News stories from Sunday February 29, 1976

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

Jimmy Carter, who usually "poor-mouthed" his chances of winning the Florida primary, predicted while campaigning in Miami today that a victory for him would mean the Democratic presidential nomination. For months he said the March 9 primary was a golden opportunity for Democratic liberals and moderates to stop Gov. George Wallace of Alabama. Only last week, Mr. Carter said, "I'd be satisfied, I think, to finish a respectable second." Consequently, those who knew his strategy were a little surprised when he told a group of supporters that if he should "have an actual victory in Florida -- if I should finish first -- then we will have made the kind of progress that nobody else will be able to overcome." [New York Times] Doctors have found that "laughing gas" -- nitrous oxide -- can rapidly relieve the pain from heart attacks, improving chances of recovery for some patients. "Nitrous oxide has a clear-cut role in pain relief in acute" heart attacks, Dr. Peter Thompson and Dr. Bernard Lown said in a report that the Journal of the American Medical Association is publishing tomorrow. [New York Times] The world is confronted with "an arms race out of control," according to a study sponsored by arms control groups, made public today, that found that worldwide military spending was approaching $300 billion annually and was increasing most rapidly in the developing countries. Measured by constant or noninflationary dollars, military expenditures in 1974 and 1975 were 45 percent higher than in 1960, and reached a record figure of $270 billion in 1974. The United States and the Soviet Union accounted for 60 percent of the money being spent on arms, but the most pronounced relative increase in military spending was in the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. [New York Times] The origins of the Lockheed bribery scandal that has shaken Japan go back 18 years to an era when the Japanese were beginning to rebuild their military forces with assistance from the United States, The Lockheed Aircraft Corporation went to Japan hoping to win a major order. Thus began a web of intrigue, yet to be fully unraveled, that was to involve scores of Japanese politicians, officials, military officers and businessmen. It has been learned, among other things, that one of Lockheed's allies in Japan included the planner of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and that despite the millions it had paid to advance its interests, Lockheed lost out on many Japanese contracts. [New York Times] Canada's Ministry of National Defense said that it would go ahead with the purchase of 18 long-range anti-submarine patrol planes from the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation at an eventual cost projected at more than $1 billion. Doubts had been cast on the deal when it became known that Lockheed had spent large sums to promote the sale of its aircraft in Japan and other countries, even though there was no suggestion that there were such payoffs in Canada. [New York Times]