News stories from Sunday August 3, 1975

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

At a state dinner for President Ford in Belgrade, President Tito of Yugoslavia declared that Israel should withdraw from occupied Arab territories as soon as possible and should recognize the "legitimacy of the national rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to establish an independent state of their own." He said it was "obvious that the efforts so far have not been sufficient to attain a durable and just solution." His remarks, which surprised American diplomats who had accompanied Mr. Ford to Belgrade from Rumania, appeared to some observers to be an indirect criticism of Secretary of State Kissinger's Middle East mediation efforts. [New York Times] Officials of the Justice Department said that the department's lawyers who are looking into possible wrongdoing by the Central Intelligence Agency had concluded that the agency's employees illegally opened and photographed mail between the United States and Communist countries. It was uncertain, however, whether the department would be able to get enough substantial evidence that would warrant criminal prosecution of the C.I.A. employees. [New York Times] Clarence Kelley, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced that the agency "is assuming investigative jurisdiction" in the disappearance of James Hoffa, because "during the past 24 hours extortionate communications have been received." Mr. Hoffa disappeared last Wednesday in Michigan. [New York Times] The federal board that supervises government-backed loans to the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation is looking into whether Lockheed has violated its contractual obligations to the government by not disclosing to the board the $22 million the company said it had paid foreign officials and political organizations to help it obtain contracts. Edward Schmults, Undersecretary of the Treasury and executive director of the Emergency Loan Guarantee Board, said that if the board decided that Lockheed has not met its obligations, the board could refuse to guarantee any more loans unless the company promised to disclose completely any future overseas payments. He said that the board had not been told by Lockheed about any foreign payments at all. [New York Times] Moments before it had been expected to land, a chartered jetliner carrying Moroccan workers home from France for vacations crashed into a mountainside in heavy fog in southern Morocco, killing all 188 people 'aboard. The toll was one of the highest in air history. [New York Times] The government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India has drafted retroactive legislation that would end her personal entanglement with the courts by changing the election laws under which she was convicted in June of improper practices. The amendments, which were written to fit the particular circumstances of the case against Mrs. Gandhi, are expected to be presented today to Parliament. They will probably be enacted quickly. [New York Times]