News stories from Tuesday October 17, 1978

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

President Carter entered the Egyptian-Israeli treaty talks to clear up last-minute difficulties, but he played down his intervention by saying the negotiations are going "as well as we had expected." Carter took a role in the talks at the request of Israel and Egypt. A White House statement said, "The President and the Israeli and Egyptian delegates expressed their satisfaction with the process so far." [Chicago Tribune] Stocks posted wide losses as fear of higher interest rates and a sinking dollar prompted selling. Losing issues far outdistanced gainers with the Dow Jones Industrial average off 8.83 to close at 866.34.The nation's industrial output rose 0.5 per cent in September, a solid gain that appears to rule out any danger of a recession in the closing months of this year at least, the Federal Reserve figures showed. [Chicago Tribune] Before this country embarks on a national health insurance program, it should heed the lessons from other nations where government-controlled health care has created major problems, according to warnings issued at the convention of the American College of Surgeons by a panel of experts from England, Canada and Australia. [Chicago Tribune] Betty Ford in her memoirs says her daughter Susan began a romance with a Vail, Colo., skier in 1975 when she was 18 but the prospect of an engagement party cooled the man's ardor. Lately, Mrs. Ford writes, Susan has been devoted to photography and not interested in dating. [Chicago Tribune] About 10 million Americans are problem drinkers or alcoholics, and drinking may be to blame for as many as 205,000 deaths a year, federal health officials reported. The risk of death is two to six times greater for the problem drinker than for the population at large, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism told Congress. But the report showed a decline in deaths from cirrhosis of the liver and a leveling off in per capita alcohol consumption. [Chicago Tribune] Marvella Bayh, wife of Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, is dying of cancer, but says that through a new-found faith in God and outpourings of love from friends, "I've never been happier." Writing in the November issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, the 45-year-old Mrs. Bayh said that the cancer she thought she had beaten in 1971 after a mastectomy not only returned but became so widespread it is inoperable. [Chicago Tribune] President Carter signed into law an amnesty bill restoring to Confederate President Jefferson Davis all the rights taken away by a Reconstruction Congress -- from citizenship to the right to hold public office and serve in the military. Carter, the first Deep South President since the Civil War, said it was time to forgive and forget. [Chicago Tribune] History's first Polish Pope, Pope John Paul II, the former Karol Cardinal Wojtyla of Krakow, began his reign today with a policy speech that placed him on the side of the oppressed and promised to go forward with reforms in the church. He also said he would pursue the goal of Christian unity and would defend the essential doctrines of Roman Catholicism. He spoke in Latin to 110 cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel. His investiture is to be held Sunday.The fact that the new Pope is a staunchly anti-Communist churchman who has clashed with the Communist government of his homeland was not a determining factor in his selection, American cardinals said. "I don't think the conclave thought of this," said John Cardinal Cody of Chicago, a long-time friend of the new Pope. The election "was not apprehended from a political point of view," said John Cardinal Dearden of Detroit. [Chicago Tribune] Poland's Communist leadership joined rejoicing Catholics in hailing the choice of a "son of the Polish nation" as new Pope. The Communist leaders -- Communist Party Chief Edward Giorek, President Henryk Jablonski, and Premier Piotre Jaroszewicz -- said in a telegram to Rome that they looked forward to closer relations with the Vatican. About 85 percent of Poland's 34 million people are Catholics, and the Catholic church in Poland is deemed the repository of Polish tradition and history. [Chicago Tribune] Challenger Viktor Korchnoi gave up his fight for the world chess championship, conceding defeat in the crucial 32nd game and leaving the title in the hands of young Anatoly Karpov of the Soviet Union. Grandmaster Raymond Keene, the 47-year-old Soviet defector's British chief second, telephoned acting chief arbiter Miroslav Filip of Czechoslovakia early Wednesday with Korchnoi's concession. [Chicago Tribune] Two Americans and a Russian shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for physics, while a Briton won the award for chemistry. Dr. Arno Penzias and Dr. Robert Wilson of Bell Telephone Laboratories of New Jersey were cited for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation; Prof. Pyotr Kapitsa of Moscow was cited for his research in the area of low-temperature physics. The chemistry winner, Prof. Peter Mitchell of Glynn Research Laboratories, was honored for his studies of biological energy transfer. [Chicago Tribune] The United States Postal Service has suspended all mail services to Canada because of a strike by Canadian postal workers. In Ottawa, the government sent stiff back-to-work legislation to Parliament, aimed at ending the day-old national walkout. Legislation proposed by the government of Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau would impose fines of up to $100 a day on workers who stay off the job. [Chicago Tribune] Seven members of a French-German team conquered Mt. Everest and set a record for the highest number of people atop the world's highest peak -- 14 climbers in 3 separate assaults. One of those on the summit was a Polish woman -- Wanda Rutkiewich, 34, an engineer. She was the first European woman to reach the top. The mountaineers radioed their success to a base camp. [Chicago Tribune] Arab foreign ministers adopted an eight-point peace plan for Lebanon, but the crack of sniper fire continued to mar the 10-day cease-fire between Syrian troops and Christian militiamen in the capital. Former President and right-wing National Liberal Party leader Camille Chamoun dismissed the accord, saying: "It is words, just words. There is nothing new." [Chicago Tribune]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 866.34 (-8.83, -1.01%)
S&P Composite: 101.26 (-1.35, -1.32%)
Arms Index: 1.44

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	145	2.19
Declines	1,546	33.57
Unchanged	236	2.11
Total Volume		37.87

* in millions of shares

Arms Index is the ratio of volume per declining issue to volume per advancing issue; a figure below 1.0 is bullish.

Market Index Trends
Date	DJIA	S&P	Volume*
October 16, 1978	875.17	102.61	24.60
October 13, 1978	897.09	104.66	21.93
October 12, 1978	896.74	104.88	30.17
October 11, 1978	901.42	105.39	21.74
October 10, 1978	891.63	104.46	25.47
October 9, 1978	893.19	104.59	19.72
October 6, 1978	880.02	103.52	27.39
October 5, 1978	876.47	103.27	27.81
October 4, 1978	873.96	103.06	25.10
October 3, 1978	867.90	102.60	22.54