News stories from Saturday June 28, 1975

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

Some Southern judges and civil rights lawyers, faced with the fact that white flight is resegregating many previously desegregated schools, appear to be softening their insistence on total integration. In a number of significant instances in the last several years -- and in the last several weeks, in particular -- the judges and lawyers have dropped or modified demands for widespread busing and have permitted school administrations to operate neighborhood schools. Their actions seem to be part of a trend that is not limited to the South. [New York Times] A high-level government commission called for dividing the posts of Secretary of State and Assistant to the President for National Security ? but, the commission indicated, only after Henry Kissinger leaves government service. This was one of scores of reforms proposed by the Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy, which was established by Congress and President Richard Nixon two years ago. Members of the commission acknowledged at a news conference that their purpose was to undo the concentration of power in foreign policy-making that has evolved over the last six years. Mr. Kissinger, however, was praised for "his extraordinary abilities." [New York Times] Dennis Banks, a leader of the American Indian Movement, was asked by Indian leaders to meet with federal officials at the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, where 200 armed federal officers are searching for Indians believed to have killed two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday. Mr. Banks is soon going on trial on arson and other charges stemming from the Indian takeover of Wounded Knee on the reservation in 1973. He said he was "available to meet with anyone to stop bloodshed." [New York Times] New and hidden deficits totaling $292 million in New York City's budgets for the last two years have been uncovered by the State Controller in an audit of city finances. A confidential draft of the audit said that the deficits resulted from bookkeeping errors that caused the City Controller to "overstate" anticipated federal and state revenues in 1973 and 1974. The draft also said that both the current Controller, Harrison Goldin, and his predecessor, Abraham Beame, had issued notes against federal and state revenues that were not enough to cover the note issues. This means according to the draft, that the city has borrowed to pay its bills against revenues that it did not have, still has not received and has no likelihood of ever getting, and Mayor Beame, who is desperately seeking more money to stave off deficits in the future, will have to find $292 million to pay past deficits. The shortfall will have to be financed from current appropriations, the draft said. [New York Times] Chief Justice Ajitnath Ray of the Indian Supreme Court, which is scheduled to review Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's recent conviction on election corruption charges next month, resigned today, according to sources close to the court. He was named to the post at Mrs. Gandhi's behest in 1973. No reason was given for the reported resignation, which was the first of a top Indian official since a state of emergency was declared Thursday. [New York Times] In a television address to the nation, President Isabel Martinez de Peron of Argentina lashed out at Peronist labor leaders who organized a general strike and demonstrations Friday to protest government proposals to roll back recent salary increases. She called for continued support for her government and its economic austerity program, but offered immediate salary increases of 50 percent for employees, with an additional 30 percent by the end of the year. But these concessions were far short of most wage settlements of up to 130 per cent recently obtained by the major trade unions. Her speech seemed to put her on a collision course with a substantial part of the labor movement, a principal supporter of her government. [New York Times] A number of people were killed or wounded in Beirut as street fighting between rightist and leftist factions spread to new areas of the capital. A series of explosions rocked the Hamra shopping area, and a store where members of the foreign community, especially Americans and British, do their shopping was destroyed. Snipers opened fire on a street where there are local and foreign banks. According to the police, the number of casualties in the last five days has risen to 49 dead and 115 wounded. [New York Times]