News stories from Sunday April 27, 1975

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

With an overwhelming Communist army moving closer to Saigon, South Vietnamese leaders moved toward total accommodation to initial Communist political demands. Gen. Duong Van Minh, a neutralist who is regarded as being acceptable to the Communists on an interim basis, was reportedly preparing to have the presidency handed over to him by outgoing President Tran Van Huong, and there seemed the possibility that the Viet Cong themselves may send a representative to the ceremony. During the night, Communist forces moved to within barely one mile of Saigon's city limits, cutting the highway between Saigon and Bien Hoa, They fired another volley of rockets into Saigon. [New York Times] When a Communist rocket smashed Into a densely populated slum in Saigon at 4 A.M. today, it started a large fire. After the fire had been put out, a local official estimated that 500 houses had been destroyed and that 5,000 persons had been made homeless. The rocket was one of a barrage of five the Communists fired into Saigon, apparently in an attempt to force the Saigon government to meet their terms for peace talks. At least six persons were killed and 22 were wounded. [New York Times] The American airlift of South Vietnamese refugees from Saigon to Guam was resumed after a 36 hour interval to give American officials and soldiers on the island time to prepare for the arrival of 6,000 persons a day. The airlift's resumption was marked by the arrival of 821 refugees in 60 minutes at two airfields. Immigration officials vowed that they would improve efforts to move the 20,000 refugees who were flown to the island in recent days to the continental United States as quickly as possible. [New York Times] Senator Barry Goldwater called on former President Nixon to make a "full confession" of his complicity in the Watergate scandals as a first step toward his eventual emergence as senior spokesman for the Republican party. The Senator said he believed that if Mr. Nixon could "get his name cleaned up," either through a public statement or before a court, he could become an asset to the Republicans. [New York Times] A national commission called for immediate repeal of a federal moratorium on research involving the living human fetus. The moratorium was ordered last year by Congress and stopped virtually all such research in the United States. The research has been strongly opposed by anti-abortionists. The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects and Biomedical and Behavioral Research voted eight to one to lift the moratorium. [New York Times] The Environmental Protection Agency has suggested that the government slow development of a plutonium-breeding nuclear reactor on which many power utilities have based their plans for producing electricity at the turn of the century. A delay of four to 12 years was proposed on the ground that the Atomic Energy Commission had apparently overstated the probable electric-power demand in the years 1970 to 2020. [New York Times] Premier Yitzhak Rabin of Israel barred formal cabinet motions for new Israeli peace initiatives when his ministers heard Foreign Minister Yigal Alton report on his visit last week to Washington. Mr. Rabin and the cabinet majority reportedly believed it would he inadvisable to make conciliatory moves under such pressures as the reappraisal of United States policy toward Israel and the suspension of negotiations on arms aid an the ground that it could he interpreted as a sign of weakness and invite additional pressures. [New York Times]