News stories from Thursday March 4, 1976

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

The nation's inflation rate was slowed further in February as the Wholesale Price Index declined by five-tenths of 1 percent, the Labor Department said. This was the fourth consecutive month in which the index either declined or showed no change. In another economic development, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, said that besides the recent better news about inflation the council now saw signs of stronger growth in production and employment than it had anticipated. [New York Times] House and Senate conferees reached agreement on a bill authorizing full-scale oil production at three of four naval petroleum reserves, including Teapot Dome in Wyoming. President Ford expressed satisfaction that legislation sought by the administration for two and a half years was apparently cleared for final approval. [New York Times] The Gulf Oil Corporation said that it had asked politicians who accepted its illegal campaign contributions to return the money. A company spokesman said its board of directors felt a responsibility to Gulf stockholders to try to recover some of the $12.3 million given to politicians here and abroad over a 14-year period. [New York Times] Short of money and votes, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana announced his withdrawal from the Democratic presidential race at a news conference in New York. He declined to endorse any other candidate, but he not only released his supporters, including 260 delegate candidates in New York, he also urged them to campaign for other candidates. [New York Times] Sargent Shriver announced in Chicago that he would not yet withdraw as a Democratic presidential candidate, despite predictions that he would do as poorly in the Illinois primary March 16 as he did in Massachusetts this week. He said he would remain in the Illinois primary and do "the best I can." [New York Times] Ronald Reagan returned to Florida to campaign again for the primary on Tuesday and there at a news conference made his sharpest attack on President Ford who, he said, failed to provide the United States with vision and leadership. He also said that during Mr. Ford's presidency, the nation fell militarily behind the Soviet Union. He said that Mr. Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger "must be held accountable to history." [New York Times] Mike Mansfield of Montana, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate for the last 15 years, longer than anyone else, announced that he would not seek re-election in November. He is 72 years old and has been a member of Congress for 34 years; 10 years were spent in the House, and 24 in the Senate. [New York Times] In the first criminal indictment of an airline resulting from a crash, Pan American World Airways was charged by a federal grand jury with criminal negligence that contributed to the crash of one of its cargo planes at Boston's Logan Airport on Nov. 3, 1973. The plane's three-man crew was killed. Four other corporations and one individual were indicted on criminal charges. The airline pleaded no contest. [New York Times] Testifying before the House Committee on International Relations, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned Cuba to "act with great circumspection" in southern Africa. Noting the intervention of 12,000 Cuban troops in the Angolan civil war and the cutoff of American aid to forces that opposed the victorious Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, Mr. Kissinger said that "our actions cannot always be deduced by what we did in Angola." He declined to say how the United States might retaliate against future Cuban military thrusts. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 970.64 (-8.19, -0.84%)
S&P Composite: 98.92 (-1.06, -1.06%)
Arms Index: 1.02

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	430	6.22
Declines	1,073	15.83
Unchanged	367	2.36
Total Volume		24.41

* 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 3, 1976	978.83	99.98	25.45
March 2, 1976	985.12	100.56	25.59
March 1, 1976	975.36	100.02	22.07
February 27, 1976	972.61	99.71	26.94
February 26, 1976	978.83	100.11	34.32
February 25, 1976	994.57	101.69	34.68
February 24, 1976	993.55	102.03	34.38
February 23, 1976	985.28	101.61	31.46
February 20, 1976	987.80	102.10	44.51
February 19, 1976	975.76	101.41	39.21