News stories from Sunday April 20, 1975
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The flow of people leaving South Vietnam -- which started with a trickle two weeks ago -- has developed into what appears to be the major airlift sought by President Ford. Nearly 500 Americans and Vietnamese arrived at Clark Air Base in the Philippines from Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airfield and 217 others who arrived at the Philippine airport during the last two weeks have already left for California. [New York Times]
- President Ford has selected Daniel Patrick Moynihan, recently American Ambassador to India, as the new United States representative to the United Nations. The appointment will go to the Senate for confirmation before Mr. Moynihan, who is 48 years old, replaces John Scali, who has represented the United States at the United Nations since 1973. Mr. Moynihan left India last January, returning to his professorship in government at Harvard University. [New York Times]
- In the less than three years since the United States Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment as practiced in America was unconstitutional, 31 states have reenacted the death penalty and the trend is continuing. Whether the new death penalty laws are constitutional is in serious dispute. In the case of a convicted murderer from North Carolina, now before the Supreme Court may provide an answer. [New York Times]
- Relatively high unemployment has become the new hallmark of an affluent United States -- a phenomenon that many experts believe may persist beyond the depths of the current recession and through the remaining years of this decade. A recent Gallup poll showed Americans still view inflation as the country's No. 1 menace, although worries about unemployment have increased. [New York Times]
- Two years after Congress authorized the use of billions of dollars of federal highway funds for mass transit projects, the results have proved bitterly disappointing to the advocates who hailed the congressional action as a great victory. Although the program made available over three years nearly $2.4 billion, no more than $34.6 million has been awarded so far -- and that to only two places, New York City and East St. Louis, Illinois -- and only a handful of other communities have even applied for money. [New York Times]
- Communist divisions were reported maneuvering rapidly near Saigon with the obvious intention of sealing off the capital from all approaches. The Communists refrained from attacks on Saigon's immediate vicinity, however, as part of a change in tactics that became evident Saturday when the deputy chief of the Viet Cong military delegation in the South Vietnamese capital hinted that the Communists might delay a military onslaught on the capital to allow time for a possible peaceful conclusion of the war. [New York Times]
- Latin America has become the major source of hard drugs entering the United States. Much of this is supplied by rings controlled by businessmen and professionals so politically and economically powerful that they operate with virtual immunity from arrest and prosecution, according to a two-month investigation by The New York Times. All of the cocaine sold in the New York City metropolitan area now comes from Latin America and the demand has sent the price of coca leaves, from which the drug is extracted, soaring from $4 to $60 a bale in some Latin countries in the last two years. And Mexico has supplanted France as the main supplier of heroin, increasing its share of the illegal heroin market here from 20 to 60 percent in the last five years. [New York Times]
- Government officials in Jerusalem say that Israel has no intention of softening her negotiating position on a new Sinai accord or even considering a new negotiating strategy with the United States until the Ford administration agrees to resume talks on pending arms requests. The Israeli leaders see no purpose in offering Egypt new proposals until there are "practical signs" that the present chill in Israeli-United States relations has passed. [New York Times]