News stories from Sunday June 9, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Nixon's departure tomorrow for a nine-day trip to the Middle East will mark the first time an American President has toured the Arab countries and Israel while in office. The Arab countries reportedly look upon his trip with expectation. American officials believe that Mr. Nixon will further accelerate the improvement of Arab-American relations, and that he will give a new pledge of continued American support for Israel when he meets the leaders of the new Israeli government. [New York Times]
- You come from the heart of America and you have touched our hearts," President Nixon told 1,400 cheering people who attended a "Citizen's Congress" in Washington sponsored by the National Citizens Committee for Fair Play to the Presidency. Mr. Nixon said that "I shall do nothing that will weaken this office." He and all the other speakers attacked the news media. [New York Times]
- A report by the staff of the Senate Watergate committee charges that the Nixon administration and the President's re-election campaign officials attempted, and sometimes succeeded in, efforts to interfere with the lawful functioning of the government for the purpose of rewarding the President's political supporters and punishing his enemies. "A concerted and concealed" effort by White House officials in 1972, the report said, to divert resources of the executive branch may have been a "conspiracy to defraud the United States." [New York Times]
- A bill proposed by the White House Office of Telecommunications that would have provided long-range financing of public television, has been "flatly rejected" by President Nixon without discussion or explanation, according to sources close to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They said that his terse statement suggested that federal support for public television be decreased. [New York Times]
- Katharine Cornell, the actress Alexander Woollcott said was "The First Lady of the Theater," died at her home in Martha's Vineyard. She was 81 years old. Miss Cornell made her Broadway debut in 1921 in "Nice People." In that year she met and was married to Guthrie McClintic, then a casting director. Their marriage lasted until Mr. McClintic's death 40 years later. [New York Times]
- Members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union began voting tonight on a proposed three-year contract. If the union's 110,000 members ratify the tentative agreement, the strike they started June 1 against 750 manufacturers will end, and they could return to work Wednesday. [New York Times]
- Mending a break that occurred more than 50 years ago, Portugal and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations. Portugal's new democratic government, which has begun a general move toward the resumption of relations with Communist countries, agreed to exchange ambassadors. [New York Times]
- Reform Minister Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber was dismissed from the new French government for criticizing its policy of continuing nuclear tests. He had accused chiefs of the armed forces of virtually forcing the government to start the next series of tests in the Pacific this summer. [New York Times]
- Italy is seeking a big loan from the United States or West Germany -- probably more than $1 billion -- to bail herself out of her financial crisis, diplomats in Rome said. The more than 2,500 tons of gold in the vaults of the Bank of Italy are believed to qualify as collateral. [New York Times]
- An Irish Countess said that she and her husband, the Earl of Donoughmore, who was bloodstained and scarred, were "very thrilled" to have been freed after four days of captivity by their kidnappers, who they believe were members of the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army. The couple were abducted from their home near Clonmel, Ireland, and set free in Dublin's Phoenix Park. [New York Times]