January 11, 1988 – CBS World News Roundup – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
January 11, 1988 – news for this day began with word from Wall Street, and the wild ride it had been taking in previous days. Losing as much as 140 points before the close on Friday, investors had been wondering all weekend what would happen next. As of news time, it was so-far/so-good. In the first half-hour of trading, with the Dow starting up over 20 points but then slipped. It was the first full day of trading around the world, so it wasn’t clear at this point how the day was going to wind up. European stocks however, opened lower in reaction to the big Friday sell-off, but not doing as badly as New York did. In comparison to the previous October, European investors were going their own way and were as a result doing much better than expected. Same in Japan, where investors said it was bad, but it could have been a lot worse. There were no signs of panic selling, but in other Asian markets, things weren’t looking good. The day was still young and Wall Street was foraging ahead.
Meanwhile, West German authorities raised doubts about the Reagan Administrations justification for the 1986 air raid on Libya. At the time, officials said it was retaliation for the bomb-blast that killed two U.S. servicemen outside a Discotheque in West Berlin in 1986. They said Libyan leader Gaddafi was behind it. But on this day, a West German woman, Christine Endrigkeit had been arrested in the case. The authorities were saying that Endrigkeit disappeared soon after the Berlin attack, and they suspected her of having carried the bomb into the Disco, while they insisted she did not mastermind the attack. They went on to add, Endrigkeit was working for Palestinian terrorists, but they offered no details.
And former Reagan White House political adviser Lyn Nofziger was going on trial for Ethics violations this week. He was charged with four counts of illegally lobbying administration colleagues on behalf of several high playing clients, including Webtec, the Bronx defense contractor, now under a series of criminal investigations. Nofziger was expected to argue in court that the Ethics laws were confusing and he never believed he was violating them.
And that’s just a small sample of what went on in the world this day, January 11, 1988 as presented by The CBS World News Roundup.
