News stories from Saturday May 25, 1974

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

In a nationwide radio address in which he sought to explain recent economic difficulties and how his administration is responding to them, President Nixon said that the material quality of life in this country had been maintained at an "unparalleled level" despite inflation and unemployment. There are "encouraging signs today that the worst is behind us," he said. [New York Times] Investigators for the House Judiciary Committee believe they have conclusive evidence that a hush money payment of $75,000 to E. Howard Hunt was initiated on March 21, 1973, a few hours after President Nixon told John Dean that such a payment would "keep the cap on the bottle" of the Watergate scandal. The evidence, pinpointing the date of the payment to Mr. Hunt, was based on the travel records of Sherman Unger, a Cincinnati lawyer and a former Nixon administration official. [New York Times] President Nixon continued to hold fast to his position that he must defend the presidency by refusing to turn over evidence sought in two major Watergate criminal cases. Ron Ziegler, the President's press secretary, said that. Mr. Nixon reviewed the week's events with his staff it his home in Key Biscayne. "He is determined that his defense against successive encroachments on the confidentiality of his office is right," Mr. Ziegler told reporters. [New York Times] After five years of technical preparation -- often interrupted by controversy, opposition, litigation and labor troubles -- work on Phase 1 of the trans-Alaska pipeline has finally begun. Contractors for Alyeska, the expanded pipeline consortium, have started work on a 371-mile gravel road north from the Yukon River to Prudhoe Bay. It will open the Alaska Arctic to through travel on year-round basis, first for the pipeline builders, and then as part of the state highway system. [New York Times] A survey of the nation's defense arsenal, based on interviews with defense authorities and their critics along with a reading of military and industrial publications, indicates that the United States has left behind the "beans and bullets" logistics of Vietnam and entered a revolutionary era of weapons development. In developing nuclear weapons, there is less emphasis on mass-destruction weapons and tactical missiles, bombs and shells, and more on greater accuracy of strategic ballistic missiles. [New York Times] After again narrowing the differences between Syria and Israel, Secretary of State Kissinger agreed tonight to make another attempt to bring about a troop separation agreement on the Golan Heights before returning to Washington. After five hours of talks in Damascus with President Hafez al-Assad, the Secretary was said to be convinced that negotiations were at a critical point where "one or two decisions can do it." [New York Times] Mr. Kissinger has been away from Washington nearly a month on his peace-seeking trip in the Middle East, the longest period a Secretary of State has been out of Washington on a diplomatic mission since the end of World War II. The pace of work slows a bit in the State Department, which has more than 12,000 employees, and action on some vital policy decisions is postponed when Mr. Kissinger is away. But his aides maintain that the department's work goes on and that most of the pressing decisions do get made with Mr. Kissinger's participation by cable and telephone. [New York Times] While denouncing Northern Ireland's striking Protestant extremists as "thugs and bullies" in a television speech, Prime Minister Wilson gave no indication of what steps London would take against the strike that is intended to bring down the provincial government. In Ulster, the feeling was that Mr. Wilson and his government decided there was no way to break the strike without a confrontation that could lead to bloodshed, and that Mr. Wilson would follow a cautious course. [New York Times] A message from Palestinian guerrillas who had seized the school building in Maalot, Israel, on May 15 to the Israeli military commander in the town appears to hold the key to the ensuing sequence of events that culminated in the Israeli attack on the school in which 16 teenage Israeli hostages were killed, along with the guerrillas who had held them captive. The message was carried by a young woman, Narkis Mordechai, a lieutenant in the Israeli military reserves, who had been among the hostages. The crucial nature of the message and the controversy surrounding it, as well as other elements of the activities of that day have emerged from extensive coordinated interviews carried out by the New York Times among Israeli and Arab leaders and other persons who were involved. [New York Times]