Harry Reisner. Barbara Walters. Bring you the news.
Good evening. Our major story tonight is that Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz has paid the
price for telling an obscene racial joke on a commercial airline flight. Secretary Butz
resigned today. The President accepted with regret but immediately.
Closer to home, I have a new colleague to welcome. Barbara.
Thank you Harry. Well tonight has finally come for me and I'm very pleased to be with
you Harry and with ABC News and later I'll have a chance to comment on my new duties.
We'll tell you tonight about a Supreme Court action which allows the death penalty to go
ahead in at least three states. We will hear some unofficial but optimistic word on the
Ford strike. We'll have a direct report. And our newsmaker interview tonight by satellite
is with the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat. He will reveal his plan to help end the fighting
in Lebanon. Earl Butz resigned today in the aftermath
of repeating a 30 year old joke, racist and obscene, about blacks. Butz is a man with
a joke for every ethnic and occupational group. He usually tell the jokes to the group and
they laugh. This one was different. ABC's Tom Jarrell has a report from the White House.
Earl Butz played the role of a loyal soldier to the very end. Political sounding showed
farmers would be less upset if he resigned than if he were fired. So Butz quit.
This is the price I pay for a gross indiscretion in a private conversation. The use of a bad
racial commentary in no way reflects my real attitude.
Candidate Ford, trapped between racism as a campaign issue or firing a man popular in
the farm belt, his strongest political territory, accepted the resignation.
This has been one of the saddest decisions of my presidency. Earl Butz has been and continues
to be a close personal friend and a man who loves his country and all that it represents.
The President left the news briefing room without taking any questions on the controversy.
In five years as Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz became a center of controversy.
His salty language and zest for agriculture made him a popular figure on the farm. He
knew his business and was a tough campaigner, but his crusty language was often found to
be offensive and proved to be his undoing.
The number two man in the agriculture department, Under Secretary John Kniebel, has taken over
the campaign speaking duties and will become acting secretary.
Even though Earl Butz is out, the manner of his departure is certain to linger as a political
controversy. Those who wanted him fired outright for his distasteful comments on blacks will
get little satisfaction in the manner of his departure. But candidate Ford was in a no-win
position and his campaign has encountered plenty of other problems. One political source
describes it as like trying to make water run uphill. Tom Giaroli, BC News at the White
House.
In announcing his resignation, Butz told reporters the decision was entirely voluntary, that
there was no pressure from the White House.
But there was plenty of criticism from Democrats and Republicans before Butz quit. Even the
White House running mate, Senator Dole, said, you've got to be an idiot to say something
like that. Sam Donaldson found that Jimmy Carter's main gripe was that President Ford
didn't act as soon as the whole business came out.
Jimmy Carter got the news about Earl Butz only moments before he arrived in Denver.
But not surprisingly, Carter didn't need much time to think about it. Mr. Ford, he said,
had mishandled the whole affair.
And I believe that the way this whole embarrassing and disgusting episode was handled by President
Ford shows a continuation of lack of leadership. Instead of making his decision based on what
was right and best for the country, he very carefully waited until he assessed public
opinion polls to see what was right politically. And when the political pressure got so great
on him from his own people, then he finally accepted Earl Butz's resignation. I think
he should have done it immediately.
At a downtown rally, Carter told the crowd the good news, as he put it. Earl Butz was
out, then proceeded to hammer away at President Ford's alleged failure as a leader. By contrast,
Carter said he would dust off Harry Truman's old sign.
If you'll like me, President, there's going to be a sign on the desk in the Oval Office
that is going to say, the buck stops here. And when our country makes a mistake, I'll
be responsible. Somebody's got to lead this nation. Now nobody's leading. Our country's
drifting, and we've got to stop that drift. You help me and we'll stop it.
Going into the first debate with the Playboy interview dragging along behind him, Carter
was clearly on the defensive. But now the tables have turned. As he heads west to prepare
for the second round, it is Carter who has the psychological advantage. Thanks to the
Earl Butz affair, it is Carter who is on the attack. Sam Donaldson, ABC News, Denver.
I talked to Earl Butz shortly before we went on the air with this program, and I asked
him if he thought that the Carter people would use his resignation, what happened to him
against the president. And he said, I quote, since I, Earl Butz, resigned from my indiscretion,
I think Jimmy Carter should now step up to the plate himself and resign for his indiscreet
remarks and Playboy.
I suppose, I suppose the Carter people would object to having one verbal indiscretion linked
to a racial joke.
Let me tell you a little bit more about what Earl Butz said. He said he was very gratified
that he received so much support from farm leaders who asked him to hang in there. He
said he'll continue to campaign for President Ford, but he'll do it privately. He said
he planned to return to Indiana after the end of this term in any event and perhaps
will be Professor Emeritus at Purdue. And then he said, you know, Barbara, I'm given
to humor. I meant this all as a joke. He said, I've told this same joke many, many times
to farmers in my own groups. And he said, as a friend of mine of the administration
said, if a black person were in trouble, Earl Butz would be the first one to pitch in there
and help.
Well, I suppose that possibly one of the things that influenced President Ford in accepting
the resignation was Mr. Butz's admission that he had told that joke many times before, and
also the trouble he's gotten in with other ethnic jokes. It may be he was just too much
of a humorist for the administration. We'll be back in a moment with a report on what
the Supreme Court had to say today about the death penalty.
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Decisions of the Supreme Court are often complicated and sometimes confusing, and once in a while
it's hard to see just how they affect us. But what the Court did today is literally
a matter of life and death for one group of people. David Garcia covered today's developments.
The Supreme Court's decision last July stated clearly, for the first time in history, that
the death penalty is a constitutional form of punishment, and the Court gave the state's
guidelines on how to impose it. Over the summer, the Court was asked to reconsider, and Justice
Lewis Powell granted a delay of the Court's death penalty decision.
Today, the Court refused to reconsider its ruling and went a step further, agreeing to
decide whether the death penalty can be applied in crimes other than murder. The denial of
the rehearing lifts that delay and brings the 200 or so people on death row in Texas,
Georgia, and Florida one step closer to execution. There are only possibilities to avoid execution
now, our new trials on other grounds, or if the governors of those states grant executive
clemency. The Supreme Court wasted no time with the death penalty questions, putting
them among the first orders of business, and the Court faces a list of other issues this
term ranging from abortion to zoning, legal questions which in some way affect us all.
David Garcia, ABC News, the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court today also took action on
the Boston School busing case. By refusing to change an earlier federal court ruling,
the High Court said in effect that Boston School busing to achieve racial integration
should proceed. Here's the situation tonight in the strike
against Ford Motor Company. Several officials of union locals are saying that a settlement
has been reached, but the auto workers president, Leonard Woodcock, says not yet. Economic Senator
Dan Kortz has been covering these negotiations. He's standing by in Dearborn, Michigan where
the bargaining has been going on. Dan, it is still unofficial, but can you tell us some
of the provisions of the proposed settlement? Well, the best unofficial reports say that
there will be a healthy pay increase in each of the three years of the contract, a number
of improvements in fringe benefits, but most important of all, a substantial increase in
paid time off. Auto workers already get 33 paid days a year off, and by the end of this
contract they're going to be very close to the four day work week.
Dan, if someone is going to buy a car next year, how much more will he have to pay as
a result of this strike? I think not even the companies know the answer
to that yet, Barbara, but there are estimates that this will add 10% a year to their labor
costs and they can't absorb all that. So if you're planning to borrow a new car in the
next three years, it's obviously going to cost you a good deal of money.
Dan, one of the considerations in the administration was that a prolonged auto industry strike
would affect the recovery and perhaps affect the election campaign and who wins. Has it
been that prolonged? No, the strike is only three weeks old and
most people thought that it would have to go about six weeks to have any serious impact.
So unless there's some serious delay in ratifying the contract, it shouldn't really damage the
economy very much. Thank you, Dan. Dan Courts.
Dan Courts also tells us that once an official settlement is announced, it'll take between
two and three weeks before the assembly lines can roll again. That's because all the Ford
workers, 170,000 of them, will have to vote on the agreement.
A close advisor of King Juan Carlos of Spain and three bodyguards were shot dead by guerrillas
in the best city of San Sebastian today. The victim was a member of the Consul of the Realm
and president of the provincial parliament. Bass separatists were believed responsible.
First German Chancellor Helmut Schmitz, centrist leftist coalition government, retained control
of the lower house of parliament in yesterday's election, but the margin of victory was less
than one percentage point and reflected the growth in conservative strength in Germany
since the 1974 recession. In Lebanon today, Syrian forces held up their
drive against the few remaining Palestinian strongholds near Beirut to facilitate diplomatic
efforts at a settlement. A few days ago, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat sent his foreign minister
to Paris to attempt to persuade France to send peacekeeping forces to Lebanon. In a moment,
Barbara will be back speaking with President Sadat by satellite on that peace initiative.
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This week marks the third anniversary of the 1973 war between Israel and Egypt.
The Israelis call it the Yom Kippur War.
The Egyptians call it the October War.
Then it was Israeli against Arab. Today it is Arab against Arab in what seems
to be a never ending war in Lebanon. For a view of the situation in Lebanon
and in Israel and our role in the Middle East, we have interviewed by satellite
two powerful figures in that part of the world.
Golda Meir, who was Israel's prime minister during the 1973 war,
and Anwar Sadat, then is now president of Egypt.
We begin the interviews tonight with President Sadat, taped earlier today
at Cuba Palace in Cairo.
You said last week that Syria's action in Lebanon against the PLO
will never escape the judgment of history.
This week it is reported that a meeting may be arranged
between you and Syria's President Assad.
Will that meeting be arranged?
If we are going to meet as a small summit meeting in Riyadh,
it is for Lebanon. So we must have.
President Sarkis of Lebanon, and we must have also Yasser Arafat of the PLO.
I told them quite frankly, this meeting should be a six-party meeting.
Well, Syria sees another point of view.
They say that we should sit as four parties meeting.
Well, Egypt didn't agree to this.
I declare this for the first time, Barbara, for you.
It has been said that the country of France may help to end the Lebanese war.
How would that happen?
Well, as a matter of fact, Barbara, I have sent my foreign minister, Ismail Fahmy,
to Paris two or three days before, and he has stayed there 48 hours.
I was really, and I tell you this for the first time,
we may ask the French to join the Arab force in parallel,
and not as an alternative for the Arab force, but in parallel.
I found that in the Christian sect, there is someone who asks
that they should have guarantees from France,
because you know they have relations with France before.
Did President Giscard d'Estaing agree to come to such a meeting, if it is held?
Well, the answer of President d'Estaing was very favorable,
because he is in principle very concerned ending the bleeding in Lebanon.
What would you think of a plan of peacekeeping troops,
French and Egyptian troops, replacing the Syrian troops? Would you want that?
I don't see this as feasible or agreeable,
especially when it contradicts my policy when I say that,
raise your hands of Lebanon, and look what has happened when Syria intervened with forces there.
Some people say that Syria is helping to fight Israel's war by attacking the PLO in Lebanon.
Do you agree?
Who benefits from what is happening in Lebanon now? It is only the Israelis.
The Syrians are losing, the Lebanese are losing, the Palestinians are losing.
The only path that gains from what is happening now in Lebanon is the Israelis.
President Sadat, after the 1973 war, Arab unity was at its peak.
Now there are divisions. Is unity possible again in the near future?
Whatever danger we are going to face as an Arab nation,
we shall stick together whatever the consequences are.
But I must tell you quite frankly, and this is very unfortunate,
that we are accustomed to this conflict among ourselves in the Arab world.
It is not now or last year or so, it is since the history.
And we shall always be having these conflicts and difficulties until the end of the world.
President Sadat also told us that if the conference of these six Arab powers cannot solve the Lebanese crisis,
there will be, and I quote, an explosion at the summit conference of all the Arab nations planned for later this month.
Tomorrow, President Sadat comments on American elections. Wednesday we'll hear from Golda Meir.
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President Ford today signed a new tax bill that he said is on balance, sound, positive and long overdue.
The bill, which is five inches thick, incorporates the most sweeping revisions in years.
It extends current tax cuts at least through 1977, but makes thousands of changes.
It raises the minimum tax paid by the rich and eliminates or curbs some tax shelters.
Parents who must pay for child care in order to work will get up to $800 in tax credit.
People over 65 who sell their homes will get an almost doubled exclusion from the capital gains tax.
The maximum deduction for moving to a new place of work has increased from $2,500 to $3,500.
Senator Hubert Humphrey is to enter a hospital in New York late today for removal of his bladder.
Memorial Hospital said recent tests indicate his condition appears to be cancerous.
Humphrey underwent radiation therapy three years ago and took cancer preventing drugs until last April.
Surgery is scheduled for Thursday.
In his comment tonight, Howard K. Smith addresses himself to the needs of the nation
and the statements of the two men who seek to lead us as president, and he poses a challenge to them. Howard?
Harry, in his first inaugural speech, Mr. Nixon created a felicitous phrase.
What America needs, he said, is the lift of a driving dream.
Well, he didn't provide it, but his analysis was right.
A nation soured by Vietnam and Watergate, facing an onrushing wall of problems like the burst of the Teton Dam,
needs just that more now than it did even then.
We need a vision of streets safe to walk on at night, as in London or Paris.
Visible broad front action to develop our copious alternate fuels to avoid the surely coming crisis.
Clear workable plans to answer the poor two-thirds of the world, banging ever more insistently on our doors for a share in life's rewards.
As you've heard a plenty, the presidential campaign is now at midpoint.
About 30 days from Labor Day, 30 days till elections.
Far from the lift of buoyant, realizable dreams, we've had the drag of worn cliches,
but the vision not much beyond Mr. Carter's and Mr. Ford's noses.
The campaign has been, in a word, trivial, with Mr. Butt's offensive remarks about blacks
and Mr. Carter's interview with Playboy far the most conspicuous issues.
The public has had the feeling of being nibbled to death by ducks, not addressed by titans,
as should be the case in a contest to choose the man who will be not only our president,
but the ex-official leader of a troubled Western civilization.
The two men now have only 30, or to be exact, 29 days to dissolve an impression that is visibly growing,
but which we all dread to accept. Neither has the stature for the job.
Thank you, Howard. Stock prices were down slightly today in slow trading.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly two points to close at 977.98.
Standard and Poor's Index was down 0.14. The American Stock Exchange Index closed down 0.08.
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Most of you watching tonight are loyal viewers of Harry's and of ABC News.
I hope, too, that some of you are friends from my early morning days at NBC. I've missed you.
And there may be others of you tuning in for the first time out of curiosity,
drawn by the rather too much attention and overblown publicity given to my new duties and my hourly wage.
It is to you that I'd like to take a moment for a personal note.
Harry and I are going to bring you the essential information you need to cope with the world today.
We are going to do a news program.
I hope, too, to give you a closer look at the people who are the shapers of these news events.
I find interviews a way to do this, and I will do them in this program when they're relevant.
Also, I'd like to pause from time to time as we shower news items on you to say,
wait a minute, what does this mean to my life and to yours, whether it's understanding why every television news program
gives the Dow Jones Industrial Averages and what it means to you even if you don't own any stock,
or trying to understand the difference between the problems of Rhodesia and South Africa,
whether it's tying the national and international news more closely to its impact on your life
or the quality of life that we all hope to enjoy.
And if some of the issues that are of particular concern to women have been neglected, I'll try to deal with those.
Which reminds me, people have asked if I want to be called an anchor man or anchor woman or anchor person,
or even as our producer refers to us, anchor human.
Well, titles aren't important.
What is important is that Harry and I will try to bring you the best Dawn news program on the air.
And we hope if you've watched tonight out of curiosity,
you'll return to watch us tomorrow out of conviction.
Mr. Reesner?
Thank you, Barbara.
I had a little trouble in thinking of what to say to welcome you,
not to sound sexist as in that you brighten up the place,
or patronizing as in that wasn't a bad interview,
or sycophantic in his how in the world do you do it.
The decision was to welcome you as I would any respected and competent colleague of any sex,
by noting that I've kept time on your stories in mind tonight.
You owe me four minutes.
Now for Barbara Walters and I, good night.
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I'm not a doctor so I can't give professional advice,
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For some caffeine can create problems.
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This has been the ABC News with Harry Reisner and Barbara Walters.
Tomorrow morning and every morning,
Margaret Osmer and Steve Bell bring you the news on Good Morning America.
Happy Days and the Captain and Tenille in a salute to the 50s
with Ron Howard and the gang from Happy Days,
Gabriel Kaplan from Cutter, and Fonzie's girlfriend Pinky,
followed by Pittsburgh and Minnesota on NFL Monday Night Football on ABC.