News stories from Saturday March 27, 1982
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Columbia will complete its orbits around the earth and will not be ordered home a day early. Space agency officials, concerned about prospects of bad weather at the landing site, considered ending the mission, but decided to stick with the original plan for a landing Monday at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico after the weather forecasts improved. [New York Times]
- With farming costs up and crop income down, farmers appear to be facing the most important make or break year in half a century. Poor economic conditions have brought record numbers of farm sales and soaring numbers of bankruptcies and foreclosures. Crop prices paid the farmer have risen 34 percent since 1977, but fuel prices have risen 113 percent. The farmer has responded by borrowing more, buying more, raising more and has in the process created a vast surplus just as domestic and international demand has weakened. [New York Times]
- The Justice Department is blocking the indictment of a former Mexican official said to be involved in a multi-million dollar stolen car case because the Central Intelligence Agency said he was a key American intelligence source in Central America, the United States Attorney in San Diego, William H. Kennedy, has charged in a local newspaper interview. Senior Justice Department officials confirmed Mr. Kennedy's account, including the C.I.A.'s role, but said they were angered by his comments, and said his dismissal was under consideration. The Mexican was identified as Miguel Nassar Haro, former head of Mexico's Federal Security Agency. [New York Times]
- The elections in El Salvador Sunday might be "the most thoroughly observed elections here or maybe anywhere else," an official United States visitor said. The United States Ambassador, Deane Hinton, indicated to reporters that he was taking seriously the possibility that Roberto d'Aubuisson, a former army major, could win the election. He heads the Nationalist Republican Alliance and was described in a United States Embassy profile as an "ultra-rightist" and called a "pathological killer" by former United States Ambassador, Robert White, in congressional testimony. [New York Times]