Beginning of the “tanker war” in the Persian Gulf: over the next 9 months, 44 ships, including Iranian, Iraqi, Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti tankers, are attacked by Iraqi or Iranian warplanes or damaged by mines.
The Iraqi military announced today that its Super-Etendard planes attacked and destroyed two naval targets southwest of the Iranian oil terminal of Kharg Island. Lloyd’s of London said a Greek tanker and another, unidentified ship had been hit. But the Greek shipping line’s New York agent said that the tanker, the 41,329-ton Filikon L, had loaded at Kuwait and was not near Kharg Island when it was hit. A spokesman said the tanker was steaming south from Kuwait and was “virtually off the coast of Saudi Arabia” when it was hit. He said the tanker was seaworthy and there were no injuries among the crew.
It was the first time Iraq reported using any of the five Super-Etendard fighter-bombers it acquired from France last fall. The report did not mention use of Exocet missiles, which the French-made jets can carry. United Press International reported that sources in Baghdad said Iraq had been warned by other Gulf states and Western governments that using the Super Etendards might prompt Iran to carry out its threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. The Iraqi spokesman said the attack today was in line with warnings to foreign ships not to dock at Kharg Island or other Iranian ports. There was no immediate comment from Iran.
The United States accused Libya of lying when it denied that a Libyan warplane bombed Omdurman, Sudan, on March 16. U.S. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick told the U.N. Security Council that a Soviet-made TU-22 jet of the Libyan air force flew from southern Libya to bomb Omdurman, killing five people. “Ample evidence is available to support the facts that surrounded the unprovoked attack against Sudan, despite the web of lies and fabrications presented to this council,” Kirkpatrick said during debate on the Sudanese charges. She added that the plane was photographed in flight.
A French cultural attaché was shot and seriously wounded in downtown Beirut. The diplomat, Sauveur Gliozzo, was attacked by three unidentified gunmen firing silencer-equipped pistols and was later reported in serious condition with five bullet wounds. The attack came less than two weeks after the kidnapping of American diplomat William Buckley in Beirut by unknown assailants. Meanwhile. French peacekeeping troops continued their withdrawal from Lebanon as a French ferryboat sailed for Marseilles with about 200 soldiers aboard.
Queen Elizabeth II toured a memorial to Jordan’s war heroes while her government was reported preparing to sell Jordan sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles. Both the British Broadcasting Corp. and the Times of London reported that the Amman government is interested in buying 1,500 Javelin missiles from Short Brothers, a Belfast, Northern Ireland, defense contractor, for $129 million. The Javelins would take the place of 1,613 Stinger missiles Jordan had hoped to buy from the United States before President Reagan abandoned the sale, citing congressional opposition.
[Ed: These are not of course the later American Javelin anti-tank missiles. The British Javelin was a Cold War shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile, better than the old American Redeye but not as effective as the then-new U.S. Stinger.]
The European Economic Community sharply criticized Israel for its policies in occupied Arab territories and pledged renewed support for Palestinian self-determination. Foreign ministers of the 10 Common Market nations issued a major Mideast declaration, adopted at last week’s summit but not released after that meeting ended in disarray. The statement said Israel’s disputes with its neighbors must be solved by international principles, such as the renunciation of the use of force.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee tentatively agreed to increase 1985 economic aid to Israel to $1.2 billion, $350 million over President Reagan’s budget proposal. A senior Administration official warned that with congressional budget negotiators moving to reduce overall foreign spending, an increase for Israel could ultimately mean reduced assistance for other countries.
At least 15 Afghan Communist Party officials were slain in the last 10 days as rebels conducted a series of assassinations in Kabul, Western diplomats here said today. The killings in the Afghan capital’s sprawling Khair Khana district prompted Soviet troops to arm themselves when they went shopping, according to the diplomats.
The Common Market’s crisis worsened as the 10 member countries failed again to settle their differences over finances and farm subsidies. Britain was again isolated at the end of an emergency foreign ministers’ meeting over its demand for a refund on its contribution to the trade bloc’s budget. Britain pays about $1.7 billion more into the Common Market budget than it gets back in farm subsidies and other aid programs. It wants a reduction in this imbalance and is also insisting on changes in spending programs, especially agricultural subsidies.
Despite finding itself repeatedly isolated, one against nine, Britain is in a powerful legal position because the Common Market can decide important questions only by unanimous vote. By the second half of this year, planned expenditures will push well ahead of revenues because the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, refuses to vote any more money for jointly financed projects until her demands for reforms are met.
The Roman Catholic Bishop of this central region of Poland announced today that he would restrict himself to bread and water until the authorities allowed crucifixes to be displayed again in classrooms of a state-run agricultural school. “Starting from today, for as long as you remain in trouble, my meal will consist of bread and water,” Bishop Jan Mazur, the Bishop of Siedlce, told students at a protest mass here this afternoon. His gesture came after the authorities went back on an agreement made last week not to press the parents of protesting students to sign a pledge supporting the secular nature of public education.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs denied that India’s foreign secretary, M.K. Rasgotra, said Pakistan had built and exploded a nuclear device 10 months ago in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. News reports to that effect, published in India and abroad, were “a total distortion of a purely social conversation… at a luncheon for foreign journalists,” a ministry statement said. Rasgotra was not available for comment. Pakistan’s Foreign Office called the allegation “totally false and baseless.”
Vietnamese tanks and infantry advanced on rebel positions in northern Cambodia today, forcing thousands of refugees to seek shelter in Thailand, Thai military officials said. Vietnamese forces deployed 22 Soviet-built T-54 tanks in their latest offensive against anti-Government guerrillas, pushing an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 Cambodian civilians into the northeastern Thai province of Sisaket since last Saturday, a spokesman for Thailand’s Supreme Command said. The Vietnamese offensive, still under way late today, was centered near the historic Khao Phra Viharn temple, 400 miles northeast of Bangkok, where Pol Pot guerrillas and loyalist forces of Prince Norodom Sihanouk are active, the spokesman said. The spokesman could not confirm reports that Vietnamese and allied Heng Samrin Government forces had intruded into Thai territory and clashed with the Thai army.
Soviet arms aid to Nicaragua is critical because Moscow supplies most of Managua’s military equipment. The Soviet Union also supplies economic aid that Western diplomats estimate will total at least $100 million this year, an increase of at least 25 percent over last year.
Half of Salvadoran rebels’ weapons are United States-made arms that were seized from the Salvadoran armed forces, according to a senior Pentagon official. The statement was made in House testimony by Fred C. Ikle, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
Police firing submachine guns and tear gas shot their way into a prison in Lima, Peru, and freed more than a dozen hostages from rioting inmates who surrendered after a 12-hour siege. There were early conflicting reports on casualties, but authorities said after the surrender that one leader of the revolt had been killed and four hostages and four policemen injured. One hostage was shot in the stomach on a balcony in front of reporters and police when demands for two escape vans were refused.
Ahmed Sekou Toure died during heart surgery in a clinic in Cleveland at the age of 62. Mr. Toure, the leader of the West African country of Guinea for 26 years, was a symbol of independence and defiance.
Angolan rebels said today that their forces had overrun a provincial capital in a day long battle in which 500 government soldiers and 86 foreigners were killed. Angolan Government sources reported smaller losses and said the attack had been repelled. A statement issued here by the rebel group, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, said its forces had taken the coast town of Sumbe, the capital of Cuanza Sul province. The rebel statement said five Italians, seven Russians, 62 Cubans and 12 Bulgarians had been killed in addition to the 500 Angolan soldiers.
Gary Hart scored a decisive victory over Walter F. Mondale and the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the Democratic Presidential primary election in Connecticut, completing a sweep of primaries and caucuses in the six New England states. Senator Hart had 54.9 percent of the votes to 30.3 percent for Mr. Mondale and 12.2 percent for Mr. Jackson.
The Presidential race sharpened as Walter Mondale came close to calling Gary Hart a liar. Campaigning in Pittsburgh, Mr. Mondale accused Mr. Hart of “profoundly misdescribing” Mr. Mondale’s position on the use of United States forces in Central America and said the Colorado Senator had “misrepresented his own record” on the withdrawal of American troops from Lebanon.
The appointment of a counsel to investigate whether Edwin Meese 3rd has committed any federal crimes was sought by Attorney General William French Smith. In making the request to a special judicial panel, Mr. Smith urged that the independent counsel be given a broad mandate to investigate Mr. Meese’s financial dealings and other issues that have been raised by the Senate Judiciary Committee on his nomination to be Attorney General.
Banks with overdue interest payments from Argentina would be aided by a policy suggested by Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan. He proposed that the Administration might relax regulations requiring that the banks reduce their reported earnings to reflect the overdue payments. But federal bank regulators questioned the proposal.
Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger acknowledged he increased the alert status of U.S. armed forces worldwide after the assassination attempt against President Reagan three years ago. In implementing the higher status, a Pentagon spokesman said, Strategic Air Command bomber crews were moved closer to their planes to save several minutes in the event a full alert was ordered. He said the precautionary measures could not be detected by the Soviet Union. But Weinberger disputed statements in a new book by former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. that criticized Weinberger’s actions in raising the alert status.
The head of a strategic defense plan is an Air Force general who has directed the space shuttle program. Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger appointed Lieutenant General James A. Abrahamson to manage a program suggested by President Reagan to explore the feasibility of building a space-based defense against nuclear missiles.
President Reagan accused his critics of having put the nation “behind the eight ball” with Moscow on arms control. He challenged “would-be leaders” to specify what incentives they would use to get the Soviet Union to return to arms negotiations.
President Reagan meets with Secretary of the Treasury, Don Regan.
President Reagan speaks with several Hispanic American Medal of Honor recipients.
A political action committee and President Reagan’s 1980 campaign committee have agreed to pay $5,000 in penalties to settle charges they violated federal election laws, the Federal Election Commission announced. FEC spokesman Fred Eiland said the 1980 Reagan for President Committee will pay $4,000 and Citizens for the Republic will pay $1,000, said FEC spokesman Fred Eiland. Ronald E. Robertson, attorney for both groups, said recently the case involved allegations that Citizens for the Republic made in-kind contributions to the Reagan committee in excess of the legal limit of $5,000.
The House will take up a controversial bill next month that calls for major changes in the nation’s immigration laws, House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Massachusetts) said. “We’re working on it and have served notice to all parties it will be up following Easter,” O’Neill said. Opposition centers on proposals in the bill that call for sanctions against employers who hire illegal aliens. Latino groups contend that the sanctions would lead to discrimination against Latinos or other minorities. The Judiciary Committee has approved the House bill.
The convicted slayer of five young boys was given his choice of death by a judge in Salt Lake City. The prisoner, Arthur Gary Bishop, chose lethal injection, and his execution was set for May 3.
The Federal Government gave the State of Pennsylvania nearly $39 million today to start buying out homes and businesses in Centralia, Pennsylvania, a coal town threatened by a 22-year-old underground fire. Holding up a mock check for $38,987,949, Governor Dick Thornburgh said the money “sends an important signal to those folks who have anguished so over the future of their community.” The money was part of a $42 million allocation from the abandoned mine reclamation fund approved last fall for the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining. The fire began in 1962 at a trash dump in a mine pit and has been spreading since then.
Former Atlantic City Mayor Michael Matthews, ousted in a recall election two weeks ago, was indicted on federal extortion charges alleging he accepted payoffs from an organized crime family in return for favors. Charged with Matthews was Frank Lentino, 72, a local union official said by authorities to have ties to a Philadelphia-South Jersey organized crime family allegedly headed by Nicodemo Scarfo. The Scarfo family “bought the mayor and sought to control the mayor’s office,” said U.S. Attorney W. Hunt Dumont. Arraignment was set for April 6.
A man claiming to be a member of the Black Liberation Army hijacked a Piedmont Aviation jet with 58 people aboard to Havana and demanded $5 million, but he was quickly taken into custody by Cuban authorities, federal officials said. The hijacking of the Charleston, South Carolina-to-Miami flight was the first domestic hijacking to the island this year and the 12th since last May 1. No injuries were reported and the jet returned safely to Miami.
American high school students have forsworn most political protests, tempered their obsession with money-making and careers, and are “probably more closely aligned with their parents than they have been in 30 years,” a survey of youth attitudes contended. “If there was a generation gap in the ’60s, it narrowed to a crack in the ’70s. It’s barely a hairline in the ’80s,” said Janis Cromer of the District of Columbia Public Schools and author of the study entitled “The Mood of American Youth,” which was prepared for the National Association of Secondary School Principals.
A 70 percent dropout rate of Hispanic youngsters in Chicago’s public schools is reported by Hispanic parents and community leaders. The leaders say that many of the dropouts become members of gangs and eventually fall victim to violence. As a result, about 400 parents and children held a candlelight march behind an old coffin.
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the morning newspaper that nearly closed earlier this year, will start an afternoon paper in about three weeks, according to the publisher, Jeffrey M. Gluck. “We feel we won’t take much away from The Globe,” Mr. Gluck said Monday, “but we will pull people who are used to an afternoon paper primarily, subscribers to The Post-Dispatch.” Mr. Gluck, 31 years old, the publisher of three magazines in Columbia, Missouri, bought The Globe-Democrat from interests of the Newhouse family last month. At the same time Pulitzer Publishing Company stopped printing the paper and switched its own St. Louis Post-Dispatch from an afternoon to a morning paper.
Fire fountains pushed one of Mauna Loa volcano’s four rivers of molten lava to within 15 miles of Hawaii island’s eastern seaboard and scientists said the 32,000 residents of Hilo should be concerned but not alarmed. “Based on history, I feel there’s no reason for grave concern at this time,” U.S. Geological Survey chief scientist Robert Decker said.
Premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe’s rock musical “Starlight Express.”
The Philadelphia Phillies trade outfielders Gary Matthews and Bob Dernier and pitcher Porfi Altamirano to the Chicago Cubs for reliever Bill Campbell and catcher Mike Diaz. Matthews was the MVP of the National League Championship Series last season, while Campbell led the National League with 82 appearances. Dernier will win a Gold Glove in centerfield for Chicago and help them reach the playoffs. His 45 steals will be the most by a Cub since 1907. The Phils plan on putting 25-year-old Glenn Wilson, recently brought over from Detroit, in right field to replace Matthews.
J. R. Richard is released by the Houston Astros, ending his professional baseball career. Richard was 0-2 with a 13.68 ERA in 6 starts for Tucson (Pacific Coast League) last season.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1154.31 (+1.36).
Born:
Emily Ann Lloyd, American actress (“Apollo 13”), in Glendale, California.
Jon Paul Steur, American actor (“Grace Under Fire”), in Escondido, California.
Bonnie Milligan, American theater actress and singer (“Kimberley Akimbo”), in Decatur, Illinois.
Tim Shaw, NFL linebacker (Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Chicago Bears, Tennessee Titans), in Exeter, England, United Kingdom.
Jonathan Wade, NFL defensive back (St. Louis Rams, Cincinnati Bengals, Detroit Lions, Miami Dolphins), in Shreveport, Louisiana.
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