Slowly moving forward, this news day for July 19, 1978 – U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus -Vance said today “major differences” on Middle East peace remain ‘between Egypt and Israel after two days of talks here but that they have ‘agreed to meet again in about two weeks In a statement read at a news .’conference here at the end of talks ,with the Egyptian and Israeli foreign ; ministers. Vance said: “Major differences remain be- tween the positions of the two sides Then- is a lot of hard work ahead ” He said he plans to visit the Middle East again in about two weeks. Meantime, he said, he is sending Ambassador Alfred Atherton there to prepare for further meetings of the foreign ministers. Vance made his announcement after Egypt and Israel agreed to continue the talks and a State Department spokesman said the United States is ready to take part. State Department spokesman Hod-ding Carter III said.
“The United States is ready to meet with them whenever the parties consider it useful.” U.S. officials said that while still far apart. Israel and Egypt had agreed to hold further direct negotiations next week, probably in Israeli-occupied Egypt. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat told the African summit meeting in Khartoum today that Israel was “still dreaming of expansion,” and said it could be “the cause of grave damage” in the Mideast. Sadat delivered the speech before 33 heads of state at an Organization of African Unity conference shortly before the talks between Israeli and Egyptian foreign ministers at Leeds Castle, England, ended with no sign of progress toward a peace settlement.
Meanwhile – Two American reporters Wednesday were at the center of an escalating war of words that could lead to reducing the mutual news coverage allowed by the United States and the Soviet Union and already has influenced an announced trade curtailment between the super-powers Craig Whitney of The New York Times and Harold Piper of The Baltimore Sun who are in the United States on home leave were ordered by a Moscow court Tuesday to pay the court costs of a trial they did not attend and to retract stories for which they were convicted of libel Tuesday afternoon the State Department said through spokesman Tom Reston it would move slowly on deciding whether retaliation was called for But hours later it was learned the White House had decided to summon Russian officials to a State Department meeting to review the status of the Soviet news agency Tass’ San Francisco bureau And in late afternoon the White House announced President Carter had decided to kill the sale of a sophisticated Sperry-Univac computer to the Soviet Union and to impose the requirement for individual White House approval on the sale of oil development equipment to Russia.
And finally: The mother of convicted dissident Anatoly Sharansky was allowed to meet her son yesterday for the first time since his arrest 16 months ago, dissident sources said. The sources said Ida Milgrom, 70, who had been barred from attending her son’s espionage trial last week, talked with him for about 25 minutes at • Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison. But they said she broke down in tears after officials refused to let her provide Sharansky with food which she had specially prepared and brought to the prison.
And while negotiations toward a Middle-East Peace Settlement continued, that’s a little of what happened, this July 19, 1978 as reported by The CBS World News Roundup.
