News stories from Sunday January 4, 1981

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

Surprise and concern were expressed by the Carter administration over a report that Iranian authorities have transferred the senior American diplomat in Teheran and two aides from the Foreign Ministry to a secret place with some of the other 49 hostages. [New York Times] Two Americans were slain in El Salvador and the head of the country's Institute for Agrarian Transformation, with whom they had been dining, was also shot to death in the Sheraton Hotel in San Salvador. The Americans were Michael Hammer, 42 years old, of Potomac, Md., and Mark Pearlman, 26, of Seattle. Both were working as advisers to El Salvador's government-sponsored land redistribution program. The slain Salvadoran was Jose Viera. President Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador said the murders were "almost certainly an action by the extreme right." [New York Times] The White House got a second letter from Senate Democrats for information about Alexander Haig that they would like to have for their confirmation hearings on his nomination as Secretary of State. This time, the request was narrowed to specific controversial periods of his career. The administration will try to provide at least some of the wanted tapes and documents, Jody Powell, President Carter's press secretary, said. [New York Times] Economic growth in 1981 will be small, perhaps at zero, and interest rates will continue high because of the Federal Reserve Board's policy of slowing the growth of money and credit, its top officials, including its chairman, Paul Volcker, said. The board's tight monetary policy will be maintained, the officials said, because the prospects for curbing inflation are not good. However, they do not expect a sharp decline in economic activity. [New York Times] Far-reaching cuts in federal taxes, spending and business regulation are among the aims of proposals being prepared by Reagan administration aides for presentation to Congress by Feb. 3. Under Republican leadership, the Senate Budget Committee is recommending a long list of budget cuts to Representative David Stockman, who has been chosen as director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan administration. [New York Times] Devastating mud slides this spring may be generated by the debris accumulated during the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington last May 18, a federal geologist said. Dr. Richard Janda said that the half-cubic-mile of volcanic debris is so "readily erodible" that much of it may sweep downstream. [New York Times] The way the war with Iraq is being run has added bitterness to the feud between Iran's Islamic fundamentalists and President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr and his more liberal supporters. The war is no longer unifying the two sides, and President Bani-Sadr's position as commander in chief is being attacked. The clerics charge that he has failed to put the military on the attack. [New York Times] Anna Chennault and Deng Xiaoping, China's paramount leader, had a two-hour meeting in Peking. Mrs. Chennault, an American citizen born in China and a longtime supporter of the nationalist government on Taiwan, indicated afterward that she had changed some of her views about China. [New York Times] A luxury shop in Paris was destroyed by a bomb, and an anonymous telephone caller said that a group seeking independence for the French islands of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean was responsible. The explosion occurred at the Chanel store on the Rue Cambon. A night watchman was injured. [New York Times]