April 2, 1974

TRENTON, April 1—A legislative repeal of a 1962 bond covenant that precludes the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from any involvement in mass‐transit projects that may lose money won initial and overwhelming approval here today in the New Jersey Assembly.

 

Cong Joint Com on Internal Revenue Taxation staff investigaors have completed their examination of Pres Nixon's tax returns for yrs '69 through '72; conflict over when to make results public noted; Repr W D Mills, Sens R B Long and W F Bennett comment; other decisions that need to be made include whether Nixon's tax attys Kenneth Gemmill and H Chapman Rose should be allowed to appear before com to discuss conclusions reached by staff; they have reptdly asked to be allowed to appear; rept allegedly concludes that Nixon underpaid his taxes by several hundred thousand dollars; White House reptdly is considering attempt to fight, in tax ct, any finding that Nixon owes additional taxes; Gemmill and Rose had nothing to do with original preparation of Nixon's tax returns for yrs in question but they are in charge of defending him on tax matters now; returns were originally prepared and signed by Arthur Blech and Frank DeMarco Jr respectively and both have given extensive testimony to com (M)

SEC enforcement div dir Stanley Sporkin testifies at Mitchell-Stans trial that he was pressured by superiors to postpone hearings in Vesco investigation to avoid embarrassing Pres Nixon before '72 election; says he refused then-SEC Chmn Casey's request for delay; claims then-SEC counsel G Bradford Cook insisted that mention of Vesco's $200,000 contribution to Pres Nixon's re-election campaign be deleted from comm rept, and that witnesses be questioned only about 'source' of $200,000, and not recipient; says he has no knowledge that Cook ever discussed Vesco matter with Stans, but does know Casey talked of it with Mitchell; in separate development, Judge Lee P Gagliardi denies motion to quash subpoena issued to Pres Nixon's bro F Donald; sketch of Sporkin (L)

Brit Foreign Sec James Callaghan, announcing major changes GB seeks from EEC partners, says GB must have revision of community's agr policy of keeping food prices up and calls for easing entry of Commonwealth products into mkt (S)