News stories from Wednesday March 27, 1974

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

A former official of the Securities and Exchange Commission testified at the Mitchell-Stans trial that a reference to a $200,000 cash contribution to President Nixon's re-election campaign by Robert Vesco was deleted from an S.E.C. action against Mr. Vesco after Maurice Stans was read the paragraph and said, "Uh-oh, that gives me a problem." [New York Times] The White House said it was possible that some of the 42 tape recordings sought by the House Judiciary Committee might not exist. "It would depend on where the conversations took place," said a spokesman, who said he understood that "a good deal" of the conversations had been recorded, "but I don't know how much." After seeking further information from the President's lawyer, the spokesman declined to elaborate. [New York Times] President Nixon told a Republican fundraising banquet that "candidates who support this administration will have a strong case to take to the people this fall." Mr. Nixon, who did not mention Watergate, said "peace and prosperity" were the two issues that could win for Republicans. [New York Times] A proposal to finance presidential and congressional election campaigns with public tax funds won a key test in the Senate when a move to delete the provision from a broader bill was defeated. [New York Times] Negotiations between the administration and Democratic congressional leaders over a new emergency energy bill broke down, raising the question of whether the two sides can agree on a range of measures. [New York Times] Secretary of State Kissinger ended three days of talks with Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow, with both sides aiming for concrete agreements during President Nixon's expected visit to the Soviet Union in June. But the leaders left unclear whether they had achieved the "conceptual breakthrough" on arms issues that Mr. Kissinger sought at the talks. [New York Times] Syrian complaints that Egypt's disengagement agreement with Israel had left Syria isolated in her negotiations over the Golan Heights have split an Arab ministers' conference in Tunis and shattered a spirit of solidarity and optimism among the 21-nation Arab League. A sharp Syrian attack on Egyptian policy drew a surprise visit by Egypt's Foreign Minister, Ismael Fahmy. [New York Times] Senate investigators charged that American oil companies acted together in the Middle East to help increase oil prices and company profits. Senior members of a Senate investigating subcommittee said the corporations had no incentive to keep Arab nations from raising prices, since their own profits rose at the same time. Indeed, staff members said they had documents indicating the companies had agreed to limit production. [New York Times] The Trades Union Congress, Britain's largest labor organization representing some 9.5 million workers, gave an initial endorsement to the Labor party government's new budget, raising hopes that unions will accept a "social contract" by moderating wage demands. That hope was tempered, however, when a member union representing 1.5 million workers announced a ban on overtime starting April 15 in its effort to win a big wage increase. [New York Times] United States and Mexican authorities disclosed that an American diplomat stationed in northwestern Mexico had disappeared last Friday and was presumed to have been kidnapped. The diplomat was identified as John Patterson, Vice Consul at Hermosillo, but a spokesman at the American Embassy in Mexico City refused to say how Mr. Patterson was seized or whether any ransom demands had been made. [New York Times] Six weeks after her husband was exiled by the Soviet Union, Mrs. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn announced that she and her family would leave Moscow on Friday to join Mr. Solzhenitsyn in Switzerland. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 871.17 (-12.51, -1.42%)
S&P Composite: 96.59 (-1.36, -1.39%)
Arms Index: 1.30

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	340	2.05
Declines	1,054	8.23
Unchanged	376	1.41
Total Volume		11.69

* 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*
March 26, 1974	883.68	97.95	11.84
March 25, 1974	881.02	97.64	10.54
March 22, 1974	878.13	97.27	11.93
March 21, 1974	875.47	97.34	12.95
March 20, 1974	872.34	97.57	12.96
March 19, 1974	867.57	97.23	12.80
March 18, 1974	874.22	98.05	14.01
March 15, 1974	887.83	99.28	14.50
March 14, 1974	889.78	99.65	19.77
March 13, 1974	891.66	99.74	16.82