Israel bombed guerrilla bases in Syrian-controlled mountains east of Beirut. Its fighter-bombers struck soon after an Israeli soldier was killed in a guerrilla ambush in southern Lebanon. The bombing was in retaliation for a “long array” of attacks on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, the Israeli military command said.
President Reagan gives the order for retaliation strikes against Syrian anti aircraft positions which had fired on U.S. unmanned reconnaissance planes.
Syrian President Hafez Assad is reportedly so seriously ill that U.S. and diplomatic sources now doubt that he controls the country he has ruled for 13 years, NBC News reported. Despite Syrian government reports that Assad had an appendectomy last month and has fully recovered, he actually suffered a heart attack November 12 and was subsequently afflicted with a blood clot in his left leg that left him temporarily paralyzed, the network said. Quoting White House and diplomatic sources, NBC said Assad is not expected to return to power.
[Ed: Hafez Assad is in poor health, but will survive. His brother unwisely jumped the gun, trying to consolidate his position as Assad’s successor. He would be exiled. An increasingly sick but very much in charge Hafez Assad would remain in power until his death in 2000.]
Iraq, accusing Iran of continued attacks on civilian areas, has repeated a warning that it will again strike targets inside Iran if the shelling continues. A military spokesman said Friday night that previous warnings had not been heeded and that if this one was also ignored, Iraq’s response would include strikes in Iran. An Iraqi military statement earlier Friday said that Iran had shelled the border town of Mandali, 65 miles east of Baghdad, and had damaged a school and other civilian buildings. Iran has accused Iraq of similar bombardments. Last month Iraqi missiles hit the town of Bahbehan, 140 miles inside Iran, and Iran reported hundreds of casualties.
Soviet-American relations stayed bad last week, but not all bad. In the absence of the Soviet leader, Yuri V. Andropov, who hasn’t been seen in public for more than three months, the Kremlin appeared to be proceeding cautiously. Despite the suspension at Soviet insistence of discussions on medium-range missiles in Europe, the other Geneva talks – on strategic weapons – continued in two sessions, with another meeting set for Tuesday.
In Moscow, Marshal Nikolai V. Ogarkov, chief of the general staff, scheduled a rare news conference tomorrow on missiles, setting off speculation about whether the military was moving into a vacuum in the Kremlin or just covering for the absent Mr. Andropov, who is thought to be ill. There was also speculation about whether Mr. Andropov would reappear later this month at a delayed winter session of the Central Committee and Soviet Parliament.
President Reagan turned down a ban on exports of deep-sea oil-drilling equipment to the Soviet Union that had been proposed by the Pentagon, Administration officials said. At the same time, the officials said, Mr. Reagan has taken under advisement the tightening of export controls on Libya, a proposal strongly supported by Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
Pope John Paul II met with Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Bohuslav Chnoupeck as part of a discreet Vatican effort to revive the suspended U.S-Soviet talks on limiting medium-range nuclear arms in Europe, Italian newspapers reported. The Vatican released no details of the meeting, but Rome’s Il Messaggero newspaper said it enabled the pontiff to send “signals to Moscow via Prague” on the missile issue.
Suspected drug traffickers ambushed and killed 11 Peruvian police agents headed by boat down a jungle river on a mission to stamp out cocaine-smuggling operations, authorities reported. A drug agent and two guides survived the massacre. The policemen were ambushed as they traveled down the Ene River, on the northeastern edge of Ayacucho state, center of operations for the Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla group. Peru’s jungle produces half the world’s coca, prime ingredient in cocaine. Most is smuggled over river networks to Colombia, where it is processed into cocaine and sent to the United States and Europe.
Costa Rican court authorities are planning to prosecute five leaders of the Revolutionary Democratic Alliance, a guerrilla group fighting Nicaragua’s leftist government. Atty. Gen. Fernando Cruz announced that charges of membership in an illegal organization have been completed against Eden Pastora, the group’s military chief, and Alfonso Robelo, the group’s political chief. No date for the trial has been set, Cruz added.
Nicaragua’s leftist government will announce an amnesty for businessmen who have fled the country, government sources reported. Under the amnesty decree, properties confiscated from many of the businessmen would be given back on their return, the sources said. The sources said the amnesty, expected by observers to be announced today, would not be extended to supporters of the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, overthrown in 1979.
Five exiled leaders of the Montoneros leftist guerrilla movement have announced that they will return to Argentina soon to pursue their political objectives by peaceful means. Their announcement came in an open letter to President-elect Raul Alfonsin that was published Friday in La Voz, the Perónist newspaper. The five said they had made the decision because the country was returning to democracy. The Montoneros emerged in 1970 as an offshoot of the Perónist party and waged a violent campaign against the military Government in the 70’s, but the five leaders promised to respect the country’s new “democratic institutions and political pluralism.”
Police in India fired tear gas to break up a clash between rival Sikh factions and then entered a Sikh temple in New Delhi’s old quarter to arrest 42 people. A Sikh leader accused the police of desecrating the Sisganj temple, and said the “repercussions are bound to be grave.” Police are empowered to make arrests in Sikh temples but had avoided doing so. The temple has been occupied by supporters of the militant Akali Dal Party, which is spearheading a campaign for Sikh autonomy in Punjab state.
Indian and Soviet officials began talks today on a trade agreement for 1984. The Soviet Union, India’s biggest trading partner, cut its Indian imports this year to try to reduce its trade deficit with India, which stood at $140 million in January. Commerce Ministry officials said India would ask the Soviet Union to end import restrictions on textiles, tea and cashew nuts and to buy sugar, tobacco and jute, which India is finding hard to sell. In return, India would buy capital goods, more than the contracted 2.5 million tons of Soviet crude oil and possibly heavy engineering machinery the Russians are eager to sell. Trade between the two countries is estimated at $3.81 billion this year and the Russians have agreed in principle to an increase in 1984, the officials said.
The Pakistani police have arrested about 450 opponents of Pakistan’s military Government to halt an 80-mile protest march in the last few days in Kashmir, an opposition spokesman said today. About 100 people were injured as policemen with nightsticks clashed with stone-throwing protesters, a spokesman for the state Pakistan People’s Party said. A state government spokesman said that only 40 people had been arrested. The march had failed, he said, because nobody turned up at its night stopover points for two days. The party spokesman said that the march was continuing and that protesters had taken to hills to elude policemen blocking their route. The march, which began Thursday, is part of a campaign for immediate elections and an end to six and a half years of military rule.
An election in Soweto, South Africa, was ignored by large numbers of its black residents. The voting was held to choose a town council wielding greater local power than previous such assemblies had. The low turnout was seen by radical blacks as a firm rejection of South Africa’s new councils, which have been criticized as an effort to distract the black majority from ambitions to influence the national Government.
Major General David Oyite Ojok, chief of staff of the Ugandan army and one of the east African nation’s most powerful figures, has died in a helicopter crash along with five other officers and three civilians, Radio Uganda reported. A spokesman for a guerrilla group, the National Resistance Army, immediately claimed its forces had shot down the helicopter, but the report could not be independently confirmed. Government reports said that the helicopter carrying Ojok appeared to lose power and crashed shortly after takeoff. Ojok, believed to be in his mid-40s, was a key political ally of President Milton Obote.
France performs a nuclear test at Mururoa atoll.
President Reagan makes a Radio Address to the Nation on the American Family. President Reagan said today that social programs were to blame for breaking up families, increasing dependency on welfare and spurring the number of births out of wedlock. “Tragicially, too many in Washington have been asking us to swallow a whopper: namely, that bigger government is the greatest force for fairness and progress,” Mr. Reagan said in his weekly radio address. “Where was their compassion for a working family in 21.5 percent interest rates, 12.5 inflation and taxes soaring out of sight?” he asked.
“There is no question that many well-intentioned Great Society type programs contributed to family breakups, welfare dependency and a large increase in births out of wedlock,” the President added. “In the 1970’s, the number of single mothers rose from 8 to 13 percent among whites and from 31 to a tragic 47 percent among blacks,” he said. “Too often their children grow up poor, malnourished and lacking in motivation,” the President said. “It’s a path to social and health problems, low school performance, unemployment and delinquency. If we strengthen families, we’ll help reduce poverty and the whole range of other social problems. We can begin by reducing the economic burdens of inflation and taxes, and we’re doing this.”
Economic recovery in many states has raised the possibility of the accumulation of large revenue surpluses resulting from the declining recession and new taxes. Such financial institutions as the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York predict that overall, the states, along with their local governments, will post a $15 billion surplus for 1983, compared with a combined operating deficit of $3 billion in 1982.
Leaders of the nuclear arms freeze movement agreed they should shift strategy from pressuring Congress for a freeze resolution and instead lobby for a suspension of weapons funding. The leaders, meeting in St. Louis to set policy and strategy for next year’s elections, were in “almost 100% agreement” on trying to get Congress to suspend the funds. A final vote on that resolution and others was scheduled for today. The freeze resolution passed the House but was defeated last month in the Senate.
The Democratic National Committee will be challenged by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his campaign advisers on the committee’s delegate-selection plans for all states with large black populations. The Jackson campaign believes the selection rules are discriminatory.
Endorsements in a Presidential campaign often don’t count for much, but the Rev. Jesse Jackson could benefit mightily from one he picked up last week. The chairman of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc. – the largest black religious organization in the country – formally declared for Mr. Jackson. The Rev. T.J. Jemison, the chairman, maintained that with his endorsement he wasn’t necessarily speaking for his convention’s 6.8 million members, but he said he thought a majority of ministers and members would support his choice. All in all, he said, Mr. Jackson would “serve as a catalyst to not only unite black people in this country but also serve as a stimulus to bring all people of good will together.”
Mr. Jackson acknowledged that the endorsement of the leaders of the church, which traditionally refrains from backing candidates, could give him access to a vast pool of campaign workers in all 50 states. Mr. Jackson had earlier made much of the fact that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. hadn’t polled its members before endorsing former Vice President Walter F. Mondale; in a press conference, Mr. Jemison declined to say how or if he had surveyed his convention’s members or its governing board before making his announcement.
Some prominent blacks were not rallying round Mr. Jackson. Representative Charles B. Rangel, New York’s top-ranking black politician, endorsed Mr. Mondale. So did four other black leaders, including Hazel Dukes, the New York State president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Earlier in the week, a survey disclosed that Mr. Mondale had raised much more campaign money than most of his seven rivals for the nomination. Altogether, he expects to have raised $9 million by the end of the year, aides said. Senator John Glenn, who hasn’t done too badly himself, hopes to attract $6 million. The rest of the pack is financially far behind. Senators Gary Hart and Ernest F. Hollings each hope to raise $1.5 million by New Year’s Day; the most former Senator George McGovern can hope for is some $250,000.
American women regard work and independence as satisfying as husbands, homes and children, a New York Times poll has found. In a dramatic shift since 1970, when a national poll sponsored by Virginia Slims found women clinging hearth and home, the Times poll showed that men and women were growing much closer in the attitudes toward work outside the home and that motherhood was no longer the prime objective of many women.
A tentative agreement between Greyhound Lines and the union representing its drivers was reached last night. The agreement is aimed at ending the monthlong strike against the nation’s largest intercity bus company. A mediator reported that the union’s bargaining council “overwhelmingly” approved the accord and that Greyhound also agreed to it.
Financially troubled Eastern Airlines has neared agreement with its employee unions on a bail-out plan to satisfy the carrier’s creditors and return it to profitability, officials said in Miami. Management officials and union leaders reportedly planned to meet through the weekend. Eastern has demanded substantial wage concessions and the unions have asked for a more prominent role in company policy decisions.
A Cook County domestic relations judge whose court chambers were bugged by the FBI will be indicted, as a result of Operation Greylord, a federal investigation into judicial corruption, his attorney confirmed in Chicago. An FBI spokesman said the bugging of Judge Wayne W. Olson’s chambers for a two-month period in late 1980 and early 1981 was the first instance he could recall of legal FBI bugging in such a court office. The indictment would be the first from Operation Greylord, begun about 3½ years ago to correct what officials called corruption in the national judicial system. Olson, 52, was a narcotics court judge at the time of the investigation. Sources said as many as 20 attorneys also face indictment.
Middle and upper-income retirees, already facing a new federal levy on half their Social Security income, may also have to pay state income tax on those benefits in most states, the American Association of Retired Persons warned. The retirees’ organization said it surveyed state tax offices and found that as many as 28 states and the District of Columbia may impose such levies. The AARP estimated that a couple living in the District of Columbia whose adjusted gross income is $32,500 could face an annual local tax increase of $140, while in New York state the tax rise could exceed $250 for a couple in similar circumstances. The association noted that California is among those states that impose personal income taxes and have not specifically excluded Social Security benefits.
A new arson fire plagued the University of Massachusetts at Amherst despite the arrest of a woman senior who is accused of setting at least one of more than 30 small fires that have routed students from their dorms into the cold this semester. About 200 frightened students were forced out of the Cance House dormitory when someone set papers ablaze on a bulletin board. No one was injured and damage was minor. The fire came less than six hours after police arrested Yvette I. Henry, 20, of Philadelphia, a senior chemistry major and dormitory monitor. Henry was held on $10,000 bail and will be arraigned Monday.
The Agriculture Department has charged that a Colorado meat packing company made hamburger from cattle that had died before arriving for slaughter, a department spokesman said Friday. If upheld, the charges could lead to the shutdown of three meat packing plants in Colorado and Nebraska, according to the spokesman, John McClung, of department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Mr. McClung said the charges were brought against the Cattle King Packing Company of Denver; Nebraska Beef Packers Inc. of Gordon, Nebraska, and the Stanko Packing Company of Gering, Nebraska.
The musical “Marilyn: An American Fable”, loosely based on life of Marilyn Monroe, starring Alyson Reed and Scott Bakula, closes at Minskoff Theatre, NYC, after 17 performances.
Representative Clement J. Zablocki died in Capitol Hill Hospital in Washington after having had a heart attack in his office last week. He was 71 years old. Mr. Zablocki, a Wisconsin Democrat, had been chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for the last seven years.
48th Iron Bowl: Auburn beats Alabama 23-20 in Birmingham.
49th Heisman Trophy Award: Running back Mike Rozier, Nebraska.
Born:
James Ihedigbo, NFL safety (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 47-Ravens; New York Jets, New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, Detroit Lions, Buffalo Bills), in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Sherri DuPree-Bemis, American pop-rock singer-songwriter (Eisley), in Tyler, Texas.
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