The pullout of French troops from Beirut began and representatives of local warring factions discussed ways to keep the departure from heightening the violence. In meetings in Damascus, Lebanon’s key opposition politicians reached an agreement that they hope will end the battles between Sunni Muslim and Druze militiamen. After meetings in Damascus, the Druze leader, Walid Jumblat, agreed to call his militia off the streets in an effort to end the battles between Sunni Muslim and Druze fighters that shook West Beirut for two days last week. Mr. Jumblat’s accord with Sunni leaders, if it holds, will not directly affect the continuing battles between the Muslim militias and the mainly Christian Lebanese Army units loyal to President Amin Gemayel.
The fronts where militiamen face loyalist army soldiers erupted into heavy fighting several times today and this evening. Lebanese Army units were reportedly trading heavy shelling with Muslim militiamen around the strategic mountain town of Souq el Gharb, nine miles southeast of Beirut, and there were sharp exchanges of machine-gun, mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire along the Green Line that divides largely Christian East Beirut from the Muslim West. By late evening the fighting seemed to have abated substantially, and what a Christian radio station called a “cautious calm” had descended on many of the fronts.
The French troops could hear the shooting as they climbed onto the ferry that evacuated them from Lebanon, where 89 of their comrades died.
Iran dismissed as “mere lies” Iraq’s claim that its warplanes and naval forces sank four ships near Iran’s vital Persian Gulf oil terminal of Kharg Island, saying “there was not a single ship in the area at the time.” However, an Iraqi radio broadcast quoted an unnamed military commander as saying the four vessels, which were not identified, could be seen burning “with the naked eye” before they sank in the Saturday attack.
A Greek Merchant Marine Ministry spokesman in Athens said the captain of a Greek tanker at Kharg Island also reported having seen no attack by Iraqi ships or planes. Iraq said today that it would directly attack the Kharg installations if Iran opened a new offensive in the Persian Gulf war.
Special Soviet units will attempt to assassinate Western political and military leaders in the event of war with the Soviet Union, a Soviet army defector said in an interview published in Military Review, a U.S. Army magazine. The defector, known by the pseudonym Viktor Suvorov, was quoted as saying Soviet military intelligence and the KGB secret police have formed assassination teams for wartime duty. Suvorov, a former Red Army officer who lives in Britain, has published two books describing his army experiences.
Polish authorities, as part of a crackdown on the display of religious symbols at state facilities, prohibited workers from worshiping at a crucifix outside a coal mine in Katowice in honor of eight miners killed by riot police in December, 1981, witnesses reported. Underground members of the outlawed Solidarity trade union reported that authorities removed crucifixes and pictures of Pope John Paul II from a school dormitory near Warsaw but were prevented by students and parents from removing similar objects from a school near Wroclaw.
Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Ozal’s right-of-center Motherland Party captured more than 50% of the vote in violence-marred local elections throughout Turkey for mayors and district leaders, according to preliminary results. Police said three people were killed and 66 were injured during the balloting, seen as an endorsement of Ozal’s civilian government, which was voted into office last November with limited powers granted by Turkey’s military rulers. Running a distant second was the left-leaning Social Democratic Party, one of the three parties in the election that had been banned from running in November.
Police officials investigating a $22 million robbery from an American-owned security company in Rome said today they were skeptical of claims that the thieves were left-wing Red Brigades guerrillas. They said there were indications that ordinary criminals had left behind Red Brigades propaganda to make the police believe the robbery, one of the biggest ever in Italy, was politically motivated. “There are certainly many elements that make us discount the hypothesis that it was a terrorist attack,” an Interior Ministry official said. “But at the same time, we cannot be sure the Rome column of the Brigades was not involved.”
President Francois Mitterrand began a three-day visit to California today that was expected to focus on enterprises that in the French view have pioneered a revolution in technology. Mr. Mitterrand, who flew to Davis by helicopter this afternoon to visit an experimental community using solar power, sees California as the center of a technological revolution of crucial importance to France’s own economic future, according to his aides. They said that Mr. Mitterrand, who held two days of official talks in Washington last week, sees his three-day stay here as an opportunity to meet leaders in such fields as computer chips and information systems.
More than 23,000 people lost their homes and about 2,700 buildings were destroyed when a vast fire raged through Mandalay, Burma’s second-largest city, the government said. Unofficial sources indicated that 10 people were killed in the blaze and that it was started by a spark igniting a pile of coconut-husk fiber in a cushion-maker’s house. Damage was estimated at $32.5 million.
The bodies of all 29 American and South Korean marines killed in a helicopter crash have been recovered, officials said today. The Pentagon identified 17 of the American marines, but the name of the 18th victim was being withheld pending notification of his family. Eleven South Koreans were killed when the helicopter crashed into a mountain 200 miles southeast of Seoul during a joint military exercise.
A Philippine army commander said today that about 60 rebels had died and 1,000 villagers had fled their homes in guerrilla warfare that swept the southern Philippines over the last three weeks. Two army battalions have joined the battle and five more are on alert in case the fighting increases, said Brig. Gen. Jaime Echeverria, commander in the province of Davao del Norte, 500 miles south of Manila. General Echeverria, whose troops were shelling rebel positions with 105-millimeter howitzers, said in a telephone interview that the army was in “full control” against about 400 Muslim and Communist guerrillas. Only two government soldiers have been killed, he said. General Echeverria said about 1,000 people had fled villages in the battle area and taken shelter in schools in Pantukan, a coastal town on the Davao Gulf.
Foul weather and mounting protests have battered the annual seal hunt in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence this year, limiting the catch so far to fewer than 500 seals. “Things have never looked so bleak,” said Roger Simon, area manager of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. “Normally we have 20,000 by now.” Most of the seals taken this year are the one- to two-week-old pups called “whitecoats.”
Salvadorans turned out to vote for President in large numbers, but voting for the eight candidates was hindered by shortages of ballots and ballot boxes and by widespread confusion over election rules. Officials of the Christian Democratic Party charged that there were serious problems in about one-quarter of the voting places in El Salvador, the capital, where their party is believed to be strongest. They said they might move to have the elections annulled.
Guerrillas tried to foil the elections in eastern El Salvador. In the guerrilla-controlled town of Meanguera, people who rose early to vote were confronted by roadblocks and then had to wade across a river to get to a voting booth.
Raids in Mozambique on homes of South African nationalists were ordered by Mozambican authorities. The action against activists from the African National Congress, the most prominent exile group seeking majority rule in South Africa, was apparently intended as a public display of commitment to a nonaggression treaty Mozambique signed with South Africa March 16. The BBC said the raids began Saturday, with searches conducted of the homes of more than a dozen members of the African National Congress, a black nationalist group seeking to overthrow South Africa’s white-minority government. Mozambique and South Africa signed a treaty March 16, promising to resolve their differences peacefully and not to permit rebels to use their territory for cross-border attacks.
Edwin Meese III, who denies taking a major political role in the 1980 Reagan campaign, was apparently provided details of President Carter’s final, election-eve television appeal three days in advance, Meese’s campaign files show. Also among the files are several memos in which Reagan campaign official Robert Garrick describes materials picked up from sources in or close to the Carter camp. Meese, whose nomination as the new attorney general is embroiled in a controversy over his financial dealings, has denied in writing that he knew the Reagan campaign had obtained material generated for Jimmy Carter’s presidential reelection bid.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson achieved one of his most impressive caucus showings in Virginia, where he was in a virtual dead heat with Walter F. Mondale. Gary Hart was running a distant third. Mr. Jackson was given strong support by members of church congregations encouraged to vote by their pastors. The selection process for Virginia’s 78 delegates to the Democratic National Convention will continue through May.
President Reagan spends most of the day cleaning out drawers and doing homework.
The main rocket engines for the reusable space shuttles are wearing out so fast that they need repair after almost every flight, space agency officials said. “We are just not getting the life out of them that we had hoped for,” Walter Dankhoff, director of the shuttle’s main engine program, said. The liquid fuel engines were once expected to fly 55 missions without an overhaul, but major components may have to be completely redesigned, the Miami Herald reported. The shuttle Challenger is next set for launching on April 6.
Two persons — one a woman who approached a White House gate, the second a man who apparently was screaming in front of the Capitol — were taken by authorities to a mental hospital in two separate incidents because they were thought to be “a danger to themselves and others,” the Secret Service said. Spokesman Michael Tarr refused to disclose the identities of the two because neither was charged or arrested. The incidents followed four in the last 10 days in which persons were arrested outside the White House for threatening behavior.
The theft of electricity by consumers has grown as the price of electrical power has increased. Utility officials estimate that as many as one out of every 100 consumers might be a power thief. Most thieves are said to be middle-class homeowners, and others are roving technicians who will rig a meter for a fee.
Housing sales are booming, with the swiftest pace since the late 1970’s, but rising interest rates might slow them again. Buyers who financed their homes with adjustable-rate mortgages may find it hard to meet increased payments. An adjustable rate is geared to fluctuate with other interest rates in the credit markets. The prospect of higher rates, however, appears to be spurring home purchases at the moment.
The Boeing Company’s defense in a negligence suit resulting from a fatal crash of a 747 jet apparently conflicts with newly uncovered documents. The papers relate to incidents involving failure of a cockpit instrument that is at the core of the litigation, in which survivors of the 213 people killed are seeking damages totaling $40 million. The plaintiffs are seeking the reopening of the trial record, based on the documents.
Sentencing for all four of the men convicted of aggravated rape in connection with the rape of a woman on a pool table in Big Dan’s tavern in New Bedford, Massachusetts, will take place today. Two other men were acquitted of the charges. The trial in Fall River, Massachusetts, received wide attention, including live television coverage, and prosecutor Robert Kane said future rape victims might be reluctant to come forward after watching how the background of the victim in the case was scrutinized. “I think that other women who saw this show on television, who in the future might be rape victims, are going to be very reluctant” to bring forward rape complaints, Kane said.
Seventy-nine U.S. law enforcement officers were slain in the line of duty in 1983, the lowest figure since federal authorities began compiling such statistics in 1971, the FBI reported. The 1982 toll was 92. Firearms were used in 73 of the slayings, including 53 by handguns, 12 by rifles and eight by shotguns. Vehicles, knives, or blunt objects were the murder weapons in the other six incidents.
More than half the 2,121 fugitives arrested in the federal government’s 10- week roundup of suspected criminals in California have been released on bail, freed on their own recognizance or placed on probation, officials say. “Unfortunately, all we can do is our job: Find ’em and put ’em in jail,” Robert Diguera, chief deputy of the United States Marshals Service, said in an interview published today. The fugitives had been put under arrest, in many cases for failing to show up to face previous charges. Law-enforcement officials say they are reasonably sure that all 24 murder suspects taken into custody in the roundup are still behind bars.
A suburban Washington jet-trading company that has handled planes belonging to Kenny Rogers, Frank Sinatra, Arab sheiks and top U.S. firms has been charged with defrauding the government of millions of dollars in taxes. A federal grand jury in Baltimore handed down the indictment against Omni International Corp. and four of its executives, including its chairman and president.
Attorney General Paul Louis Douglas, the first Nebraska official impeached in 91 years, goes on trial today before the state Supreme Court in Lincoln on charges of wrongdoing involving an insolvent loan and investment company. The 49-member, one-house Nebraska Legislature voted to impeach Douglas for conduct relating to the investigation of the insolvent Commonwealth Savings Co. of Lincoln and for his personal business dealings with Commonwealth and former Commonwealth officer Marvin Copple, whose family owned the company.
A murder suspect who escaped from Cook County Jail after a paramedic allegedly smuggled in two handguns was recaptured today by Chicago Police, who continued their city-wide search for two inmates still at large. Jerry Mahaffey, 25 years old, was arrested Sunday when he entered an apartment building staked out by the police after they traced a phone call from a woman, who called to ask if Mr. Mahaffey was one of six inmates who escaped Friday. She said he had told her he had been released from jail. The police continued to hunt for Michael Bivens, 22 years old, a convicted murderer, and Gregory Hill, 33 years old, charged with armed robbery and home invasion. The six escaped Friday night after they overpowered and locked them in jail cells. Three inmates were captured less than an hour later. Frank Campagna, a 21-year-old county paramedic, was charged Saturday with smuggling two handguns into the jail in a blood pressure kit.
Traffic in false medical degrees was exposed with the aid of a Veterans Administration nurse who worked under cover for federal investigators. At least 100 people bought the degrees at a total cost of $1.5 million. The fraudulent credentials were prepared at a university in the Dominican Republic, and recipients learned of them through newspaper and magazine advertisements placed by Pedro de Mesones, who is serving a three-year prison term for mail fraud.
Astros purchase infielder Alan Bannister from Cleveland. In nine games that season with Houston, Bannister would bat .200 before a trade to the Rangers.
The Houston Cougars will play in the Final Four again. The team earned its third consecutive trip to the Final Four when it defeated Wake Forest, 68-63, in the Midwest Regional final. Georgetown also advanced with a victory over Dayton, 61-49, in the West Regional final.
Born:
Katharine McPhee, American singer-songwriter (“Over It”) and actress (“Country Comfort”), in Los Angeles, California.
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