News stories from Sunday December 28, 1975

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

Gerald Ford, undisturbed by widespread skepticism about his ability to be President, has decided that he likes his job, is good at it and wants to go on to a full term. This assessment of Mr. Ford was made by top White House aides. Political experts believe that if Mr. Ford is to be elected he must overcome a widening public impression that he is an amiable, vacillating, accident-prone bungler. Mr. Ford's aides say that this impression of the President is widely spread through the news and entertainment media and to a degree reflected in public opinion polls, if only temporarily. They are bitter and bewildered that this picture of the President, which they believe to be totally wrong, should have such wide currency. [New York Times] Commissioner Alexander Schmidt of the Food and Drug Administration said that the agency would probably take action to remove from the market a group of oral contraceptives called sequentials if the manufacturers cannot demonstrate that there is real need for them among a group of women for whom the pill is uniquely suited. He said in a television interview that if sequentials, which account for 10 percent of oral contraceptive sales in this country, remained on the market, women should be given a written warning that there was an increased risk of blood clotting and uterus cancer from them. [New York Times] Leading social scientists believe that New York City's fiscal crisis and the ensuing cutbacks in municipal services have far-reaching implications for the nation's social, academic and cultural institutions. They see the fiscal crisis in terms of a national collision between rising expectation and dwindling resources, and believe that the crisis will bring about national redefinition of goals and priorities. [New York Times] In a twin effort to get the Angola civil war settled next month, the Ford administration is continuing arms shipments to two factions there and has sent a top diplomat to line up support in other African countries, a high United States official said. "We're going to keep it up," the official said of a covert arms supply that has already cost more than $32 million. He said that the aid would continue "despite the Senate vote" on Dec. 19 against additional covert assistance for factions battling the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, which is supported by the Soviet Union. [New York Times] As the election year begins, the policy of detente with the Soviet Union is shaky and its backers are on the defensive. The opposition includes a formidable list of politicians, intellectuals, labor leaders and top military men. Some presidential candidates in both parties -- Ronald Reagan, George Wallace and Henry Jackson -- are seeking to make detente a campaign issue. But interviews with many members of Congress and officials and public opinion surveys indicate that there is broad support for detente among the American people. [New York Times] While weeping relatives and friends waited outside the pits, high-powered pumps with capacities of 1,000 gallons a minute worked through the day and night to draw off the water that flooded a coal mine in Bihar state in India and trapped nearly 400 miners. A government official said "only a miracle can save them." It was estimated that at least 372 men were in the mine. [New York Times] Lebanon is seeking guarantees from the Arab nations that Palestinian guerrillas in Lebanon will respect the authority and sovereignty of the Lebanese state. Arab diplomats say that Lebanese officials have insisted on such guarantees during negotiations aimed at ending the eight-month-old crisis in Lebanon. The negotiations were mainly between Syria and Iraq, which have been making separate initiatives with Lebanese factions involved in the fighting between Moslems and Christians. [New York Times]