News stories from Saturday June 12, 1976

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

Ronald Reagan received 18 of Missouri's 19 Republican delegates. President Ford now has 1,011 delegates; Reagan has 915. Both Ford and Reagan appealed to the Missouri convention for votes. Reagan told the convention that he believes he offers the best opportunity for victory in November. 74 more delegates are at stake in Iowa and Washington. [ABC] Ronald Reagan dealt President Ford a severe blow by taking 18 of the 19 at-large delegates at the Republican convention in Springfield, Missouri. The Ford campaign had thought it faced no serious threat in the state. The new pro-Reagan slate means that Mr. Reagan will get at least 30 of Missouri's 49 votes at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City. Mr. Ford is assured of only 16, with three still undecided. One of the reasons that Kansas City had been chosen for the convention was Mr. Ford's certainty that he could count on a friendly host delegation in Missouri. The Missouri convention was the first in a series of 11 that will be held in various states over the next five weeks to choose 270 national convention delegates. The 270, in addition to the 165 undecided delegates, will determine the outcome of the Ford-Reagan battle. [New York Times] Democrats have agreed to make unemployment a major issue in the presidential race. The party's platform committee said that their candidate, Jimmy Carter, should call for a reduction of unemployment by 3% in a four-year period. Carter summarized his views in a 37-page statement. Carter and Alabama Governor George Wallace met in Montgomery, and Carter will meet Monday with Representative Morris Udall in New York. [ABC] Reports on construction flaws and technical violations continue to come almost daily from the half-finished 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline, despite management shake-ups, federal intervention and supposedly tightened inspection practices. State and federal investigators say that faulty welding, mismanaged quality control problems are so pervasive that they could delay the pipeline's completion, endanger its safety and add hundreds of millions of dollars to its ultimate cost. [New York Times] Elizabeth Ray reportedly told investigators that she was ordered to have sex with Senator Mike Gravel in order to gain political favor for ex-Representative Ken Gray. Gray and Gravel denied the charges. Ex-congressional secretary Colleen Gardner is ready to testify that she was on the Gray-owned houseboat when the Ray-Gravel encounter occurred. Gardner claims that Representative John Young paid her a high salary for her sexual favors. Young denied the charges but refused comment.Representative Wayne Hays is improving from his sleeping pill overdose. Hays has admitted that Ray was his mistress but denied that she didn't do any work for her pay. Doctors have not yet asked Hays if he tried to kill himself. A British television station faded out an interview with Ray because it was too boring; it showed a cartoon instead. Ray is in London to publicize her book. [ABC] About 1,500 people, with many politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties, attended the funeral service at St. Patrick's Cathedral for James Farley, a mastermind of Democratic political strategy, who died last week at the age of 88. Governor Carey led a group of political and business leaders. [New York Times] Governor Carey, who had been New York state's most notable uncommitted Democrat, endorsed Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. With Mr. Carter within reach of a first-ballot nomination at the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Carey's endorsement was expected to have little political impact. [New York Times] The military in Uruguay ousted President Juan Bordaberry. His 80-year-old Vice President will succeed him. [ABC] One of every three murder victims in New York City last year did not know his killer -- apparently giving New York the country's highest rate of slayings classified as "stranger murders." This was the principal finding in a police department study of murder patterns that analyzed the circumstances of the 1,500 homicides committed in the city in 1975. The high rate of murders involving a victim and an assailant who were unknown to each other appeared to be a major factor in the department's decreasing success in making homicide arrests. "It's easier to commit a murder here and melt away than anywhere else in the country." Dr. Abraham Blumberg, a criminologist, said. [New York Times] Gunmen have set free 24 Chileans who were kidnapped from Buenos Aires hotels. The victims said they were tortured and told to get out of Argentina. [ABC] Common birth defects such as mental retardation and blindness that are caused by abnormal oxygen levels in the blood during and shortly after birth may be reduced significantly by an invention of two West German physicians, Dr. Renate Huch and Dr. Albert Huch, who are husband and wife. The device electronically monitors oxygen levels continuously in the body without the need to pierce the skin with a needle, as is now the case, thereby achieving one of medicine's longest sought goals. The device is being tested in selected hospitals throughout the world including Babies Hospital in New York City. [New York Times] Syria agreed to remove some of its troops from Beirut and will lift the blockade from Sidon. Moslems say that Syria is moving more tanks and men to southern Lebanon. [ABC] A cease-fire first announced over the Damascus radio appeared to be taking a shaky hold in Beirut despite a report by the Beirut radio that a Syrian armored column was moving toward the sensitive Arkub region near the Israeli border. The Beirut radio confirmed the cease-fire, the result of mediation, but it maintained that Syrian troops would be obliged to leave Lebanon in 10 days. The Damascus report of the cease-fire provisions was considerably less precise. It said that an end of hostilities should lead to an "overall solution." There was no sign of a Syrian withdrawal in Beirut, but a blockade of the city's western neighborhoods eased a little. [New York Times] Rhodesia sent jets to attack targets in Mozambique after attacks were made on Rhodesian targets. [ABC] Syria and the Arab League were reported to be near agreement on the details of establishing a multinational Arab peacekeeping force in Lebanon. The Arab League's Secretary General, Mahmoud Riad, met in Damascus with the Syrian Foreign Minister, Abdel Halim Khaddam, and said that their talks had been "fruitful" and that a Syrian agreement on the specifics of putting the peacekeeping force into place might come "soon." [New York Times] Administration officials said that the State Department last fall began taking a strong stance against Communist participation In the Italian government partly because of encouragement from Christian Democratic Party leaders. The State Department, the officials said, has refrained from further public comment for the last two months, also partly because of promptings by the Christian Democrats, who felt that the strategy was backfiring. Aides to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that he had wanted to avoid making this a public issue, but that his hand had been forced by misperceptions of the administration's position, by unauthorized disclosures and by his own desire to make European allies face up to the question of Communist participation in their governments. [New York Times]