News stories from Sunday October 8, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The C.I.A. advised two executives of the International Telephone and Telegraph Co. before they testified to a Senate subcommittee that I.T.T. had no links with the C.I.A., according to sources close to a Justice Department perjury inquiry, The sources said that former Senator J. William Fulbright [D., Ark.], who headed the panel's parent Foreign Relations Committee, knew before the hearings began that the C.I.A. and I.T.T. did maintain close ties. I.T.T. executives Edward Gerrity and Robert Berrellez have been accused of lying about I.T.T.'s financial role in the Chilean presidential campaign of 1970. [Chicago Tribune]
- Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith begins a week of campaigning Monday to persuade Americans to accept his plans for a new government for his African nation. On Monday, he will meet with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and later in the week with members of Congress. Smith is in the U.S. at the invitation of 27 Senators, who won a reversal of State Department policy that had denied an entry visa to Smith. [Chicago Tribune]
- Poor nutrition is causing disease and early death for millions of Americans, and much of the blame must be laid squarely on the federal government, according to the Office of Technology Assessment. In a report to be released Monday, Russell Peterson, office director, says federal nutrition research programs have failed to deal with the changing health problems of the American people. [Chicago Tribune]
- Rep. Charles Diggs [D., Mich.] says he intends to win re-election in his Detroit constituency despite his conviction on mail fraud and salary kickback charges. "I am still a candidate," Diggs, 55, said after a federal jury of 11 blacks and one white found him guilty Saturday on all 29 counts in a scheme to defraud the government, Diggs, a 24-year veteran of Congress and founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, was accused of padding salaries of five aides and then using the extra money to meet personal and office expenses. [Chicago Tribune]
- A federal court in Wyoming will be asked this week to decide whether a $1.6 billion dam and power plant should be stopped to protect the nearly extinct American whooping crane. Environmentalists say the project threatens a flock of about 70 whooping cranes roosting at the Platte River in central Nebraska on its migratory route from Texas to Canada's Northwest Territory. The dam is to be built on Laramie River, a tributary of the Platte. [Chicago Tribune]
- The Rhodesian government is expected to announce the end of apartheid this week. The move, allowing blacks to live in areas that have been reserved for whites, is apparently designed to overcome U.S. criticism that the transitional government has not worked fast enough toward removing racial discrimination. [Chicago Tribune]
- Chess challenger Viktor Korchnoi defied all the experts and beat champion Anatoly Karpov in their 29th game. Korchnoi's victory after 78 moves and 9 hours of play narrowed the Soviet champ's lead to 5 games to 4 and put the defector back in contention for the world chess title he has coveted for 15 years. The title goes to the first man to win six games. Korchnoi at one point trailed 5-2. [Chicago Tribune]
- Rescuers have found the body of the second man killed in an explosion Saturday that injured another 15 persons at a metal alloys plant in Benton Harbor, Mich. Authorities said the blast blew a heavy metal furnace through the roof of the factory. The shock was felt more than two miles away. [Chicago Tribune]
- Sen. Adlai Stevenson III [D., Illinois] has introduced a bill to replace the Council on Wage and Price Stability with a new, semi-independent Inflation Review Board. that has "teeth in its jawbone." He said that "if the nation is to avoid wage and price controls, it needs an independent agency with tools to identify irresponsible inflationary behavior, expose it to public scrutiny, and provide time to devise measures to prevent such increases from triggering another inflationary spiral." [Chicago Tribune]
- The president of Chase Manhattan Bank believes that New York City is on the road to economic recovery but he is less optimistic about the outlook for the United States as a whole. Willard Butcher said the nation's "engines of prosperity are starved for capital." [Chicago Tribune]
- Two Palestinian divisions under Syrian command were brought from Syria to Lebanon and took part in the battles for Beirut's Christian neighborhood, the Israel radio reported. The radio also said the units brought heavy artillery, mortars and rocket launchers with them and will be reinforced by Syrian commando units. [Chicago Tribune]
- The princes of the Roman Catholic Church, frustrated so far in their search for a perfect Pope, considered candidates from outside their own College of Cardinals. In theory, any baptized male is eligible for the papacy -- he may even be married if he is willing to install his wife in a convent. [Chicago Tribune]
- Police fired on demonstrators in the Iranian resort town of Amol and clashed with angry youths in Teheran and several other cities and towns across the country. Several persons reportedly were killed and many others wounded. Violence spread as universities, schools, factories, government offices, post offices and railroads were shut down in a public protest against low salaries and poor working conditions. [Chicago Tribune]
- Sen. Jake Garn is certain that his amendment to the Equal Rights Amendment extension bill -- which would have allowed states to rescind ratification -- went down the drain because of family pressures on his fellow Senators. "Several told me it was unfair [not to provide rescission]," said the Utah Republican, "but they couldn't vote with me and face their wives and daughters." [Chicago Tribune]