Busy day in Britain as elections were getting ready and campaigns were down to their final day. British voters will choose tomorrow between one of the most conservative politicians to lead a major party there since the war and one whose rhetoric promises radical change. The conservative is Labor Prime Minister Jim Callaghan the radical is Tory leader Margaret Thatcher. The underlying question the voters face is this: How do we stop Britain’s economic slide? Do we keep bumping along with Labor or do we risk upsetting the whole applecart with the Conservatives? ‘ Mrs Thatcher’s answer to Britain’s problems is free enterprise “Tilt the balance towards freedom of choice” she says “and the health-producing process begins again”.
Since the first Cabinet was formed in the early 1700s Britain’s prime ministers have all been men. That could change tomorrow. Margaret Thatcher leader of Britain’s Conservative Party could move into the prime minister’s office if her party wins a majority of seats in Parliament in tomorrow’s general election. Thatcher the daughter of a grocery store owner was Britain’s education minister in the early 1970s. A 53 year old lawyer Thatcher doesn’t think her sex should affect tomorrow’s vote: “Whether the right person is a man or a woman doesn’t count” Her determination and strong anti-union position have’ helped her become known as “the iron maiden”.
Meanwhile – An underground ultra right-wing group has claimed responsibility for the murder of two key aides of Ayatollah Khomeini declared that several more prominent officials were on its death list. “This has been our first warning,” the caller said, indirectly referring to the assassination of Khomeini’s top religious aide Morteza Motaheri last night. Among those on the death list are Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi, National Radio and Television chief Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, Prosecutor-General Mehdi Hadavi, Deputy Premier and chief government spokesman Abbas Amir Entezam and “all” members of Khomeini’s secret revolutionary council.
And a drug-smuggling gang armed with high-power rifles and hand grenades that operated with military precision from command headquarters in a Fontainebleau Hotel suite was described Tuesday in a US grand jury indictment. The arrest of 13 of the 14 persons listed in the indictment was called by U S Attorney General Griffin Bell “one of the biggest drug busts by federal authorities in history”. The gang allegedly smuggled more than a million pounds of Colombian marijuana into South Florida between 1974 and 1978. Bell said the organization accounted for up to 5 percent of the Illegal drug traffic in the United States valued at more than $300 million.
And that’s just a small dose of what happened, this May 2nd 1979 as reported by The CBS World News Roundup.
