News stories from Saturday February 20, 1971
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The heaviest fighting since the beginning of the Laos operation occurred along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. North Vietnam attacked three outposts in South Vietnam near the Laos border; five more U.S. helicopters were shot down. [CBS]
- The national emergency broadcast which ran on radio and television stations at 9:33 this morning turned out to be a mistake. Civil defense authorities said that an investigation is underway to determine the cause of the erroneous broadcast. A technician at the National Warning Center in Colorado admitted placing the wrong tape in the machine for the emergency broadcast system test. [CBS]
- Democratic party chairman Lawrence O'Brien stated that President Nixon's revenue sharing plan won't improve cities' finances, and he suggested that the federal government take over the total cost of welfare and the use money to create jobs for the unemployed and job programs in areas of the country with the highest unemployment. The National Urban Coalition today presented its counter-budget plan for the next five years. [CBS]
- At a meeting of Young Republicans in Washington, DC, Rep. Pete McCloskey expressed his dissatisfaction with President Nixon's intention to keep American forces in Vietnam until U.S. POWs are released, and he suggested having a dialogue on impeaching the President. [CBS]
- Senator Henry Jackson gave a speech in Richmond, Virginia, where he called President Nixon's New Revolution "new rhetoric" and attacked the President's revenue sharing plan and Middle East policy. [CBS]
- Former West Virginia Governor William Barron was indicted for attempted bribery although a trial acquitted him of previous bribery charges. [CBS]
- Palestinian guerrilla leaders met for the purpose of ousting Yasser Arafat as their leader. [CBS]
- The Irish Republican Army vowed to continue to use violence to gain independence for Northern Ireland, and bombed a bar that is frequented by British soldiers. [CBS]
- A five-week study of the alleged plot by the Rev. Philip Berrigan and others in the Roman Catholic Left to blow up heating pipes in Washington and kidnap a White House aide found that it involved a federal convict who turned informer and commuted between prison and gatherings of radicals. The case was said to be a focal point in the developing conflict between the Justice Department's newly revitalized Internal Security Division and the Catholic Left. [New York Times]
- Leaders of the nation's construction unions met with Labor Secretary James Hodgson in Bal Harbour, Fla., to discuss ways that spiraling wages and prices in the construction industry could be checked. Sources close to the talks said that no final agreement had been reached despite reports that one specific government proposal had been tentatively accepted by the unions. [New York Times]
- Authoritative sources at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said that Soviet ships had begun electronic surveillance of United States naval vessels engaged in fleet training in the Caribbean. About 150 Navy ships a year use the area for training exercises. [New York Times]