News stories from Saturday April 20, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Former Treasury Secretary John Connally denied reports that an indicted Texas lawyer, Jake Jacobsen, was prepared to implicate him in a $10,000 political payoff from a dairy cooperative. He denied that he had received the $10,000 as he arrived in Bangor, Maine, to deliver the keynote address to 1,800 delegates at the Maine state Republican convention. [New York Times]
- The slow ripening of the white table grapes in the vineyards of the Coachella Valley in southern California is bringing the beleaguered United Farm Workers Union closer to a crucial test of its ability to remain a potent force in the American labor market. The grape harvest that will be ready in about six weeks will open a new round in the chronic labor disputes, at whose center once again is Cesar Chavez. He hopes to repeat the success of the 1968-69 boycott that won major concessions for California's 300,000 farm laborers and forced the state's vegetable and fruit producers to agree to union representation. [New York Times]
- A Federal District Court in Minneapolis ordered the Reserve Mining Company to shut down immediately its huge plant in northeastern Minnesota. The court said the company's discharges of industrial wastes into the air and waters of Lake Superior "substantially endanger the health of the people" in five communities, including Duluth. The plant, at which 3,100 persons are employed, was ordered closed until it complies with all state and federal anti-pollution laws. [New York Times]
- Secretary of State Kissinger declared that "the policy of the good partner" would be the new United States approach to Latin America and the Caribbean. Addressing the General Assembly of the 23-member Organization of American States in Atlanta, Mr. Kissinger said that "we in the United States have come to realize that a revolution has taken place in Latin America." As a result, he said, "we convene as equals." [New York Times]
- President Anwar Sadat of Egypt praised President Nixon in strikingly warm terms in a ceremony in which he accepted the credentials of Hermann Eilts as the American Ambassador. The president's office in Cairo quoted Mr. Sadat as having said that the efforts of President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger "have made peace possible in this area for the first time in 26 years" and that "this is an opportunity to open a new page between our two countries." Diplomatic relations between the United States and Egypt were resumed March 1 during Mr. Kissinger's visit to Egypt. They were broken off during the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. [New York Times]
- After months of controversy, Japan signed an aviation agreement with China, establishing flights between the two countries. But in retaliation, the Chinese Nationalist government in Taiwan immediately banned Japanese planes from its airspace and terminated their right to land in Taipei. Taiwan's swift response, which had been publicly threatened for weeks but was still unexpected in Tokyo, appeared to seriously jeopardize the political standing of Premier Kakuei Tanaka and Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira, one of Mr. Tanaka's closest supporters. [New York Times]
- A man shot through the head in a Roman Catholic suburb of Belfast was the 1,000th victim of the terrorist violence that has gripped Northern Ireland since the summer of 1969. The official total of 1,000 is confined to those whose death has been directly attributed to terrorist action. The violence has increased steadily since the introduction of emergency regulations allowing the detention without trial of suspected terrorists in August, 1971. Today much of the terrorist activity is aimed at forcing the withdrawal of the British Army garrison. [New York Times]