News stories from Friday July 20, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Two more cabinet dismissals concluded President Carter's reorganization as well as perhaps the most tumultuous week of his presidency. Mr. Carter accepted the resignations of Transportation Secretary Brock Adams and Energy Secretary James Schlesinger, bringing to five the number of cabinet chiefs who have resigned or were dismissed this week.
James Schlesinger struggled to leave the cabinet under his own power but found himself grouped with three dismissed cabinet heads. His designated successor is the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Charles Duncan, who pledged to improve the government's newest and most widely criticized department.
Brock Adams angrily resigned from the cabinet when, he said, he learned that he would not have direct access to President Carter and would have to deal with the White House staff first. He refused to comply with a White House order that he dismiss his deputy and send another aide to the White House for a disciplinary talk. "I strongly believe there must be direct cabinet access to the President," he said.
[New York Times] - Representative Claude Leach was indicted on charges of conspiring to buy 440 votes in the runoff election in Louisiana he won by 266 votes last fall. A separate indictment named Mr. Leach, who is a Democrat, and seven other persons and a federal magistrate in connection with buying 397 votes in the primary. [New York Times]
- The 1977 conviction of Marvin Mandel, former Governor of Maryland, was upheld by an appeals court that also reinstated the convictions of five co-defendants on charges of political corruption. The divided court nullified a 2 to 1 decision in January by a panel of the same court that had overturned, because of judicial error, the convictions for mail fraud and racketeering. [New York Times]
- The Shah of Iran's move to New York or Connecticut from Mexico is anticipated by his representatives, who are examining Manhattan townhouses and Connecticut estates, according to sources close to him. [New York Times]
- Nicaragua's junta was installed as the country's new government before a joyful crowd of 50,000 people in the newly-named Plaza of the Revolution in Managua. The new government's first official acts were expropriation of the business empire of former President Anastasio Somoza and his supporters, dissolution of Congress and abolition of the National Guard, which surrendered to the junta Thursday. [New York Times]
- Vietnam urged the world to take in more Indochinese, at the opening of the refugee conference in Geneva. In an appeal directed mainly at the United States, Deputy Foreign Minister Phan Hien suggested the use of airlifts and ships to take larger number of refugees to Western countries from temporary camps in Southeast Asia.
Vietnam sharply curtailed the departure of ethnic Chinese last month while preparations were being made for the refugee conference in Geneva, according to refugees who arrived in the Anambas Islands off the Malaysian Peninsula. This is evidence, they said, that Hanoi controls the flow.
[New York Times] - A large oil spill followed the collision of two supertankers in the Atlantic off Tobago in the British West Indies, and at least 34 of a total of more than 70 crewmen were missing. Forty or more were rescued, but many were injured. Oil from the burning ships spread over a 25-square-mile area. [New York Times]
- Government troops killed more than 180 members of the Zimbabwe Rhodesian auxiliary forces, the so-called "private armies" loyal to political parties. Most of the dead were followers of the Zimbabwe African National Union lead by the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole, the country's major black internal opposition leader. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 828.07 (+0.77, +0.09%)
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* |
| July 19, 1979 | 827.30 | 101.61 | 26.78 |
| July 18, 1979 | 828.58 | 101.69 | 35.95 |
| July 17, 1979 | 828.50 | 101.83 | 34.27 |
| July 16, 1979 | 834.90 | 102.74 | 26.62 |
| July 13, 1979 | 833.53 | 102.32 | 33.07 |
| July 12, 1979 | 836.86 | 102.69 | 31.77 |
| July 11, 1979 | 843.86 | 103.64 | 36.64 |
| July 10, 1979 | 850.34 | 104.20 | 39.73 |
| July 9, 1979 | 852.99 | 104.47 | 42.46 |
| July 6, 1979 | 846.16 | 103.62 | 38.57 |