News stories from Saturday March 13, 1982

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

An overhaul in weapons acquisitions and a drastic reduction in the amount that costs exceed estimates is necessary to prevent the public and Congress from turning against the Reagan administration's five-year program of increased military spending, according to Defense Department officials. [New York Times] Plans to hold down medical costs by spurring competition are being revised by the Reagan administration because of opposition from much of big business, organized labor, the insurance industry and medicine, administration and congressional sources said. Almost certain to be dropped is a widely discussed proposal to place a limit on the amount of employee health benefits that private employers can deduct from their taxable income, with any additional benefits treated as ordinary taxable income. [New York Times] Evangelicals are a major new force in American Protestantism. Mostly moderate in theology and politics, they have been growing in numbers for years, strengthening their own institutions and making deep inroads in the 50-year liberal leadership of major Protestant denominations. The Harvard Divinity School, a pillar of Protestant liberalism, has established a chair in evangelical studies. [New York Times] The problem of El Salvador is global and the United states should involve the Soviet Union, Cuba and other Latin American nations in the solution, a senior Reagan administration official said. "We have to talk to the Russians," he said. [New York Times] Clandestine C.I.A. operations in Central America against what the administration describes as Cuban arms supply lines in Nicaragua and elsewhere in Central America have been approved by President Reagan, according to administration officials and congressional sources. Some covert operations, such as providing millions of dollars to what are called progressive and left-of-center groups and individuals in a number of countries, are said to have already begun. [New York Times] Nicaragua's Embassy took custody of the Nicaraguan who dismayed the Reagan administration on Friday by recanting claims of outside interference in El Salvador at a State Department news conference. Administration officials were trying to assess the damage to the government's credibility. Orlando Jose Espinosa, who was captured in El Salvador last year while fighting for the guerrillas, left Washington on the first leg of a flight back to Nicaragua, a Nicaraguan Embassy spokesman said. [New York Times] Moscow's economic problems have given the West unusual leverage to influence Soviet policies, some Reagan administration policy makers in the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency believe. Increasing evidence that the Soviet Union has a cash flow problem in the currencies used for international trade has sharpened debate in the admininistration over now vigorously to apply economic pressure to try to make Moscow ease repression in Poland and slow military spending and overseas operations. [New York Times]