News stories from Saturday August 9, 1980
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Libya's leader defended its dealings with Billy Carter and said the $220,000 given to the President's brother was a loan related to business transactions carried out during two visits to Tripoli in 1978 and 1979. Col. Muammar Qaddafi said in an interview in Tripoli that the storm over Billy Carter's Libyan connections was caused by President Carter's political opponents and Zionist groups who would like to see him defeated.
Billy Carter obtained a loan from the Libyans that was to be repaid through fees earned as a broker for Libyan oil, according to a source closely associated with the President's brother and intimately familiar with his activities. The loan was said to be for $500,000, of which $200,000 has been received, according to the associate, who said most of the money had been spent.
[New York Times] - President Carter is still far behind Ronald Reagan, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll despite the effectiveness of his nationally televised news conference on his brother Billy last Monday. He helped restore confidence among his fellow Democrats but was far less effective among Republicans and independents. However, his race with Senator Kennedy, which had been even at 43 percent before the news conference, shifted to a Carter margin of 49 percent to 38. The President was politically unpersuasive among Democrats on the news conference's other major topic, the question of rules for the Democratic National Convention. [New York Times]
- Hundreds of official greeters turned out in New York City to welcome and guide delegates arriving for the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden. At Kennedy International and La Guardia Airports and at dozens of hotels the delegates found swarms of people prepared to be guides. [New York Times]
- Hurricane Allen struck the Texas coast after forcing thousands of people to flee to safer ground. Forecasters warned the residents who remained to be prepared for up to three hours of winds of 150 miles per hour. The eye of the storm, said to be one of the three most intense ever recorded, was expected to strike around Brownsville. [New York Times]
- No official guidance from Iran is being given to the Muslim Student Association of North America, a spokesman for the group, believed to be the largest Iranian student organization in the United States, said in Washington. The spokesman, Mohammad Badr, a 34-year doctoral candidate at St. Louis University, acknowledged, however, that his group had informal connections with the captors of the American hostages in Iran. [New York Times]
- Secretary of State Muskie was not told in advance about President Carter's decision to revise United States strategy for nuclear war, the Secretary told reporters, and he complained that he learned about the change in strategy through newspapers. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown called Mr. Muskie to explain how the State Department had been involved in earlier discussions of the matter. [New York Times]
- A nominee for Iran's prime ministry was announced by President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, whose first choice for the post was vetoed by Parliament several weeks ago. The Prime Minister-designate is Mohamad Ali Rajai, a former mathematics teachers who is Education Minister and whose candidacy was not supported by the President two weeks ago. His nomination, to be voted on in Parliament on Monday, is regarded as a victory for the Islamic militants. [New York Times]
- Egypt decided against resuming talks in the near future with Israel on the Palestinian autonomy issue. A letter from the Israeli Prime Minister, responding to one from President Anwar Sadat on the Jersusalem crisis, which was regarded in Cairo as crucial to the resumption of the talks, was dismissed as "nothing new." [New York Times]