News stories from Wednesday October 22, 1980

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

New signals on the American hostages were sent by Iranian leaders indicating that they were moving closer to a decision on what conditions to set for the release of the captives. Administration officials said they were seeking to appear as approachable as possible, but they cautioned that they were still unable to establish a channel for direct talks and could not be sure how long the crisis might be prolonged by internal feuding in Iran. [New York Times] A U.S. plan to halt the fighting between Iran and Iraq was presented at a closed meeting of the United Nations Security Council, American officials said. The plan calls for the creation of a negotiating forum to settle the grievances of both sides. Delegates reacted to the proposal with a mixture of interest and skepticism. [New York Times] Iraq reported new military advances, saying that its forces had severed the oil province of Khuzistan from the rest of Iran. Baghdad also said that its planes had set afire oil depots northeast of the provincial capital of Ahwaz and that its troops had advanced to within three miles of the city. [New York Times] A very close presidential election was projected in a new national poll by The New York Times and CBS News. It showed that President Carter had advanced to an essentially even position with Ronald Reagan in the last month by gains among independents and wavering Democrats. The poll showed the President with 39 percent of the probable votes to 38 percent for Mr. Reagan, 9 percent for John Anderson and 13 percent undecided. The survey also found the probable electorate favoring Democrats in congressional races by 54 to 46 percent, similar to the 1978 elections. [New York Times] The President derided Mr. Reagan for having said he had "some ideas" for winning the release of the American hostages, but that they should not be discussed in public. At a raucous rally in Waco, Tex., Mr. Carter likened Mr. Reagan's "secret plan" to Richard Nixon's publicized "secret plan" to win the Vietnam War that became an issue in the 1968 campaign. [New York Times] Edward Kennedy buoyed the campaign for President Carter in three Texas cities. In San Antonio the Senator was cheered wildly by perhaps 2,000 Mexican-Americans as he dedicated a high school named for his brother -- 17 years after President Kennedy, the day before he was slain, made a promise there to dedicate it himself. [New York Times] Mr. Reagan pressed military spending, pledging again to increase it, and asserted that a total trade embargo was "a very viable option" in dealing with Moscow. His remarks reflected the conflict between his national and regional strategies as he campaigned in Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana, where his advisers believe he can defeat the President. [New York Times] John Anderson discussed the hostages. The independent presidential candidate suggested that the Carter administration "failed to take the elementary precautions that might have thwarted and frustrated" the seizure of the 52 Americans in Iran. [New York Times] A U.S.-China grain accord was signed, committing Peking to buy from six million to eight million metric tons of American wheat and corn annually for the next four years. Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland said the amounts, about the same as China is buying this year, would have no immediate effect on American bread prices. [New York Times] Acquittals in alleged corruption were handed up by a jury in Houston. Billy Clayton, the Speaker of the Texas House, and two lawyers from Austin were found not guilty of all charges arising from the F.B.I.'s undercover investigation of an alleged scheme to buy the Speaker's influence. [New York Times] A gain for New York on the census was achieved. A federal judge made a ruling that officials said virtually guaranteed the state and city a victory in their suit seeking a revision to make up for an alleged undercount of up to 800,000 city residents and 500,000 other New Yorkers. The judge in effect required the Census Bureau to concede the key claims made by New York. [New York Times] The dispute over Canada's constitution intensified. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau began a campaign to win over public opinion against efforts by at least six of the 10 provinces to block his plan to obtain a new charter fully independent of Britain. [New York Times] The Times of London may be closed. The owners of the newspaper and The Sunday Times, citing years of costly labor problems, announced that the two were being offered for sale and said that if they were not sold by next March they would shut down. The 195-year-old paper has been a symbol of journalistic excellence. [New York Times] A Canadian forced Moscow to pay a bill for a $26,000 printing job he did in 1967 for the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa. The persistent businessman battled Canadian bureaucrats and filed a series of legal appeals over 13 years, finally gaining custody of a $13 million Soviet freighter in Toronto and prompting the Soviet Union to pay him the debt plus $10,000 in interest. [New York Times] A partial victory for open information was cited by the Western countries. After nearly five weeks of debate at a conference in Belgrade, the 154 member nations of Unesco agreed to postpone plans to restructure world communications that were opposed by the West on the ground that they would threaten freedom of the press. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 955.12 (+0.68, +0.07%)
S&P Composite: 131.92 (+0.08, +0.06%)
Arms Index: 0.74

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	735	21.93
Declines	754	16.61
Unchanged	418	4.52
Total Volume		43.06

* 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*
October 21, 1980	954.44	131.84	51.30
October 20, 1980	960.84	132.61	40.91
October 17, 1980	956.14	131.52	43.96
October 16, 1980	958.70	132.22	65.45
October 15, 1980	972.44	133.70	48.28
October 14, 1980	962.20	132.02	48.79
October 13, 1980	959.90	132.03	31.41
October 10, 1980	950.68	130.29	44.03
October 9, 1980	958.96	131.04	43.98
October 8, 1980	963.99	131.65	46.58