News stories from Sunday May 7, 1978

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

OPEC's 13 oil ministers, ending a meeting in Saudi Arabia, were still divided over whether to raise oil prices when they meet again next month in Geneva at their semiannual price-setting session. The Saudi Oil Minister, Ahmed Zaki Yemeni, predicted the current glut would end by the end of next year, when a period of balance between supply and demand would begin, lasting something like seven years. He said, "We don't think there will be a price increase in 1978." [New York Times] A former C.I.A. agent has accused the top C.I.A. officials of misleading Congress and the public about the scope of United States involvement in the 1975 Angolan civil war. John Stockwell, former chief of the C.I.A.'s Angolan task force, makes the charge in a secretly published book, "In Search of Enemies," that the C.I.A., initially without the knowledge of the White House, Congress or the State Department, used Americans as military advisers in Angola. He also writes that the C.I.A. was secretly underwriting various efforts around the world to recruit mercenaries to fight on behalf of two United States-supported factions in Angola, a charge that the C.I.A. had denied. [New York Times] Personal financial disclosures filed by 407 of the 435 members of the House provide some interesting correlation between the way members handle their private finances and their public responsibilities, and proved false some myths. Computer study of the disclosures -- the most extensive ever required of House members -- took into account such factors as political party, tenure in the House, some committee designations, the region represented and whether the constituencies are primarily rural, urban or suburban. The disclosures in many ways constitute a sociological survey of elected national officials. [New York Times] Steadily rising labor costs are eroding corporate profits, economists and financial analysts around the country are finding out. Rising employment, particularly of white-collar workers, and higher wages, combined with lower productivity, are moving costs ahead at a faster pace than consumer prices, the experts say, and they believe the high level of consumer indebtedness will not allow the companies much room for passing on the increase. [New York Times] Gov. Dolph Briscoe of Texas appears to have lost a Democratic primary that is regarded as a reflection of the state's changing social and political makeup. Incomplete returns showed that state Attorney General John Hill was winning a majority of the votes. [New York Times] The wage gap between white workers and black workers has narrowed substantially in recent years and has almost disappeared among women, a Rand Corporation study has found. Black men's average salaries, however, are still three-fourths those of white men, Even if the black man continued to gain ground on whites at the recent rate of improvement, it would be 30 to 40 years before the earnings of black men now entering the labor market caught up. [New York Times] Foreign central banks and state and city governments at home -- the Treasury's principal sources of its heavy borrowings -- are not expected to continue their heavy buying in the months ahead. Consequently interest rates are likely to rise. The foreign and domestic lenders provided $45 billion of the $52.1 billion the Treasury borrowed last year -- more than 85 cents of every additional dollar of debt. The Treasury is enjoying its customary spring respite from the urgent need to borrow, but later it will step up its borrowing. If other securities buyers have to be found to supplement foreign and domestic purchases, interest rates probably will have to be higher to attract new investors. [New York Times] Prime Minister Menachem Begin called for renewed peace negotiations in a speech before several thousand people in New York's Central Park that wound up his eight-day coast-to-coast visit to the United States. He appealed "to our Arab neighbors to give up their hostile designs on Israel" and to "sit down and negotiate peace." Earlier, he had been guest of honor at a 30th-anniversary parade for Israel along Fifth Avenue. [New York Times] Abel Muzorewa's political faction raised the prospect of abandoning Rhodesia's shaky biracial government coalition unless it reverses its dismissal of a co-minister of justice. Bishop Muzorewa's United African National Council issued a statement condemning the "chicanery" that it said was used to remove Byron Hove. The statement stopped short of threatening to withdraw from the government, as some had predicted they might, a move that could destroy the coalition. It indicated, however, that a showdown was nearer. [New York Times] Italy's police arrested 26 people suspected of being supporters of the Red Brigades as they continued their search for Aldo Moro. There has been no word from the kidnappers of the former Prime Minister since they circulated a statement on Friday in Rome, Genoa, Turin and Milan. [New York Times]