News stories from Sunday February 16, 1975

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

Former Attorney General Elliot Richardson told a Senate hearing last year that he believed the Federal Bureau of Investigation had wiretapped at least one member of Congress and possibly two congressional aides before the Nixon years. The testimony, which got little public attention when it was given, was part of evidence cited by two subcommittees in a report it released calling for stronger congressional control of electronic surveillance. [New York Times] Next Friday, Soviet space pilots will leave Houston, where they are completing their third training session in this country, and go home to prepare for the scheduled link-up in space next summer of an American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The equipment that will be sent into space next July 15, including an American-built docking module and a complete "backup" Soyuz ship, have been delivered to their launch sites on the Atlantic Ocean and in the Kazakhstan desert. [New York Times] Participants in a conservative political conference in Washington voted to establish a 13-member committee to study the possibilities of a third party for the 1976 presidential campaign. The resolution establishing the group, called the Committee on Conservative Alternatives, avoided the term "third party." It stated instead the need "to provide a formal mechanism to review and assess the current political situation and to develop future political opportunities," and it noted that "a growing number of independent voters reject both major parties." [New York Times] Secretary of State Kissinger and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko of the Soviet Union began talks in Geneva today with emphasis on Soviet American relations and new American-Soviet proposals on arms-control issues. They also discussed Cyprus and European security questions, but delayed until tomorrow their planned detailed discussion on the Middle East, the main contentious issue at the moment between the two countries. [New York Times] The Soviet Union renewed its proposal that the Cyprus situation be discussed at a relatively large conference within the framework of the United Nations. The renewal of the Soviet proposal of last August -- it was accepted by Greece, but not Turkey -- came from Tass, the official press agency. Meanwhile, West German officials said after Secretary of State Kissinger's talks in Bonn that the government was considering resumption of arms aid to Turkey, but not under American pressure. [New York Times] The Ford administration gave its approval to an investment of $300 million by the Iranian government in the financially troubled Pan American World Airways, the largest airline in the United States. Final terms must still be negotiated and then approved by the Civil Aeronautics Board. Pan American reportedly hopes to use a large part of the Iranian money to make a compromise payment settlement offer to a group of insurance companies to which it owes a total of $380 million, relieving pressure from one of its most urgent debts. [New York Times]