Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) between the United States and the U.S.S.R adjourn in Geneva with the Soviets refusing to set a date for the next round of talks. Strategic arms talks ended in Geneva, and the Russians refused to set a date for resuming the negotiations with the United States. The Soviet delegation said it felt compelled “to re-examine all the issues” in view of the deployment of new American medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe.
The U.S. Navy is far from ready to deploy fully armed and equipped aircraft carriers and air wings in the event of war despite three years of rapidly rising budgets, according to a confidential report by the General Accounting Office. The Congressional investigative agency charged that the main reason for the Navy’s shortcomings was spending too much money on new ships and planes and not enough on maintenance, fuel, ammunition and support equipment.
NATO foreign ministers unanimously approved Britain’s Lord Carrington as the successor to the alliance’s secretary general, Joseph Luns of the Netherlands. Carrington, 64, resigned as British foreign secretary last year, taking responsibility for the failure to foresee Argentina’s seizure of the Falkland Islands. North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials said Carrington has agreed to an informal limit on his term as secretary general, reflecting members’ feelings that Luns’ 12-year stay was too long.
A U.S. Navy lieutenant held captive in Syria was visited in Damascus by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Lt. Robert O. Goodman Jr., 27, was the flight navigator aboard a Navy A-6E jet shot down Sunday during a raid against Syrian positions in Lebanon. A Red Cross spokesman said, “Goodman was able to write letters to family members, which will be forwarded … as soon as possible.” The group released no details of his condition.
Foreign ministers of the nations taking part in the multinational peacekeeping force reasserted their commitment to keep their troops in Beirut. U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz met for an hour in Brussels with the Italian, French and British ministers, and officials said they agreed that the 6,000-man force should stay as long as there is an active effort by President Amin Gemayel to seek national reconciliation. Later, however, Italy’s foreign minister indicated that his nation’s current deployment of troops may be cut in half.
The four-nation force will remain in Lebanon indefinitely to press for a broadly based Lebanese Government and a withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian forces from that country, the foreign ministers affirmed. The statement by ministers of the United States, France, Britain and Italy was issued after a one-hour meeting in the Brussels hotel suite of Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
Optimism about a withdrawal of the American Marine unit from Lebanon early next year was expressed by the Marine Corps Commandant, General Paul X. Kelley.
Marines came under heavy fire from rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns from Shiite Muslim forces at Beirut’s airport. The Marines retaliated with fire from tanks and rocket launchers that prompted the attackers to hoist a white flag. A military spokesman said there were no American casualties.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference moved to set up a coordinating office to channel military aid to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Sources at the organization’s meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh, said that divisions within the PLO make it uncertain that aid will be sent to the PLO in the immediate future. Under the proposal, an army general from one of the member countries would be named to oversee the supply of military supplies and troops.
Iraq said today that it had sunk six more ships at the northern end of the Persian Gulf and again warned all vessels to steer clear of waters it has declared war zones. A military spokesman said the Iraqi Air Force and Navy had destroyed six “enemy naval targets.” He did not say when or identify the targets. Iraq has said it considers every ship entering the area it calls a war zone to be fair game and has repeatedly warned shipping to stay out. Baghdad recently received five French Super Etendard fighter-bombers able to carry Exocet missiles, which proved their effectiveness against ships and other targets in Argentine attacks on British warships in the war over the Falkland Islands last year.
The official Iranian press agency said today that Iranian jets shot down a Soviet-made Iraqi Air Force SU-22 fighter-bomber. The communique said that the jet crashed into the Persian Gulf and that Iranian forces took its pilot prisoner. The Iranian report said nothing about the Iraqi claims.
Scotland Yard charged three more men in the $37.5-million theft of three tons of gold and two boxes of diamonds, Britain’s biggest robbery. Charged were Anthony White, 40, unemployed; Michael John McAvoy, 32, a builder, and Brian Robinson, 40, a car salesman. Previously charged was Anthony John Black, 31, a security guard at the Brink’s-Mat warehouse robbed Nov. 26. Police released five suspects, including the wives of McAvoy and White. The gold and diamonds have not been recovered.
Northern Ireland police said they believe that Irish Republican Army sympathizers in the Queen’s University Law School provided information to the assassins of a leading Protestant politician. Hundreds of students at the Belfast university were questioned about the shooting of Edgar Graham, security spokesman for the Official Unionist Party and a Queen’s law professor. Police said they have good descriptions of the two young men in jogging suits who killed him.
Stronger Vatican ties are being studied by the Reagan Administration, the State Department said. Earlier this year Congress quietly repealed an 1867 law barring the use of federal funds to establish a diplomatic mission to the Vatican.
A financial newspaper said today that the police had evidence that at least 11 boxes of sensitive Western computer equipment had been smuggled through Sweden to the Soviet Union, assisted by two or three Swedes. The report, in Dagens Industri, came on the day that customs authorities ended their inspection of some 30 tons of United States-made computer equipment that was impounded on the suspicion it was improperly destined for the Soviet Union. Bjorn Eriksson, director of Swedish customs, said a strong suspicion remained that the material was not being shipped legally. United States customs officials have said computer equipment that was seized in West Germany and Sweden in late November and early December was apparently being sent to the Soviet Union, and could have military applications, such as missiles guidance. United States law forbids sale of such equipment to the Soviet Union.
About 10,000 Argentines joined the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo for their weekly march before the presidential palace in Buenos Aires to protest the disappearance of thousands of people during the military government’s “dirty war” against terrorists in the 1970s. It was the last such demonstration before an elected civilian government takes over on Saturday.
President Reagan will end the ban on United States arms sales to Argentina effective Saturday, when President- elect Raul Alfonsin is inaugurated, the State Department announced today. No actual arms sales are planned, but the ban will be lifted because of a “dramatic improvement in the human rights situation in Argentina” in the past year and a half, the department’s spokesman, Alan D. Romberg, said.
Guatemala’s military government is forcing four former presidents to retire from the army in an apparent attempt by the chief of state, General Oscar Mejia Victores, to strengthen his rule. Among those dropped from the army was Efrain Rios Montt, who was overthrown as president by Mejia last August 8. The move was announced in a government decree that also authorized military service for women.
The space shuttle Columbia landed safely, but almost eight hours late, after a cascade of malfunctions occurred and aroused concern about the space shuttle’s critical navigation system. Before the touchdown, there was doubt as to when the Columbia would be coming home, possibly a day late. Balky computers have nagged the space shuttle from its first test landing in 1977 to the countdown for its maiden flight in 1981 to its latest mission. But yesterday’s failure of two computers was unusual because never before in the American space program has more than one computer at a time gone awry.
White House counselor Edwin Meese III said he does not know of any authoritative data that would indicate a serious hunger problem in America. Meese said that if there is hunger, “it isn’t for lack of funding,” adding “I think some of the allegations are purely political.” As to why people go to soup kitchens during holiday time, he said: “We’ve had considerable information that they go to soup kitchens because the food is free.” The counselor said a commission on hunger is making a study and will report soon. “First, we have to find out if there are hungry people,” Meese said, “especially at a time when we are spending” large sums on programs for the “truly needy.”
President Reagan travels to Indianapolis, Indiana to address the National Forum on Excellence in Education. President Reagan declared today that lagging American schools could be improved more from “good old-fashioned discipline,” tougher academic standards and pay and promotions geared to teacher performance than by an infusion of money from the government. The President also said he had directed the Department of Education and the Department of Justice “to find ways we can help teachers and administrators enforce discipline” in schools. Larry Speakes, Mr. Reagan’s spokesman, said the federal government would help local districts build “public support” for greater discipline and also improve their cooperation with the police and the other authorities.
President Reagan signed into law a bill that authorizes a larger appropriation for public broadcasters and bans commercial “telephone sex” services. The bill also extends the life of the Federal Communications Commission for another two years. The new law authorizes Congress to appropriate up to $145 million in fiscal 1984; $153 million in fiscal 1985, and $162 million in fiscal 1986 for public broadcasting. The telephone sex provisions authorize civil fines and criminal penalties against any person or firm operating a phone service judged to be “obscene or indecent” and available to anyone under 18 years of age.
Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colorado) questioned whether the Reagan Administration was behind the Honduran decision to bar 150 churchwomen from entering that country to conduct a prayer vigil. The American and Canadian women who were denied entry into Honduras last Monday appeared with Schroeder at a news conference in Washington to discuss their aborted pilgrimage for peace and to demand action by the U.S. government.
Three of Eastern Airlines’ key unions agreed to accept wage cuts and to increase productivity in return for a voice in management and eventual ownership of a fourth of the carrier’s common stock. The accord is expected to save Eastern $330 million in wages next year and to bring it $87 million in productivity gains.
A federal district judge was indicted on felony charges. A federal grand jury in Reno charged Judge Harry E. Claiborne of Las Vegas with bribery, tax evasion, obstruction of justice and filing a false declaration of his financial affairs. The chief witness against the 66-year-old chief judge of the Federal Judicial District of Nevada is a former brothel operator.
David R. Gergen has resigned as director of White House communications to accept a resident fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Mr. Gergen, close friends said, has been increasingly unhappy with White House policies in such areas as the press restrictions in the invasion of Grenada and the Administration’s plan to administer polygraph tests for staff loyalty.
Two female firefighters fired by New York City were victims of sexual discrimination and “repeated sexual harassment,” and are entitled to reinstatement with back pay, a federal judge ruled. The decision was a victory for Brenda Berkman-whose original lawsuit forced the city to accept female firefighters-and Zaida Gonzalez. About two dozen female firefighters passed probation and were given tenure at the time Berkman and Gonzalez were fired. City officials denied the discrimination charges.
Ling-Ling, America’s only female giant panda, was responding to treatment with antibiotics for kidney failure and veterinarians at the National Zoo in Washington decided a kidney dialysis machine standing by was not needed to save her. Ling-Ling, who is 14, was found earlier this week to be suffering from kidney failure and severe anemia. Hsing-Hsing, the male panda, remains in good health.
A warrant was issued for the arrest of a third student in connection with a rash of more than 40 suspicious, minor fires in 11 of 41 dormitories at the 25,000-student University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The warrant accused John Campbell of “burning the personal property of another, to wit, a rug, exceeding the value of $25.”
A toxic chemical sold as a synthetic heroin has produced symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in more than 120 people in the San Francisco Bay area, leaving some with paralysis, doctors said today. The effects of the chemical, concocted in illicit laboratories and sold as inexpensive heroin, has reached epidemic proportions, said Dr. J. William Langston, chief of neurology at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. At least 100 more cases are suspected, he said. However, doctors said the discovery could lead to a better understanding of Parkinson’s disease, which afflicts more than 500,000 Americans with muscle stiffness, memory loss, visual or speech problems and a general slowing of body movements.
A smoky fire in a downtown Chicago hotel killed at least three people today and injured 21, the authorities said. About 75 people were evacuated from the eight-story Raleigh Hotel, officials said. Many of the building’s residents were elderly or invalids and had to be carried from the building, according to officials. Fifteen of the injured were seriously hurt, said Fire Commissioner Louis Galante. The injured included three firefighters, he said. About 25 people escaped the flames by climbing down a fire escape to the roof of an adjoining building, said George Just, who witnessed the blaze from a nearby building.
The top elected official in Maricopa County in Arizona said he won’t resign despite the furor created by his “facetious” remark that homosexuals should be used to replace animals in medical experiments. “I have absolutely no intention of stepping down,” said Hawley Atkinson, chairman of the County Board of Supervisors. The Arizona Republic newspaper called for Atkinson to step down as chairman and local gays threatened to try to recall him after he said last week that “homosexuals and lesbians from San Francisco” should be used in experiments instead of animals from the pound. San Francisco homosexual leaders likened the remark to those of Hitler and the Arizona Gay-Lesbian Task Force threatened to mobilize the county’s estimated 150,000 gay voters.
Six- hundred new pickup trucks, worth nearly $5 million retail, are being junked because they rusted while parked at the Tampa, Florida port for up to a year awaiting shipment, the General Motors Corporation said today. Work crews used forklifts to rip off tires and gasoline tanks so the 1982-model Chevy Luv pickups could be fed into huge crushers, which reduced the two-ton vehicles to nine-inch-high blocks of metal. The blocks were loaded onto trucks for delivery to a shredder.
Bill Stewart, international relations director for Chevrolet in Detroit, said it was company policy to destroy vehicles damaged through “acts of God” rather than jeopardize “dealer integrity” by selling them. Tampa has been the port of entry for several years for C. Itoh & Company of America Inc., a trading company that handles Japanese imports, according to company spokesman, Jerry Smith. Isuzu Motors Ltd. of Japan manufactured the trucks for Chevrolet.
A record migration of the elderly occurred in the 1970’s, according to an analysis of new Census Bureau data. The rise in the number of aged migrants was four times the increase reported in the 1960’s. Of the 1,662,520 Americans over the age of 60 who moved, nearly half went to five states — Florida, California, Arizona, Texas and New Jersey.
Dr. Bobby Brown, who played third base for the Yankees before embarking on a successful medical career, is elected president of the American League by the club owners.
Ill-advisedly, the Dodgers send pitching prospect Sid Fernandez and shortstop Ross Jones to the Mets in exchange for utility players Carlos Diaz and Bob Bailor.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1261.88 (-11.89).
Born:
Matt Eillison, Canadian NHL right wing (Chicago Blackhawks, Philadelphia Flyers), in Duncan, British Columbia, Canada.
Roy Hall, NFL wide receiver (Indianapolis Colts), in Bedford, Ohio.
Died:
Slim Pickens [Louis Burton Lindley Jr], 64, American rodeo performer and actor (“Dr Strangelove”; “Blazing Saddles”), following surgery.
Keith Holyoake, 79, 26th Prime Minister of New Zealand (National Party, 1960-1972), of a stroke.
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