Syria’s Lebanese allies flew to Lausanne, Switzerland, for the opening of the Lebanese unity conference scheduled to open tomorrow. They left Damascus amid signs of continuing political discord despite attempts on Friday and Saturday to agree on a joint negotiating position. The Lebanese opposition leaders met yesterday and again today in an effort to agree on a joint negotiating position for the talks, which are to resume in Lausanne. The first round was held in Geneva last November. As the Lebanese departed, a high- level Soviet delegation arrived in Damascus. It is headed by Geidar A. Aliyev, a First Deputy Prime Minister, who is the first Politburo member to come here since a visit by Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko in 1980.
In Beirut, Muslim militiamen and loyalist army units clashed as President Amin Gemayel also left for the Swiss talks. The level of fighting was said to be heavy. Officials of Mr. Gemayel’s Government said they were optimistic the talks would begin resolving the issues underlying Lebanon’s nine-year-old civil war. But the continued fighting, and sharp differences among the political leaders, underscored the difficulties Mr. Gemayel faces in trying to assemble a new Government and win agreement on at least the framework for political changes.
Anti-American violence throughout the Islamic world could follow the relocation of the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Secretary of State George P. Shultz warned Congress, which is considering a bill to require such a move. The bill has many co-sponsors in both houses. The possibility of repercussions in the Muslim world has led to direct intervention by Mr. Shultz and President Reagan to block the bill.
The Reagan Administration was warned repeatedly by American military officers and diplomats in Beirut during the 14 months that the United States was training the Lebanese Army that the new army was in danger of failing because of religious factional disputes. But officials in Washington say they chose to let the Lebanese cope with the problem themselves. Last month, the Lebanese Army disintegrated along Christian and Muslim factional lines while State and Defense Department officials offered the American public optimistic appraisals of the training program’s progress.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews smashed windows, chairs and tables in a coffee shop in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva to protest a decision by the city council to allow restaurants to open on the Sabbath, police said. Police arrested the city’s chief rabbi. Baruch Salomon, who led the protest by 25 people at the Garden of Eden coffee shop. a police spokeswoman said.
Laboratory tests show that Iranians fighting in the war with Iraq have been exposed to mustard gas and “yellow rain,” according to a doctor treating wounded Iranians. The doctor, Dr. Herbert Mandl, said that tests by the Toxicological Institute in Ghent, Belgium, revealed “with certain proof” the presence of mycotoxins, sometimes referred to as yellow rain, and mustard gas. All such chemical weapons were banned for wartime use by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Iraq has repeatedly said it does not use chemical weapons. It has not said whether it has such arms. Dr. Mandl, who has been involved in the treatment of 10 Iranian fighters who were flown to Vienna on March 2, said the toxins were found in specimens of urine, feces and blood taken from two wounded soldiers who are under treatment at Vienna’s Second University Clinic.
Two bombs exploded aboard a French passenger jet today during a stopover at the Ndjamena airport in Chad, wounding 25 people, officials in Paris said. Diplomats in Paris said the DC-8 of the airline Union des Transports Aeriens had been destroyed by the second bomb, which exploded 20 minutes after the first and after the 100 people aboard were evacuated. There were no immediate claims of responsibility. French forces support the Chad Government against Libyan- backed rebels, and Chad’s Ambassador to France, Allam Mi Ahmad, accused Libya of carrying out the bombings. The first bomb exploded as the DC-8 was parked at the airport with its engines off during a stopover on a flight from Brazzaville, Congo, to Paris. Of the wounded, 12 were passengers, all French, and 13 were airline or airport personnel.
American soldiers clashed with anti-missile demonstrators trying to block a military convoy from returning to a Pershing 2 missile base in Mutlangen, West Germany. Three people were slightly injured, police said. They denied peace movement allegations that the protesters were roughly handled by soldiers and that one was deliberately struck with a rifle butt. The base has been the scene of many peace demonstrations against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s decision to deploy new medium-range cruise and Pershing 2 missiles in Europe.
Gunmen in Northern Ireland opened fire on police during a Protestant parade in the mostly Catholic city of Londonderry and used children as shields to protect themselves from return fire, witnesses said. No injuries were reported as about 15 shots were fired at policemen patrolling the parade route. Police listed members of the Irish Republican Army as the probable attackers. The shooting broke out as an estimated 2,000 Protestants marched through Londonderry to protest the decision by the Catholic-run city council to drop the reference to London in the city’s official name.
French Premier Pierre Mauroy met with Spain’s Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez in Madrid and afterward tried to play down the French navy’s shelling of Spanish fishing boats as “a passing storm.” Nine Spanish fishermen were wounded, two seriously, when French ships opened fire last week on two unarmed fishing boats. which apparently were operating illegally in French waters. Gonzalez, however, deplored the use of force and said the Madrid government would follow up the matter until it is fully clarified.
The first game in the world chess championship eliminator match between Gary Kasparov and Vasily Smyslov ended in a draw on the 33rd move. The official Soviet news agency Tass, in its report on the match in Vilnius, Lithuania, said Kasparov, playing white, opened with the Schlechter version of the Slav defense. Kasparov proposed a draw after 2 hours and 20 minutes, and Smyslov accepted. Their next game will be played Monday. The winner of the 16-game series will challenge world chess champion Anatoly Karpov.
China said today that it had made “serious representations” to the United States to protest a plan for $760 million in arms sales to Taiwan, saying the deal would violate a 1982 agreement. A Western diplomat said Chinese officials had not lodged a formal protest but were complaining in Washington. The criticism underlined a difference of interpretation of the 1982 accord, under which Washington agreed to reduce arms sales to Taiwan gradually. American officials announced the $760 million figure March 2 for sales in the fiscal year 1985 and said it would not violate the accord because the total was less than in the two previous years.
Divers searching the wreck of an American oil-drilling ship that sank off South China last year have found the remains of 12 of the 81 crewmen, most of them in the vessel’s recreation area, the ship’s owner said. There had been no trace of the crew, mostly Chinese and Americans, since the Glomar Java Sea sank October 25 in a typhoon south of Hainan Island. The vessel sank in 300 feet of water. This is the first time divers have been able to enter the hulk. There was speculation that some crewmen might have reached Vietnam. The owner, Global Marine of Houston, said Friday that the search for bodies would continue. The ship had been searching for oil for the Chinese Government.
Major Nicaraguan opposition parties withdrew their delegates from discussion of campaign procedures in the latest challenge to November elections planned by the leftist Sandinista regime, the newspaper La Prensa reported. The Democratic Coordinating group, an umbrella organization representing the major opposition parties, withdrew their delegates from the Council of State debates on electoral law after accusing the Sandinistas of violating the principles of constitutional government.
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Francisco Cassina, its consul in Philadelphia, was fired December 8, 1980, and that Jaime Pena Vera, consul in New York, was dismissed January 15, 1982. Mexico’s official newspaper El Nacional had reported the dismissals last week, saying they were part of the government’s campaign to guarantee that its foreign offices operate “with absolute honesty.” The newspaper did not, however, report the dates of these dismissals, according to the Associated Press, leading to the inference that the current Mexican consuls in the two cities were fired.
Chief Minister Ronald Webster was voted out of office in elections Friday in the British Caribbean colony of Anguilla, according to election results announced today. The opposition Anguilla National Alliance of Emile Gumbs won 53.8 percent of the vote, against 41.7 percent for the Anguilla People’s Party of Mr. Webster. He had called the elections two years early. The National Alliance took four seats in the seven-seat House of Assembly, the People’s Party had two, and an independent won the other one. Mr. Webster lost his seat in the Assembly. Mr. Webster has ruled the island for 11 of the last 14 years. In 1967 he led a rebellion against the federation of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, and Britain sent a small invasion force to restore direct rule. Anguilla became a self-governing colony in 1976. Mr. Gumbs has said independence is out of the question.
President Reagan speaks with the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, William A. Wilson.
President Reagan makes a radio address to the nation about the economic recovery program. President Reagan today criticized television network news coverage of the economy, saying that the tone of many reports on the economy was negative even though the developments were positive. “Please don’t get me wrong,” he said. “Any Administration should be held accountable.” But he added, “Our economy is stronger than anyone predicted.” He made his comments in a weekly radio speech, paid for by his re-election campaign. Mr. Reagan cited a recent study by The Wall Street Journal to back up his criticism. He said 86 percent of recent economic articles were negative in tone.
Walter F. Mondale’s best chance for slowing Gary Hart’s gains before the nine-state primaries Tuesday will be his performance today in a debate in Atlanta with the other Democratic Presidential candidates, his advisers say. The 90-minute televised debate will begin at 5 P.M.
The defection of union members in three New England states to Gary Hart has embarrassed organized labor, which is scrambling to rescue its candidate, Walter F. Mondale, and its own political reputation in the Massachusetts Democratic primary Tuesday. Mr. Hart’s primary victories in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont have galvanized labor into more aggressive tactics.
The President and First Lady watch the movie “Scandalous.”
Flames consumed four decks of the cruise ship Scandinavian Sea as it sat in port at Port Canaveral, Florida, a day after fire broke out five miles from shore and forced the 506-foot vessel to speed back from a gambling excursion with 946 persons aboard. At least 29 persons, including nine rescue workers, were treated for smoke inhalation.
One out of five children and one out of two black children in America now live in poverty-stricken families, according to a newly released survey by the House’s Select Committee on Children. Youth and Families. The number of poor children increased by 2 million between 1980 and 1982. The study said economic changes that have eroded the security of families include unemployment and changed priorities in the federal budget. But the study also said that much of the suffering experienced by children and their families is preventable with such things as comprehensive prenatal care.
A convicted rapist is a prime suspect in the deaths of 10 of the 17 persons slain last summer in Joliet, Illinois, and the surrounding area, Will County State’s Attorney Edward Petka said. Milton Johnson, 33, of Joliet was charged with aggravated battery and deviant sexual assault in a July attack in which an 18-year-old man was shot and killed and his 18-year-old fiancée was raped, stabbed and left for dead. But she survived and identified Johnson in a police lineup.
Three Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. to explain his contacts with an American Bar Association panel that endorsed J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a University of Virginia law professor, for a seat on the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, and Howard M. Metzenbaum of Ohio sent Powell a letter Thursday that cited “lobbying activities designed to influence” the panel’s evaluation of Wilkinson, who has been nominated by President Reagan but accused by some civil rights and feminist groups of not having enough experience.
Maureen Reagan today said she was not fazed by the criticism from a national conservative leader who had urged that she be “muzzled.” Responding to comments about her views on women’s issues by John T. Dolan, head of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, the President’s daughter said, “I don’t care what he’s saying — it really makes no difference. I found it terribly amusing.” Mr. Dolan’s comments were made while he was offering advice on what could be done to make the Reagan re- election drive more palatable to conservatives. “My activity of well over 10 years in the women’s movement is no surprise to me, nor to the President, nor to anybody that I worked with,” she said. “So if the only person who is sort of surprised by it is Terry Dolan, that’s his problem, not mine.”
Federal aviation investigators are tracking down two planes that may have flown dangerously close to the towering USA Today building in a snowstorm Thursday on approach to National Airport in Washington, officials said. It was not immediately clear how far the jets were from the modernistic tower in the Rosslyn section of Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River about two miles from the Capitol. The National Transportation Safety Board said radar indicated Eastern Airlines Flight 1483 from New York, was at 500 feet — about 100 feet higher than the top of the newspaper building. during the storm. The NTSB said the data also indicated a Pan Am Flight 254 from Miami flew dangerously close to the high-rise about 20 minutes earlier.
The Arizona Public Service Company has announced another one-year delay in starting up the first reactor at its Palo Verde Nuclear Power Generating Station west of Phoenix. Fuel loading of the first unit is expected to begin early next year and the reactor should be on line in December 1985, Ed Van Brunt, a vice president of the utility, said Friday. The previous timetable called for bringing the first of three reactors under construction 50 miles west of the city on line by next December.
The nation’s first honor system for paying bus fares will be abandoned because too many riders cheated and millions of dollars were lost, Portland, Oregon city transit officials have announced. James E. Cowen, general manager of the Tri-Met bus service, said Friday that drivers would again start monitoring fare payment on April 8. Tri-Met, which operates in three counties, is losing $1.5 million a year in administrative expenses for the self- service experiment, which was expected to save $2.1 million annually. The experiment, which started September 5, 1982, and has remained popular with riders, has cost nearly $6 million, Mr. Cowen said, adding that fare evasion was ranging from 6 to 10 percent. Under the self-service system, passengers bought tickets at 100 different outlets. They then validated the tickets in a machine on the bus, rather than file past drivers with cash or tickets.
About 160,000 more people in northeastern Pennsylvania have been ordered to boil their drinking water because of a second outbreak of giardiasis, a parasitic infection of the digestive tract. The latest giardiasis problem centers on the Pennsylvania Gas and Water Company’s Elmhurst Reservoir in Lackawanna County. Eleven weeks ago, 100,000 people in Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties were ordered to boil their water when giardiasia cysts were found in water from the Spring Brook Reservoir south of Scranton. That order is still in effect. Hospitals and restaurants in the Scranton area dumped tons of ice Friday after the utility and the State Department of Environmental Resources announced the latest contamination.
The market for stolen silicon chips is growing because of a shortage of semiconductors brought about by the sudden boom in personal computers and other products using chips and microprocessors. The thefts are only one of the security problems that manufacturers have in California’s Silicon Valley, the center of high- technology innovation. There is also a flourishing “gray market” in which industry sources say the most needed parts fetch as much as 10 times their regular price.
Prayers and hymns in schools can be heard today in many parts of the country despite the Supreme Court’s ruling more than 20 years ago against organized worship in public classrooms. Nevertheless, most educators have accepted the prohibition, although many public schools provide for a moment of silence, on which the Court has yet to rule.
25th SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament: Kentucky beats Auburn, 51-49.
5th Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament: Georgetown beats Syracuse, 82-71 (OT).
Born:
Olivia Wilde, American actress and filmmaker (Remy “Thirteen” Hadley-“House”, “Booksmart”, “Cowboys and Aliens”), in New York, New York.
Li Yuchun [Chris Lee], Chinese singer-songwriter and actress (“Supergirl”), in Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Ben Grubbs, NFL guard (Pro Bowl, 2011, 2013; Baltimore Ravens, New Orleans Saints, Kansas City Chiefs), in Columbus, Georgia.
Tim Brent, Canadian NHL centre (Anaheim Ducks, Pittsburgh Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Carolina Hurricanes), in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada.
Aaron Bates, MLB first baseman and pinch runner (Boston Red Sox), in New York, New York.
Died:
June Marlowe, 81, American actress (“Pardon Us”).
History Diaries 