A cease-fire between Druze and Sunni Muslim fighters held up following two days of fighting in the Muslim sector of Beirut as French forces, the last of the multinational peacekeeping troops, began a phased pullout from the Lebanese capital that is expected to be completed by next Saturday. However, Druze and rightist Christian militiamen traded sporadic mortar and sniper fire across the line dividing the city’s Muslim and Christian sectors. The French Defense Ministry in Paris said five French soldiers suffered minor shrapnel wounds when shells fell near their headquarters.
French troops in Beirut were ordered to withdraw by next Saturday. Defense Minister Charles Hernu said the 1,250 naval infantrymen and paramilitary policemen, the last unit of the multinational force, would be relieved “by elements designated by Lebanese authorities.”
Israel’s Defense Minister denied in emphatic terms that he had made several remarks attributed to him in an article in The New York Times Magazine today. Moshe Arens said he had never called Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger “a prime candidate for psychoanalysis,” as the article quoted him as saying. He also denied the article’s statement that he had offered to return to Egypt most of the disputed territory along the Egyptian-Israeli border in exchange for a meeting with the Egyptian Defense Minister.
Iraqi jet fighters and navy vessels destroyed four oil tankers and commercial ships today near Iran’s oil terminal of Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, an Iraqi military spokesman said. There was no immediate comment from Iran. The Iraqi statement, read over the Baghdad radio, said that the attack occurred at 3 AM south of Kharg Island and that the planes and navy ships had returned safely to base.
Kharg is Iran’s main terminal for oil exports. In the past, the Iranians have threatened that if Kharg Island became a target, they would blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the strait at the entrance to the Persian Gulf through which 20 percent of the non-Communist world’s oil passes. The Iraqi spokesman today renewed a warning, first issued last month, that ships found in a zone of military operations along the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf risked being attacked by the Iraqi forces.
A small bomb exploded at a hotel in the Jordanian capital of Amman that is to serve as the press headquarters for a four-day visit to Jordan by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, due to start today. The blast came after Western embassies and news agencies received letters saying the terrorist Islamic Jihad group planned to disrupt the queen’s visit. Three people were wounded slightly in the explosion in the parking lot at the Inter-Continental Hotel across the street from the U.S. Embassy.
A private envoy carrying a message from President Reagan to Soviet leader Konstantin U. Chernenko in Moscow was not allowed to meet with any of the top Kremlin leaders, the New York Times reported. The paper said that the envoy was Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces, and that he “made known to Soviet officials when he was in Moscow two weeks ago that he had a personal presidential letter and some additional authorized comments, but never heard anything back and was never given an explanation.” A White House spokesman had no immediate comment on the report, and Scowcroft could not be reached for comment.
Five self-proclaimed Red Brigades terrorists staged a daring robbery that netted the equivalent of $21.8 million from the vaults of a Rome security company. Police said the men, carrying submachine guns and pistols, pulled off the robbery with military precision at the Brink’s Securmark company, affiliated with the U.S.-based Brink’s Inc. They said the robbers captured a company employee, held his wife and child and forced him to help. them into the Securmark offices before dawn. The men waited calmly for the time lock on the vault to open at 6:30 a.m. and made off with their loot in 20 minutes.
Hundreds of thousands of workers marched through Rome to protest a government bill to control inflation. “We are more than a million,” an official of the Communist-led CGIL trade union confederation told the throng as it gathered in St. John Lateran Square. Police estimated the size of the crowd at 550.000. The marchers denounced a measure reducing inflation-linked wage increases that 20 million workers hope to receive this year.
More than 1,200 British troops are leaving the Falkland Islands in what is expected to be the first reduction in the 6,500-strong military force on the islands, the London Daily Telegraph reported. The army garrison backed up by Royal Air Force units is likely to be reduced to about 2.000 men by the time a new 8.500-foot runway at Mt. Pleasant is in operation next year.
Searchers have recovered the bodies of all 18 American and 11 South Korean marines who were aboard a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter that crashed and burned in South Korea’s coastal mountains Saturday, a U.S. military spokesman said. The copter was headed back to the southeast port of Pohang after deteriorating weather conditions caused cancellation of its night mission, which was part of joint U.S.-South Korean exercises.
The Foreign Ministers of China and Japan met here today and ruled out an early improvement in relations with the Soviet Union. They expressed hopes for improved ties with the United States. The Ministers met on the second day of a visit to China by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone of Japan. According to a Japanese spokesman, Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian of China told Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe of Japan that Moscow had avoided serious discussion of China’s three main conditions for improved relations: a reduction of Soviet forces along the Chinese border, an end to support for Vietnam’s military intervention in Cambodia, and the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.
Mr. Abe replied that he did not expect improved relations with the Russians as long as they ignored Japanese demands for the return of the islands north of Japan and kept their forces in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Hu Yaobang, the Chinese party leader, told Mr. Nakasone at a luncheon that it was impossible to achieve a great improvement in relations with the Soviet Union at present. Both sides have played down their problems with Washington, stressing good relations.
Facing new opposition protests, the Chilean Government has reimposed the state of emergency under which it had ruled for 10 years. Interior Minister Sergio Onofre Jarpa announced the measure Friday after a series of bombings in central Chile. Opposition groups have called for a “day of national protest” on Tuesday to demand the resignation of President Augusto Pinochet. The state of emergency gives military commanders the power to declare curfews, prohibit meetings and ban publications.
Salvadorans were urged to vote in today’s presidential elections. Government officials urged El Salvador’s 2.5 million voters today to take part in the presidential election Sunday, describing it as the most important election in the country’s history. None of the eight candidates are expected to win a clear majority Sunday in the country’s first presidential election in seven years. If no one wins a majority, the two front-runners will compete in a second round of voting in late April or early May. United States diplomats expressed concern that the complicated election system would lower voter turnout.
350 American paratroopers landed in Honduras to begin a two-day exercise coinciding with the election in El Salvador, the Defense Department said. The Pentagon said today that American paratroopers parachuted into Honduras after dawn for three days of maneuvers that coincide with the presidential election in El Salvador. A spokesman, in a prepared statement, linked the exercise by a company of the 82nd Airborne Division more closely to the Salvadoran election than any of the other exercises begun or announced this week. The Pentagon said the paratroopers were flown from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in C-130 troop carriers to jump near an airfield in Comayagua Province in central Honduras.
Alexander M. Haig Jr. says in his memoirs that he advocated bringing maximum political, economic and military pressure to bear on Cuba in 1981 “to force the issue early” in El Salvador, even if it brought a Soviet response, but his position got no support in the Reagan Administration because all the advisers feared “another Vietnam.”
Alexander M. Haig Jr., former secretary of state, bitterly criticized several Reagan aides, including Edwin Meese III, and implied that the President does not fully control decisions being made in his name. The comments were made in excerpts of Haig’s memoirs. “Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy.” published in Time magazine. Haig praised President Reagan as “a nice guy.” but he described an “Administration of chums” with whom Reagan sometimes sided too readily in policy debates. Haig also implied it was not clear who ran the White House. “To me,” he wrote, “the White House was as mysterious as a ghost ship: you heard the creak of the rigging and the groan of the timbers and sometimes even glimpsed the crew on deck. But which of the crew had the helm?”
The Rev. Jesse Jackson took a narrow lead over Walter F. Mondale in delegates in the first round of Virginia’s Democratic caucuses. It was one of his strongest showings. Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale held a slim lead in delegate strength in the opening round of Virginia’s Democratic caucuses over the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was ahead in the popular vote in one of his strongest showings to date. Results were in for 2,349 of the 2,500 delegates to state Congressional District conventions when Democratic Party officials stopped tabulating votes tonight. Mr. Mondale had 741 delegates, while Mr. Jackson had 730. Both totals came to about 29 percent of the vote. Senator Gary Hart of Colorado had 433 delegates, or 17 percent. Mr. Jackson led in the popular vote with 6,061. Mr. Mondale had 5,534 votes, and Mr. Hart 3,700. There were 2,403 uncommitted votes.
Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale and Colorado Sen. Gary Hart are in a statistical tie for first place in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, the Gallup Poll said. In a survey last weekend. Mondale was the choice of 43% of the Democrats polled, compared to 39% for Hart. Jesse Jackson was third, with 9%. Hart held a 49% to 29% lead over Mondale among independents, with Jackson drawing 6%. Hart and President Reagan are about even, 47% to 49%, while Reagan leads Mondale, 54% to 42%.
President Reagan tours Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home. President and Mrs. Reagan flew by helicopter to Charlottesville, Virginia, today to visit the home of Thomas Jefferson. Peter Roussel, a White House spokesman, said the Reagans were making use of “a nice spring day and doing some touring down there,” highlighted by a stop at Monticello, home of the nation’s third President.
The President and First Lady attend the annual Gridiron Club Dinner.
Edwin Meese 3rd said that the only thing he would differently if he could relive the past, would be to list a $15,000 interest-free loan on his financial disclosure forms. In an interview at the White House, the Presidential counselor, nominated to be Attorney General, said it never occurred to him that his wife’s acceptance of the loan might look improper.
Prevention of nuclear war and reversal of the arms race are a growing concern of the nation’s philanthropies. “The prevention of nuclear war is going to be in the 80’s what civil rights were to the 60’s,” said William M. Dietel, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Georgia will defend federal charges that the State Regents Test for college graduation is racially biased. The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights said students at three historically black schools had consistently failed to pass the Regents Test at a rate much higher than students at any of the 30 other state colleges and universities.
Police can record cordless telephone conversations heard over an FM radio and use the recordings as evidence, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled. The court overturned a lower court ruling suppressing taped conversations of Timothy and Rosemarie Howard of Hutchinson, Kansas, charged with possession of cocaine and conspiracy to sell marijuana. The high court said the conversations, picked up by one of the Howards’ neighbors on a ham radio, are oral communication and not covered by federal wiretapping laws. Testimony indicated the cordless telephone owner’s manual states transmissions can be picked up on FM radio.
An evaluation of 84 complaints about ambulance service in Dallas turned up only three cases of poor judgment by Fire Department dispatchers, officials said. Two of the cases involved Billye Myrick but were not linked to the incident for which she was fired last week. She had argued with a caller for eight minutes on January 5 before sending an ambulance for his stepmother, who was dead when paramedics arrived. The investigation focused on the Fire Department’s use of nurses to screen ambulance calls for non-emergency situations. It was not known who took the call in the third case, which involved the failure to dispatch an ambulance for a man who was suffering from abdominal pain.
There have been so many gun battles in the vicinity of Franklin Elementary School in Oakland, California that the principal has developed a World War II air-raid style of warning for his 1,179 students. They paid off this week when more than two dozen shots were traded in front of the school between men in two cars, described by the police as part of a “continuing battle among drug factions.” Two men were wounded but none of the students was hurt. There had been five other shooting incidents near the school in the past five years. The principal, Jay Cleckner, said he sounded an alarm bell at the sound of the first shots Thursday afternoon and the students “hit the deck.” Mr. Cleckner developed an emergency plan in which classroom doors are instantly locked, lights turned off and students fall to the floor at the sound of gunfire.
The nation’s emergency oil supply, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, has been plagued by waste. poor security and management problems since it began operating in 1977, according to an Energy Department report. The study was ordered last June 15 after congressional critics, led by Rep. Mike Synar (D-Oklahoma), chairman of a House government operations subcommittee, questioned the value of the reserve in the event of an oil cutoff from the Middle East. The report also said physical security at the oil storage sites in Texas and Louisiana may have been inadequate to protect against sabotage and terrorism. But the study said 567 of the allegations have either been addressed or resolved “by time and events.”
Several newspapers in California, Arizona and Alaska have replaced yellow ink suspected of containing cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCB’s, while others around the nation are having their supplies tested. At The San Jose (California) Mercury News, PCB levels reached 4,100 parts per million in one test in early February against the Environmental Protection Agency’s safe level standard of 50 parts per million.
A tornado roared across southwest Alabama, ripping up an apartment building and a school where about 200 students were attending a prom. Police Lieutenant Charles Burge said the tornado caused extensive damage to Jackson Academy in Jackson, but there were no injuries. Burge said two subdivisions, an auto dealership and a small apartment building received heavy damage. About 800 customers were without power in the town of 7,000.
“Knight Rider” actor David Hasselhoff (32) weds “One Life to Live” actress Catherine Hickland (28). They would divorce in 1989.
Sam Jaffe, a character actor on the stage, screen and television for 65 years, died of cancer at his home in Beverly Hills, California. He was 93 years old. Mr. Jaffe won acclaim for scores of performances, but perhaps his best-remembered film characterizations were as the humble but heroic Indian water-carrier in “Gunga Din” in 1939 and the mystical Tibetan holy man in “Lost Horizon” in 1937.
Philip Glass’ opera “Akhnaten”, based on the life and religious convictions of the Egyptian pharaoh, premieres at the Staatstheater, in Stuttgart, Germany.
East German speed skater Andrea Schone skates to a ladies’ world record 5 km (7:34.52).
Soviet skater Igor Malkov posts a world record 10 km (14:21.51).
The World Ice Dancing Championship is won by Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean (Great Britain) in Ottawa, Canada. Torvill and Dean, the royal couple of figure skating, won a record 13 perfect marks of 6 for their freestyle routine tonight to breeze to their fourth straight world ice-dancing championship. A power failure that delayed the event for more than 5½ hours only postponed the inevitable as the British couple easily matched their gold medal victory of a month ago at the Olympic Winter Games. In completing their sweep of every phase of the competition and capping a storybook amateur career, the team from Nottingham left an audience at the Civic Centre spellbound with a performance to the theme of Ravel’s “Bolero.”
The IOC agrees to an 8-team exhibition (non-medal) baseball tournament in the 1984 Summer Olympics.
The Philadelphia Phillies trade Guillermo Hernandez and Dave Bergman to the Detroit Tigers for Glenn Wilson and John Wockenfuss.
Born:
Chris Bosh, NBA center and power forward (Pro Basketball Hall of Fame, inducted 2021; NBA Championship-Miami, 2012, 2013; NBA All-Star, 2006-2016; Toronto Raptors, Miami Heat), in Dallas, Texas.
Tommy Snider, American actor (“Dumb and Dumber To”), in Tacoma, Washington.
Died:
Sam Jaffe, 93, American actor (“The Asphalt Jungle”; “Gunga Din”; “Lost Horizon”; “Dr. Zorba”), dies of cancer.
History Diaries 