News stories from Monday April 28, 1975

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

After discussing the deteriorating situation in South Vietnam with the National Security Council, President Ford tonight ordered the Defense Department to begin the emergency evacuation by helicopter of all Americans remaining in South Vietnam. The evacuation affected at least 950 Americans. [New York Times] The heaviest rocket attack of the war struck Saigon's airport early this morning as North Vietnamese troops assaulted parts of the city's suburbs. More than 150 rockets struck Tan Son Nhut Air Base and two United States marines were reported killed. They were guarding several thousand Vietnamese and Americans waiting to be evacuated from Saigon. The rockets also destroyed a United States Air Force cargo plane used in the refugee airlift, which was suspended. [New York Times] Gen. Duong Van Minh assumed the presidency of South Vietnam to seek peace with the Communists, but they rejected his initial declaration. Attacks continued around Saigon and rockets heavily damaged the capital's airport. A 24-hour curfew was immediately imposed on the city, which was in fear of imminent danger, but it was not clear from whom -- the Communists or South Vietnamese opposed to a settlement with the Communists. [New York Times] The new Cambodian government declared that no foreign military bases would be tolerated in Cambodia. The notice, apparently directed at North Vietnam, which has numerous troops and supply bases in Cambodia, was issued at the end of the third so-called national congress held by the new Communist leaders. [New York Times] Although businessmen and economists continue to predict that the nation's deep recession will soon end, President Ford's chief economic adviser, Alan Greenspan. warned that the bottom of the slide has not yet been reached, "despite a very dramatic slowing in the decline." Mr. Greenspan, in a speech at the Eighth Annual Institutional Investor Conference in New York, said the continued drag comes primarily from the extensive inventory liquidation which is still underway. [New York Times] The Supreme Court refused to block a second attempt by the Department of Justice to prosecute the three national television networks for violating antitrust laws by monopolizing prime-time entertainment programming. When the first suit against the networks was filed in April, 1972, network executives charged that it was an attempt by the Nixon administration to intimidate them and soften their political news coverage of the President during the election year. [New York Times] After five weeks of argument, the House, voting 335 to 59, passed a $3 billion school lunch bill, but gave Republicans a partial victory by blunting proposals by the Democrats to increase the program's cost. Although the bill is almost $1 billion above the current spending level and provides almost twice as much money as President Ford sought in his budget request, it was passed without $1 billion in increases originally sought by the Democrats. [New York Times] A group of physicists appointed last year by the American Physical Society to assess the safety of atomic energy reactors in the has found no reason for "substantial short-term concern," but they were critical of the reactors' long-range prospects. The study focused on the water-cooled reactors that are the standard energy sources in atomic power plants. [New York Times] The more than 20 hostages who had been held at the Israeli Consulate in Johannesburg were released late last night by David Protter, a South African Jew. The police said that earlier in the day two persons were killed and 32 were wounded by Mr. Protter, an assistant security officer at the consulate. Earlier reports said terrorists had seized the office and were holding a number of persons hostage. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 810.00 (-1.80, -0.22%)
S&P Composite: 86.23 (-0.39, -0.45%)
Arms Index: 0.98

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	652	7.07
Declines	764	8.10
Unchanged	420	2.68
Total Volume		17.85

* in millions of shares

Arms Index is the ratio of volume per declining issue to volume per advancing issue; a figure below 1.0 is bullish.

Market Index Trends
Date	DJIA	S&P	Volume*
April 25, 1975	811.80	86.62	20.25
April 24, 1975	803.66	86.04	19.05
April 23, 1975	802.49	86.12	20.04
April 22, 1975	814.14	87.09	26.12
April 21, 1975	815.86	87.23	23.96
April 18, 1975	808.43	86.30	22.61
April 17, 1975	819.46	87.25	32.65
April 16, 1975	815.71	86.60	22.97
April 15, 1975	815.08	86.30	29.62
April 14, 1975	806.95	85.60	26.80