President Reagan attends a National Security Council meeting about Soviet re-armament negotiations. Moscow is not living up to its word in arms control pacts, President Reagan believes. He has, according to a senior State Department official, determined that the Soviet Union has committed “violations or probable violations” of the terms of seven arms control agreements or obligations, “but the President has not concluded that we should give up our search for serious arms control agreements,” the official said.
King Hussein has apparently won wide support for his decision this week to expand Palestinian participation in Parliament and the Cabinet. Approval was expressed by both Jordanians born on the East Bank of the Jordan River and those of Palestinian origin with the roots in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Their views on foreign policy affecting Palestine have frequently differed.
An attack on the U.S. marine base in Beirut was part of one of the sharpest outbreaks of violence in the Lebanese capital in months. A section of the United States Marine base here came under heavy rifle fire today, fighting broke out in downtown West Beirut and artillery shells exploded in the streets of East Beirut and in the nearby hills. It was one of the sharpest upsurges of violence in the Lebanese capital in months. The fighting came as Washington’s special Middle East envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, was meeting in Damascus with President Hafez al- Assad and other Syrian officials about ways to overcome obstacles to a plan for the disengagement of the warring factions in Lebanon. Neither Syrian nor American officials would discuss the details of the talks. But the official Syrian radio said Mr. Assad told Mr. Rumsfeld that the United States “can play an effective role in the Middle East if it would adopt a neutral attitude in the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Mr. Rumsfeld arrived in Beirut tonight from Damascus.
The Syrians, who helped draft the disengagement plan, declared earlier this week that they would oppose any steps toward a political solution in this country until Lebanon abrogated an agreement it signed with Israel last May 17, that provides for the simultaneous departure of Israeli and Syrian forces from Lebanon. One of Syria’s main allies in Lebanon, Walid Jumblat, the Druse leader, raised several apparently peripheral objections that blocked the disengagement plan before he left for a visit to Moscow on Thursday. A high Government official said today that Mr. Jumblat’s trip to Moscow had come as a surprise to the Government and that its meaning was unclear. During the fighting here today, a school bus, racing for a Christian suburb after the schools in East Beirut were closed because of the shelling, crashed after being hit by sniper fire and 3 of the 20 students aboard were hospitalized along with the driver.
The Organization of African Unity today abandoned attempts to open a conference of the warring factions in Chad. The immediate cause of the breakdown in talks was apparently the question of which, if any, of the 11 delegations in Addis Ababa for the meeting would be permitted to display the Chadian national flag. Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, the Ethiopian leader and chairman of the O.A.U., attributed the breakdown to President Hissen Habre of Chad, who boycotted the conference, and to his delegation. “One cannot but observe with dismay the reluctance of the Chadian Government to meet the opposition, as envinced by its emphasis on marginal and protocol issues,” he said in a statement. President Habre objected to a welcoming ceremony Ethiopia gave on Sunday to his Libyan-backed rival, Goukouni Oueddei, whose forces occupy northern Chad.
President Chadli Benjedid was elected to a second five-year term with 95 percent of the vote, final results showed today. Mr. Benjedid was the only candidate. Mr. Benjedid, the nominee of the National Liberation Front, Algeria’s only legal political party, received 9,684,108 votes, according to the returns. A total of 56,432 people voted against him. Mr. Benjedid’s share of the vote was about 1 percent higher than his performance in 1979, and the turnout of more than 96 percent of qualified voters was slightly higher than in the elections five years ago.
Moscow announced the execution of two high-ranking foreign trade officials who had been charged with “systematically taking big bribes.” Tass, the official press agency, identified the officials as Yuri V. Smelyakov, chairman of Technopromexport and his director for imports, V. A. Pavlov. The executions and the unusual announcement that they had been carried out were evidently intended to indicate that a crackdown against corruption by the Soviet leader, Yuri V. Andropov, was continuing.
Children of the Soviet elite are expanding the English-derived jargon that is encroaching on Soviet speech. One of the federal latest terms is “khailaifist,” or “high-life-ist,” referring to Soviet youths who have such things as American jeans, Japanese stereos and rock music collections.
A court today ordered a Bulgarian suspect in the shooting of Pope John Paul II returned to prison within three days, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. The suspect, Sergei Ivanov Antonov, 36 years old, has been under house arrest in Rome since he was released from prison last December 21, a move that was viewed at the time as a possible first step to his release from custody. The Bulgarian’s lawyer, Giuseppe Consolo, said Mr. Antonov would appeal the decision handed down by Rome’s Court of Liberty, a special body that reviews appeals for parole. It said Mr. Antonov must either get a stay from Italy’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Cassation, or return to prison within three days. Mr. Antonov was “suddenly taken ill” upon learning the court’s decision, his lawyer and Bulgarian officials said. The news agency quoted Bulgarian Embassy officials as saying Mr. Antonov was being treated by Ivan Temkov, a Bulgarian doctor.
Strong winds and heavy rain pounded Britain on Friday, causing at least six deaths. Most of the people killed were in cars crushed under trees felled by the winds. A 20-year-old girl was killed when she was blown against a passing truck while riding a bicycle. Among the major incidents:
- A 370-foot cooling tower at a power plant in northwest Cheshire County was blown down, but no one was injured.
- A Belgian fishing trawler with five men aboard was missing in the North Sea off the Yorkshire coast in northern England. A search was under way.
- A Royal Air Force helicopter plucked the crew of a French trawler to safety after it ran aground off the coast of Ireland. The operation was hampered by winds of more than 70 miles an hour.
- Two school buses were blown off the road in Yorkshire, but no one was injured.
Throughout the British Isles, trucks and cars were blown off roads. Police refused to allow many motorists to cross windswept bridges. Rail service from London to many outlying points was delayed. In northern Wales, roads were closed to traffic and police there urged motorists not to venture out until the winds abated.
First a small flashing robot stepped on the Chinese Prime Minister’s toes. Then a 7-foot Colombian boa constrictor stuck out its forked tongue at him. Then Zhao Ziyang was treated to a slide show of bugs eating fruit and given a chance to examine some dead mosquitoes in a bottle. Mr. Zhao was on the road in America, seeing unofficial pursuits and ordinary citizens after leaving the high- level talks and cocktail parties of Washington behind him. He continued his nine-day tour of the United States today with a visit to the students and scholars at the University of California’s Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley. The visit showed off the style that has endeared Mr. Zhao to many Chinese — a down-to-earth practicality, an unassuming but self-confident air and an easy manner. “He’s very charming and most pleasant to be around,” said Michael K. Deaver, the deputy White House chief of staff, who is traveling with the Prime Minister on his California visit. “And he has a wonderful sense of humor.”
Thousands of teen-agers rampaged through the streets of Kowloon, the mainland city of Hong Kong, on Friday night, attacking policemen, burning and overturning cars and looting shops, the police reported. At least 34 people were injured, some seriously. The police today reported arresting about 125 rioters. A two-day taxi strike ended soon after the riots started, and although the authorities said the two events were not related, Hong Kong’s top policeman blamed “unruly elements” who took advantage of the situation. About 5,000 rioters pelted policemen with stones and bottles and were pushed back with tear gas. Witnesses said some rioters took buses that had been abandoned by the drivers and passengers and drove them into railings or rammed other buses with them.
At least 34 people died and about 70 were injured today when a fire gutted a 10-story tourist hotel in the southern Korean port of Pusan, the police said. The toll could go higher because some of the injured were in serious condition, they added. The police said about 200 guests were in the Dae-a Hotel, including nine Japanese and three Taiwanese, when the fire broke out on the fourth floor. One Japanese was among the dead, the police said.
South African troops reportedly were pulling out of southern Angola, taking with them captured equipment supplied by the Soviet Union to its allies in the territory. South Africa announced the pullout earlier this week, but Angola denied it. A South African invasion force was reported tonight to be pulling out of southern Angola in a long column of trucks laden with captured equipment supplied by the Soviet Union to its allies in the territory. Independent corroboration came tonight from a party of eight foreign journalists who were flown 90 miles into Angola, to the town of Evale, by the South African Air Force. The correspondents operated as a “pool” whose rules stipulated that they make their reports available to journalists not included in the trip. The South Africans say a 2,000-man force began the invasion on December 6, in what is described as a pre-emptive strike against the South-West Africa People’s Organization. The insurgent group uses southern Angola as a base for its campaign to overthrow Pretoria’s rule in South-West Africa, which is also known as Namibia.
The first full year of recovery in the United States from the deepest recession since World War II ended with industrial production expanding at a moderate rate and with inflation in check. The Federal Reserve Board said that factory output rose a moderate five-tenths of l percent in December, capping the strongest year of industrial growth since 1976.
The President and First Lady host a luncheon for elected Republic Women from across the nation.
The President and First Lady end the day by watching “Singing in the Rain”.
The White House chief of staff, James A. Baker 3d, has said President Reagan “would be better served by someone else” if he is elected to a second term. Mr. Baker’s remark, a quotation from an interview with The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, was quickly discounted by the White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, who said Mr. Baker was likely to stay on the job “as long as the President wishes him to be here.” Mr. Baker, who earlier was the subject of speculation as a possible new commissioner of baseball, has often mentioned the wearying nature of his job, which involves setting the President’s legislative and political strategies. Mr. Baker’s friends say he would prefer a major Cabinet portfolio in a second Reagan Administration.
Federal regulators refused to license a virtually completed $3.35 billion nuclear power plant in Illinois on the ground that they had “no confidence” that the twin reactors were safe. The decision barred the Byron Nuclear Power Station near Rockford from starting up. It was the first time that a federal operating license for a nuclear power plant was unconditionally refused.
In recent weeks Walter F. Mondale and his aides have quietly devised a dual political strategy aimed not only at winning the Democratic Presidential nomination but also at placing the Republicans on the defensive in the 1984 elections. Aides to the former Vice President say the strategy is essentially designed to make the candidate appear “Presidential” and above the political fray while pointing up his differences with Senator John Glenn of Ohio. Mr. Mondale’s advisers said that although their candidate has repeatedly been called “cautious,” he had in fact bluntly attacked President Reagan on policies ranging from arms control to Medicare cutbacks, especially in recent weeks in Southern states and in New Hampshire. Moreover, while Mr. Mondale was “not looking for a fight with Glenn,” one aide said the candidate had responded to the Senator’s criticism with some unusually tough language.
The Presidential campaign of the Rev. Jesse Jackson submitted documentation yesterday in an attempt to become eligible for Federal matching funds. Fred Eiland, a spokesman for the Federal Elections Commission, said the campaign submitted listings of 1,662 individual contributors who had given a total of $111,425. The funds came from contributors in some 26 states, he said. Under Federal election law, a candidate for President or a party’s Presidential nomination is eligible for matching funds upon raising $5,000 in each of 20 states, in individual donations of $250 or less. Mr. Eiland said the commission staff would take at least 15 days to review the paperwork. If Mr. Jackson’s campaign is found eligible for matching funds, Mr. Eiland said, it could then seek the funds twice a month.
Preparations for a deluge of water from snow in the Rockies this spring are being made by operators of Federal dams who are letting water out of reservoirs. The snow in California’s Sierra Nevada and Colorado’s Rockies holds nearly twice the amount of water that is normal for this time of year. Water content in snow in the Wasatch Range in Utah has been measured at more than double normal, and the mountains of southern Idaho contain as many as three times the normal amount of water.
Major General Robert B. Ownby was buried in San Antonio with full military honors. The 48-year-old commander of an Army Reserve installation in San Antonio was found hanged in the reserve’s headquarters, with his hands tied behind his back. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the possibility that the general might have invented a terrorist phantasm to cloak a suicide.
Christine Craft won a retrial of her lawsuit against a Kansas City, Missouri, television station. The jury in Joplin, Missouri, awarded Miss Craft, a former television news anchor, $325,000 in damages. She had asked for $3.5 million in a lawsuit charging that officials of KMBC-TV had committed fraud by telling her she was being hired for her journalistic abilities and then demoting her after viewers had criticized her appearance.
A group offered a $10,000 reward today for information on the whereabouts of Dan White, the paroled slayer of two San Francisco politicians, and filed a suit to force the state to disclose his address. Jeffrey Walsworth, a lawyer for the new Citizens Protection Association, told a news conference that making information about Mr. White public could threaten his safety. But he argued that that was secondary to the rights of citizens to know whom they live near and work with. He observed: “I say this to the Department of Corrections and the parole board: Would they choose to have their families live next door to a rapist or a murderer without knowing about it?”
Mr. White was released from prison January 6 to a secret location after serving five years for the murders of Mayor George Moscone of San Francisco and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Officials said only that Mr. White was living in Los Angeles County, a 4,000-square-mile area, with a population of 7.1 million. “We think that the information that he is in Los Angeles County is simply a diversion tactic,” Mr. Walsworth went on, “and we are conducting an investigation.”
County prosecutors in St. Louis said today that no charges would be filed against an 18-year-old worker who put the wrong type of fuel in a cargo plane, which crashed Monday, killing the co-pilot. “I don’t believe we could show there was any criminal negligence involved,” said Tom DePriest, an assistant county prosecutor. However, he added that the plane’s owner could file a civil suit charging wrongful death in the crash. The DePaul Health Center said Milko Blum, 22, of Orangeville, Ontario, died Thursday of multiple injuries. Mr. Blum underwent surgery after the crash and never regained consciousness. The pilot, Gary Cox, 32, of Toronto, was in serious but stable condition, the health center said.
New Mexico State officials said today that they had found in a prison shop negatives and printing plates used by inmates to make bogus money orders and birth certificates. The shop at the penitentiary near Santa Fe was reopened today after a four- day shutdown while investigators searched for evidence of counterfeiting. David Roybal, a Correction Department spokesman, said the search turned up printing plates and negatives of money orders, blank checks, a birth certificate, a driver’s license and two prints of checks for two Albuquerque construction companies. The search began after a parolee was arrested and charged with passing counterfeit postal money orders.
A leader of the House of Judah religious sect was found not guilty today of a charge of cruelty to a child in the death of a 12-year-old boy who attended the group’s camp in Michigan last summer. Judge R. Max Daniels found in favor of the defendant, William A. Lewis, a self-described prophet and founder of the sect, after deliberating less than an hour and a half in the nonjury trial. Judge Daniels, a visiting judge in Allegan County Circuit Court, said: “This case started as a weak case. It did not get stronger.” Mr. Lewis, who had been charged in connection with the beating death of John Yarbough last July 4, said after the verdict, “I thank God,” to a chorus of amens from 18 sect members. Some of the members present cheered and some leaped a barrier and ran to the 62- year-old Mr. Lewis and his attorney, Frederick Milton.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1270.1 (-9.21).
Born:
Nick Mangold, NFL center (Pro Bowl, 2008-2011, 2013-2015; New York Jets), in Centerville, Ohio.
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