The Communist Party newspaper Pravda said today that American nuclear missiles currently being made ready for deployment in Western Europe would have to be withdrawn before Soviet negotiators would resume talks on the issue. The statement, in an editorial, appeared to have been prepared to rebut suggestions by President Reagan and other Western leaders that the Kremlin, which broke off the talks last week, would eventually return to the conference table in Geneva without concessions from the West. A separate Pravda commentary suggested that the Soviet Union planned to combine its own deployment of new missiles with more encouragement for protests in the United States and Europe against the Western missiles.
The editorial on the Soviet condition for resuming talks concentrated on remarks by Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, who cited a message from Yuri V. Andropov after Moscow left the Geneva talks as an indication that the Kremlin might soon resume the negotiations. “This, stripped of fine names, is a shameless deception,” Pravda said of Mr. Kohl’s statement. The editorial went on to eliminate what some Western diplomats regarded as an ambiguity that arose from the wording of Mr. Andropov’s statement on the missile question.
Mr. Andropov said the Soviet Union would be prepared to return to the previous situation – implying a resumption of talks and cancellation of Soviet military countermeasures to the deployment of the missiles — if the United States and its allies “display readiness” to withdraw the missiles. This was taken in some quarters in the West as a vague formulation that would allow the Kremlin to resume talks if, for example, the Western allies announced a slowdown or deferment of missile deployments. But Pravda said today that only a withdrawal of the missiles already flown to Britain, West Germany and Italy could draw the Soviet Union back to negotiations.
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger said today that he thought the Soviet Union had a lead over the United States in developing weapons to repel nuclear attacks from space. “I think that the Soviets are ahead of the United States,” Mr. Weinberger said. He said the possibility that the Soviet Union would be the first country to develop an effective counter to nuclear attack was one of the most frightening prospects he could imagine. Officials in Washington said Wednesday that the Administration had agreed in principle to develop such defensive shields, sometimes called “Star Wars” systems. The Defense Secretary’s comments came at a meeting of the Atlantic Institute, a study group concentrating on alliance security matters. Mr. Weinberger said the Soviet Union took advantage of the years of détente to work on space-based and other antimissile systems.
Defense Minister Charles Hernu denied today that France was discussing the use of its new Rapid Action Force with Western allies. It was reported this week that a senior French Army commander began talks with the allies last month on logistical support that NATO armies would offer the Rapid Action Force if used in Central Europe. But Mr. Hernu told the National Assembly’s Defense Committee: “Contrary to certain information, no negotiations are taking place with our allies on the use of the Rapid Action Force. Any decision to undertake such discussions would be the responsibility of the political authorities.” France is not a member of NATO’s integrated military command and has made clear it would not make any advance commitments on the use of the new force, which is to reach its full strength of 47,000 men in 1985.
Swedish customs agents found six more packages of sophisticated American electronics equipment today, and a London newspaper reported that the authorities were holding a man suspected of trying to smuggle the goods to the Soviet Union. Customs Director Bjorn Eriksson said the six packages, found at a Stockholm customs warehouse, were probably linked to shipments found earlier in Helsingborg, Malmo and Stockholm.
Turkish Cypriots established a 70-member constituent assembly today to draft a constitution for their newly-proclaimed republic and to prepare legislation for presidential and parliamentary elections.
The new assembly, which is due to convene on Tuesday, was voted by the legislature of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus, the autonomous administration that preceded the newly- declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The successes of Marxism in the Caribbean region are largely a result of right-wing terrorists in El Salvador and Guatemala, Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth W. Dam said. In a speech in Miami at a conference on trade, investment and development in the Caribbean basin, Mr. Dam said “Somoza’s dictatorship in Nicaragua and the pre-1979 ‘Mongoose Gang’ in Grenada helped pave the way for the Marxist-Leninists and their violence.”
President Reagan said today that he had killed legislation requiring that he report regularly on human rights conditions in El Salvador because the reports might actually invite rather than discourage death-squad violence there. “If we have this thing of having to certify every few months to the Congress in order to get this aid,” Mr. Reagan said, “there are people, both on the left and right, who know that if they step up the violation of human rights — the murders and so forth so that we can’t certify — they, from whichever side, are helping to win their battle against the democratic Government.” The President, answering questions from a group of schoolchildren on C-Span, a cable television network, also said slayings attributed to right- wing factions in El Salvador might actually be carried out by leftist guerrillas who know “the right wing will be blamed for it.” “Now, I’m not absolving the right wing,” Mr. Reagan said, acknowledging that there were “right-wing assassins and murder squads and so forth.”
President Reagan attends a National Security Council meeting to discuss military options in Lebanon.
The U.S. and Lebanon have agreed to establish joint economic and military committees to provide “more structure and coherence” to their efforts to unify Lebanon, and bring about the withdrawal of all foreign forces, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said. Mr. Shultz made the remarks after completing talks with President Amin Gemayel of Lebanon. Mr. Shultz held out no new prospect, however, for an early agreement by Syria on the withdrawal of foreign forces. But, he said, “speaking at least on my own part, I have a renewed sense of confidence that we are going to succeed in Lebanon.” It was unclear what led him to speak optimistically. But other officials suggested it was important for the United States to enhance the morale of the Lebanese Government, which faces strong internal opposition as well as continuing pressure from Syria.
After two weeks of spirited political campaigning, elections are being held on Saturday for 71 seats in Taiwan’s 371-member legislature. The elections, diplomats here say, illustrate the gradual movement toward democracy in Taiwan, where the first public balloting for the legislature, after the 1949 Communist victory on the Chinese mainland, was held in 1969. In the voting that year, only 11 people were elected to what are known as supplementary seats in the legislature, most of whose members hold their seats for life. While the current campaign was colorful, it has provided little suspense, and the ruling Kuomintang is expected to win by a large margin.
Aboard the space shuttle Columbia, Spacelab equipment malfunctions did not prevent scientists aboard it from continuing their orbital research, producing exotic metal alloys and crystals, taking mapping pictures of Europe and observing mysterious stellar objects. Spacelab scientists grappled with a rash of equipment malfunctions today but continued their orbital research, producing exotic metal alloys and crystals, taking mapping pictures of Europe and observing mysterious stellar objects. In one experiment, taking advantage of weightlessness, they created a free- standing column of silicon oil four inches high to demonstrate for the first time that a convection flow of liquids known as the Marangoni effect is more pronounced in space. This could lead to a means of producing large, ultrapure crystals for electronics. Mission officials said about 50 of more than 70 planned experiments had already been completed as the flight entered its fifth day.
The jobless rate fell again in November, dropping from 8.7 percent to 8.2 percent, the lowest level since January 1982, the Labor Department reported. With 740,000 more people working in November than in October, the national unemployment rate fell again, dropping from 8.7 percent to 8.2 percent, the lowest level since January 1982, the Department of Labor reported today. The last time the unemployment rate fell by that much was January 1983, when the decline was also five-tenths of a percentage point. Despite a warning that the jobless rate might be understated, the report was another sign that the yearlong economic expansion had continued into the autumn at a brisk but not boom pace. Economists expect it to roll on in 1984, possibly at a slower rate in the latter part of the year.
President Reagan travels to Camp David for the weekend.
The President reportedly objected to the tone of comments made by Larry Speakes, the White House press spokesman, in issuing a rebuke Wednesday to Martin S. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, over economic policies. Mr. Reagan was described by a senior White House official as angry.
A White House secrecy pact has been rejected by Judge Irving R. Kaufman, chairman of the President’s Commission on Organized Crime. The agreement requires all members of the panel to pledge they will not disclose information and will abide by Justice Department ethical standards. Judge Kaufman, a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, told Administration officials that he thought it improper for a federal judge to be asked to sign such a pledge.
Detroit’s affirmative action plan for its police department is unconstitutional, the Reagan Administration told the Supreme Court, because it included explicit racial criteria for the selection of employees. The police department had adopted a plan to hire equal numbers of blacks and whites to remedy past discrimination.
The wedding of two circus aerialists in Florida was celebrated at the winter quarters of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, after a ceremony uniting two five-generation circus families.
A battle has broken out in Atlanta over a proposed highway that is to serve Jimmy Carter’s $25 million Presidential library and policy center. A coalition of neighborhood groups in northeastern Atlanta opposes the highway and accuses the former President of lying about his involvement in the project. Mr. Carter has defended the parkway as reasonable and essential.
Twenty-six members of Congress from Western states, including five Republican senators, complained to President Reagan in a letter released Wednesday that a leading proposal to reduce acid rain would unfairly tax their region. The 16 senators and 10 representatives, mostly from Mountain states, attacked a measure sponsored by Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, to place a nationwide surcharge on electric customers to pay the cost of reducing sulfur dioxide emissions believed to be the key component of acid rain.
In the letter to the President, the lawmakers complained the bill would “violate principles of fairness and efficiency by dictating that we in the West be required to pay to clean up a problem attributable largely to utilities outside our region.” Most sulfur dioxide emissions are believed to come from Middle Western power plants, which burn high-sulfur coal. However, Middle Western lawmakers have argued their already economically depressed region cannot afford to shoulder the entire cleanup cost.
Senator Bob Dole of Kansas said Thursday that he had telephoned 25 to 30 Republican colleagues to express his interest in the party Senate leadership post to be vacated next year with the retirement of Senator Howard H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee. But Mr. Dole, who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he stopped short of announcing his candidacy for the post and merely wanted his colleagues to know that he was considering such a move. “Last time, I didn’t start calling until after the election, and there were 31 guys already committed,” the Senator said in an interview. “I’m just telling everybody, ‘Let’s keep it open.’ I’ve had a lot of encouragement.”
A 20-year-old resident dormitory assistant at the University of Massachusetts, the scene of more than two dozen fires this semester, was arrested tonight in connection with a fire Tuesday after police searched her dormitory, officials said. Yvette I. Henry, a senior chemistry major from Philadelphia who is an assistant in Crampton Dormitory, was charged with two complaints alleging “burning the personal property of another,” said Rosemary Tarantino, an assistant district attorney. Officials would not say whether she was suspected in other fires that occurred mainly on dormitory bulletin boards, in trash cans or in bathrooms. Chancellor Joseph Duffey said the university had “no plans to lift security in the dormitory, and we are by no means reducing our alertness, our extraordinary efforts.”
Security guards on strike at a top-secret Government nuclear weapons plant and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory agreed to a 6 percent wage increase today and will return to work Sunday night, officials said. The raise was the same figure the 260 guards rejected November 17 when they voted overwhelmingly to strike. They had been asking for a 10 percent increase. The agreement was reached in the third day of meetings between Union Carbide Corporation, the International Guards Union of America Local 3 and a Federal mediator, Ed Sedlmeier.
Greyhound announced today that its negotiators were in the nation’s capital at the urging of the chief Federal mediator, Kay McMurray, to resume bargaining with representatives of 12,700 striking workers. The development came as the strike against the national bus line was in its 30th day and after officials of the Amalgamated Transit Union agreed on a concessionary package. “The company is not optimistic about the proposal, nor is it optimistic about an early settlement of the strike and is proceeding with its previously announced plans to double the present level of service by Christmas,” said a Greyhound spokesman, Leslie White.
“It smacks a little of what is going on in Poland,” says a union official. He’s referring to Greyhound’s apparent determination to replace workers who refuse a 15 percent cut in pay and fringes. The bus company’s bargaining stance is indeed exceptionally tough for a company that is not in immediate financial trouble. And some labor experts wonder whether the nation’s largest intercity bus company might not gain as much in the long run by being more conciliatory. The union earlier offered a wage freeze and now proposes undisclosed further concessions. But there is little question that Greyhound’s labor costs must become competitive if the company and the traveling public are to reap the full benefits of the deregulation of transportation.
A postal employee involved in a job dispute shot the Anniston, Alabama, postmaster to death today and wounded a supervisor, the police said. James Brooks, 53, of Anniston, was arrested in the mailroom shortly after the shootings and charged with murder and first-degree assault, the police said.
The journey that took Edward Pennington from Kansas City to London in search of a Cabbage Patch Kid for his 5-year-old daughter has come to a happy ending. And the journey has left the 44-year- old postman from suburban Shawnee, Kansas, with a Christmas tale he says he will never forget. Mr. Pennington’s story began with his daughter, Leana, who earlier this week asked her parents for one of the popular dolls for Christmas. “We told her she probably wouldn’t get one until after Christmas,” Mr. Pennington said, adding that local stores were sold out. When he learned, however, that the dolls were available in London he decided on the trip. “It was a spur of the moment thing,” he said. “After seeing the way people were going for the dolls, I just decided the kid was worth it.”
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1265.24 (-9.86).
Born:
Aaron Rodgers, NFL quarterback (NFL MVP 2011, 2014, 2020, 2021; NFL Champions – Super Bowl 45-Packers (MVP), 2010; Pro Bowl, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014-2016, 2018-2021; Green Bay Packers, New York Jets), in Chico, California.
Channing Crowder, NFL linebacker (Miami Dolphins), in State College, Pennsylvania.
Paul Williams, NFL wide receiver (Tennessee Titans), in Hanford, California.
Eugene Jeter, NBA point guard (Sacramento Kings), in Los Angeles, California.
Mistie Bass, WNBA forward (WNBA Champions-Phoenix, 2014; Houston Comets, Chicago Sky, Connecticut Sun, Phoenix Mercury), in Janesville, Wisconsin.
Died:
Fifi D’Orsay [as Yvonne Lussier], 79, Canadian-American vaudeville and film actress and singer known as the “French Bombshell” (“The Life Jimmy Dolan”; “Dixie Jamboree”), from cancer.
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