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News stories from Sunday December 17, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- On the day of the mass suicides and killings at the People's Temple commune at Jonestown, Guyana, cult members sent couriers out of the settlement with letters bequeathing more than $7 million to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In a letter read at an inquest by a Guyanese coroner's jury, the cultists explained that they were turning over the funds "because we, as Communists, want our money to be of benefit for help to oppressed peoples all over the world, or in any way that your decision-making body sees fit."
The Rev. Jim Jones bartered favor for political favor to build the groundwork for his People's Temple. His political support, interviews indicate, became a commodity valued in liberal circles, and he became skilled at exchanging it, not only for his public image and entree, but for key government jobs and for what appears to have been at least some degree of immunity from of official scrutiny. [New York Times]
- A major overhaul of military pensions, which would reduce the amounts that retirees receive after 20 years of service, has been proposed by Defense Secretary Harold Brown, according to Pentagon sources. His proposal would be the first step in the reorganization of pensions, the fastest-growing item in the military budget. [New York Times]
- Evidence not on the record In a discrimination suit involving a Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation factory in Gramercy, La, may undercut the case of a white employee whose lawsuit against Kaiser has cast him in the role of a blue-collar Allan Bakke, parties close to the suit say. A key question in the case, which has been accepted for review by the Supreme Court, is whether Kaiser had a "no-discrimination hiring policy'' in 1958 when it opened its factory in a segregated Mississippi River town. [New York Times]
- A copy of the Wright Brothers airplane rose only three feet from the earth for only a few seconds in a reenactment of Wilbur and Orville Wright's historic flights at Kill Devil Hills, N.C., 75 years ago. Ken Kellett, an engineer from Boulder, Colo., tried three times to
pilot his homemade reproduction of the Wright airplane and when he succeeded he was elated. [New York Times]
- Cleveland's major unions may threaten a general strike tomorrow if Mayor Dennis Kucinich proceeds with his plans for drastic cuts in the municipal work force following the city's default on $15.5 million In loans. A state official said that was a strong possibility that "we're going to have a total strike in this city." [New York Times]
- Ail agreements with Taiwan except the mutual security treaty will be continued by the United Staten after diplomatic relations are severed on Jan. 1, the State Department's chief legal advisor, Herbert Hansell, said. The agreements that will be kept intact include commercial obligations. The security treaty will be ended in a year.
A Jan. 1 deadline for normalizing relations with China was set in October by President Carter, when he had just come from the Camp David talks on the Mideast end apparently felt confident there would be en Egyptian-Israeli treaty by now, and that such a treaty would head off criticism of the China move. Events lending to the setting of the deadline were revealed by Leonard Woodcock, head of the American liaison office in Peking. [New York Times]
- Bombs exploded in six of Britain's major cities, injuring thirteen persons. They were set off In the centers of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Coventry, Bristol, and Southhampton. The Provisional Wing of the Irish Republican Army was believe to be responsible. [New York Times]
- A bus in Jerusalem was bombed, injuring 21 persons; it was the first terrorist outbreak in two weeks. It came during the rift between Israel and Washington over the stalemate in Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations. Israeli officials and the press, meanwhile, expressed concern that the United States' break with Taiwan might indicate a "flip-flop" in its Middle East policy. [New York Times]
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