News stories from Saturday October 9, 1976
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Ford rode in a motorcade through downtown Dallas, standing in his open-top armored limousine. The mile-long parade was the first presidential motorcade through the city since President Kennedy was assassinated there almost 13 years ago. No incidents were reported. Mr. Ford then went on to attend the Texas-Oklahoma football game. [New York Times]
- Jimmy Carter campaigned through the Middle West enjoying the political advantages he has gained from President Ford's statement on the Soviet role in Eastern Europe. The issue was raised during a rally in a black church in Cleveland, where Representative Louis Stokes told a rally that he was not surprised the President did not know about conditions in Europe since he did not know about conditions in the United States. [New York Times]
- New York City has become an issue in campaigns in many different states in which Congressmen have been attacked as free-spenders for voting to aid the city. Some of the incumbents who have been attacked on the issue have turned to the city for financial aid and have been holding fundraising events in New York. According to one congressman, it would have cost much more if the city had been allowed to go bankrupt. [New York Times]
- Missile X, a new intercontinental ballistic missile, has quietly moved into the hardware development phase. The new weapons, which will be more powerful and more accurate than current ones, may eventually cost the United States as much as $30 billion to develop. The Air Force plans to deploy the new missiles in the 1980's to replace the Minutemen, which have been the backbone of the country's nuclear deterrent force on land for 15 years. [New York Times]
- Prime Minister Hua Kuo-feng, according to wall posters in Peking, has been chosen to succeed Mao Tse-tung as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. There has been no official announcement, but analysts in Hong Kong, although puzzled by the lack of official word, believe the posters must be based on some decision taken by party leaders. [New York Times]
- Two Rhodesian black nationalist movements will send a joint delegation to the British-sponsored conference on Rhodesia, the leaders of the groups said. The leaders asked that the meeting, which Britain wants to open in Geneva in two weeks, be delayed two weeks and demanded that it deal with the "total and immediate" transfer of power to the blacks. One of the leaders also said that the conference should be limited to Britain and the nationalists. [New York Times]
- In the wake of the military coup in Thailand, scores of left-wing students, professors and politicians have gone into hiding or have fled the country. Some of the students who were arrested during the coup on Wednesday were released from jail after posting bail. At the same time, Thanin Kraivichien, who was named Prime Minister late Friday, held a series of meetings in an effort to form a government. [New York Times]