News stories from Saturday January 10, 1976

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

Interviews with a dozen party professionals in a dozen states and in Washington indicate that the contest for the Republican presidential nomination between President Ford and Ronald Reagan appears to have split the Republican Party into two almost equal parts. The professionals said it seemed that the race would be very, very close. The selection of the first delegates to the Republican National Convention will be held in Iowa on Jan. 19. [New York Times] Former President Richard Nixon has decided to remain publicly aloof from the 1976 presidential campaign for fear of contributing to disunity within the Republican Party, according to a friend and confidant, but will not forego a behind-the-scenes political role. Despite statements by some Republican spokesmen that he was maintaining rigid neutrality, he was said to regard the presidential campaign of former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California as a serious threat to the party. [New York Times] The great murder wave of the 1970's appears to be ebbing in this country's big cities. Reports from police departments in 12 selected cities show that in nine of them the number of homicides dropped markedly -- and in some cases sharply -- last year. The steady rise in killing that reached a peak in 1974, the most lethal year since uniform crime statistics have been kept in the United States, may have been halted or reversed, at least for the time being. New York was one of three cities among those examined that had showed increasing homicides in 1975 after recording a sharp decrease in 1974. [New York Times] The Federal Reserve System has found that banks across the nation have far greater holdings of New York City and state obligations than was indicated in a previous study. Its report brought renewed congressional charges that the Ford administration did not realize the potential impact of a New York City default on the national economy at the time it was opposing federal intervention to prevent a default. The Federal Reserve found that 954 banks in 33 states hold $6.491 billion in New York obligations, of which $2.017 billion are city obligations; $1.476 billion are state obligations and $2.997 billion are state agency obligations. The study also showed that New York City and state obligations made up more than 50 percent of the capital of 234 banks in 29 states and between 20 and 50 percent of the capital of 718 banks in 33 states. [New York Times] Soon after the opening of its meeting on Angola in Addis Ababa, the heads of state of the Organization of African Unity were clearly divided as two respected African leaders presented impassioned pleas for action. About half the delegates responded enthusiastically to a proposal by President Somora Machel of Mozambique that the O.A.U. give its total support to the Soviet-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. The rest of the delegates were silent, but later applauded President Leopold Senghor of Senegal, who urged the O.A.U. not to recognize only one of the three competing nationalist movements. He urged the encouragement of national unity and called for a resolution condemning equally all foreign intervention in Angola. [New York Times] A series of diplomatic victories over the last year has given the Palestine Liberation Organization a new sense of self-assurance. Tomorrow, the organization will cap its biggest diplomatic accomplishment when it participates in the United Nations debate on the Middle East; but at its main base, in Lebanon, it is involved in a communal conflict that some Palestinian leaders view as a threat to the movement's existence. [New York Times] It was announced at a White House meeting on intelligence that the Ford administration and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will try to work out joint legislative proposals for the reform of the United States intelligence system. The ways in which the committee and the administration could cooperate in working out the reforms were discussed in a series of meetings in December and early this month between Senator Frank Church, the committee's chairman, Senator John Tower, the vice chairman, and senior White House officials. The reform plan has President Ford's approval. [New York Times] Five ships of the Spanish Armada that sank after their battles with the British in 1588 have been found along the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Such ships have been found to be like time capsules, yielding a rich archive. Their excavation is providing new information on the history of their period. Excavation attempts were reported on at the Seventh International Conference on Underwater Archeology at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia. [New York Times]