News stories from Tuesday August 19, 1975

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

President Ford warned in a Minneapolis speech that he would have to accelerate the nuclear arms race unless the Soviet Union agreed to a curb on strategic weapons this year. Defending detente but stating that the Soviet Union should not abuse a cooperative atmosphere, he said he would ask Congress for nearly $3 billion to step up nuclear weapons development in the next two years unless agreement was achieved in the negotiations. [New York Times] San Francisco experienced sporadic violence on the first day of the city's first police strike. Transit workers scheduled a strike tomorrow night and firemen are taking a vote on the same issue -- higher pay. With 90 percent of policemen idle, supervisors were handling emergency calls only. [New York Times] Houston longshoremen who refused to load wheat on ships bound for the Soviet Union were ordered to end the boycott by a federal judge in Galveston. They were seeking guarantees that the export would not raise domestic food prices and that more of the grain would be carried in American ships. President Ford called their action "tragic and unfortunate." Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture, suggested that if the unions were concerned with high food prices they should discontinue "some of the featherbedding practices that jack up those very prices." [New York Times] Dominic Byrne was described by his lawyer as in innocent unwittingly involved in the kidnapping of Samuel Bronfman II and as one who did not want to hurt anyone. The court-appointed counsel for Mel Patrick Lynch, the other defendant, said that the events, if true, were totally inconsistent and abnormal and an aberration in Mr. Lynch's way of life, It was also learned that the first ransom letter with death threats arrived with 10 cents postage due. [New York Times] High administration sources said that President Ford's warning on nuclear arms was prompted by Secretary of State Kissinger's wish for a tactical shift in negotiating strategy, placing more pressure on Moscow. The Pentagon has not asked for the additional funds hinted at by the President in his speech. [New York Times] Egypt, Israel and the United States have agreed to support the establishment of a new peace-keeping force in Sinai if the United Nations Security Council should unexpectedly discontinue the United Nations buffer force during the three years of a projected new accord between Israel and Egypt. In Washington, United States officials and informed diplomats said the new international force would not include American or Soviet contingents and would probably have at least the endorsement of the United Nations General Assembly. [New York Times] A clearly authoritative article in Pravda gave Kremlin backing to Portugal's Communists with a call for "mass solidarity" with them and their allies. Offering no definitions or goals, it reasserted the Soviet pledge of noninterference in Portuguese affairs. Some diplomats read it as a response to Secretary of State Kissinger's statement that the United States was ready to help a democratic Portugal. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 808.51 (-14.24, -1.73%)
S&P Composite: 84.95 (-1.25, -1.45%)
Arms Index: 2.48

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	292	1.30
Declines	1,117	12.32
Unchanged	369	1.37
Total Volume		14.99

* 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*
August 18, 1975	822.75	86.20	10.81
August 15, 1975	825.64	86.36	10.61
August 14, 1975	817.04	85.60	12.46
August 13, 1975	820.56	85.97	12.00
August 12, 1975	828.54	87.12	14.51
August 11, 1975	823.76	86.55	12.35
August 8, 1975	817.74	86.02	11.66
August 7, 1975	815.79	86.30	12.39
August 6, 1975	813.67	86.25	16.28
August 5, 1975	810.15	86.23	15.47