Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri F. Ustinov accused the United States of pushing the world toward nuclear war and said Soviet armed forces are ready to fight off any attack. Ustinov’s article in the Communist Party daily Pravda to commemorate Army and Navy Day is believed to be the Kremlin’s toughest statement against the United States since Konstantin U. Chernenko succeeded the late Yuri V. Andropov as Soviet leader last week. “All Washington’s activities in the political, military, economic and ideological fields are directed at achieving world domination and first of all military superiority over the Soviet Union,” Ustinov declared.
The Solidarity radio went on the air in Warsaw tonight for the first time since October to broadcast an appeal by underground leaders for a boycott of local government elections in June. Listeners said the communique heard during the six-minute broadcast might have been read by Zbigniew Bujak, head of Solidarity’s clandestine National Coordinating Commission. Mr. Bujak has been in hiding since martial law was declared in 1981. The Solidarity radio was last heard on October 23, and its broadcasts are usually kept shorter to avoid detection by the Government’s monitoring equipment.
Hooded gunmen shot and killed a prominent Socialist politician today, and officials in Madrid said the act appeared to be an effort to disrupt the elections Sunday in the Basque region. The victim, Enrique Casas Vila, a senator and the leading candidate on the Socialist ticket for the Basque parliament from Guipuzcoa Province, had campaigned strongly against terrorism. He was outspoken in his attacks against ETA, the Basque separatist organization. A previously unknown group calling itself Mendeku, the Basque word for vengeance, took responsibility for the killing in telephone calls to Basque news organizations, United Press International reported. But the police and Socialist officials said they were certain the group was a cover for ETA.
ETA, whose initials in the Basque language stand for Basque Homeland and Freedom, is struggling against antiterrorist actions by the Spanish police, deportation from southern France by the French authorities and deadly reprisals by an underground right-wing group. Recent public-opinion polls have shown the Socialists coming in second to the ruling Basque Nationalist Party, which is predicted to gain a majority in the expanded, 75-seat regional parliament. The party is a mainline, moderate nationalist group, especially when compared with the Herri Batasuna Party, which appears to coordinate its positions with ETA’s. Recently ETA called on its supporters to vote for Herri Batasuna candidates.
The controversial U.S. bombardment of Muslim positions near Beirut on February 8 may have been inaccurate because the Navy had no forward artillery observers to adjust the fire direction, a senior military commander testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. General Howard Stone, chief of staff of the European Command, which oversees military operations in Lebanon, acknowledged that gunners from the battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) were, in effect, guessing at the targets “although I wouldn’t use that word.” Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has accused the Navy of indiscriminate shelling of Druze villages in the attack, which lasted nine hours.
Rebel units of the Lebanese Army reappeared on the streets of West Beirut under the control of Shiite and Druze militia leaders opposed to President Amin Gemayel. According to Western intelligence officials, about 40 percent of the 37,000-man Lebanese Army is either openly supporting the anti-Government Muslim militias or refusing to leave its barracks.
Israeli planes bombed targets in the mountains east of Beirut in what the Israeli radio said was an attack on Palestinian guerrilla bases. It was the third Israeli air strike since Sunday.
Twenty-eight pro-Israel senators expressed support for a bill to force the Reagan Administration to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-New York), its sponsor, argued that Washington should recognize the reality that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. However, Under Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that such a move, taken before a comprehensive Mideast peace, could seriously undermine U.S. peace efforts in the region. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Middle East War, and the United States and most other nations refuse to recognize the united city as Israel’s capital.
Israeli banker Yaacov Levinson, former chairman of Israel’s second largest bank and the central figure in a financial scandal linked to Israel’s opposition Labor Party, killed himself with a bullet in the head, police said. For two months, Levinson, 52, had been the focus of a public controversy over allegations of improper conduct while he was chairman of Bank Hapoalim and subsequently of Ampal, the bank’s investment subsidiary in New York. One of the allegations was that money was siphoned off to the Labor Party. Levinson’s friends charged that he was hounded to death by a relentless media campaign over the scandal.
Philippine opposition leader Salvador Laurel told Americans they should not assume that maintaining U.S. military bases in his country depends upon President Ferdinand E. Marcos remaining in office. Laurel, the president of a coalition of 12 political parties, spoke before attending a Washington luncheon meeting with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-New York). Laurel said the United States should be able to maintain its huge air and naval bases in the Philippines if members of the nonviolent, democratic opposition are allowed to govern the country.
A Philippine judge today ordered a week-long recess in the trial of nine churchmen, including three priests, accused of ambushing and killing a mayor and four aides in 1982. The nine assert that the military trumped up the charges because they had been organizing farm workers to resist abuses by soldiers and rich sugar planters. Prosecutors asked that today’s session be canceled because they had other cases that needed attention. More than 200 people, including representatives of the Australian and Irish Governments, Catholic bishops and two dozen reporters and cameramen, jammed into the courtroom. The Rev. Brian Gore of Perth, Australia, the Rev. Vicente Dangan, a Filipino, had been jailed for one month and the six Filipino lay workers for more than eight months. The trial is expected to last several months.
Vietnamese troops occupying Cambodia pounded guerrilla forces with artillery fire and carried out probing attacks near Ampil, a major resistance base. Thai military sources said. About 40,000 refugees live in Ampil, which is near the Thai border. The Thai sources said the Vietnamese and guerrillas loyal to anti-Communist leader Son Sann were continuing to battle east of Ampil. They said the Vietnamese were moving up tanks and armored personnel carriers, apparently preparing to capture the base. Vietnamese forces fired more than 120 artillery, mortar and rocket shells to support their advancing troops and moved 22 tanks and armored personnel carriers into a village nine miles east of the camp, apparently preparing to capture the base, the sources said. Leaders of the front told reporters at the border that 500 Vietnamese soldiers had captured their base at Prey Padao, seven miles north of the main camp, two days ago.
The tiny southeast Asian sultanate of Brunei formally celebrated its independence from Britain today before kings and leaders from some 70 countries. The 37-year-old Sultan, Sir Muda Hassanal Bolkiah, flanked by Prince Charles of Britain and the King of Malaysia, watched as thousands of youngsters danced and sang in a newly built $50 million stadium bearing his name. The Sultan sat on a stage with President Suharto of Indonesia, President Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines, the Prime Ministers of Singapore and Malaysia and delegates from many other countries. Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam represented the United States at the ceremony.
Senior Reagan Administration officials said today that United States military forces, which have just completed a major training exercise in Honduras, would be sent to that country to train each year for the foreseeable future, perhaps for as long as 20 years. The officials said plans were firm for this year and the next two years but were somewhat vague beyond that. Meantime, the chief of the United States Southern Command, Gen. Paul F. Gorman, told a Senate committee that the exercises this summer would be expanded to include Guatemalan, Salvadoran and possibly Panamanian troops along with those from Honduras and the United States. General Gorman, whose headquarters in Panama controls United States forces in Central America, also said American advisers trained 3,300 Honduran soldiers in 1983 and planned to train 25,000 to 29,000 this year.
A rightist Salvadoran politician was shot to death today as he left his home here. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the slaying. The politician, Roberto Ismael Ayala, 47 years old, was the second member of the Constituent Assembly to be killed since the 60 deputies of the Assembly took office in April 1982. Voting in the presidential campaign is scheduled for March 25. Leftist insurgents have taken responsibility for the tree previous assassinations, and the attack against Mr. Ayala was carried out in much the same style as the others. His housekeeper said Mr. Ayala was gunned down by two young men as he tried to open the garage door. Mr. Ayala, who represented the province of Cabanas, was a member of the Authentic Institutional Salvadoran Party.
A Namibian monitoring mission was announced by the State Department. It said it was sending about a dozen American diplomats and support staff to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, or South-West Africa, to help observe the disengagement of South African and Angolan forces from the border area and to help promote a lasting cease-fire.
Initial moves for reducing deficits over the next three years were begun by Congress’s tax-writing committees. Meanwhile, bipartisan negotiators from Congress and the Administration had a more productive second meeting than expected on President Reagan’s call for a $100 billion deficit “down payment.”
The Presidential news conference Wednesday night brought the nation the rare sight of President Reagan, an enormously self-confident politician, being asked to defend his performance in the White House and out West at his ranch. Reacting to early Democratic campaign criticism, he complained about the “sniping”over his fondness for vacations in California, and the “fiction” that he does not work as hard as he might. The moment was heartening for the strategists of Walter F. Mondale, the leading Democratic challenger to the President, who believe they must draw the President out on the same leadership qualities that Mr. Reagan’s own strategists consider his predominant strength. The Mondale camp is attempting at a very early stage the political equivalent of belling the cat, of neutralizing Mr. Reagan’s strength as an individual by calling closer public attention to his work habits.
Republican campaigners insist the President will suffer no more than did Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower ran for a second term in the White House unopposed within his party and he won, buoyed by great popularity. This is the “Eisenhower model” that President Reagan’s political advisers are aiming to duplicate. In discussing the Mondale allegation that Mr. Reagan is not really in charge, Reagan campaign officials can seek comfort in the fact that Eisenhower’s unapologetic preference for golfing vacations was a subject of criticism in his day, and that he won easily the second time around.
President Reagan speaks with William Holsclaw, a 12-year-old from Jean, Nevada, who saved the lives of his two younger brothers from their burning house.
President Reagan meets with the Cabinet Council on Management.
President Reagan is presented with the West Point 1983 yearbook.
Poverty increased rapidly from 1979 to 1982 even if the value of food stamps, public housing, Medicare and Medicaid benefits were counted as income, according to the Census Bureau.
A campaign inquiry was closed by the Justice Department, which said it had found “no credible evidence “that a crime was committed when the l980 Reagan organization obtained briefing materials prepared for President Carter.
In the most mannerly debate of the Democratic Presidential campaign, Walter F. Mondale, John Glenn and Gary Hart maneuvered for position in what is increasingly perceived as a three-way contest leading to the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday. The performances and remarks of Mr. Mondale’s seven rivals reflected their growing urgency to keep the contest open.
The Senate passed 92 to 0 a bill that would allow federal prosecution of weapon-toting career robbers and force those convicted to serve at least 15 years in prison. The bill, which went to the House, was a compromise that will apply to far fewer career criminals than intended by chief sponsor Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania).
The Senate passed a resolution citing reputed Chicago mobster Anthony (Big Tuna) Accardo for contempt of Congress. It was only the second time the Senate has approved a civil contempt citation. Accardo repeatedly refused to answer questions during an appearance last November 17 before the Senate permanent investigations subcommittee. The committee was looking into organized crime in Chicago. Under civil contempt proceedings. Accardo could be held in jail indefinitely if he refuses to testify.
The House, worried that Americans can’t sell their products and make friends abroad if they can’t speak the language, voted 265 to 120 to intensify foreign language teaching in schools and colleges. Rep. Paul Simon (D-Illinois), the bill’s main sponsor, said the massive U.S. trade deficit is due in part to the fact that “we cannot speak to our customers in their language.” For example, Simon said, General Motors had little luck selling its Nova model in Puerto Rico and Latin America because “no va” in Spanish means, “It doesn’t go.”
An anti-arms drive was stepped up by a dozen Roman Catholic bishops in the West. The bishops urged their parishioners to join a “prayer vigil” along the routes of trains carrying nuclear warheads to Trident submarine bases in Washington State and South Carolina.
A one-year freeze on doctors’ fees was urged by the American Medical Association in an effort to help the nation’s economy. An A.M.A. official said the association made a similar appeal in l978 that won wide response from physicians.
The death yesterday of a 12-year-old boy who had lived in a sterile plastic bubble until his final 15 days was “as amazing as his life,” according to his doctor, who said the boy, David, was conscious, alert and making jokes to the last. An autopsy showed no clear immediate evidence that a bone marrow transplant had hastened his death.
Several men in a bar here “were cheering like at a baseball game” while they watched fellow patrons rape a woman last March, the prosecution said today at the opening of the trial in the case. Assistant District Attorney Raymond P. Veary told the jury the incident at Big Dan’s Tavern in New Bedford was “a story without heroes.” Judge William Young of Superior Court, saying he was concerned about the future of the young mother and her children, today banned news photography of her when she testifies against the men accused of raping her on a barroom pool table. The young woman, who has never been publicly identified, entered the bar March 6 to buy cigarettes and stayed to have a drink with another woman. When she tried to leave, Mr. Veary said, she was followed by the defendants, who threw her to the floor.
He said the woman was later thrown on the pool table, pinned down, and raped by one of the defendants, Daniel C. Silvia, then by another defendant, Joseph Vieira. “They traded places,” said Mr. Veary. He said two other men tried to force the woman to perform oral sex. Six men are on trial for aggravated rape. Mr. Silvia and Mr. Vieira are being tried in the afternoon while the four other defendants, Jose Medeiros, Virgilio Medeiros, who is no relation to Jose Medeiros, John Cordeiro and Victor Raposo, are being tried before another jury in the morning.
A Soviet diplomatic compound in New York was rocked by three early morning explosions from bombs hurled over a fence into a parking lot. A parked car was destroyed but no injuries were reported. A militant Jewish group initially linked to the explosions later denied responsibility. The blasts shook the 25-story high-rise in the Riverdale section of the Bronx about 3:15 a.m. local time. Authorities said the explosives were tossed over a fence in the rear of the building. Soviet officials barred FBI agents from the complex immediately after the blasts, but they were allowed to enter about 9:30 a.m. to investigate, an FBI spokesman said.
Six fundamentalist Christians jailed since November for refusing to testify about an illegal church school were freed in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. The men made a deal with county officials, including a judge, who dismissed contempt charges against them. The men promised that they would not send their children back to the school until it is in compliance with state law, or state law is changed to allow church schools. The men also formally acknowledged that the Faith Christian School was ordered closed by the courts in September, 1979, for hiring non-certified teachers, and that the school was not state-approved. They also agreed that their wives would concur.
Charles R. Harris, the unemployed man accused of crashing a gate at the Augusta National Golf Club and taking hostages while President Reagan was there last fall, was sentenced today to 10 years in prison. Superior Court Judge Albert Pickett also sentenced the 44-year-old Harris to 10 years’ probation on charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment and criminal damage to private property. Mr. Harris pleaded guilty to the charges January 30. The Augusta area man was accused of smashing his pickup truck through a gate at the exclusive golf club October 22 while the President and Secretary of State George P. Shultz were playing golf. The armed intruder then drove to the pro shop and held several people hostage, including two White House aides, in a two-hour standoff.
Three naturalized U.S. citizens and two residents of Hong Kong were indicted by a federal grand jury in Newark, New Jersey, on charges that they conspired to smuggle classified military equipment to China. The indictment did not specify the value of the equipment, but authorities have estimated the items, including radar-jamming and missile guidance devices, were worth $1 million. The indictment alleges the four men and one woman violated the U.S. Arms Export Control Act by conspiring to export the equipment in the last two months without obtaining a license from the State Department.
The seniority layoff policy used by the Detroit Police Department takes away gains made by minorities through affirmative action policies, Federal Judge Horace Gilman ruled Wednesday. The policy was drawn up by the Detroit Police Officers Association and has been used by the city to reduce the size of the department. In a related matter, the department’s Lieutenant and Sergeant’s Association challenged a promotion policy based on affirmative action. An appeals court ruled against them and the Supreme Court refused to review that decision. Eight percent of the force’s officers are black and 40 percent are women.
Doors on moving subway trains opened 32 times in the last 21 months in as many as five cars at a time, according to reports filed with the New York City Transit Authority. The documents said there were no injuries, but indicated that in more than one-third of the cases, the problem was never explained and the cars were put back in service.
An additional year of science, mathematics and social studies for high school graduates in New York State was proposed by Education Commissioner Gordon M. Ambach. The plan would also mandate three years of a foreign language for a Regents diploma.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1134.63 (+0.42).
Born:
Andre Ward, American amateur (Olympic Gold Medal, Light Heavyweight, 2004) and professional boxer (32-0-0), unified light heavyweight champion and world’s top pound-for-pound boxer, in San Francisco, California.
Jonathan Wilhite, NFL cornerback (New England Patriots, Denver Broncos), in Monroe, Louisiana.
Jordan Hendry, Canadian NHL defenseman (Chicago Blackhawks, Anaheim Ducks), in Nokomis, Saskatchewan, Canada.
André Deveaux, Bahamian-born Canadian NHL centre (Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers), in Freeport, Bahamas.
History Diaries 