News stories from Tuesday March 19, 1974

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

Senator James Buckley of New York, who has staunchly supported President Nixon, became the first conservative Republican in Congress to call on the President to resign. Mr. Buckley said that the Watergate case had become "a disorder, a trauma involving every tissue of the nation." [New York Times] President Nixon declared that he would continue to resist demands for his resignation because it "might be good politics but it would be bad statesmanship" to yield to his critics or to low standings in public opinion polls. He made the statement at a meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters in Houston, and restated his intention to complete his second term. [New York Times] President Nixon announced at the Houston meeting that he was easing some restrictions on energy consumption as a result of the end of the Arab oil embargo and said flatly that it would not be necessary to ration fuel. He said that the voluntary ban on Sunday sales of gasoline will be lifted, effective Sunday, and that the Federal Energy Office has been directed to increase fuel allocations to industry and agriculture. [New York Times] President Nixon's special Watergate counsel, James St. Clair, has been meeting privately on Capitol Hill with key Republicans in an apparent effort to win support for President Nixon's refusal to give Watergate evidence to the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment inquiry. [New York Times] The House Ways and Means Committee voted extensive changes in the way oil companies are taxed, but the changes were not expected to add a dollar to the taxes the oil industry will pay this year on its domestic operations. [New York Times] Pan American World Airways, the nation's largest international airline, asked the government for permission to negotiate consolidation of trans-Atlantic service with Trans World Airlines. Pan Am said that "skyrocketing" fuel prices had plunged it into a "serious financial crisis." [New York Times] The month-long trial of Representative Frank Brasco of Brooklyn ended in a mistrial when the jury failed to reach a verdict on a charge of conspiracy to obtain payoffs to help a truck company headed by a reputed Mafia member. [New York Times] President Nixon said he believed that despite the recent sharp exchanges with Europe, the United States and the European allies "are going to work out the differences that we have in the economic and political field." It was one of the numerous comments he made on foreign and domestic affairs at a meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters in Houston. He seemed to be moderating the tone he took in the highly critical remarks he recently made about the European Common Market countries. Earlier in the day, the United States and West Germany announced an agreement in principle on new payments by the Bonn government to offset the cost of maintaining American forces in Germany. [New York Times] President Nixon said that he was confident that enough progress would be made in American efforts toward a Middle East settlement to insure that the Arab states did not reimpose their oil embargo against the United States. In a question-and-answer session at the meeting in Houston, Mr. Nixon said that he did not regard the Arab decision to "review" the oil situation on June 1 as a condition on the United States to bring new pressure on Israel. [New York Times] In its first major foreign policy statement, Britain's new Labor party government adopted a conciliatory approach to relations with the United States and said that Europe should engage in the "fullest and most intimate" cooperation with Washington. James Callaghan, the Foreign Secretary, also said in the House of Commons that President Nixon's critical remarks about the Common Market countries had the "effect of inducing a greater sense of realism" in Europe. He cautioned against "anti-American tinges" in European political statements. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 867.57 (-6.65, -0.76%)
S&P Composite: 97.23 (-0.82, -0.84%)
Arms Index: 1.01

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	394	2.94
Declines	1,040	7.85
Unchanged	350	2.03
Total Volume		12.82

* in millions of shares

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*
March 18, 1974	874.22	98.05	14.01
March 15, 1974	887.83	99.28	14.50
March 14, 1974	889.78	99.65	19.77
March 13, 1974	891.66	99.74	16.82
March 12, 1974	887.12	99.15	17.25
March 11, 1974	888.45	98.88	18.47
March 8, 1974	878.05	97.78	16.21
March 7, 1974	869.06	96.94	14.50
March 6, 1974	879.85	97.98	19.14
March 5, 1974	872.42	97.32	21.98