News stories from Saturday July 28, 1973

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

The Senate Armed Services Committee has evidence that the falsification of the records of bombing missions in Southeast Asia extended to numerous raids on Laos and continued into last year, well-informed sources said. According to the sources, most of the newly discovered raids took place in Laos between 1969 and 1972. Those missions, the sources said, which involved B-52 flights and attacks by smaller tactical aircraft, were apparently conducted under the same procedures as the 14-month secret bombing campaign in Cambodia. [New York Times] Three American astronauts embarked on man's longest planned journey into space, rocketing from earth in an Apollo spacecraft and linking up with the nation's still-orbiting Skylab space station. The Skylab 2 astronauts started their 26-million-mile journey on schedule from Cape Kennedy at 7:11 AM eastern daylight time. [New York Times] The present plan of the Senate Watergate Committee is to hear five more witnesses and then end its public hearings on the actual Watergate burglary and cover-up, according to committee officials. If this procedure, which is said to be favored by the committee's chairman, Sam Ervin, is followed, many key witnesses would not testify publicly. Among them would be E. Howard Hunt, who has admitted complicity in the Watergate burglary. [New York Times] The former director of President Nixon's political organization has sharply disputed suggestions that John Ehrlichman pressed for full disclosure on the Watergate affair during last year's campaign. Clark MacGregor, now a vice president in Washington for the United Aircraft Corporation, said in sworn pretrial testimony made last week that Mr. Ehrlichman, the President's former domestic affairs adviser, "surely was no champion of full disclosure." [New York Times] The General Services Administration will disclose this week the spending of considerably more than the nearly $2 million already reported President Nixon's properties in Florida and California. Further, the agency will tell of previously undisclosed spending in the name of security for various projects at the residences of two of the President's close friends, Charles G. Rebozo and Robert H. Abplanalp. [New York Times] The Senate, working in an unusual Saturday session, changed its mind and agreed to a demand by election reformers that individual contributors to presidential and congressional campaigns be limited to total gifts of $25,000 to all candidates and causes in each election year. The adoption of the $25,000 ceiling, sponsored by Senators Adlai Stevenson III, an Illinois Democrat, and Charles McC. Mathias, a Maryland Republican, was intended to reduce the influence of the very rich in elections. At the same time, the Senate lowered from about $49 million to roughly $35 million the separate overall spending ceiling proposed for presidential candidates. [New York Times] The gasoline shortage has hit Colorado the hardest of all the states and no substantial relief is in sight. Nobody seems to know why Colorado is worse off than the others, but there are many theories -- some involving gasoline conspiracies. It was estimated that fewer than 3% of the more than 1,300 gas stations in greater Denver would be open this weekend. [New York Times] Some 600,000 rock music fans, baked by the sun and then drenched by rain, turned the Grand Prix auto racecourse in Watkins Glen into a gigantic outdoor dance hall at a one-day festival that was twice as large as the Woodstock gathering four years ago. When the music began at about noon, the estimated 600,000 people in the immediate concert vicinity made it the largest festival ever held in this country. [New York Times] In a reversal of earlier attitudes, the United States government has come to view Juan Peron not as a menace but as Argentina's best hope for political stability and economic progress. This reappraisal has been advanced in interviews by senior State Department officials involved in South American affairs and was confirmed by the Argentine Embassy as its understanding of current United States policy. [New York Times] Greeks, in a referendum on constitutional changes, will vote tomorrow on the abolition of the monarchy after a one-sided campaign that has made many people angry and raised serious concerns among American officials over the government's tactics. A "yes" vote would install the Greek ruler, George Papadopoulos, as president until 1981, but he has said that even in the event of a "no" vote he will remain in power. [New York Times]