News stories from Saturday February 23, 1974

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

William Simon, federal energy chief, announced a two-cent-per-gallon increase in the price of gasoline sold by independent retail dealers effective March 1. The action followed a series of meetings with representatives of state dealer organizations, many of whom had threatened a shutdown. Mr. Simon said the price increase applied only to independent stations, not to stations owned by oil companies. [New York Times] President Nixon announced in a radio address that he was establishing a top priority committee headed by Vice President Ford to forge a "personal shield for every American" against invasions of privacy from any source, including the federal government. He said that he was directing the committee to begin devising within four months a "series of direct, enforceable measures" that could be put into effect immediately, including regulations, executive action, legislation and voluntary restraints. The President, whose administration has been criticized for violating privacy rights through its use of wiretapping and electronic surveillance, concentrated in his talk on the threats to privacy posed by modern technology. [New York Times] President Nixon personally ordered the White House "plumbers" unit not to seek prosecution of any suspects in the military snooping on the National Security Council in late 1971, sources close to the inquiry said. These sources, some of whom have close White House connections, described the President as being extremely angry about the pilfering of high-level documents not intended for the Pentagon. They said he decided to cancel the proposed prosecutions after consultation with, among others, John Mitchell, former Attorney General. [New York Times] Senior officials of the Federal Energy Office said that if the Arab oil embargo was not lifted by the end of April, a gasoline drought could hit wide areas of the country by late spring or early summer. The officials, who asked not to be identified, said that the new increases in gas allocations for February announced Friday night would be drawn from gasoline stockpiles that had been built up by the oil companies against a continuation of the Arab oil embargo. [New York Times] The police in Atlanta recovered almost $700,000 in ransom after arresting and charging an ex-convict and his wife in the abduction of J. Reginald Murphy, editorial-page editor of the Atlanta Constitution. Mr. Murphy was released Friday night after being held for two days by the self-proclaimed "American Revolutionary Army." Local police and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested 33-year-old William H. Williams, a construction contractor, and his 26-year-old wife, Becky Ruth. [New York Times] In a move that angered Conservative party leaders in the decisive week of Britain's election campaign, Enoch Powell, the party's controversial maverick, suggested that Britons opposed to the Common Market should vote for the Labor party Thursday. He stopped short of specifically saying, "Vote Labor" to his supporters. But that was the clear meaning of his speech at an anti-market meeting in Birmingham. [New York Times] Moslem nations of Asia, Africa and the Middle East denounced United States support of Israel and demanded immediate withdrawal by the Israelis from all occupied territories. The 38 nations meeting in Lahore, Pakistan, in a major Islamic conference also said that the Palestine Liberation Organization was "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian nation in its just struggle," and urged members of the organization in all Islamic countries to press the struggle for a separate Palestine. The Moslems also declared that "restoration of the holy city of Jerusalem to Arab sovereignty is a paramount and unchangeable perquisite for any solution in the Middle East." [New York Times]