News stories from Sunday October 11, 1981
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- A new communications system proposed by the Reagan administration would allow the United States to fight a nuclear war with much greater effectiveness and flexibility, according to senior administration officials. The plan to spend $18 billion on strategic military communications over the next five years would make possible, the officials said, at least four courses of action that are not currently within the nation's capabilities. [New York Times]
- Unions are accepting concessions in wages and benefits, under threat of losing jobs, plants or entire industries. At what appears to be a record rate, union officials are reopening contracts and accepting these givebacks for their members. Unions in the automobile, steel, newspaper, meat packing, farm implement, mining, railroad, teaching and transit and airline industries are among those agreeing to significant concessions. [New York Times]
- Domestic air travel delays were five times more frequent for the first week of October than they were before the walkout by air taffic controllers. By late September the delays were occuring at triple the pre-strike rate. Government officials attributed the new jump to bad weather in some areas of the country and to a surge in corporate and private plane use of the air traffic control system. [New York Times]
- Federal watchdog program cuts proposed by President Reagan have been criticized by some Congressmen who said that the 12 percent reductions sought for all agencies, when applied to the inspector generals' offices, would defeat the President's own goal of fighting waste and fraud in government. Mr. Reagan has called for a $30 million spending curb in the 16 offices of inspectors general. [New York Times]
- A diverse group of clerics met in Chicago. Among the topics tackled at the gathering of moderate and liberal religious leaders, lay people and theological professors was the formation of strategies for "alternatives" to hard-line fundamentalism and the ethical absolutism of such groups as the Moral Majority. [New York Times]
- Dwight Eisenhower was the subject of a conference attended by historians, politicals scientists and former presidential advisors, who added support to recent revisions in the former President's reputation. Meeting at Eisenhower College in Seneca Falls, N.Y., the official national memorial to the 34th President, those who gathered there added credibility to the revisionist version of Eisenhower as being more shrewd, commanding and peace-loving than intellectuals of the the 1950's and early 60's had credited to him. [New York Times]
- Arms deliveries to Egypt will be stepped up, Secretary of State Alexander Haig said in Cairo, adding that the United States will take part in a "very extensive" joint security exercise with Egyptian forces next month. Mr. Haig expressed confidence in President-designate Hosni Mubarak but said that American officials felt that Egypt and the neighboring Sudan would be vulnerable to outside interference in the coming months. [New York Times]
- A communique from Moscow to the "Government of the United States," said Washington had put "gross" and "unlawful' pressures on Egypt recently. In the unusual statement Moscow declared that events in Egypt affected the security of the Soviet Union. The message was the first official statement from the Soviet Union since the assassination of President Sadat, and while the killing itself was not mentioned the assassination was obviously the subject of the statement. [New York Times]
- Reports in Cairo of new violence fol-lowing the funeral of President Sadat persisted. One report, attributed to police sources, said that men with machine guns sprayed the home of Egypt's Interior Minister, killing a number of his bodyguards. But Interior Minister Mohammed Nabawi Ismail angrily denied the report, saying it was "completely a lie." According to other unconfirmed reports, at least two police stations were attacked and policemen battled with Moslem extremists in the Cairo slum of Shubra. [New York Times]
- A U.S.-P.L.O. dialogue is critical to a lasting peace in the Middle East, former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter said during an interview aboard an Air Force jet returning from Cairo. But both former Presidents stressed that the Palestine Liberation Organization would have to agree to accommodations with Israel. The former Presidents, together with former President Richard Nixon, were part of the American delegation to the funeral of President Anwar Sadat. [New York Times]