News stories from Monday October 9, 1978

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

The Senate voted late tonight to cut the taxes of Americans by $142 billion over a four-year period if the government reduces spending at the same time and eventually balances the budget. The amendment to the pending 1979 tax-cut bill resembles the Republican-sponsored Roth-Kemp tax reduction bill that had been defeated last week. [Chicago Tribune] Consumer advocate Ralph Nader arrived at the White House today to ask that Secretary of Energy James Schlesinger be fired. Nader called Schlesinger's policies pro-industry. President Carter's domestic affairs aide, Stuart Eizenstat, conferred with Nader. [Chicago Tribune] The Senate passed two more sections of President Carter's stripped-down, five-part energy Program and sent them to the House. The Senators approved a conservation bill by a vote of 86 to 3 and a utility rate restructuring bill, 76 to 13. This leaves an energy tax bill on the Senate agenda. [Chicago Tribune] Dr. Peter Bourne, President Carter's onetime chief advisor on drug abuse, said that a war against cocaine use is a lost war, so the government shouldn't fight it. During an interview taped for the Dick Cavett TV show, Bourne said: "It is unrealistic to think that were going to wipe it [cocaine use] out. We can't enforce the [drug] laws that we have on the books now. So that I don't think the interests of the American people would be served by having more stringent laws." [Chicago Tribune] The National Cancer Institute reported that a two-year test failed to confirm earlier suggestions that the once widely used insecticide DDT can cause tumors in laboratory animals. DDT is banned for most uses in the United States because of its adverse ecological impact, yet it is used abroad to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes. High doses of DDT "gave no evidence for carcinogenicity [cancer-causing ability] in either rats or mice," the institute said in a report. [Chicago Tribune] Rising food costs will bring an increase in food stamp benefits to about 16 million needy Americans on Jan. 1, government experts say. Although the increased benefits will not be announced until next month, preliminary calculations made by the Agriculture Department today indicated they will go up at least 5 percent. [Chicago Tribune] An OPEC official said that the oil cartel may begin cutting back crude oil supplies to industrialized nations if they don't make it easier for OPEC to get into the production and sale of gasoline and other finished petroleum products. The comments by OPEC secretary-general Ali Jaidah at an OPEC seminar were echoed by the oil minister of Kuwait. [Chicago Tribune] Then-U.S. President Richard Nixon secretly pledged in 1970 that Israel could "rely on U.S. military protection" if it decided to hit the Soviet Union's military installations in Egypt, Israeli author Shmuel Segev says in a new book, "Sadat: The Road to Peace." Segev, chief diplomatic correspondent for the influential Israeli daily, Maariv, said Nixon made the pledge to former Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin following a clash between Israeli and Russian pilots over the Suez Gulf. Four Soviet MiGs were shot down in the aerial encounter. [Chicago Tribune] Syria flatly rejected the Camp David accords as "null and void" under international law and blamed Israel for the new crisis in Lebanon. The tough statement by Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Nasser Kaddam in the United Nations followed an optimistic view of the chances for Middle East peace, expressed by Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan. Syria, which agreed three days ago to a cease-fire in Lebanon, blamed Israel for starting the latest fighting in Beirut.Fierce sniper fire raked the main civilian escape route from Christian east Beirut, but a shaky cease-fire between Syrian troops and Christian militiamen largely held for the second day. Lebanese President Elias Sarkis flew to Saudi Arabia from Damascus to seek Saudi help in making the truce permanent. Gunfire was aimed at civilians fleeing toward north Lebanon. Christian rightists accused the Syrians of "escalating the situation," but it appeared both sides were firing. [Chicago Tribune] Roman Catholic cardinals will cast their first ballot for a new Pope on Sunday, the Vatican announced. The dean of the College of Cardinals, reflecting widespread sentiment, was quoted as predicting the election will be brief and easy. The election will be preceded on Saturday by a jointly celebrated mass. [Chicago Tribune] Twenty-five experts from around the world began testing an ancient piece of linen to determine if the Roman Catholic belief that the fabric served as Jesus Christ's burial shroud following his crucifixion can be borne out by the techniques of modern science. The 14-foot-long shroud contains the negative image of a bearded man who was crucified, scourged with a whip, stabbed in the side, and crowned with thorns. X-ray and microscope studies are planned. [Chicago Tribune] Russian defector Viktor Korchnoi says world chess champion Anatoly Karpov lost his second consecutive game Sunday by bad play. "He could have had a draw, but he moved badly and I won," Korchnoi said. International experts agreed. Karpov still leads the tournament 5 wins to 4 however, and needs only one more victory to retain his world title and collect $350,000. [Chicago Tribune] Soviet defector Arkady Shevchenko, once an undersecretary-general at the United Nations, has given $35,000 to $40,000 in C.I.A. money to a woman who is negotiating to write a book about it all, NBC News reported. However, Shevchenko, who on April 6 defected to the United States and quit his U.N. job, told the network that the money he gave to the woman, Judy Chavez, came from personal funds. A C.I.A. spokesman confirmed that Shevchenko is being paid a living allowance. [Chicago Tribune] Dolly Parton, whose "Here You Come Again" was a million-seller, was named the Country Music Association's entertainer of the year. Crystal Gayle was named female vocalist of the year for the second straight year. Don Williams, who had a hit album this year titled "Country Boy," was chosen male vocalist of the year, snapping Ronnie Milsap's two-year hold on the award. [Chicago Tribune] Blue chip issues advanced strongly in an otherwise slow-paced stock market. Trading was held down by the Columbus Day observance. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 13.17 points to close at 893.19.Cadillac's general manager, Edward Kennard, says he'd rather give up performance than size to boost the luxury car's fuel efficiency and would like to offer a six-cylinder engine in a Cadillac to determine if buyers would accept it. [Chicago Tribune] A man armed with a .44-magnum revolver was found by police sitting on the Miami Dolphins bench just prior to the kickoff. After the man was taken away, the Dolphins went on to a 21-0 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. [Chicago Tribune] Jacques Brel, 49, one of France's most popular singers and composers, who went to the South Pacific when he learned he suffered from terminal lung cancer, died early today at a hospital In suburban Bobigny. Brel earned international acclaim with the biting humor of the cynical songs he composed about his contemporaries. He wrote more than 500 songs during his life, inspiring such singers as Judy Collins and Joan Baez. [Chicago Tribune] Japanese police have been instructed to wage an all-out battle against the 11,000-member Yamaguchi-Gumi, Japan's biggest crime organization. Tax men, narcotics investigators and customs officials have been asked to help "dry up" the organization's sources of revenue. [Chicago Tribune] China has taken another step to destroy the aura surrounding Mao Tse-tung by publishing an old speech by the late Premier Chou En-lai saying Mao must not be regarded as a god. The speech was made to the first National Youth Congress on May 7, 1949 -- months before the Communist state was proclaimed -- and its appearance in the People's Daily further suggests Mao's role and influence is being re-examined. Both men died In 1976 and Chou had been built up in the last two years as a great national hero while Mao has been downgraded. [Chicago Tribune] Cambodia has ordered its army, navy, and air force on alert for a possible dry-season offensive by the Vietnamese, official Radio Phnom Penh said. Intelligence analysts in Bangkok also believe the dry season, due in early November, will bring an upsurge in border fighting between the two Southeast Asian Communist countries. [Chicago Tribune] Police clashed with demonstrators in half a dozen Iranian cities, shooting and killing at least six persons and wounding many more, Teheran newspapers reported. Fighting from Sunday to early Monday was reported around the nation, torn by a massive civil workers' strike that has spread to most government agencies. To meet the strikers' demand of higher pay, Prime Minister Jaafar Sharif-Emami has ordered a revision of Iran's $40 billion budget to cut an unspecified amount of military spending and $20 billion earmarked for construction of 12 nuclear power plants. [Chicago Tribune] California voters could scarcely care less whether Gov. Jerry Brown marries singer Linda Ronstadt, a poll taken by the Los Angeles Times has revealed. The bachelor governor, who is seeking re-election, has been seen with the singer on a number of occasions, and his father, farmer Gov. Pat Brown, said recently that he wished they would get married. But, it appears, the voters don't care much. When asked if their marriage would make people think more or less highly of the governor, the answers were: 88 percent, no difference; 6 percent, more highly; 4 percent, less highly; 2 percent, unsure. [Chicago Tribune] Disney World means many things to many people, and apparently, President Carter has his own special feelings about the place. It seems that of all the amusement park's offerings, Carter said he most wanted to see Fantasy Land because, according to the Wall Street Journal, "It is the source of inspiration for my economic advisers." [Chicago Tribune]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 893.19 (+13.17, +1.50%)
S&P Composite: 104.59 (+1.07, +1.03%)
Arms Index: 0.52

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	1,015	13.93
Declines	441	3.14
Unchanged	390	2.65
Total Volume		19.72

* 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*
October 6, 1978	880.02	103.52	27.39
October 5, 1978	876.47	103.27	27.81
October 4, 1978	873.96	103.06	25.10
October 3, 1978	867.90	102.60	22.54
October 2, 1978	871.36	102.96	18.52
September 29, 1978	865.82	102.54	23.62
September 28, 1978	861.31	101.96	24.33
September 27, 1978	860.19	101.66	28.37
September 26, 1978	868.16	102.62	26.33
September 25, 1978	862.35	101.86	20.97