November 9, 1972	988.26	113.50	17.04