News stories from Sunday August 11, 1974

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

President Ford went to church, but spent the rest of Sunday at the White House conferring with Republican leaders about the choice of a Vice President and working on the speech he will make at a joint session of Congress tomorrow night. He had a series of half-hour meetings with his party's leadership in the Senate and the House, as well as discussions with Secretary of State Kissinger, Melvin Laird and Bryce Harlow, both former presidential advisers, and with George Bush, chairman of the Republican National Committee. But most of his time was spent in talks with Senators Hugh Scott, Robert Griffin, Barry Goldwater and John Tower, and Representatives John Rhodes, Leslie Arends, Elford Cederberg and Barber Conable. These men form the Republican hierarchy in Congress and also are old friends of the President. [New York Times] The outlines of the Ford presidency are slowly emerging at the White House in the first hectic and unseated days of transition. While Mr. Ford searches for a Vice President, his transitional team of four former congressional colleagues is dealing with the problem of molding the tightly run White House to fit the "personal and peculiar working habits" of the President. [New York Times] An analysis of Richard Nixon's last days as President finds that he did not fall from power. He slid, gradually and certainly, toward his decision to resign. It took 15 days. An almost eerie accumulation of inescapable ironies lay behind Mr. Nixon's stoic resignation announcement last Thursday. [New York Times] Hugh Scott, the Senate Republican leader, said that be had found growing bipartisan opposition in Congress to the possible criminal prosecution of former President Nixon for his role in the Watergate cover-up. He said that he had spoken to most of the leaders of both parties in the Senate and the House and concluded that "most of them would wish that nothing further happens" to Mr. Nixon. "Most of them are enormously compassionate," he said. [New York Times] United Nations sources said that Greek Cypriote National Guard contingents began withdrawing from occupied Turkish Cypriote enclaves, beginning in the Limassol area. Greek Cypriote government sources said that this was a first step toward strengthening the cease-fire agreement reached by the Foreign Ministers of Greece, Turkey and Britain, who are meeting in Geneva. Meanwhile, Greek Cypriotes criticized the United States and Britain for what they believe was complicity in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. [New York Times] Egypt's Foreign Minister, Ismail Fahmy, arrived in Washington for talks with Secretary of State Kissinger -- and probably President Ford -- that American officials hope will remove uncertainties about the next round of Middle East negotiations. [New York Times] Portugal will ask the United Nations tomorrow to recognize the Republic of Guinea-Bissau and admit it to membership. Portugal's representative at the United Nations, Dr. Jose Viega Simao, will present a letter from Portugal's Foreign Minister to the Security Council expressing Portugal's readiness to recognize the independence of her former territory at an early date. [New York Times]