News stories from Saturday November 18, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Carter's peanut business received a $1 million loan from Bert Lance's National Bank of Georgia in 1975 and 1976 that did not have full collateral for more than a year, according to courthouse records in Sumter, Ga. Bank regulatory officials said they would characterize such a procedure as improper, but not illegal. The loan was obtained for plant improvements that cost only $700,000, the contractor said. The use of the balance of the loan has not been accounted for. [New York Times]
- The border "is leaking like a sieve and nobody gives a damn," a border patrolman in San Ysidro, Calif., complained. His anger is typical of patrolmen along the 2,000-mile United States-Mexican border, and much of it is focused on Leonel Castillo, Commissioner of Immigration. [New York Times]
- When people talk about Houston in terms of its phenomenal growth, its vigor and its unusually well-off middle class, they are talking about the city's West Side, where the many newcomers from the North and East have settled, and where a new, hybrid suburban society of the Sun Belt appears to be developing. [New York Times]
- A rollback In President Carter's proposed 3 percent increase in military spending next year is said to be favored by James McIntyre, director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. McIntyre would use the savings to make $1 or $2 billion additional available for social programs already hit hard by budget cuts. [New York Times]
- The Shah of Iran has resolved to do all he can to save his throne, but he will not allow any friendly country to intervene on his behalf. He believes there is little that Iran's friends, including the United States, can do influence the outcome of his struggle with his opponents. He will not, the Shah said in an informal conversation, accept help even from other Moslem nations.
The leader of Iran's military government, Gen. Gholam Riza Azhari, assured Parliament that he would restore order in the country. His pledge followed reports of a new demonstration against the Shah in the northeast religious center of Meshed, in which, the official press agency said, several persons had died. But an opposition leader said that 11 to 13 people had been killed and that soldiers had removed the bodies.
[New York Times] - Providing adequate old-age pensions in the Soviet Union is a problem that is increasingly turning up in newspapers and in official circles. Government statistics indicate that at least 50 rubles ($75) a month is required to keep a person clothed, housed and fed. But the legal minimum monthly pension is only 45 rubles. Millions of people not entitled to full pensions get even less. The maximum monthly pension is 120 rubles, $180. [New York Times]
- A number of Spanish military and police officers reportedly have been arrested for acts of insubordination that in one case appears to have involved a plot against the government. Among those arrested was Col. Antonio Tejero Molino, a civil guard officer, who once wrote an open letter protesting Spain's new democracy. [New York Times]