News stories from Sunday November 7, 1982

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

Douglas Fraser is stepping down temporarily from Chrysler's board of directors as relations between the company and its auto workers grow increasingly acrimonious. Mr. Fraser, president of the United Auto Workers union, is the only labor leader to sit on the board of a major American corporation. [New York Times] John De Lorean used deception and possibly illegal methods to build his now shattered trans-Atlantic automotive empire, former associates said. He also may have tried to obtain millions of dollars worth of cocaine from federal undercover agents with stock that he was not legally entitled to transfer. According to the Justice Department, Mr. De Lorean, who is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on nine counts of racketeering and drug trafficking, turned over 100 percent of the stock in the De Lorean Motor Company Inc. to an agent posing as a crooked bank officer. [New York Times] Countdown began at Cape Canaveral for the space shuttle Columbia's first operational mission, scheduled to begin with liftoff Thursday, in which it will launch two commercial communications satellites. [New York Times] Richard Nixon was guest of honor at a reunion of his White House associates in Washington that marked the 10th anniversary of his re-election as President. The weekend-long reunion was was attended by 180 men and women. [New York Times] New sentencing and parole laws helped increase the nation's prison population in the first half of this year, the Justice Department said. The number of inmates rose 6.9 percent to 394,380. [New York Times] Concern over the economy sent many voters to the polls according to a comparison of pre-election and Election Day polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, and it helped provide the first increase in turnout in an off-year election since 1962. Voters last Tuesday had far more doubts about the eventual success of President Reagan's economic program than did those surveyed a few days earlier, the polls indicated. [New York Times] Some city workers will have to be laid off because of New York City's increasing financial troubles, Mayor Ed Koch said. Mr. Koch, who last week said he hoped that attrition would keep the municipal payroll from growing, declined to be specific about which and how many workers would be laid off. The layoffs would be the first since the onset of the city's fiscal crisis in 1975. He also continued to lay the groundwork for diminished city services and new taxes. [New York Times] The Soviet commitment to detente was affirmed by Leonid Breznhev in an address marking the 65th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. But he warned that "a crushing retaliatory strike" awaited any potential aggressor. In an apparent allusion to the Reagan administration, the Soviet leader added, "our might and vigilance will cool, I think, the hot heads of some imperialist politicians." [New York Times] Iranian troops drove west into Iraq for the first time in more than three months, the Teheran government said, announcing that its forces had reached the town of Teib in southeastern Iraq. The Baghdad radio confirmed the invasion, which began Saturday night, and said "intense fighting" was underway. [New York Times] Lebanon's President faces challenges at home and abroad. President Amin Gemayel's administration must subdue a challenge in Parliament, which it has asked for a vote of confidence linked to granting powers to allow rule by decree for eight months. And talks are expected to start between Lebanese and Israeli committees on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon. [New York Times] Israel's inquiry on the mass slayings at two Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut in September continued with the testimony by the commander of the Israeli forces in Beirut. The commander, Gen. Amos Yaron, said that he had heard reports that civilians were being slain by Christian militiamen when the militiamen entered the camps on Thursday, Sept. 16, but that he did not know the full extent of the killings until the next Monday. A total of 328 bodies were later recovered, and more than 991 people remain listed as missing from the camps. [New York Times] Voting in Turkey was running overwhelmingly in favor of a draft constitution that automatically elects Turkey's military ruler, Gen. Kenan Evren, as president for a seven-year term. [New York Times]