News stories from Saturday October 8, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Veterans benefits could be denied to some veterans of the Vietnam era who received upgraded discharges under a Carter administration program under a bill signed by the President. Mr. Carter was said to have considered vetoing the measure, but apparently decided not to do so because of strong support for it by conservative members of Congress. [New York Times]
- Underworld leaders aided the government in World War II, according to a report of a New York State investigation ordered in 1954 by Gov. Thomas Dewey and long suppressed at the request of the Navy. The report credits Charles (Lucky) Luciano and other racketeers with many valuable services, including enlistment of fishermen on a submarine watch. The Navy wanted the report suppressed on the ground that it was potentially embarrassing and might jeopardize similar future operations. [New York Times]
- Cuban espionage agents provided limited aid to the Weather Underground antiwar group in the late 1960's and early 1970's, a secret F.B.I. report said. The 400-page report was designed to establish that members of the militant group were operating as secret agents of a foreign power and thus subject to increased unrestricted counterintelligence methods. The report was prepared after the Justice Department began a criminal inquiry into charges that F B.I. agents had conducted burglaries and illegal mail openings and wiretapping in efforts to seize fugitive members of the group. [New York Times]
- Polygamy seems to be increasing in the American West. The practice was long considered a dying vestige of an abandoned Mormon tenet, but from what is known of organized polygamous groups and the more numerous mammoth "families," 20,000 to 30,000 persons now adhere to the life style. Most polygamists avoid publicity, but attention has been focused on their increasing numbers because of an indictment of Ervil LeBaron and members of his sect, who are believed to be responsible for the murder or disappearance of at least nine persons. [New York Times]
- Three alternative noise standards for the major metropolitan airports were proposed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, including one that would permit test landings of the Concorde supersonic jetliner tor three months at Kennedy International Airport. Public hearings on the new standards are scheduled to begin October 17 and it is expected to take about 30 days before any of the new proposals could be adopted. However, "proving" flights with no passengers could begin Oct. 24 if the Supreme Court does not continue its temporary ban, in effect until Friday, when the fall Court will decide whether to let the Concorde land while the jurists determine if they should take jurisdiction. [New York Times]
- The proposed sale of 140 F-16 fighter planes to Iran faces a major debate within the Carter administration. The plan, not yet formally considered by the President, is being questioned in Congress and by some White House and State Department officials who believe that it raises questions about the credibility of Mr. Carter's policy to curb arms sales. [New York Times]
- Assassins in Spain murdered the president of the provincial council of the Basque province of Vizcaya and two police bodyguards. The slaying of the 53-year-old Basque politician, August Uncena Barraneche, in Guernica, was denounced by major political parties as an effort to damage Spain's new democratic institutions created after the June elections. [New York Times]
- South Africa, facing suspicion that Stephen Biko, the country's foremost young black leader, may have been beaten to death by the police, has opened a counteroffensive. The government is seeking to convince South Africans that the "black consciousness" movement the victim founded and led was part of a growing "terrorist" threat and that police methods are no tougher than necessary to protect the country against Communist subversives aiming to overthrow white rule. [New York Times]