Replay donderdag 5 januari 1984

; TV NEWS SUPPLY AT THE PUBLIC'S DEMAND

Date: 05 January 1984

To the Editor: Douglass Cater thinks of television as ''exploitative electronic communication that leaves us dazed and distracted by the daily battering of information bits'' and sees ''a mighty struggle between government and news media professionals over the control of words and images'' (''Television: 'Opium of the People,' '' Op-Ed Dec. 27). What Mr. Cater does not see is these ''news media professionals'' cowering in giant offices, sobbing and tearing their hair out, crying, ''What do they want? What do they want?'' - and spending many hundreds of thousands of dollars on polls and other market research in their quest for an answer to that question.

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Polls Find Most in U.S. Want the Marines Out

Date: 06 January 1984

A majority of the American public wants the United States Marines pulled out of Lebanon, according to two national polls conducted by ABC News and issued last night. Those results were the first in any major national public opinion surveys to record a clear public desire for withdrawal.

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Murdoch Opposes Move by Warner WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 (UPI) - Rupert Murdoch, the Australian publisher, said his holding company, News International Ltd., has filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission challenging a deal between Warner Communications Inc. and Chris-Craft Industries.

Date: 05 January 1984

The petition charges that the proposed transaction, under which Chris- Craft would get control of 19 percent of Warner's stock in return for 42.5 percent of Chris-Craft's broadcasting subsidiary, would violate F.C.C. regulations. The Warner-Chris-Craft deal would make it harder for Mr. Murdoch to take over Warner, which announced Tuesday that Mr. Murdoch was trying to acquire up to 49.9 percent of its stock. Mr. Murdoch's American subsidiary, News America Publishing, is already Warner's largest shareholder. In a statement from New York, Mr. Murdoch said the Warner-Chris-Craft deal would violate F.C.C. rules prohibiting cross-ownership of television stations and cable systems in the same service area and cross-ownership of TV stations and newspapers.

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U.S. REACTION COOL

Date: 06 January 1984

By Bernard Gwertzman

Bernard Gwertzman

Lebanon has asked that some of the United States Marines in Beirut be shifted to the south along the coast to help the Lebanese Army extend its authority, White House officials said today. They said that the request, which arrived in the last 48 hours, would be studied. But White House and State Department officials said that in light of the commitment to Congress to keep the 1,800 marines in Beirut, they doubted that the proposal would be accepted. In Beirut, a Lebanese Government official said the nation's warring factions had approved in principle a plan for separating their forces. But he said the Druse were still seeking clarification on some points. Walid Jumblat, the Druse leader, was quoted as saying that his militia would not allow Lebanese troops to enter Druse-held areas. (Page A6.)

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FINNISH PRESIDENT FEUDS WITH PRESS

Date: 06 January 1984

By Werner Wiskari

Werner Wiskari

A public feud has erupted in Finland between President Mauno Koivisto and the Finnish press. The President, who took office two years ago calling for more open discussion of issues, sent a confidential letter to 30 newspaper editors in mid-November urging that foreign-policy questions be dealt with ''more responsibly.'' This week he complained that the press ''handles news quite unpredictably and inconsistently,'' and he vowed never again to explain himself or his policies to Finnish journalists, whom he characterized as a ''flock of lemmings.'' ''From now on, I shall see to it that no one will explain my way of thinking, and that includes myself,'' Mr. Koivisto said in an interview Tuesday in the Swedish-language newspaper Abo Underrattelser, published in the southwestern Finnish city of Turku.

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AMERICAN IN BONN FINDS CLOUD IN NATO'S FUTURE

Date: 05 January 1984

By James M. Markham

James

Ambassador Arthur F. Burns conceded to an audience in Hamburg last year that he found diplomacy ''a universe inordinately filled with gossip, emotion and even suspicion - a world in which perception of facts often obscure facts themselves.'' With a touch of nostalgia, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board said that by comparison, international finance was a familiar terrain of ''relative order and predictability.'' In two and a half years on the job here, Mr. Burns, 79 years old, has lived through the unpredictabilities of a power transfer from Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to Chancellor Helmut Kohl and an emotional debate over American missiles and national security. A wrenching time for many West Germans, the experience has not ruffled the American envoy's inclination to intellectual orderliness and candor - traits that have delighted, and sometimes startled, Bonn's political class.

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TENTATIVE FEDERAL BUDGET PROPOSES 17% RISE IN MILITARY SPENDING

Date: 05 January 1984

By Jonathan Fuerbringer

Jonathan Fuerbringer

The Reagan Administration has tentatively decided to project a 17 percent increase in military spending in its 1985 budget. The substantial one-year rise reflects both the President's commitment to a continued military buildup and added spending for programs Congress has already authorized. An analysis prepared by David A. Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, shows spending for the Defense Department's military functions rising to $266.5 billion in the fiscal year 1985, which begins Oct. 1. The comparable figure for the current fiscal year is $228 billion, according to the latest Congressional estimate.

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Bulgaria Upset by Air Base NATO Is Building in Turkey

Date: 06 January 1984

Reuters

The Bulgarian newspaper Otechestven Front said today that Balkan security was threatened by a military air base the Atlantic alliance was building in European Turkey.

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Article 158151 -- No Title

Date: 06 January 1984

By Hedrick Smith

Hedrick Smith

A Presidential commission is moving toward agreement on a recommendation that the United States give $1 billion a year in economic and military aid to Central America over the next 10 to 15 years, commission officials said today. If the aid package now under discussion is finally approved, it would roughly double the current level of $482 million in economic and military aid to El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica, and would signal a major long-term American commitment to support the region. At present, aid has been cut off to Nicaragua and Guatemala. The commission would continue the ban on aid to Nicaragua, but it is unclear what it would do for Guatemala.

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TO HELP PRESIDENTS GET KEY MILITARY DATA

Date: 05 January 1984

By R. James Woolsey

R. Woolsey

The special Defense Department commission set up to investigate the truck bombing at the Marine headquarters in Beirut on Oct. 23 that killed 241 servicemen has raised some fundamental questions about Presidential control of military operations. ''Always rely on the chain of command to transmit and implement your instructions,'' Adm. Hyman G. Rickover advised me when I became Under Secretary of the Navy, ''but if you rely on the chain of command for your information about what's going on, you're dead.'' The first part of the Admiral's excellent advice has been adopted with a vengeance by the Reagan Administration. The President's delegation of responsibility to the military in Grenada and Lebanon sharply contrasts with the practice of some previous Presidents: Broad operational responsibility has been turned over to the armed forces, replacing the detailed management of military operations by senior civilians.

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