News stories from Tuesday June 4, 1974

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

A court-appointed panel of technical experts has decided that "the only completely plausible explanation" for the 18½-minute gap in a crucial White House tape recording is that it was caused by "pushing" the keys of a "normally operated" tape recorder at least five times. That recorder, according to the panel, was "probably" the one that Rose Mary Woods, President Nixon's personal secretary, used last October to listen to the disputed tape. The panel's finding was released by the Federal District Court in Washington. [New York Times] The House Judiciary Committee heard two White House tape recordings that apparently rebut charges that President Nixon was aware of a plan by the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation to contribute to his 1972 re-election campaign when he intervened in an antitrust case against I.T.T. in 1971. But the impeachment inquiry pursued the possibility that Mr. Nixon joined in or knew of illegal efforts in 1972 to prevent disclosure of his actions in the antitrust case. [New York Times] The House Judiciary Committee has intensified its inquiry into 17 so-called "national security" wiretaps authorized by President Nixon beginning in 1969. A series of letters filed in court in connection with a lawsuit by Morton Halperin, who was subjected to one of the wiretaps, disclosed that officials of the committee completed arrangements last week for the turnover of highly classified wiretap documents and materials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. [New York Times] Under a court decision, the Reserve Mining Company may continue to pollute Lake Superior with industrial wastes from its plant in Silver Bay, Minn. Last April, Reserve Mining, owned jointly by the Armco and Republic steel companies, was ordered immediately to stop its waste discharge as a result of a suit brought by the Justice Department, three states and five environmental groups, But a higher court ruling indicates that Reserve Mining will be allowed to continue to use the lake while it converts to on-land disposal of its wastes, a process that company officials said may take from three and a half to five years. [New York Times] The sudden illness of Peter Schlam, the federal prosecutor in the extortion-conspiracy trial of Representative Angelo Roncallo reportedly was under investigation by the Justice Department, the Suffolk County District Attorney and the County Police Commissioner. [New York Times] At least 10,000 -- perhaps as many as 20,000 people -- in the Indian state of Bihar have died this year from smallpox in what has been described as one of the worst epidemics of disease in recent years. More than 30,000 smallpox cases were reported in the last five weeks from virtually every village in Bihar, an official of the World Health Organization said in Geneva. [New York Times] Owing to the jump in world oil prices, the Soviet Union, which supported the Arab oil embargoes and production restrictions, last year took in nearly a billion dollars more in oil revenue than a year earlier, with only a modest increase in exports. The windfall profits came from trade with Western countries only, according to 1973 Soviet foreign trade statistics. [New York Times] Cambodia's Education Minister and his top assistant, who were being held hostage in Phnom Penh by high school students demanding educational reforms, were killed when the government troops attacked the school. The police said that the two men had been shot and stabbed by the students, but a reporter said they had been shot by military policemen when the students used the officials as shields. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 828.69 (+7.43, +0.90%)
S&P Composite: 90.14 (+1.04, +1.17%)
Arms Index: 1.14

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	1,150	10.59
Declines	321	3.36
Unchanged	324	2.09
Total Volume		16.04

* 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*
June 3, 1974	821.26	89.10	12.49
May 31, 1974	802.17	87.28	10.81
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