News stories from Saturday April 10, 1976

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

The trust that is trying to straighten out the tangled finances it took over from the 1972 Republican presidential campaign organization after Watergate may have its considerable assets wiped out by pending tax claims. Officials of the 1972 Campaign Liquidation Trust reported to the Federal Election Commission that if all Internal Revenue Service claims against it were upheld, "the resulting tax liability would probably exhaust the remaining assets of the trust," now about $1.5 million. This would mean that politicians, lawyers and former office-holders who claim more than $680,000 of the remaining assets of the Nixon campaign would go unpaid. Among the claimants are former Attorney General John Mitchell and former Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans. [New York Times] Jimmy Carter's open affirmation of his Christian beliefs in the presidential campaign has raised the issue of religion's place in politics more arrestingly than in any presidential race since John F. Kennedy's in 1960. In Mr. Kennedy's campaign, the question was whether a Roman Catholic could be elected and what the consequences would be for church-state relations. This concern has re-emerged with Mr. Carter, a Southern Baptist. The question is whether a deeply committed evangelical Christian can appeal to an overtly more secular culture with his frank admission of conservative piety. [New York Times] The Lebanese Parliament met in a heavily guarded makeshift session and in 20 minutes unanimously approved an amendment to the Constitution to make possible the selection of a successor to President Suleiman Franjieh before his term ends in September. In a surprise move, Mr. Franjieh sent a few of his own Parliamentary allies to the special session. He has a month in which to sign the amendment before it becomes law, but Interior Minister Camille Chamoun predicted that Mr. Franjieh would sign the amendment in five days. The 10-day cease-fire that was called to permit Parliament to act to replace Mr. Franjieh -- one of the key demands of the Moslem leftists -- will expire Monday, but it is expected to be continued to allow Parliament to choose a successor in a relatively calm atmosphere. [New York Times] Efforts to conclude a new Soviet-American agreement curbing strategic arms have again become deadlocked and senior administration officials believe that an agreement cannot be reached before the November elections. They said that the bitter election campaign in which President Ford has been forced on the defensive by attacks on detente and his defense policies persuaded the White House not to push ahead with the kind of negotiating approach that might have made an accord possible. [New York Times] Brazil appears well on the road to creating the most successful and pervasive system of state capitalism in South America 12 years after the armed forces took power with a strong commitment to save and expand private enterprise. By some estimates, the state's participation in the economy has equaled the levels reached in Chile under the late President Salvador Allende, in Argentina under the Peronists or in Peru under its leftist military government. Brazil has also developed a skilled group of technocrats directing ever larger and more numerous state concerns whose efficiency and profitability at times rivals or surpasses private enterprises. [New York Times]