News stories from Saturday August 14, 1976

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

Ronald Reagan's aides told key delegates in Kansas City that the main thrust of their attack on President Ford at the Republican National Convention would be an attempt to force him to name his vice-presidential choice sooner than he wants to. John Sears, Mr. Reagan's chief strategist, said following a meeting with Reagan supporters on the Rules Committee, that "the only thing we're pushing strongly before the committee" is the proposal that would require all candidates to name running mates before the presidential roll call. The President's supporters have a bare majority on the committee. [New York Times] The Republican platform that will be presented to the convention on Tuesday night is based on "less government, less spending and less inflation," and smooths over some of the major differences between President Ford and Ronald Reagan and contrasts sharply with the Democratic platform. Strategists for the President and Mr. Reagan expressed general satisfaction with the platform, although neither side got everything it wanted. [New York Times] The big question in Kansas City as delegates gathered for the convention was who President Ford's running mate would be. Rumors said that John Connally was down, Senator Howard Baker fading, Senator Robert Dole emerging, and William Scranton rising. The White House repeated that Mr. Ford hoped to maintain the uncertainty through the presidential nomination on Wednesday. [New York Times] Senator Richard Schweiker pleaded with black convention delegates to support the Reagan-Schweiker ticket, and said blacks would have "a very important role to play" in Republican politics in the coming days. So far a black strategy for the convention has not emerged -- only 76 of the 2,259 delegates to the convention are black. Some delegates say that black strategy is not being given serious consideration, possibly because blacks have not had a significant role in a Republican convention in about 50 years. [New York Times] Las Vegas-type gambling operations are being contemplated for Atlantic City by a corporation with gambling interests in the Bahamas and a history of business practices, and personal associations that has attracted government scrutiny. The corporation, Resorts International, headed by Jack Davis, is aggressively pursuing a favorable vote in the Nov. 2 statewide referendum on legalizing casino gambling in Atlantic City, where the corporation is buying property. It plans to become a major contributor in a $1 million campaign backing the proposal. The company has hired two lawyers who are relatives of the legislators who were the chief sponsors of the gambling referendum in the Assembly and the state Senate. [New York Times] Fighting raged in the suburbs east of Beirut and heavy shelling was reported between Moslem and Christian villages on the main Beirut-Damascus highway. Rightist Christians and leftist Moslems alike appeared convinced that the next big battles, following the fall of Tell Zaatar, would occur in the upper Matein district, about 30 miles east of Beirut, and in the hills southeast of the city. Witnesses at Tell Zaatar reported looting and said Christian militiamen had been replaced by demolition crews with bulldozers to remove the rubble of 52 days of siege and level the site. [New York Times] Turkey offered to resume talks with Greece "at the highest level" to work out a peaceful solution to their dispute over offshore oil prospecting in the Aegean Sea. The Turkish Foreign Minister, Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil, advocated new negotiations with Greece at the end of a long meeting in New York with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the Waldorf Towers. Mr. Kissinger earlier had a breakfast meeting with Greece's Foreign Minister, Dimitrios Bitsios. Mr. Kissinger said that "we will do the utmost to help our friends," but he said that the United States had not assumed a formal role of mediator. [New York Times] The South African government, embittered by local newspaper coverage of rioting by blacks, has threatened to put new restraints on the press. Cornelius Mulder, the Information Minister, was critical in particular of two of Johannesburg's principal newspapers, the Rand Daily Mail and the Sunday Times, at a meeting of the governing Nationalist Party in Durban. He said the Sunday Times was one of the papers that had said that apartheid, not black unrest, was the real danger to the country. Mr. Mulder said that one of the restraints he had in mind was a requirement that journalists be South African citizens fluent in both English and Afrikaans, the language of the dominant whites in South Africa. He said this would eliminate foreigners who could take the first plane home if trouble erupted as a result of their writing. [New York Times]