News stories from Saturday July 12, 1975
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Ford said he would send to Congress this week a proposal for "a responsible, well-timed decontrol" of domestic oil prices that would lead to a gradual, rather than a sudden, removal of controls. Mr. Ford made the statement in a news conference in Chicago, where he touched on foreign, domestic and political topics. He had been on a trip to the Midwest. [New York Times]
- The Exxon corporation made between $46 million and $49 million in political contributions in Italy over a nine-year period, including, apparently, $86,000 to the Communist party. The corporation also acknowledged having authorized its affiliate, Esso Italiana, to make $27 million in contributions to Italian parties between 1963 and 1972. It said that the other $19 million to $22 million had been made by an Esso Italiana employee on his authority. [New York Times]
- The United States is considering the possibility of American technicians taking over electronic surveillance stations maintained by Israel in the strategic Sinai mountain passes. This could remove one of the principal issues preventing Egypt and Israel from reaching a new agreement on disengagement in Sinai. Israel insists on control of early-warning radar and monitoring stations that she has in western Sinai. Egypt apparently suggested, as a compromise, that the United States man the stations. The United States reluctantly agreed to consider the proposal, newsmen on Secretary of State Kissinger's Bonn-London flight were told. [New York Times]
- Col. Ernest Morgan of the United States Army, who was kidnapped by leftists in Beirut on June 29, was released unharmed and taken to the home of Premier Rashid Karami. Colonel Morgan, whose abduction increased tensions in Beirut, said to a crowd of Lebanese and foreign newsmen, "I am glad to be alive." His release was greeted with expressions of relief by President Ford, who was in Chicago. He said "many in the United States and Lebanese governments have worked together to secure this release." [New York Times]
- Military units in Portugal were put on an alert as the split widened between the Communist party and its military allies and moderate and conservative groups. The break between the military leaders of the government and the Socialist party became wider with the acceptance by the ruling High Council of the Revolution of the resignation of two Socialist ministers and five deputy ministers. The alienation of moderates from the government was expected to increase this week with the departure of the centrist Popular Democratic party. [New York Times]
- The intimate diaries of Cosima Wagner, mistress and then second wife of Richard Wagner, will be published in their entirety after having been kept secret for almost 100 years. Scholars and music specialists have long sought access to the diaries, which, Wagner authorities say, are expected to contain significant revelations about a major period in the composer's life, his ideas about music and opera and his strongly unconventional life. World rights have been sold to a Munich publisher. An English translation in two volumes is scheduled for publication in the United States in 1977. [New York Times]