News stories from Thursday October 17, 1974

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

In what may have been the first formal appearance by a president before a congressional panel, President Ford appeared before a House subcommittee in an attempt to lay at rest suspicions raised by his unconditional pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon. The pardon, Mr. Ford said, was granted solely "out of my concern to serve the best interests of my country." Then he added, "There was no deal." [New York Times] The gross national product has declined during the third quarter of this year, the third consecutive three-month period in which a drop was registered, the Commerce Department had reported, adding that the inflation rate has worsened. Secretary of Commerce Frederick Dent insisted that the nation is not in a recession, despite the nine-month drop in output. He called the current state of the economy "a spasm" or "sideways waffling." [New York Times] Lawyers for former President Richard Nixon have asked a Federal District Court in Washington to enforce last month's agreement giving Mr. Nixon personal control over his presidential tape recordings and papers. The move by the Nixon legal staff came after private negotiations over access to the tapes and papers broke down between lawyers for Mr. Nixon, special prosecutor Leon Jaworski and the White House. [New York Times] A major energy study sponsored by the Ford Foundation urges a government-led commitment to conserve energy and says that, by such an undertaking, this country could put off for 10 years "massive new commitments" to offshore drilling, oil imports, nuclear power and development of coal and shale in the West. [New York Times] Four Democratic members of the House Judiciary subcommittee said that they planned to press for additional witnesses to be called after hearing President Ford's testimony concerning his pardon of former President Richard Nixon. At the same time, four Republican subcommittee members said that they were satisfied the full story had been told, and that there was no need for additional witnesses. [New York Times] Margaretta (Happy) Rockefeller, the wife of the Vice President-designate, underwent cancer surgery in New York for the removal of her left breast after the discovery of a suspicious lump two weeks ago. Following the operation, the surgeon said there was no immediate evidence that the cancer had spread. Three weeks ago Betty Ford, the President's wife, in a similar operation had her right breast removed. [New York Times] A relaxation of the federal deadline for a 90 percent reduction in air pollutants emitted by new autos until 1980 has been proposed in a study by three leading universities. The report, prepared by Columbia and Harvard Universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the forcing of auto companies to adopt the catalytic converter now as an exhaust control was an "unwise gamble." [New York Times] Vice President-designate Nelson Rockefeller gave behind-the-scenes help to insure the 1972 re-election of Representative Hugh Carey, now the Democratic gubernatorial candidate favored to defeat Mr. Rockefeller's hand-picked successor, Governor Wilson. The action was prompted to ease passage of a revenue sharing bill in the House. Mr. Rockefeller's strategy involved getting John Gangemi, Mr. Carey's Republican opponent, to reject the endorsement of the Conservative party. Mr. Carey defeated Mr. Gangemi by about 12,000 votes. [New York Times] Reports of an agreement reached by the White House and key Senators would mean a compromise giving trade benefits to the Soviet Union in return for a major liberalization of Moscow's emigration policies. The Soviet Union has never publicly acknowledged its role, but Secretary Kissinger has assured the Senators that the Soviet Union will dramatically liberalize its immigration policies. [New York Times] Ending its week-long deadlock with the Ford administration, Congress has approved a compromise measure to continue military aid to Turkey until December 10, providing that Turkey does not send American arms to Cyprus. President Ford has told congressional leaders he will "reluctantly" accept the compromise. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 651.44 (+9.15, +1.42%)
S&P Composite: 71.17 (+0.84, +1.19%)
Arms Index: 0.78

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	765	7.92
Declines	590	4.76
Unchanged	400	1.80
Total Volume		14.48

* 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*
October 16, 1974	642.29	70.33	14.79
October 15, 1974	658.40	71.44	17.06
October 14, 1974	673.50	72.74	19.77
October 11, 1974	658.17	71.14	20.09
October 10, 1974	648.08	69.79	26.36
October 9, 1974	631.02	67.82	18.82
October 8, 1974	602.63	64.84	15.46
October 7, 1974	607.56	64.95	15.00
October 4, 1974	584.56	62.34	15.91
October 3, 1974	587.61	62.28	13.15