News stories from Friday February 23, 1973

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

Furor continued over Israel's shooting down of a Libyan passenger plane; Arab leaders are talking about retaliation. The bodies of the dead passengers have been turned over to Egypt, but most of the bodies have not yet been identified. Three French crew members and one American passenger who were killed in the crash will be flown directly home.Israel says that the flight recorder from the downed plane indicates that the pilot believed the plane to be over Egypt, and he thought that the Israeli fighter planes were Egyptian. President Sadat has ordered an emergency session with his top military and political aides; the Egyptian vice president threatened to end the 2½-year-old Mideast cease-fire. President Nixon has not criticized Israel over the incident, though he has expressed regret. Nixon met with special Egyptian envoy Hafez Ismail, who also met with Secretary of State Rogers at the State Department. Ismail said he feels that the U.S. wants to promote better relations between Israel and the Arab states. Israeli Premier Golda Meir is due to visit the U.S. next week. [CBS] American planes bombed Laos at the request of the Laotian government. Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma claims that a general Communist offensive is ongoing. American planes were also active in Cambodia today. [CBS] Meeting in Paris, South Vietnamese and Viet Cong representatives agreed to begin full scale discussions of the political future of South Vietnam. In South Vietnam, American soldier James Scoggins died from wounds he suffered when the unarmed helicopter in which he was flying was shot down over An Loc. [CBS] The New York Times reports that POWs sometimes fought among themselves and that they had different opinions about the war. Some POWs made antiwar statements freely and were ostracized by other prisoners. POWs were sometimes maltreated.Capt. Jeremiah Denton stated that his homecoming remarks were his own, and not prepared by the military, but Denton says he has no objections to general tone of the New York Times story. Former Viet Cong POW Sgt. Ken Wallingford lived in a 7 x 10 foot cage, and he was chained to the cage; Wallingford opposes amnesty for draft dodgers. Most former POWs support U.S. policy in Vietnam. Col. Carlyle Harris said that the POWs were happy about the U.S. bombing of Hanoi in 1972, and he approved of all U.S. action in Vietnam. Former POWs who were alleged to have made antiwar statements while in captivity held a news conference today at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Some of them denied ever making those statements. President Nixon reported that the POWs are receiving many job offers. He noted that Vietnam veterans other than POWs need jobs too. [CBS] Opposition in Congress is growing against President Nixon's cuts of veterans benefits. [CBS] AFL-CIO leaders predict that the economy will worsen by the end of 1973. Union president George Meany observed that although wages are frozen prices continue to rise as do profits, and he said that the system is not fair. Later, Meany attended a labor-management advisory committee meeting. The committee is part of the Cost of Living Council. [CBS] The U.S. dollar dropped in value on international money markets. Gold prices are now up to $95 an ounce. The Treasury Department says that there are no plans for further dollar devaluation. Jewelers claim that the rise in gold prices is making the price of gold jewelry go up. [CBS] Working with asbestos is dangerous. Authorities say that one million Americans will have died by the end of the century because of asbestos-related diseases. Dr. Irving Selikoff stated that products such as beer, wine, liquor and soft drinks are filtered using asbestos and are thus contaminated. [CBS] Joseph Kennedy III's job in San Francisco has caused controversy. The son of the late Senator Robert Kennedy took a position in San Francisco as a city health worker and was assigned to a ghetto. San Francisco supervisor John Molinari says that the job should have gone to a local resident, but Mayor Joseph Alioto stated that Kennedy can stay as long as he does his work. Kennedy wants to work with the poor, and said that this seems like a good opportunity. The federal grant which pays Kennedy's salary runs out next summer because of President Nixon's budget cuts. [CBS] Star-Kist is recalling 170,000 cans of contaminated tuna. [CBS] Vandals broke into the Life Sciences Laboratories in St. Petersburg, Florida, and smashed items in eight lab rooms. The labs are doing cancer research and the rooms contain many vials of diseased organisms. The vandals exposed themselves to dangerous diseases and are advised to give themselves up. [CBS]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 959.89 (-11.89, -1.22%)
S&P Composite: 113.16 (-1.28, -1.12%)
Arms Index: 1.78

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	388	2.37
Declines	1,049	11.39
Unchanged	348	1.69
Total Volume		15.45

* 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*
February 22, 1973	971.78	114.44	14.57
February 21, 1973	974.34	114.69	14.88
February 20, 1973	983.59	115.40	14.02
February 16, 1973	979.23	114.98	13.32
February 15, 1973	973.13	114.45	13.94
February 14, 1973	979.91	115.10	16.52
February 13, 1973	996.76	116.78	25.32
February 12, 1973	991.57	116.06	16.13
February 9, 1973	979.46	114.68	19.26
February 8, 1973	967.19	113.16	18.44