News stories from Saturday September 12, 1981

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

U.S. defense spending will be cut by at least $21 billion over the next three years, the White House announced, to help President Reagan meet his goal of a balanced federal budget by 1984. David Gergen, the senior White House spokesman, said that Mr. Reagan had reached a "tentative agreement" on defense spending in a meeting with Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget. He said that "strategic weapon planning would not be affected." [New York Times] Wall Street is disappointing the Reagan administration, which would like a show of gratitude for its economic program. The continuing large size of the federal deficit is one reason why Wall Street is not applauding the economic program, and why the value of stocks and bonds is declining, interviews with Wall Street figures indicate. [New York Times] Whether a federal official was bribed by a company controlled by Edwin P. Wilson, a former C.I.A. employee, is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to federal law enforcement officials and Kevin Mulcahy, a former associate of Mr. Wilson, bribery money came from the Control Data Corporation, a Minneapolis computer company. Control Data retained one of Mr. Wilson's companies to help the computer company gain Defense Department business, according to a Control Data spokesman. Mr. Mulcahy has told prosecutors that some of the money paid by Control Data to the Wilson company was used in 1976, at least, to make monthly payments to Paul Cyr, who at the time was head of congressional relations for the Federal Energy Administration, and who had previously held the same post with the Army Material Command. [New York Times] 39 aged persons disappeared from privately operated homes for the elderly in the Miami area. Thirty-two of the missing have been found, many suffering malnutrition. They had lived in homes operated by Lucille Walker, who is believed to have bilked them of Social Security checks and savings. Mrs. Walker, who under other names has a long record of fraud in Florida and other states, is charged with having kidnapped five aged women from Florida to Detroit, where they were abandoned. She is a fugitive. [New York Times] The AWACS plane sale to Saudi Arabia is still expected to be approved in Congress, Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia was told by Secretary of State Alexander Haig. In a visit to the prince's villa on Spain's southern coast, Mr. Haig said that the Reagan administration expects victory despite strong opposition in Congress and from Israel. [New York Times] A challenge to Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, is coming from a breakaway Palestinian guerrilla organization secretly backed by Syria, according to American officials and sources in the Middle East. The group, which is said to have begun terrorist operations, is headed by Abu Nidal, who split with the Arafat organization in the early 1970's. Austrian authorities say the Abu Nidal faction is responsible for the attack on a Vienna synagogue on Aug. 29. [New York Times]