News stories from Saturday February 24, 1973

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

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said today that Israel had made an "error of judgment" last Wednesday in the downing of a Libyan airliner over the Sinai desert. Mr. Dayan's comments were the first acknowledgement by an Israeli leader that Israel was even partly responsible for the incident. In Cairo, relatives began burying the victims. There were some shouts of "War" and "Punish Israel," but most of the thousands of mourners grieved silently. [New York Times] The Commerce Department reported that the nation's trade deficit narrowed in January to $303.8 million. The figures showed that the December deficit, originally reported at $563.2 million, had been revised downward to $441.1 million, bringing to $6.3 billion the total deficit for all of 1972. The department said it had taken the unusual step of releasing the figures over the weekend to provide "as much information as possible to interested parties," however, the disclosure was apparently intended to calm money markets overseas. [New York Times] The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in a major departure from previous stands, consented to a desegregation plan for Atlanta's city schools that accepts a minimum of integrated classrooms in exchange for a maximum of integrated administrative positions. If approved by the federal courts, the plan would leave a majority of Atlanta's black children in all-black schools. [New York Times] Joseph Curran, the $85,000-a-year president of the National Maritime Union who has indicated that he does not intend to seek re-election, will be able to retire with nearly a million dollars in severance pay and lump-sum pension benefits, according to union sources. The magnitude of these potential retirement benefits, among the largest ever reported for a union leader, has stirred criticism among dissident seamen now preparing a challenge to a Curran-endorsed slate in the union election scheduled between April 2 and May 31. [New York Times] Communist shelling has slackened in Kontum, the Highlands capital in South Vietnam, but the cease-fire has brought few other changes for the better. Kontum still remains under siege, nearly a month after the formal start of the cease-fire. On the morning that the cease-fire was to have gone into effect, South Vietnamese officers said, Communist troops cut Route 14, the only road that connects Kontum with the rest of the world, and a few days later the Communists attacked a string of hamlets just west of the city. [New York Times]