News stories from Sunday March 16, 1975

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

A group of documents newly released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation show that the agency sent a spurious threatening letter to a black Baptist minister to compel him to cease his civil rights work in Mississippi and return to the North. The documents, which reflect part of the F.B.I.'s controversial cointelpro operation, directed at "black nationalist" groups, were made public by the bureau in response to a lawsuit brought by the minister, Donald W. Jackson, who is now known as Muhammad Kenyatta. [New York Times] Many states are retrenching as federal outlays rise. Squeezed between recession-shrunk revenues and prices swollen by inflation, many of the states must either cut back services and state employment or raise taxes. Some states are finding they must do both. [New York Times] An extensive statement of agreed-upon beliefs, the first document of its kind written jointly by Roman Catholics and Protestants since the 16th-century Reformation, will be available in the United States this spring. It is called "The Common Catechism: A Book of Christian Faith," and is regarded as a landmark in ecumenical theology. A German version has circulated widely in Europe for the last two years. It is being published in English for the first time by the Seabury Press of the Episcopal Church. [New York Times] Members of the Portuguese government reportedly resigned today to prepare the way for the appointment of a new cabinet whose membership will reflect the sharp turn to the left the country has taken since an abortive coup last Tuesday. Alvaro Cunhal, the secretary general of Portugal's Communist party, suggested that the Popular Democratic party, the major centrist political formation, might have been implicated in the military plot. [New York Times] Talks between Israeli leaders and Secretary of State Kissinger resumed in Jerusalem after the cabinet had empowered the Israeli negotiating team to continue efforts to reach a new Sinai agreement with Egypt. Egyptian officials said that they expected a new Israeli withdrawal in Sinai to be carried out over a period of three to six months if Secretary of State Kissinger was successful in bringing about a new agreement. [New York Times] Vincent Sheean, the American journalist whose reflective, personal style influenced a generation of newspaper reporters, died at his home in Arolo, Italy. He was 75 years old, and was born in Pana, Illinois. He underwent treatment for lung cancer in New York last fall. [New York Times]