News stories from Saturday February 2, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Nixon has given his personal assurance to President Lon Nol of Cambodia that the United States will continue to provide "maximum possible assistance" to his government in the fight against Cambodian insurgents. Mr. Nixon gave his assurance to Lon Nol in a letter dated Jan. 28 and made public in Washington yesterday. [New York Times]
- Anti-government troops resumed their deadly shelling of the densely populated city of Phnom Penh and its environs, killing 15 civilians and wounding 71. After a four-day lull, the Communist-led insurgents struck before dawn, firing about 100 high-explosive shells into the capital's southern and western edges and outskirts. [New York Times]
- Military spying inside the White House began in the fall of 1970, a few months after Adm. Thomas Moorer became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and more than a year earlier than previously reported, closely involved sources said. The spying involved as many as five high-ranking officers who regularly received and delivered over the next 15 months classified documents pilfered by a Navy yeoman, these sources said. [New York Times]
- The soaring profits that oil companies have been reporting in the last two weeks have lifted their industry into the highest circle of profitability, largely on the wings of one of the most spectacular fourth quarters that any industry has ever reported. The oil industry has complained for years that its profits were short compared with others and that this limited their growth and their ability to meet energy needs. There was no profit shortage in 1973. [New York Times]
- The major oil companies stand to reap a lot more than record profits from the energy crisis. Fuel shortages have weakened retail competition by independent gasoline stations; they have increased pressure to deregulate the price of natural gas, which would mean higher prices; they have at last made the development of alternative fuels, in which oil companies have invested, potentially profitable, and they have slowed, and in some cases rolled back, the increasingly costly environmental protection movement. Meanwhile, tax concessions to the oil industry, worth billions of dollars a year in tax savings, have so far remained intact. [New York Times]
- A gasoline gap -- with January allocations exhausted and February deliveries blocked or delayed by a truckers' strike -- left motorists across the New York metropolitan area with little or no fuel. A federal official said yesterday was the worst day of the energy crisis thus far for drivers. Panic buying compounded the problem as motorists went from station to station in search of an open pump. In some sections, more than half the stations were closed, their January allocations having been depleted a day or two ago. Lines of cars at open stations were six blocks long in New York City, and a mile or more in the suburbs. [New York Times]
- The Justice Department proposed new legislation that would restrict the dissemination of arrest records and other information held in law enforcement data banks in the first administration action to implement President Nixon's recently announced "major initiative" toward protecting privacy rights of individuals. The proposal would permit individuals to review their records and to correct inaccurate information, and it would allow them to bring lawsuits against anyone who improperly disclosed their records. [New York Times]
- Three gunmen seized a Greek freighter in the port of Karachi, Pakistan, and said they would blow up the ship and kill their two hostages unless the Greek government freed two Arab terrorists sentenced to death in Athens. Authorities said the three gunmen, who were reported to have pistols and hand grenades, had identified themselves as members of a group called "Moslem International Guerrillas." [New York Times]