News stories from Thursday July 18, 1974

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

James St. Clair, President Nixon's defense lawyer, told the House Judiciary Committee that a 1973 tape recording that Mr. Nixon has refused to give to the impeachment inquiry would prove that Mr. Nixon had ruled out a "blackmail" payment to E. Howard Hunt, a convicted Watergate burglar. The belated introduction of the evidence -- a two-page edited White House excerpt from the transcript of a 90-minute meeting between Mr. Nixon and H. R. Haldeman -- thus appeared to have left unsettled the central impeachment issue of the President's attitude toward Mr. Hunt's alleged demands for hush money. [New York Times] The House Judiciary Committee made public five volumes of evidence that appeared to challenge President Nixon's assertion that national security was the sole basis for White House involvement in wiretaps and the "plumbers" operations. The documents show that President Nixon and his top aides were aware in March and April, 1973, of the illegality of the secret White House "plumbers" activities, including the break-in at the office of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg's former psychiatrist. [New York Times] The nation's total output of goods and services declined somewhat further in the second quarter, but the rate of inflation diminished, according to figures made public by the Commerce Department. The figures -- preliminary and subject to revision -- are for the gross national product. The price index for the G.N.P. -- a measure of inflation that is often used but differs from the more familiar Consumer Price Index -- showed inflation at a rate of 8.8 percent in the second quarter, a substantial improvement from the 12.3 percent in the first quarter. [New York Times] E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co. and eight other chemical manufacturers that together control 60 percent of the nation's dye sales were indicted by a federal grand jury in Newark on charges that they fixed prices, pushing the cost of dyes to "artificial and non-competitive levels." [New York Times] Greece made a concession in the Cyprus crisis by agreeing to replace the 650 Greek officers in the Cypriote National Guard. The officers led the coup that deposed President Makarios and that brought Greece and Turkey to the point of confrontation. The officers' total withdrawal was a major demand of Turkey. [New York Times] Nikos Georgiades Sampson, the newly proclaimed President of Cyprus, charged that the ousted regime of Archbishop Makarios had systematically tortured its political opponents and "flagrantly violated" the human rights of all Cypriotes. He attempted to support his allegations at a chaotic news conference by exhibiting purported victims of torture. Archbishop Makarios arrived in New York from London and said he wanted the United Nations to condemn the coup in Cyprus, which he called a "violation of the independence of Cyprus by the Greek junta," and to ask that Greek officers be withdrawn from his country. He also told reporters that he was "satisfied -- so far" with Washington's actions since the coup. [New York Times] Kang Shin Ok, a prominent South Korean lawyer and advocate of civil liberties, has been arrested, his associates disclosed, apparently because he had denounced the military judge who had imposed death sentences on several of his clients, including the poet Kim Chi Ha. Kim Young Sam, the vice president of the New Democratic party, the major opposition group, was detained for interrogation, apparently only for a brief period. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 789.19 (+4.22, +0.54%)
S&P Composite: 83.78 (+0.08, +0.10%)
Arms Index: 1.67

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	918	6.38
Declines	511	5.94
Unchanged	347	1.66
Total Volume		13.98

* 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*
July 17, 1974	784.97	83.70	11.32
July 16, 1974	775.97	82.81	9.92
July 15, 1974	786.61	83.78	13.58
July 12, 1974	787.23	83.15	17.77
July 11, 1974	759.62	79.89	14.64
July 10, 1974	762.12	79.99	13.49
July 9, 1974	772.29	81.48	15.58
July 8, 1974	770.57	81.09	15.51
July 5, 1974	791.77	83.66	7.40
July 3, 1974	792.87	84.25	13.43