News stories from Saturday April 6, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Herbert Kalmbach, President Nixon's former personal lawyer, told the Senate Watergate Committee last month that Charles Rebozo disclosed at a meeting with him a year ago that he had distributed portions of a secret $100,000 cash campaign contribution from Howard Hughes to the President's two brothers, his personal secretary "and others," well-placed sources said. Mr. Kalmbach's testimony, considered a significant breakthrough by Senate investigators looking into the handling of the Hughes money, reportedly directly contradicted previous public statements by both the President and Mr. Rebozo. Mr. Rebozo has repeatedly said that he left the $100,000 in a safe deposit box for three years before returning it to the Hughes group. [New York Times]
- A group of United States Attorneys asked by the Justice Department to evaluate the 17 independent organized crime strike forces now operating across the country has recommended that strike forces in large metropolitan areas such as New York be phased out and incorporated as separate units by the United States Attorneys' offices in their own districts. The recommendation was made in a report prepared by the subcommittee of the United States Attorneys Advisory Committee to the Attorney General. The report emphasized that if the strike forces are continued as they are, their personnel practices and operations should be re-examined and that no new units should be set up. [New York Times]
- In the last few weeks before she was kidnapped by the group that calls itself the Symbionese Liberation Army, Patricia Hearst selected chinaware and silver patterns at Tiffany's for her forthcoming marriage. She augmented her minuscule wardrobe of blue jeans by buying a black "Gatsby style" strapless dress to wear to her sister's coming-out party and made cinnamon rolls as a special treat for her parents. This is the 20-year-old girl who last week surprised the world -- and certainly her family and friends -- by saying in a tape recording that she had voluntarily chosen to abandon her old identity and become instead the revolutionary fighter "Tania." Her friends and relatives say her statement was "false," "weird" and "totally inconsistent" with their image of the girl they knew. [New York Times]
- The Nixon administration's determination to sound the death knell of the federal Office of Economic Opportunity at the end of June has prompted a growing number of governors, state officials and members of Congress, all Republicans, as well as some Democrats who formerly denounced the agency, to urge the continuation of its remaining programs in some form. This new band of enthusiasts for the long-embattled remnant of President Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty" is by no means in total agreement on just how to preserve what is left of the agency's operations. According to current O.E.O. figures there are 973 community action agencies throughout the country. [New York Times]
- President Nixon conferred in Paris with four European leaders, reportedly on recent difficulties between the United States and Western Europe. After attending memorial Services for President Pompidou, Mr. Nixon, who extended his weekend visit, met successively with Alain Poher, the interim president of France, Prime Minister Wilson of Britain, Chancellor Willy Brandt of West Germany and Premier Poul Hartling of Denmark. He scheduled meetings tomorrow with President Nikolai Podgorny of the Soviet Union and Premier Kakuei Tanaka of Japan. He was scheduled to return to Washington Sunday afternoon. [New York Times]
- More than 50 chiefs of state and government, including President Nixon, attended a requiem mass in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris for Georges Pompidou, the late President of France. Francois Cardinal Marty, Archbishop of Paris, celebrated the mass. [New York Times]
- Israeli warplanes went into action to hit a Syrian force that crossed the cease-fire line in the Golan Heights, a military spokesman in Tel Aviv said. The air strikes were the first by Israel since the October war and indicated a further heightening of tension on the Golan Heights front, where artillery duels have been raging. [New York Times]
- Col. Muammar Qaddafi, Libya's intensely nationalistic and unpredictable leader, has been relieved of his "political administrative and traditional duties," the official Egyptian press agency reported in Cairo. He remains Commander in Chief of the Libyan armed forces and will devote his time entirely to ideological matters and work involving mass organization, the agency said, citing a note sent by the Libyan government to foreign embassies in Tripoli, the capital. The decision to limit Colonel Qaddafi's functions was made by the 11-man Revolutionary Command Council, the military junta that has ruled Libya since the Colonel and his fellow officers overthrew the monarchy four and a half years ago. [New York Times]