News stories from Sunday October 6, 1974

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

President Ford appears to be leaning toward proposals to ease the tax burdens of the poor and increasing the taxes of those in higher income brackets. Such tax revisions would be a key element in the anti-inflation program that Mr. Ford presents to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday. The President has said his program would include both mandatory and voluntary proposals to check inflation, conserve fuel and restore economic stability. [New York Times] Five thousand persons attended a citizens' rally intended to show racial harmony in Atlanta, the Southern city that likes to say it is "too busy to hate." Ninety-five per cent of those attending were black. The one complaint voiced by the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. at the rally was that "the crowd's too black." This remark expressed a key element in the crisis of confidence that is confronting the city. [New York Times] Leonid Brezhnev, head of the Soviet Communist party, says the Soviet Union is prepared to take additional steps with the United States to curb the arms race. Mr. Brezhnev, the guest of honor in East Berlin at a rally marking East Germany's 25th anniversary, said he favored a ban on underground testing of all nuclear weapons and suggested that the two major powers withdraw from the Mediterranean all their nuclear-armed ships and submarines. [New York Times] In Washington, officials have disclosed that the Ford administration, faced with what it sees as almost certain Senate rejection of the treaty limiting the underground testing of nuclear weapons, is seeking to broaden the agreement to include nuclear tests for peaceful purposes. The treaty was signed in Moscow last July by former President Nixon. Negotiations on the treaty will be resumed in Moscow in the next two weeks. [New York Times] China's agricultural production and food distribution are at a point where that country appears to be well protected against food shortages now afflicting the underdeveloped world. This the opinion of 10 leading American farm researchers who recently returned from China. In a four-week tour of that country, the American experts found the Chinese had made major strides in combining traditional farming methods with domestic scientific advances. [New York Times] Officially, inflation doesn't exist in the Soviet Union. Inflation, according to the Moscow press and party line, is a cancer that grows only in an unhealthy capitalist environment. One Soviet official asserted that the retail price index was down 0.3 percent since 1970. But ordinary citizens scoff at official explanations and groan about higher prices for food, clothing, cars, housing, and entertainment. [New York Times]