News stories from Sunday April 16, 1978

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

Italy's President pleaded with the kidnappers of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro to spare his life on humanitarian grounds, but government leaders appeared to rule out any deal with the Red Brigades terrorists, who announced that they had sentenced Mr. Moro to death. [New York Times] Gen. Lucius Clay, the former commander of United States forces in Europe following World War II, died last night at the age of 80. General Clay organized the Berlin airlift during the blockade of the western sector of the city by the Soviet Union, and was credited with saving the people of Berlin from starvation. For his achievement he was hailed by Congress as "the hero of Berlin." [New York Times] The income tax reduction bill will be taken up by the House Ways and Means Committee tomorrow, with the "mark-up" -- the process of drafting and voting, section by section -- scheduled to go on for seven weeks. The major elements of the bill may be in a state of flux until the last week or two. The problem for the administration is that much has changed since it submitted its tax package Jan. 31. The big question now is whether the final bill will resemble the one proposed by President Carter. [New York Times] Organized crime has a foothold in the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, according to the State Crime Commission, which has found "significant infiltration of organized crime figures" at all levels of the resort business in the mountain area. "You can't turn right or left in the Poconos without bumping into gangsters," the commission's acting executive director, Joan Weiner, said. [New York Times] The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to overrule a decision that the Federal Reserve System must announce its monetary policy directives as soon as they are made. It has been the Fed's practice to keep decisions of its Open Market Committee concerning goals for the money supply and interest rates secret for a month or more while putting them into effect. Wade McCree, the Solicitor General, told the Court that allowing immediate public access to decisions affecting the money supply "threatens to disrupt important economic policy without any corresponding public benefits." [New York Times] Business groups are turning to grass-roots lobbying in Congress, which they find to be at least as effective as conventional paid lobbyists. The indirect grass-roots method depends on mobilizing constituents and the general public to write, telephone or buttonhole members of Congress. Grass roots is "the growth area of lobbying," said Michael Cole, a lobbyist for Common Cause, the "citizen's lobby." The indirect method is "the only lobbying that counts," according to Richard Lesher, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. The pervasive influence of professional lobbyists in Congress has not declined, however. [New York Times] The government's defense against cheating in federally financed programs has been slight. For example, the Department of Transportation last year assigned only four inspectors to prevent fraud and other abuse in federal highway projects; the Veterans Administration had only one auditor for every $238 million provided by Congress, and the Labor Department set aside only three-hundredths of 1 percent of its $23.5 billion budget for investigation and auditing. But detection and prevention of fraud may soon be easier. Among other steps, the House is expected to approve on Tuesday legislation mandating a central, semi-autonomous office of Inspector General in 12 federal agencies that each year spend $100 billion. [New York Times] Solidarity with Jews was expressed in church services in many parts of the country at a time when an anti-Semitic campaign by American Nazis has combined with Middle East tensions to focus new attention on relations between Jews and Christians. A rabbi participated in a service at Riverside Church in Manhattan that coincided with other commemorations of the Holocaust. In the heavily Jewish community of Skokie, Ill., where members of a Nazi group have tried to march, 2,000 persons gathered for an outdoor prayer service in which 18 rabbis, ministers and priests officiated. [New York Times] Israel reaffirmed that United Nations Security Resolution 242 remained the basis for negotiations with its Arab neighbors. A cabinet statement, which mentioned the Arab neighbors by name, was clearly meant to convey willingness to negotiate on "all fronts" to play down the recent controversy in which there were charges that the Begin government was backing down on a long-standing interpretation of the resolution, which calls for Israel's eventual withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories. [New York Times] South Africa gave guarded support to the British-American efforts to keep alive the chances of talks between the Rhodesian government and Rhodesian guerrilla leaders. [New York Times]