News stories from Sunday September 29, 1974

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

A senior White House official said that President Ford dismissed as a "conversational gambit" an offer two weeks ago by former President Nixon to relinquish his unconditional pardon. The official, commenting on a report in Time magazine that Mr. Nixon had offered to "return" the pardon and that Mr. Ford had declined, said the account was "an essentially accurate" version of a telephone conversation the former President had initiated on Sept. 17. The news magazine said Mr. Nixon told Mr. Ford that he regretted the "trouble" the pardon had caused. [New York Times] The Watergate conspiracy cover-up will go to trial Tuesday morning, two years and three months after the cover-up began and nearly two months after it caused the final collapse of the Nixon presidency. There will be either five or six defendants, depending on how federal Judge John Sirica rules on a pending motion. Among them are John Mitchell, the former Attorney General, and H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, who had been chief White House assistants. [New York Times] Forty New York City detectives canvassed apartments, bars, hotels and restaurants along and near West 79th Street searching for details which could shed light on the murder and dismemberment of police officer Patrick Kelly. One line of the investigation is centering on homosexual bars and gathering places in the upper West Side. The medical examiner's office hopes to establish some time tomorrow the time of the officer's death. The dismembered body was found early Saturday on West 79th Street. [New York Times] The disclosure of a quietly arranged trans-Pacific shipment to Japan of strip-mined Montana coal has touched off an angry new wave of opposition by Montana ranchers to the state's impending coal boom. There was no announcement -- efforts were made to keep it "privy" -- of a shipment last August of 10,000 tons of coal from a cattle-grazing region. [New York Times] Administration officials said that President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger ordered various government agencies late last week to stop lobbying for a new foreign aid bill, in an effort to block amendments that would restrict presidential freedom of action in foreign affairs. Rather than trying for a new bill, the officials said, the administration sought to extend foreign aid spending by means of a continuing resolution based on last year's legislation. [New York Times] Mexico has reportedly been asked unofficially if she would give asylum to political prisoners held by the Dominican Republic whose release has been demanded by leftist guerrillas holding six hostages in the Venezuelan consulate in Santo Domingo. The guerrillas have indicated that they will leave the country peacefully if the 37 political prisoners are allowed to leave with them. [New York Times] Two days of talks by the finance ministers of the United States, Japan, West Germany, Britain and France ended in Washington with no indication that they had agreed on action to meet the problems caused by rising oil prices. It was reported unofficially that the ministers had decided this was no time to act on the issue of oil prices, but all agreed that a lower price was a crucial long-term goal. [New York Times] More than 10,000 people in Moscow flocked to the biggest officially sanctioned show of modern and unorthodox art by Soviet painters since the avant-garde movement of the 1920's. They were five, six and even 10 deep in a huge field to get a glimpse of 200 paintings displayed by about 65 artists. There were no incidents of repression by the authorities. [New York Times]