News stories from Sunday December 1, 1974

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

In the worst air disaster of the year in the United States, a Trans World Airlines 727, fighting a driving rainstorm, crashed into a wooded slope near Upperville, Va., 45 miles northwest of Washington, killing all 92 persons aboard. The plane was bound for Washington from Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio. [New York Times] A huge storm -- the National Weather Service said it was the "first real winter storm" of the season -- shrouded the eastern half of the country in a patchwork of snow, sleet and rain, and a traffic jam of thousands of cars on highways in the New York City metropolitan area brought the Thanksgiving weekend here to a close. It was a glowering and rainy day in the city and even colder and more sullen in the suburbs, where afternoon sleet turned to snow. Overnight accumulations were expected to be washed away by more rain Monday. [New York Times] President Ford has disclosed that he plans to appoint Nelson Rockefeller to head the Domestic Council following his expected confirmation as Vice President. In an interview with Newsweek, Mr. Ford said, "I want him to be a full partner, and that means obviously being in on the foreign policy, but I would say his main emphasis would be on the domestic side." [New York Times] Greek and Greek Cypriote leaders said that they had agreed to take a "common line" in negotiations with the Turks over the future of Cyprus; but a communique issued in Athens after two days of talks did not explain what that line would be. As a result of the meeting, the Greek side now seems prepared to enter substantive negotiations for the first time since talks collapsed in Geneva last August, but in view of the political uncertainty in Turkey it is not clear whether the Turks are ready to talk. [New York Times] After more than a month's delay, the State Department still has declined to rule for Congress whether Turkey violated United States aid laws during the Cyprus conflict by use of United States-supplied weapons. The department said that a legal determination now would jeopardize Cyprus peace efforts. Senator Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate refugee subcommittee, made public his correspondence with the State Department on this and other issues relating to Cyprus. [New York Times] Officials of the United States and Iran held talks last week in Washington on a recent offer by the Shah of Iran to fully finance the reopening of the Lockheed production of C-5A military cargo planes and to purchase 10 of the planes that cost $55 million each. Iran's proposal to finance the resumption of the plane's manufacture preliminary to the purchase of some of them has been under discussion for more than six months, but this fall the Shah withdrew an original requirement that the United States commit itself to buy additional C-5A's and thus assure at least partial repayment to Iran of the cost of getting production underway again. The new no-strings-attached proposal was much more attractive to defense officials in Washington than the earlier offer. It was confirmed meantime that Lockheed representatives had turned down a tentative Arab proposal last spring to purchase 41 percent of Lockheed's common stock for $100 million. [New York Times]