News stories from Saturday April 21, 1973

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

A federal grand jury is investigating H.R. Haldeman, the White House chief of staff, to determine whether his office had a role in the initial Watergate bugging operation and any subsequent attempt to obstruct the investigation into the case, reliable sources said. According to the sources, Earl Silbert and Seymour Glanzer, the principal government prosecutors in the case, are trying to find out whether a $350,000 secret fund was used by Mr. Haldeman's office to pay off the seven convicted Watergate defendants and their lawyers. [New York Times] Advisers of Vice President Agnew are urging him to dissociate himself from the Watergate affair "in the most direct kind of way," to avoid what they see as a devastating political impact reaching to the 1976 presidential election. After dismissing the political significance of the Watergate case for nearly 10 months, many of those whose careers are tied to the Republican party are reacting nervously to the issue, which is developing into a national concern. John Connally, formerly Democratic Governor of Texas, reportedly is reassessing plans to switch to the Republicans. [New York Times] Watergate is not a household word in Europe, at least not yet. Until reports that President Nixon had cleared the way for a full investigation, only Americans abroad and a few journalists and politicians had been paying any attention. Watergate has not been the kind of scandal that travels well. It seemed too complicated, with a cast of too many shadowy and unknown characters to be explainable to the uninitiated. In Italy, which has a big wiretapping scandal of its own, Watergate received some notice as a basis of comparison, with Roman commentators taking a certain glee in saying "It's worse here." [New York Times] The United Nations Security Council today passed a resolution condemning Israel's attacks in Lebanon. The resolution also condemned "all acts of violence which endanger or take innocent human lives," a phrase understood to refer to attacks by Palestinian terrorists in general and, in particular, to the killing of three diplomats -- two Americans and a Belgian -- in Khartoum, the Sudan, last month. Eleven members voted in favor of the resolution. The United States, Soviet Union, Cuba and Guinea abstained. [New York Times] The largest private bank in South Vietnam, the Tin Nghia Bank, was closed by the government, and its managing director -- Nguyen Tan Doi -- a pro-government member of the National Assembly and head of Saigon's chamber of commerce -- was charged with using vast amounts of depositors' funds for his own purposes. Government officials and Western economists feared that the alleged fraud might lead to a run on South Vietnam's more than 30 banks. To forestall this, the government radio announced hourly that the National Bank of South Vietnam would guarantee all deposits in the Tin Nghia Bank. [New York Times]