News stories from Saturday June 17, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Carter warned Panama to respect the civil liberties of the 40,000 Americans in the Canal Zone. He said in an address to Americans there, who gave him a generally cool welcome, that he had personally taken steps to assure that their rights would be undisturbed. [New York Times]
- President Carter proposes to establish a commission on world hunger that would coordinate United States efforts toward combating starvation in poor countries now being directed separately through 26 agencies. He is expected early in July to announce the appointment of Sol Linowitz, a Washington lawyer who was co-negotiator with Ellsworth Bunker of the Panama Canal treaties, to head the commission. [New York Times]
- Ruts, soft shoulders and potholes along Interstate 80 exemplify the deterioration afflicting the nation's 39,000-mile interstate highway network. Many parts of the system have reached or exceeded the 20-year life expectancy of a heavily traveled road, but some states, like Pennsylvania, cannot afford to contribute their share of the cost of fixing the roads, even though the federal government would pay for 90 percent of the repair. [New York Times]
- The lifting of the ban on blacks in the priesthood of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is expected to have a wide impact on Utah. Marvin Davis, one of the few militant blacks in the state, said the lifting of the ban "will have the most tremendous psychological impact," and that the "last major organized public racism in this country" had collapsed. But he also said that when the Mormons announced they would not practice racism in employment, "then I will be elated." [New York Times]
- Moscow appears to fear that impulses left from the cold war are gaining the upper hand in Washington. In a worried assessment of the political drift in Washington, Soviet leaders have apparently concluded that a satisfactory relationship with the United States is not possible unless the Carter administration softens its stand. "The present course of the United States is fraught with dangers," the Communist Party newspaper Pravda said. [New York Times]
- Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia are discussing a joint defense arrangement for the Persian Gulf, in which Iraq would loosen its ties with the Soviet Union. According to information reaching high French officials and intelligence officers of other countries, the emirates and other small but important oil-producing nations in the Persian Gulf area would be included in the defense group. [New York Times]