Imee left for London by SAS [Scandinavian Airlines] at 4:00 PM and it is lonely at the palace.
I attach her sweet note of departure. Makes the palace all the more haunted.
Am deep on the rice problem. It looks like we need 600,000-700,000 tons of rice to be imported and there is a world shortage. We have to borrow about $100 million. The Kuwaits are offering this with an interest of about 7¼% payable after 20 years.
There seems to be world shortages of many things—rice, sugar, wheat etc. and steel, cement etc. The last we have aplenty. And we should be able to cash in on the shortage. But we lose out on the rest.
The dollar crisis seems to be stabilizing.
The Basilan rebels are quite arrogant. They impose the conditions that martial law be lifted, the 1935 constitution be recognized and the military completely evacuate Basilan. We will have to wage a full-pledged [sic] campaign after the [Spiro] Agnew visit
No Official Gazette entry for this day.