News stories from Sunday February 2, 1975
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Democrats in Congress might propose a tax cut as large as $22 billion -- $6 billion more than proposed by President Ford, Al Ullman, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a television interview. Mr. Ullman, Democrat of Oregon, also said that the President's goal of reducing foreign oil imports by a million barrels a day was "unrealistic." [New York Times]
- Consumers who expect retail sugar prices to follow the recent 50 percent drop in market quotations for raw sugar in bulk will probably be keenly disappointed. Not only will consumer prices for months to come reflect the record sugar costs paid by refiners last autumn, but consumers also will have to contend with worldwide shortages for a long time after the costly sugar moves through the commercial pipeline. [New York Times]
- More than 745,000 legal abortions were performed in the United States in 1973 -- an increase of 27 percent over the total for 1972, according to the first nationwide study of the impact of the landmark Supreme Court decision on abortion two years ago. In 1974, it has been estimated, the total number of abortions rose to 900,000, or about 53 percent above 1972. [New York Times]
- The American Telephone and Telegraph Company said it monitored millions of long-distance calls between 1965 and 1970 as part of an effort to stop cheating on toll charges. The voice recordings were first reported by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. A spokesman for AT&T said that "I don't think we did anything illegal" and that he could not confirm the newspaper's figure of 1.5 million calls recorded and sent to New York for analysis. He said that about 500 fraudulent calls were discovered over the five-year period. [New York Times]
- Cartha 'Deke' Deloach, the former No. 3 man in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, testified under oath in 1973 that the bureau investigated Spiro Agnew shortly before the 1968 election at the request of President Johnson. In heretofore unpublished testimony, Mr. Deloach, who had been assistant to the F.B.I.'s director, asserted that President Johnson asked the bureau to investigate Mr. Agnew on a matter of "the gravest national security" and that an investigation was conducted. The White House, he said, believed the Republicans were trying to slow down the South Vietnamese from going to the Paris peace talks. [New York Times]
- Official sources said that Ethiopia's military government had ordered bombers, armored units and elite troops into operations against secessionist guerrillas in Eritrea Province. At least 75 persons were reported killed and nearly 200 wounded in what was described as the heaviest fighting since the rebel movement began in 1962. [New York Times]
- In another step in an expanding Iranian military presence in the Persian Gulf area, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran has "guaranteed" Oman against intruding foreign aircraft, the commander of Oman's armed forces said, by committing his air force to combat the intruders if Oman so requests. The Iranian commitment is evidently directed mainly against the radical government of Southern Yemen. [New York Times]