News stories from Saturday September 1, 1973

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

President Nixon and Vice President Agnew met alone for two hours, discussing the federal investigations of allegations that Mr. Agnew received kickbacks from Maryland contractors. The Vice President brought the President up to date on the matters concerning himself, Gerald Warren, the deputy press secretary, said. "It was a good discussion, a thorough discussion." However, neither participant gave a public indication of what was said, adding to the mystery of why the meeting was held. [New York Times] George Meany, in a wide-ranging pre-Labor Day commentary on the nation's problems, bitterly assailed President Nixon and his aides for seeking to "pervert" that nation's democratic structure and mismanaging its economy. In commenting on the Watergate scandal, Mr. Meany, who is organized labor's no. 1 spokesman, predicted that President Nixon would surrender the White House tape recordings if ordered to do so by the Supreme Court. However, he said that if the President then did not do so he should be impeached by Congress. [New York Times] The decline in many food prices that began last week was expected to continue until price ceilings come off beef Sept. 12. But the cheer this held for consumers was tempered by the belief among agricultural forecasters in Chicago that retail food costs would soon level off on a very high plateau and stay there the rest of this year and most of next year. Consumer reluctance to pay the highest prices in memory for pork and poultry pulled wholesale and stockyard prices down last week from their record levels in mid-August. [New York Times] At least 35 persons, most of them foreign tourists, were killed and many were missing in a fire that turned the upper stories of a Copenhagen hotel into an inferno. More than 12 hours after the fire was put out, rescuers were still digging for bodies in the burned-out shell of the Hafnia, a 74-year-old family hotel and tourist landmark near Town Hall Square. [New York Times] Libya announced the nationalization of 51% of the assets of all oil companies operating in the country. The announcement by the Tripoli radio, which is certain to shake the positions of oil companies throughout the Arab world, came as part of the celebrations of the fourth anniversary of the military revolution led by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. [New York Times] Two Britons, trapped since Wednesday in a midget submarine 1,375 feet below the Atlantic off the coast of southern Ireland, were hauled to the surface in the 20-foot vessel and transferred safely to their mother ship. Their rescue came only 90 minutes before air supplies were due to run out. The submariners, Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman, had been helping to lay a telephone cable between Britain and Canada. [New York Times] The Canadian Parliament, in a special session that lasted most of Friday night, enacted emergency legislation at dawn ordering an end to the nine-day-old nationwide railroad strike. Despite some union misgivings about the law, government spokesmen were confident that most of the 56,000 strikers would return to work and that the trains would be running again early this week. [New York Times]