News stories from Saturday April 17, 1976
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Jimmy Carter put his Democratic rivals at a disadvantage in the crucial Pennsylvania primary campaign by raising enough money for a fairly intensive television and radio advertising campaign in the state. Carter-for-President commercials started on television stations in Pittsburgh Friday night. By tomorrow they will be on the air in each of Pennsylvania's five TV markets, and a heavy campaign of Carter radio commercials is expected to begin Tuesday. Senator Henry Jackson and Representative Morris Udall have yet to make firm plans for the purchase of substantial TV and radio time. [New York Times]
- Leaders of the United Rubber Workers voted to give Peter Bommarito -- the union's international president -- the authority to call a strike against the four major rubber companies when contracts expire at 12:01 A.M. Wednesday. About 70,000 workers are affected by the strike threat. [New York Times]
- The state legislative committees that write California's tax laws are studying ways to cut taxes. One proposal would give homeowners a $100 tax deduction for planting a tree, another would end sales taxes on medical prosthetic devices, and another would end state income taxes for families with incomes of less than $10,000 a year. California has joined most other states in holding the line on taxes. Some are reducing them. Legislative leaders interviewed in 14 states attributed the easing of state taxes to an improvement in the economy and grassroots reports that their constituents will not stand for the government taking more of their disposable income. Only 12 of 43 state legislatures that are meeting this year have proposed tax increases, according to the Tax Foundation Inc. [New York Times]
- The Central Intelligence Agency has disclosed that it had rejected more than 60 percent of its prospective employees from 1963 to mid-1974 on the basis of polygraph lie-detector tests. Representative Bella Abzug made public statements that she had received from the C.I.A., the Defense and Treasury Departments, the Federal Reserve Board and the United States Postal Service upholding the use of polygraphs for various purposes. But Mrs. Abzug said "the polygraph cannot distinguish truth from falsehood," and she announced that she had introduced a bill that would make it a criminal offense to give polygraph tests in connection with federal employment interviews or interstate commerce activities. [New York Times]
- President Suleiman Franjieh of Lebanon was reported to have signed a constitutional amendment, adopted a week ago, that would permit the election of a new head of state and the opening of a possible way to end the Lebanese civil war. Prime Minister Rashid Karami, the radio station of the right-wing Phalangist Party and the Beirut radio all said that Mr. Franjieh had signed the document, but there remained doubt that he had done so. [New York Times]
- Yeh Chien-ying, one of China's senior statesmen and a leading member of the so-called moderate faction, reappeared in Peking last night for the first time since the start of the anti-rightist campaign. Reports had circulated among diplomats in Hong Kong for weeks that Mr. Yeh had resigned as Defense Minister in protest over the campaign conducted against the former senior Deputy Prime Minister, Teng Hsiao-ping, and others described as rightists. [New York Times]
- Early next month, a negotiating team of West German and Iranian atomic energy specialists will meet in Teheran to discuss a question that is likely to be a point of conflict for decades between the United States, its European allies and the developing countries. The question is whether industrialized countries like West Germany should share with third-world countries like Iran the nuclear science and techniques that could be used for nuclear weapons. Iran wants nuclear technology, not just one or two atomic reactors to generate electricity, but the whole range of equipment, scientific techniques and nuclear knowledge needed to realize Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi's plans to make his country a major industrial power. [New York Times]
- Prime Minister Constantine Carmanlis of Greece proposed a non-aggression pact with Turkey and peaceful settlement of the disputes between the two countries. He also proposed in a parliamentary debate, in which he briefed deputies on a defense agreement signed with the United States last Thursday, that Greece and Turkey should end their arms race. [New York Times]