News stories from Saturday August 30, 1975
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- In a speech to a labor union audience in Augusta, Maine, President Ford prodded business and industry to expand production and create new job opportunities to help "maintain the social fabric of America." He said that no level of unemployment was acceptable to his administration. He went to Maine and Rhode Island to attend Republican fundraising rallies. [New York Times]
- After months of apparent unconcern over New York City's financial condition, President Ford's principal economic advisers are now suggesting that default by the city could have serious national implications. These implications were described as political as well as economic and they hinted that Mr. Ford has begun to take a deeper interest in the problem. Treasury Secretary William Simon and the President's Special Assistant for Economic Affairs, L. William Seidman, said in interviews that a default could adversely affect municipalities across the country and the nation's financial markets. They said it might also complicate the flagging national economic recovery. "I don't want to see a default -- that would be awful," Mr. Simon said. [New York Times]
- The National Security Agency eavesdrops on virtually all cable, Telex and other non-telephone communications leaving and entering the United States and uses computers to sort and obtain intelligence from the contents, according to sources familiar with the operations. The N.S.A., possibly the most secretive of the agencies in the intelligence community, is part of the Department of Defense and is responsible for intelligence gathering and developing and breaking codes. Its operations make it privy to the inner workings of thousands of American and foreign corporations, the sources said, as well as to the private overseas telegrams of an untold number of American citizens. It is able to intrude on the communications of news agencies and newspapers, and communications of other governments, and conducts systematic intrusions on telephone communications in foreign countries, often picking up calls between American citizens, the sources said. There is said to be growing controversy in the intelligence community over whether the agency's activity is legal. [New York Times]
- Soviet unhappiness over Secretary of State Kissinger's latest peace mission in the Middle East was indicated by the Communist party newspaper Pravda, which said today that the disengagement agreement being completed would only further complicate the Middle East situation. The proposed new pullback of forces in Sinai, Pravda said in the first direct Soviet comment on Mr. Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, was "a partial agreement of limited significance that not only does not replace a general political settlement in the Middle East, but also does not bring one any nearer." Pravda also criticized the proposal to station American technicians to monitor warning systems for Israel at mountain passes in Sinai. It said that the United Nations peace-keeping force already had an "effective" monitoring system in the region since 1973.
Egypt agreed with Israel that the presence of American technicians in the Sinai passes was vital to the success of a new disengagement being worked out between the two countries. In Alexandria, a spokesman for President Anwar Sadat said that in Egypt's opinion, "the idea of United States technicians to help with the working of the early-warning system observers is an important part" of the accord.
[New York Times] - The Security Council was urged "to take all necessary measures" to force Israel to comply with the United Nations resolutions on the Middle East by delegates from 82 nonaligned countries who concluded a week-long conference in Peru. The "Lima Declaration" adopted at the conference omitted a call to suspend or expel Israel from the United Nations despite an effort to oust her by the Palestine Liberation Organization, now a full member of the nonaligned nations, and by delegates from Syria, Libya, Iraq and other anti-Israel Arab nations. These nations unsuccessfully fought to the end to have their demand for the ouster incorporated in the declaration. [New York Times]
- A large part of Portugal's armed forces were close to open rebellion against the appointment of Gen. Vasco Goncalves, the former Premier, as their Chief of Staff. The attempt by President Francisco da Costa Gomes to end more than a month of crisis by shifting the Communist-backed General Goncalves to the nation's lop military post, and naming Vice Adm. Jose Batista Pinheiro de Azevedo as Premier, has exacerbated tensions in the country. A military alert, called Friday night, added to the uneasiness. [New York Times]