News stories from Tuesday August 17, 1976

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

President Ford won a key test vote over Ronald Reagan at the Republican National Convention as the President's delegate majority continued to mount and the first signs of defeatism appeared in the Reagan camp. Tonight's victory for Mr. Ford came as his supporters turned back a move by the Reagan forces that would have required Mr. Ford to name his running mate before the presidential nomination tomorrow night. Ford supporters had denounced the proposed rules change as a "desperate act of political opportunism." [New York Times] President Ford's procedural victory came as his backers defeated the proposed rules change by a vote of 1,180 to 1,069 with 10 delegates abstaining. Reagan supporters had billed the proposal as a reform, but Ford backers said it was a tactical move by the Reagan camp to give the former California Governor a personal advantage in the last-minute race for delegates. [New York Times] Sources close to President Ford said he seemed most likely to choose Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee or William Ruckelshaus, who resigned as Deputy Attorney General from the Nixon administration, as his vice-presidential running mate, Mr. Ford, if nominated today, it was said, would confer with Mr. Reagan to ask if he would consent to be considered for the slate. Because of strong doubt in the Ford camp that Mr. Reagan would accept, the other two names are close to the center of the stage. He has stood against second place and full financial disclosure. [New York Times] Mark Felt, a former associate director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who retired in 1973, said he had authorized in 1972 the commission of two burglaries by agents engaged in domestic intelligence investigations. It was the first acknowledgement by a senior F.B.I. executive of responsibility for any of the burglaries currently the subject of a criminal inquiry by the Department of Justice. Mr. Felt first said he acted after an assurance of approval by the then acting F.B.I. Director, L. Patrick Gray, but after Mr. Gray's lawyer denied approving any illegal act he said his recollection was "hazy." [New York Times] Gangs of black youths in Detroit who have been terrorizing black and white shopkeepers and pedestrians on the city's East Side in recent weeks, have taken their violence to downtown areas with hit-and-run attacks on buses and stores. Sunday night, several hundred gang members invaded a rock concert in Cobo Hall. At stake is the effort led by Detroit's first black mayor, Coleman Young, at revival. [New York Times] The first sale of oil leases off the Atlantic shore was delayed for eight hours until Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court had turned down a move to block the proceeding. More than 60 oil companies then bid a total of $3.5 billion for 101 tracts 50 to 90 miles off the New Jersey and Delaware coasts. [New York Times] Earthquakes struck China and an area off the Philippines last night and early today, according to seismological reports. The quakes were believed severe enough to cause extensive damage and casualties. The quake in China was centered in Szechuan Province, about 800 miles southwest of the area devastated by an earthquake three weeks ago. The one off the Philippines was in the Gulf of Moro near Mindanao. [New York Times] The Philippine disaster control center in Manila said the earthquake that struck the southern island of Mindanao left 1,744 people dead, 2,094 missing and some 28,000 homeless following the tremor and tidal wave sweeping coastal regions, President Ferdinand Marcos declared a national emergency on Mindanao and in the Sulu Archipelago. [New York Times] The Palestinian guerrilla movement is fighting for survival after 16 months of Involvement in the civil war in Lebanon and two and a half months of confrontation with Syria. The fall of the refugee camp at Tell Zaatar has reinforced the Palestinians' view that their destruction is the major objective of the fighting. Right-wing Christians agree, seeing the conflict as not so much between rightist and leftist Lebanese as between the Lebanese and Palestinians. The major threat to the Palestinians is Syria, once their major supporter and supplier. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 999.34 (+6.57, +0.66%)
S&P Composite: 104.80 (+0.37, +0.35%)
Arms Index: 0.64

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	767	10.12
Declines	634	5.39
Unchanged	499	2.99
Total Volume		18.50

* 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*
August 16, 1976	992.77	104.43	16.21
August 13, 1976	990.19	104.25	13.93
August 12, 1976	987.12	104.22	15.56
August 11, 1976	986.79	104.06	18.71
August 10, 1976	993.43	104.41	16.69
August 9, 1976	983.46	103.49	11.70
August 6, 1976	986.00	103.79	13.93
August 5, 1976	986.68	103.85	15.53
August 4, 1976	992.28	104.43	20.65
August 3, 1976	990.33	104.14	18.50