News stories from Sunday April 21, 1974

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

Economic instability and increasing pressure from Democratic leaders for a tax cut will add to the problems President Nixon will face when Congress returns from the Easter recess on Tuesday. Following reports of the highest rate of inflation since 1951 and a decline in the gross national product, Senator Hubert Humphrey joined other influential Senate Democrats in proposing a tax reduction. [New York Times] For millions of Americans, the ending of more than 32 months of wage and price controls next week is expected to bring another spasm of price increases that will further erode their already shrunken paychecks. Although controls already have been lifted from much of the economy in anticipation of the program's probable conclusion on April 30, a number of items are still under government control. [New York Times] Groundwork is being laid for realistic testing of the hypothesis that substantial amounts of energy can be derived, at low cost and with no pollution, from temperature differences within the oceans, Two conceptual designs for oceanic power plants are in preparation on an academic level, and the National Science Foundation, which is financing these studies, is offering $1.8 million for further development. [New York Times] A few embarrassed encounters with former aides of President Nixon, averted glances from long-time friends and no offers of work have marked the days of Donald Segretti, one of the first Nixon aides indicted in the Watergate case, since his release from a federal prison on March 25. The 32-year-old lawyer was named as one of 50 "undercover Nixon operatives" employed by the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President to spy on and disrupt the primary campaigns of Democratic presidential candidates. [New York Times] A "growing barrage" of challenges to First Amendment guarantees of press freedom and "ever-lengthening tentacles of government encroachment" on business were decried by the American Newspaper Publishers Association, whose annual meeting began in New York City. An association report on labor conditions said that the end of wage controls would make the newspaper industry's cost struggle "much more difficult in 1974," but that an "increasing flood of new technology" should help despite "a rush of conflicting jurisdictional claims" by unions. [New York Times] In the county jails of New Jersey, difficult prisoners are stripped naked and thrust into pitch-black cells, others are shackled or isolated and given only milk and tea, according to the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. In a suit filed last week, the union said, among other things, that the jails were overcrowded and vermin-ridden, that medical care was "grossly inadequate," and that many of the jails resembled "little fiefdoms" presided over by warlord-like wardens or sheriffs. [New York Times] The Central Committee of Israel's dominant Labor party cleared the way for the selection of a candidate to succeed Premier Golda Meir, who resigned April 11. After four hours of raucous debate, the committee defeated proposals for immediate new elections and voted by a 2-to-1 margin to authorize a candidate to attempt to form a new coalition government. [New York Times] Egypt decided to cease relying on the Soviet Union for all her modern arms because Moscow had used the supply of weapons and ammunition as an "instrument of policy leverage," seeking to influence Egyptian actions. The Soviet policy was unacceptable, President Anwar Sadat said in an interview at his home in Cairo. [New York Times] Senator Edward Kennedy tried out American-style public opinion polling on an audience at Moscow State University and drew some hostility when he asked for a show of hands on whether the Soviet Union should be spending more or less on defense. All but a few in the audience declined to indicate an opinion until Mr. Kennedy and a Russian translator rephrased the question. Then the hall almost unanimously raised their hands in favor of the present level of defense spending. [New York Times] The returns in Colombia's first free presidential election in more than two decades gave the Liberal candidate, Alfonso Lopez Michelsen, a 60-year-old law professor, a victory. The election marked the end of the constitutional pact under which Liberals and Conservatives had alternated the presidency since 1958. [New York Times]