News stories from Monday February 18, 1974

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

Randolph Hearst spent a busy day working on a counteroffer in an effort to bargain for his daughter's release from kidnappers. Hearst discussed his ransom plan with third world groups designated as intermediaries by the Symbionese Liberation Army. They demanded that Hearst must finance food for all of California's poor before Patricia Hearst's release can be negotiated. Tuesday is the kidnappers' deadline. [CBS] The government decided against pressing charges for Pvt. Robert Preston's antics with a helicopter on the White House lawn early Sunday morning. Preston is under psychiatric observation, and court-martial proceedings await Preston if he is found to be stable. The Secret Service stated that it was not embarrassed or upset by the incident; however, the security system is always in a stage of "reevaluation". [CBS] A budget meeting of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress turned into an energy hearing. Senator William Proxmire criticized President Nixon's budget; budget director Roy Ash defended it. Ash insisted that his statements regarding the energy crisis are in agreement with the President's plans for breaking the back of the crisis in '74. Consumers must learn to live with less energy. [CBS] Senator Frank Church, Idaho Democrat, said that consumers on the Eastern Seaboard are having to pay $50 million a year extra for power because a dispute between two American oil companies forced an increase in the prices that public utilities paid for petroleum. Much of the increase is being borne by customers of the Consolidated Edison Company and the Long Island Lighting Company, according to testimony made public by Senator Church. [New York Times] The publication "Automotive News" reported that auto makers and dealers are beginning this month with the greatest stockpile of unsold cars ever. Many assembly plants have closed in order to switch over to the production of smaller cars. Several thousand more auto workers have been laid off for a week as a result. [CBS] Senator Henry Jackson expressed confidence that the Senate could override a veto of the emergency energy bill, which contains a rollback in crude oil prices, but he predicted a "razor-thin" margin in a vote scheduled tomorrow. Administration strategists have said that President Nixon would veto the bill because its price rollback provision is regarded as inflexible. [New York Times] A Virginia electronics and counter-intelligence expert, in a report that has gone to White House lawyers, maintains that the 18½ minute buzzing on a key presidential tape recording may have been caused accidentally rather than deliberately. Allan Bell said that he volunteered to help Charles Rhyne, a lawyer for President Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods. Mr. Rhyne said that he thought Mr. Bell's report was "so important" that he sent copies to Judge John Sirica, the White House and the special Watergate prosecutor. [New York Times] President Nixon, sharing a platform in Huntsville, Ala., with Gov. George Wallace at an "Honor America Day" rally, told a predominantly friendly crowd of more than 20,000 that partisanship and distorted reporting in Washington had made it appear that the nation is sick. He made this comment, which he said was a "personal note," at the end of a "what's right with America" speech. [New York Times] Jury selection will begin tomorrow for the trial of former United States Attorney General John Mitchell and former Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans at the Federal District Court in New York. Their trial on charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury is scheduled to start at 10 A.M. [New York Times] The Foreign Ministers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia gave Secretary of State Kissinger a four-nation Arab proposal for disengagement of Israeli and Syrian forces along the Golan Heights. After meeting with Ismail Fahmy of Egypt and Omar Saqqaf of Saudi Arabia, Mr. Kissinger told reporters at the State Department that he hoped the Arab proposal would lead to the opening of formal talks on disengagement in Syria. [New York Times] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who is in Zurich, vowed to continue his work in exile and said he had as much right to live on Russian soil as those who had "the audacity to physically throw me out." In his first interview since his expulsion from the Soviet Union last week, the Nobel Prize author said he did not know when his family would join him or where he would settle. [New York Times]