The Soviet Union pulls out of talks in Geneva on intermediate-range nuclear forces to protest the planned deployment of new U.S. missiles in Western Europe. The Kremlin broke off talks with the United States on medium-range nuclear missiles, saying it would set no date for resuming the negotiations. The action was described as unilateral, unjustified and unfortunate by the chief American negotiator, Paul H. Nitze.
Moscow renewed its pledge that American missile deployment in Western Europe would be countered by new Soviet missiles targeted against the West.
President Reagan said today that he was disappointed by the Russians’ decision to break off the Geneva talks on medium- range missiles. But he said he was confident that “they’ll come back” to the negotiating table. The Soviet Union had been threatening for months to halt the talks if the first batch of the 572 new American missiles were brought to Europe. Cruise missiles began arriving in Britain November 14, and deliveries of Pershing 2’s to West Germany began today. Mr. Reagan, who spoke with reporters at the White House before leaving for a Thanksgiving weekend in California, said he was not surprised, only disappointed, by the break in the talks.
“Risk reduction centers” in Washington and Moscow to reduce the possibility that nuclear war might begin by accident or miscalculation were proposed by two influential Senators. They asked President Reagan to seek an agreement with Moscow to establish the centers.
Soyuz T-9 lands. Two Soviet astronauts returned safely to the earth after a 150-day flight marked by real and rumored problems. Two Soviet cosmonauts aboard the orbiting space station Salyut 7 returned home after 150 days in space, the official Tass news agency said. “Cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Alexander Alexandrov returned to Earth after working for five months on board the orbital scientific-technical complex Salyut 7, Soyuz T-9,” the agency said. “The cosmonauts are feeling well,” Tass said, but gave no other details of the landing. An attempt to send a three-person replacement crew in September, when Lyakhov and Alexandrov were reportedly experiencing technical difficulties, was aborted by a launch pad explosion, from which the cosmonauts escaped unharmed.
A North Korean army officer has confessed to setting a bomb at a mausoleum near Rangoon, Burma, in an attempt to assassinate visiting South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan, a Burmese prosecutor told a court. The confession statement, read at the trial of Major Zin Mo and Captain Kang Min Chul and reportedly signed by Kang, said that the North Korean officers used their nation’s embassy in Rangoon as a base of operations for two weeks before the October 9 assassination attempt.
An Israeli-P.L.O. prisoner exchange was announced. The exchange, which was aided by the International Committee of the Red Cross, involved the release of 6 Israeli soldiers and about 5,000 Palestinians. The Israeli Army said the six Israelis, who were captured in central Lebanon in September 1982, were aboard an Israeli ship in the Mediterranean that was to take them home.
Government-controlled Syrian newspapers in Damascus published statements today rejecting a United States charge that Syria sponsored a truck-bomb attack on the Marine compound in Beirut last month. Al Baath, the newspaper of the ruling party, warned that any American attempt to attack Syrian forces would bring results that would “certainly not please Reagan and the American people.” The statements, which were also published in the newspaper Tishrin, were the first public reaction in Damascus to charges by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger Tuesday that Iranians exploded a truck bomb in the Marine compound October 23 with the “sponsorship and knowledge and authority of the Syrian Government.”
This was the Reagan Administration’s strongest accusation against Syria over the attack, which killed 239 United States servicemen. Mr. Weinberger said at a news conference that his statement was based on “an accumulation” of evidence pointing to Syrian involvement but denied that President Reagan had made “any promise of retaliation.” Tishrin warned against the “consequences of any aggression on Syria” and said Israel and the United States were upgrading their alliance to confront Syria.
The Lebanese Cabinet reportedly decided today to cut off diplomatic relations with Iran and freeze its ties with Libya. The Central News Agency, which has close ties to the Government, said the decision was made after Foreign Minister Elie Salem briefed the Cabinet on “suspected operations undertaken by the Governments of Iran and Libya against Lebanon’s welfare.” The Phalangist Voice of Lebanon also reported the decision. No further reason was given for the reported break with Iran, but the Central News Agency, quoting a Cabinet source, said the “freezing of relations with Libya is linked to the disappearance of Imam Mousa Sadr, rather than direct Libyan interference in Lebanese affairs.”
An official of the Bahai religion in the United States said that 140 more Bahais have been arrested in Iran, and he warned that “these arrests may be the first step to genocide.” Firuz Kazemzadeh, secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of the United States, said most of those arrested were elected members of Bahai assemblies, which directed the religion’s affairs until they were dissolved by the Iranians. More than 150 Bahais have been executed since the fundamentalist Islamic government, which considers Bahaism a heresy, took power in 1979.
Many Cubans have left Nicaragua over the last three weeks, according to a government official. Diplomats and other knowledgeable officials in Managua put the number at more than 1,000. Apparently, no Cuban military advisers were among those who have left, but a Sandinista leader said in an interview that the government was ready to send all foreign military advisers home and stop buying arms if other Central American nations would do the same.
Americans ferried anti-government Nicaraguan guerrillas to a Nicaraguan port to blow up installations last month, CBS News reported. In the October 11 raid on Corinto, about 3 million gallons of fuel were set ablaze and medicine shipments and export goods were destroyed. Citing unspecified military sources, the network said Americans from the military services and the CIA took two boatloads of Nicaraguan exiles from El Salvador’s Pacific coast to Corinto to plant time bombs. A CIA spokesman denied the report, and a Pentagon spokesman said, “I don’t have any information on that at all.”
Customs agents seized $610,000 in high-technology machinery illegally headed for Cuba in a smuggling plot the authorities say was masterminded by the financier Robert L. Vesco, a fugitive from the United States. The equipment, used to convert sugar into fuel pellets, was seized Tuesday at a warehouse on Chicago’s South Side, said Donald Greatbatch, a deputy United States Customs official in Chicago. There were no arrests, he said. The Government believes Mr. Vesco, who fled the United States to avoid trial on charges of swindling, is staying in Cuba as a guest of Fidel Castro.
The authorities here said today that leftist guerrillas kidnapped the brother of President Belisario Betancur on Tuesday night. They said that several hours later the same group abducted the son of a retired French consul. Jaime Betancur, 53 years old, was seized by five gunmen as he left the campus of Catholic University after teaching a law class. Jamese Kergariou de Greiff, the son of the former French Consul, Oliver Kergariou Reals, was seized near his family’s home in Monteria, 325 miles northwest of the capital of Bogota. The authorities said the Army for National Liberation, a guerrilla group, called news agencies here and said it had kidnapped both men.
Rescue workers in the Philippines reported signs of survivors in the search for more than 200 people missing after a ferry carrying 388 passengers and crew sank during a typhoon off Mindanao Island, 500 miles southeast of Manila. Go Thong Shipping Lines said there were 169 confirmed survivors from Monday’s sinking, with 67 of them hospitalized. Three women and one boy were known dead.
An Argentine military commission recommended that former President Leopoldo F. Galtieri face the death penalty if the court martial over his Falklands War conduct finds him guilty, a newspaper reported. According to the weekly Seven Days, the commission investigating Argentina’s defeat in the war last year has said that Galtieri, as commander in chief, failed to plan logistics support for troops cut off on the islands by the British sea and air blockade.
Soviet defector Viktor Korchnoi and 20-year-old Gary Kasparov of the Soviet Union agreed to a draw in the second game of their world chess championship elimination. match in London. Korchnoi won a stunning victory in the first game of the 12-game match and now leads 1½ to ½. In the other challenge round semifinal, former world. champion Vasily Smyslov, 62, of the Soviet Union defeated Hungarian Zoltan Ribli, 32, in their first game when a long, tense struggle ended on the 65th move.
President Reagan travels to the Reagan Ranch in California. The resident and Mrs. Reagan will be spending Thanksgiving at the ranch, near Santa Barbara.
The FBI is giving highest priority to an investigation ordered by an angry President Reagan into the leaking to television and newspapers of national security secrets involving Lebanon, presidential counselor Edwin Meese III confirmed. The nine-week-old investigation involving Reagan’s inner circle and other top Administration officials, is being pursued vigorously by the FBI, informed sources said. Meese, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as Reagan flew to his California ranch for Thanksgiving, said there had been concern that the leaks could jeopardize the mission — and perhaps the life — of Robert C. McFarlane, who was the President’s special Middle East envoy at the time.
The Environmental Protection Agency in its fight against air pollution from vehicles said that it intends to fine Greenville, South Carolina, $630,000 and the city of Philadelphia $327,000 for allegedly tampering with auto emission devices. EPA spokesman Richard Kozlowski said the citation against Greenville involved 13 county vehicles that had been tampered with. The charge against Philadelphia alleged that emission control devices of 131 police vehicles had been altered or removed. An EPA official said that about 60% of the police department’s vehicles actually were tampered with, but only the most serious violations were cited.
A federal appeals court barred the Reagan Administration from implementing an emergency regulation that requires companies to tighten restrictions on worker exposure to asbestos. The court granted a plea for a stay by the Asbestos Information Association and called for oral arguments on January 12. On November 3, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, saying 375,000 workers faced “grave danger” because of exposure to asbestos, imposed the emergency rule on the manufacturing, construction and maritime industries.
House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Massachusetts) has decided to allow a controversial immigration reform bill to be passed in Congress next year. “It will come to the floor. It will pass,” O’Neill told the Boston Globe. The measure would grant eventual citizenship to millions of aliens now illegally in the country and would impose sanctions against employers who knowingly hire new illegal aliens.
Federal aid to states fell slightly in fiscal 1982, with $1 billion-plus drops in aid for both highways and education and a slowdown in the expansion of federal welfare, the Census Bureau reported. Assistance from Washington totaled $66 billion, 2.7% less than fiscal 1981. Aid for miscellaneous purposes, the bureau said, fell by $1.2 billion.
The Administration will pay hospices less than Congress expected when it authorized Medicare for the dying, congressional sources said. Hospice advocates called the move “disastrous.” The proposed rate of $45.48 a day for routine care at home, which Administration health and budget officials have settled on, falls short of the $53.17 the Administration first proposed to pay when it outlined tentative regulations for hospices.
A shift on the use of personal data was announced by the White House. A spokesman said the Reagan Administration had decided not to ask Congress for legislation that would require the Census Bureau to share its information with a number of other government agencies.
John Glenn and Walter F. Mondale have taken different positions on many military and security issues over the years. An examination of public statements and votes cast in the Senate shows that Mr. Mondale has consistently been more skeptical of big new military proposals, and Mr. Glenn has been more wary of arms control accords.
A basic shift in the cable TV industry is taking place because of market pressures. There are now 37 cable program services distributed nationally by satellite — down from 42 a year ago — but only a handful are making money. As a result, the notion of many specialized channels is giving way to a system in which a limited number of channels aim at mass audiences.
Telephone equipment now being rented from Bell System companies will no longer be subject to any price regulation after a two-year transition period that begins January 1, under a ruling by the federal Communications Commission. The agency also set national rates for rentals in the next two years. The decision clears up one of the last major uncertainties facing consumers in the face of the coming breakup of the Bell System.
Greyhound employees strengthened their picket lines and held mass rallies as their three-week-old strike won increased support from thousands of workers from other unions across the country.
The largest package of tax increases in Oklahoma history was proposed today by Governor George Nigh, who said the money was needed to “preserve the progress.” The Governor proposed an increase of 2 cents to the dollar in the sales tax, an increase of 4.42 cents a gallon in the gasoline tax, from the current 6.58 cents, and an increase in the excise tax on liquor, wine and strong beer. The current state sales tax is 2 cents to the dollar, with most municipalities charging 2 or 3 cents additional.
A Federal appeals court today ruled against Utah ranchers who claimed their sheep died of radiation from atomic bomb tests conducted in the Nevada desert west of here 30 years ago. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed a finding last year by a federal district judge that the government had misled the ranchers and failed to disclose data in the original trial of a lawsuit seeking compensation in 1956. The judge had ordered a new trial but government attorneys appealed. The appeals court said its examination of the testimony and of background data available to all parties showed that the government did not mislead the ranchers, nor did it withhold information from them.
The tranquilizer Valium, one of the nation’s most widely used drugs, has been cleared of allegations that it causes birth defects, a new study at Boston University shows. Studies conducted in 1975 suggested that Valium, known generically as diazepam, causes cleft lips and palates in babies if their mothers take it during pregnancy. The new research surveyed 3,109 pregnancies and found no link between the tranquilizer and cleft lips.
“Ordinary People” actress Mary Tyler Moore (46) weds Dr. Robert Levine at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1275.60 (-0.21).
Born:
Brodrick Bunkley, NFL defensive tackle and nose tackle (Philadelphia Eagles, Denver Broncos, New Orleans Saints), in Tampa, Florida.
Wes Bankston, MLB first baseman (Oakland A’s), in Dallas, Texas.
Sara Karloff, American actress (“My Lovely Monster”), daughter of Boris Karloff, in Los Angeles, California.
[Ed: Damnit, Ronnie, Trigger Discipline!]
History Diaries 