May 24, 1974

homosexual rights bill is defeated by NYC City Council, 22‐19; bill's supporters denounce results and RC opposition; about 90 persons enter St Patrick's Cathedral and vow to remain inside until they obtain meeting with Cardinal Cooke; meet with Msgr Eugene V Clark because Cooke is unavailable; all but 5 leave and vow to remain until their demands are met; NY RC Archdiocese apparently was key factor in defeat of measure, which would have banned discrimination in housing, jobs or public accommodations because of ‘sexual orientation'; measure's chief sponsor, Councilman Carter Burden, says he will immediately reintroduce bill; Councilmen Angelo J Arculeo, Edward L Sadowsky, Howard Golden, Theodore S Weiss, Frederick E Samuel and Archie Spigner state their positions; spectator, identifed as Arthur Bell, reporter for The Village Voice, kicks Councilman Troy and is slapped; no charges are pressed; Morty Manford, pres of Gay Activists Alliance, warns reporter that his group plans program of confrontation to ‘disrupt govt'; roll‐call on vote (M)

May 24: Sec Kissinger, after another day of negotiations in Syria and Israel, on May 24 says he has made ‘good progress’ toward removing principal obstacle to conclusion of Syrian‐Israeli troop disengagement agreement; has introduced some new US ideas on getting Israel and Syria to agree on how to thin out their forces in proposed disengagement zone on Golan hts‐‐major issue holding up accord; has now spent 26 days in area; Kissinger and Syrian Pres Assad do not bridge differences on issue of thinning out front lines but reptdly come close; other major issue that remains to be bridged is size of UN forces in disengagement area; Kissinger and his wife Nancy give luncheon for Syrian Foreign Min Abdel Halim Khaddam at residence of chief of US interest section in Damascus, Thomas J Scotes; earlier in day, Kissinger met with Israeli Premier Meir and other Israeli officials in Jerusalem (M)

NYC City Council votes 41‐1 to repeal rent increases of up to 4% per yr in many of city's 1‐million rent controlled apts; councilmen say labor‐cost rent rises were meant only to compensate owners because a 2d set of rent increases was being repealed at that time; repeal of the 2d group of increases has since been annulled; Bronx Realty Advisory Bd says that it will challenge repeal bill in ct and will also move to cancel its contract with Service Employes Internatl Union; warns that cancellation will lead to strike by bldg employes; repeal bill is retroactive, meaning that estimated total of 80,000 families that have been paying rent rises as of Jan 1 would have refunds coming

NY Clearing House Assn on May 23 repts that deposits of Franklin Natl Bank have dropped $325‐million in 2 wks since bank disclosed large losses in foreign‐exch trading; Fed Reserve Bank of NY releases data indicating that it lent Franklin more than $1‐billion in last wk to bolster Franklin financial position; chmn Norman B Schreiber met in Washington on May 22 with reprs of several regulatory agencies to rev bank affairs; Franklin asks SEC to continue suspension of trading in Franklin NY Corp shares to give it more time to restate 1st qr earnings; drop in bank deposits over last 2 wks offset about 4 yrs of growth for bank; Fed Reserve spokesman says that all 48 banks in NYC are solvent; says that assistance to Franklin is motivated by desire to keep financial mechanism of country working as well as possible; Fed Reserve has asked bankers to resume normal activities with Franklin in Fed funds mkt, but advice has apparently not been much heeded (M)

NYC Police Dept sees possibility of downward trend in city murder rate; homicides are down by 9.1% for 1st 4 1/2 mos of ‘74, but police have no explanation for decline; upward trend in rest of US noted; boro statistics; if rate holds for rest of yr, decrease will be largest in 23 yrs (M)