Yuri V. Andropov failed to attend a regular meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee; an occasion normally obligatory for a Soviet leader. But officials at the meeting approved the promotion of four of Mr. Andropov’s loyalists to key posts in the Soviet party hierarchy. He has not been seen in public for more than four months, and is widely believed to be ill. Reports have circulated in Moscow that he is suffering from a serious kidney ailment.
The U.S. State Department voiced reservations about Jesse Jackson’s plans to fly to Damascus, Syria, this week to discuss the release of a captured U.S. Navy flier, Lieutenant Robert O. Goodman Jr. A State Department spokesman emphasized that Jackson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, does not speak for the U.S. government. “It is important that there not be a plethora of negotiators and that the government of Syria understand that Ambassador (Robert P.) Paganelli speaks for the U.S. government,” the spokesman said.
Lebanese Army units battled for a third successive day with Muslim militiamen opposing their takeover of abandoned French positions around a Palestinian refugee camp on the southern edge of Beirut.
One embattled Beirut family maintains two residences. One is under a sheltering tree in the central public gardens, safe because of its distance from the city’s shifting battle lines. The other residence is a onetime changing room in a onetime sports stadium in the tense southern part of the capital. It provides a roof, but it is often hazardous.
A mutual aversion of Jews and Arabs continues after centuries of living on the same land and a generation after the birth of Israel as a modern state. From childhood, Jews and Arabs are nurtured on stereotypes of each other, images reinforced by their teachers, their peers, their social distance and the political violence of the region.
Hebrew textbooks are replete with negative stereotypes of Arabs, and the curriculum in Israeli Jewish schools has done little or nothing to eradicate prejudice, according to some Israeli experts. As a result, the Education Ministry has recently decided to introduce in the next few years a curriculum intended to erase stereotypes and promote tolerance toward Arabs.
Israeli tax collectors, mailmen, welfare workers and miners began strikes and slowdowns to protest layoffs and rising costs brought on by Israel’s economic austerity measures. The worker unrest was expected to spread to more sectors of the economy in anticipation of announcement of a 200% inflation rate for 1983, compared with 130% last year.
France has made diplomatic moves to try to persuade the United States not to withdraw from the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization, diplomats here said today. They said the moves followed reports over the weekend the State Department had recommended to President Reagan that the United States withdraw from UNESCO in 1985 unless the United Nations body curtails what Washington sees as questionable political activities. Any country wanting to withdraw from 161-nation organization has to give a year’s notice, and the United States would have to make a formal declaration by December 31 in order to pull out by the end of next year. Earlier this month, a State Department spokesman said the United States was considering withdrawal. The United States provides one quarter of UNESCO’s funds.
The Dutch Ministry of Health reported that it kept secret a pre-Christmas warning by an animal rights group that its members poisoned packets of turkey, rabbit and chicken in the markets of several cities. The ministry said it received a warning last Friday from a group called the Animal Liberation Front that deadly strychnine poison was put into the food as a protest against excessive meat consumption at Christmas. The ministry said it decided not to publicize the warning after market checks failed to turn up evidence of poisoning. No cases of strychnine poisoning had been reported by late Monday.
Vietnam has moved troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers into an area near the eastern border of Thailand and is apparently preparing to attack Cambodian guerrillas, Thai military officials said today. They said about 350 Vietnamese troops with several T-54 tanks and armored personnel carriers arrived in Thmar Puok village in western Cambodia from Phnom Penh Tuesday and Wednesday. Thmar Puok is 14 miles southeast of the major base of the non-Communist Cambodian rebels and 16 miles from the Thai frontier. Thai military and security officials said they expect Vietnamese forces to begin a dry-season offensive against Cambodian guerrillas next month.
Yasuhiro Nakasone was elected formally by Parliament to a second term as Japan’s Prime Minister. The action came after he formed a coalition Government to strengthen his parliamentary position.
Indonesia’s armed forces commander has called on members of the Fretilin Independence Movement fighting in the former Portuguese colony of East Timor to surrender and promised to treat “humanely and sensibly” those who do. The call, made in East Timor by General Benny Murdani during a Christmas celebration speech Sunday, was broadcast by an Indonesian television station tonight. General Murdani made a similar call last July.
Argentina’s President Raul Alfonsin appointed four new army commanders as part of a continuing purge of senior officers identified with the former military government. Alfonsin designated brigadier generals to four army commands based in Buenos Aires, Rosario, Cordoba, and Bahia Blanca. By appointing brigadier generals to the top command spots, Alfonsin is forcing the retirement of officers senior to them in the ranks. An estimated 44 of Argentina’s 56 full generals are being forced out.
A Salvadoran Roman Catholic Church leader said more than 6,000 people died in El Salvador’s political violence this year, most of them killed by the armed forces and right-wing death squads. Msgr. Gregorio Rosa Chavez, auxiliary archbishop of San Salvador, said in a sermon that of 6,096 killings, more than 4,700 were “attributed to the armed forces and paramilitary squadrons” and about 1,300 of the deaths were “in the ranks of the armed forces and the security corps.”
South Africa said up to 1,000 nationalist guerrillas are poised to infiltrate the South African-administered territory of Namibia (South-West Africa) from Angola, and military analysts said the South Africans are apparently mounting a major operation to knock out the guerrillas’ bases in southern Angola. The South African Defense Force chief, Gen. Constand Viljoen, said he is “deploying the necessary troops” to counteract the move by the South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) guerrillas. The military analysts said the South African effort appeared to be the biggest since Operation Protea in 1981.
About 450 people were killed and 350 seriously injured by two powerful earthquakes that struck the West African nation of Guinea during Christmas week, and 200 people are missing, Radio Conakry reported. The first quake, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, struck Thursday and was followed Saturday by a tremor measuring 6.2, the official broadcast from the Guinean capital said. However, officials of the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado, raised doubts about the second quake, saying the center’s seismographs recorded only one.
The USSR performs a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk.
President Reagan bids members of his family goodbye as they depart the White House after their Christmas visits.
President Reagan and Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov, chiefs of the nuclear superpowers, share the cover of Time magazine’s year-end edition as Men of the Year. They were selected as the individuals with the greatest impact on the course of events in 1983, the publication announced. It was the second time for Reagan, who was the 1980 Man of the Year. Andropov, named for the first time, was the third Soviet leader to win the Time designation. Nikita S. Khrushchev in 1957 and Josef Stalin in 1939 and 1942 were previous selections. Time said Reagan and Andropov won out over a number of strongly supported candidates, including the U.S. Marines, the Cabbage Patch Kids and “1984” author George Orwell.
The education policy of the Reagan Administration has been marked by changes and paradoxes. Mr. Reagan has slowed the rise in federal spending for education, eliminated thousands of regulations and eased pressure for compliance with civil rights laws. But he has failed to achieve three key objectives: voluntary school prayer, tax credits for tuition payments and abolition of the Education Department.
John Glenn favors a 10 percent surtax on personal and corporate income if needed to reduce the federal deficit and a plan under which any new federal spending program would have a compensating reduction or a proposed tax to finance it. In an interview, the Senator from Ohio said that at least $12 billion could be cut from the military budget by reducing spending for some weapons, including the MX missile.
Concern about possible terrorism, which has prompted heightened security in Washington, is not yet being felt around the country, according to local law-enforcement authorities in 10 major cities. Only in New York City did officials say they were more worried about the threat. The concern centers on the United Nations headquarters and missions.
The right-to-life attorney who started the court fight aimed at forcing surgery for a severely handicapped girl identified only as Baby Jane Doe said he has filed a new suit in New York to determine if her civil rights have been violated. Lawyer Lawrence Washburn, 48, of Dorset, Vermont, said he also wants to have the child’s medical records opened. The baby’s parents have said they do not want surgery for the child because it would doom her to a life of pain and have been supported by a series of state court decisions. A separate, unprecedented action was taken by the Reagan Administration, which asked for a review of the child’s medical records to see if she had been discriminated against because of her handicaps. That action is before a federal appeals court.
A second liver transplant on Christmas Day for 4-year-old Kenny Blanton appeared to be a success, but the South Carolina boy remained in critical condition at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center in Memphis. Kenny underwent his first transplant on December 16, but a blockage developed in an artery and an urgent call went out for another organ. A donor was found in California, and the liver was rushed to Memphis for transplant by a special surgical team from the University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences.
The grandson of pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock died in a hospital after he was found with head wounds in a parking lot near Boston’s Children’s Museum. Peter Spock, 22, suffered unspecified head wounds and police said they were awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Spock was the son of Michael Spock, the director of the Children’s Museum. His grandfather’s books on child rearing, including “Baby and Child Care,” guided an entire generation of parents.
The world’s largest oil spill, a 1978 shipwreck off the French coast, caused up to $290 million in environmental damage and provides lessons for waste cleanup in the United States, a new government report concludes. The study of damage resulting from the wreck of the fully loaded supertanker Amoco Cadiz-which was carrying 216,000 metric tons of crude oil and 4,000 tons of bunker fuel was commissioned to refine methods for calculating costs of future spills. “The largest components of the total cost were cleanup expenditures, losses to the oyster-culturing industry and the loss of the tanker and cargo,” the report found.
A federal grand jury is investigating alleged ticket fixing and court corruption in connection with thousands of drunk-driving arrests in Lake County, Indiana, the Chicago Tribune reported. The newspaper said a special grand jury in Hammond, Indiana, has subpoenaed records in 6,000 drunk-driving arrests between 1979 and 1982. The inquiry came to light after an official of an Indiana town was arrested last week on charges of obstructing the grand jury, the newspaper said. E. Michael Kahoe, an FBI official in Gary, Indiana, and R. Lawrence Steele, the U.S. attorney for northern Indiana, confirmed that the tickets were being investigated.
A 14-month-old boy in Randallstown, Maryland was decapitated by his father, who believed his son was Jesus and had to die “for the sins of the world,” the Baltimore County police said today. They said Stephen Johnson, 28 years old, told his wife, Carla, 26, Sunday evening that he was God and his son was “Jesus Christ reborn.” Mr. Johnson, according to the police account, seized his son, Steven, picked up a butcher knife and said, “Steven, the two of us are going to have to die for the sins of the world.” When Mrs. Johnson intervened, her husband slashed her on the shoulder and she ran to call the police. The police said that as they grappled with Mr. Johnson, the head of his son fell to one side of the hallway and the body fell to the other.
An inquiry on semiconductors by federal grand juries was confirmed by high Pentagon officials. They said the military was investigating at least a half-dozen companies to determine whether they had falsified records related to the testing of electronic components used in missiles, ships and other weapons.
The search to cure the migraine seems almost as agonizing to medical researchers as the suffering it has inflicted on its millions upon millions of victims. One promising treatment after another has failed to live up to expectations. Now a new class of drug, called a calcium channel blocker, has led to some cautious optimism after experimental use.
A record cold wave caused damage in the tens of millions of dollars, according to the citrus and vegetable growers in Florida, Texas and Louisiana. Record low temperatures were posted in at least 45 cities around the country.
NFC Wild Card Playoff Game:
When the Dallas Cowboys took fierce beatings from the Washington Redskins and San Francisco 49ers the last two weeks, people wondered if the once-mighty team had slipped that much. Apparently, it has. Today the Los Angeles Rams made the most of Cowboy mistakes and scored a 24—17 victory in a National Football League wild-card playoff game. After the Cowboys had taken a 10—7 lead early in the third quarter, they gave away the ball four straight times. The Rams converted three turnovers in the second half into 17 points to upset the heavily favored Cowboys in Dallas.
Los Angeles opened the scoring in the first quarter on quarterback Vince Ferragamo’s 18-yard touchdown pass to Drew Hill after an 85-yard drive. The Cowboys then tied the game with 23 seconds left in the half after quarterback Danny White capped a 70-yard drive with a 14-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Tony Hill. Dallas took the lead in the third quarter with Rafael Septién’s 41-yard field goal. But then the Rams took advantage of the Cowboys’ turnovers. Los Angeles’ Mike Wilcher recovered a muffed punt from Gary Allen at the Dallas 16-yard line, setting up wide receiver Preston Dennard’s 16-yard touchdown reception. Then linebacker Jim Collins’ interception set up Ferragamo’s 8-yard pass to wide receiver George Farmer. Finally, LeRoy Irvin’s 94-yard interception return to the Dallas 3-yard line set up Mike Lansford’s 20-yard field goal. White was intercepted for the third time on Dallas’ next drive, this time by linebacker Mel Owens. By the time White threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to tight end Doug Cosbie, only 1:03 remained on the game clock. The Rams batted an onside kickoff out of bounds and gained possession, and Ferragamo kept falling on the ball until time ran out.
Rams rookie running back Eric Dickerson rushed for 99 yards and caught two passes for 11 yards. Tony Hill set a franchise playoff record with nine receptions for 115 yards. Ferragamo completed 15 of 30 passes for 162 yards and three touchdowns. White completed 32 of 53 passes for 330 yards and two touchdowns, with three costly interceptions. The Cowboys had reached the conference championship game the three previous seasons, and this year their 12-4 record was bettered in the league only by the Redskins’ 14-2. They were favored by 7½ points here, largely because of their ball-control offense. But their ball control depends on their running game. In their 12 regular-season victories, they rushed for more than 100 yards each time. In their four losses, they did not. Here, Tony Dorsett, their bread-and-butter runner, carried 17 times for only 59 yards, and their ground game gained only 63 yards.
Los Angeles Rams 24, Dallas Cowboys 17
Born:
Robert James, NFL linebacker (Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs), in Phoenix, Arizona.
Brian Clark, NFL wide receiver (Denver Broncos, Tampa Bay Buccaneers), in Jacksonville, California.
P.K. Sam, NFL wide receiver (New England Patriots), in Denver, Colorado.
Yohan Pino, Venezuelan MLB pitcher (Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals), in Turmero, Venezuela.
Alexander Wang, American fashion designer (Balenciaga), in San Francisco, California.
Died:
Violet Carson, 85, British actress (“Coronation Street”).
History Diaries 