News stories from Tuesday November 28, 1972
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Press secretary Ron Ziegler made the announcements of changes in President Nixon's cabinet. Elliot Richardson, current secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, will be nominated for Secretary of Defense. Caspar Weinberger, director of the Office of Management and Budget, will be nominated as Richardson's replacement. Roy Ash (a powerful California businessman and president of Litton Industries) will succeed Weinberger as OMB director. Rumors say that maritime commissioner Helen Bentley might replace John Volpe as Secretary of Transportation; Volpe may become the ambassador to Italy. The President is having difficulty finding a successor for George Romney as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. George Shultz will probably remain Treasury Secretary, and Rogers Morton might stay as Secretary of the Interior. Secretary of State William Rogers will probably also remain. [CBS]
- The Defense Department and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare spend the most money in the government, and will have new directors. Elliot Richardson will head the huge bureaucracy at the Defense Department. Melvin Laird did some overhauling of the procedures left by Robert McNamara and oversaw America's de-escalation of the Vietnam war, but he did not cut the defense budget much.
The Department of Health, Education and Welfare takes one-third of the federal budget -- a bigger amount than the Pentagon. Much of its budget (such as pensions) is unalterable. Under Richardson, the department lost the battle for welfare reform and pulled back from the school integration crusade. Richardson expects a shift in spending priorities from defense to HEW. Richardson actually wanted to be Secretary of State.
[CBS] - Defense Secretary Laird stated that fewer than 10,000 men will be drafted before the U.S. converts to an all-volunteer army, and nobody will be called in January, 1973. Laird said that a separate draft for reserves might become necessary, however. [CBS]
- South Vietnam President Thieu's personal envoy, Nguyen Phu Duc, arrived in Washington to meet with President Nixon. Peace talks are snagged over South Vietnam's demand that North Vietnamese troops pull out of South Vietnam. A compromise on the terms of the settlement is hoped for. Henry Kissinger will propose that after the cease-fire North Vietnamese troops would regroup in just three or four areas of South Vietnam. Communist troops would then be withdrawn in stages while South Vietnam's 1,000,000-man force is demobilized.
North Vietnam claims that it has no troops in South Vietnam.
[CBS] - Six U.S. planes bombed a South Vietnamese village near Danang by mistake; 19 people were killed and 29 wounded. An investigation has been ordered. [CBS]
- Irish Republican Army violence continues in Northern Ireland. Four people died in Ulster, three of them from a bomb in Londonderry and one policeman was killed by an anti-tank rocket in Belleck. Ten police stations and army posts came under such attacks. The IRA has vowed to do the same thing in Ireland unless IRA leader Sean MacStiofain is freed. MacStiofain was on a hunger strike, but a priest said that his fast was broken today.
In Dublin, the Irish Parliament is in the process of making it easier for the government to prosecute members of the IRA. Protesters in Ireland say that the government has sold out to the British, and Ireland is now a police state. Journalists are on strike because a Dublin reporter was sentenced to three months in prison for refusing to give evidence against MacStiofain. If MacStiofain dies, Dublin could turn into another Belfast.
[CBS] - In Helsinki, Finland, the European Security Conference talks are proceeding. Yesterday the talks were hung up by Romania's demand for equal representation for all countries regardless of political alignment. Today a compromise settled that problem. [CBS]
- A Japan Air Lines plane with 76 persons aboard crashed after takeoff near Moscow; 17 people survived, but 42 may have been killed. Two Americans were on board, their fate is unknown. The flight was en route from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Tokyo. [CBS]
- The Navy's racial problems are not confined to the carrier Constellation. The Kitty Hawk had a race riot involving 100 men while the carrier was operating in North Vietnamese waters. Sailors were ordered not to discuss the incident. Captain Marland Townsend said that the gag order came about because most sailors knew nothing of the incident, and he wanted to prevent rumors from circulating. Townsend refuses to discuss the incident, which he considers insignificant, but 21 blacks are facing court-martials as a result. [CBS]
- A 16-year-old black youth has been arrested for the shooting of five students at Pontiac, Michigan's Central High School yesterday. Two other black youths are charged with conspiracy to incite a riot. All three blacks are students at the high school. [CBS]
- The President is cutting down on the number of White House staff and curtailing their power, both of which had increased under his administration. Nixon will spend more time at Camp David, because he says he thinks better there. [CBS]
- The administration has vowed not to spend more than $2 billion for urban sewage facilities. Congress appropriated $3 billion, an amount which the President says is inflationary. [CBS]
- Professor Samuel Popkin was jailed last week for refusing to answer grand jury questions concerning the Pentagon Papers. He was freed today because the jury has been dismissed. Upon his release, Popkin said that grand juries have great powers and give witnesses no rights; he also said that grand juries pose the same type of threat that Senator Joseph McCarthy did. [CBS]
- A gold rush is taking place in Charlottesville, Virginia. At the site of an old house of ill repute, people have been finding hidden money -- thousands of dollars have been uncovered. One digger reported that he found $4,000, and he believes that a vault containing $250,000 is buried there. Rumors have spread and brought more diggers. [CBS]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1019.34 (+1.58, +0.16%)
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 27, 1972 | 1017.76 | 116.72 | 18.91 |
| November 24, 1972 | 1025.21 | 117.27 | 15.76 |
| 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 |