News stories from Saturday July 3, 1976

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

Israeli airborne commandos staged a daring nighttime raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda, freeing the 105 hostages and Air France crew members held by pro-Palestinian hijackers and flying them back to Israel aboard three Israeli planes. The hostages and their rescuers were due in Israel Sunday morning after a brief stopover at Kenya's International Airport, where at least two persons were given medical treatment in a field hospital on the runway. No details of the extent of the casualties were available pending notification of the families. Reports from the scene said that the terrorists had been killed in the skirmish, but military sources declined to confirm or deny this. [New York Times] Vice President Rockefeller and Johnny Cash led Washington's Bicentennial parade up Constitution Avenue, and 500,000 other people, according to the official estimate, turned out to watch more than 50 bands, 60 floats and 90 marching units. After leading for a while, Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Cash moved to a reviewing stand where they watched from behind bulletproof glass. The Vice President took off his suit coat and took pictures like everybody else. [New York Times] An international flotilla of warships sailed under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge into New York Harbor and more than 200 high-masted sailing ships moved into temporary berths at Sandy Hook and Gravesend Bay in preparation for the city's sea and land Bicentennial celebration tomorrow. Scores of small pleasure boats scurried around the warships. The Coast Guard reported that more than 30,000 small boats were in the harbor area and around the tall ships off Sandy Hook. [New York Times] Senator Russell Long, chairman or the Senate Finance Committee, has decided to give the committee a chance to reconsider its earlier decisions on the pending tax bill. He has taken this unusual step in apparent concern over criticism of the bill's many special-interest provisions. The bill has been scrutinized by public-interest law groups, chiefly the Tax Reform Research Group, which is financed by Ralph Nader's Public Citizen. The decision to re-examine the provisions marks the first time that the committee or its chairman has responded to public criticism of the secrecy in which tax law provisions benefiting a single company, industry or individual are written. [New York Times] David Trager, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was "suffering from arteriosclerosis" and was "out of step" with the major goals of federal prosecutors. In an unusually sharp attack against the F.B.I. by a high government official, Mr. Trager said in an interview that "most of the cases they [the F.B.I.] bring to us are insignificant." He also said that the F.B.I. was "wasting resources on trivia, and I don't think they have the ability or the people to do the job in areas we consider priorities -- official corruption and white-collar crime." [New York Times] Another meeting, possibly next month, is projected between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Prime Minister John Vorster of South Africa to accelerate their search for a political solution in Rhodesia. According to conversations in the last week with sources familiar with the Secretary's talks last month with Mr. Vorster, no dates for a second round were set. But the sources said that, given the urgency of the situation in Rhodesia, where guerrilla fighting is expected to rise dramatically in the fall, the two men have left open the possibility of a meeting early next month, when Mr. Kissinger plans to visit Iran. [New York Times] Italy's Communist Party, which gained considerable strength in the recent national elections, made another advance when the leaders of the other parties agreed to yield the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies to a Communist. The decision, made at a meeting of Communist officials and other party leaders, will give the Communists their most important parliamentary post in the history of the republic. The president of the Chamber of Deputies -- the equivalent of Speaker -- will be elected tomorrow when the newly-elected Parliament convenes. [New York Times] King Juan Carlos I of Spain named Adolfo Suarez Gonzalez, leader of the National Movement, Prime Minister to succeed Carlos Arias Navarro, who was dismissed on Friday. Mr. Suarez is 43 years old and is a personal friend of the King. He was one of three candidates recommended to the King by the Council of the Realm. His appointment is expected to bring about a substantial improvement in the relations between the Palace and the Prime Minister's office. [New York Times]