News stories from Thursday January 11, 1973
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Nixon announced the termination of most mandatory price controls. The food and healthcare industries will keep what controls they already have, but otherwise the system will be mainly voluntary. The Pay Board and the Price Commission are abolished. The Cost of Living Council will take over their work, aided by a 10-man labor-management advisory board. AFL-CIO president George Meany will serve on the new advisory board. Treasury Secretary George Shultz stated that the Cost of Living Council retains the power to step in if voluntary controls are not working.
Food prices are the worst problem, therefore the government is moving grain reserves into the market and removing restrictions on farmland which may be cultivated. The reaction by Congress to the President's new program mainly followed party lines.
[CBS] - E. Howard Hunt's guilty plea in the Watergate bugging case has been accepted. Judge Sirica accepted Hunt's plea of guilty on all six counts against him after rejecting Hunt's attempt to plead guilty to only three of the six counts. Hunt says he did what he felt was in the best interests of the country; he pleaded guilty because he didn't think he could stand a long trial after his wife's recent death. Hunt says that he had no knowledge of higher officials being involved in the bugging. Brigham Young University student Tom Gregory identified Hunt as the man who recruited him to infiltrate Muskie and McGovern headquarters, and who introduced him to G. Gordon Liddy.
Senate Democrats named Sam Ervin to lead their own investigation of the Watergate case. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield said that hearings will begin after Ervin reviews the evidence.
[CBS] - The Justice Department announced that President Nixon's re-election finance committee is being indicted on eight counts of violating campaign spending laws. Committee treasurer Hugh Sloan is charged with illegally passing $30,000 to Watergate defendant G. Gordon Liddy. [CBS]
- Senator George McGovern visited Massachusetts to thank his election workers there; Massachusetts is the only state that McGovern carried. [CBS]
- At the secret Vietnam peace talks in Paris, technical experts joined the meeting between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. No progress was made at the public talks. North Vietnamese negotiator Nguyen Minh Vy said that Saigon is trying to divide Vietnam permanently. The South Vietnamese negotiator again demanded North Vietnam's withdrawal of its troops from South Vietnam. The talks are presently at a very difficult stage.
Soviet Communist party leader Leonid Brezhnev said he feels that the Vietnam war is coming to an end little by little. He also stated that the Soviet Union will take part in mutual force reduction talks to be held in Geneva.
[CBS] - Thirty-year-old Michael Heck, a decorated B-52 pilot in Vietnam, is refusing to fly further bombing missions over North Vietnam and might face a court-martial. He has applied for conscientious objector status. Heck denies that fear of being shot down is the reason for his decision. [CBS]
- The U.S. had three dead and eight wounded in Vietnam last week. South Vietnam lost 385 soldiers and claims 923 enemy dead. [CBS]
- Cold temperatures are increasing talk of fuel shortages. Federal Office of Emergency Preparedness director George Lincoln says that a large part of the blame for fuel shortages rests with major oil companies. Companies are producing gasoline for cars rather than home heating oil because gasoline is more profitable. [CBS]
- Supreme Court Justice William Douglas ordered Los Angeles Times reporter William Farr to be freed from jail pending an appeal of his contempt sentence. Farr was imprisoned 46 days ago for refusing to name a source in a story he wrote about Charles Manson's murder trial. Farr said that the prospect of an open-ended prison sentence is "psychologically barbaric". [CBS]
- Last month Clay Whitehead, President Nixon's broadcast policy chief, proposed that local stations be held accountable at license renewal time for the content of network broadcasts, including news broadcasts. Whitehead spoke today at a meeting of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in New York City. He said that the American people don't trust Washington, but they don't trust TV news either and local responsibility is central to the broadcasting system. America doesn't tolerate excessive concentrations of power in Washington (he said as the audience laughed) or in private industry (they laughed again) or in television. Whitehead responded to the Academy's show of hostility, saying he knows that some feel the Nixon administration is malevolent, but the administration is not as dumb as they think. [CBS]
- Senate Democrats acted to ensure that cabinet members will be forced to testify before their committees in the future. The Senate will delay the confirmation of new cabinet appointments unless nominees pledge in advance to testify when called. [CBS]
- Forty-nine families in Los Angeles were awarded $365,000 for damages caused by the noise from planes at nearby L.A. International Airport. [CBS]
- Frontier Airlines has hired the country's first female pilot, Emily Howell. [CBS]
- Five Air Force Academy cadets resigned after being caught smoking marijuana. [CBS]
- The U.S. 3rd Army, General Patton's World War II outfit, is being eliminated. Army Chief of Staff General Creighton Abrams made the announcement. [CBS]
- The game of Monopoly is going through a crisis. All streets in the Monopoly game are named after streets in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In the game, Baltic Avenue and Mediterranean Avenue are the cheapest properties you can buy. In real life this is also the case. But the proposal to change the names of Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues in Atlantic City is causing a national furor.
Atlantic City Commissioner Arthur Ponzio said that the city is just trying to clarify its road-naming system, but the president of Parker Games asserted that Monopoly game buyers won't like the name changes. Monopoly players are meeting to protest the name changes, and a public hearing was held today where an attorney for the U.S. Monopoly Association protested the change. The commission subsequently voted to drop the idea of changing the street names.
[CBS]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1051.70 (+5.64, +0.54%)
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* |
| January 10, 1973 | 1046.06 | 119.43 | 20.88 |
| January 9, 1973 | 1047.11 | 119.73 | 16.83 |
| January 8, 1973 | 1047.86 | 119.85 | 16.84 |
| January 5, 1973 | 1047.49 | 119.87 | 19.33 |
| January 4, 1973 | 1039.81 | 119.40 | 20.23 |
| January 3, 1973 | 1043.80 | 119.57 | 20.62 |
| January 2, 1973 | 1031.68 | 119.10 | 17.09 |
| December 29, 1972 | 1020.02 | 118.05 | 27.55 |
| December 27, 1972 | 1007.68 | 116.93 | 19.10 |
| December 26, 1972 | 1006.70 | 116.30 | 11.12 |