United States participation in the multinational force in Lebanon was ended by President Reagan. In a report to Congress, Mr. Reagan said that United States “foreign policy interests in Lebanon have not changed” but that United States participation in the international force “is no longer a necessary or appropriate means of achieving these goals.” His announcement released American marines aboard ships offshore for duties elsewhere in the Mediterranean. The number of United States warships off Lebanon had recently been reduced from about 25 to 15.
French soldiers in Lebanon withdrew from positions along the Green Line dividing East and West Beirut. They were the last remaining contingent of the multinational force that was sent to Lebanon to restore order. As they left, shelling started again in the port area and in the mountains east of the capital, breaking a 24-hour-old cease-fire arranged by a special security committee.
Shimon Peres became the unchallenged head of Israel’s opposition Labor Party when two potential rivals, former President Yitzhak Navon and former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, said they would not compete for the leadership.
United States chemical sales to Iraq will be stringently restricted, the government announced. The restrictions are being imposed on the sale of five compounds that could be used in making the poison gases Iraq has been accused of using in its war with Iran. At the same time, the State Department confirmed a report in The New York Times today that quoted American intelligence officials as saying they had evidence that Iraq had used nerve gas against Iran. Earlier the United States said it was convinced that Iraq had also used mustard gas, a blistering agent. John Hughes, the State Department spokesman, said the curbs on the export of the chemicals also applied to Iran, but there have been no allegations that Iran has used chemical weapons in the war, which began in September 1980.
The UN Security Council agreed today to “strongly condemn” the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war that was reported by a special United Nations commission that visited Iran this month. The Council’s move came in the form of a declaration issued on its behalf by its President for this month, Javier Arias Stella of Peru. A presidential declaration is nonbinding on Council members and is considered weaker than a formal resolution of the 15-member body.
Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, seeking a firm commitment on United States military bases in Greece, opened talks with Greek leaders today as thousands of people protested his two-day visit. “We covered a wide range of issues at considerable length,” Mr. Weinberger said after more than four hours of talks with Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. As the meeting took place, a crowd estimated by police at more than 20,000 marched from Parliament to the United States Embassy. The police said the marchers dispersed peacefully after shouting slogans outside the embassy for 20 minutes.
After more than a month and a half in which it has deployed everything in its antisubmarine arsenal in a vain effort to capture apparent underwater intruders around a top-secret naval base, Swedish military officials remain mystified but convinced that the search should continue. “We have tried and tried to explain the evidence by natural phenomenon but in the end there are reports that can’t be accounted for that way,” said Colonel Jan-Aake Berg, the chief spokesman for Sweden’s Supreme Commander, Lennart Ljung.
The search operation — only the latest of its kind by Sweden — began February 10 after a magnetic detection line was tripped in one of the channels approaching Karlskrona, a base in the south of the country. Two thousand Swedish troops have repeatedly searched islands where mysterious figures thought to be frogmen were reported. The hunt has involved checks of passing vehicles, which in one case included opening a coffin in a funeral cortege. Depth charges and other explosives have also been used in an effort to force any intruders to the surface. The explosions have noisily punctuated life in the area, attracting crowds of spectators in some cases while shattering nerves in others. Recently the pace of the onshore activity and the use of explosives slowed while the seabed was “vacuumed” with sensing devices.
Thousands of steel and shipyard workers staged strikes across France today to protest the Socialist Government’s decision to cut 25 to 30 percent of jobs in the state- run industries. The police and the strikers clashed in the Lorraine region and four people were reported injured. Four legislators from Lorraine, where about a third of France’s steelworkers reside, quit the Socialist Party’s parliamentary group in protest. The Government said 20,000 to 25,000 jobs would be eliminated by natural attrition and early retirement by 1987. The steel industry employs 90,000 people, down from 160,000 in 1973. Last year, the industry lost the equivalent of $1.2 billion.
The Philippine Government said today that U.S. President Reagan has told President Ferdinand E. Marcos that the United States will not intervene in the Philippines parliamentary elections in May. A Government statement said a letter from President Reagan, delivered Thursday by the United States Ambassador, Michael Armacost, told Mr. Marcos that Washington considers the May 14 parliamentary balloting “strictly a Philippine matter.” It was Mr. Reagan’s first response to a speech by Mr. Marcos accusing his rivals of inviting United States intervention in Philippine affairs.
A retired major general who was once the chief of the Philippine Air Force criticized President Marcos today for his failure to stop what the general called the torture and killing of hundreds of military detainees. Major General Jose Rancudo said Mr. Marcos “should have acted long ago to establish an office that effectively monitors human rights violations.” Mr. Marcos has denied the Government tolerates a policy of torture.
The War Powers Act might have been breached in El Salvador by recent activities of United States military personnel, according to Speaker of the House Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. He asked the Foreign Affairs Committee to determine if there were violations of the law following reports that American pilots have been flying reconnaissance missions in support of Salvadoran troops and that American military advisers in El Salvador have been fired upon three times.
A bomb shattered a police bus tonight in downtown Santiago, Chile, killing one riot policeman and wounding 11 others, the police said. Four bystanders also were hurt. The bomb was set off by remote control, the police said. No group immediately claimed responsibility. One report said gunmen wearing ski masks had also fired automatic weapons at the bus. Oscar Rodriguez, Santiago commander of the national police force, said six policemen were seriously hurt. The bus, carrying 25 policemen, had been patrolling and was headed to a police station, the police said. It was the most serious attack on a government target in a week of political violence that left five people dead.
A $500 million loan for Argentina appeared to be favored in Washington by government negotiators and American banks. Sources in Washington said the money for the short- term loan would be provided by three countries with debt problems similar to Argentina’s — Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela; Colombia would also participate. The United States would later reimburse them.
Some bans on antisatellite weapons may be verifiable, a Reagan Administration report prepared for Congress said, but its officials have yet to figure out how to do it and doubt that it can be done.
Many people dropped from welfare programs in 1981 were living in poverty, a General Accounting Office study has concluded. It found that they had generally increased their work efforts and their earnings, but still did not earn enough to make up for the loss of welfare and food stamp benefits in the last three years. The study was the most systematic and detailed analysis of how welfare recipients were affected by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, origin of most of President Reagan’s social policy initiatives.
Senator Gary Hart leads Walter F. Mondale in North Dakota in their contest for the Democratic Presidential nomination, according to results of precinct caucuses in this state. The caucuses, spread over a two- week period that ended Thursday, picked 1,308 delegates to the state convention. A straw poll taken by the state party indicates that Senator Hart, of Colorado, has the support of 467½ delegates, former Vice President Mondale, from neighboring Minnesota, 391½, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, 37. In addition, 412 delegates to the state convention are uncommitted. If those percentages hold at the state convention on April 13, the 14 pledged delegates of the 18-member delegation that North Dakota will send to the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco in July will include six delegates for Mr. Hart, four for Mr. Mondale and four uncommitted.
President Reagan hosts a luncheon meeting with members of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Women’s Business Ownership.
President Reagan participates in a photo opportunity with Mr. & Mrs. Melvin L. Blanc, creator of many cartoon voices (e.g. “Bugs Bunny”).
Hours after the Supreme Court rejected arguments over the drugs being used in executions, Ronald Clark O’Bryan was put to death by lethal injection early today in Texas for poisoning his 8-year-old son with cyanide-laced Halloween candy. The court, voting 7 to 2, acted about four and a half hours before the time Mr. O’Bryan had been was scheduled to die, 12:01 AM. He was strapped onto a gurney at 12:04 A.M. and was pronounced dead at 12:48 AM. The High Court rejected arguments that the Food and Drug Administration must investigate whether the drugs for the lethal injection were “safe and effective.” Earlier in the day a Federal judge in Washington, acting on a request from the American Civil Liberties Union, had ordered the Food and Drug Administration to seize the three drugs scheduled to be used to kill Mr. O’Bryan. Later, an appeals court ordered the F.D.A. to ignore the order. Prosecutors said Mr. O’Bryan, 39 years old, gave his son the poisoned candy on Halloween night 1974 to collect insurance money.
For the first time in 116 years, Kilauea and Mauna Loa volcanoes shot fire into the sky simultaneously today, and an earthquake shook the city of Hilo. Fast-moving lava from Kilauea flowed toward a subdivision and authorities ordered residents to leave their homes. Hawaii County Civil Defense Administrator Harry Kim ordered the partial evacuation of the Royal Gardens development. Molten rock quickly rolled over previous lava flows toward the homes, where residents have been forced to flee seven times in the last 14 months because of Kilauea’s on-again, off-again eruptions — the latest one starting only this morning. The quake in Hilo, which registered 3.5 on the Richter scale, rattled dishes, but no injuries or damage were reported.
John Z. DeLorean was not suspected of narcotics dealings when Government agents opened an undercover operation against the automobile maker, a prosecutor said today. Robert Perry, an Assistant United States Attorney, made the statement in questioning a prospective juror. Mr. DeLorean, 59 years old, is accused of trying to set up a $24 million cocaine transaction to raise money for his failing automobile company. Today’s session ended the third week of jury selection.
The body of an emotionally disturbed teen-ager whose parents held a 107-day vigil after his disappearance lay unclaimed for months at a morgue because a pathologist misspelled his name, the authorities said today. “It’s an outrage,” said Frank Soros of Miami, stepfather of the victim, 14- year-old Thomas Fichtner. The error was discovered last week by an investigator who compared a list of missing people with a list describing unidentified bodies, officials said. The teen-ager, a resident of a center for emotionally disturbed children in Hialeah, disappeared December 10 after an argument with his house mother. His body was found December 13 floating in the Miami River. Dade County Medical Examiner Joseph Davis said the boy’s body was brought to his office, where an autopsy was performed and the boy’s name written in black ink on the inside of his pants. When the doctor copied down the name, Mr. Davis said, he spelled it “Fitchner.”
Seven men accused of raping a 17-year-old woman student at Michigan State University in a dormitory room were found not guilty today by a jury in Ingham County Circuit Court. Relatives of the defendants gasped and broke into tears when the verdict was announced. One defendant, Vincent Lewis, said: “I’m elated, ‘It’s like a billion-pound weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can get on with my life.” The seven had testified the woman consented to have sexual relations with them. An assistant Ingham County prosecutor, Donald Williams, said he was “not entirely surprised” at the jurors’ decision, which came after a deliberation of five and a half hours by the jury of eight women and four men. “Apparently they thought she had a chance to escape.” The woman said the men invited her to a party at a Michigan State University dormitory room on November 15, 1982, and raped her despite her physical and verbal efforts to stop them.
A 5-year-old girl in Wilmington, Ohio apparently slept peacefully through the night while her parents and older brother were stabbed to death, the police said today. Officers said they found two bloody knives but had no motive. The stabbing deaths of Donald Danes and his wife Karen, both 39 years old, and their son Rodney, 15, were being considered a triple homicide, the police said. One body was found in a locked bathroom, the second in a bedroom and the third in a locked truck, officials said. Autopsies indicted that all had died between 10 P.M. Wednesday and midnight, apparently of stab wounds. The couple’s daughter, Lisa, answered the door when a neighbor knocked Thursday morning.
The Gambino crime group’s reputed head and 20 other defendants were charged in a federal indictment in Manhattan with operating a ring that committed 25 murders and many other crimes, including extortion, theft, prostitution and drug-trafficking. Paul Castellano, the reputed head of the Gambino family, was described as the ring’s boss.
The likelihood of influenza epidemics may be reduced by a new type of flu vaccine that promises longer and stronger immunity than vaccines now provide. The new vaccine can be administered by nose drops, which is believed to provide a better and more natural immunity.
Nearly 3,000 people were homeless in North and South Carolina following tornadoes that caused widespread damage. The death toll for both states was 61. Another 1,000 people were injured.
X-rays of Girl Scout cookies in Virginia found them to be harmless. The Food and Drug Administration is investigating 80 cases of suspected cookie tampering in 17 states.
The movie industry’s drug problem is getting increasing attention by its leaders. On April 11, an invitational conference on drug abuse for 390 industry executives, producers and union and guild representatives will be sponsored by major studios in association with the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Scott Newman Foundation.
World’s most valuable tip: New York police detective Robert Cunningham offers waitress Phyllis Penzo half of $1 lottery ticket; the next day they win $6 million.
The New York Yankees trade new author and veteran third baseman Graig Nettles to the Padres for rookie pitcher Dennis Rasmussen and a minor leaguer to be named later. Nettles’s controversial book “Balls,” in which he criticizes Steinbrenner, will be not be officially published until April 30th, but the bound books available now made his days in pinstripes numbered.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1164.89 (-5.86).
Born:
Anna Nalick, American singer-songwriter (“Breathe [2 AM]”), in Temple City, California.
Paul Oliver, NFL safety (San Diego Chargers), in Kennesaw, Georgia (d. 2013, by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot. It was later determined through analysis of Oliver’s brain that he suffered from an advanced form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, caused by repeated hits to the head he endured during his football playing career).
Mario Ančić, Croatian tennis player (world #7 2006; Davis Cup 2005), in Split, Croatian SR, Yugoslavia.
Samantha Stosur, Australian tennis player (US Open singles 2011; 9 x Grand Slam doubles titles; Tour Finals doubles 2005, 06), in Brisbane, Australia.
Died:
Gaëtan Dugas, 32, French-Canadian flight attendant and HIV patient erroneously vilified as “Patient Zero”, of AIDS-related kidney failure.
History Diaries 