News stories from Friday May 31, 1974

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

Entering the Watergate case for the first time, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether President Nixon can withhold evidence of possible crimes from the Watergate special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. The Justices voted to let Mr. Jaworski bypass the United States Court of Appeals in an effort to settle the critical issue swiftly. [New York Times] The staff of the Senate Watergate committee believes that donations by dairy cooperatives to President Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign were apparently linked directly to Mr. Nixon's order to raise milk price supports in 1971. The staff found serious deficiencies in a recent White House paper that said the President had not been influenced by campaign pledges of up to $2 million when he ordered the price support increases. [New York Times] Prices of a host of consumer and industrial products have shot up since government controls lapsed a month ago, producing a widely anticipated inflationary surge, and buyers can expect to pay higher prices for hundreds of other items in the months immediately ahead despite a decline in farm prices. [New York Times] In the third consecutive monthly decline this year, prices of raw farm products dropped 4 percent from April 15 to May 15, the Agriculture Department said. The price index declined 4 percent in the month ended March 15 and 6 percent in the month ended April 15. These decreases, particularly for livestock, resulted in some easing of retail food prices. [New York Times] In one of the largest and boldest attempts to save a company, the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and Textron, Inc., have agreed in principle on a financial plan that would revitalize the ailing aircraft company with at least $75 million in Textron funds. The agreement would also release the government from its guarantee of $200 million in loans to Lockheed, and could also give Textron part ownership in Lockheed. [New York Times] Sources at the Middle East conference in Geneva said that President Hafez al-Assad of Syria gave secret assurances that Palestinian guerrillas would not be permitted to infiltrate across the Syrian border into Israel. Although the assurances were spoken, not written, they were accepted by Israel and were vital to the conclusion of the troop disengagement agreement. [New York Times] Representatives of Syria and Israel signed the agreement in the Palais des Nations in Geneva. With the signing of the agreement, the firing died away on the Israeli-Syrian front early this afternoon, but throughout the morning artillery shells had exploded over wide areas of the Golan Heights and the Damascus Plateau, the final crescendo of the strange war of attrition begun by Syria 11 weeks ago. [New York Times] It was announced in Washington and Moscow that President Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev will meet in the Soviet Union for a week beginning June 27. It was also learned that Mr. Nixon was pressing ahead with arrangements for a trip to the Middle East beginning around June 9. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 802.17 (-1.41, -0.18%)
S&P Composite: 87.28 (-0.15, -0.17%)
Arms Index: 1.02

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	577	4.13
Declines	710	5.16
Unchanged	434	1.52
Total Volume		10.81

* 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*
May 30, 1974	803.58	87.43	13.58
May 29, 1974	795.37	86.89	12.30
May 28, 1974	814.30	88.37	10.58
May 24, 1974	816.65	88.58	13.74
May 23, 1974	805.23	87.29	14.77
May 22, 1974	802.57	87.09	15.45
May 21, 1974	809.53	87.91	12.19
May 20, 1974	812.42	87.86	10.55
May 17, 1974	818.84	88.21	13.87
May 16, 1974	835.34	89.72	12.09