This Day In 1970's History: Sunday December 7, 1975
- The Republican National Committee, traditionally the obedient servant of any incumbent Republican president, has refused to give the President Ford Committee access to its valuable mailing list of major political contributors. It has instead decided to provide Ronald Reagan, who is challenging Mr. Ford for the presidential nomination, any services that it furnishes President Ford, including fundraising assistance. Its leaders have started making contingency plans with Citizens for Reagan against the possibility of Mr. Reagan's nomination. [New York Times]
- High law enforcement officials say that New York City is experiencing its worst illegal narcotics trafficking problems in five years. They believe that not since the late 1960's have such large supplies of heroin and cocaine been smuggled into the city. Open street sales are again a common sight in Harlem and the East Village and heroin overdose deaths apparently are increasing this year. [New York Times]
- The murder of a mother and her four children plunged Teaneck, N.J., and the surrounding communities into deep and incredulous shock. The bodies of Jean Diggs and her four children were discovered late Saturday afternoon shot to death in their home. There was a feeling among residents, who were already on edge over other recent murders in Bergen County, that the kind of violent crime that many of them moved to the suburbs to escape had finally caught up with them. [New York Times]
- President Ford proclaimed a "new Pacific Doctrine" in an address in Honolulu today, declaring that the stability of the world and the security of the United States "depend on our Asian commitments." This was the first comprehensive outline of White House policy in the Pacific since the collapse of the American venture in Indochina. Mr. Ford said he had found "common ground" with China in his journey to Peking and he held out the prospect of eventual recognition of new Communist regimes in Southeast Asia. Essentially, the doctrine is a restatement of existing policy, the various parts of which had not been assembled as a whole since the American withdrawal from Indochina last spring. [New York Times]
- Thornton Wilder, the playwright and novelist, died in New Haven, Conn. He was 78 years old. He was dead on arrival at the Hospital of St. Raphael, where he had been taken from his home in nearby Hamden. [New York Times]
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