Syria freed the American Navy flier its forces captured in central Lebanon a month ago after shooting down his plane. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the release of Lieutenant Robert O. Goodman Jr. was in response to “the human appeal of the Rev. Jesse Jackson” and demands of the United States. The ministry expressed hope that Washington would now take steps “to end its military involvement” in Lebanon.
President Reagan thanked Syria for releasing Lieutenant Goodman and suggested to President Hafez al-Assad that the flier’s return presented “an opportune moment to put all the issues on the table” between Washington and Damascus. Mr. Reagan praised Jesse Jackson for succeeding on a mission that he had expressed doubts about.
President Reagan meets with Lieutenant Robert Goodman after his release from Syrian captivity.
Four Israeli warplanes escorted by eight other jets attacked positions of pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrillas in central Lebanon. Arab analysts said the air raid appeared to be in retaliation for increased guerrilla attacks against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.
Iran said its forces shot down three Iraqi jet fighters during air and naval battles in the southern part of the country. An Iranian statement identified the downed Iraqi planes as two Soviet-made Sukhoi 22s and a MIG-23. There was no comment from Iraq, and the claim could not be independently confirmed. The Tehran broadcast followed a reported Iranian air strike on an Iraqi missile base over the weekend. Iran said its jets heavily bombarded a surface-to-surface missile launch pad on the base.
Iraq has reached agreement with Kurdish rebels on a cease-fire in Iraqi Kurdistan and broader autonomy for the 2.5 million Kurds in the region, diplomats reported in Baghdad. They said that the agreement, signed last month by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, envisages free elections to legislative and executive councils for the autonomous region in northern Iraq. It also proposes the formation of a 40,000-member Kurdish army to “protect Kurdistan against foreign enemies”-presumably Iran, which has been at war with Iraq for three years. There was no Iraqi confirmation of the diplomats’ report.
Afghanistan’s security forces crushed a rebel force of 700 men, killing 500 and capturing 200 in a battle near the northern border with the Soviet Union, the official Afghan news agency said. There was no independent confirmation of the claim, reported by a Western diplomat in New Delhi, who also said the guerrillas blew up a powerline pylon near Kabul to mark the fourth anniversary Friday of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
Tunisia declared an emergency and imposed a nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew after violent demonstrations over food-price increases spread to the country’s two largest cities, Tunis and Sfax. There were reports that up to 25 people had been killed and dozens wounded in the protests that erupted after officials announced that the price of bread was going up 125 percent.
Israelis paid an average of 15% more for some groceries as the government raised the prices of subsidized foods such as bread, cooking oil, dairy products and frozen meats. Higher interest rates also went into effect this week for bank overdrafts, which many Israelis are forced to use because of inflation-now running at 160% a year-and high taxes. Government spending is to be cut to reduce the budget by $1 billion, and Cabinet ministers have been told to lower their 1984-85 budget proposals 9%.
A part-time militiaman was killed near the border with the Irish Republic Monday night, and today the outlawed Irish Republican Army took responsibility for the killing. Meanwhile, a Belfast police spokesman, reported a decreased death toll in the province’s anti-British violence last year and maintained that “the situation is improving.” Gregory Elliott, 25 years old, a farmer, was ambushed with automatic fire and hit three times Monday night outside his home near Castlederg, in County Tyrone. It was Ulster’s first political killing of 1984. The I.R.A. called him “a member of the British war machine in Ireland.”
British newspapers bowed today to a royal request for privacy and withdrew their reporters and photographers from Queen Elizabeth’s vacation estate in southeastern England. The Queen’s press secretary had complained that the reporters and camera crews were harassing the royal family, who are spending a New Year’s vacation at Sandringham in Norfolk. The plea for privacy was made after the British press carried pictures of the Queen’s grandson, Peter Phillips, playing with a dead pheasant and of the Queen glaring at a cameraman. The Sun, Britain’s biggest-selling daily, and The Daily Mail said they had withdrawn reporters and photographers. The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Times said they had not sent any staff to Sandringham and would not use freelance photos of the royal family unless they were of major news interest.
Turkey announced that it will withdraw about 1,500 of its estimated 25,000 troops in northern Cyprus as a goodwill gesture. A Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Ankara that the partial pullout will take place over the next two months. Turkey invaded northern Cyprus in 1974, forcing Greek Cypriots to flee to the south. On Nov. 15, the Turkish Cypriots unilaterally established the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, headed by Rauf Denktash.
A U.S.-China industrial pact will be signed next week, according to Reagan Administration officials. They said that Washington and Peking had not only agreed to cooperate on industry and technology but were making “good progress” toward a treaty defining the rights of investors in each country.
El Salvador has taken no action on United States demands that a group of military officers suspected of taking part in death-squad activities be exiled. The military has announced personnel changes without removing any of the officers.
New military aid for El Salvador is sought by the Reagan Administration in the face of stepped-up guerrilla attacks, according to officials. They said the Administration is preparing a request to Congress for about $100 million more aid to expand the Salvadoran armed forces.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower believed as early as 1954 that the United States would have to fight the spread of communism in Latin America, classified documents made public by the State Department show. The papers show Eisenhower agreeing with his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, and Dulles’ brother, Allen, then director of the CIA, on the threat of Soviet influence in Latin America. “You must think of our policy in Latin America as chiefly designed to play a part in the Cold War against our enemies,” Eisenhower was quoted as telling the National Security Council.
South African forces killed 918 black nationalist guerrillas in 1983 in the struggle for control of Namibia, a South African commander announced. Guerrillas of the South-West Africa People’s Organization have waged a long battle for Namibia (South-West Africa), using bases in Angola to the north. The U.N. Security Council is to meet today to consider Angola’s complaint over the latest South African incursion into southern Angola in pursuit of SWAPO fighters. Angola says South African troops advanced 125 miles across the border.
Nigeria’s deposed President, Shehu Shagari, is under arrest, the Lagos radio reported three days after his government was overthrown in a military coup. Another broadcast, also monitored in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, said that a curfew was being lifted and that communications were being restored. The border is still closed.
President Reagan spends his day attempting to cut the budget down to size. About $9 billion would be cut from domestic programs and a deficit of $186 billion would be shown in a 1985 budget that the Reagan Administration is preparing, according to Administration and Congressional officials. They said the Administration had also tentatively decided to reduce proposed military spending by about $11.5 billion a year from 1986 on, although there would still be substantial increases each year.
Vice President George Bush said that two special federal task forces have seized drugs worth about $12 billion in the war against “a multibillion-dollar economy financing lawlessness, intimidation and murder.” He promised President Reagan’s backing for Florida’s war on drug smuggling. Bush made the remarks at a news conference shortly before Miami Citizens Against Crime presented awards to him, presidential counselor Edwin Meese III and retired Adm. Daniel J. Murphy, a Bush aide.
President Reagan was told that White House leadership is needed to help public school teachers and officials restore their authority in the classroom. Reagan, presiding over a meeting of the Cabinet Council on Human Resources, heard a report urging him to publicize the discipline problem, as he did in a recent speech when he said, “We need to restore good old-fashioned discipline.” The report concludes that school violence won’t be stemmed unless Americans are mobilized to demand it.
During President Reagan’s vacation in California, the Secret Service extended the concrete barriers surrounding the White House to include the entire picturesque north side of the executive mansion. The first barricades went up after Thanksgiving. Just before Christmas, two rectangular blocks of concrete were erected at a White House driveway to slow any errant vehicles. The new concrete separates Pennsylvania Avenue from the well-traveled sidewalk-the most popular picture-taking spot.
President Reagan welcomes new members of the press corp.
Charles Z. Wick secretly taped two telephone conversations with James A. Baker 3rd, the White House chief of staff, Mr. Baker confirmed. Mr. Wick, the director of the United States Information Agency, asked Mr. Baker to ensure that President Reagan would attend a meeting with publishers and businessmen, according to transcripts obtained by The New York Times.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled today that criminal penalties could be imposed on people who discriminated on the basis of sexual preference. The court filed an advisory opinion with the State Senate, which had held up action on a House bill banning discrimination against homosexuals while seeking the ruling. The opinion came too late for action in the 1983 session, but the issue is certain to come up again.
The scheduled execution today of a convicted killer, which Texas state prison officials were unprepared for because of an apparent communications snafu, was blocked by an appeals court. The Court of Criminal Appeals issued an indefinite stay after a Bowie County judge in Texarkana refused Monday to block the execution by lethal injection of Delma Banks Jr. Banks, 25, was convicted of capital murder in an April 14, 1980, shooting death and robbery. A state prison spokesman in Huntsville said that the prison had not received a death warrant. “We had no idea there was any execution scheduled,” he said.
Three courts refused to block the execution of condemned killer Ronald Monroe, bringing him within 24 hours of dying in Louisiana’s electric chair. Monroe, sentenced to death for the 1977 stabbing death of Leonora Collins of New Orleans, is scheduled to be electrocuted at the state prison in Angola early Thursday morning unless his attorney is successful in petitioning a federal appeals court. The Louisiana Supreme Court, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman and Orleans Parish District Judge Dennis Waldron all denied Monroe a stay of execution.
Two Pan American World Airways jumbo jets narrowly missed colliding over the Atlantic Ocean east of Miami on New Year’s Day, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said. The spokesman said the incident — involving a Boeing 747 and a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 carrying a total of 496 persons — occurred at 37,000 feet. The Washington Post, citing unidentified sources, said the DC-10 pilot took evasive action, but the 747 pilot did not see the DC-10. The DC-10 pilot estimated the planes came within 50 feet of each other.
An unaccredited Christian school reopened in Louisville, Nebraska, in defiance of a court order, but county legal authorities refused to say if they would take action. No law enforcement officials were present when four of the Faith Christian School’s 27 students returned to school for the winter session. Seven fathers of students have been jailed since November 23 for refusing to testify about their involvement with the school. Their wives and other children and the Rev. Everett Sileven, the school’s director, have fled the state to avoid arrest.
Newsroom employees of The St. Louis Globe-Democrat demanded more financial information today before voting on concessions to a publisher who wants to buy the 131-year-old newspaper to keep it from closing. Robert Steinke, executive secretary of the St. Louis Newspaper Guild, said about 200 employees voted to defer a ratification vote on a contract calling for union concessions until they could get some answers from Jeffrey W. Gluck of Columbia, Missouri, the prospective buyer. Union officials said the agreement calls for a 6 percent reduction in salaries and a deferral of pay raises amounting to 9 percent through February 1985. Under the proposal, the salary reductions would be made up in 1985 and 1986.
A man who survived five days in snow with his teenage son after a plane crash had no pilot’s license, the authorities said today after cocaine and $19,200 in cash were found at the accident site. Armond Edwards, an air safety investigator in Fort Worth for the National Transportation Safety Board, said the license of the pilot, Tony Mink, was revoked in 1981 and nothing indicated it was ever re-issued. Mr. Mink, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and his 14-year-old son survived a crash December 23 and five days of below-zero temperatures in northern New Mexico. Mr. Mink’s wife, Charlene, died the morning after the crash. She was 35 years old. The state police said cocaine worth about $1,000 was found near a wing of the wrecked aircraft.
Illegal aliens cost Americans $25 billion a year, according to a Rice University economist. Donald L. Huddle, the economist, who is a specialist in United States and Latin American labor matters, said the cost would become permanent if legislation is enacted to grant an amnesty to aliens now in this country.
Ten religious and charitable groups have found to their embarrassment that some of their good deeds are being paid for by X-rated movies. Under a bequest made several years ago by a local couple, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis, the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home and eight other organizations became joint owners of seven properties, one housing a movie theater showing pornographic films. “To learn that we are landlords for something like that!” exclaimed Sister Virginia Kuhn, administrator of the German St. Vincent Home. “How terrible!” On Sunday, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch identified the groups as owners of the Fine Arts Theater in University City, Missouri. The theater, operated by Mid- America Theaters under a long-term lease, has shown X-rated movies since 1974.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1252.74 (-5.90).
Born:
Will Tukuafu, NFL defensive tackle and fullback (San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks), in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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