News stories from Saturday October 21, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Carter is announcing new anti-inflation measures this week despite the misgivings of some Democratic officials, who fear that the announcement could backfire on the party's candidates in the Nov. 7 congressional elections. Carter will unveil the new phase of the administration's anti-inflation program, which he has said repeatedly will be "tough," on national television Tuesday night, exactly two weeks before the elections. Some party officials consider the timing of the announcement, in the words of one, '"an unnecessary, high-risk strategy" that may remind voters of the Democratic administration's inability to gain control of inflation during the last two years. "I just don't see any sense in raising the visibility of the issue two weeks before election day," one party professional said. "There is no question that it is the major issue, but now people are not blaming one side or the other. To announce a new initiative is to say the old effort didn't work." [Washington Post]
- The Supreme Court of Alaska unanimously overturned a lower court ruling (calling for a new gubernatorial primary election) and ordered the general election to proceed as scheduled on Nov. 7. [Washington Post]
- New York Post publisher Rupert Murdoch charged that the "defeatist and self-destructive" attitudes of the city's newspaper unions were jeopardizing his plans to start a new morning tabloid, the Daily Sun. [Washington Post]
- Airborne Rhodesian raiders blasted 12 black nationalist guerrilla camps and killed as many as 1,500 guerrillas deep inside Zambia last week, the Rhodesian military said today. The reported death toll made it the bloodiest cross-border operation by the Rhodesians in their six-year-old war against black guerrillas. It coincided with a renewed effort by the United States and Britain to organize an all-party peace conference between the Rhodesian government and guerrilla leaders.
Rhodesian forces also struck bases in Mozambique, the military said, but casualties there were not announced. It said that during the raids into Zambia the Rhodesians clashed briefly with Zambian troops. The communique said the raiders reported a minimum of 500 guerrillas killed during the strikes Thursday on three major insurgent bases and nine satellite camps in Zambia. It added that hundreds more were believed killed and said the higher estimates were supported by reports from Zambia. That put the toll at 1,500. It was not clear how Rhodesia obtained a casualty estimate from Zambia. Government sources in Lusaka, the Zambian capital, said only that the toll "ran into the hundreds." Previously the highest reported death toll was in a raid last November against insurgent camps in Mozambique, when the Rhodesian military reported killing 1,200 persons. In all, the war has claimed 41,000 lives since 1972, according to Rhodesian authorities.
Rhodesian black nationalist leader Joshua Nkomo said he would not attend the British and American sponsored all-party conference and vowed to overthrow the Smith government by force.
[Washington Post] - Alaska, a state where pioneering is still a daily reality, wants to launch a grand experiment in economic democracy -- distributing new wealth to all its citizens, giving each an owner's share in Alaska's bountiful energy development. If the scheme works, every Alaskan -- men, women, children -- will hold stock shares in huge capital investments such as the Trans-Alaskan oil pipeline or the proposed natural gas pipeline or a future petrochemical complex. Every year, citizens would each receive dividend checks of several hundred dollars or more and, every year, their share of equity interest would grow. In addition to spreading cash among the citizens, the idea might produce political benefits for the oil companies. If people have a personal stake in the profits, the public may be more sympathetic when private enterprise complains about government regulation and taxation.
The "general stock ownership plan" is the brainchild of Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), who derived the idea from the economic philosophy of Louis Kelso, a prophet of broadened capital ownership for workers. Last week, without any fanfare, the federal tax law changes necessary for the venture were enacted by Congress in its omnibus tax bill, now awaiting the president's signature. "This idea has floated around for years and nobody has taken it seriously," Gravel said. "But wait until the day when the first dividend checks go out to every citizen of Alaska. When the long green touches their hands, you will see a revolution begin."
[Washington Post] - Syria announced that President Hafez Assad is to visit Iraq this week, a startling turnabout in Arab affairs that could give new credibility to Arab opponents of the Camp David agreements between Egypt and Israel. Syria and Iraq, ruled by rival wings of the Arab Baath Socialist Party, have been locked in a bitter ideological feud for years. Their quarrel has been a major obstacle to forming a cohesive front of Arab countries that oppose the Camp David accords. A rapprochement between them could alter the balance of power in
the Arab world and give added weight to the anti-Camp David nations.
Syria reconciled with Iraq would become a more potent force in Arab affairs, and a more persuasive claimant to the key support of Saudi Arabia. The dispute between Damascus and Baghdad runs deep, however, and a number of previous attempts at reconciliation by Saudi and other mediators have stumbled on the enmity built up over the years.
[Washington Post] - Petty Officer 1st Class Roger Wild was on the deck of the Coast Guard training vessel Cuyahoga Friday night on the Chesapeake Bay when he heard four sharp blasts from the whistle of the freighter Santa Cruz II. It was a danger signal, Wild said. "Five to 10 seconds" later, he added, the Santa Cruz II, a 561-foot Argentine vessel carrying a load of coal, "hit us on the starboard side." After the collision, Wild recalled, the vessel keeled over immediately and within three or four minutes "went out of sight," sinking to the bottom of the bay in what the Coast Guard called "one of the worst" accidents in the recent history of the service. Eleven Coast Guardsmen, apparently trapped below the deck of the cutter when the collision occurred near the mouth of the Potomac River about 9:10 p.m., were still missing tonight and presumed dead.
Of the 13 crew members and 16 officer candidates on their first training cruise from a Yorktown, Va., base, 17 men besides Wild survived. They were plucked by rescuers from bay waters littered by the residue of disaster -- oranges, hair brushes, pieces of wood and a telltale slick of oil. When the surviving Coast Guardsmen finally were brought to shore Friday night, a Coast Guard spokesman recalled, "They were shuddering, they were covered with blankets, just huddling together. "They were very cold, and all they wanted to do is just get warm again." Of the survivors, only Wild, 32, was permitted to talk with reporters today. He told of seeing the southbound freighter off the cutter's starboard (right) bow moments before the collision. "When I got up on the deck I saw the vessel Santa Cruz off the starboard beam," Wild said. "It looked like he was going to come pretty close to hitting us on the stern," said Wild, who is second in command of the Cuyahoga. He said that moments earlier the ships had exchanged whistle blasts -- signals of each ship's maneuvering intentions. Then, he said, came, the four sharp blasts indicating the freighter feared it was in danger.
[Washington Post]