June 1, 1975 – The World This Week – CBS Radio – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
June 1, 1975 – end of a busy week. President Ford and his Secretary of State were heading to Brussels to meet with European leaders and to make assurances. On the way, a stop-off in Madrid to meet with General Franco to discuss Spain’s continued cooperation with the U.S. in light of reports that Portugal was teetering in the direction of Moscow for support and encouragement with the Communist faction taking a dominant role in the Portuguese government – a position that made NATO somewhat nervous.
But not nearly as nervous as the situation in the Middle East between Egypt and Israel, but which was also spiraling out of control in Lebanon. President Ford promised movement on a peace plan and a proposal was in the process of being drafted to be ready sometime in June or July. Egyptian President Sadat was keeping an open mind over a proposal. The situation in Lebanon was another story. The PLO had effectively set up headquarters in Beirut, where the majority of the population considered itself Christian – the PLO was primarily aligned with the Muslim population and the result was ostensibly an oil-and-water combination not destined to have positive results. A new Prime minister had been appointed but the fighting between militias was continuing and Beirut was turning into a war-zone quickly.
In another part of the Mediterranean, Cyprus was the focus on the start of a resolution. For the first time since 1967 the Premiers of Greece and Turkey met to review the situation and were even seen smiling and shaking hands. The fact they were meeting at all helped greatly reduce tensions.
And New York City’s Mayor Abraham Beame was getting ready to cut jobs to more than 38,000 city employees by June 30. That was in addition to the 3,000 layoffs that were already being processed. The big layoff was attempting to head off an economic disaster for the city. More on that in the coming days/weeks.
And that was just a small slice of what happened this June 1st in 1975 as reported on The World This Week from CBS Radio.
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