News stories from Sunday September 25, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- New York City lost to Los Angeles in strong bidding for the 1984 Summer Olympics. Los Angeles's bid was accepted by United States Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs, in a final vote of 55 to 39, virtually assuring that the games would be held there. The race between Los Angeles and New York, the only other city seeking the games, was closer than many officials had expected.
New York's uncertain financial situation and a conflict over leasing Shea Stadium were among the reasons why the United States Olympic Committee chose Los Angeles for the 1984 games. Los Angeles offered an attractive budget as well as superior training facilities. The New York delegation to the Colorado Springs meeting, headed by Governor Carey, charged that M. Donald Grant, chairman of the New York Mets, had helped undermine New York's effort by refusing to commit Shea Stadium for the games.
[New York Times] - A pessimistic report from a congressional economic panel attacked the Federal Reserve System for having "systematically obstructed recovery" since the 1974 recession. The liberal Joint Economic Committee of Congress had criticized the central bank before, but the tone of its midyear report was unusually strong and sometimes aggressive. The report recommended that the traditionally politically independent Federal Reserve he "obliged to agree with the White House each year on economic goals and ways to achieve them." [New York Times]
- Wall Street bond dealers expect the Federal Reserve to continue to respond to the surging growth in the nation's money supply by pushing interest rates higher, as it did again last week to 6 5/16 percent. "A 6½ percent federal funds target may not be far off," said the Chase Manhattan Bank in its Money Market Report. [New York Times]
- The Senate's harsh treatment of the energy program has surprised even the administration, which had anticipated a tough going-over. The program's survival is in jeopardy. The various Senate committees have gutted its utility rate reform, abandoned the tax on so-called gas guzzling cars, informally agreed to drop rebates from the proposed tax on new domestic crude oil and indicated that proposed taxes on the industrial use of oil would virtually be eliminated. According to observers, there are two principal reasons for the program's problems in the Senate: the lack of activist sponsorship by majority leader Robert Byrd, and the fact that the powerful Finance Committee is under the leadership of Russell Long, Democrat of Louisiana, who has been sympathetic to the oil industry's attempts to change the bill. [New York Times]
- The volunteer army is a success, according to a detailed study of the nation's armed forces since the draft was abolished four years ago. The detailed study by the Rand Corporation takes sharp issue with the general view that the volunteer army consists mainly of youths from ghettos. It says an increasing proportion of black men and women are meeting the requirements for service and that "the number of blacks would be about the same under the all-volunteer force or the draft." The study also says that military policies left over from the draft era are costing $5 billion to $10 billion annually. [New York Times]
- Israel's cabinet approved, with a number of conditions, an American proposal for a single unified Arab delegation including Palestinians at the opening session of a Geneva peace conference, supporting Prime Minister Menachem Begin's position by a 10-to-1 vote. American officials in Washington welcomed the move while cautioning that there was no consensus among the Arabs on the proposal, and none on the question of which Palestinians would take part. [New York Times]
- A marathon funeral was held in South Africa for Stephen Biko, a 30-year-old black leader who died in police custody. Several thousand mourners shouted "Power" as the coffin was lowered into a grave beside a railroad track outside Ginsberg, the township where Mr. Biko lived. Later, mourners returning to homes outside East London stoned a black policeman to death and seriously injured another. [New York Times]
- Six great-grandchildren of the late Emperor Hale Selassie of Ethiopia arrived in New York on their way to settle somewhere else in the United States. The brothers and sisters, three boys and three girls, aged 13 to 21, said their lives had "not been settled" since the emperor was overthrown by a military coup in 1974. Their mother, a political prisoner, recently died, and their father, a former provincial governor general, is in prison. [New York Times]
- Candidacies from the third world are being pressed by developing countries for the post held by H. Johannes Witteveen of the Netherlands, who will retire next August as managing director of the 131-nation International Monetary Fund. The poorer countries believe they do not have sufficient influence on the I.M.F.'s policies. Another rich country, Saudi Arabia, American sources said, will get a permanent seat on the executive board, joining the United States, Britain, West Germany, France and Japan. [New York Times]