President Reagan meets with the Vice President, Secretary of State and others about the upcoming disarmament conference in Stockholm.
President Reagan is considering a major speech on his views of the Soviet Union designed to invite an improvement in East-West relations, according to Administration officials. He spoke of the need of “a productive East-West dialogue,” in a White House send-off to James E. Goodby, the chief United States delegate to the NATO and Warsaw Pact conference on confidence and security opening January 17 in Stockholm.
President Reagan prepares for the upcoming visit of Premier Zhao of China.
The International Atomic Energy Agency announced today that China had become a member of the 112-nation group. China’s application was unanimously accepted October 10 at a meeting of the Vienna-based agency. The announcement of official membership, effective January 1, was a formality. It followed written assurance by Peking that it would follow binding agency statutes. At the October meeting, the Chinese said they opposed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty administered by the agency. Most member countries with nuclear power plants open selected reactors to agency inspectors, who check to see that no material is being diverted to making weapons.
Removal of most Israeli troops from Lebanon without a simultaneous pullback by Syria would be approved by the Israeli Government, the Israelis told the Reagan Administration. But, according to American officials, the Israelis stressed that they would not withdraw until security arrangements for northern Israel are guaranteed and there is political coordination with Lebanon. The stress on coordination, the Americans said, is to avoid the problems that arose when the Israelis redeployed their troops from the Shuf mountains last September, setting off fighting between the Lebanese Army and Druse forces for control of the area.
Muslim Druze objections delayed a new security plan that would separate Lebanon’s warring factions, but Government officials said they were confident the dispute would be resolved. President Amin Gemayel canceled presentation of the plan at a meeting of diplomats.
Tunisia rolled back bread prices, reversing an order doubling prices that set off rioting. Within minutes of President Habib Bourguiba’s announcement, civilians and the soldiers who were prepared to fight an uprising hugged one another.
Giuseppe Fava, a newspaper editor, author and playwright who was regarded as one of Italy’s most outspoken campaigners against organized crime, has been slain, the police said today. Mr. Fava’s body, shot twice, was discovered Thursday night in his parked car in Catania, Sicily. The police said he had gone to pick up his granddaughter, who was rehearsing a part in a theater comedy. Mr. Fava, 59 years old, wrote several books dealing with Sicily. Only last week he appeared on a nationally televised talk show to discuss the Mafia.
Closer U.S. ties with Nicaragua will be recommended in a report nearing approval by a bipartisan panel. It also recommends a major new effort toward talks between El Salvador and its leftist guerrillas. The Presidential panel, headed by Henry A. Kissinger, generally endorses Administration policy, but is now “less hostile” toward Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime.
Guerrillas who overran a Salvadoran army base have released 162 of the soldiers they captured, according to religious workers and other residents of the village of Tejutla, north of the installation. Fewer than a dozen soldiers, most of them middle-ranking officers, were said to be still in guerrilla hands. A priest here said he expected them to be released soon. The base, in the northern province of Chalatenango, was held by the rebels for 12 hours before they withdrew last Friday. It was the first of two major defeats for the Salvadoran military in three days. On Sunday rebels routed guard troops and destroyed the heavily fortified Cuscatlan bridge that linked four eastern provinces with the rest of the country. The release of the soldiers from the army base may contribute to a morale problem in the Salvadoran Army, military analysts in El Salvador say.
Left-wing rebels attacked an army patrol eight blocks from the United States Embassy in San Salvador today, wounding one soldier, and other gunmen assassinated a conservative Mayor, military sources reported. Four rebels in a car opened fire with submachine guns on a five-man army patrol guarding an electric company office in the capital, one of the soldiers said. Before the rebels fled, he said, the soldiers fired back and one soldier was wounded. Military sources said Maria Ovidia Amaya, Mayor of Yamabal, in the northeast, was taken from her house and shot dead Thursday by gunmen in civilian clothes. The mayor was a member of the rightist Republican Nationalist Alliance.
Cuba said today that President Reagan used “lies” and the “arguments of a desperate man” in a broadcast addressed to the Cuban people. Mr. Reagan, in a speech Thursday beamed to Cuba over the Voice of America, contended that Fidel Castro had betrayed the principles of the 1959 revolution, which promised a free society and free elections to the Cuban people but instead brought Communism. “Who is Reagan trying to convince with these lies?” responded the official press agency Prensa Latina, monitored in Mexico City.
President Reagan’s radio broadcast was “vicious slander” tinged with nostalgia for the days when Havana was “a gambling den for American tycoons,” the Soviet press agency Tass said today. “To put it in a nutshell, the President’s address contains nothing but malignity and vicious slander against the neighboring country,” Tass said. “The address also clearly reflects nostalgia for the times when Cuba was a resort appendage to the United States, a gambling den for American tycoons, a happy hunting ground for the Mafia at contacts with which, by the way, certain representatives of the present Administration have been caught.”
Striking electricity workers blacked out Paramaribo today, shutting down most offices, schools and government communications in spreading labor protests against the regime of Lieutenant Colonel Desi Bouterse. Utility workers, chanting anti-government slogans, took over the main electricity plant and forced soldiers guarding it to flee, the police said. No injuries were reported in the strike, which cut off electricity and water for the capital’s 200,000 people, over half the population of this country in northeastern South America. Strikers ignored orders to return to work from labor leaders, who were reluctant to challenge the government since soldiers killed 15 Bouterse opponents after a nationwide strike in 1982. The new strike began in protest against the government’s decision to nationalize an electric company. Bauxite miners are in their third week of a strike to protest new taxes. Teachers plan to strike Monday.
South Africa reported today that its forces killed 324 guerrillas and Angolan and Cuban soldiers in a three-day battle in southern Angola this week. It said seven South African soldiers had been killed. The military chief, General Constant Viljoen, said the battle occurred as his forces were hunting guerrillas of the South-West African People’s Organization, who South Africa says use Angola for bases in their fight to end South African rule in South-West Africa, also known as Namibia. The general said in a statement that a combined force of Angolans, Cubans and guerrillas attacked the invading South Africans on Tuesday near Cuvelai, 120 miles inside Angola. The South Africans destroyed 11 Soviet-made T-54 tanks, he said. He did not give a breakdown of the Cuban, Angolan and guerrilla casualties.
The Security Council approved a resolution today strongly condemning South Africa “for its renewed, intensified, unpremediated bombings” and for its continued occupation of parts of southern Angola. It called for unconditional withdrawal. The vote was 13 to 0, with the United States and Britain abstaining. It was the Security Council’s second effort in less than a month to halt South African incursions into southern Angola. The resolution adopted today had much stronger language than one approved last month. It said that if South Africa did not comply, the Council would meet again “to consider more effective measures.”
President Reagan’s nationally televised announcement from the White House January 29 of whether he will seek re-election is expected to be a paid broadcast, spokesmen said Thursday. Larry Speakes, the White House chief spokesman, said the political address would be made at 8 P.M. The Reagan-Bush Committee will probably pay the cost, a campaign spokesman said.
Preliminary 1985 Federal spending projections confirm that the Reagan Administration has apparently decided to build a permanent orbital space station where men and women would work months at a time. The spending projections were shown this week to Republican Congressmen by Budget Director David A. Stockman. The figures show the Administration wants to add $6 billion to the budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over the next five years, just the amount needed for a space station. Such a station might be assembled, module by module, in an orbit 200 miles to 300 miles above earth to house six to eight people for up to three months at a time. The astronauts would be carried up and back by the space shuttle. The station would have a laboratory for scientific experiments, a section to supply power and heat, facilities for the shuttle to dock and experiment platforms open to space. Space agency officials say a space station would provide commercial opportunities, improve national security and yield immense scientific information. Eventually, it could become a staging area for manned flights to earth’s sister planets, the officials say.
The space shuttle Challenger moves to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for mating of STS 41 B mission.
The Environmental Protection Agency today announced its first major crackdown on companies that blend gasoline that causes smog. The agency said it would fine 17 concerns in Michigan and Ohio a total of $550,000 for selling unleaded gas containing levels of alcohol that exceed federal standards. The actions, the agency said, were “part of a national strategy to prevent tampering with motor vehicle emission control equipment and the misfueling of vehicles, two of the major causes of vehicles failing to meet federal emission standards.” Excess alcohol causes increased emissions of nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbons, which react with sunlight to produce smog.
One of the most controversial recommendations in the first draft report of the President’s task force on hunger-to put federal child-nutrition programs into block grants to the states-has been expanded in the latest draft to include food stamps and other federal food-assistance programs, panel members said Friday. One source close to the task force, who did not wish to be identified, described the proposal as “a blockbuster” and said it would be “one of the biggest issues that will be on the table” when the 13-member group meets publicly Monday for the first time since the drafts were prepared.
The latest version, reflecting criticism that the first draft showed insensitivity to the problem of hunger, also includes a new section titled “The Meaning of Hunger.” Task force member Betsy Rollins said it shows that the panel “admits the existence of hunger and recognizes how very complex the problem is. “The first report seemed to be saying, ‘We do not have documented evidence of hunger,’ while this version seems to come out stronger in saying that we do,” said Rollins, executive director of St. Philip’s Community Kitchen in Durham, North Carolina.
Texaco offered to buy Getty Oil for $125 a share, or about $10 billion, in the biggest merger ever. Getty’s board unanimously approved the offer, two days after the company and its major shareholders accepted a complex merger proposal from Pennzoil that valued Getty’s shares at about $112.50 each. Pennzoil, which thought it had a deal to buy Getty in partnership with The Gordon P. Getty, said it would sue.
The nation’s jobless rate fell in December, mainly because of re-employment of adult men who either regained their old jobs in factories or found work in other industries. The rate dropped to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
Charles Z. Wick’s job is secure, President Reagan said, despite Mr. Wick’s acknowledgement that he had secretly tape-recorded some telephone conversations. In declaring his support for Mr. Wick, President Reagan said he “has done a splendid job” as director of the United States Information Agency and “he is going to continue there.” However, two Congressional investigations into the surreptitious taping are continuing.
Dan White was freed from prison today to a new life in Los Angeles County five years and 41 days after assassinating Mayor George Moscone of San Francisco and gay supervisor Harvey Milk. News of his release was greeted this afternoon by an angry but peaceful demonstration by some 4,000 people in downtown San Francisco. One group of demonstrators sat down in the street at Market and Castro streets, halting westbound traffic for about a half hour. The largest group rallied in Union Square at noon and marched to the Financial District.
Vietnam veterans nationwide began donating money today to help veterans in Massachusetts rebuild a Buddhist temple. Other Vietnam veterans had been accused of destroying the temple with a firebomb. William Martin, chairman of the state council of the Vietnam Veterans of America, said his group and the Vietnam Veterans Leadership Program in Honolulu would appeal to other veterans to donate money, labor or materials to rebuild the Mahasiddha Nyingmapa Center shrine in Hawley. “This is a demonstration of the solidarity of Vietnam veterans nationwide. We’re concerned about helping all the victims of this,” Mr. Martin said.
A heart transplant in Boston was given tentative approval to proceed by the Massachusetts Department of Health, which had opposed the move on financial and technical grounds. The debate was touched off by the recent decision of the Food and Drug Administration to license a drug that eases acceptance by the body of foreign tissues. Until recently only a few hospitals could use the drug, which has dramatically improved the successful prospects of organ transplants.
A judge who helped the inquiry into the Cook County court system by working as an undercover agent said today he would resign March 31 because his involvement in the investigation had reduced his effectiveness. Judge Brocton Lockwood of the Williamson County Circuit Court said that since 1981 he had played the role of a corruptible judge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, hiding a tape recorder in his cowboy boots and a microphone under his robes. The judge from southern Illinois had been in Cook County to help ease a court backlog, a duty handled in rotation by judges from outside the county. Ten people, including judges, lawyers and court workers, were indicted as a result of the investigation. The charges included mail fraud, racketeering, extortion and conspiracy.
Someone “playing a very deadly game” detonated an Army surplus smoke bomb and a Vietnam era rocket, creating a dense, noxious cloud that drove 100 people from their homes, the authorities in North Attleboro, Massachusetts said today. Ronald Meyer, a deputy fire chief, said investigators found fragments of two military weapons, an M-18 bomb and an illumination rocket, in a gravel pit 600 feet from a house. They said the devices were detonated simultaneously Thursday night. “Somebody is playing a very deadly game,” Mr. Meyer said. “Somebody could have been hurt. This aerial device — the rocket — is unbelievable.” He added that the rocket created the explosion that one witness likened to dynamite going off.
The Padres, outbidding a dozen teams, come to terms with Yankee free-agent Goose Gossage, agreeing to a five-year deal with the right-handed reliever reportedly worth more than $5.5 million. During his four seasons in San Diego as the team’s closer, the 32-year-old will average close to 21 saves per season while winning 25 games, helping the Friars reach their first-ever World Series this year.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1286.64 (+4.40).
Born:
Eric Trump, American businessman and reality television personality, son of President Donald J. Trump, in Manhattan, New York, New York.
A. J. Hawk, NFL linebacker (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 45-Packers, 2010; Green Bay Packers, Cincinnati Bengals, Atlanta Falcons), in Kettering, Ohio.
Doug Free, NFL tackle (Dallas Cowboys), in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
André Benoit, Canadian NHL defenseman (Ottawa Senators, Colorado Avalanche, Buffalo Sabres, St. Louis Blues), in St. Albert, Ontario, Canada.
Ryan Keller, Canadian NHL centre (Ottawa Senators), in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Anthony Slama, MLB pitcher (Minnesota Twins), in Orange, California.
Jimmy Barthmaier, MLB pitcher (Pittsburgh Pirates), in Atlanta, Georgia.
Kate McKinnon, American actress and comedian (“Saturday Night Live”, “Ghostbusters” [2016 film]), in Sea Cliff, New York.
Hilaria Baldwin [as Hillary Lynn Hayward-Thomas], second wife of actor Alec Baldwin, in Boston, Massachusetts.
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