News stories from Tuesday August 5, 1975

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

Charles O'Brien, foster son and former bodyguard of the missing James Hoffa, emerged as a potentially important figure in efforts to find the former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, missing since last Wednesday. According to informed sources, investigators were trying to locate Mr. O'Brien, now an organizer with the union, as a prime witness in the case. He has been known as a close associate of Anthony Giacolone, named in 1963 Senate hearings as a top Mafia figure, who has been identified by the Hoffa family as one of three men Mr. Hoffa was to have seen the day he disappeared. [New York Times] The Armco Steel Corporation said it planned to raise prices of rolled and sheet steel an average of 9 percent next Sunday. This would mean substantial increases in prices of cars, refrigerators and other household and industrial products. The administration, expecting other steelmakers to follow suit, urged restraint. Armco said its costs had risen. [New York Times] The Federal Bureau of Investigation opened and photographed foreign and domestic mail, chiefly addressed to Soviet-bloc missions in New York City and in Washington, from 1958 until possibly 1970, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operation. The F.B.I. acknowledged doing this to thwart espionage efforts until former Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered the activity stopped in 1966. It said nothing of this sort was undertaken after 1966. [New York Times] The reinstatement of Alger Hiss as a member of the Massachusetts bar was ordered by the state's highest court. He had been disbarred in 1952, two years after his conviction for perjury in denying delivery of State Department documents to Whittaker Chambers, a confessed Soviet spy courier. The court unanimously said he had demonstrated moral and intellectual fitness. It did not consider his guilt or innocence of the perjury conviction. [New York Times] Prospects for a complex $1 billion package for New York City brightened with the report that State Controller Arthur Levitt, who had previously ruled out the investment of state pension funds In the Municipal Assistance Corporation, was considering such a move. He was said to have made the shift at a luncheon meeting attended by Governor Carey, William Ellinghaus, chairman of M.A.C., Felix Rohatyn, chairman of the corporation's finance committee, and David Rockefeller, chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank. [New York Times] Japanese terrorists in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, released nine of some 50 people they have held hostage for nearly two days, then ended the occupation of the United States consulate, and took 15 of the hostages to the airport. The hostages and terrorists headed for an unknown destination. Negotiations had been stalled on arrangements for their transfer to the airport and on finding a country that would accept them. [New York Times] A five-day siege of the Communist party headquarters in the Portuguese textile town of Vila Nova de Famalicao ended when thousands of townspeople broke through an encircling cordon of troops, who withheld their fire, and sacked the premises. Residents, angered by the accidental killing of two men by the troops Sunday night, said they were determined to show the people's hostility to a Communist dictatorship. An engineer said that if the soldiers had fired today it would have led to the start of a civil war. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 810.15 (-7.90, -0.97%)
S&P Composite: 86.23 (-0.92, -1.06%)
Arms Index: 1.43

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	300	2.14
Declines	1,105	11.27
Unchanged	400	2.06
Total Volume		15.47

* in millions of shares

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*
August 4, 1975	818.05	87.15	12.62
August 1, 1975	826.50	88.75	13.32
July 31, 1975	831.51	88.75	14.54
July 30, 1975	831.66	88.83	16.15
July 29, 1975	824.86	88.19	19.00
July 28, 1975	827.83	88.69	14.85
July 25, 1975	834.09	89.29	15.11
July 24, 1975	840.27	90.07	20.55
July 23, 1975	836.69	90.18	20.15
July 22, 1975	846.76	91.45	20.06