News stories from Tuesday February 5, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- To help end the truckers' strike, President Nixon has ordered a freeze on diesel fuel prices. The FBI will crack down on violent strikers. Three days of meetings between the government and striking truckers have resulted in no solutions to the problem. Attorney General William Saxbe warned truckers against violence during their strike and he stated that truckers will be punished if necessary. [CBS]
- Long lines of motorists at gas pumps caused some states to consider rationing plans. Massachusetts will begin rationing, and the New Jersey legislature gave emergency power to their Governor to take the same action. Exxon and Gulf raised gasoline prices. Support for price rollbacks is rapidly gaining favor in Congress, as both Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate endorsed the idea. [CBS]
- Many insurance companies don't plan to reduce insurance rates because of lower highway speed limits. New Jersey ordered companies to make rate reductions across the board. [CBS]
- Patricia Hearst, the daughter of newspaper executive Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped yesterday night from her Berkeley, California, apartment by two men and a woman. The kidnappers seized Patricia after beating and tying up her boyfriend and a neighbor. Another neighbor described the sounds from the fray and said that Patricia pleaded with her captors before they took her away. The kidnapping may be linked to a political protest or a quest for ransom money. [CBS]
- Mrs. Joseph Alioto, the wife of the San Francisco mayor, returned home. She was missing for 18 days after disappearing from a fundraiser at a Palm Springs resort. Mrs. Alioto stated that she left abruptly to "punish" her husband for not introducing her during the fundraiser, and had spent most of the intervening time touring California missions. [CBS]
- President Nixon seems headed for a new confrontation with the Watergate special prosecutor after reportedly refusing to turn over requested tapes and documents. The refusal was said to have come in a letter citing reasons why the materials, requested for last Monday, would be denied. [New York Times]
- The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Thomas Moorer, has acknowledged that on two occasions in 1971 he received documents "retained" by a Navy clerk who traveled to Asia with President Nixon's top security advisers. In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the admiral also said he had been told that the clerk had obtained the papers "in a clearly unauthorized manner." [New York Times]
- Mariner 10 swept around Venus and sent back pictures showing the planet to be enveloped in what appeared as a well-defined shell of haze, with a brilliant top deck of clouds beneath. [New York Times]
- Secretary of State Kissinger will visit Moscow next month to prepare for President Nixon's trip to the Soviet Union, expected to take place in June. A communique issued after two days of talks by President Nixon and Mr. Kissinger with the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, asserted that both sides had paid "special attention" to the need for progress toward peace in the Middle East. [New York Times]
- Britain's coal miners were ordered by their union to close down all pits on Sunday in a strike that is expected to lead to economic hardship and unemployment for millions. Turning down a last-minute government appeal for more talks, the union thus set the stage for a bitter labor struggle in that country. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 820.64 (-0.86, -0.10%)
Arms Index is the ratio of volume per declining issue to volume per advancing issue; a figure below 1.0 is bullish. | |||||||||||||||
| Market Index Trends | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | DJIA | S&P | Volume* |
| February 4, 1974 | 821.50 | 93.29 | 14.38 |
| February 1, 1974 | 843.94 | 95.32 | 12.48 |
| January 31, 1974 | 855.55 | 96.57 | 14.02 |
| January 30, 1974 | 862.32 | 97.06 | 16.79 |
| January 29, 1974 | 852.32 | 96.01 | 12.85 |
| January 28, 1974 | 853.01 | 96.09 | 13.41 |
| January 25, 1974 | 859.39 | 96.63 | 14.85 |
| January 24, 1974 | 863.08 | 96.82 | 15.98 |
| January 23, 1974 | 871.00 | 97.07 | 16.89 |
| January 22, 1974 | 863.47 | 96.55 | 17.33 |