Alexander M. Haig Jr. asserts in his memoirs that in 1982 the White House wrecked “a breakthrough” agreement for a simultaneous withdrawal of P.L.O., Syrian and Israeli forces from Lebanon. Mr. Haig says in his memoirs that the agreement was worked out in early July 1982 but fell through when the White House prematurely made ”an ill-conceived announcement” that it was prepared to commit United States troops to a multinational force there. ”All that we had labored so hard to grasp, and had come so close to grasping, slipped away, with consequences not yet wholly revealed,” Mr. Haig says in the memoirs, ”Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy.” Time magazine made public its concluding installment of the memoirs today. They deal with the Middle East, the Falkland Islands crisis, the Polish crisis, and Mr. Haig’s resignation being accepted by President Reagan.
Mr. Haig suggests that by announcing the willingness of the United States to put troops into Lebanon, the White House inadvertently aroused Soviet suspicions and turned attention away from concluding the agreement on total withdrawal to the question whether American troops should be in Lebanon at all. That led to the ”breakthrough” coming apart. Mr. Haig’s version of the events leading up to and during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 is sure to revive arguments over what happened. Israeli authors, as well as several Administration officials, have said Mr. Haig gave the Israelis ”a green light” to invade. They have contended that Mr. Haig did not argue forcefully enough with Israel’s Defense Minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, during Mr. Sharon’s visit to Washington in mid-May 1982, when he told the Americans that Israel was contemplating an invasion.
The multinational force in Lebanon was formally disbanded with the departure of 300 French troops. Their departure by ferry came after ceremonies marking the formal end of the 19-month-old effort by France, Britain, the United States and Italy to help bring peace to Lebanon. At its height, the four-nation force had 6,000 members. On Friday President Reagan announced in Washington that the American role in the multinational force had formally ended, a move that freed American marines on ships offshore for duty elsewhere. The ships – which had been reduced to 15 from 25 recently – had been stationed about 20 miles off Lebanon.
Poland’s Roman Catholic bishops, in a pastoral letter to be read Sunday, refused to compromise in the dispute with communist authorities over the removal of crucifixes from the walls of public buildings. The outlawed Solidarity labor movement, meanwhile, said the “crucifix crusade” had spread to several other towns, including one where five students were reportedly detained overnight. A communique from the underground trade union said the students were detained in Torun by plainclothes security agents at a high school where posters had appeared urging pupils to “hang crucifixes in classrooms, pray during breaks and wear religious symbols at all times.” In the pastoral letter to be read from the nation’s pulpits, the country’s 80 bishops issued a new demand that the crosses be returned. “The cross plays the most important role in education at home, in schools, in all workplaces and in society,” the bishops said, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Associated Press Saturday.
Zygmunt Lakomiec, Poland’s Minister of Domestic Trade and Services, was killed today when his car collided with a gasoline truck in a blizzard, the official press agency P.A.P. reported. It said Mr. Lakomiec’s chauffeur was also killed in the accident in Gozd, a village 120 miles south of Warsaw. Because the Domestic Trade Ministry is responsible for carrying out such steps as rationing and price increases, Mr. Lakomiec was one of the most public figures in the government. Mr. Lakomiec was appointed to the post in June 1981 at a time when there were severe shortages of food and other consumer goods and the government began rationing meat, butter, staples, cigarettes, alcohol and other items.
Five thousand demonstrators in Oberaula, West Germany protested a weekend reunion by veterans of the Nazi SS “Death’s Head” division in a hall ringed by riot police. About three dozen black-clad youths, some with their faces masked by scarves, tried to approach the hall, but were kept away by more than 250 officers in riot gear 50 yards from the building. Kurt Hoffmann, a spokesman for the reunion, said about 250 veterans and an equal number of wives and relatives attended the weekend activities. Veterans at the reunion told reporters that they served only in combat units and were never detailed to guard concentration camps.
Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, concerned with longstanding problems in Greek-NATO relations and the status of American military bases in Greece, met with senior Greek military officials today. ”The talks concerned Greek demands from NATO, including a proposal that the United States should supply Greece with 10 Phantom jet fighters to counterbalance 15 supplied to Turkey,” a statement by the Defense Ministry said.
Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Ozal said today that restrictions on visas for Greeks would be eliminated as a sign of good will.
A slash in West Europe’s milk output and a reduction in its farm prices was agreed on by the European Economic Community in a move to put its finances on a sounder footing. It was the first such agreement on agricultural policy in the 20-year history of the Common Market. Increasing farm spending has pushed the group to the brink of insolvency. The agreement was hailed as a breakthrough by all members, including Britain, which has been strongly demanding that the Common Market bring its spending under control. But in France, a spokesman for a farmers’ group denounced the agreement.
Luigi Barzini died of cancer at his home in Rome. The author, journalist, television personality and former member of the Italian Parliament, was 75 years old.
A strong ally of the U.S. in Honduras resigned as commander of the Honduran armed forces. Honduras announced that General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez had been asked to resign and leave the country. Three other top officers — the army chief of staff, the head of the navy and the chief of public security forces — also resigned, the Government said. The broadcast announcement said the armed forces commander had resigned at the request of fellow officers. The development appeared to take American officials by surprise. It came as the United States was preparing new joint military exercises in Honduras. In Washington, some officials have said privately that the exercises are part of an effort to intimidate Nicaragua and the Salvadoran insurgents.
The Government of El Salvador has dismissed a New Orleans-based diplomat who it said had implicated Salvadoran military and civilian leaders in acts of terrorism. An official at the Salvadoran Embassy here said tonight that Roberto Santivanez, who had served in the army’s military intelligence operations until 1979, was discharged earlier this week at the order of the Provisional President, Alvaro Magana. Mr. Santivanez was El Salvador’s consul in New Orleans for the past four months. The embassy official said that Mr. Santivanez was the unnamed former military official quoted by CBS News and The New York Times this month about the inner workings of Salvadoran death squads and that he had been paid for his statements to members of Congress and to news outlets by a group that opposes United States policy in Central America.
The U.S. will lend Argentina $300 million as part of a larger financial rescue effort, Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan said. He said the loan was being made to help avert a crisis for the new democratic administration of President Raul Alfonsin.
Guinea-Bissau today held its first election since a coup in 1980 brought President Joao Bernardo Vieira to power in the former Portuguese colony, the Portuguese state radio reported. The radio said the election was to choose regional councils, which will choose members of Parliament. Voters could say yes or no to a list of candidates drawn up in each region. The country’s only party, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau, supplied a third of the list.
Now that the Senate has defeated a constitutional amendment that would have permitted state-sanctioned prayer in public schools, a new battle is brewing on Capitol Hill over efforts to legalize religious activities using school facilities. The House Education and Labor Committee heard testimony this week on legislation that would permit student-sponsored religious groups to meet in public high schools as long as nonreligious groups were permitted to use school facilities for their meetings. The penalty for denying access to these facilities for religious groups would be a cutoff of Federal funds to the state and local school systems involved. The penalty does not apply for denying access to nonreligious groups. The bill has the support of the same religious groups that lobbied for the amendment on school prayer. President Reagan has also urged passage of the bill in a statement after the defeat of the proposed amendment.
The race to build Olympic facilities in Los Angeles in time for the opening of the Summer Games July 28 has no parallel in the nation’s peacetime history, the organizing committee says. The reason for the close deadline is that many of the 30 facilities will be in use for the other purposes for which they were designed until shortly before the Games.
The U.S. retreat from nuclear power has been so decisive that it has given up its global dominance of the technology, experts in the United States and abroad say. Some analysts believe that the need for electric energy is going to grow rapidly as the cost of fossil fuels to make the power rises, putting the United States at a disadvantage.
Aid for mass transit systems for growth areas in the West and South is planned by the Reagan Administration. The money would come from gasoline taxes and would be provided under numerically based criteria that favor growth areas and that assign little weight to the potential for urban development.
President Reagan gives a radio address to the nation about economic growth and career choices for women.
President Reagan attends a reception for the Tri Lateral Commissions 11th Annual meeting.
The President and First Lady watch the movie “Misunderstood.”
A federal judge threw out South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow’s $10 million libel suit against Newsweek, but said the magazine “engaged in journalistic conduct more commonly associated with tabloids like the National Enquirer and the Globe.” U.S. District Court Judge John Jones ruled Friday that Janklow’s suit failed to meet the legal tests for libel against a public figure. Janklow sued Newsweek for a February 21, 1983, story about Indian activist Dennis Banks he said defamed him because it contained inaccuracies and a rape accusation that was proved unfounded by three government investigations. “While finding the article in question not to be libelous as a matter of law, I must express my sense of outrage at the unfairness of the article,” Jones wrote. Janklow declined to comment on the decision. His lawyer, Charles Johnson of Gregory, said an appeal would be filed.
Federal District Judge Prentice H. Marshall has ordered the City of Chicago to erase from the record 800,000 to a million disorderly conduct arrests, mainly involving blacks and Hispanic people, over at least the last five years. Judge Marshall ruled Friday that the arrests were unconstitutional because no prosecution was intended. He acted on a suit filed last year that charged the police with arresting people to keep them off the street. The ruling also requires the city to notify every person whose record is being expunged that he or she can sue the city for damages arising from unconstitutional arrests. The suit was filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union.
A Raleigh, North Carolina doctor who admitted being drunk when he was involved in an automobile accident in which a man was killed must pay the widow $25,000 a year for 30 years and donate a pint of blood every two months for five years. Under a plea bargain agreement in a hearing in Superior Court Friday, Judge Coy E. Brewer also placed the physician, Dr. Robert D. Ornitz, on supervised probation for five years.
Dr. Ornitz, a 40-year-old radiation oncologist at Rex Hospital, pleaded guilty in December to death by motor vehicle, driving under the influence and driving left of center in the head-on collision on December 17, 1982. Harvey D. Karsevar, a father of three, died, and his wife, Linda, was slightly injured. Dr. Ornitz suffered a fractured pelvis and a broken jaw. His attorney, Wade W. Smith, said Friday that the sentence was ”remarkable” for its fairness.
Hundreds of passengers were evacuated from a stranded cruise liner and flown to Miami Saturday after more than two days of rescue efforts failed to budge the ship that ran aground off Grand Cayman Island, officials said. The first group of 107 evacuees from the S.S. Rhapsody arrived in Miami International Airport aboard an Air Florida Boeing 737 at about 11:30 am EST, said Bob Smith, a vice president for Paquet French Cruises, the ship’s parent company. A second flight arrived almost four hours later, but Smith said he wasn’t sure if all 128 seats on the plane were filled. Four other flights were to deliver the rest of the 798 passengers to Miami. No injuries were reported among the passengers or 400-member crew of the 24,000-ton, Miami-based vessel, Smith said.
A mildly retarded shoeshine man, jailed for two years as lawyers debated whether he understood his rights, was convicted Saturday of second-degree murder for killing a friend in a drunken rage. The jury of five women and seven men deliberated four hours Friday and about 15 minutes Saturday before finding Ralph Stevenson, 23, of Holyoke guilty of fatally stabbing Francis. Driscoll, 58, a bachelor and shoeshine customer who had befriended Stevenson. Judge George Hayer then imposed the mandatory life sentence at Walpole State Prison with parole after 15 years. However, Stevenson, held on $50,000 bail since being arrested, may seek parole in less than 13 years because of his pre-trial confinement. Authorities alleged Stevenson killed Driscoll on November 12, 1981, after a drunken argument. Stevenson was arrested a short time later.
Three Colorado ski patrolmen died in an avalanche today after they tried to start a controlled snowslide in the Aspens Highlands ski area. Seven patrolmen, employees of the ski resort, were in the area when the snowslide occurred at 2:43 this afternoon, according to Deputy Sheriff Eileen Boyle of Pitkin County. She said they were trying to begin a controlled snowslide to prevent a natural avalanche. The three patrolmen buried in the avalanche were trapped about an hour before the others, who were above the slide area, could dig them out, she said. The three victims’ names were withheld pending notification of relatives. Controlled snowslides are usually triggered by explosives or by having workers ski over a dangerous area, the Deputy said. She did not know which method the patrolmen were using.
Mount St. Helens’ seismic heartbeat led scientists to conclude Saturday that new lava was continuing to push its way to the surface on the volcano’s lava dome. The seismic activity, which consisted of volcanic earthquakes beneath the mountain and rockfalls in the crater, continued at “moderate” levels Saturday, said Steve Brantley of the U.S. Geological Survey. The rockfalls could stir up some ash plumes that could rise above the lava dome and, occasionally, above the 8,300-foot crater rim, he said. But he said no geologists visited the volcano Saturday.
Americans and their government joined today in efforts to help North and South Carolinians to recover from tornadoes that took more than 60 lives Wednesday night. Food and clothing filled tobacco warehouses. Carpenters and other volunteers arrived to help. President Reagan signed an order Friday declaring six counties in North Carolina and four in South Carolina disaster areas, making them eligible for special loans and housing grants. Meanwhile, help from citizens flowed to the Carolinas from as far away as California. ”We’ve got a fleet of dump trucks offering to come in, and a load of lumber, too,” said Wayne Pardue of the Red Cross chapter in Mount Olive. The Mount Olive Pickle Company is giving ”enough pickles to get us through 10 more tornadoes,” another Red Cross official said.
The U.S. performs a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site.
138th Grand National: Neale Doughty wins aboard 13/1 Hallo Dandy; 23 complete the course, breaking record for most finishers.
On a televised episode of ABC’s “Sports Beat,” Howard Cosell informs interviewee Roger Maris of the Yankees’ plan to retire the slugger’s number 9 at the Old Timers’ Game ceremonies in July. The former Yankee’s reaction is at first is disbelief, followed by a genuine pleasure for being recognized for his achievements during his seven years with the team.
Mike Bossy becomes first player in NHL history to record 7 straight 50 goal seasons; scores 50th and 51st of the year in a 3-1 New York Islanders’ win at Washington.
Born:
James Jones, NFL wide receiver (NFL Champions, Super Bowl 45-Packers, 2010; NFL receiving TD leader 2012; Green Bay Packers, Oakland Raiders), in San Jose, California.
David Clarkson, Canadian NHL right wing (New Jersey Devils, Toronto Maple Leafs, Columbus Blue Jackets), in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Died:
Ronald Clark O’Bryan, 39, American murderer, executed by lethal injection
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