News stories from Thursday March 16, 1972
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Roy Wilkins, executive director of the NAACP, told a House hearing that blacks are incredulous about President Nixon's alignment with supporters of segregation. The President has expressed his opposition to busing, and his proposed action on the matter is the subject of tonight's speech. Wilkins says that Nixon is forsaking a fair course of action for a politically expedient one. Before the Florida primary straw vote against busing, press secretary Ron Ziegler said that President Nixon would not request television coverage of his address on busing. Ziegler claims that Wallace's strong showing had nothing to do with the President changing his mind. [CBS]
- President Nixon is scheduled to visit Russia on May 22 for talks with leaders Brezhnev, Podgorny and Kosygin on Indochina, the Mideast, and troop reductions in Europe. [CBS]
- The Pay Board, risking the threat of a new strike, rejected the longshoremen's new contract with shippers as inflationary, and cut the union's pay hike to 15%. Union president Harry Bridges promised more strikes if the board cut the wage increase. Dock workers expressed anger at the board's action and expressed their willingness to strike again. A strike could damage the economy as much as an inflationary wage settlement. [CBS]
- United Auto Workers president Leonard Woodcock told the Senate Commerce Committee that the cars his men build threaten the health and safety of Americans in big cities. Woodcock called for a government mass transit program in order to reduce pollution. [CBS]
- ITT president Harold Geneen testified at the Senate hearings into the ITT-Justice Department affair. Geneen defended ITT's pledge to the Republican convention as a sound business investment.
ITT attorney Howard Aibel reported on the company's shredding of documents in its Washington office after columnist Jack Anderson's associate, Brit Hume, displayed a memo from ITT lobbyist Dita Beard which linked the convention pledge with the antitrust settlement. ITT's Washington director, William Merriam, ordered the destruction of the records, but Aibel claimed that no important documents on the case were thrown away. Mrs. Beard will testify from her hospital room next week.
[CBS] - Film taken during the India-Pakistan War in what is now Dacca, Bangladesh, arrived in New York City after having been confiscated from a Pakistani military plane in Rangoon, Burma, three months ago. The film, shot from December 6-8, 1971 by cameramen Keith Kay, Gerry Schwartzkopf and Carl Sorensen, shows the Indians bombing Dacca airport, with anti-aircraft fire by Pakistani gunners. Four Swiss planes on a United Nations mission were destroyed in the attack. [CBS]
- The Selective Service called men born in 1952 with lottery numbers 1-15 for the first draft of April and May. [CBS]
- Two U.S. servicemen were killed in Vietnam last week and 19 were wounded. [CBS]
- At the Paris Peace Talks, the U.S. requested impartial inspections of North Vietnamese POW camps. Ambassador William Porter promised that the U.S. will not raid the camps when their locations are disclosed. [CBS]
- U.S. ambassador to the United Nations George Bush and the State Department urged Congress to make harassing foreign diplomats a federal crime, and to ban demonstrations within 100 feet of foreign diplomatic buildings. This follows the disruption of a Soviet party in Washington, DC by a high school girl, a member of the Jewish Defense League, who poured blood over the head of a Russian official. [CBS]
- A presidential commission made its recommendations on population control. The commission advises liberalizing abortion laws in each state and including abortions in health insurance plans. U.S. Catholic Conference Monsignor James McHugh denounced the proposal, but the commission chairman, John D. Rockefeller III, claims that the measure would actually strengthen the bonds of family life by enabling the planning of childbearing so that each newborn infant will be wanted.
Other recommendations include lifting restrictions on voluntary sterilization, access to contraception for minors, sex education for all, and an end to the concept of illegitimacy. President Nixon has already stated his belief that abortion is an unacceptable form of population control.
[CBS] - President Nixon asked Congress to relax the application of antitrust laws and stimulate a partnership between government and business for the development of new technologies, such as finding a pollution-free source of energy. [CBS]
- A high rise, low-cost housing project in St. Louis is being torn down into smaller units. The Pruitt-Igoe housing project of 33 buildings became a center of crime and violence, and 23 of its buildings are now empty. The project is being renovated, and several buildings will be removed to yield more space. The government hopes to lure families back, but will accept no welfare families. [CBS]
- Gus Mutcher, Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, drew a five-year suspended sentence in the first prosecution of the Texas stock fraud scandal. [CBS]
- Oakland A's pitcher Vida Blue has elected to retire at the age of 22 because he feels he is underpaid. A's owner Charles Finley's office hung up when contacted for its reaction. [CBS]
- French President Georges Pompidou will put the issue of British membership in the European Common Market before a nationwide referendum in France. The result will determine France's vote on final seating. [CBS]
- The Florida primary results may have hurt Senator Edmund Muskie's financial resources, as campaign workers' salaries have been cut; Muskie was unavailable for comment. Muskie was endorsed today by Indiana Senator Birch Bayh. [CBS]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 936.71 (-0.60, -0.06%)
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* |
| March 15, 1972 | 937.31 | 107.75 | 19.46 |
| March 14, 1972 | 934.00 | 107.61 | 22.37 |
| March 13, 1972 | 928.66 | 107.33 | 16.73 |
| March 10, 1972 | 939.87 | 108.37 | 19.69 |
| March 9, 1972 | 942.81 | 108.94 | 21.46 |
| March 8, 1972 | 945.59 | 108.96 | 21.29 |
| March 7, 1972 | 946.87 | 108.87 | 22.64 |
| March 6, 1972 | 950.18 | 108.77 | 21.00 |
| March 3, 1972 | 942.43 | 107.94 | 20.42 |
| March 2, 1972 | 933.77 | 107.32 | 22.20 |