News stories from Thursday April 3, 1975

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

President Ford declared today in a nationally televised news conference in San Diego that neither friends nor adversaries of the United States should interpret the military losses in South Vietnam as a sign that American commitments will not be honored anywhere in the world. He said he did not expect the fall of the Saigon government. He made a series of appearances in the conservative city of San Diego to show that he was doing all he could both to save the government of President Nguyen Van Thieu and provide assistance for the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the advancing Communist forces. [New York Times] Japanese officials said that they were disturbed and divided by the failure of the United States to help South Vietnam and Cambodia in their crises. They said that Foreign Minister Kiichi Miyazawa would seek a reaffirmation of the United States commitment to defend Japan, including a pledge to maintain the "nuclear umbrella," when he confers with Secretary of State Kissinger in Washington next week. Little military action was reported in South Vietnam, but with tension increasing over the fate of the remaining territory in government hands, the Interior Ministry in Saigon said a new coup plot had been uncovered and that a number of people were arrested. [New York Times] The leaderless remaining members of six South Vietnamese divisions from the northern two-thirds of the country straggled ashore at the small port of Vung Tau, 37 miles from Saigon, and with them panic, disorder and demoralization was brought closer to the capital city. [New York Times] The first South Vietnamese children to be evacuated in the current crisis and flown to the United States for adoption by American families arrived in San Francisco. There were 52 of them, and their papers identified them as "orphan boy" or "orphan girl." They were on their way to various states and their adoptive parents. [New York Times] At his news conference in San Diego, President Ford said that he was appealing to members of Congress "to stop coming to the White House with one spending bill after another." He warned of a possible resurgence of "double-digit inflation," and asked Congress to put the new budget control law into effect a year early so it could impose on itself a spending ceiling in the forthcoming fiscal year. [New York Times] The Labor Department provided another sign of abating inflation with the announcement that the government's wholesale price index declined in March for the fourth consecutive month. The overall index, seasonally adjusted, declined six-tenths of 1 percent as agricultural prices fell sharply, more than offsetting a small rise in industrial goods. [New York Times] Jake Jacobsen, a former dairy industry lawyer, testified that he gave John Connally, who was Secretary of the Treasury in the Nixon administration, a $10,000 gratuity in 1971 and later participated with him to cover up the payment. Mr. Jacobsen is the government's principal witness in Mr. Connally's bribery trial in Washington. [New York Times] The Puerto Rican nationalists who took full responsibility for the four latest midtown (Manhattan) bombings and as well as last January's fatal Fraunces Tavern annex explosion issued a communique that threatened continued "revolutionary violence" against corporations "at the heart of Yanki imperialism." They demanded independence for Puerto Rico and release of five nationalists serving prison sentences. [New York Times] Moody's Investors Service gave a ringing endorsement to New York City's credit status and said it would stand by its "A" rating of city bonds -- a day after its competitor, Standard & Poor's, suspended its "A" rating on the bonds. The announcement was received joyfully by Mayor Beame and Controller Harrison Goldin. Both said they hoped the announcement would reassure the investing public. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 752.19 (-8.37, -1.10%)
S&P Composite: 81.51 (-0.92, -1.12%)
Arms Index: 1.15

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	448	3.59
Declines	876	8.09
Unchanged	455	2.24
Total Volume		13.92

* 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*
April 2, 1975	760.56	82.43	15.60
April 1, 1975	761.58	82.64	14.48
March 31, 1975	768.15	83.36	16.27
March 27, 1975	770.26	83.85	18.30
March 26, 1975	766.19	83.59	18.58
March 25, 1975	747.89	82.06	18.50
March 24, 1975	743.43	81.42	17.81
March 21, 1975	763.06	83.39	15.94
March 20, 1975	764.00	83.61	20.96
March 19, 1975	769.48	84.34	19.03