News stories from Saturday December 23, 1972

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

A large part of Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, was reduced to rubble by a series of earthquakes, and it was believed that the death toll would be in the thousands. The city has a population of about 300,000. About half the city's inhabitants were left homeless, and more than 50% of the houses, office buildings and stores were reported destroyed in the quakes and in the subsequent fires. First reports indicated a death toll of 200. A local radio station and amateur radio operators reported that as many as 5,000 persons died, but there was no official corroboration of the estimate. [New York Times] Former President Harry S. Truman, increasingly troubled by heart irregularity and lung congestion, was reported to be "completely unresponsive" and in critical condition. The 88-year-old Mr. Truman has been hospitalized in Kansas City, Mo. [New York Times] Heavy American bombing of North Vietnam continued for the sixth day yesterday and the United States command in Saigon, whose policy has been minimal disclosure of its operations during the latest period of bombing, tightened its secrecy. For the first time, the command refused today to disclose any information about North Vietnamese air defenses, withholding reports on how many surface-to-air missiles were believed to have been fired, how intense the conventional antiaircraft fire had been, and whether any MIG's had been seen in the skies. The command had been releasing this information daily since the heavy bombing of the Hanoi area began last Monday. [New York Times] Western Europe is reacting to the bombing of North Vietnam with growing protests and a mixture of sadness, disgust and anger. Correspondents in major capitals reported that virtually all shades of opinion have joined in denouncing the resumption of the heavy bombing attacks, and there was talk among some left-wing groups and unions of organizing boycotts of American goods and ships until the bombing was stopped. The Times of London said the bombing has a "particular horror because of its massive scale, its indiscriminate character, and its apparent employment as an act of negotiation rather than war." [New York Times] Gov. William Waller has angered many blacks and some whites in Mississippi by releasing from the state penitentiary a Ku Klux Klansman convicted of murdering a black leader, Vernon Dahmer, a 58-year-old farmer, in 1966. The Klansman, Charles Clifford Wilson, has been freed under a work release program recently begun by the governor. He is assigned to the Southern Mississippi State Hospital, a charity institution that chiefly serves poor blacks, and he is permitted to go home at night to his family and to oversee his business in artificial limbs and therapeutic braces. [New York Times] Hog prices at $34 per 100 pounds at the Peoria, Illinois, stockyards last week broke all previous records, pushing Christmas season income for hog breeders even higher than in the boom year of 1948, and indicating still higher meat prices for housewives. The average prices paid to farmers for all agricultural products were more than 13% higher than in 1971, according to the Agriculture Department. This helped explain why food costs for consumers rose more than 4% over this year, and why in the next six months consumer prices will probably remain high, or go even higher. [New York Times]